________________________________________________ / \ | _________________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DOS & Don'ts | | | | | | | | A Modern Newsletter | | | | for Vintage-minded Folks | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | C:\>Issue #10 August 2024_ | | | |_________________________________________| | | | \_________________________________________________/ \___________________________________/ ___________________________________________ _-' .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. --- `-_ _-'.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--. .-.-.`-_ _-'.-.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-`__`. .-.-.-.`-_ :---------------------------------------------------------------: `---._.---------------------------------------------------._.---' ------------------ In this Issue... ------------------ From the Desk of the Editor Features ---------- Killer Bees, Grizzly Adam Toys & Games: Nintendo's Beginnings, BlueMSX Type & Tell for the Magnavox Odyssey, Ashley Thomas Columns --------- The Latent Image, Jon Mullin Sonic Seasonings, Bea Thurman Retro Living in a Modern World, Grizzly Adam Bits & Bytes -------------- Random Access Memories Unclassifieds Ads ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ___ (o> (o o) ()) From the Desk of the Editor ( V ) -//------------------------------------m-m-- Dear readers, You will no-doubt notice that there have been some recent changes to our writing staff. Yousef left us a short while ago, and now it is looking like Joe Collett may also not be returning. Fret not, Tandy fans, I love this brand too there will still be the occasional Tandy/Radio Shack article. I would like to welcome Bea Thurman to our staff. Bea writes, performs and records electronic music with her band Superphone and will be writing about computer-based music in her monthly column "Sonic Seasonings." She also completed her own ASCII art to accompany her writing. I would also like to welcome Ashley Thomas, known professionally as "The Nerdy Blogger." Ashley, who has a very full schedule, will be an occasional contributor to our little zine. Her article this month on Type & Tell for the Odyssey 2 was a really fun read and has me considering finding an Odyssey 2 emulator for my Wii. Thankyou for your loyalty to our newsletter, Grizz ------------------------------------------------------------------------- .-------------------------------------------------. | Killer Bees! | |-------------------------------------------------| | \ / | | \ o ^ o / | | \ ( ) / | | ____________(%%%%%%%)____________ | | ( / / )%%%%%%%( \ \ ) | | (___/___/__/ \__\___\___) | | ( / /(%%%%%%%)\ \ ) | | (__/___/ (%%%%%%%) \___\__) | | /( )\ | | / (%%%%%) \ | | (%%%) | | ! | |-------------------------------------------------| | by Grizzly Adam | '-------------------------------------------------' The 2006 remake of the Wicker Man saw an over-the-top performance by perpetual scenery-chewer Nicolas Cage. The scene featured cult members pouring live bees into a cage-like device fitted over Mr. Cage's head. He then, in the hammiest way possible, shouts the now iconic line: "Oh no, not the bees! Not the bees! AHHHHHH!" This was both hilarious and terrifying at the same time. 20 years earlier, most Americans were in the same mindset as "Killer Bees" were set to invade the southern border. "Oh no, not the bees," we said. "Not the bees!" The year is 1956. Geneticist Warick E. Kerr has imported several colonies of African honey bees into the highlands of Sao Paulo, Brazil with the intention to crossbreed the African bees with their European counterparts. His goal was to create a hybrid bee that could produce significantly more honey in Brazil's tropical climate. The earliest hybrids were noted to be "especially defensive", but Kerr believed that this behavior could be minimized or even eliminated through further selective breeding. Kerr was careful to keep his aggressive bees from escaping. He fit all of his hives with an excluder, a simple plastic grid that only the smaller worker bees could squeeze through. The excluder effectively prevented the queen and drones bees from escaping the hives, thus preventing the colony from inter- breeding with hot, local singles. The next year, a visiting beekeeper was observing the colonies and felt that the excluder was interfering with the duties of the Kerr's worker bees. The visitor removed the excluders from the hives, resulting in the accidental release of 26 swarms of experimental Africanized bees. There was no putting the genie back in the bottle as the aggressive hybrids were soon infiltrating the local bee colonies of Sao Paulo. Their spread was slow at first, and there was hope that the species would remain in just the Sao Paulo area. However, by the 1970s the aggressive bees had moved into the Amazon basin and in 1982 they made their way to Central America. By 1985, the Africanized bees were threatening the southern border of the United States. This is when the media began to broadcast doomsday stories about the "Killer Bee Invasion." These Africanized bees, they reported, were drastically different from the docile European bees that we were accustomed to. As noted before, Kerr's bees were aggressive