Computers are no fun any more

[Sundog]

Home computers just aren't any fun any more. They're just an appliance we use to communicate, work, and play games with.

Here we are with hardware a zillion times more powerful than we had in the eighties, when I would spend most of my free time exploring the computer, and the last thing in the world I want to do any more after I go home from my programming job is sit in front of a computer, for any reason.

I wonder if this is inevitable. Probably the same thing happened in radio, stereos, and other technologies: there was a "golden era" of exploration and excitement and then a commoditization that ended up producing just another consumer product.

It's hard to even explain to younger folks WHY it was fun. It was a different time, everything was new, ANYBODY could become a hit software author. I did myself! One of my programs I wrote, marketed and supported all by myself netted me over $70,000. Things like that just don't happen any more.

I know Linux pretty well, but that just doesn't do it for me either. I have absolutely no temptation to sit down and "play" with my Linux machine. It's just another tool.

Excuse the rant, I'm just nostalgic for the days when it was actually FUN to play with computers.

Anyone have any good stories of the Old Days?

 

[RSLancastr]

Anyone have any good stories of the Old Days?

Back in the late 80's/early 90's, I wrote a series of DOS shareware/freeware games which, while they didn't make me a lot of money, got me letters from all over the world, were written up (and included) in some fun books.

It was a greay feeling, knowing that there were people all over the world having fun with software that I had written.

To this day, I get the occasional email/snailmail asking "Are you the Bob Lancaster that wrote this game I love?"

It's a nice feeling.

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Computers are no fun any more

Back in the late 80's/early 90's, I wrote a series of DOS shareware/freeware games which, while they didn't make me a lot of money, got me letters from all over the world, were written up (and included) in some fun books.

It was a greay feeling, knowing that there were people all over the world having fun with software that I had written.

To this day, I get the occasional email/snailmail asking "Are you the Bob Lancaster that wrote this game I love?"

It's a nice feeling.

Name names! We're entitled to brag a little.

I've mentioned before that I wrote the Skyline BBS system for the Amiga, which included the very first online graphics protocol and authoring system, Skypix. Combine the "hobby-ability" of running a BBS in the first place, with actual graphics, with a way to write "plug-ins" for the board that used these graphics for games etc., and you had a system that MANY people told me was their ENTIRE hobby. It was amazing to me that many Skyline sysops virtually LIVED in front of the screen, tweaking their BBS's. There were some real works of art produced too.

Like you, I feel very good knowing that something I did brought a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people.

 

[RSLancastr]

Re: Re: Re: Computers are no fun any more

Name names! We're entitled to brag a little.

They were known collectively as the "MicroLink Games", as I named them after the MicroLink PCUG, of which I was a member.

The games were:

MicroLink Yaht
MicroLink Shut The Box
MicroLink Loyd
MicroLink Otra
MicroLink Push Your Luck
MicroLink Crux

A couple of years aog, a guy started a website devoted to the kind of games I wrote, and asked if I would write an article about my experiences writing the game. The article can be found here:

http://www.textmodegames.com/articles/microlnk.html

Edited to add:

I never wandered into the Amiga world, but your BBS sounds cool. Graphics on PCs really bit the big one back then, and the Amiga was, of course, a graphics monster.

 

[shanek]

The most fun of the old computer world was the BBSes, all but gone in this age of the internet, online forums, and web pages. I really miss that.

 

[RSLancastr]

The most fun of the old computer world was the BBSes, all but gone in this age of the internet, online forums, and web pages. I really miss that.

Do you remember when BBSs started "networking" their email? Nightly, they would zip and send various Forum traffic to hub BBSs, then download those from other BBSs.

You could post in a local BBS, and the message could be answered by someone from an entirely different BBS! Wow!

I think that the trouble is, computers are no longer new to us.

I would imagine that people just now being exposed to computers think that they are as fun as all get-out, and in ten years will be moaning about how computers are no longer fun.

 

[roger]

I would imagine that people just now being exposed to computers think that they are as fun as all get-out, and in ten years will be moaning about how computers are no longer fun.

Ya, I was wondering about that implication in the original post. I don't have kids in my life, but do y-10 year olds find computers to be nothing more than a everyday tool?

I wish I had had the WWW when I was a kid. I endlessly thirsted for knowledge, which a small town library and a TV that received 2 stations did little to slacken.

