vga256 @dialup.cafe indigenous canadian, recovering academic → game dev & interactive media artist with a penchant for dial-up modems, the 4o3 bbs scene, 1-bit art, trackers/mods, classic macs, and 80s and 90s gaming. curator of internet, canadian & gaming obscura.
game development: tomodashi studio https://tomodashi.com
current major project: tomo, a decentralized discussion group network that's better than reddit https://tomo.city
🇨🇦 \#nobot #nobots #noindex (profile pic: a 1988 red fox 6¢ canada stamp)
did i just drive 300 km one way in the middle of the night to pick up fifteen big box games.
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] totally agree!
@[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!
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
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
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
adding to the aforementioned bibliography of books concerning the intersection of the 15th-19th centuries and technological change. found them at a local used bookstore.
web searches for broad topics like this are often fruitless. a good library or academic bookstore already has this presorted by topic.
#bookstodon #books
@[email protected] now that i look at it, it kinda makes sense. almost all of the boards are running TBBS or wildcat or something else that is built for multi-node. i bet the only reason these mega-boards got a lot of votes is because they had a ton of readers/users.
@[email protected] i'm fascinated that the Pleasure Dome shares the same name as an austrian hacker board which was famous as well https://demozoo.org/bbs/2949/
@[email protected] it's a very different kind of game, but boy does it feel great - it really nails the experience of creating a transportation network
wondrous Boardwatch BBS magazine "top 100" boards in the united states from 1994. this was based on a reader's choice vote-in.
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
@[email protected] :\ frustrating. same thing happened with chris sawyer's Transport Tycoon series.
@[email protected] 2 was a travesty. iirc, it was developed by a third party company. most of the game was completing "missions" and it completely lost the joy of just building on the landscape
answering my own question yesterday re: heideggerian technological change and the first industrial revolution:
there does not seem to be any specific agreed upon text that covers the above historical question - however, i've cobbled together a patchwork of related readings:
Miller, Adam. (Dissertation). Enframing and Enlightenment:
A Phenomenological History of Eighteenth-Century British Science, Technology, and Literature. https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/bitstream/handle/1803/13807/miller_adam.pdf?sequence=1
Finberg, H.P.R. Tavistock Abbey: A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon.
Gies, Frances and Joseph. Life in a Medieval Village.
Gies, Frances and Joseph. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages.
Gimpel, J. Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages.
Landes, David S. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present.
Mantoux, Paul. The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century.
McNeil, Ian. An Encyclopaedia of the history of technolology.
Toynbee, Arnold. Lectures on the industrial revolution of the 18th century in england. https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnTheIndustrialRevolutionOfThe18thCenturyInEngland
@[email protected] couldn’t agree more.
you... you included regina, but edmonton didn't make the cut?
you... you included regina, but edmonton didn't make the cut?
😭
#RetroGaming #canada #yeg
@[email protected] yeah, i know what you mean - and i think that strays beyond my immediate historical needs. i'm basically looking for someone to fill in a lot of the historical gaps that heidegger leaves wide open with his historical examples (grist mills, hydroelectric dams, etc). foucault is his own wilderness anyway 😅
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
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
@[email protected] very welcome. i only wish i could have paid john broomhall for FLACs instead
i can't believe it took me 10 years to find out that Transport Tycoon got a full live jazz orchestral remaster of its midi soundtrack 🤯
i can't believe it took me 10 years to find out that Transport Tycoon got a full live jazz orchestral remaster of its midi soundtrack 🤯
and it sounds GREAT. john broomhall and his "TT band" knock every piece out of the park
<https://archive.org/details/Transport-Tycoon-2014-OST>
#retroGaming #music #ost
if you grew up in canada in the 90s and 2000s, you probably visited a Playdium arcade at one point or another.
if you grew up in canada in the 90s and 2000s, you probably visited a Playdium arcade at one point or another.
if you didn't, playdium was a canadian national mega-arcade that had over a dozen locations at its peak. it grew in the late 90s and early 2000s when arcades had already withered away in most malls. they imported a ton of interesting massive arcade units, like Dance Dance Revolution, monster truck simulators and ride-racing sims
the playdium archive is an online mini-museum of playdium history. the edmonton-based archivist has done an incredible job of digitizing old footage.
my personal favourite are these reloadable Playcards that you'd use instead of cash in the arcade cabs. i wish i had hung on to mine.
