vga256

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] very much Abrash-level depth

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] 😆 it really does look like a 3rd party published 3e book

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] 😆 that's the one i was most excited about too. i've had a GH FFIX for ages that i've been dying to replace

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] no idea what kinds of games you like to play. FF7 was my first.

 

i haven’t found good PS1 games in the wild in nearly 20 years

today i scored for $3 each!

#retrogaming #playstation #psx

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

@[email protected] interesting! yes, this would be at the new building they built in the 90s

 

time for some obscure game preservation history

back in the 80s, Distinctive Software was known for some of their heavy hitters like Hardball, the 4D Sports series, and Test Drive. (at the time, i had no idea they were a canadian studio based out of burnaby, BC.)

in 1990, DSI was bought by EA and became EA Canada, relegated to defecating EA Sports sequels for eternity.

last week, i noticed a weird EA sticker on a copy of Ultima VI that i'd never seen before. curiosity got the better of me, and i bought it just to find out the sticker was about.

as it turns out, this copy of Ultima VI sat in DSI's physical library for years. these libraries existed to let developers play their own company's (and often the competition's) games, use them as references, etc.

when EA bought DSI, EA suddenly owned all of their assets, and - interestingly - their company's internal software library. the DSI label got an EA library logo stickered over it. There's even a referencing number for whatever internal library referencing system EA/DSI used.

wish we had some photos of EA's library in the 90s. i bet it was pretty massive.

#gamePreservation #history #canada #ultima

The cloth map, compendium and diskettes for Ultima VI.
The spine of Ultima VI, showing an EA logo stickered overtop.
A Property of Distinctive Software label, stuck on the corner of the Ultima VI box.  It is given a serial number for its library.

 

i am in love with the cover art on al sweigart's python game programming book

it was switched out with some more corporate art a year later.

#programming

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

herb and the heart breakers

edit: how did i know

HOW did i know

"Herbert Schildt is an American computing author, programmer and musician... He was also a founding member of the progressive rock band Starcastle."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Schildt

#programming

 

😎

#programming

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

two weeks ago i posed what i thought would be a rather straightforward historical research question, which went unanswered. i wondered: what did the people of the middle ages (peasants, villagers, blacksmiths, monks, abbots, knights, etc) think of technological change in their time? was it seen as a boon for replacing manual labour? a threat to everyday craftspeople and craftsmanship? a new evil at odds with moral duty to god?

just cobbling together a reading list to begin answering the question was itself a week's worth of work. finally, today i began finding direct answers to the question in Frances and Joseph Gies' "Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages."

while everyday people like serfs and peasants beliefs are not covered due to a lack of historical records, its early chapters provide some insight from the medieval monastic orders. the answer? the various churches were openly ambivalent, but *not* openly opposed to technological change and invention.

Why did the churches not openly embrace technologies?

... for many years monastic orders like the Benedictines and Cistercians saw manual labour as critical for self-sufficiency and spiritual development. When technologies that allowed for reduced manual labour became available, monastic orders began questioning their potential value in relation to their relation to God.

Why did monastic theologians not openly reject technologies that would relieve them of physical burdens?

... because most of these orders retained an old Greek suspicion and distaste for what Aristotle called "banaustic arts" (or utilitarian arts like crafting and manual labour. These were seen as important for living, but a distraction from intellectual life. Technology's promise was that it could relieve a monk from the banaustic realities of carpentry and millwork and stonemasonry, and let them practice prayer and writing and intellectual pursuits without time/energy-consuming distractions.

A picture of the middle ages is beginning to emerge that is not unlike our own in modernity: technology was seen in relation to its potential for reducing labour. what is different between then and now is that a person's relationship with God was at stake in the middle ages. few today believe that manual labour "keeps us honest".

in other words: technology in the middle ages was understood as both spiritual and instrumental

#history #medieval

 

in 25+ years of retro gaming and sierra, i've never once seen someone mention Hoyle's Book of Games

despite its small stature, it was one of the most financially lucrative sierra titles, and spawned an entire series of games.

what makes it special is that opponents are (for the most part) characters from sierra titles, each playing in a style expressive of the character's personality. graham and rosella are friendly and not overly competitive, larry is silly and aggressive with his cards.

the dog? the dog is a real shithead.