and that trait was passed onto the invading swarms of Africanized bees. These bees would attack further from the hive, chase targets further, and were much more likely to swarm. The use of the word swarm was misleading for those not in the know, and the news reports were not quick to clear up any misconceptions. To the general public, swarming bees meant attacking bees. In reality, swarming is simply a portion of bees splitting from the main colony because they have outgrown their hive. Despite the sensational report, the threat was real. Africanized bees have been reported to chase a threat for over 500 meters, or approximately 1/3 of a mile. What's more, their hives have dramatically higher population densities with a higher percentage of worker bees assigned to guard the hive. While the dose of venom in each of the Africanized bee's sting was slightly lower than that of their European counterparts, those unfortunate enough to cross paths with the "killer bees'' would typically receive significantly more stings. This meant more venom and a high likelihood of death for the target of their defensive attacks. Deaths from European bees were uncommon for anyone without an allergy, but the Africanized bees didn't need any such vulnerabilities to kill. Why, you might ask, are killer bees not a problem in modern times? The truth of the matter is that despite their aggressive nature, the bee attacks were typically preceded by a human accidently crossing into proximity of the hive. Humans tend to live in towns and cities, and invasive swarms are typically quickly captured and removed from these areas. What's more, beekeepers have devised some defensive strategies to keep their colonies from being infiltrated by Africanized bees. Chief among these is the now-standard practice of annually re-queening each hive to ensure that new broods are not hybridized. Climate has also played a major factor in preventing the spread of Africanized bees. These bees are very vulnerable to both drought and the harsh winters of the north. While "killer bees" officially crossed into the United States in 1990, only 2-3 human deaths per year have been attributed to their attacks. It has been noted that the hyper-defensive behavior is no longer being observed in all wild colonies of Africanized bees. This gives beekeepers and geneticists another avenue to pursue- using these anomalies as a gentler breeding stock, potentially removing the aggressive traits from the species. In central and south America, the hybrid bees are now being used in the honey-production industry. Reports of improved honey production have made Africanized bees the preferred choice for beekeepers in these tropical areas. It seems that Kerr was on the right path, and if not for the accidental release of his 26 swarms he would have likely been able to breed the aggressiveness out of his bees. Kerr passed away in 2018, just before "Murder Hornets" began their 2019 invasion of the Pacific Northwest. Coincidence? This reporter thinks not! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, programming, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- =========================================================================== ______ ______ _______ _____ __ __ ______ _____ |_ __/ __ \ \ / / ____| ___ / ____| /\ | \/ | ____|/ ____| | | | | | \ \_/ / (___ ( _ ) | | __ / \ | \ / | |__ | (___ | | | | | |\ /NINTENDO'S BEGINNINGS - BY BLUEMSX| |\/| | __| \___ \ | | | |__| | | | ____) | | (_> < | |__| |/ ____ \| | | | |____ ____) | |_| \____/ |_| |_____/ \___/\/ \_____/_/ \_\_| |_|______|_____/ ________ \_______\ () () () () () ()_________ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ |oo | () () () () () () |(O) <3 | _______ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ |/______oo| /_______/ () () () () () () =========================================================================== While Nintendo's video games and characters are quite well known, not as many know the company's origins. Nintendo Koppai was founded in 1889 and quickly became a top manufacturer of playing cards. Cards from overseas were hard to come by within Japan due to highly restricted trade with other nations, thus the door was open for companies like Nintendo Koppai to meet the high demand. A major crackdown on playing cards and gambling related materials during World War II meant that Nintendo Koppai would begin to look for new horizons. It began with shortening their name from Nintendo Koppai to just Nintendo, with Nintendo essentially meaning "leave luck to heaven". This fit well with their prior work and for what was to come. From taxi services to tobacco products to hotels, and then finally striking gold with the toy market. After the war, Japan's toy industry was booming and Nintendo wasted no time cashing in on it. This was thanks in no small part to an engineer at Nintendo named Gunpei Yokoi. In his spare time working in one of Nintendo's factories, he would create a toy that would come to be known as the Ultra Hand. It took the form of an extending arm with two small suction cups that could grasp far off objects. Then president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi took note of the young engineer's invention. A vast number of other toys, board