July 26, 2007

Someone in a recent IRC chat pointed out to me an eBay auction for what might actually be the object on this earth that I would most like to possess, surpassing all other material items by a rather significant margin. More than the fishnet stocking-shrouded leg lamp of the "you'll shoot your eye out" kid, this is electric sex.

I point you to the six foot tall Apple logo neon sign.

The auction started at $2,500 and is, at the time of this post, up to $4,500 - and the seller's reserve price has not yet been met. If bidding on this item would not have exactly the same effect on my marriage as engaging in 3-way-sex with a couple of call girls and handing my wife the video, I would be unable to restrain myself from going after it. Alas, I shall not be the one member of the human race able to daily bow down in worship in front of so glorious an icon.

Happy bidding.

UPDATE [10.31.2007]: No, I didn't break down and bid to win on this one. But a cool $10 on eBay did land me a little goody that glows at least a little Apple Goodness in my own Byte Cellar.

July 21, 2007

Several months ago - maybe more like a year or two ago now, I purchased an Apple //c in mint condition and didn't really have a plan for just where I would house this little treasure. You see, my second computer was an Apple //c (after my TI-99/4A), puchased in April 1984. It was a great experience owning and using that machine at the age of 12. I finally sold it and moved to the Mac, and then Amiga, and then Apple II again, and then... Well, let's not get carried away. This story is about the //c - the //c I recently purchased.

So the //c has been in my office since I purchased it. About two years now, I suppose. I've booted it seldom enough times to count on one hand - a sad situation. Well, I recently encountered a story that gave me a reason to use my //c a little more frequently - as in every day. It seems that Paul Weinstein put an Apple //c into his office setting, tied to his Mac mini via serial link, and proceeded to use the //c as a text terminal for IRC chatting. An avid IRC user myself, with a Mac mini and Apple //c already in my office, I had little choice but to folllow his lead. The result is most satisfying.

Sitting next to my office workstation setup is an Apple //c, complete with a 9" monochrome Apple Monitor //c and stand (all beautifully designed by frog design inc.) serving full time, 8-hour per workday duty as a serial terminal to my my Mac mini. A custom 5-pin DIN (//c end) to 8-pin mini-DIN (Mac style) null modem cable of my own (sloppy) creation ties the //c to a Keyspan dual USB-serial adapter plugged into my mini. The //c is running Modem MGR, a popular and flexible terminal application (three 143K floppies in size) that is providing VT220 emulation. 9600bps seems the fastest that the //c can handle in this configuration - slow, but adequate for the role of a text terminal. (It actually seems pretty fast given that 1200bps is the fastest speed at which I've ever used an Apple II terminal emulator - on my IIe with internal Prometheus ProModem 1200A back in 1986.)

The //c spends basically all of its time serving as an IRC chat terminal, displaying a shell session of either irssi or Rhapsody, both terminal-based IRC clients, running on my remote Linux server by way of a secure shell connection. It's a rather abstracted approach, but it's great to twiddle the //c's keys in a meaningful way every workday.

I'm rather enjoying the setup, and it's certainly generated many a raised eyebrow and curious look as folks pass by my office. At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed my tale and my photo gallery chronicling this project.

Also check out:

• Apple IIe as terminal to a Linux box
• How to use an Apple IIgs as a Linux terminal
• Buy an Apple II ethernet card...if you're too good for serial
• Apple Newton eMate 300 as a serial terminal
• How to use an Atari ST as a Linux terminal
• C64 or C128 as a terminal for Linux
• Using an 8088-based XT-class PC as a Linux dumb terminal
• Using a Qume serial terminal with Linux

::: Digg this story! :::

July 17, 2007

I recently sold my original Macintosh 128 to help fund the purchase of a HD camcorder. (I knew I'd never dedicate desk space to it, what with my rather functional Mac Plus setup, and it seemed a shade lonely sitting on the shelf in its carrying bag.) I used the aforementioned Mac Plus to get the system disks all squared away for the buyer. After that was taken care of, I spent some time fiddling with various games on the Plus' hard drive. It's easy to forget the kind of fresh, unique titles that a high resolution (512x342 looks pretty tight on a 9-inch screen), monochrome platform brings forth. Some of the games are downright gorgeous.

In an effort to share the experience with those who never owned a compact Mac, I grabbed my camera and tri-pod and started snapping "screenshots" of various titles. Digital photos of the screen, as opposed to honest to goodness screenshots, give a much better feel of the compact Mac gaming expreience, revealing the faint scanlines (as faint as they came, back in its day) and pleasant, blusih tint to the Mac's screen phosphor.

Have a look at the gallery of shots I've placed online. I'm still adding to it, so stop back in a few days and have another look.

July 5, 2007

I played it first on my shiny new Apple //c, back in April 1984. (Hey! Our logo graphic is an Apple //c!) I've fiddled about with it in years since on various other platforms, but it was the //c upon which I actually spent some time with it. The first game I purchased for that, my first Apple, actually. Zork I from Infocom. One of the most famous works of interactive fiction (or "IF" for sceners). A detailed text adventure with graphics provided by your imagination.

Sadly, I never solved the game. I played a good bit and we traded underground maps back in middle-school, I recall. But I never got around to solving it. My personal favorite of Infocoms gems was Brian Moriarty's Wishbringer. Great fun solving that, later, on my Amiga 1000 (I was an early Amigoid). It was one of the few games available for the Amiga at the time, ironically. (I actually, recently purchased a full, boxed version of Wishbringer - just to get the whole package, in anticipation of replaying it on a modern Z-Machine interpreter with my wife as a form of TV alternative, but we haven't gotten around to it yet.) But that's Wishbringer...and this article is about Zork I.

The point of this post, which I am about to draw to a close, is a certain Gamasutra article entitled "The History of Zork" which crossed my radar in the form of an item in A2Central's RSS feed. Give it a read. IF is one of the best protrusions of gaming.

And in related news, Jason Scott, creator of BBS: The Documentary is hard at work on Get Lamp, a text adventure documentary film which will should wrap up in August of this year. Don't miss it.