@vga256@tomodori.net cover
@vga256@tomodori.net avatar

vga256

@[email protected]

indigenous canadian, recovering academic → writer, gamedev & interactive toolsmith with a penchant for modems, the 4o3 bbs scene, 1-bit art, classic macs, and 80s/90s gaming. curator of internet, canadian & gaming historical obscura.

→ mages & modems: growing up in the golden age of personal computers, games & internet piracy
→ kiki: a tiny homepage construction kit
→ exigy: a VB & Hypercard-like shareware game creation kit https://exigy.org

(profile: a 6¢ canada red fox stamp)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

maxis artists' 1-bit monochrome art for the early educational titles is so underrated. zoom in for some incredibly crisp pixels. 😋

for anyone else curious: this is the extremely obscure 640x480 2-colour VGA/MCGA version of the game that you can only see by installing from diskette. the mac b+w version has the same 1-bit artwork.

The splash screen for SimAnt, showing the face of an ant in the foregorund, drawn entirely in black and white pixels. The SimAnt logo is above its head. In the background is a triangle representing a very important UI element used throughout the game.
A screenshot showing the build/explore maps in the game. They are tile-based black and white drawings of a pebbled sandy area. There is so much pixel density that it appears to look greyscale. There are large boulder like rocks, and larger cliffs among the stones. There are two background windows showing the triangular control interface elements, which act like sliders that can operate in two dimensions.

A screenshot showing the build/explore maps in the game. They are tile-based black and white drawings of a pebbled sandy area. There is so much pixel density that it appears to look greyscale. There are large boulder like rocks, and larger cliffs among the stones. There are two background windows showing the triangular control interface elements, which act like sliders that can operate in two dimensions.
ALT
vga256 OP ,
@vga256@tomodori.net avatar

@dosnostalgic neat! i've never listened to the soundtrack in covox mode

@vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

25 years too late, i want to thank all of you UK music pirates who left open their napster and limewire clients on 33.6k/56k dialup connections for hours at a time in the middle of the night in 2000.

when i was a teenager in the late 90s and early 2000s, canada was still recovering from a decade of hopeless grunge, there weren't many options for learning about new music aside from the radio. 99% of it was dead pop and rock. but a local university radio station (CJSR) exclusively played all kinds of music you couldn't find anywhere else.

one night, at 2am, a CJSR deejay queued up a track by a band called Lemon Jelly. after decades of despondent punk/rock/grunge, it was the most refreshing and uplifting thing i had ever heard. the kind of music that was just glad if you smiled a bit.

except, i couldn't find it anywhere. the big local shops like HMV didn't import LJ's label, and i couldn't afford to import it myself from a UK music store.

that week, i spent dozens of hours digging through every limewire/napster share i could find. and finally, i found it: someone in the UK had dumped the entire CD to 128kbit mp3s, as well as recordings from BBC 1's The Breezeblock.

a year later, i was finally able to buy their CD in-store, along with the incredible Illustrator vector artwork by lemon jelly themselves. i not only became a fan of LJ, but became strongly influenced by their low-poly vector illustration style in my own design work.

so: a belated thank you UK napsterites for sharing your music overseas 🙏

@vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

it is a lot easier to make incorrect bread than correct bread.

for the past few weeks i’ve been working on improving my sourdough so that it rises taller, has more big air pockets inside, and is less dense.