games, electromechanical games, playing cards, licensed items, and even a Lego knock-off product called N&B Block were created following the immense popularity of the Ultra Hand. Nintendo's most popular toy line during this time was their Beam Gun series of electromechanical light gun games. Using a toy gun that contained a lightbulb, the player could hit a target which contained a photo- conductive cell. This in turn would trigger an action of some sort to happen, showing that you hit the target. Light gun games were popular in the arcades for years, so a home version made perfect sense. Notably, a variation of the Beam Gun would be released in the United States by Magnavox as an add-on for the Magnavox Odyssey. With the success of their toys, Nintendo would make a variety of deals with overseas companies, such as Pacific Game Company, to distribute their toys and games in other markets. Things would soon take a new turn for Nintendo. As the story goes, in 1977 Gunpei was on a train ride when he witnessed a bored businessman randomly pressing buttons on his pocket calculator to pass the time. The popular depiction of this story is that it was this train ride that gave Gunpei the idea for Nintendo's next smash hit, but that's only partially true. Gunpei had rather envisioned a mechanical button toy, almost like a modern fidget- style toy or a Rubik's Cube. With his normal limo driver sick, Hiroshi Yamauchi would enlist Gunpei to fill in, since Hiroshi was unable to operate the car himself. It was during one of these rides that Gunpei would tell Hiroshi of his idea for the handheld calculator-like toy. Liking what he heard, Hiroshi would afterwards introduce Gunpei to a representative of Sharp Corporation, one of Nintendo's closest business partners. Sharp provided Nintendo components needed to produce the Beam Gun toys they'd created previously. A mis- interpretation on Hiroshi's part meant that the idea of a calculator-esque toy transformed into a handheld toy that used calculator components. Thinking that was actually better than what he'd come up with, Gunpei would spring for this idea instead. Eventually a near final prototype of the device that used a small LCD screen and some outdated calculator parts would be created to run a simple juggling game. The onboard calculator hardware was typically used to display segmented number and symbol characters on an LCD screen, but unlike on a calculator the majority of the characters were of the humanoid player character, juggling balls, and a simple scoreboard. Two buttons controlled the jugglers arms and additional buttons selected between the two difficulty levels. But Gunpei was having trouble thinking of a use for the device's final button until he realized he could use a simple timer to convert the scoreboard into a digital clock. This approach not only helped to add more functionality to the device, it also made its price point of 5800 yen (roughly 17 US dollars in the 1980s) more reasonable. With this change, the newly dubbed Game and Watch went from an expensive toy to an affordable portable clock. With Sharp at their side, the Game and Watch would prove to be another huge success for Nintendo. Gunpei's juggling game would be named "Ball," while three more Game and Watch systems would be quickly designed and put into production. These were "Vermin," a version of Whack-A-Mole, "Fire" in which you had to rescue people from a burning building by bouncing them off a trampoline and into an ambulance, and "Flagman," a memory game not unlike Simon. For the first round of Game and Watch Units, Nintendo would strike a deal with an overseas company for international markets. Mego Toys had previously created 2-XL, a robot that made use of 8-Track tapes to run quiz shows (not to be confused with their later 2-XL robot storyteller). Mego would, in conjunction with Nintendo, release the first four Game and Watch systems in the United States under the name Time Out Games. For the new market, "Ball" became "Toss up", "Vermin'' became "Exterminator", "Fire" became "Fireman Fireman", and "Flagman" was changed to "Flag Man," with a space. Mego would sell these systems for a few years, competing mostly with Milton Bradley's Microvision handhelds, before going out of business in 1983. While a number of other Game and Watch systems would be designed and released in the years to follow, such as the tabletop units co-developed with American toy company Coleco among others, it's here where our story takes another turn. Around this time, home video game systems from Atari, Magnavox, and others were becoming quite popular in many parts of the world. Having gotten their feet wet with the Game and Watch, Nintendo would develop, in conjunction with Mitsubishi Electronics, what would come to be known as the Color TV Game series. Similar to its western counterparts, they played variations of Atari's Pong in full color. The Color TV Game 6 and 15, named for the number of Pong variations they contained, were powered by a Pong-on-a-chip integrated circuit designed by Mitsubishi Electronics. Because of the terms of this joint collaboration, Nintendo was barred from putting their name on the product. The partnership would continue with the next model, a top down racing game in the