
Landing the Nostromo (1981) - kazinator
https://archive.org/stream/creativecomputing-1981-06/Creative_Computing_v07_n06_1981_June?ui=embed#page/n51/mode/2up
======
stevecalifornia
I just had an incredible moment reading this and I have to share:

I started flipping through the pages looking at the ads. I came across "Hi-Res
Soccer" and "Hi-Res Football" by On-line Systems on page 59. Looks like you
can order by sending a check to the address in Coarsegold, CA! I laugh because
I know where that is...it's a super tiny, backwater town in the Sierra Nevada
where some of my family live. I'm amazed someone was using a computer there in
1981.

I decide I am going to send payment in an envelope to that address for one of
these games from 1981-- a gag. Maybe if I'm lucky the old guy still lives
there and they'll get a kick out of it.

Out of curiosity I decide to see if I can Google street view the address to
make sure it's still there and see what it looks like. Google Street view
isn't available for that address.

Instead, I Google 'On-line Systems' and the street address just to see what
ended up happening to the company before I send my gag letter.

Turns out 'On-line Systems' in Coarsegold, CA was started by Ken and Roberta
Williams. They later turned it into Sierra On-Line and moved.

Holy shit. The goofy ad on page 59 eventually grew into Sierra Entertainment.

~~~
tdicola
The Microsoft ad on the page facing the Alien article is awesome too. Way
cooler logo and funny to see them selling an accessory for the Apple 2!

~~~
js2
I still own that card. Used it to run cp/m in order to run Wordstar. FYI,
Microsoft also wrote Applesoft Basic.

~~~
kazinator
I also owned one and used Wordstar on CP/M. Also, Borland's Turbo Pascal!

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mmastrac
My graphics prof (who was fantastic) also worked at System Simulation and
liked to bring up the part he worked on in class:

[http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~blob/alien.html](http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~blob/alien.html)

TBH, I'd do the same.

~~~
cgh
Holy cow, I met Blob Wyvill on a rock climbing trip to France in 1999. I had
no idea his nickname was in Alien.

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galaktor
Once again realized: Archive.org is amazing. Please donate.

(not affiliated with it, just a fan)

[https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

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andyjohnson0
The author, Alan Sutcliffe, looks to have been a pioneer in the use of
computer graphics in art. He co-founded the Computer Arts Society [1] and
there are some examples of his work at [2]. He died last year, aged 83 [3][4].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Arts_Society](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Arts_Society)

[2] [http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/agent/521](http://dada.compart-
bremen.de/item/agent/521)

[3] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/alan-
sutcl...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/alan-sutcliffe-
obituary)

[4]
[http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/52263](http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/52263)

------
equalarrow
I was more of a Compute! / Compute!s Gazette guy.. But man, does this bring
back memories..

Hayes modems. Compuserve! The 80's were so simple. Every computer back then
was awesome and it was all about getting your hands on them and just trying
stuff. Aka, hacking - before it was 'illegal'.

I'll never be able to impart on my kids what it was like pre-internet. (Btw,
it was great!) But, like anything, you can bring these lessons forward and
present them with some context that makes sense.

When I was young, this was all positive and all inspiring. I guess that was
possible through the 6502. If someone could invent a time machine - what a
magical time...

~~~
cbd1984
> The 80's were so simple.

Simple things were simple, complex things were impossible, mostly because
computers of that type and era didn't have the RAM.

Rose-colored glasses are nice, but they say a lot more about the wearer than
the era.

~~~
marktangotango
Amen, I poked around on c-64 emulator one time looking for a nostalgia rush,
all I got was headache; that inexorable blinking cursor. Living in the rural
midwest, my 80's where an exercise in frustration due to lack of information
and resources. Is there a word for good nostalgia and bad nostalgia? Remorse I
guess.

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chrisgd
The funniest thing about this is the Dakin5 advertisement. There is still no
solution for a company to upload financials direclty to a bank. Most still
take spreadsheets and email them to a bank, who then hires people to spread
those financials in another spreadsheet that is for bank purposes. Then they
upload them to another internal database that tracks some of it, but that
database doesn't talk to any other databases so you enter it into another
database to generate a risk score.

At least at the 7th largest bank in the US by assets.

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kazinator
I read this stuff in hard copy as a teen in the 1980's.

Ah, Creative Computing ...

~~~
Intermernet
The rest of the articles in that issue are brilliant as well, and the ads
really took me back!

~~~
fit2rule
What amazes me is how useful a lot of this stuff is today, even still .. the
computer music article would serve as a perfectly fine introduction to digital
music generation for any new student of the subject, and the line-
drawing/graphics routines are still quite relevant for any artist who wants to
understand, underneath the covers, whats going on when they fire up their
favourite paint program.

Wonderful stuff!

~~~
Intermernet
And the most annoying thing is that despite the dearth of information
available today, I find it hard to find one well vetted source of modern best
programming practices!

Creative Computing, Byte, Dr Dobbs etc. had some _incredible_ articles vetted
by some amazing editors. If anyone has any recommendations for modern, well
vetted programming resources, I'd love to hear them. I currently tend to just
check /r/programming , HN, lambda-the-ultimate etc. on a periodic basis
looking for new, interesting stuff. Any extra sites would be much appreciated!

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rbanffy
Creative Computing, along with BYTE, was one of my favorite computer magazines
in the 80's.

This one had a role in the Wargames movie:

[https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1982-09](https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1982-09)

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ajtaylor
This brings back a lot of memories: the family Apple IIe and TRS-80 (Trash
80), Compuserve and external modems. Good times! I don't think I ever owned a
Hayes external modem though. IIRC my first online experience was with a 9200
baud internal modem.

~~~
equalarrow
Wow, you had a 9200 baud modem?!?! My first modem was 300 baud..

It's funny how that translated - for decades to come - into real movie
usefulness. In reality, of course, it was ridiculously painful.

~~~
ajtaylor
What can I say? I was pretty late to the internet show. Never really got deep
into the BBS scene, though I do remember doing some exploration of several.

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pepijndevos
Does anyone know where to find that scene in ALIEN? I looked on youtube, but
without success.

~~~
bane
It's when they're landing the dropship. It's one of the computer displays.

Here's a French-dubbed version of the scene

You'll see the glideslope display, then you'll see the terrain display all in
the first couple minutes

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWheoJMxX6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWheoJMxX6k)

Compare to the landing scene in Prometheus
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EtnyKXacF0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EtnyKXacF0)

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myfonj
> Have a nice day, Andy! > Nice days are _made_ , not _had_!

#page/n79/mode/2up

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Keyframe
How do you zoom in on text at archive reader? I can only go back and forth
through pages.

edit: in chrome

~~~
petrosh
go full screen and you get zoom tool

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FraKtus
Makes me want to re create that code today, the esthetic is very nice!

~~~
morganvachon
Indeed, flipping through that printed code took me back to the days of typing
lines of BASIC from a library book on programming into an Atari 400 chiclet
keyboard, only to have the program error out and I'd have to scroll up until I
found my typing mistake. Two hours of painstaking typing to get an animated
sprite. Ahh, memories :)

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vandahm
The ads are fantastic!

