Well. It's been, what, 18 months since I last posted something on this blog. I had the best of intentions... I really did. But it seemed to be devolving into a bunch of memoirs. Like the Internet needs more memoirs...
Ah I might continue with it. I'll think about it.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Thursday, August 7, 2008
It also Began in or Around 1980
The other part of the story parallels, and intertwines heavily with, that of computers.
That other half is video games.
At the time Mr. Holmes was attempting to thrill a bunch of snotty-nose kids (and succeeding with one at least), a world-wide revolution came crashing at last into our sleepy little backwater.
The local hamburger joint got the town’s first Space Invaders machine.
No one had seen anything like this before -- a TV set in a cabinet, facing upwards, with controls at either end. One sat down, put in a coin, and shot down wave after wave of pixelly little aliens. Of course we had seen and played pinball machines, in that same burger joint and elsewhere. But this was something entirely new and exciting.
Needless to say, the game was an instant hit. Kids came from miles around to sit down and play this electronic marvel. We were lucky that with such a small population, we didn’t have a line of punters stretching out the door. But from opening time till six-bells, the hamburger joint would see at least four or five kids clustered around the wondrous machine, 20-cent pieces in hand and jostling for their turn.
After some initial scuffling a kind of etiquette grew up out of the chaos: First come first served, one game only, and if you didn’t place your coin on the machine's glass, in strict order of appearance, you missed out. This protocol came unbidden by any adults' rule or decree, and is a surprising testament to the resourceful cooperation kids can accomplish, when they want to. Must have watched too much Sesame Street.
So for most of the boys in town, and a few of the girls, it was hook-line-sinker courtesy of this space-age television-like thing that gobbled 20c pieces and went "pew-pew!" Generally speaking, no one went go to the cafe specifically to play; but a trip for a burger and chips was not complete without a couple of games on the "spacey's". At least, not initially.
It wasn't long before the proper playing strategy was worked out: Shoot precisely, pick the aliens off column-by-column, dodging their fire as you go. This marked the "good" players from the novice, who's naive stratagem invariably involved moving randomly and firing continually. Of course the top-10 positions were always taken by the older boys -- those who were more mature and wily, and had the time and money to play enough games to become really skillful.
Thus was my, and our town's, rude injection into the video gaming era.
(It's interesting to note that our particular video machine was not the classic original Space Invaders, but some contemporary variant whose precise designation I cannot recall.)
Now, I suppose I should frame this electronic phenomenon in some sort of cultural context. A country town, such as where I lived, of the late 70's was a singularly dull place, especially for kids. The few diversions that existed had an entertainment value somewhere around watching paint dry. Most young-uns subsisted on a cerebral hardtack of school, television and f*ck-all else, and don't even get me started on the dreary, monotonous, lowest-common-denominator tedium which counted as school curricula in those days. The adults in the town faired a little better; they at least had alcohol, wife-swapping and Bex.
We had two TV stations -- ABC and the local channel. ABC entertained us with test pattern music on most weekdays until 3pm, and on weekends aired predominantly sports. The local station aired soaps and "The Mike Walsh Show" during weekdays, to the delight of the housewives, with sports on weekends and maybe an old movie. (Fortunately both stations had a decent line-up on weekday afternoons after school.) Both stations closed down around midnight.
During summer holidays the local station would put on early morning cartoons, at least. However if it was cricket season, which just so happened to coincide with the summer holidays, we would be treated to enthralling games of cricket all day long, every day of the week. When the heroes in whites were not playing we would have engrossing tennis to watch in its stead. Not to be outdone, "Auntie" ABC would spoil us with exciting rounds of golf at the same time, over the same duration.
How many times did I turn on the ol' tube, only to see a bunch of toadying schmucks politely applauding some poonce in slacks for potting a ball into a hole. Then I'd change channels, only to listen to some sweaty wanker grunting like a rutting warthog as he smacked a ball down a court.
It was not just the week-long sports that the stations would delight us with. They also aired the footy from both the "Sydney comp" (as the NRL was known in those days), and the VFL (as the AFL was known in those days.) That was ok, at least those sports were not arm-chewingly boring to watch -- except that the stations would not limit themselves to the A-grade matches. They would also air the B-grade and Reserve-grade matches, and the more obscure stuff, all the way down to the local Rugby Union games with a total of 12 people in the crowd.
In summary: TV sucked.
Anyway I'm starting to sound like my other blog... that's all for today, more of my jaunting dally down memory lane next time.
That other half is video games.
At the time Mr. Holmes was attempting to thrill a bunch of snotty-nose kids (and succeeding with one at least), a world-wide revolution came crashing at last into our sleepy little backwater.
