6 years ago i found a single line in a Maxis Software catalog from the mid 90s, selling a multimedia cd-rom title called Coral Reef! The Vanishing Undersea World.
web and usenet searches had no information on it, and it appeared to be another piece of 90s vaporware. i added it to my ebay search list, on the off-chance it might pop up some day
a month ago, it suddenly did, and finally arrived today. i spent the afternoon documenting it and ripping the hybrid mac/win cd-rom to disc images.
it's a weird situation. maxis wasn't known for publishing very many titles developed by other studios. arnowitz studios was well known for their high quality multimedia cd-roms like San Diego Zoo Presents: The Animals! so i suppose they were willing to take a risk with it.
the disc is now imaged and uploaded here with my blessings:
https://archive.org/details/coral_reef_vanishing_undersea_world
there are several ISO formats included in the archive, because it's a very weird hybrid disc which doesn't seem to be compatible with dosbox or mini vmac. i split it apart into mac and win discs, to make things a little easier.
People will still find it, embrace it, love it."
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-most-dangerous-thing-in-culture-c0d
(My own inner standard on good enough remains as high as – if not rising even higher than – it ever was.)
https://matduggan.com/you-know-gdpr-is-good-based-on-who-hates-it/
Official announcement about the documentary going on hiatus will come next week, now that the paperwork's been signed. For GDPR reasons, I need a new mailing list (the new site), but we'll send a final update out on the SCUMMdoc list.
I keep forgetting to mention that the remaining Shareware Heroes paperback copies are now being sold by Wilton Square Books, via all the usual sales channels. They acquired the leftover stock and set up a profit-share deal with me. There will be no reprint, although I may do an expanded edition in a couple years.
As noted previously, I'm selling digital copies directly through Payhip (and I'll get the "shareware edition" ebook out as soon as I have time to design a book version of the old registration info screens).
A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games ⚽️
Explores the evolution of football games across four decades, featuring 400 titles spanning 2D classics and cutting-edge 3D simulations.
Score a copy: https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/a-tale-of-two-halves
#bitmapbooks #bookstagram #football #soccer #gaming #bookstodon @MossRC
A couple of chaps in Sydney (one of whom worked on Good Game and Spawn Point, both now full-time post-production staff for The Wiggles) are trying to get a documentary series off the ground about Aussie games history, told by the people who were there, and they need your support. You can back the project on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/regionlocked-doco/region-locked
Are you enjoying the World Cup?🏆⚽️
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 - Featured in our book - A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games ⚽️
Featuring over 400 games!
Score a copy: https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/a-tale-of-two-halves
#bitmapbooks #worldcup #football #soccer #gaming #bookstodon
Not "commissioning editor" but rather "referenced in recent publishing industry coverage as a commissioning editor". As thought they're not sure of their own job.
World Cup fever has gripped Bitmap HQ 🏆⚽️
Check out our book - Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games ⚽️
Featuring over 400 games!
Who do you think will win the tournament?
Score a copy: https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/a-tale-of-two-halves
#bitmapbooks #worldcup #football #soccer #gaming #bookstodon
Someone was inspired by my Shareware Heroes book to archive their collection of mail-order 5.25" shareware floppies, circa 1990-94, most of which came from a catalogue called Reasonable Solutions. There's a great mix of stuff in here. https://archive.org/details/525disk
Read this. "Google didn’t talk about ads in the I/O keynote. Everything they announced is the new ad system. One that, in the eyes of Google, no longer needs the open web as an intermediary … Google is betting its entire future on a world where people eagerly hand over their emails, their files, their habits, and their trust – to an AI system that will quietly auction off their attention, word by word, to the highest bidder." by @matthiasott https://matthiasott.com/notes/ad-infinitum
In Yesterday's IO Keynote Google declared war on the remnants of the Web.
While they packaged it as a lot of "AI" talk what their whole approach of decontextualizing information, of taking away links to sources and instead producing some LLM generated response means is that they want to establish a new abstraction layer on the web. Where Zuckerberg with his Metaverse failed Google is starting the next attack: Your website, your work no longer matters.
Well it matters as (unpaid) raw material for their synthetic text extruders but not as cultural artifact you can share with others.
This is a literal revolution but one against the participatory web, against us: The goal is to take away the web and guide people into Google's abstraction on top of it. An abstraction they control and moderate. It's about monopolizing access to information.
If you care about the web, about people's ability to participate in it as more than mere passive consumers, this needs to be taken seriously. De-Googlifying your mental apparatus becomes more urgent today. Find other search engines, don't use their browser. Or wake up in a slopified AOL kind of environment.
@praetor Yep, makes sense. I've not coded professionally, despite my CS degree, but I know enough to know that I don't want an LLM coding for me -- especially as I have barely any experience in real-world software architecture, which means the unknown unknowns for me are vast, and you can't maintain or fix code you don't understand.
@praetor Likewise with some game dev stuff I'm doing in my (very limited) spare time. I also want to actually learn and improve my skills, and to think carefully about the design and architecture -- because I know it'll be better (and feel more rewarding) that way.
@thomasfuchs Agreed. I'm deeply concerned at the coming loss of knowledge and insurmountable tech debt that lies ahead if more people in software engineering (and especially the managers) don't get their heads around this soon.
It's a tool; its power lies in the augmentation, not replacement, of skilled human talent.
The West Forgot How to Build. Now It's Forgetting Code https://techtrenches.dev/p/the-west-forgot-how-to-make-things