Tabletop: Analog Game Design - A commons licenced book containing a series of essays about digital and non-digital games from some esteemed boardgame veterans:
"Much has been written about the videogame revolution, [...] In a scant thirty some-odd years,
we’ve grown from nothing to one of the world’s largest entertainment
forms, grossing tens of billions annually [...] Works that discuss the evolution of the game industry from an historical perspective generally talk about the connection between the pre-digital
arcade and the earliest digital games; I’ve even heard some claim
that “without the arcade, videogames would not exist.” This is, of course, bosh..." [more inside]
posted by Cogentesque
on Aug 24, 2011 -
36 comments
Cybersyn (or Synco, in Spanish) was computer network constructed in 1970 by an English/Chilean team headed by cyberneticist
Stafford Beer (his
papers). Cybersyn was an electronic nervous system for the Chilean economy, linking together mines, factories and so on, to better manage production and give workers a clear idea of what was in demand and where. The network was destroyed by the army after the 1973 coup. Later that year Stafford Beer drew upon the lessons of Cybersyn to write
Fanfare for Effective Freedom, a eulogy for Allende and Cybersyn, and
Designing Freedom, a series of six lectures he gave for CBC, outlining his ideas. Besides the first link in this post, the best place to start is
this Guardian article from 2003. If you want to go more in-depth, read Eden Medina's
Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende’s Chile. And if nothing else, just take a look at the amazing
Cybersyn control room.
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 21, 2010 -
32 comments
50 years ago today, IBM announced the
1401 Data Processing System.
Originally designed as a spooling system for the larger machines, the 1401 became very popular as a mainframe in its own right, eventually being called 'The Model T of Computers'. By the end of 1961, the number of 1401s installed in the United States alone had reached 2,000 - representing about one fourth of all computers installed by all manufacturers at that time. 15- 20,000 were eventually built.
The
Computer History Museum in Mountain View is having a
50th anniversary celebration on November 10th.
Here's what $125,600 (or $2500/month rent) would get you:
[more inside]
posted by MtDewd
on Oct 4, 2009 -
52 comments
The Red Hill Guide is an amazingly detailed and well-written compendium of desktop hardware old and new, with a focus on PC and x86 compatibles. Look for your first CPU, hard drive or mainboard.
posted by loquacious
on Jan 6, 2007 -
40 comments
Myron Krueger began his pioneering work in interactive art in 1969. He was one of the first to explore the aesthetics of interactivity with his "responsive environments." While preparing a talk that included a reminiscence of Krueger demoing
Videoplace in the 80s, I was surprised he'd not yet merited even a stub in the Wikipedia. While that may eventually motivate me to register and start the page, for now, I will just share some links. [more inside, including videos]
posted by KS
on Mar 31, 2005 -
2 comments
Adventure - based on the classic text game of the
same name - was the first game ever to contain an easter egg.
It seems laughably primitive these days, but when it first hit shelves, Adventure was a programming masterpiece. The
text version of Adventure (by Willie Crowther and Don Woods) required hundreds of KB and a mainframe computer to operate, so much that Atari brass told
Warren Robinett not to even bother with a 2600 version.
He did anyway, and the results are near legendary. The 2600 version of Adventure went on to sell over a million copies at $25 a pop. For his effort Robinett recieved absolutely nothing beyond his $22,000/year salary.
Play the 2600 Adventure. (Flash) If you're one of those who requires some eye candy, why not download the
Quake 3 Adventure Map, instead?
posted by absalom
on Jan 7, 2005 -
41 comments
Apple-1 CPU, VG-Mint. "This computer, as is documented, was bought from Steve Job's parents garage. The checks for the purchase and the original manual are included." More photos
here.
[via coudal]
posted by me3dia
on Sep 27, 2004 -
16 comments
A nice article on some of the engineering and economics aspects of WiFi, and the history of frequency regulation in the USA.
posted by freebird
on Aug 16, 2004 -
9 comments
www.computerhistory.org is the virtual incarnation of computer historian and collector Michael Williams' phat-ass computer museum. My favourite, BTW, is
the timeline, searchable by year or topic. What technological milestones occured in the year of
your birth?
posted by stuporJIX
on Feb 15, 2002 -
8 comments
