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And the answer is…

For those who didn't quite see it in the comments, the mystery object is a printout of an entire walkthrough of the original game of Zork, one of the earliest interactive fiction games. Adventure was the first widely-known entry in the genre, but Zork really made huge strides in both the breadth of the virtual world as well as the character's interaction with that world. The printout pictured in the prior story was created on February 18th, 1980, by myself and a good friend who was in his first or second year at MIT.

Zork date

At the time, I was 15 and my buddy Patrick was 19. These were the early days of computing, just over two years into the Apple ]['s existence. So while graphical games existed (Mystery House was released in 1980, for example), the capabilities of the machine made for very limited graphics--check the screenshot on the Wikipedia page for proof. As such, interactive fiction offered a more complete escape into the gaming world, as your mind did the work of creating whatever "graphics" the game required, based on the descriptions provided by the developers.

It was also the very early days of the internet, meaning it basically didn't exist. Its predecessor, ARPANET, was just getting going. Somehow, probably through a computer club at high school, I was introduced to ARPANET and the MDL machine at MIT. This machine allowed free guest account signups, and they had Zork installed for anyone to play. That's about all it took for me to get hooked, even over a 300 baud modem working on a dumb terminal with thermal paper!

Read on for a bit more about Zork, online gaming in the very early 1980s, and that monster printout...
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A quiz of sorts…

This morning, while doing a bit of cleaning and recycling in the computer room, I came across something that I'd totally forgotten I had. So I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it, and see if anyone can figure out exactly what it is. Here's what it looks like:

Mystery image

Based on the visual, here are some clues...

  1. It's obviously a computer printout of some sort.
  2. It's quite long (30 to 40 feet?), as you can see in this short movie.
  3. The machine that created the printout was a TI Silent 700 terminal, which looked like this, and printed on thermal paper.
  4. In the year the printout was created, the Steelers won the Super Bowl, the Phillies won the World Series, the Lakers were the NBA champs, and the Islanders were the kings of the NHL. Bjorn Borg won Wimbledon (that narrows it down only a bit!).

So the standing question is: exactly what is printed on that long roll of expensive thermal paper? If there's no progress in guessing an answer over the next day or so, I'll post some more clues. (Peter, James, and Pat aren't allowed to comment, as they already know the answer. If you're reading this, guys, keep your mouths shut! :) )

-rob.



As if things weren’t bad enough…

From the local news:

...an Isuzu Rodeo SUV was headed east...when it made an illegal right turn and ran into a Tri-Met bus. The impact threw the Isuzu into a Ford Focus and a Chrysler minivan. The force of the impact with the minivan threw a passenger in Rodeo, 36-year-old Hoang Do, through the windshield and into the street.

Police say as Do lay bleeding on the street, a passerby, 66-year-old Marvin Lewis, stole his wallet from his pocket. But police were arriving on the scene, spotted the crime, and apprehended Lewis.

Lewis told KOIN News Six that he didn't really mean to take Do's wallet, and would have given it back to him if police hadn't interfered. Lewis was back in his North Portland home Sunday night.

Amazing. The police "interfered" with his plans to return the wallet? (The ejected passenger, by the way, is expected to fully recover from serious head injuries. Seat belts...they're not just for decoration!)



A look at the near future of air travel?

As I'm getting ready to head home this afternoon, and with the events of yesterday, I started to wonder where this was all heading...

Air travel, circa 2008

Good morning, Mr. Smith, and thank you for choosing Luxo Air. Please place your checked baggage on the conveyor, and head to gate 23. You're all checked in.

'Thanks for the help!'

You're quite welcome, enjoy the trip!

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The magical properties of wooden train track

A couple nights ago, a major hurricane (Hurricane Kylie; she's been around for about three years now) blew through Sodor, destroying all of the town's rail lines--the Thomas the Tank Engine railway system was going to be out of commission until time could be secured for a "from the ground up" rebuilding. I finally found the time yesterday, after Hurricane Kylie was asleep for the night, to tackle the project.

As with any good rebuilding project, this one started with more destruction (tearing down the remaining track) and organization (sorting the track pieces by size and shape). It was while sorting that I noticed I had some magical pieces of track. I had placed two curved segments side-by-side, and noticed that they were different lengths:

Train track

The magic bit was that the track segments' lengths changed if I simply moved the pieces around, as you can see in this movie. Notice that when the top piece is moved to the bottom, it magically lengthens, and then shortens again when returned to its original position. I found this quite astonishing, and so set out to investigate further...

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Mystery font identified!

Mystery font

Update: It's identified! Thanks to the commenters who quickly identified the font as Textile. This was a font Apple distributed with OS 9, but never OS X. When I last upgraded my machine, I didn't bother to reinstall Classic, since I never used it. However, I did keep a disk image of Classic around on a backup, so I'm now set once again with Textile--thanks again for the fast response!

About five years ago, I created a project for an event at my wife's employer. What started as something small and simple grew into (of course) something large and complex. But the event was a success, so the efforts were worth it.

Fast forward five years, and the company would love it if I could update the presentation to cover their latest five years. No problem, I think, as I've managed to keep all the project files intact over the years. But I can't say the same for my Macs. I believe I've upgraded twice since I originally created the project (in iMovie2, as a reference point). And whatever font it is I used in the project has long since vanished.

Now that I'm updating it, however, I need to know what font I used--I'm sure it's on a disk around here somewhere, but I have no idea what it might be called. Since I'm far from a font expert, I figured I'd ask for some assistance. How about it? Anyone have any thoughts on what font family I might have used?

Thanks!



Black Mac is back!

After just under a month on the road (Portland to Austin to Memphis to Austin to Portland), my black MacBook is now back in my possession! The good news: so far, the power adapter isn't overheating. The bad news: it still makes more noise than I would consider "normal," though it's not audible from as great a distance as before.

What's truly strange is what they replaced:

  • APP-646-302 DSPL 13.3 GLOSSY AUO: I'm assuming that's the 13.3" glossy screen...
  • APP-603-9181 ASSY, BEZEL, BEST: I think this is the bezel that goes around the screen.
  • APP-616-0268 BATTLITH LITH, 55WHR, ATL, BLK: A new battery.

I guess I understand the battery replacement...but why the screen and bezel? Perhaps the connection between the screen and the machine itself was somehow causing an issue? Or maybe a tech's screwdriver slipped and gouged the original screen :).

In any event, it's back, and based on the first hour or so of usage (downloading 2.52GB (well, it feels like that much!) of system updates), the overheating problem seems to be resolved. Hooray!

Update: After letting the machine run for a good two hours, I felt the power brick, and it seemed notably cooler than before the fixes. To confirm, I hooked up the USB temperature probe, and found that the temperature now maxes out around 94F. That's a good 30+ degrees cooler than before. So while it's still warm to the touch, I no longer fear a meltdown if I leave it too close to something made of plastic.



Which Mac should I buy?

Macworld logoGiven that everyone at Macworld is publicly reachable via a web email form, I get a lot of random questions in my inbox.

By a wide margin, the two most popular recent questions have been "which Mac should I buy," and "when should I buy it?" After answering the question about 2,500 times (or so it seems), I decided to write up my usual responses for easy future reference. There was some good conversation on the topic in the forums as well; this has become one of the threads to which I point those contemplating the switch.