#sierraOnline #retroGaming

 

happy 27th birthday Ultima Online.

on september 24th, UO launched with a massive subscriber base, after two public beta tests and a pre-alpha a year earlier.

this is the UO launch page in september of 1997.

following that is the "chest opening" animation for the game login (with the Stones midi playing in the background).

the first year of UO was one of the most active and fascinating experiments in player-driven democracy, and live-patching exercises i've ever seen. the skeleton crew who was kept on to update the game ran "House of Commons" chats directly with players to get feedback on the game, and help make decisions on how to deal with problems with griefing/exploits/gameplay.

the cat-and-mouse game of players discovering exploits and developers patching them became a meta-game itself, forcing patches that changed gameplay on a weekly basis.

within a couple of years, the experiment in player-led design and open-ended gameplay would more or less be over: EverQuest and (to a much larger extent) World of Warcraft would turn a living world into a locked down carnival ride. MMO companies didn't want to deal with the dynamics of a game that let players do too much, and the UO experiment was quietly decided to be a failure of design.

i don't share that opinion, and still consider it to be the finest experience i've had in an online world to this day.

#ultimaOnline #retroGaming #gamePreservation

The UO.com website circa september 1997, showing an animated walking dragon. It reads, "It's more than a fantasy because it really exists. It's more than a game because it never ends. Go beyond life as you know it to an adventure more fantastic than you can imagine."

 

although i've finished Conquests of Camelot several times, i've never thought to sit through the credits to the end.

i find a few things fascinating about this. first off, the game never prompts you with sound effects showing that you've received points for solving a puzzle or winning a battle, contrary to almost every other sierra adventure title.

second, unlike sierra adventures that lump all points together into a single score, this one has been stratified into three categories.

third - and this is more in comparison to RPGs where playable characters are created for at the beginning of the game, this title inverts the process. "your" king arthur is really the outcome of the choices you made over the course of the game: my particular playthrough seems to have valued soul over skill or wisdom.

#adventureGames #retroGaming #sierra

 

did i just drive 300 km one way in the middle of the night to pick up fifteen big box games.

yes.

yes i did.

#bigboxgames #retrogaming

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@[email protected] i fear that most of the civilized world has forgotten too. i found them dirt cheap at thrift shops. i doubt they're still in print, but thankfully they are dirt cheap from used book sellers

 

re: my last post - if you didn't already know, Stephen Biesty has the most beautifully animated and hilariously voiced multimedia version of Incredible Cross-Sections, called: Stowaway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9jKE6Y7vJQ

#retroGaming #windows311

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (6 children)

how could i forget these two absolutely hilarious and informative illustrated texts on medieval and 18th century life.

i’ve had them sitting on the shelves for years, and realized they make a compelling visual reference

#bookstodon #illustration #books

An Entertainment page showing festivities inside of a castle.
A page from Man-of-War showing men taking a dump in the roundhouse, and another man tossing their feces into the sea for fish to munch on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

adding two incredible finds to this medieval technology reading/research bibliography: Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel by Frances and Joseph Gies. The bookseller immediately recognized it and exclaimed “I appreciate a writer with the common touch!”

The second book - Tavistock Abbey: A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon by HPR Finberg was an accidental find. While it does not speak to technological change in the late middle ages, it speaks to the social and cultural life of an abbey and its surrounding village.

#books #bookstodon

 

wondrous Boardwatch BBS magazine "top 100" boards in the united states from 1994. this was based on a reader's choice vote-in.

the first two boards are (respectively) the homes of Apogee software and Epic MegaGames shareware publishers.

now just guess how many of the remaining 98 are porn boards!

credit: @fearfair on /r/bbs: https://i.redd.it/5pb1m577m9pd1.jpeg

#shareware #bbs #retroGaming

 

you... you included regina, but edmonton didn't make the cut?

😭

#RetroGaming #canada #yeg

A sticker on the front of the box reads: Includes Major Canadian Cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and more.

 

academic researchers/readers of mastodon: is there a solid historical book (books?) that documents and explores the transition from the mechanical age to the age of “modern” technology as someone like heidegger understands the term technology?

i’m imagining a book that interprets the social and cultural transformations between the late medieval and victorian periods, from older conceptions of morality and mechanism to newer ideas about individualism and automation? eg. documenting not only demographic changes, but also the ways of thinking about people that were preconditions for modern technological thought.

i realize this is a rather nebulous request covering a huge time span, but my background is in the philosophy of science and not british history literature.

#academicmastodon #history

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