i haven’t changed any ingredients. the secret is in the handling practices. big generous fold-overs once every half hour, instead of mechanical mixing with a dough hook. rising in the fridge overnight, instead of rising in a warm place, so the yeast doesn’t run out of gas

results are promising. 🫡

A very dark brown loaf of sourdough bread, dusted lightly with flour on top. it snaps and crackles loudly as it cools
ALT
@vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

all of mastodon encapsulated in one Wilson comic by daniel clowes

A page from a comic book. It shows a man walking his dog. He is talking to himself at first, about his love for humanity. He meets another dog walker who starts complaining about their bad day with computers. I LOVE PEOPLE I'M A PEOPLE PERSON .. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US HAS A STORY TO TELL, AND WE'RE ALL PART OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. HOW TRAGIC THAT WE'VE LOST ALL SENSE OF COMMUNITY WITH OUR FELLOW MAN! HELLO, SISTER. HOW'S LIFE TREATING YOU? DON'T ASK! MY COMPUTER JUST CRASHED AND I LOST ALL MY PREFERENCES! I'VE SPENT ALL MORNING GETTING THE RUNAROUND FROM TECH SUPPORT, AND WHEN I FINALLY GOT TO TALK TO SOME GUY HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON THEY WANT ME TO DOWNLOAD SOME PROGRAM OR SOMETHING , BUT EVERY TIME I TRY TO DO IT THE STUPID COMPUTER JUST CRASHES AGAIN... FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, DON'T YOU EVER SHUT UP?
ALT
@vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

so i'd love an open discussion about something that i don't have much vocabulary for, if only because there are so few examples of it on the world wide web. anyone/everyone is welcome to chime in.

back in the mid/late 90s there were some attempts at turning web forums and chat interfaces into virtual worlds. beyond all of the 3d chat rooms and telnet muds, there were some 2d graphical sites like moo.ca. The Canada SchoolNet moo was a mud/moo that allowed users to add/remove/modify rooms in real time, in-browser.

snapshot archived here - click 'Web Walkthrough' to walk around:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010417181313/http://www.moo.ca/home

Furcadia went a hundred steps further and integrated a 2d tile-based world with a world editor and script editor, so you could build your own "dreams" (multiplayer instances) within the shared game world. the entire game was built around socialization.

both of the above games are not just fancy web chat terminals. building and decorating the game world is a critical part of the social experience. you create a dining room, put chairs in it, program the chairs to allow players to use the 'sit' command, and then invite people into your dining room for a make-believe dinner party.

we now have reddit and various web forums. they're effectively the same threaded conversation that has been around since the usenet days.

what i don't see anymore are graphical WWW virtual worlds built around socialization. we either lock down everything and only allow chat. are there web-based MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs that allow for both world building and conversation?

A screenshot from the Furcadia client for Windows 95. It shows a furry character walking through a tile-based world composed of trees and roads. Below there is a MUD-style status window showing text describing the world and its rules. To the left is the character's portrait, as well as buttons for navigating through menus. It is very colourful and friendly.
ALT
vga256 OP ,
@vga256@tomodori.net avatar

on the topic of MOOs and MUDs, i can't believe the Weyrmount MOO still exists, on the exact same port, and at the same domain i first connected to it almost 30 years ago D:

telnet://moo.weyrmount.org 8000

An ascii splash screen for a Multi-User Dungeon (object-oriented) caleld Weyrmount II. It depicts a dragon atop a mountain, in a mountain chain. Its intro info reads: LambdaMOO 1.8.1 / High Wired enCore 1.1 / FUP 1.8 / ANSI 2.1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you already have a character here, type connect <player> <password> If you don't, type connect guest ...it will ask you what you wish to be known as. Enjoy, and welcome! RIP Darkswordsman, wizard of the Weyrmount, 1982-2007.
ALT
  • Reply
    • + demofox
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    back in the early pandemic, with way more time spent in my apartment than was healthy, i decided to run a solo podcast about 90s gaming on the Macintosh, Windows 3.1, and MS-DOS. my aim was introducing a level of technical and historical detail not often found on general audience video game podcasts.

    each episode took 10-20 hours of research and writing to explore in depth. i tried to pick less popular games that hadn't been talked about much, were underrated, or fascinating from a programming perspective.

    in 2022 we moved, i began new programming projects, and the podcast went on the shelf. i always meant to get back to it, and received many e-mails about future episodes.

    today i'm relaunching the podcast.

