9-inch bitmapped glory
Here’s a website that brings back some old Mac gaming memories.
Warning: you might need an emulator to run some of thse titles. Even a newer Mac may need to emulate an older one.
Weekend in western Virginia
Posting from the handheld, since the computer’s back in Virginia Beach. Rain’s off at Origins, and I’m got a kitty magnetically attached to my lap – she hasn’t seen me in two weeks, nor Rain for a couple days. Boy did she cuss me when I walked in.
Brought some card sets up for this evening. I’ll probably get cleaned up and leave for Blacksburg before long. More driving. Good thing my car’s comfy as they go.
It’s interesting trying to read webcomics on the screen of a handheld. I wonder if I could manage to save up for an nice eBay laptop by Xmas, one I can shoehorn OS X onto.
Kitty’s purring.
Cleaning the attic of my brain
Two interesting tidbits of geek stuff crossed my desk this morning; first, there’s finally a really nice, configurable, Matrix code screensaver for Mac OS X. Too bad all my machines migrated to SETI@home some time ago. Second, it looks like the new AIM for Windows beta has early video chat support, and may soon be compatible with Apple’s iChat AV. That would be wonderful news, seeing as the video chat support in Yahoo! Messenger for OS X is… weak.
I’m now the navigator for kittykatya‘s pirate crew, yarrgh! I wonder if Tom Monaghan still has the letters of marque issued to the SS MacKeigh by the court of Riversmeet (I think)?
Christmas was very good, and in my case, spread over all of December. I got to see a lot of people who are important to me, and yes, I got a lot of neat stuff – to deny that I enjoy people giving me gifts would be hypocrisy of a high order. I know some people who feel that it’s better to spend the whole year being good to their fellow humans, rather than to concentrate it on a single season; I can’t argue with the sentiment, but I feel that we always need times of special celebration.
Still don’t know for sure what I’m doing New Year’s – we have several plans, but they all depend on things out of our control. I had hoped to finally meet subbes face-to-face this week, but I just don’t know right now.
Hako!
I love the old Ray Dunakin World Builder games. Sure, the graphics are quaint, antiquated, but the puzzles are fun, and the bad jokes just make it better. (Actually, the antiquated graphics add a bit to the charm!) Legend has it that Myst was inspired by games like these.
Unfortunately, the sounds don’t want to work right in Power Macintoshes. That’s why I was installing a System 6 emulator for OS X the other day.
SoftMac and Basilisk II can both emulate older Macs under Windows and Linux, respectively. Users of other systems probably know more about available emulators than I would.
Free games rule!
First things first…
Happy belated birthday to meiran. My calendar said your birthday was on the 27th… on the other hand, it also said you were born in 2080, so it obviously needed a bit of correcting.
Thanks to vond, jdunson, corin_wolfkin, and the Carilion crowd for showing up at Rain’s party, and thanks to yubbie for the cake on Saturday 🙂
It was a heck of a weekend – I got a little personal time in after work Thursday, but Thursday evening I drove some stuff over to Rain’s gaming venue, and finished the evening with dinner at the Tanglewood Macado’s… Friday I went from work, to bill-paying, to home to pack for Rain’s party, to Anne-Marie’s for the actual party *puff-puff, whew*.
Saturday, over to VTSFFC click-base day, where I discovered (by running demos) that the Shadowrun Duels system is fast-paced and fun, and does lend itself to use in actual RPG situations. OTOH, Benny and jdunson both found out a click-base truism: though two sides may be even in points, the side with more figures has a noticeable advantage.
Saturday night was dinner at the Blacksburg Macado’s, where we plotted to make everyone at nius‘ high school reunion jumpy and confused, and we discussed the details of wirelessly networking sex toys.
Sunday, I had a little personal time, but it got divided between a long-distance phone call, laundry and dishes, and installing MacOS 6 on my G4. (Really – and I had a good reason.) After that, dinner with rattrap, corin_wolfkin, and Rockbender. Back home, to a couple hours of private time with the lovely raininva, and finally to bed.
And after all that – I couldn’t sleep last night!
Titanium For Sale
My boss wants to sell his Apple G4 “Titanium” PowerBook and upgrade to a faster desktop. This is one of the original G4 PowerBooks with a 400 MHz Motorola PowerPC, 10 GB hard disk, slot-loading CD/DVD drive, and an 8 Meg ATI Rage Mobility 128 video card. Memory has been upgraded to 384 Megs. It will cheerfully run MacOS 9.1 through the current MacOS X 10.2.6.
Complete stats may be found here:
http://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/stats/powerbook_g4_400.html
He’s asking $1200 for it. If there’s any interest, drop me a note!