style of Taito's Speed Race. It was named the Color TV Game Racing 112 for the alleged number of levels & variations it possessed. It was Takehiro Izushi, who would later go onto lead Nintendo's R&D1 division, that developed both Racing 112 and the next Color TV Game, Color TV Block Kuzushi. As its name suggests, this was meant to imitate Atari's smash hit Break Out. It would be after this point that Nintendo, having seen the success of Taito's Space Invaders, would opt to enter the emerging arcade market. This new endeavor would lead to a partnership between Nintendo and electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki that would produce many hit arcade games for Nintendo - but that is another story. After their arcade success Nintendo would create the machine which would truly break the mold- the Family Computer, or Famicom. Interestingly, due to a trademark dispute, Nintendo was not actually allowed to refer to their Family Computer as the Famicom. Their business partner Sharp owned the name Famicom for the Family Convection Oven they'd released prior. It wouldn't be until Nintendo and Sharp joined forces once more to make the Twin Famicom and other Famicom variations that the Family Computer hardware would be released under the Famicom name. The Famicom name would ultimately be transferred to Nintendo years later. Nintendo would make occasional references to their earlier toys and games in the years to follow. The lightgun made for the Famicom not only used the same gun mold as their prior Beam Gun Pistol, but was also dubbed the Famicom Beam Gun. While toys like the Love Tester, Playing Cards, Game and Watch, etc., would appear as collectable treasures in Pikmin 2. Nintendo is a good example of where you start not necessarily being where you end up. Life has its twists, turns, and pitfalls, but it's up to you to find the best ways forward and make the best situation for yourself you can. Happy Gaming! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About BlueMSX: BlueMSX, Blue for short, enjoys retro technologies, history, and learning for the sake of learning. She has been interested in retro electronics and media for nearly as long as she can remember. This fascination means that she has a lot of great stories to recount. Blue's philosophy can be summed up by the quote, "History is like a puzzle- the more pieces you have the more sense it makes." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TYPE & TELL FOR THE MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY 2 by Ashley Thomas "The Nerdy Blogger" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- When I was six or seven years old, my younger sister and I were gifted a Magnavox Odyssey 2 from a slightly older family friend. Once my dad set it up for us, we played Odyssey 2 the entire day. One of the games that got the most play that day was Type & Tell. Type & Tell, you say? The game once described by a video game magazine as sounding like "Darth Vader on quaaludes"? The one that was the pack in for The Voice(TM) modulator, right? It was simplistic and maybe not the most exciting game. Heck, it was barely a game at all. Yet, there was something so appealing to us about playing Type & Tell. Maybe it was making it say things like, "Whitney is a dumb butt," or when my dad got a hold of it and typed out, "Mom let a poot and it hurt my eyes." Obviously we all had a very mature sense of humor. Whatever it was, the main thing I remember from that day is laughing until I cried at this absurdly simple game, this glorified Speak & Spell, and its gross mispro- nunciations of correctly spelled words. In order to make Type & Tell speak correctly, one must often spell incorrectly. Maybe it's not much of a glorified Speak & Spell after all, eh? It was more like a Speak and Good luck on the Spell. It was, perhaps, not the educational tool one might have hoped for. Yet, its simplicity held and still holds a charm for me. Let's think of it this way. Sure, it's fun to hear a robot voice read out what you have typed, especially if it's an insult to your sibling or a wildly mispronounced word. But there was so much more that the game could do. In the game's instructions it gave four different game suggestions for play with Type & Tell. The first is "Garble!" and leaned into The Voice(TM)'s limited ability to speak. You or you and a friend could type out single letters with spaces or dashes in-between. The goal was to get The Voice(TM) to speak phrases. For example, typing U-R-A-Q-T into Type & Tell would make The Voice(TM) say "You're a cutie." Adorable, right? The instruction manual gave other suggestions as well. The fun here is figuring out which sequences could make actual phrases. The next game suggestion in the manual is "Sound Waves!" (The folks at Odyssey sure liked their exclamation points)! (Editor's note: me too!) This game is much simpler. The instructions say to hold down a letter on the Odyssey 2 keyboard to see what sort of sounds you might get. According to the manual, "Some entries will give continuous sounds like trains, old cars, planes, and strange machinery." Suggested letters in the manual are a series of Qs, Rs, and Ws. And true, you could get some interesting sound effects just by pressing random