    website link:
    https://podcast.vga256.com

    rss link:
    http://podcast.vga256.com/rss.xml

    apple podcasts link:
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/multimedia-hyperguide-windows-3-1-macintosh-and-ms/id1393890581

    feedburner link:
    http://feeds.feedburner.com/MultimediaHyperguide

    while i write the next episode, please enjoy some of the earlier episodes, including everyone's beloved SimAnt (episodes 14 and 15).

    here are some box and browsies shots of SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony (Maxis, 1991) for 16-bit windows. i use the physical boxes and their documentation during research and writing. this has a 150+ page manual, which is 50% ant science!

    The documentation for SimAnt, left to right: Maxis Software Toys Catalog SimAnt Manual SimAnt technical manual Disk exchange offer and product registration cards Two low density diskettes.
    Two pages from the SimAnt manual. The pages describe the various parts of anatomy of an ant, including the thorax and abdomen. There are line art drawings of the outlines of ants to illustrate each anatomical structure.
    A page from the SimAnt manual, showing a cartoon labelled Trophallaxis Funnies. It shows two ants in the kitchen of their home. One ant carries a briefcase asking, "What's for dinner honey?" The other ant, wearing a skirt and stirring a pot on the stove replies, "Oh, the same old crop." Cue laugh track.

    A page from the SimAnt manual, showing a cartoon labelled Trophallaxis Funnies. It shows two ants in the kitchen of their home. One ant carries a briefcase asking, "What's for dinner honey?" The other ant, wearing a skirt and stirring a pot on the stove replies, "Oh, the same old crop." Cue laugh track.
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    a few years ago i mentioned that i wrote a book about the exciting, awkward and embarrassing experiences of growing up with computers and video games in the 80s and 90s.

    i wanted to remember what it felt like being the only dorky computer kid at school. or what it was like to hear my first modem handshake sound. or starting the first flamewar on the school's national FirstClass BBS in the macintosh lab over the lunch-hour

    it was originally something i wrote only for my family and friends who were there at the time.

    and then i met all of you folks when i started my first masto instance 4 years ago. i had no idea there were so many hardcore retrocomputing and gaming nerds out there; unix and mac and ms-dos folks alike.

    so i mentioned it casually. i was surprised by the interest in the book.

    so i spent the better part of the past 3 years rewriting the book for you fellow mastodon dorkus malorkuses. the book is a celebration of all of the best (and worst) parts of a kid growing up in the digital age.

    we're all busy old tired stressed folks now. so every memory and cringetacular story is short enough to read on a 5 minute bus/metro/toilet ride. they're weaved together into an arc that starts at my family's first Tandy TRS-80 and ends at my school's Mac LC II and building my first Pentium 133.

    it's finally published, and i'm super proud of what it became thanks to everyone here nerding out for years.

    enjoy the book. i wrote it just for you. ❤️

    paperback edition: https://mybook.to/EDuUf

    DRM-free ebook (EPUB format) and chapter samples here:
    https://tomotama.itch.io/mages-modems

    ![The rear cover of the book, showing a Carmen Sandiego-style letter from the ACME Detective agency. The letter has a picture of a spazzing out kid wearing a Just Do It sweater. The letter reads: ACME Detective Agency Dear Detective , As discussed, I have enclosed a hardcopy of VGA256's journals discussed at the departmental briefing. The journal entries are chronological, and document the suspect's computing and gaming activities from the early 1980s to late 1990s - his childhood and adolescent years. Each vignette is an introspection into the suspect's self-described obsessions, including but not limited to: * IBM PC, Amiga, Apple ], Macintosh, Tandy * MS-DOS, MacOS, Windows 3.1 & 95, UNIX * NES, GameBoy, Sega Genesis, TI-85 * Modems, BBSes, CompuServe, Prodigy, ISPs * Warez, FTP, Usenet, IRC, Shell Accounts * Origin Systems, LucasArts, and Sierra On-Line ... and so on. The stories are a treasure trove of immoral and illicit activities that made him the dysfunctional adult he is now. I hope these will be of value in building your dossier on this delinquent. I expect a report on my desk by Friday. Deputy Chief Conover Brat & Punk Division