 

[Dymanic]

snap out of it dude

Originally posted by Sundog

Here we are with hardware a zillion times more powerful than we had in the eighties, when I would spend most of my free time exploring the computer, and the last thing in the world I want to do any more after I go home from my programming job is sit in front of a computer, for any reason.

Maybe you're just suffering a bit of burnout.

It's like cars. Some guys love to fiddle with them by the hour, and spend weekends tinkering and talking about tinkering, etc. -- they're fascinated by the machinery. For me, that has limited entertainment value. I'm more interested in the places I might go using the car as a vehicle. I can work on cars, but will do so only when forced by necessity; I've done most of my best mechanic work when broken down on the side of the road.

Home computers just aren't any fun any more. They're just an appliance we use to communicate, work, and play games with.

To me, 'fun' and 'interesting' go hand in hand. The programs you are paid to write, the problems they are designed to solve, do you find them interesting? If not, does that mean that there are no interesting problems left to solve? Is logic still interesting?

The power of today's machines make accessible places that would be tough to reach with an 8086. Interesting places. Fun places. Not necessarily profitable places, though. The need to earn a living is inconvenient and limiting. Maybe you're like a poet who's forced to write ad jingles in order to pay the rent. Doesn't mean poetry is dead.

The 'golden era' phenomenon you describe might be illustrated by the gold rush in California in the 1800's. The big nuggets lying exposed in the streambeds were all picked off by those who arrived first on the scene, each nugget carrying the promise of countless others just like it in streams yet unexplored. The word spread quickly, and soon the whole countryside was overrun with hopefuls. Some of them did strike it big, but most found it harder work than they had expected. And it got harder every day. The ratio of tons of dirt moved to ounces of gold extracted goes up quickly when you have that many people working. (It is still possible to find gold in the foothills of California, and a dedicated enthusiast might pan out enough gold in a day to make it an attractive alternative to collecting aluminum cans -- barely). So when that point of diminishing returns was reached, most of the placer miners went home. Some geologists have speculated that perhaps only twenty percent of the gold within fifty feet of the surface have ever been extracted. After that, nearly all the mining was done using equipment and techniques which required wherewithal that could only be mustered by big outfits. They washed mountainsides away, they tunneled miles under the earth.

Unfortunately, a lot of the most interesting unexplored terrain may not be the most profitable. Having money can be fun and interesting, but earning it usually isn't (which makes good logical sense if you think about it -- if it's that much fun, usually you have to pay them).

I see programming -- even in it's most mundane, commercial form -- as cognitive science. You simply cannot get a machine to do your thinking for you without learning about the way you think.

It may not be readily apparent when viewed from the perspective of our fun-driven, commodity-focused society, but these machines are more than toys, and more than tools; they are extensions of our brains. Over time, the impact they will have on our culture and our thinking will be as pronounced as the impacts of language; of writing. Language allows thoughts to be passed from brain to brain; writing allows us to work with vastly more information than our brains can hold at one time; computers multiply these capabilities exponentially. Whether or not it's all fun and games, we're in for one hell of a ride.

 

[Sundog]

Lots of good comments. Focusing my thinking, I think what I really mean is that I miss the pioneering spirit. Once that's gone, I sort of lose interest.

Part of it is of course that I've commoditized myself by joining a corporation with a team of programmers instead of doing my own thing. The problems I solve in the daytime are not very interesting to me; I never thought I would be able to do routine DP-style programming without going crazy, but it pays the mortgage. People like jj who get to write truly cool stuff are fewer and further between than us hacks who design a newer and faster sales reporting system.

And part of it may be sheer burnout, but there are other lifelong activities that I haven't tired of yet.

 

[RSLancastr]

And part of it may be sheer burnout, but there are other lifelong activities that I haven't tired of yet.

We won't worry about you until you start a "Sex Just Isn't Fun Anymore" thread.

 

[Ed]

Anyone have any good stories of the Old Days?

For my first company I wrote all the software (we did marketing analysis). Every time a new chip came out we could gauge the increase in productivity. We had to do handshaking protocols ... very fun. Our first purchase was a compaq 386/33 and a lazerjet printer cost $10k. Our first BIG Disk was 500 meg and cost 5K (still have it, big as a shoe box.