letters in Type & Tell. The next game suggestion is "Super Star," which suggested that The Voice(TM) in the Odyssey2 could star in your own science fiction home movies or tape recorded audio drama. Using your discoveries from "Sound Waves!" you could have the Odyssey 2 be the voice of an alien invader or your robot butler. What I appreciate about this game suggestion is that it uses a video game as an imagination aid, versus simply entertaining you with a game. You're the storyteller here, not the game itself. I appreciate that kind of imagination. The last game suggestion in the manual is for "War of Words!", which could be played with two or more players. Players would alternate typing words in a sentence, which must be grammatically correct. If a player saw an opportunity to end a sentence with a word, they would type a period after their word. Then, using the text editing keys, players would alternate inserting words within the sentence, again, making sure the sentence was grammatically correct. Players would alternate turns until one player pushed the sentence to the end of Type & Tell's 96-character matrix. If a word exceeded the matrix, that player was disqualified. The first player to reach the end of the matrix with their sentence wins. I can only imagine the number of adjectives inserted in any given sentence to stretch it out. And here we thought we had it tough with 140, now 280 characters on Twitter! While these game suggestions aren't something I tried very often myself, as I was more interested in typing insults about my sister, it's still an interesting look at what the folks at Odyssey came up with to try to make the most out of a very simple program. All this reflection on Type & Tell has really inspired me to hook my Odyssey 2 back up- because yes, I still have it, and yes, I still have Type & Tell. I think I'll go type out some insults to record and send to my sister. For a simple game, it sure was a great vehicle for smack talk. And speaking of smack talk, I have another story about another Odyssey 2 game, but I'll save that for another day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Ashley "The Nerdy Blogger" Thomas: Ashley Thomas is a writer, pod- caster and gameshow host. Bylines include Fangirlish.com, Sci-Fi 5 Podcast, Podcast-616, We Are Starfleet, The Video Store Podcast, and Mission Log: Gene-ology. She's been blogging about the #nerdlyfe since 2010. Ashley would like to be Brienne of Tarth, Leslie Knope, and Sylvia Tilly when she grows up. Connect with Ashley at https://nerdyblogging.wordpress.com/support-the-nerdy-blogger ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | The Latent Image - with Jon Mullin | | | | This Month: | | Photoshop - The Original Photo Editor | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In the mid-1980s you had two options to edit photos. One was to sit in a darkroom and trial and error your way to success. The other was to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for someone to edit them on a workstation. In 1990 a new option appeared: for just shy of $900 you could purchase a fancy new program called Photoshop for your Mac. So what was old photoshop like to work with? Let's find out. Photoshop is what we call a "Raster Image/Graphics Editor." It allows you to edit and manipulate images digitally. Photos are just one type of raster image, but a raster image is any image file that has a finite resolution. Raster images are stored in file formats like .TIFF, .JPEG, .PNG, or .BMP. PThe tools available in Photoshop's first version still work and feel like it's modern counterpart despite the 3 decade-plus gap. Many useful tools we take for granted were introduced in Photoshop version 1.0. It has the standard brush tools, clone stamp, fill tools, lasso tool, and even the magic wand selection tool! The brush tool does as it says: it brushes on color to your image. The clone stamp tool samples an area of the photo and allows you to stamp it somewhere else. The lasso tool lets you draw a selection, while the magic wand selects objects that are similar in color. Photoshop 1.0 even allows you to grow and shrink your selection on the pixel level as well as feather the selection so the edges are softer. Even palettes exist! These are the small windows that let you view additional options like brushes or a color selector. So what's missing compared to modern photoshop? Well, there are no layers yet. In modern Photoshop you can non-destructively edit a photo. Remember that clone stamp tool? If I use it to edit out a blemish I'm stuck with that correction going forward. With layers you can edit the blemishes on a new layer above your original image and delete the layer later if needed, protecting all your other edits on the different layers. This is referred to as "non-destructive" editing as your base image remains safe in the lowest layer so all your edits can exist on top of that. Remember those palettes I mentioned before, there are only two: the color palette, and brush selection palette. The missing palettes in 1.0 are still available as popup windows that you make changes in, and then dismiss themselves once the changes have been made. This makes going from one tool to the next a bit of a chore. I opened a few files