    The rear cover of the book, showing a Carmen Sandiego-style letter from the ACME Detective agency. The letter has a picture of a spazzing out kid wearing a Just Do It sweater. The letter reads: ACME Detective Agency Dear Detective #0294, As discussed, I have enclosed a hardcopy of VGA256's journals discussed at the departmental briefing. The journal entries are chronological, and document the suspect's computing and gaming activities from the early 1980s to late 1990s - his childhood and adolescent years. Each vignette is an introspection into the suspect's self-described obsessions, including but not limited to: * IBM PC, Amiga, Apple ][, Macintosh, Tandy * MS-DOS, MacOS, Windows 3.1 & 95, UNIX * NES, GameBoy, Sega Genesis, TI-85 * Modems, BBSes, CompuServe, Prodigy, ISPs * Warez, FTP, Usenet, IRC, Shell Accounts * Origin Systems, LucasArts, and Sierra On-Line ... and so on. The stories are a treasure trove of immoral and illicit activities that made him the dysfunctional adult he is now. I hope these will be of value in building your dossier on this delinquent. I expect a report on my desk by Friday. Deputy Chief Conover Brat & Punk Division
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    for my wife: the prized high quality cup found at the local value village

    is tmere anytming better tman tmat

    A mug with a holstein cow on the front that reads: cow zoo is tmerw anything else
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    i'm always kinda surprised and disappointed when i see fellow canadians pull out their phones to check the weather, and i see the default weather app pop up. these default apps rely upon US weather models, which are different than the Canadian local weather models. they contain different data, make different predictions, and lead to different outcomes. the canadian weather data is tuned for our winters especially, with important information like windchill.

    the official canadian weather website is:
    https://weather.gc.ca/canada_e.html (english)
    https://meteo.gc.ca/canada_f.html (french)

    the official apps:
    https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/weathercan/id1334221563 (iOS)
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gc.ec.weather_app_android.ops (android)

    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    our neighbourhood hare at sundown. she found the pile of spillover birdseed in the snow

    if you saw my photos of her weeks ago, her patchy brown summer coat has almost been completely replaced with her thick winter coat

    A prairie hare that has mostly turned white, with a few brown spots left, munches thoughtfully on birdseed below a feeder in powdery snow.

    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    gorgeous design work and colour choice on this olivetti typewriter ribbon box

    An olivetti typewriter ribbon box. It a bright, nearly radioactive green. It has two stylized flowers on the front, one blue, and one pink. The sides of the box match the colours of the pink flower.
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    a very specific digital preservation request:
    this dvd of a wii room show called 修理、魅せます。was sent to a couple thousand winners of a nintendo contest

    i'm trying to find (preferably) an iso, or perhaps a remux of the disc's contents. someone uploaded a copy to youtube as "the fascinating repairmen", but the quality is predictably horrendous.

    i'd love to see this archived on IA.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J1NPW19AKs

    A nintendo wii branded dvd for the fascinating repairmen.
    The rear cover of the fascinating repairmen, which lists the names of all 14 episodes.

    The rear cover of the fascinating repairmen, which lists the names of all 14 episodes.
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    really, really impressed with posty: a mastodon archive -> html static site generator

    it ingests your mastodon archive (post history) as a zip, and barfs out an entire static html site with indices and tags. all servable with any standard web server.

    this is super helpful because when i shut down the dialup.cafe instance, there was no easy way to get access to my old posts and images.

    it can either be run online here:
    https://posty.1sland.social

    or instructions here for running it locally:
    https://codeberg.org/oliphant/posty

    a user profile page for @vga256@dialup.cafe. it shows the user's profile pic (a fox) and a background banner (a beyond hypercard screenshot, drawn by robin miller)
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    the whole reason i rescued these NeXT machines from a garage an hour away was because of the asset tags still glued to them.

