Real Memories and Fake Stories

[essentialsaltes]

A memory/factoid bubbled up out of the recesses of my brain. With my trusty Apple //e, you could take floppy disks that were allegedly single-sided and then, with skillful use of a hole-punch, you could make a matching un-write-protect notch on the other side of the disk and use it as a double-sided disk. It was like writing on both sides of a piece of paper! Why pay more for double-sided disks?
That's how I stuck it to the man back in the day. That and using programs to illegally copy games.

And I wore an onion on my belt, as was the fashion at the time.


And now a meme:

Tell me about a story I haven’t written, and I’ll give you one sentence from that story.

(ganked from stevenkaye)

Comments

[newtoniancat.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes... bit by bit and sector copies. I'm such an idiot for throwing out my Apple II collection - so much good stuff lost. Anyone remember Softdisk? Rescue Raiders? Lode Runner?

[dogofthefuture.livejournal.com]

Heh. I remember all of these. And oh, what a hacker I thought I was. :)

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I was a big fan of Lode Runner. And Kareteka is the only martial arts fighting game the world ever needed. And don't get me started on Infocom.

[servingdonuts.livejournal.com]

Amen. Amen, amen, amen. Preach it, brother! Sing the truth of the glory of the Apple ][ !!

Thanks for sharing your memories, which are mine as well - hole-punch double-sided floppies, Locksmith and Nibbles Away, Lode Runner, Karateka... why did we ever bother making computers with more memory and better graphics?

I'll overlook your minor heresy of the //e ... you crazy kids with your 80 columns and your fancy-schmancy lower case letters ... why, back in my day all we had was upper case AND WE LIKED IT!!!

[popepat.livejournal.com]

IM IN UR XTNDD GRFX CARD, EATIN UR HI-RES PXLS!


I still have 2 Apple IIe in working condition.
With all the original software and bootlegged games.

All the ones mentioned so far plus:
Impossible Mission
Canyon CLimber
Choplifter
Conan
Mask of the Sun
Moebius: Orb of the Celestial Harmony
Crisis Mountain
Dino Eggs
Short Circuit
Gruds in Space
Apventure to Atlantis
and hundreds more.

It sort of helped that I grew up a block away from some of the biggest IIe hackers in the LA area: The Warlock, Mr. Freeze, The Wombat, Dr. Micro, City Slicker

Vorpal Bunnies

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Man, did I ever spend a lot of time at Choplifter.

Yeah, those are familiar names from the 'Cracked by' byline.

Re: Vorpal Bunnies

[aaronjv.livejournal.com]

How bizarre, how bizarre.

I was JUST PLAYING "Starcross" a few nights ago (the Internet bores me, blogs bore me..it's sad)!

I have all the Infocom games emulated here (well, with OS 9), and DAMN but that was good shit!

The only ones I played, really, were: Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker (with the emulator, I finally finished Spellbreaker...with some help), Zork I, II, III, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Leather Goddesses of Phobos (not pornographic enough!), and my fave (natch): The Lurking Horror.

Old computer memories:
1. Waiting for programs to load using the tape deck.
2. Using a friend's printer, which was an automated daisy wheel (Atari).
3. Using my 300 baud modem and Atari 400 flat keyboard to co-sysop a BBS in Bay Area. I ran a Car Wars campaign online (not as much fun if I make all the rolls and write up all the...HEEEEEEEYYY! That game may have been the genesis of my Car Wars screenplay, of which Morning Commute is a proof of concept!). I also met my future roommate, Mark, at a BBS user meet for the board (he was best buds with the sysop). Wow. I owe a lot to...shit, now I can't even remember the name...how sad is that? I know I was a user on Nwonknu, I think that was run by some famous computer guy.
4. Designing levels for "Land of Spur" that never went up.

Wow...wow. When's the next MaxiCon, and why not replace HALO with Temple of Apshai? (OH SHIT! Gateway to Apshai! One of the best cartridges I had for the 400....shit, Mike, this entry is cutting through my alcoholic memory-fog like a cyclone! Thanks!)

[hagdirt.livejournal.com]

How's about the one with the sewer rat and the Fairy Army?

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

They had been ordered to make their underground deployment to the southern front without being observed, but before her comrades could carry out their rough justice, Ceonweaigh knelt and, while stroking the matted hair of the rat's back, whispered into the delicate ear.

[dogofthefuture.livejournal.com]

Well shit, you've heard about Jessica, when she interned for the aging but still somewhat famous DJ at the radio station, right?

Bulwer-Lytton here I come!

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

While his hand fondled the mic boom and his chain-smoker voice pleasured his 85,000 (according to the latest Arbitron book) listeners, Kip Shawn's eyes were reserved for Jessica, although the invitingly prominent targets of his line-of-sight precluded him from seeing the curl of distaste emerge like a sunrise from the horizon of her upper lip.

[popepat.livejournal.com]

I'm rather fond of the cyberpunk one that got you in hot water with the Religious Right because of all the technobabble and Jesus body enhancements.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

The words "this do in remembrance of me" still rang in his ears as he started to feel the spiritual signs of his Conversion: the hagiobots in the communion wine multiplying in his blood, linking copper atom to copper atom in a ramified network that followed the three-dimensional fractal of his own circulatory system, forming a filamentary antenna that would receive the Voice of God 24 hours a day -- already the auditory neurons of his temporal lobe were picking up the first faint hints of the angelic choir, growing louder and louder as more and more branches of the network came online.