in Photoshop 1.0 and I have to say it ran pretty well on a Macintosh II emulator with 4 megs of RAM. The image files were around 1 megabyte in size. Despite the age of the software, it ran quite well. The only issue I encountered was with the color depth, which wasn't enough to give smooth tones and gradients. When running on a Power PC based Power Macintosh 9500 this issue was instantly fixed. Images provided nice and smooth tone gradation and looked quite nice. As for black and white Macs like the SE/30 or Classic series, it was a no go. The bit depth for gray- scale was just too low to give smooth gradients and tones, even for black and white images. To get it running you need a Macintosh (Macintosh II or SE/30 and newer) with at least 2 Megabytes of RAM(you'll want at least 4), and at least System 6.0.2 I enjoyed my time with old Photoshop. I wouldn't want to use it on a daily basis, but for what it was at the time I found it quite pleasant to work with. It performs well on aging hardware and the familiar tools are also a nice touch. If you have an older Macintosh lying around, give it a shot and I promise you will instantly fall in love with its quirky charm. If your old mac has the horsepower though, maybe look forward to the next version of Photoshop I explore. It might be worth the upgrade. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jon Mullin: Jon has been photographing professionally since 2008, but has been surrounded all his life by the small and quirky point and shoot Kodaks that his father collected. Now he photographs pets and people in unique and interesting ways. Jon's Website: jonmullin.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |___|)____________________________________________________________________| |___/______ __ _ ___ _ _____________________________________________| |__/|______ (_ / \|\ | | / ______________________________________________| |_/(|,\___ __)\_/| \|_|_\_ _____________________________________________| |_\_|_/________ __ _ __ _ ___ __ __ _________________________| | | (_ |_ /\ (_ / \|\ | | |\ |/__(_ | | (_| __)|_/--\__)\_/| \|_|_| \|\_|__) With Bea Thurman | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The computer, depending on who you ask, is either a musician's trusted companion or mortal enemy. From the detuned screechings of the Manchester Mark I in 1951 to the entirely digital workflows of today, one thing has remained a constant: wherever there is a computer capable of producing sound, something musical is sure to follow. I'm Bea Thurman, and welcome to Sonic Seasonings, where I talk about the history of computer music from the perspective of a computer enthusiast and musician. Today we will tackle the beige and black titan responsible for some of the most famous sounds of the 1980s and beyond- the Fairlight CMI. You may not know the name Fairlight but you most certainly know some of its sounds. It's been used by bands and musicians like Thomas Dolby, Yes, Herbie Hancock, Tears for Fears, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. Bush's hit song, "Running up That Hill" was composed almost entirely on the Fairlight. The ORCH5 orchestra hit sample can be heard across genres ranging from experimental art pop, hip hop, and everywhere in between, originated as a sample provided by Fairlight themselves. To call the impact of the Fairlight wide reaching would be doing the machine an injustice. Sampling as a concept had been explored as far back as the 1960s with instruments like the Mellotron or Chamberlin, which both used segments of magnetic tape, like what you'd find in a cassette tape. A simple key-press would play them back. While groundbreaking, the Mellotron and its contemporaries were designed to emulate *prerecorded* instruments, choirs, and even entire string sections. With the emergence of digital sampling musicians could easily record their own samples, which allowed for the instrument to be much more versatile in its use cases. The advent of digital storage also allowed for easy editing and manipulation of these sounds. With a sound on tape, editing the sound was a physical process that involved directly modifying and manipulating the physical strip of tape. Cutting a section of sound literally meant cutting part of the tape off and splicing it back together. With a digital file, this was streamlined to a simple on-screen editing interface, manipulated via the computer keyboard and light pen. Digital storage also allowed for looping these recorded sounds, whereas before it would have been done with a physical loop of tape. The Fairlight's other big innovation was called Page R. A powerful and entirely digital on screen sequencer, it was essentially a precursor to the Digital Audio Workstations of today, allowing for nonlinear sequencing of notes on screen in any order, frequency, and time signature you could want. This in turn allowed for sophisticated and complex sequences that could consist of anything from a bassline or drum riff to an entire song. The Pet Shop Boys synced up 2 Fairlights running Page R for a live performance of "Opportunities" on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1986 for drums, additional bass, and effects. The Fairlight, being entirely digital, had to contend with