    i know exactly where and when the machines came from: the university of alberta's General Services Building (GSB), 8th floor, computer lab, in 1995.

    when i was a teenager, my mom would take me to the university and let me wander around campus with a pocket full of quarters for the arcade

    her grad student office was on the 8th floor. across from it was the department computer lab, which consisted of three rows of boring beige 386 SX-20's and a massive line printer. i used to goof around playing Jezzball and Pipe Dream on those machines.

    but tucked off in the corner were four jet black machines. they all had huge monochrome monitors, and a gorgeous GUI with Wile E. Coyote on the login prompt. there was a big sign that read "you must have permission from CNS to use these computers". i'd sneak over and try every login/pass i could dream of, and never figured out how to login.

    ffwd to the 2000s:
    i've hunted every week for the past 25 years to find those machines. i suspected they might turn up on some local ad eventually, and today they did.

    they were bought by a gentleman (now in his 80s) from a provincial government surplus equipment auction sale 20+ years ago. they were decommissioned by the department, boxed up and auctioned as e-waste. he thought they'd be valuable, so he bought them all for a pittance. they sat in his garage for 25 years collecting dust, until his wife asked him to start clearing out his computing junk. (i'll post a pic of his garage soon)

    so here they are - the department's most expensive asset at $10-20K CAD (after upgrades and accessories), ready to be put back to work again soon

    A SCSI CD-ROM drive with a University of Alberta asset tag stickered to the top. The tag# is 0204218
    ALT
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    this morning i got to live out multiple dreams simultaneously

    someone on fb marketplace was selling a bunch of big box games. he asked me to meet him at the mall - “i’ll be on the bus parked near the safeway”.

    i pulled up beside a massive yellow bluebird school bus, and was welcomed by a ponytailed bus driver in his 50s. i boarded the bus and realized it was exactly the same inside as the one i rode 40 years earlier.

    it took a whole 5 seconds to start a conversation about the Ultima series, AD&D, EverQuest and Ultima Online. we swapped UO playerkiller and mining war stories, and EQ spawn camping tales

    “I played EQ for 10 years before I realized I was in my 40s and my life had gotten away from me.”

    ✅ hang out with greybeard school bus driver
    ✅ talk about ultima and rpg’s on school bus
    ✅ not get ass kicked on school bus for the above

    Two big box games: Heretic II and Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle.
    ALT
    vga256 OP ,
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar

    and just look at the glorious browsies and feelies in the Serpent Isle box 😻

    this is one of the last times Origin put serious creative effort into their game boxes.

    @gamesthatwerent@mastodon.world avatar gamesthatwerent , to random

    Thank you everyone for the kind thoughts and wishes. Sadly mum passed away on Sunday morning, so everyone quite numb at the moment. Missing her phone calls talking about the birds on her bird feeder :(

    vga256 ,
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar

    @gamesthatwerent ❤️ my condolences

    @gamesthatwerent@mastodon.world avatar gamesthatwerent , to random

    Sorry for the lack of updates - my mum is sadly severely ill right now, so I’ve paused everything to spend as much time with her as I can that she has left. Please, take every chance to hug your loved ones and tell them you love them.

    vga256 ,
    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar

    @gamesthatwerent grievous. enjoy your time together 🙏

    @vga256@tomodori.net avatar vga256 , to random

    i am both horrified and proud to announce that it took 29 years but i finally finished a quest in Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures 😅

    what an insanely underrated game. some of the procedural puzzle generation is extremely subtle and absolutely impervious to bugs due to exceptional design.

    Indy stands before his nemesis, who demands a map to treasure in exchange for releasing a prisoner in a jail cell.
    The win screen for Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures, with an IQ score of 238.

    The win screen for Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures, with an IQ score of 238.
    ALT