Club Silicon

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to all, even though it's nearly a week past. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday. As we approach the new year it's usually a good idea to look at where we've been to help decide where we need to go.

It's funny how many parallels there are, really. Twenty years ago I'd have been playing Castlevania. Now I'm working my way through both Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Dawn of Sorrow. All those years ago I would have been creating mix tapes and now I'm writing articles about DRM for Mix. So truthfully since not a whole lot has changed, let's start with changing something in 2007.

2007 is when I plan to present my own music to the world. Some will be for sale, some will be free in the CS podcasts you've enjoyed. It's also the year I plan on setting things in motion in the game industry that I control. Bringing things like the concepts of marrying art and business, and a new meaning of professionalism where the two meet. Finally I plan on breaking the "holier than thou" armor off the information business world. Tall orders all three, but doable. 

Another thing that will change a bit is the look of Club Silicon. The loyal readers of CS deserve a bit of eye as well as ear candy now and then. The nice looking intro picture is an example of computer days gone by, now known as pixel art. This particular work is called The Christmas Corner and is by Joboman. I got it from a great site called Pixel Joint. There's a lot more cool looking bits of artwork here:

In the meantime I truly hope that you enjoy the holidays. Write in and tell me what you got, or what you wished you had got. I got some great music and some great Tequila!

Bottoms up.

Drawing Programs

Before the advent of the mighty blog, there was the HTML updated website. Before that, there was the BBS and distributed text file. Before that, the hardcopy newsletter. I admit that I greatly miss putting things together and printing them out on paper, and while it is gratifying to save trees, paper gives a feeling of solidarity and reality that is lost on a PC screen. I used to programs to create the original Club Silicon newsletters, and this post will be a tribute to them.

Arts and Letters

Created originally by a company named Computer Support Corporation (now known as Arts and Letters Corporation) located on Midway road in Dallas, Texas, Arts and Letters was one of the original "big" drawing packages for PC. Running on our Zeos 386SX, it contained 2,000 pieces of clip art and over 50 fonts. When printing on a laser printer such as the HP LaserJet IIp at an astonishing 300dpi, it looked near to publishing quality.

The disadvantages were that if you had more than 2 pages of content, you had to wait 15 minutes or more for a printout. In addition, displaying the content would take up to several minutes to redraw on the screen. Regardless, this was the first time one could feel like a publisher of professional looking content at home.

Arts and Letters is miraculously still selling their software here.

Corel Draw

Corel Draw was the biggest competitor to Arts and Letters and in the end became a bit more used by the amateur (at this point in the early 1990s, Quark Xpress had become the de facto standard for professionals). It did have a greater set of features, and the company itself eventually expanded to purchase Fractal Designs' "Painter" and even "Wordperfect" from the Wordperfect corporation.

Corel is still selling Corel Draw, so kudos to them as well.

The conclusion from all this? Yes, there will be a Club Silicon commemorative edition and it will be created using one of these programs. That is, once this blog actually gets marketed a bit. I'm still working on that one. In the meantime these programs can be used to create board games as I learned from my friend and colleague Jason Emery, so that might be a good idea for one of Nicholas' or Conner's birthdays.

Palm Tree Tribute

When growing up on the east coast I was used to trees only (or at least mostly) of a deciduous nature. Oak, maple, poplar, elm, dogwood, magnolia, and pine. All of them had a fairly common symmetrical shape. My view of trees was shattered when I first saw a palmetto in Savannah, Georgia on my first visit to see my grandparents' house there in the summer of 1983.

Since then I have been fascinated with palm trees, though not inexplicably. Palm trees are greatly different from any other tree and are associated with beaches and visions of utopia. Each person has their own vision and interpretation of them, some associate them with sleazy rich attitudes, some with peace and tranquility, some dismiss them altogether as they're 'just another plant'. To me they represent relaxation and pleasant childhood memories, and yes, in perhaps a shallow way what has been handed to me by the media as "paradise". Danny Glover said it best in "Lethal Weapon", and I'll explain that one later.