the limited RAM of the time. Early models had only 16 KB of memory per voice, meaning that samples were limited to 8 bits of fidelity, at between 8 and 24 kHz. While limited, this also allowed for brand new sonic capabilities. Brad Fidel composed and performed the entire soundtrack for Terminator 2 using a pair of series 3 Fairlight systems, and used this limited fidelity to his advantage. Using samples recorded from conventional orchestras, he played notes low on the keyboard, creating crunchy and low quality sounds that, while organic in origin, felt artificial and cold. Most notable of these is the low, rumbling roar heard when the T1000 is on screen. This was made by layering a brass fall-off sound and letting the aliasing do the rest. The Fairlight, while groundbreaking, came with a price that reflected that. A brand new Fairlight could cost anywhere between $20-100,000, depending on the options you went with, leaving it an instrument that was only accessible to the rich or already famous. As the 1980s lumbered on, smaller, cheaper, and more readily available samplers hit the market like the Korg DSS-1, Akai AX80, Ensoniq Mirage, and the SK-1 and FZ-1 from Casio. With prices starting as low as $100, many of these could do much of what a fairlight could do at a price that allowed anyone with some savings and a dream to get their hands on one. By the '90s there was no need for a system as big and as expensive as the Fairlight CMI, and production stopped. Aside from a brief and misguided relaunch in 2009, the CMI has remained out of production since the 1980s, but its impact on music as a whole lives on. The principles of Page R went on to become standalone software still in use today, and sampling is more prevalent than ever in today's music scene. It's strange to think that much of what we take for granted today can be traced back to a few crazy dudes in Australia with a pipe dream that ultimately reshaped music forever. Sometimes, I find, reality is far stranger than fiction could ever be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Bea Thurman: Bea, who has been plinking away on keyboards since the age of 8, is lead singer and keyboardist for the new wave synthpop band Superphone. She has a very particular set of skills, but nobody really knows what those are and I don't think she does either. Bea's Website: superphonerecordings.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,---. ,---. / /"`.\.--"""--./,'"\ \ \ \ _ _ / / `./ / __ __ \ \,' / /_O)_(_O\ \ | .-' ___ `-. | .--| \_/ |--. ,' \ \ | / / `. / `. `--^--' ,' \ .-"""""-. `--.___.--' .-"""""-. .-----/ \------------------/ \--------. | .---\ /----------------- \ /------. | | | `-`--`--' `--'--'-' | | | | Retro Living in a Modern World | | | | | | | | with Grizzly Adam | | | | | | | | This Installment: More Wii & Retroliving Update | | | |_________________________________________________| | |_____________________________________________________| When I left you last month, I had just just installed the latest homebrew to my soft-modded Wii and successfully got it online. Most of the changes came about because of a new version of USB Loader GX (3.0 r1281) that can load all of my Wii and Gamecube games from my 512 GB SD card, leaving my USB ports both open for game accessories. A URL for this version of USB loader is listed at the end of this month's column, as are three discord servers where Wii homebrew support can be obtained. Skyy, a nice chap on the POJR server, has been a great help for this project and has a very good handle on the current capabilities of the newer Wii homebrew software. Much of the new features that I am including this month was a direct result of his knowledge. I am not sure that I will be playing Wii online with Joe afterall. His life has suddenly gotten very busy and this project is no longer a priority for him. However, through the POJR and Wii Are Gamers Discord servers, I have been able to arrange to play online with others. I have found that for most games random matches are not possible- the servers for less popular games are deserted. Only juggernauts like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Brawl have the traffic to make random matches a viable option. One large limitation I found last month was that I did not have the amount of blocks available in the system memory (NAND) to install all the WiiWare that I wanted. Well, this eventually worked itself out when Skyy mentioned that he had been working with emuNAND. It turns out that USB Loader GX has the ability to move WiiWare, Miis, and game saves to SD and USB drives. What's more, it has a built-in WAD installer for adding WiiWare directly to emuNAND. Now I can have all the WiiWare I desire! (Note from Skyy: The best option is to install WiiWare on your NAND and then move it to your SD Card via the Wii Data Management interface. This will ensure the best compatibility. However, using emuNAND is very convenient and most games are compatible.) Another major breakthrough was when I found out that USB Loader GX allowed for controlling GameCube games with the classic controller. Upon launching into a GC game, the Wiimotes powers off. If you plug in the classic controller and press A, the Wiimote will power back on and connect. If