Ah, simulation software. Flight simulators, driving simulators, space simulators… you think of it, someone has probably coded a simulator for it. Hell, there’s even a joke name for a genre of game today called “walking simulator” where most of what you do is simply, well, walk. Computer simulations hold an interest to gamers in that […]
The computers of the 80’s are somewhat well known for the unique sounds they produced. While CD quality audio and digital sound samples are the order of the day now, and have been for several decades, in the early days of computers sounds, and thus, music, were produced via internal hardware that directly generated tones […]
In a bit of rocketry news that I’m long overdue for writing about, back on January 21st, 2018, the New Zealand company Rocket Lab had the first successful launch of their Electron rocket – a booster designed to launch very small payloads into Earth orbit. Not only does this mark New Zealand’s entry into orbital […]
I really can’t believe this is still having to be addressed, but here we go, again. A post is making the rounds on Facebook saying “Pluto has been reclassified as a planet!” This is, of course, an outright lie, and the article cited as a source for it is absolutely idiotic when actually read. Here […]
Today marks 32 years since the Challenger Disaster. On January 28th, 1986, The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into it’s 10th mission due to one of its solid rocket boosters having a failed o-ring in a joint between 2 sections of the tubing, causing a burn thorough which over a minute of flight […]
January 27th, 1968 marked one year since the fire at Launch Complex 34 that killed the crew of Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. One year without a manned American space flight. One year of major change to our space program. One year of relative uncertainty. 1968 would, as fate would have […]
On January 22nd, 1968 a Saturn 1B rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 37B carrying the first Apollo Lunar Module into orbit for its first in-space test flight. While Apollo 4 had tested the massive Saturn V, itself, of course, a critical machine in physically getting to the Moon, Apollo 5 […]
15 years ago today the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on what was to become its last mission, STS-107. This flight carried a crew of 7 not to the International Space Station – Columbia was far too heavy for the orbital inclination the Space Station orbits at – but a simple Earth Orbit mission for […]
Ah, now we’re getting into one of the more interesting nuances of the 80’s computer scene – graphics! While today our systems simply use software to create everything we see on screen, with hardware doing the raw math to make it all happen, back in those days, you didn’t have processing power, memory, or, well, […]
Yesterday was, needles to say, a rather rough day for me. I woke up quite late, as usual, to the news that Astronaut John Young had died the previous day, January 5th. John Young was an absolute legend among astronauts, up there as high as Alan Shepard, John Glenn or Neil Armstrong. John Young flew […]
Ah, the Commodore 64. The best selling computer of all time, one that most anyone involved in the classic gaming scene is aware of, and those into old computers certainly must have at least tried to experience. What a better way to do this holiday than to go back to 1982/1983 and experience the in-store […]
I thought it fitting, given recent events, to share this episode of the Computer Chronicles discussing the Internet in 1993. I don’t have to explain the internet to you – you know what it is, but understanding how it became what it is and why it was such a major thing, that’s something else entirely. […]
Today, December 15th, 2017, marks a pretty dark day for the internet – no, we aren’t talking about Net Neutrality here (although I’m about to get into that, check ahead a few articles,) I’m talking about the death Aol Instant Messenger, or AIM, which had its servers shut down today. I had covered this when […]
When I think about my hobbies, one common trend I’ve noticed is that much of them involve, for on reason or another, me desiring to keep things that do work doing what they do. Hell, its also my job, actually – much of my day to day game store work is actually repairing old game […]
Wow, we haven’t taken a look at Bits and Bytes since July! Time to get back to it. Bits and Bytes episode 8 deals with Simulation software and games which have an educational lean to them. While being an episode dealing with games, it does touch into some elements of gaming back in the early […]