Although not part of BBSes per se, a lot of the demoscene started from distributing software that showed off the capabilities of what a computer could do. The demoscene is still going strong today. This documentary charts back the history right through to the current day, introducing where demos came from, what the demoscene is all about, speaking to the legendary Jim ‘Trixter’ Leonard (@The Oldskool PC ) of 8088 MPH and Mobygames fame, as well as Vegard ‘Shady’ Skefstad of the Crusaders, founder of The Gathering demoparty in Norway, as well as Bill ‘Retrotech’ Hart (of @PCRetroTech ) and Rowan ‘Cthulu’ Lipkovits. This action packed episode takes you on the road from where it all began, with simple cracktros on the 8-bits, to the crazy parties and the professional side of it all. Some wonderful footage of some great demos too!
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I made my partner use DOS!
Call it a ‘social’ experiment, call it torture… whatever you like(!) but I often wonder what it would be like for people if they were made to go back to using a command line computer (in this case DOS, a 1980s era operating system that was the precursor to Windows). As I know DOS pretty well, I can’t un-learn what it’s like to use DOS, and I’m also a pretty tech-savvy person, but I wonder what it would be like for the average Joe (or Josephina) to learn a computer that isn’t driven by a GUI with its Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers…
The following video is the result of that social experiment. I’m sorry Kristina.. well.. half sorry!
IBM PC: The first games ’81-’91 Part 9 (1989)
Whether it was because there was more money being ploughed into the games industry by 1989, the advancements in tech, or the fact that the PC was taking over from its contemporary competitors, the depth to the games in this year were much more than the shoot-em-ups, platformers and little adventure games of ’81-’88. Games in this year include Death Trak Quest For Glory Indianapolis 500 Leisure Suit Larry 3, Pipedream, Prince of Persia, Simcity and more! I hope you enjoy my videos! If you want to help keeping me going, please subscribe to my channel, and if you feel that my content is good, I’d really appreciate it if you could buy me a coffee or something on Patreon (www.patreon.com/alsgeeklab) or ko-fi (www.ko-fi.com/alsgeeklab)
Documentary: How and why IBM made the first PC
IBM released the IBM PC 5150 in 1981. Internally, IBM went through massive hurdles to get a personal computer to the market to compete with the other microcomputers of the time. This documentary shows all of the happenings organisationally as well as the trade-offs and decisions that led up to IBM choosing the sluggish 8088 CPU.
Some of the main reference material: BYTE Magazine, September 1990: https://archive.org/stream/byte-magaz… “Bill Gates, Microsoft and the IBM Personal Computer” – Infoworld Newsweekly, August 23rd 1982: https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=V… “Microsoft Announces 8086 Basic” – The Intelligent Machines Journal, Summer 1979: https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=F… IBM Exhibits: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhib…
IBM PC – The first games ’81-’91: Part 3 (1983)
IBM PC – The first games ’81-’91: Part 2 (1982)
In the last video, 1981 covered mainly basic text games. A little later, IBM came along with the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) and made it possible to make games with graphics. Here’s the top best games of 1982 in a true countdown style!
IBM PC – The first games ’81-’91: Part 1 (1981)
The IBM PC launched in 1981. Until its release, many people hadn’t programmed for the Intel 8086 architecture, so there weren’t many games to go on day one, for IBM’s ‘business machine’. But that didn’t stop a few fledgling games companies starting up and beginning what became a multi-billion dollar industry in PC games. This is the year where it all began. First in a ten-part series, find out about the beginnings of gaming on the PC.