Rock and roll (and all that jazz)

[figmo]

I'm still pitching and bobbing despite the infection being gone. Sometimes it gets in the way of my being able to concentrate.

Meanwhile, work on my CD continues. I spent way longer on the MIDI file for "Gonna Buy Me a Whale" than I'd expected to. I got most of it done, but then I was tweaking like crazy. Finale also gets clunkier and clunkier as you add more and more things to your music. I'm not sure how to get around that.

Work at the day job continues. I'm starting to get the hang of this place. So far I've been at least one step ahead with my work. Soon they're going to have me doing some software testing. I figured I'd been hired because they realized they could throw me just about anywhere they needed extra help. It's been ages since I ran official software tests, and I'm kind of looking forward to this.

I nearly choked on lunch today when I was talking with one of my younger co-workers about how much video games have changed over the years since "the good old days."

He said, "Yeah, things have come a long way since Super Mario."

Um...I was thinking of Pong. I was my high school's Pong champion. Yes, that dates me. I didn't retell the story of how Don Woods, the author of "Adventure" (that famous text game) was talking with a couple of younger co-workers at Sun when one asked, "So how many megs did your first computer have?

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Bloody kids <g>. I remember one who noticed I went to the same university he was attending asking me "What were the computers called?" (meaning net names). My reply was "Generally nothing acceptable in polite company" (meaning what we actually called them when speaking).

As for games, I remember "Hunt the Wumpus" fondly. And, when we actually got "glass teletypes", nethack (then called 'rogue'). And of course the original 'ADVENT'...

[figmo.livejournal.com]

As for games, I remember "Hunt the Wumpus" fondly. And, when we actually got "glass teletypes", nethack (then called 'rogue'). And of course the original 'ADVENT'...

Um...a history lesson here:

1. The game "rogue" was written several years before "nethack." The latter game was based on the former.

2. I remember "wumpus" too.

3. ADVENT="Adventure" (the Don Woods game). Don gave it away to DEC for free because he didn't know better.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

@AD*VENTURE. on the Univac.

Games?? You had games?? I had to write my own games!

(That trumps anything I was going to say about hardware...)

When I was a boy...

[mdlbear]

I was in grad school when Pong came out -- the prototype was located in the Stanford coffeehouse, where it replaced the old Spacewar machine (based on a PDP-11 port of the PDP-6 original).

Re: When I was a boy...

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Heh. I bet the young guys at work have never even heard of Spacewar, let alone played it!

[cellio]

Yeah, kids these days... My niece and nephew can't conceive of a computer that doesn't have a graphical display -- a VT100 would be bad enough, but a DECwriter would completely blow their little midns!

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Even worse -- how about an ASR-33 teletype, complete with paper tape?

[cellio]

The first computer I ever used had paper tape, though I don't now know what specific flavor of terminal it was. The TRS-80 seemed downright innovative by comparison.

Hey, I remember Pong, too!

[jhitchin.livejournal.com]

Okay, I was about ten or so when it first arrived on the scene, but hey, I have fond memories of it! I even remember the first Space Invaders and Asteroids arcade consoles. Those suckers kicked butt!

I read an article in a gaming magazine that Greg subscribes to where they had young kids (an average of about ten years of age) play old games from the early 80's. Stuff that we praised for its innovation was called "gay" by the kids.

However, they did rightly say that the Atari 2600 game "E.T." was a big ol' pile of suck.

Re: Hey, I remember Pong, too!

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I read an article in a gaming magazine that Greg subscribes to where they had young kids (an average of about ten years of age) play old games from the early 80's. Stuff that we praised for its innovation was called "gay" by the kids.

I saw that article. Re: the "E.T." game, heh. I later worked with the guy who made it go "E.T. phone home!" His main job was to search for "Easter Eggs" in Atari's games.