The Atari era of gaming was something special. It was a time period where things were kind of wild and companies were throwing pretty much anything out there to see what would take. Atari itself, as a company, was doing wonderfully and the VCS, later renamed the 2600, was dominating the gaming scene. This success […]
Tag: 1980’s
Bits And Bytes – Program 5: Communication Between Computers
Alright, finally we’re getting to something that will feel familiar to everyone: networking! More correctly, the pre-internet computer networking methodology known as BBS’s, via literally dialing a number and putting a phone on the modulator-demodulator – a modem, if you are old enough to remember those kinds of things! This episode shows our friend Billy […]
Television in the Soviet Union in 1986
Last week I was watching some videos receiving far-away TV transmission when this video was recommended by YouTube – it’s a 1986 American public access show which covers Soviet state TV recorded over 1985 and 1986 – this includes comedy programs, news (including an early Chernobyl report), game shows,special reports on their space program, and […]
2016 Takes Another Artist: George Michael
Fox, Family Guy, Double Dribble, YouTube, and the DMCA
Proving yet again how absolutely broken the YouTube copyright system is, Fox has issued a DMCA takedown against a YouTube video of the NES game “Double Dribble.” The reason? The video clip, which was uploaded in 2009, was used in the most recent (at this time) episode of the animated comedy Family Guy. That’s right. […]
Spending Some Time With a Good Old BBS
Before there was the internet, there were Bulletin Board Systems (BBS for short). These systems were basic, at their core, but could grow quite complex. The way they worked was simple: a user dialed the phone number of the BBS they wanted to access and, presuming the line wasn’t busy, they would connect directly to […]