Jason Scott's Weblog
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 […]
Cancer, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a horrid potential byproduct of the natural process of cell division. Things go wrong, a process goes out of whack, and the next thing you know you’re doing all sorts of insane, crazy shit to fix it. And make no mistake; most cancer therapies are insane, […]
So, if you needed some sort of incentive to start going through your collection of old home computer crap and send it to me or someone else to digitize/curate it, here you go. It’s now 30 years since 1977. 30 years since the real send-off of the “home computer” era, where sales are measured in […]