Pleroma

Pleroma

vga256 vga256@dialup.cafe

for the past few years i've been working to preserve as much of the multimedia era as i can.

brian thomas's If Monks Had Macs is a weird collection of hypercard modules that brian made, and collected them together into a fascinating piece of multimedia. equal parts interactive book, point and click text adventure, journaling software, art analysis, and social commentary - i wouldn't even know how to review it!

there were two editions of the program. the first was all made in Hypercard by brian in black and white in 1988. this one has a special place in my heart because all of the artwork was done in macpaint. you can play it in-browser here: https://archive.org/details/ifmonkshadmacs_1988

the second was remade by brian and his friends in 1995, using Voyager Expanded Books' Toolkit - which was basically a massive re-implementation of hypercard. it is in full colour this time, with some rendered artwork in place of the old macpaint art. disc image here: https://archive.org/details/IfMonksHadMacs

@MossRC has a great interview with brian on the history of the program, very much worth listening to here: https://lifeandtimes.games/episodes/files/ifmonkshadmacs

does anyone know brian personally? it would be great to have him on mastodon!

The front cover of If Monks Had Macs, by Brian Thomas & friends. It shows a medieval-style monastery upon a hill overlooking the ocean. The interior of If Monks Had Macs, showing a plain black and white manual, and a CD-ROM. A screenshot from If Monks Had Macs. The left shows a black and white picture of a medieval monastery and castle, which was probably drawn from a woodcut. The right shows the text: This is EveryWare! If you like it enough to keep it for yourself, give it to someone else! If all the world's information was at our fingertips, would our thoughts be any less scattered? I think not. These stacks invite you to explore the world of an idea rather than a catalogue of facts.

Richard Moss MossRC
@vga256 Still one of my favourite software things ever, made even better by discussing the story behind it with Brian.
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MisterArix MisterArix@akkoma.thesandbox.net

@MossRC @vga256

I saved this quote from IMHM a long time ago, and I haven’t been able to find it online. Who was Michael Lockhard? Was he a regular person who interacted with Brian Thomas, or a pseudonym for a BBS user? There is a stack in IMHM that simulated a BBS discussion forum, and I may have gotten the quote from there.

I want to believe that there is some incredible purpose to our lives. Failing that, I want to find the single unifying element which makes all human life worthwhile….Surely there is some greater purpose served by our heartache and passion than the meager receipts of infirmity and death. – Michael Lockhard

Richard Moss MossRC
@MisterArix @vga256 It's a great quote, but I'm not sure what the origin is. Brian pulled stuff from all over the place, though, so it could be from a book, a BBS, or something else.