Kickstarter is just frankly one of the most ridiculously cool things to have shown up on the web in a long time. It's such a beautiful thing to put an engine behind all of these really interesting, passionate people and make it possible to crowd-fund their dreams.
I just started watching, but it seems like a lot of fun so far, and it has already put a face to tons of people who had a profound impact on my childhood.
Note that the 6502 documentary holds a decisive lead in the number of backers (25 vs. 11 for Arcade and 3 for Tape).
I presume this is a result of the huge amount of Apple II affection still out there.
When I got into the game industry in the 90's, a sure icebreaker with other programmers was to ask if they cut their programming teeth on the Apple II (like most), the Commodore 64 or maybe the Atari. All were 6502 platforms.
Or maybe the people who want the Tape doc made are passionate enough to put $250 toward the project :) I think it's amazing that the $250 option has more pledges than all the $100 ones combined.
My support for the documentary is based on my love of the NES/Famicom. I'm still playing new games, released in the 80's, emulated on my Nintendo DS. In fact, I only learned 6502 assembly years after it was really relevant by hacking on NES ROMs. There was something really cool about writing simple compression routines with such a simple processor.
The first instruction set I learned was Z80 (Osborne 1), followed by 6502 (Atari 800). I think Atari and Commodore 8-bits may have been more popular than the Apple II, if only because they were available for purchase at more locations.
"if only because they were available for purchase at more locations."
And cost about a third what an Apple II cost. Only the rich kids in my school had Apples. Everybody else had a Commodore, Tandy, or Atari.
I'm certain that cost was the reason my family had a Commodore 64 rather than anything else (my dad is a very value conscious buyer, and the the C64 was a pretty solid value with more RAM, more color, better sound, and the cheapest floppy drive of all the contenders).
I had a C64 as well and recall now that my friends with Apple IIs were all pretty well-off. This went completely over my head at the time.
Purely incidentally, my C64 floppy drive's case was cracked because the family acquaintance we got it from had found a broken drive second-hand, bought a new one at Toys R Us, swapped the internals and returned the one with bad guts to the store.
_Get Lamp_ was a steller documentary! I pre-ordered the DVD, and had a chance to meet Jason Scott when he came to Denver for a showing. He's an awesome guy, and really seems passionate about creating these niche documentaries that help preserve a bit of computer history.
I've become something of a documentary fan lately, and while I don't have the time, resources, or skill to create them myself, I'm happy that I can at least help financially back projects like these.
Signed up earlier today. Just got this email: "I do know some people might have questions, or want to learn more about my projects, or otherwise engage me, so tomorrow, September 16 between 9pm EST and 11pm EST, I'll be on both a Google Plus Hangout and a Ustream.tv channel to make myself available for people. It'll be a fun time, and I hope it'll help some people who are on the fence about these projects."
I am IMMENSELY interested in the 6502 documentary. The 6502 (or actually 2A03 offshoot microprocessor which powered the NES) was the first chip I had ever programmed for while making NES game alterations ("rom hacks") to change game functionality. Learning about the 6502 and programming ASM on the 2A03 taught me how microprocessors work and was one of the most fun times I've ever had in my life. I will always have a special place in my heart for 6502-based chips :)
A great weakness of Get Lamp was not actually sharing what text adventures / interactive fiction are like. There was no content about the experience of actually playing. I showed the documentary to several people with no history with text adventures / IF and afterward they were quite puzzled by the documentary. Almost all of the screen time was dedicated to nostalgia.
