We Broke Free

Still going strong, Jez Page, 2010

Jack: Well, we're here. We're sitting on the most perfect beach in the world, and all we can think about is-...
Angela: "Where I can hook up my modem?"
-The Net, 1995

I hate phones. I've long disliked taking phone calls, particularly from relatives in the US because of that slight audio delay stepping on everyone's cues. Around the turn of the millennium everyone in school started getting mobile phones. Call me a contrarian and, paradoxically, I'll agree. Amongst those age-groups and in that time, the phones were status symbols and displays of affluence. I've always eschewed those things - for example, I don't wear any type of jewellery. Just before I finished school I went out with friends for an entire day and didn't come home till 1am. My parents threatened to buy me a phone which I vehemently refused. There is nothing I find more annoying than having to drop what I'm doing to answer the home landline, except maybe people paying more attention to an incoming message on their phone than my half of the conversation. I like remaining un-contactable. Here comes the however. However, when I was down in London last year I was away from my desktop computer for four and a half days. I had to rely on that other thing I hate, television, to remain informed about events and it never asked 'Would you like to know more?'.

Heimcomputer

Commodore 64 startup screen

Back in April I mentioned that back in 1998 (this sounds recursive) I had stumbled on some VBScript examples on my old Aptiva. In much the same way any opportunity to learn French in school was quashed by the limited scope of phrasebook teaching and the absence of anyone to actually speak to in the language, my exposure to VBScript yielded nothing more than the usual surface familiarity. When the PlaySation 2 launched Sony tried to pass it off as a computer by bundling YABASIC and thereby secure certain tax advantages. I recall the official magazine had a programming column for a short time, but copying the text via controller was as tedious as filling out a form for tax relief. I only bothered trying it once with a program called RAINDROP - still on my memory card, 66KB last edited 13:57 April 7th 2002 - which rendered an effect that looked like raindrops in a puddle. A fairly underwhelming reward for the effort.

Hexadecimal Genome

Eye-Bee-M, Paul Rand, 1981

I mentioned in October that my first computer was an IBM PS/1. In fact, I also had a used Commodore 64 for a few years, though I can't remember which came first; plus, I never really thought of the C64 as a computer. Like a console it plugged into the tv and it had a tape deck which to my young mind was equivalent to a game cartridge but with excruciatingly long loading times.

The interface of the 64 made it difficult for me to accidentally break it - the command for loading a game was written down on a piece of paper, and that was as much as I knew. By comparison, a technician had to be called out at least three times to reinstall Windows 3.1 on the PC. This was the same OS that came with a tutorial for using a mouse, so it was simply a case of double clicking the wrong thing. I used to explore the System and Windows folders looking for interesting hidden stuff (ooh, regedit.exe), but I only remember one particular time now in which I went into the Control Panel and decided to change the theme settings to something more Christmas-y. Unfortunately when it was next booted, Windows failed to load because my Christmas theme exceeded the video card's colour limit. You live, you learn.

Reformat The Planet

8-Bit Art, ConvenienceStoreGourmet, 2010

I remember some of the first games I played when I got my first computer (an IBM PS/1) sixteen years ago. Thanks to shareware, and also rampant piracy in the local IBM factory, I had The Duel: Test Drive II, Crystal Caves, Keen Dreams, and Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis (all seven floppies of it). Of course, looking back the graphics were pretty awful, Test Drive's level scenery was highly repetitive, Keen Dreams' audio wouldn't work for some reason, and the dialogue in FoA lacked voice acting. I also had Wolfenstein 3D  and Prince of Persia, but they don't count because the former would never load and the latter was lacking the manual, so I had no idea how to draw the sword and therefore get past the first level. Yet somehow I managed to get a number of years enjoyment out of those few games. I've grown up in the medium as I never say 'video games'