Innovation in 1984

The gaming industry has always been driven by impressive electronic stunts and innovative game-play. When people think personal computers and 1984, they think about text-based number guessing games, and maybe Breakout or Pac-Man.

But what few realize is that 6502c assembly actually offered quite a bit of power. It took almost genius, but if you were smart enough you could write some pretty impressive games. (for 1984)

SkyFox on the Apple IIe (6502)

SkyFox for the Apple II is one of the most impressive games I've ever seen run on a 6502. I really do have this game on a 5.25" floppy, and I really do run it on my Apple IIc. It gives a pretty good illusion of 3D while rocketing past tanks and terrain, firing a machine-gun all the while.

The game was written by Stewart Bonn, and Richard Hilleman, a couple of guys who would later go on to work as executives at Electronic Arts.

But to put this in perspective the Apple II runs a 65c02 at 1.023Mhz with 128 KB of RAM and a 280x192 hi-rez display with 6 colors. With... and introductory cost in 1984 of $1,295.

We've come a long ways since 1984 but one thing has never changed, innovation in the industry always leads to success. And it's not just the gaming industry in which this is true, in almost any area, when you can be smarter, different, and better, you do two things, you win financially, and you help the industry progress. It's innovation that improves the world.

GNU Grandma

Ubuntu, Linux for Human Beings

There are many folks who don't want to make the switch to Linux mostly because they're scarred by thoughts of editing .conf files and hacking for three hours after install just to get their wifi adapter to work. Back in 2006 that might have been the case, but not so much anymore. Ubuntu 11.04 (yes, that's the OS I referenced in my last post) is truly an OS for the twenty-tens.

So, as you may have guessed by the title, I've got one of the awesomest grandmas ever. That's right, my 92 year old grandmother is using Ubuntu Linux. So, what does that mean to the you? It means that after many long hours of hard work, thousands of bug fixes, and a lot of palm sweat, the Canonical team has finally reached their goal: Ubuntu, Linux for Human Beings.

Am I negating my last post about #! Linux? Not at all. My netbook is a... special needs computer. Yeah. It's got an 10 inch screen with 1GB of RAM and a Intell Atom Dual Core with an integrated GPU. But for your average laptop that you'd pick up at Wall-Mart, with even a couple gigs of ram, Ubuntu is really the way to go. Why? Because it works out of the box. That is, right after install, it looks nice and works. Ask anyone about install and you'll be given the same answer, "Ubuntu has the best install process."

I did it, but my grandma could have done the install herself. It's that easy. It asks if you want to use the whole HD, and you click yes, it asks you for your passwords, and asks for your timezone, and it does the rest of the magic. Then you sit back and relax while a progress bar proceeds under a Narwhal. Which, by the way, is a great conversation piece for you and your 92 year old grandma.

So are you undecided about which distro to use on your decently powered laptop computer? Try Ubuntu. It's Linux... for human beings.