Lofty thoughts on February 22, 2025
- FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS
- davepinch GitHub contribution chart on 22 February 2025
- From ACS to Altair: The Rise of the Hobby Computer (technichistory.com)
A certain pattern of technological development recurred many times in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century: a scattered hobby community, tinkering with a new idea, develops it to the point where those hobbyists can sell it as a product. This sets off a frenzy of small entrepreneurial firms, competing to sell to other hobbyists and early adopters. Finally, a handful of firms grow to the point where they can drive down costs through economies of scale and put their smaller competitors out of business. Bicycles, automobiles, airplanes, and radio broadcasting all developed more or less in this way.
- Wolfenstein 3D (Wikipedia)
Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William “B.J.” Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game’s levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with a knife and a variety of guns.