The local hamburger joint got the town’s first Space Invaders machine.
No one had seen anything like this before -- a TV set in a cabinet, facing upwards, with controls at either end. One sat down, put in a coin, and shot down wave after wave of pixelly little aliens. Of course we had seen and played pinball machines, in that same burger joint and elsewhere. But this was something entirely new and exciting.
Needless to say, the game was an instant hit. Kids came from miles around to sit down and play this electronic marvel. We were lucky that with such a small population, we didn’t have a line of punters stretching out the door. But from opening time till six-bells, the hamburger joint would see at least four or five kids clustered around the wondrous machine, 20-cent pieces in hand and jostling for their turn.
After some initial scuffling a kind of etiquette grew up out of the chaos: First come first served, one game only, and if you didn’t place your coin on the machine's glass, in strict order of appearance, you missed out. This protocol came unbidden by any adults' rule or decree, and is a surprising testament to the resourceful cooperation kids can accomplish, when they want to. Must have watched too much Sesame Street.
So for most of the boys in town, and a few of the girls, it was hook-line-sinker courtesy of this space-age television-like thing that gobbled 20c pieces and went "pew-pew!" Generally speaking, no one went go to the cafe specifically to play; but a trip for a burger and chips was not complete without a couple of games on the "spacey's". At least, not initially.
It wasn't long before the proper playing strategy was worked out: Shoot precisely, pick the aliens off column-by-column, dodging their fire as you go. This marked the "good" players from the novice, who's naive stratagem invariably involved moving randomly and firing continually. Of course the top-10 positions were always taken by the older boys -- those who were more mature and wily, and had the time and money to play enough games to become really skillful.
Thus was my, and our town's, rude injection into the video gaming era.
(It's interesting to note that our particular video machine was not the classic original Space Invaders, but some contemporary variant whose precise designation I cannot recall.)
Now, I suppose I should frame this electronic phenomenon in some sort of cultural context. A country town, such as where I lived, of the late 70's was a singularly dull place, especially for kids. The few diversions that existed had an entertainment value somewhere around watching paint dry. Most young-uns subsisted on a cerebral hardtack of school, television and f*ck-all else, and don't even get me started on the dreary, monotonous, lowest-common-denominator tedium which counted as school curricula in those days. The adults in the town faired a little better; they at least had alcohol, wife-swapping and Bex.
We had two TV stations -- ABC and the local channel. ABC entertained us with test pattern music on most weekdays until 3pm, and on weekends aired predominantly sports. The local station aired soaps and "The Mike Walsh Show" during weekdays, to the delight of the housewives, with sports on weekends and maybe an old movie. (Fortunately both stations had a decent line-up on weekday afternoons after school.) Both stations closed down around midnight.
During summer holidays the local station would put on early morning cartoons, at least. However if it was cricket season, which just so happened to coincide with the summer holidays, we would be treated to enthralling games of cricket all day long, every day of the week. When the heroes in whites were not playing we would have engrossing tennis to watch in its stead. Not to be outdone, "Auntie" ABC would spoil us with exciting rounds of golf at the same time, over the same duration.
How many times did I turn on the ol' tube, only to see a bunch of toadying schmucks politely applauding some poonce in slacks for potting a ball into a hole. Then I'd change channels, only to listen to some sweaty wanker grunting like a rutting warthog as he smacked a ball down a court.
It was not just the week-long sports that the stations would delight us with. They also aired the footy from both the "Sydney comp" (as the NRL was known in those days), and the VFL (as the AFL was known in those days.) That was ok, at least those sports were not arm-chewingly boring to watch -- except that the stations would not limit themselves to the A-grade matches. They would also air the B-grade and Reserve-grade matches, and the more obscure stuff, all the way down to the local Rugby Union games with a total of 12 people in the crowd.
In summary: TV sucked.
Anyway I'm starting to sound like my other blog... that's all for today, more of my jaunting dally down memory lane next time.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Hey... What?
I thought this blog was about film making! What's with the dribbling sojourn down memory lane?
Well, computers figured (and still do, at this time) very large in my life. And they will continue to do so after my career change is complete. So I guess this is in essence a cathartic exercise; a final slamming of the huge book shut, as it were.
That’s it. Skip the boring crappy parts if you want.
Well, computers figured (and still do, at this time) very large in my life. And they will continue to do so after my career change is complete. So I guess this is in essence a cathartic exercise; a final slamming of the huge book shut, as it were.
That’s it. Skip the boring crappy parts if you want.
It all Began in or Around 1980
The mighty USSR was bogged down in some mud-hole of a country; the world mourned the first, untimely passing of an ex-Beatle; and the Australian public had accepted the Commodore as a viable family car.