you find that it does not, simply toggle the "native controller" option in the GC settings. I am very impressed with what all my Wii can do compared to two months ago, and am very happy that I completed this project. Changing gears, I would like to give a short update on my retro-living lifestyle. Dear reader, you may think I have completely lost it when you hear this news, but I promise you that I have not. I have successfully built an arcade in my basement, and have a nearly completed disco as well. Yes, you read right- I built an arcade and am building a disco. In case you had forgotten (or didn't read the first installment of this column), my famous retro room is also located in the basement- right next to the disco. Over the next few months this column will be about this remodel and every- thing that has gone into it. I will even tell you about the vintage pachinko machine that has been in the family for 30 years and that I have now fully restored. Until then, stay retro! USB Loader GX 3.0 r1281: https://oscwii.org/library/app/usbloader_gx Wii Are Gamers Discord Server: https://discord.gg/JdY4cpWkug POJR Discord Server: https://discord.gg/3SAwrXvtZB WiiLink Discord Server: https://discord.gg/wiilink ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, programming, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,------------------. ( Our Readers' ) > Random Access < ( Memories ) `-----------(_)----' 0 o .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. Jon Mullin recalls: One time, when I was really young, we went to the flea market and there were a bunch of used PCs and I got yelled at for trying one of them. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. ================== | UNCLASSIFIED ADS | ================== _________________________________________________________________________ | There's just one place to go for all your spatula needs: | | SPATULA CITY | | Home of the Spatula! | | Shop any of our 7 locations! | |=========================================================================| | We have a giant warehouse of spatulas for any occasion with thousands | | to choose from in every shape, size and color. 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IF YOU HAVE * * * * ANY INFORMATION, CALL IN RIGHT * * * O R A N G E * * O R A N G E * * * AWAY, AND DON'T FALL FOR * * LUPIN'S TRICKS! * LOST: 1 IMPACTICAL GLASS SLIPPER * +81 592 024-1971 * IF FOUND, RETURN TO CINDERELA *********************************** CASTLE FOR REWARD. IF YOU'RE HOT. (USE SERVANT ENTERANCE) With a sweet citrus flavor, . .. .. .. .. .... .. .. .. .. .. . CITRANIUM is the drink for you! :Get your PRESCRIPTION: POULTRY at: Made fresh daily (from concentrate) :Columbo's all You Can Eat Chicken: at APERATURE SCIENCE : Downtown L.A. : CITRANIUM: It's science in a can! : "Just one more wing." : . .. .. .. .. .... .. .. .. .. .. . ----------------------------------- Are you Patriotic, looking for EXTERMINATOR DESPERATELY NEEDED work, mechanically inclined, or all MY HOME IS OVERRUN WITH GREMLINS of these things? You can support 502-5221 Ask for Rand your Empire by building Tie- Fighters here at Used Computers available at SIENAR FLEET SYSTEMS. BUBS' CONCESSION STAND Employee benefits and competitive Slightly not working Tandy 400, pay far exceed our competitors. Compy 386- only slightly shotgunned SIENAR FLEET SYSTEMS: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bringing Jobs and Prosperity Dedede Aftershave to Lothal and beyond. What's that smell? Apply today! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ----------------------------------- RESET SURVEILLANCE CENTER Want a whole new snack is Seekin' funding for continued like you've never seen before? monitorin' of reality alterin' the perfect office snack? resets. Pledge to fund the Reset Your prayers have been answered Surveillance Center and help with Muppet Labs all new our UNSTOPPABLE MOLE POWER! EDIBLE PAPER CLIPS Call to pledge today! Delicious, nutritious, 555-5959-RESETTI and nickel-plated! .---------------------------------. Useful around the office, | .-----------------------------. | the perfect TV snack, | | | | and are totally harmless. | | Bubs' Old Pizza | | MUPPET LABS: where the future | | It's-a really old! | | is being made today! | |_____________________________| | *Muppet labs is not responsible |_________________________________| for any ill health effects. ----------------------------(\/) (;,,;) (\/)----------------------------- (((_.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._))) ))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(( (( > < )) )) EDITOR: Grizzly Adam (( (( > ASSISTANT EDITOR: Jon Mullin < )) )) PUBLISHER: Grizzly Adam (( (( > PUBLISHER: Grizzly Adam < )) )) (( (( > WRITERS < )) )) --------- (( (( > Grizzly Adam < )) )) BlueMSX (( (( > Jon Mullin < )) )) Bea Thurman (( (( > Ashley Thomas < )) )) (( (( > < )) )) http://dosanddonts.mywebcommunity.org (( (( > http://www.youtube.com/@DOSandDontsNewsletter < )) ))...............................................................(( (( > SHARE ME! PUT ME ON YOUR SERVER, SEND ME TO YOUR FRIENDS! < )) ))...............................................................(( (((`-._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.-)))