What Interests Pinback

by **Tdarcos** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 9:20 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I guess the thing I would need is to see an Infocom game running on a real, old PC with a working floppy drive.

I have one floppy drive but I don't think it's working. Any of you guys got spare, working 5.25" drives?

I don't think I've seen one in twenty years.

Holy Christ! Do you realize that twenty years ago was 1992?

Okay, probably 15 years then. And I remember when I used to carry a whole suitcase full of 5 1/4" disks (most loaded with pirated software that I shared with anyone just as they shared their stolen wares with me) back in the late 1980s and possibly into the 1990s. Then as they became popular I switched to 3 1/2" disks. I have my own stories of diskettes and files just like Robb and his Commodork days.

You got to figure that an application is not just bad, but horrible when people won't even take it, free. But that was the situation with Lotus Symphony, for one. I had a copy because I collected everything anyone was giving out; I never used it, Lotus 1-2-3 Version 2 did fine. And nobody ever wanted a copy of Symphony.

by **Flack** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:41 pm

I have a few ... somewhere.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:14 pm

I guess the thing I would need is to see an Infocom game running on a real, old PC with a working floppy drive.

I have one floppy drive but I don't think it's working. Any of you guys got spare, working 5.25" drives?

by **Tdarcos** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:27 pm

AArdvark wrote:Take that idea and run with it! That's an awesome idea. VICE has a flashing icon that emulates a 1541 when it's in virtual use, why not have something similar...why not!

THE
NOISY
AARDVARK

I saw something like this about, oh, twenty years ago, someone at my college, Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA, figured out what carriage control movements were needed to get a IBM 1402 Line Printer (a "fast" 300 lines per minute mainframe printer), to play the Close Encounters of the Third Kind tune. I kid you not, the printer's chain drive would clatter out a clearly obvious "Wha wa wha uh wahhh..." Took only one page.

by **AArdvark** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 2:28 pm

Take that idea and run with it! That's an awesome idea. VICE has a flashing icon that emulates a 1541 when it's in virtual use, why not have something similar...why not!

THE
NOISY
AARDVARK

[youtube][/youtube]

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:16 pm

Ok, shit, I'm stealing Flack's idea. Everyone? I am stealing that idea.

Well, some of it. I am stealing some of that idea.

by **Flack** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:44 pm

If you wanted to take it one step further I'm sure you could display a virtual disk drive in the corner of a Hugo game and have the little LEDs light up (and pause the game for a second) when moving between rooms.

EDIT: (C) 2012 Flack Enterprises. Anyone who uses this idea owes me millions of dollars.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:42 pm

AArdvark wrote:Is it possible to have HUGO make some kind of reward noise when the next puzzle is unlocked?

Yeah, it's completely doable. Between Hugo's sound-playing ability and pause-1-second or pause-100th-second functions, it wouldn't be too hard to emulate disk access.

I was going to put together a test example and title it Ben's Favorite IF Game, but the internet failed me by not having wav files easily found on first search pages. I didn't think it was worth searching further, and I was definitely too lazy to convert any Youtube videos for it.

I spend too much time working on joke games anyway.

by **pinback** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:45 am

Flack wrote:What it sounds like to me is that Pinback likes Text Adventures and not Interactive Fiction.

I have no objection to this characterization.

by **RetroRomper** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:57 am

AArdvark wrote:Is it possible to have HUGO make some kind of reward noise when the next puzzle is unlocked?

Maybe place a memory leak that results in either a player's hard drive being thrashed or the write head skip and grind against the platters?

AArdvarl wrote:THE
HAPPY TONES
AARDVARK

It'd be interesting to see a modern IF game create or inspire an iconic sound or image... Actually, when I hear that the sound Call of Duty uses for reloading its M16 (or whatever) is being used in different environments because of "the public's familiarity, their instinctual reaction" to it, there needs to be a sane alternative...

by **Flack** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:07 am

What it sounds like to me is that Pinback likes Text Adventures and not Interactive Fiction.

by **Tdarcos** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 7:03 am

AArdvark wrote:Is it possible to have HUGO make some kind of reward noise when the next puzzle is unlocked?

Yeah, but the sound has to be working. I'm not sure why I can't get it to work again.

by **AArdvark** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:15 am

Is it possible to have HUGO make some kind of reward noise when the next puzzle is unlocked? Maybe for five to ten seconds before the next hunk of text shows up. Oh! Like the secret-discovered sound in the first Zelda!

THE
HAPPY TONES
AARDVARK

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:25 pm

Ah, the discovery. The disk drive effect, yeah. The brilliance of the NEW.

You have given me much to ponder, pinback. You've made no enemies in this thread, yet.

by **pinback** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:23 pm

It's what I LIKE about the games. It's what I always have. What was the best part of playing Infocom games back on the Apple II or whatever?

Everyone always has the same answer: When the disk drive would whirr up because you found the next new thing.

We don't use "disk drives" anymore (I think I have that right) but the thrill is still there.

It was never about the story. It was never about characterization. It was never about the FICTION.

It was just about getting the next door unlocked and seeing what was behind it.

For me, anyway. I love that everyone, include primarily you, Robb, has expanded the genre to include all the wonderful things it includes now. I just don't play a lot of it, because while these grand plays are now set before us on unlimited stages, I'm still staring at the floorboards underneath them, looking for a way downward.

I hope that made sense, and I hope once again I didn't make any enemies (I probably made enemies.)

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 10:59 pm

I mean, part of me sees how much fun he had with The Hugo Clock, and sees that he was OK struggling with Clockwork Boy. Part of me sees that. And I think, "I should, for a single game, make a Zork-style puzzler just for Pinback with no dialogue or characterization whatsoever."

If he would play it, I mean. He said over IM he just likes adventurin'.

What Interests Pinback

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What Interests Pinback