a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
ratcomp1974 said:
Hang on, you seem to be implying by your tag that you were born in 1974. That was about the time that 4 bit then 8 bit chips were first being made.
Hang on, you seem to be implying by your tag that you were born in 1974. That was about the time that 4 bit then 8 bit chips were first being made.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Actually, for some stupid reason, I have tried to hook up SAPDB to php so that it can run PHPBB2. I was inspired to attempt this act of lunacy because monkey boy was complaining about mysql not being up to the job of running this board.
The strange things is, I think I just about have it working.
Now was that a waste of time or not?
Apart from that, the day of the computer hero going out there and writing an application and making a gazillion dollars is well and truly over.
We are all just wage slaves now.
The strange things is, I think I just about have it working.
Now was that a waste of time or not?
Apart from that, the day of the computer hero going out there and writing an application and making a gazillion dollars is well and truly over.
We are all just wage slaves now.
Re: Skyline BBS
Small world indeed!
I keep having people even now come up to me and say "Did you ever think about how much Skypix was like what we call web browsers now?" No, buddy, it never occurred to me.
That was a fun time. Great to hear from you!
magicflute said: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.
Small world indeed!
I keep having people even now come up to me and say "Did you ever think about how much Skypix was like what we call web browsers now?" No, buddy, it never occurred to me.
That was a fun time. Great to hear from you!
Man, I LOVED programming in SkyLine! If anything, it was actually more advanced than the Web in many ways. I had a few freebie games out there that I had written. I wrote a SkyLine version of MasterMind, and one called Boat Wars, which was like battleship except you threw beer cans, Cheetos, etc.
The really cool thing was how it could completely take over the BBS if you wanted it to... A friend of mine and I wrote a game called Global Thermonuclear Politics which we ran on The Whale Zoo/Oblique Strategies BBS in Greensboro. Ostensibly, it was a Trade Wars typs of game, but you actually had to keep an economy going, and what we didn't tell people was that the Computer was a player, too...
So you're the mind behind it, SunDog? Man, I can't thank you enough! That was so much fun...
The really cool thing was how it could completely take over the BBS if you wanted it to...
A friend of mine and I wrote a game called Global Thermonuclear Politics which we ran on The Whale Zoo/Oblique Strategies BBS in Greensboro. Ostensibly, it was a Trade Wars typs of game, but you actually had to keep an economy going, and what we didn't tell people was that the Computer was a player, too...So you're the mind behind it, SunDog? Man, I can't thank you enough! That was so much fun...
I wasn't actually the Sysop. She was a gal by the name of Lynne...a very demented sort, in a good way. She loved playing the game, but thought she could hack it.
I wrote the game deliberately to be hacked...there was even a part where you could get to the command line of the computer player (no documentation, natch). She thought she could just edit the easy-to-figure-out player files but didn't know I'd put in a hash routine to detect exactly that and the computer would retaliate...Man, that was fun.
I wrote the game deliberately to be hacked...there was even a part where you could get to the command line of the computer player (no documentation, natch). She thought she could just edit the easy-to-figure-out player files but didn't know I'd put in a hash routine to detect exactly that and the computer would retaliate...Man, that was fun.
shanek said:
We did quite a few things first:
First use of geometric drawing commands over a modem; first use of sound files over a modem; first integration of a mouse into the online environment, except for the Mac's teleFinder; first integration of bitmapped graphics online ANYWHERE; first "authoring" program (SkyPaint); first use of a still-picture format to produce animation, ala animated GIFs. All things that later became common.
Skyline sysops were FANATICS. When my middle child was born people sent cards. One person even sent a dress for her. Imagine finding that sense of community surrounding a piece of software now.
Yes indeed, that was one of the most fun things I ever did, and definitely one of the most rewarding.
ratcomp1974 said:
I can see why you'd say that, but it sounds like you're more on the "consuming" end than the "creating" end. What drew me to computers was the seemingly endless possibilities of creation. I just don't see that as an attraction anymore. That was what was "fun" for me. It's all just apps and games now, and apps and games always bored me.
I think maybe you can see why my personal grass WAS greener then.
shanek said:
By all means tell her "hi" if you are still in touch. She was a fun gal and absolutely devoted to Skyline.
Papa Jay Miner himself used Skyline for his personal BBS. Man, did he ever crawl all over me whenever he found bugs!
Like having Shakespeare correct your grammar.Chris Haynes
Perfectly Poisonous Person
Ah yes... the old days!!!
Where the fellow I started to go out with (and have been married to for over 20 years) had been a ham-radio enthusiest. Except he was only interested in the equipment, he didn't like conversations with strangers (especially since the dialog was on the order of "How high am I'm hitting you?"... a reference to the signal strength).
Then his ham-radio magazine went from "73", to "Computing 73"... and then the first Byte magazine came out. Back when it was interesting (we have the first 10 years of Byte sitting in boxes in our basement).
He started to collect computer parts... for 3 years I stumbled over a box of 'puter parts to go to bed in our teeny tiny apartment. He was so excited when he came home from a electronics surplus store with a keyboard 'board' and a bag of keys to build a keyboard. He used one of my glass baking pans to etch a board... then he wire-wrapped a few. Plus he spent hours nicking out the access holes from a bare box.
He used to have to get lab time at school at odd hours. I went once with him to write a lab report in the EE lounge at 2am. That was when the night custodian came through singing "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" very LOUDLY!!.
Then he graduated in 1980 and refused to even interview with Microsoft because he wanted to do HARDWARE... not software. sigh ... now he does software. (but knowing what happened to MS employees in the early years, we may not have stayed married).
Once upon a time he played online "Illuminati" and some other game over an early MCI modem.