And my path down to the Computer Industry began.
It was all my old Maths teacher's fault. I was just a rosy-cheeked young-un in 5th grade, in a small primary school in a small country town in northern NSW. One sunny day, one of the Maths teachers from the neighbouring high school gave us a presentation of his Apple II computer. I remember like it was yesterday; sitting cross-legged on the floor with the other kids, and completely enraptured by this wondrous machine as its informative text and crude but clever graphics scrolled over the screen.
After the class I remember my mates saying, "Pah! That was boring." But in contrast I was utterly hooked.
An terrible seed was planted that day; one that would grow into a gnarled and near-unbreakable vine that would entangle the next 28 years of my life.
That Apple II computer belonged either to the high school or to the teacher personally (not sure which), so I wouldn't see it again for another 2 years. But my next exposure to computers would only have to wait a year. The father of my friend who lived next door, an electrician and wiz, bought himself a kit computer. It was a Dick Smith Super-80. It came with no case; just a bare circuit board with a keyboard on it, and I was bowled over when my friend showed it to me. It was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen up to that point; with its black chips and gleaming copper tracks, looking like some miniature space-age city.
After a while the guy made his own case from white moulded plastic, and the finished product looked like a typewriter from the Jetson's. For a display it hooked up to a TV set, as did all microcomputers in those days, and my friend's dad had an little old black & white TV for that purpose. To complete the setup they had a cassette player, appropriated from my friend's sister, as a storage device. Yes I said cassette! To save a program the bits were converted to an audio signal and recorded onto the tape, like some weird computer speech.
So this was the first computer I ever had the privilege to operate. (My mate’s dad trusted both me and him not to blow it up.) It wasn’t much -- a monochrome text-only display, a few kilobytes of memory, and nothing on it but a simple BASIC interpreter. We had a book of type-in programs and games, minimal yet venerable classics like Peril and Jewels. Of course, next to the enormously powerful multimedia machines which grace every home and office desk today, this computer was as a flint rock to a Swiss-army knife. But compared to what we knew it was a truly marvellous thing.
A whole new world was opened up. Stay tuned...
And my path down to the Computer Industry began.
It was all my old Maths teacher's fault. I was just a rosy-cheeked young-un in 5th grade, in a small primary school in a small country town in northern NSW. One sunny day, one of the Maths teachers from the neighbouring high school gave us a presentation of his Apple II computer. I remember like it was yesterday; sitting cross-legged on the floor with the other kids, and completely enraptured by this wondrous machine as its informative text and crude but clever graphics scrolled over the screen.
After the class I remember my mates saying, "Pah! That was boring." But in contrast I was utterly hooked.
An terrible seed was planted that day; one that would grow into a gnarled and near-unbreakable vine that would entangle the next 28 years of my life.
That Apple II computer belonged either to the high school or to the teacher personally (not sure which), so I wouldn't see it again for another 2 years. But my next exposure to computers would only have to wait a year. The father of my friend who lived next door, an electrician and wiz, bought himself a kit computer. It was a Dick Smith Super-80. It came with no case; just a bare circuit board with a keyboard on it, and I was bowled over when my friend showed it to me. It was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen up to that point; with its black chips and gleaming copper tracks, looking like some miniature space-age city.
After a while the guy made his own case from white moulded plastic, and the finished product looked like a typewriter from the Jetson's. For a display it hooked up to a TV set, as did all microcomputers in those days, and my friend's dad had an little old black & white TV for that purpose. To complete the setup they had a cassette player, appropriated from my friend's sister, as a storage device. Yes I said cassette! To save a program the bits were converted to an audio signal and recorded onto the tape, like some weird computer speech.
So this was the first computer I ever had the privilege to operate. (My mate’s dad trusted both me and him not to blow it up.) It wasn’t much -- a monochrome text-only display, a few kilobytes of memory, and nothing on it but a simple BASIC interpreter. We had a book of type-in programs and games, minimal yet venerable classics like Peril and Jewels. Of course, next to the enormously powerful multimedia machines which grace every home and office desk today, this computer was as a flint rock to a Swiss-army knife. But compared to what we knew it was a truly marvellous thing.
A whole new world was opened up. Stay tuned...
Monday, July 28, 2008
Chapter 0
Everything has a start. Yesterday I attended the Queensland University of Technology open day, and thus started my new career (pretty much). This blog chronicles my transition from bored, miserable Dilbert-esque computer dweeb and cube rat to the glittering universe of writer & film maker. With any luck. So prepare to follow the tedious and whimsical minutiae of my life henceforth...
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