In Time, This Too Shall Pass
This week influenza has decided to camp out at my place. I'm not liking it very much, and due to my constant aggravated assaults against it, I'm sure it's not enjoying it's stay either. The nastier part is the other guy on my team at work is also sick. Come back and get your computer fixed, and we'll throw in the flu for free. Unfortunately, there always has to be at least one of us there since the job is a support role, and since one of us has to be in, we might as well both be there to suffer. I'm pretty sure that to anyone who did come back for help we looked like a couple of dead fish under a fishmongers display, glassy eyed and staring off into nowhere for extended periods of time. I'm not entirely sure who gave it to who, or where it all started from, but someone needs to be punished for this. I suppose I should stay home so I don't spread it around, but why stop it now before everyone is having fun?
Tomorrow one of the greatest (and oddest) inventions of all time is passing from my hands to some one else's. Lets all stroll back to the early 80's. Back to the days of neon stretch pants, jelly bracelets and bad hair metal bands. Inbetween all the bad clothes and bad hair, video gaming was skyrocketing and every company was trying to get in on the action. General Consumer Electric decided to get in on the rage and built something called the Vectrex. This thing was an all in one video gaming solution with controller, screen and power all in one. It was easily portable (for the time), but by far the coolest thing was it used vector graphics. I'll geek out here a second and try to explain the difference. Remember Asteroids or Star Wars in the arcade? Everything was drawn with lines. It looked like an experiment in geometry. If you took a computer class in school, and you are from my generation, you might remember a program where you would draw shapes on those computers with the green and black screens with this triangle shaped thing that was the cursor, more commonly called the turtle. You would punch in really simple math equations that translated to screen positions and it would draw the line.
Everything you drew look like it came off of an etch-a-sketch. I guess the nearest thing to this now would be Geometry wars for the Xbox platforms. To top it off, there were these crazy clear overlays that fit right onto the screen so it looked like it was in color, even though all the screen could project was Black and White. Think of a photography filter, or a gel for over a stage light. Eventually the overlays would warp and discolor, but that just added to the ambiance of the thing. Like all of the weird video gaming systems from the early 80's it really didn't do very well and faded into obscurity. I saved it from an old buddy of mines place back in the early 90's and have kept it with all my other weird old electronic crap.
Ok, I'm done geeking out.
Anyways, Ender is moving back to the states and has a pile of stuff he is trying to get rid of. There were a couple of things that piqued my interest and we started chatting. Turns out he has old weird stuff too, but is missing a vectrex from his collection. We've come up with some stuff that we both want from each others list and arranged a trade. I'd only let it go to someone who can appreciate how cool and weird it is, so it's going to a good new home.
The scary thing is I remember when these things came out. I was up at the plaza by my parents house (coincidentally I can see that same plaza from where I live now) in the radio shack and seen one near the trash 80's. I fell in love with the thing as soon as I seen it. It looked just like the Asteroids arcade machine, but smaller. Of course I couldn't afford the it (sucker was 200 bones back in 1983), but that didn't make me want it any less. It's nature of the stuff you want when you are a kid. I'd like to say I've outgrown that part of my nature, but I can't as look over at my entertainment center and can count way to many electronic goodies hanging off of my TV.
If it's true that he who dies with the most toys wins I'm pretty sure I'm in the running. Of course, one could also say I need to get out more.
This week influenza has decided to camp out at my place. I'm not liking it very much, and due to my constant aggravated assaults against it, I'm sure it's not enjoying it's stay either. The nastier part is the other guy on my team at work is also sick. Come back and get your computer fixed, and we'll throw in the flu for free. Unfortunately, there always has to be at least one of us there since the job is a support role, and since one of us has to be in, we might as well both be there to suffer. I'm pretty sure that to anyone who did come back for help we looked like a couple of dead fish under a fishmongers display, glassy eyed and staring off into nowhere for extended periods of time. I'm not entirely sure who gave it to who, or where it all started from, but someone needs to be punished for this. I suppose I should stay home so I don't spread it around, but why stop it now before everyone is having fun?Tomorrow one of the greatest (and oddest) inventions of all time is passing from my hands to some one else's. Lets all stroll back to the early 80's. Back to the days of neon stretch pants, jelly bracelets and bad hair metal bands. Inbetween all the bad clothes and bad hair, video gaming was skyrocketing and every company was trying to get in on the action. General Consumer Electric decided to get in on the rage and built something called the Vectrex. This thing was an all in one video gaming solution with controller, screen and power all in one. It was easily portable (for the time), but by far the coolest thing was it used vector graphics. I'll geek out here a second and try to explain the difference. Remember Asteroids or Star Wars in the arcade? Everything was drawn with lines. It looked like an experiment in geometry. If you took a computer class in school, and you are from my generation, you might remember a program where you would draw shapes on those computers with the green and black screens with this triangle shaped thing that was the cursor, more commonly called the turtle. You would punch in really simple math equations that translated to screen positions and it would draw the line.
Everything you drew look like it came off of an etch-a-sketch. I guess the nearest thing to this now would be Geometry wars for the Xbox platforms. To top it off, there were these crazy clear overlays that fit right onto the screen so it looked like it was in color, even though all the screen could project was Black and White. Think of a photography filter, or a gel for over a stage light. Eventually the overlays would warp and discolor, but that just added to the ambiance of the thing. Like all of the weird video gaming systems from the early 80's it really didn't do very well and faded into obscurity. I saved it from an old buddy of mines place back in the early 90's and have kept it with all my other weird old electronic crap.Ok, I'm done geeking out.
Anyways, Ender is moving back to the states and has a pile of stuff he is trying to get rid of. There were a couple of things that piqued my interest and we started chatting. Turns out he has old weird stuff too, but is missing a vectrex from his collection. We've come up with some stuff that we both want from each others list and arranged a trade. I'd only let it go to someone who can appreciate how cool and weird it is, so it's going to a good new home.
The scary thing is I remember when these things came out. I was up at the plaza by my parents house (coincidentally I can see that same plaza from where I live now) in the radio shack and seen one near the trash 80's. I fell in love with the thing as soon as I seen it. It looked just like the Asteroids arcade machine, but smaller. Of course I couldn't afford the it (sucker was 200 bones back in 1983), but that didn't make me want it any less. It's nature of the stuff you want when you are a kid. I'd like to say I've outgrown that part of my nature, but I can't as look over at my entertainment center and can count way to many electronic goodies hanging off of my TV.If it's true that he who dies with the most toys wins I'm pretty sure I'm in the running. Of course, one could also say I need to get out more.
posted by Reverend Moloquin at 8:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home