Now we have a house with 5 functioning computers... spare parts for a few others floating around. There is a network cable snaking down the hallway from the den to the kitchen (the house is wired, but getting it hooked up is a "round-to-it", and he is also waiting for a new version of WiFi for that one... though 3 of the machines are linked with wireless). I just threw out some 5 1/4" floppy software I found (we only tossed out the programs stored on IBM cards 13 years ago... at least they went into paper recycle).
Ah yes... the good ol' days.
Where the fellow I started to go out with (and have been married to for over 20 years) had been a ham-radio enthusiest. Except he was only interested in the equipment, he didn't like conversations with strangers (especially since the dialog was on the order of "How high am I'm hitting you?"... a reference to the signal strength).
Then his ham-radio magazine went from "73", to "Computing 73"... and then the first Byte magazine came out. Back when it was interesting (we have the first 10 years of Byte sitting in boxes in our basement).
He started to collect computer parts... for 3 years I stumbled over a box of 'puter parts to go to bed in our teeny tiny apartment. He was so excited when he came home from a electronics surplus store with a keyboard 'board' and a bag of keys to build a keyboard. He used one of my glass baking pans to etch a board... then he wire-wrapped a few. Plus he spent hours nicking out the access holes from a bare box.
He used to have to get lab time at school at odd hours. I went once with him to write a lab report in the EE lounge at 2am. That was when the night custodian came through singing "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" very LOUDLY!!.
Then he graduated in 1980 and refused to even interview with Microsoft because he wanted to do HARDWARE... not software. sigh ... now he does software. (but knowing what happened to MS employees in the early years, we may not have stayed married).
Once upon a time he played online "Illuminati" and some other game over an early MCI modem.
Now we have a house with 5 functioning computers... spare parts for a few others floating around. There is a network cable snaking down the hallway from the den to the kitchen (the house is wired, but getting it hooked up is a "round-to-it", and he is also waiting for a new version of WiFi for that one... though 3 of the machines are linked with wireless). I just threw out some 5 1/4" floppy software I found (we only tossed out the programs stored on IBM cards 13 years ago... at least they went into paper recycle).
Ah yes... the good ol' days.
magicflute
Thinker
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 210
Skyline BBS
Since I am chess player, I loved the Chess game you wrote in Arexx, Sundog. I worked on it quite a bit more and got it to check illegal moves, also to work as real time multiplayer game. Before you knew it, half the users on my board where chess players! That certainly was way before the Internet multiplayer games of today. Also the interactive tour of you house was very cute.
Since I am chess player, I loved the Chess game you wrote in Arexx, Sundog. I worked on it quite a bit more and got it to check illegal moves, also to work as real time multiplayer game. Before you knew it, half the users on my board where chess players! That certainly was way before the Internet multiplayer games of today. Also the interactive tour of you house was very cute.
asthmatic camel
Illuminator
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2003
- Messages
- 4,510
Great thread Sundog ! I suspect that you are a little jaded having apparently spent a large percentage of your life involved with computers and programming.
Until two years ago I had had no exposure to the world of computing since I left school around (cough) twenty years ago, other than using dedicated systems when working for a major UK bank. For obvious reasons, no-one but the very well paid boffins employed to write and maintain them, was allowed any real access other than entering the occasional password and DES key. To be honest, the idea of coming home from a day spent in front of a computer used purely as a tool in order to sit in front of another was anathema.
Now, approaching middle age (cough), I find computers a whole heap of fun. The shear amount of information available over the internet is astonishing and the capacity of the equipment is something that never ceases to amaze me. My brief foray into the guts of the business involved a ZX80 and BASIC; You guys who were instrumental in bringing such powerful tools to their present level have, and deserve, my great respect.
More power to your elbows.
Regards
AC
(Edited for rubbish keyboard skills)
Until two years ago I had had no exposure to the world of computing since I left school around (cough) twenty years ago, other than using dedicated systems when working for a major UK bank. For obvious reasons, no-one but the very well paid boffins employed to write and maintain them, was allowed any real access other than entering the occasional password and DES key. To be honest, the idea of coming home from a day spent in front of a computer used purely as a tool in order to sit in front of another was anathema.
Now, approaching middle age (cough), I find computers a whole heap of fun. The shear amount of information available over the internet is astonishing and the capacity of the equipment is something that never ceases to amaze me. My brief foray into the guts of the business involved a ZX80 and BASIC; You guys who were instrumental in bringing such powerful tools to their present level have, and deserve, my great respect.
More power to your elbows.
Regards
AC
(Edited for rubbish keyboard skills)El Greco
Summer worshipper
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2003
- Messages
- 17,606
Why do you guys miss assembler ? There's always MASM32... in fact, this is what I program in. It's alive and kicking, lots of people in the forums. Sure, using APIs is not the same thing as using interrupts but you can still be creative enough
While I'm passing though here I should mention that I've discovered something that promises to put the fun back into programming for me personally: AVR MICROCONTROLLERS. SkepticScott and I have discussed it in Paltalk, boy are they fun.
To see a robot I built with them and a stack of AOL tins, check out my new website (and say howdy in my guestbook):
www.gadjit.com/aolbot.html
So far besides robots and blinky-lights I have a tiny device that can take sound input, run a Fourier transform on it, discern the tones in the signal and send them out as MIDI events. Cool stuff!
For info on AVR's check out www.avrfreaks.com.
I guess I'm not QUITE burned out yet after all!
To see a robot I built with them and a stack of AOL tins, check out my new website (and say howdy in my guestbook):
www.gadjit.com/aolbot.html
So far besides robots and blinky-lights I have a tiny device that can take sound input, run a Fourier transform on it, discern the tones in the signal and send them out as MIDI events. Cool stuff!
For info on AVR's check out www.avrfreaks.com.
I guess I'm not QUITE burned out yet after all!