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  • Digital Archaeology: Codex (Floppy Disk) #9 (part 9)

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment




    A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:

    I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store several years ago. I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a while back. Since then I have been posting the contents here.

    Based on the contents, at least some of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the “Close Encounters” Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.

    A specific definition of this SIG was found in a document on one of the disks: “This SIG, known as ‘Close Encounters’, is a forum for the discussion of relationships that develop via computer services like the Source, CompuServe, and Delphi. Our primary emphasis is on the sexual aspects of those relationships.”

    This service was text based and was accessed via whatever terminal program you used on your computer to dial in to Delphi’s servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don’t know if there are any archives in existence today of what was on Delphi in the 1980s. In any case, much of this stuff would have been private at the time and probably wouldn’t exist in such archives even if they existed.




    This post includes the contents of OURS.DOC. Another message in the ongoing saga of “CABUYS” and “RODM” or Rod and Connie.

    See the previous post here.

    ===
    OURS.DOC
    ===

                                                                                                

read 9

    #9          11-NOV-1985 20:24:36                                        MAIL
From:   BOS1A::RODM        
To:     CABUYS,RODM        
Subj:   take deep breath!

 
Those    who    were    not    long    ago    in    fact    two    
  
   Are    now    in    many    ways    becoming    as   one  
 
      On  that  day  will  become  one  heart, one  life 
 
 
           When  the  waiting  ends  and  they  are 
 
 
 
 
                      Husband & Wife
 
 
                 OURS                     OURS
            OURS      OURS           OURS       OURS
         OURS           OURS       OURS            OURS
        OURS               OURS OURS                OURS
        OURS      Rod         OURS       Connie     OURS
        OURS        \                   /          OURS
         OURS         \               /           OURS
          OURS          \           /            OURS
           OURS         Husband & Wife          OURS
             OURS                             OURS        
               OURS                         OURS
                 OURS                     OURS
                   OURS                 OURS
                     OURS            OURS
                        OURS      OURS
                          OURS  OURS
                             OURS
 
I Told you!

My Darling I love you!!


Rod

MAIL>

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  • Breakout (Atari 2600)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment


    https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/190159206140/rjmacready1982-breakout


    Released in 1976 by Atari, Breakout was among the earliest arcade games. Like many early arcade games, it defined its own genre though Breakout itself was heavily influenced by Pong before it. The success of the arcade version of breakout led to its release as one of the early games on the Atari 2600 (Atari VCS).

    Gameplay, like in most early games, was fairly simple. The player controlled a “paddle” at the bottom of the screen which could be moved left and right to deflect a bouncing ball. The goal was to break all of the bricks at the top of the screen. In both the arcade and Atari 2600 versions the player could use paddle controllers which consisted of a dial that could be rotated left and right, sort of like a mini steering wheel. The vast majority of Atari 2600 games supported jostick controls and not the paddle controllers but Breakout and other games like it were popular enough for those controllers to be included with the Atari 2600.

    Breakout spawned a huge number of imitators. There was of course the sequel, Super Breakout, which was really just a modestly enhanced version of the original. Then there is my favorite contemporary imitator, Circus Atari which changed things up slightly by having two clowns bounce on a seesaw to pop baloons overhead. However, my personal all time favorite version and the version that I still think is best to this day is Arkanoid. In addition to a storyline that matters very little to the actual game play, various power-ups and obstacles are added to provide quite a bit more variety thant he original. It didn’t hurt that it had better graphics too.

    Breakout is definitely a game you should try if you never have. You may get bored with it fast but it does have a sort of addictive quality to it. Fortunately, original copies for the Atari 2600 are easy to find and it is definitely best to play this game or any like it with a paddle controller.

    Pictured at the top is the box/label/manual art for the Atari 2600 version of Breakout. It appears to feature someone playing tennis. Atari’s early artwork was awesome but it frequenly only obliquely referenced what the actual game play was all about. Screen shots are from the Atari 2600 version of Breakout.


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  • 50 Cent Comics – Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #122 (1987)

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment


    At this year’s MegaCon in Orlando, I bought a bunch of comic books for 50 cents each and I’ve been posting my score here. Next up is Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #122.

    This particular story is titled ‘A Father’s Night Out’ and is from January 1987. It starts off with Peter finding a baby in an Alley. It turns out to be the son of Brendan Doyle, A.K.A. Mauler, a relatively obscure Spider-Man villain. Apparently he had been trying to take the baby from his mother and the mother tossed him out the window to protect him. I say obscure but there’s an interesting history here. Mauler is kind of like Iron Man in that it was a suit of armor produced by Stark Industries. There were a few different Maulers and he participated in the Civil War story-line to a small degree, at least in the comics.

    Spider-Man takes the baby to the hospital and prevents Mauler from taking him away. This, as you might expect, leads to the inevitable confrontation. Spider-Man handles him pretty easily (he’s no Iron Man) though wrecks part of the hospital in the process.

    There weren’t a whole lot of great ads in this issue but the back cover had this ad for Dungeons & Dragons Set #5: Immortal Rules. I still own Set #1 but I don’t think I ever got any other non-Advanced D&D stuff…

    See the previous 50 Cent Comics entry here: https://steemit.com/comics/@darth-azrael/0-cent-comics-spiderwoman-2-2015-1561988273452




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