Jason Scott's Weblog
Peter Hirschberg, who I raved about some time ago, did a bunch of animation and graphics and design work for a documentary called Chasing Ghosts, about arcades. (Don’t worry, my film’s on a somewhat different trajectory.) Besides being a great programmer and nostalgia engineer, he’s also a really, really good design/graphics guy. I was struck […]
I got the DEFCON Schedule and browsed it for my location. Point of fact, I got an excellent time-frame: 9pm, Friday. People will have arrived in droves, Dinner will potentially be had, and folks will be open to hearing my stories and suggestions around computer history. But then my eyes drift to the left, and […]
I’ve tried to figure out when a portion of software and application development started to truly hate its users. First, we need to go back in time a bit, to 1983. IBM PCs are still sparkling new. Time magazine has made the personal computer “machine of the year” because of the effect it’s having. Comparatively, […]
Another day, another person telling me I wouldn’t be interested in them and they’re not interested in being interviewed. In this case, it was a coin-op and electronics business somewhat near my home. They put the whole shebang up for sale on Craigslist ($175k, firm!) and included some numbers to call. What the heck’s to […]
I spent a good portion of the weekend not doing much of anything. While at an interview on Friday, I called my buddy Chris and asked if he had some time and a couch. And he did. So instead of running around, instead of doing a bunch of technical stuff, and instead of touching computers, […]
What the heck, let’s go into the 3279 terminal a little more. As mentioned previously, this was a terminal that my dad would plunk me in front of to give me something to do when he had projects at work to finish. As I am quickly nearing the age that he was when this was […]
This is a product endorsement, but don’t worry, the product is free. I’m also endorsing it on my own initiative and have not even communicated with the creator of the product. One progression I have encountered many times in researching GET LAMP, is the following: See your first text adventure game (Adventure, Zork, or the […]
As of tonight, I now know I am speaking at three engagements in the coming months: The Vintage Computer Festival Midwest on July 14th, in Indiana. DEFCON 15, the weekend of August 3rd, Las Vegas, NV. The Black and White Ball, week of 18th-21st of September, London. I always enjoy speaking, and it’s nice to […]
People sometimes hit me up with simple questions that you’d think I could just dash off, but a lack-of-pithiness reaction stops me from doing so. Sure, I could whip up some off-the-cuff answer, but it wouldn’t be accurate, and that always stumps me. A classic one is “What’s your favorite arcade game?” There’s about five […]
Well, this is something. I stumbled upon someone’s attempt to do a “Grand Unifying” history of hacking, phreaking, and cracking. It jumps around everywhere from the dawn of the telephone system up through to mentioning my documentary (!) which is how I found it in the first place. It gets a few things wrong, like […]