Yup, remember going to a computer show in NY, opposite the Garden it was. They had a sorta carosel like thingie, backed up yer data on them VHS cassettes ... used a powerful lot of 'em. Think it was a Meg per tape. Yup.. Some young feller (sorta crazed lookin' he was) was sellin' somethig called "Winchester" disks ... could store a lot. Only problem was you had to hard wire 'em to yer maching. Scuze me, gotta pee..........

Ah, that's better. Where wuz I? Oh yeah.

Remember when they came up with somethin' called reeemoovible media, none of that tape crap, disks they wuz and big hombres too...big as a personal pizza .. kids don't believe me when I tell 'em, think I'm teeched in the head. Little snot noses watta they know ...

Color printing? Sure tell me how you break a nail connecting a plug and play device ... I remember when if you wanted color you used an x-y plotter ... took a bit 'o time, fact is I still got a job running from '91. First HP's weren't a damn site better though.

zzzzz......!!!!! Wazzat? OH still here are ya ... wait a minute, gotta pee ......

 

[Sundog]

Do you remember when BBSs started "networking" their email? Nightly, they would zip and send various Forum traffic to hub BBSs, then download those from other BBSs.

FIDONET. Yes, that was quite a challenge making Skyline FIDO compatible! Worth it though.

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Computers are no fun any more

zzzzz......!!!!! Wazzat? OH still here are ya ... wait a minute, gotta pee ......

Yeah, that's about how old I feel too.

My very first computer was a Timex with 4K of memory and a tiny little Basic interpreter. But the cool thing about it was, using that Basic you could write a Z80 assembler, and then 4K is all the room in the world. I knew several kinds of assembler before I learned any other languages other than Basic. That's the benefit, if any, to starting with a really tiny machine!

 

[RSLancastr]

FIDONET. Yes, that was quite a challenge making Skyline FIDO compatible! Worth it though.

There was FIDO, and then at least one other that I recall.

I was the moderator for several (I think it was) Fido threads, including Pascal Programming, Religion, and a few others. Loooong ago, on an XT far, far away...

 

[Rat]

Well I've only been pc using since 286. Before that, I used various 8-bit platforms.

I got on the net before pretty much anyone I know. I remember before IE. It wasn't much better. There was a sense of community that doesn't exist in very many places now. But, to me, it still exists here, and in similar places. The grass is always greener, and B!FF has always been around, only here he's called Genghis, and he has not the sense of humour.

I fully understand the missing of the writing assembler, and writing the BASIC for the Spectrum, or Timex 2000 as I think it was in US. But you couldn't have expected that to last. In the same way I don't write x86 assembly now, I don't expect car enthustiasts to turn cam shafts, or cast engine blocks. It's a different world. Get used to it.

In short, I find it as enjoyable as I always have; and I look forward to the future. As there is no other way to look to the future.

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[SteveW]

The one thing I miss the most is the D&D games that were around in the 80's and 90's. The best one was called "Legends of Future Past." It was all text, great game play, lots of creative, really good roleplayers. I spent countless hours on that game.

Now, roleplaying games are hack and slash, no stories and a bunch of 15 year olds shouting at each other.

Its pitiful that it has declined to this level.

 

[Rat]

And didn't many of us dream when playing 8-bit Elite that it would be rewritten to be truly multiplayer, so that every ship you saw was a real person? It's now a reality. How many are playing?

I used to love text adventures, but they were, in retrospect, so limited that you needed to play them long enough to know what questions and answers they wanted. Now we have virtually unlimited memory, but how many text adventures are there? I'd love to play them, but they never answer the questions they ask. Though, from memory, the programmers always came up with smart answers for four-letter-word-including questions.

Green green grass of some.

Cheers,
B!FF.

 

[Tmeto Mituko]

Me using laptop working traveling helping me.


лл

 

[RSLancastr]

Me using laptop working traveling helping me.

You didn't finish your Haiku!

 

[magicflute]

Skyline BBS

What a small world!! Sundog, I am the guy that bought the rights to Skyline BBS from you. I kept it updated for a while. Then developed it into Omnilink BBS which kept Skipix but added my own protocol Omnipix. Unfortunately, the WWW took off and people began to loose interest in BBSs. We were successful in getting it on the internet, but never generated enough earning to keep developing it. It stopped being fun.