You guys have probably figured out by now that I try to avoid “link dumps” and the like here on VC&G. But every once and a while something cool comes along that I have to share with you. In this case, it’s PC World’s list of the “25 Greatest PCs of All Time.”

The reason for the sneezin’ is the 25th anniversary of the release of the original IBM PC in 1981. However, PC World’s list is extra special because it covers all personal computers from every manufacturer and every era. It’s nice to read something in the mainstream computer press about old computers that isn’t full of misunderstandings, mistakes, and misinformation. PC World actually knows what they’re talking about in this case. And while the list (like any “Top # List”) is far from definitive, it’s still a fun read. So mosey on over to their site and check it out. After that, feel free to comment on what would be in your “top 25” list.

Alas…I possess only ten exact models of the top twenty-five personal computers of all time. I better get crackin’.

[ Please welcome our Greek ambassador of vintage computing, Gnome, to VC&G with his first contribution. ]

Having sold everything (including the right to use his own name) to Amstrad, Sir Clive Sinclair came up with a cunning plan. He would release his next computer under a new company (Cambridge Research) and call it something appropriately Sinclair-ish: Z88.

The Z88, besides being the last computer ever produced under the wise guidance of the Uncle himself, and despite featuring such Sinclair trademarks as a shoddy membrane keyboard and a Zilog Z80A CPU, was quite an interesting and quirky little machine. It also was (well, probably was) the first affordable portable computer — a full-fledged 8-bit laptop, actually, and the true forerunner to modern PDAs.

Running on just four AA batteries, the Z88 managed to provide its crisp built-in LCD display (made by Psion) with almost twenty hours of power. Imagine it: true mobile computing, all those years back, in distant 1987, for less than 200 pounds. Other than mobility, the machine featured a powerful spreadsheet / word-processor combo, a calculator, a calendar, file managers, a BBC-micro based BASIC, and a full pseudo-multitasking OS (called OZ) in its tiny ROM. It also had the ability to address up to 4MB of RAM, take ROM cartridges, and communicate with other (admittedly more powerful) computers through a standard RS-232 port.

The little beast even got a few games developed for its A4-sized self. Nothing spectacular, mind you, but Toad, ManicMiner, and Scrazble are still worth a look, even if it’s only an emulated one. To actually have said “look,” and for the full emulated pleasure, click here, install the appropriate software, place your PC on your lap, and listen to something from the Pet Shop Boys. It will be worth it, and you’ll be quite the spectacle too.

A final note: Pixel Magazine (Issue 32, April 1987, seen above) was for years the premier Greek home computing magazine and sadly died along with the Amiga and the 16-bit era.

[This is Eric Lambert’s second submission to VC&G, with contributions and editing by RedWolf.]

Nothing seems to make headlines more these days than war and copyright infractions. Whether it has to do with movies, music, or games, “piracy” is now a household word, and media providers are searching for ways to reduce it and make money off of it at the same time. Hollywood’s Broadcast Flag. Sony’s rootkit debacle. Starforce. So much time, effort, and public goodwill has been wasted on the quest to prevent people from copying things.

All right. Did I scare off the casual passers-by yet? Because this isn’t a crusade to rail against the evils of modern copy-protection. No, I just needed a legitimate sounding opening to introduce what I really want to talk about: old-school copy protection. We’re talking “Don’t Copy That Floppy” here, folks — back in the days when men were men and boys had to learn how to handle boot floppies and extended memory.

The early copy protection schemes were much more analog than digital, and tended to fall into two categories: code wheels and manual lookups. That’s right, they used documents and devices that were physically separate from the program. While the games themselves were easy to duplicate, copy protection (C.P.) implementations weren’t. Moving parts, dark-colored pages, esoteric information scattered throughout a manual all meant that photocopying (when possible) could be prohibitively expensive. And without a world-wide publicly available Internet, digital scans and brute-force cracking programs were almost unheard of. For the most part, the C.P. methods were an effective low-tech solution to a high-tech problem.

So let’s take a look at a couple of them and revel in their oh-so-simple glory.

[ Continue reading Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes » ]

When I was but a wee lad, I begged my father to sign me up for Prodigy. I loved BBSes and wanted to try Prodigy so badly. On Christmas 1992, I finally got my wish: an orange cardboard box emblazoned with a blue star appeared under the Christmas tree. One hour (and one father’s credit card charge) later, I was online. Overall, I was mostly underwhelmed with the service and my subscription didn’t last long, but there was one thing I really liked about it: the games.

Many of you probably know of Prodigy, a pre-“popular Internet” era commercial dial-up online service that utilized copious amounts of NAPLPS graphics in its client interface. And one of the best applications of this rarely used, bandwidth- friendly graphics protocol was Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan‘s very popular Prodigy adventure game, MadMaze.

[ Continue reading Prodigy Lives! Play MadMaze On the Web » ]

I’m doing research on the history of commercial online services such as Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL, GEnie, Delphi, Q-Link, The Source, Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service, any videotex or teletext service, and many others for an upcoming project of mine. I would like to talk to, and perhaps interview, former employees of any of these online services if possible. If anyone out there knows how to contact former employees of these services (especially Compuserve and Prodigy), please send me an email. Of course, if you’re reading this and you’re a former employee yourself and wouldn’t mind sharing some history with me, please email me as well.

Thanks so much for your help.

[ Eric Lambert is the owner of an impressively large collection of PC software. I’m happy to welcome him to VC&G with his first contribution. — RW ]

Imagine my delight this week when a job lot of vintage games I won on eBay came with seven — count ’em, s-e-v-e-n — Softkey Titanium Seal shareware games still in their original packaging. Such forgettable classics as VGA Slots and Stellar Defense II and… hold on a sec, what’s this? Wolfenstein 3-D? The great-granddaddy of the FPS? Sure enough, my eyes did not deceive me, Wolfenstein 3D Shareware, complete with the laughably generic subtitle “Escape from Multilevel Castle Maze.” Reading the description on the back of the package, I try to remember that when this was hanging on a hook at Babbage’s, people probably had no idea what to expect from it. The genre was, for the most part, still in its infancy, and the technology was cutting-edge. The warning at the end is classic: “This game is not for the faint of heart.” I wonder if the guy who wrote that copy ever went on to play Carmageddon, Postal, or GTA 3.

Now look at all the hit games also available from Titanium Seal. There’s…um…I guess Duke Nukem II kind of led into Duke Nukem 3D and the whole Quake revolution in shooters, but really, Wolfenstein was the big hit of the bunch, propelling id Software into its Doom phase. How many of the folks at SoftKey do you suppose gave Wolfenstein a second glance at the time? How many people involved in its publication had any idea of the impact it would have on gaming? How many careers do you think that one title launched? More than enough to make up for all the lost bets on the other titles? I remember playing some of them, and they were great games, but they never took off like Wolfenstein did. This Multilevel Castle Maze did what nobody really could have predicted — it revolutionized not only the way we play games, but the industry as a whole. It opened up new technologies, new styles of play, and a whole new level of marketing, an influence we can see in the online distribution models (like Steam) that are currently increasing in popularity.

And all for $5.99 (US). What a bargain!