The Little Mac Classic That Could
September 4, 2009 7:46 AM Subscribe
A Mac Classic shows bullies what's for in "3½ inches is enough" by Unreal Voodoo. This demo (actually written to run on a Mac Classic) was presented at ASSEMBLY, Finland's largest computer festival. More highlights from ASSEMBLY are available at GameSetWatch. The demos are mostly trippy and impressive hand-coded animations as one might expect, but there's also a live action short featuring a Rube Goldberg machine.
The person who thought to include mentos-and-diet-coke in the Rube Goldberg contraptoin is my new personal hero.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:54 AM on September 4, 2009
posted by Navelgazer at 7:54 AM on September 4, 2009
Is it an escaped science experiment?
More like proof that a pedobear can change his stripes.
posted by cortex at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
More like proof that a pedobear can change his stripes.
posted by cortex at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
The Rube Goldberg video gave me epilepsy.
I remember back in the day a friend showed me how to "ftp" onto the "internet" where you could download "demos". After just 3 hours of waiting, you could watch 30 seconds of trippy graphics! So amazing! Great stuff.
posted by DU at 8:06 AM on September 4, 2009
I remember back in the day a friend showed me how to "ftp" onto the "internet" where you could download "demos". After just 3 hours of waiting, you could watch 30 seconds of trippy graphics! So amazing! Great stuff.
posted by DU at 8:06 AM on September 4, 2009
More like proof that a pedobear can change his stripes.
Exactly what I thought that was. I am also doomed.
What was that game for the original black and white Mac that had impossibly-good (for the era) graphics and animation because it was all written in assembler? Dungeon something. It had a guy with a whip from whom you had to steal a key.
posted by rokusan at 8:15 AM on September 4, 2009
Exactly what I thought that was. I am also doomed.
What was that game for the original black and white Mac that had impossibly-good (for the era) graphics and animation because it was all written in assembler? Dungeon something. It had a guy with a whip from whom you had to steal a key.
posted by rokusan at 8:15 AM on September 4, 2009
I remember getting turbo pascal because you could use it to program both in pascal and in assembler. Then, writing out lookup tables for sine/ cosine values, and totally writing the fuck out of a plasma cloud, tweaking the maths so that the cloud varied in different ways, then writing is so that two clouds were interlaced on the screen and running at the same time which was pretty mindblowing on a 486/66. Good times, good times.
posted by boo_radley at 8:20 AM on September 4, 2009
posted by boo_radley at 8:20 AM on September 4, 2009
Dark Castle is the game you're thinking of. I played it so much on my Dad's Mac Plus I'd have dreams of extra, unseen levels.
posted by Paid In Full at 8:22 AM on September 4, 2009
posted by Paid In Full at 8:22 AM on September 4, 2009
These 4k and 64k demos continue to astonish me. I hope some of their creators get picked up by game companies to bring more procedural textures and procedural geometry into modern computer games. The #1 problem with game development now is the size and expense of all the art content. Procedural generation isn't going to fix that entirely, it's not cheap either. But just knowing what you can do in 4k of code and zero assets has to be liberating and suggest new approaches.
posted by Nelson at 8:33 AM on September 4, 2009
posted by Nelson at 8:33 AM on September 4, 2009
I hope some of their creators get picked up by game companies to bring more procedural textures and procedural geometry into modern computer games.
I was thinking it would be great to see these artists given more machine power. Just imagine, they could be the next George Lucas!*
*in that they could edit material from their glory days with needless special effects and new features that "complete their original vision," only receive nothing but hatred from their previous fans. On second thought, the power could go to their heads.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:35 AM on September 4, 2009
I was thinking it would be great to see these artists given more machine power. Just imagine, they could be the next George Lucas!*
*in that they could edit material from their glory days with needless special effects and new features that "complete their original vision," only receive nothing but hatred from their previous fans. On second thought, the power could go to their heads.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:35 AM on September 4, 2009
As someone who still has a soft spot for his old Mac Plus and SE, this is especially cool.
They didn't get the sound out of the Mac too, did they?
posted by weston at 9:57 AM on September 4, 2009
They didn't get the sound out of the Mac too, did they?
posted by weston at 9:57 AM on September 4, 2009
That probably is Mac sound. IIRC, it has one or two channels of 8-bit arbitrary waveform capability, so while it's fairly coarse-sounding, it can make arbitrarily complex sounds. I remember a friend who had a fairly early Mac playing back four-channel music on his.
posted by Malor at 10:31 AM on September 4, 2009
posted by Malor at 10:31 AM on September 4, 2009
The FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKK guy in the rube goldberg machine was a nice touch.
THE GAME,
you just lost it
posted by wcfields at 10:37 AM on September 4, 2009
THE GAME,
you just lost it
posted by wcfields at 10:37 AM on September 4, 2009
Future Crew ftw!
posted by HumanComplex at 11:22 AM on September 4
Do you realize that when I saw "Second Reality," I spent an entire semester skipping classes to visit the computer lab to learn everything I could about mode X.
To this day I still occasionally listen to the mp3 of the music. A poster on Youtube had it right - "Second Reality" is the demoscene's "Dark Side of the Moon."
posted by Pastabagel at 10:43 AM on September 4, 2009
IIRC, it has one or two channels of 8-bit arbitrary waveform capability, so while it's fairly coarse-sounding, it can make arbitrarily complex sounds. I remember a friend who had a fairly early Mac playing back four-channel music on his.
Yeah, I used to play some on a Plus, it just never sounded that good. It's possible the software was lacking, though.
posted by weston at 1:50 PM on September 4, 2009
Yeah, I used to play some on a Plus, it just never sounded that good. It's possible the software was lacking, though.
posted by weston at 1:50 PM on September 4, 2009
The early Macs could handle four channels, but the sound was in mono so I'm sure the music on that video is dubbed (it is stereo).
posted by D.C. at 10:59 PM on September 4, 2009
posted by D.C. at 10:59 PM on September 4, 2009
Here's an article by Andy Hertzfeld about the development of the original Mac's sound capability: Sound by Monday.
posted by D.C. at 11:07 PM on September 4, 2009
posted by D.C. at 11:07 PM on September 4, 2009
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posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on September 4, 2009