Flush from the mild success of the first article, I sat down to write the next installment of Weekend Projects for Armchair Developers. I stared blankly at the computer monitor, filled with a mild dread of what lay before me. I knew that the next programming language I had chosen would prove to be quite the thorny pickle. Browsing through the example included with the ZIP file I downloaded and thumbing through the small section in a “Retro Hacking” booklet I received last Christmas, I felt a bit overwhelmed.

Inform is an obscure language with its roots in the Infocom-brand text adventures of a bygone era. Growing up with such classics as Zork and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I was no stranger with their work. And it was this feeling of nostalgia that drove me through the task of deciphering this seemingly-apocryphal language.

The Inform community is notoriously small. At last count, I believe there were about three people left. I think it might be because I personally have a tough time reading Inform (although, to be fair, I have seen tougher). But I was up for a challenge. So, flexing my typing-muscles, I dove straight into the beast.

Finding the right files to download and learning how to use them is not an easy task. I blame the website. Fortunately, I’ve already braved the murky depths for you and found the installation notes. I would strongly suggest downloading the folder structures they provide for you, as they contain all the files you need to get started. In fact, I would strongly suggest reading the entire Inform FAQ when you get the time, but since you’re currently engaged in reading this article, that can wait.

[ Continue reading Weekend Projects for Armchair Developers:
Text Misadventuring (Part I) » ]

For some computer lovers, the sounds that computers make is music to their ears. And by “sound,” I don’t mean 32-bit digitized audio coming from a Sound Blaster Audigy; I mean the actual mechanical whirrs, clanks, and cronks that emanate from computing hardware in action. They make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It was this very love I had in mind when I set out to compose a “computer music” piece for a class I took at a local university back in Spring 2002. But I wasn’t exactly following the instructions (more on that later). The class focused on the history and composition of music generated by computers. Not pop music or anything like it, of course, but what I would typically call “highly inaccessible, elitist, please pull the stick from my ass” music. In particular, we learned about what proponents of the genre call “new music,” which pretty much means any music that has an unconventional structure, typically lacking vocals, instruments, rhythm or melody as we know them. The computer variety of this avant garde style arose from early attempts at generating music with computers in the 1950s and 60s, but lacking sufficient computational horsepower for a decent compositional AI at the time (and even now), composers could only squeeze abstruse sequences of notes from their machines. But (surprise!) some people thought it was cool because it was abstruse, and a new class of music elitists was born. They embraced the limitations of the medium and ran with them — straight into a wall. If you think you’d get a kick from the seemingly random bloops and bleeps generated from applying a complex algorithm to the DNA of sperm whales, then this music is definitely for you. Sure, it’s got a great “nerd factor,” but it’s hardly emotionally inspiring.

[ Continue reading The Music Computers Make: Impenetrable Noise and Silicon and Steel » ]

[RedWolf writes: “This story was written by K4DSP, who is an old and dear friend of mine (and a fellow computing and technology enthusiast). He sent it to me recently and I enjoyed the story so much that I thought I would share it with you.”]

1982 was an exciting time for computer enthusiasts. The personal computer market was still in its infancy, and there were literally dozens of different models available at all sorts of price points. As a poor college student studying engineering and computer science, I found nearly all of them out of my reach financially, but the one I really lusted after was the Apple 2. I constantly imagined all the great software I could write and all the games I could play if I only had one of these 1 MHz 8-bit screamers. Never mind the Ataris and Commodores and Sinclairs and the multitude of CP/M machines — the Apple II was the one for me.

There was one insurmountable obstacle between the Apple and me. At $1195 it was literally the equivalent of six months’ rent. It might as well have been a million dollars. So I looked for alternatives. I thought about building a computer. In the early 80s it wasn’t all that unusual for people to build their own computers from scratch, but it wasn’t like homebuilt computers today – you didn’t go to a computer store and buy a motherboard and CPU and case and power supply and hard drive and bolt it all together and pop in your Windows install CD. Building computers meant soldering and drilling and (sometimes) even writing your own software to make things work. When the Apple II came out in 1977 it was one of the first “store bought” computers that didn’t require any assembly. That’s one of the reasons I wanted one. As a full time student with a job and a wife I really didn’t have time to figure out how to build a computer from scratch.

[ Continue reading How I Got My First Computer,
and How I Got My First Computer Back » ]