I also find interest in the different types of palm trees. Jeanette and Nicholas were kind enough to get me books on palms for Father's Day last year. Here are the kinds I have found in San Diego:

California Fan (or Desert) Palm (Washingtonia Filifera, far right)

This particular palm is perhaps the most common, possibly because it is the only palm native to southern California. This palm resembles the palmetto except (as you'll see in this picture I took in Balboa park) they're usually much taller.

Queen Palm (Arecastrum or Syagrus romanzoffianum, far left)

The second most common palm tree in San Diego, this is the palm I consider the least attractive. Almost weedlike but very easy to grow, I suppose it is the poor man's palm.

King Palm (Arcontophoenix Alexander, second from left)

This palm is the best looking standard palm tree San Diego has to offer. Nearly to the highest standard set by the coconut palm, the King Palm and Royal Palm (Royal palms are mostly found in Florida) are among the most regal and proud of the palms. There are several specimens in the houses close to ours in Mira Mesa.

Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix Canariensis, second from right)

The Canary Island Date Palm is the sequoia of palms. With a thick diamond trunk and enormous fronds, this palm is used for places that wish to present the most majestic entrances such as casinos and Stanford University (pictured).

PC Game "Golden Age" Collection

While it would be nice to call this a "PC Games Greatest Hits" collection, it is by no means a representation of the most popular PC games to date. Instead it represents games that all had unique gameplay feature as well as solid graphics and sound.

In this series I will post mini reviews of each one as I get the opportunity to play them again. What will make them interesting is a blurb here and there from developers who created the games as well.

4D Boxing
A10 Tank Killer
Adventure Construction Set
Bard's Tale
Bard's Tale 3: Thief of Fate
Battle Chess
Battle Chess 2
Cadaver
Centurion
Chaos Engine
Corporation
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Deathtrack
Demon Stalkers
Doom
Dream Zone
Dungeon Master
Elite Plus
Eye of the Beholder
Falcon AT
Flashback
Jazz Jackrabbit
Jumpman
Legacy of the Ancients
Lemmings
Lightspeed
Loom
Mechwarrior
Might and Magic 2
Nova 9
Nuclear War
Out of this World
Privateer
Prophecy
Red Baron
Scorched Earth
Shadowgate
Shufflepuck Cafe
Silpheed
Sim City
Sky Roads
Sorcerian
Space Quest 4
Space Station Oblivion
Star Control
Star Control 2
Starflight 2
Stellar 7
Syndicate
Syndicate Wars
Traffic Department 2192
Test Drive 2
Times of Lore
Tyrian
Ultima 4
Ultima 5
Ultima 6
Vette
Wing Commander
Wolfenstein 3D
Zany Golf
Zork I

Argh. This is the second time I've had to post this. Typepad doesn't seem to have a convenient way to save posts before publishing them. Ah well, on to the post itself. Again.

Club Silicon began as mentioned as an Arts & Letters paper newsletter around 1987 printed on a Hewlett Packard Laserjet IIp. The previous issue is available here as a JPG: Download CSIssue2.zip

There was a simpler time in computing, where organization and efficiency weren't nearly as important because the market really wasn't that big. All that was important was enjoying a completely new method of creation, from art to business.

Here are some sites that I visit every now and again for a nice walk down memory lane, not because I long for it, but because when genuine simplicity of a thing intermingles with the ignorance of childhood, it links one to that thing in an uncanny way.

Home of the Underdogs: Site for old PC games. A future post will feature this site and some of its best titles.

Mobygames: While not comprehensive, this is the best video game database out there.

Old-Computers: Our first family computer was a rather obscure "portable" PC called the Seequa Chameleon. My friend Jason's father had an Apple II plus. There was a time when PCs didn't have the games, Apples did. Now it is the other way around. Funny eh?

AtariAge: A colleauge of mine Al Yarusso co-runs this site. While I had a Bally Arcade, the 2600 was indisputably the first widespread home videogame system of any consequence.

Zophar.net: Game music archives in addition to other goodies. The game music is playable using WinAMP plug-ins.