#canada #history #arcade #yeg
@starfiend 😆 amazing. i ended up building a single player game using UOSphere just for fun
@[email protected] huh? that compression method appears to have nothing to do with Radius' Cinepak codec used on the sega cd
oh boy. i just found my academic records published on my old CS department's server 🤣
oh boy. i just found my academic records published on my old CS department's server 🤣
back in 1997 when i was a snot nosed first year university student, i was planning on becoming a CS student.
the first requirement of the degree was CMPUT 114: Introduction to Computer Science.
the course was pretty straightforward: learn how to code and solve problems with Turbo Pascal 7 in a lab, while learning about data structures and bubble search and encapsulation in class.
unfortunately, that same semester, Ultima Online launched. 12 of my 14 hours a day were spent playing UO, leaving a few minutes for completing assignments.
i have circled the assignments i missed, and final exam which i did not study for because i was trying to GM my swordsman in UO 🤣
#ultima #uo #retroGaming
@[email protected] oh fantastic. i'm just reading about MovieToSaturn now. i can't figure out if the saturn tools support the paletted export that the Sega CD version requires/uses
found a really cool document: the official developer/user documentation for the codec used to compress most of the Sega CD FMV games: Cinepak for Sega-CD
found a really cool document: the official developer/user documentation for the codec used to compress most of the Sega CD FMV games: Cinepak for Sega-CD
sadly, the software (macintosh) doesn't seem to be preserved anywhere. it had a really simple interface, and came with a driver for playback on the console
#macintosh #gamePreservation #vintageApple #sega #retroGaming
!Extensions for Cinepak for Sega-CD that allow for error diffusion, no-dither and ordered-dither.
@[email protected] adorable! :D
back in the early 90s, i only knew of four ways to get new computer games:
back in the early 90s, i only knew of four ways to get new computer games:
- buying my own (i could afford a new one every 3-6 months at best)
- trading with friends (only 3 kids in my school had computers at home)
- buying shareware diskettes at the grocery store for a few bucks
- downloading shareware from local BBSes
of all of the above, only the last two were reliable sources of new games every week. i was one of the only kids in the school that had a modem, so i spent every evening sourcing out hot new shareware on my local boards. i'd wear out my credits and time limits downloading every single disk i could find at 2400 baud, usually taking about an hour
of the dozens of games I downloaded, two of them proved to be mega-hits: Tank Wars and Crystal Caves. for over a year, my two best friends and i huddled around the computer playing hotseat tank wars, and took turns trying to finish CC levels.
consider that, at the time, we owned AAA titles like Wing Commander II and Space Quest IV, and a sega genesis with a dozen games between us. and yet, crystal caves was the first thing we'd load up on sleepovers. it found the exact right balance of addictive, fun and friendly.
a few years ago i started collecting old shareware distributor diskettes - the kind you'd find for $2 at a grocery store. and i absolutely treasure them. 🙏
#apogee #shareware #retroGaming #dosgaming
to date, the Worlds of Ultima games have generally been ignored in favour of the numbered series, and that's a real shame. they're some of the best games wearing the badge, especially with the
to date, the Worlds of Ultima games have generally been ignored in favour of the numbered series, and that's a real shame. they're some of the best games wearing the badge, especially with the influence of designer warren spector on the game systems. savage empire has crafting for instance - something noticeably absent in the other games.
so glad to see a comprehensive review of Martian Dreams come out, including exploration of the box art and browsies.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIIvODKWnQ>
#ultima #retroGaming #dosGaming
say what you want about crapstone games - but damn is that hi-res installer hot
say what you want about crapstone games - but damn is that hi-res installer hot
#dosgaming #retroGaming
!The high-res installer for The Dark Half, showing the path and hard drive options. !The high res installer for the Dark Half showing the current disk, and an animated floppy cable transferring information to the HDD.
