When I first started creating software for the Commodore Amiga demo scene many many moons ago I did so with two friends known as Mythos and Wraith.
Between us we wrote code, created graphical artwork and digital music, which we assembled into productions known as intros and demos. It lasted a few years then we went our separate ways. I continued for a few more years with other groups of individuals before hanging up my scener hat altogether.
I started wondering what they are up to today, how did their lives turn out? Did they end up with a career in technology as I did, or switch to something else? Are they married with kids? Are they even still alive?
I toyed with the idea of utilising OSINT to track them down so I could answer these questions and maybe even say hi. I can’t remember their real names, only their aliases, but I still have all my Amiga files and a copy of WinUAE, so digging out their names and addresses from back then shouldn’t be too difficult. From there I could use public info and social media to hopefully locate them today.
But why? To see if I could? To satisfy a passing nostalgic thought?
I’ve come to realise recently that people come and go. Throughout your life friends and acquaintances will come into your life, stay a while, then move on. And that’s ok. We are not meant to hold on to everyone we meet, forever, despite Facebook’s original business model. You as a person will change and develop and what connected you to someone at one point in time may no longer be a part of you and if you were to meet that person today you may find that you have nothing in common and would not be friends.
I decided to move on and not dwell on the past. To be thankful for the good times and the memories and to look to the future. Leaving the past in the past.
To Mythos and Wraith I wish you the best wherever you are.
Tag: nostalgia
Graphics adventure nostalgia
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, the era of the point-and-click graphics adventure games. Games like The Curse of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Universe, and Dreamweb.
I have a large tome on my shelf dedicated to the graphics and storylines of these games. Simon the Sorcerer, Beneath a Steel Sky, and The Legend of Kyrandia to name but a few. I spent many hours of my youth immersed in the worlds conjured up by these games. Sailing the seven seas, exploring foreign lands, looking for treasure, saving fair maidens from dragons, or just hanging out in bars talking to the drunken natives in the hope of eliciting a clue in order to make further progress in my adventure.
People say that when they dream they can’t recall if it was in colour or black-and-white. When I dream I can recall not only the colour but the resolution! I recall many a happy hour spent exploring the world of Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity to many calls of “It’s a skull!”, or “It’s just a book”.
I’ve explored many a low-resolution pixelated world in my day. Minecraft players don’t know what they are missing!
So long and thanks for all the 8 and 16-bit memories!
Deluxe Paint
Watching the young ‘uns today playing games like Minecraft takes me back to the late 80s / early 90s when I used to create graphics for the Commodore Amiga using tools such as Deluxe paint and Photon paint. The resolutions we had back then plus the number of available colours were not as great as they are today. We had to learn techniques such as anti-aliasing and cross-hatching to give the illusion of smooth graphics with less rigid edges.
Why people want games with blocky-looking graphics escapes me, but it does trigger memories of nostalgia for the days when I had to create such graphics every time I see such games. Memories of Beneath a Steel Sky, Universe, and Monkey Island. Or the Amiga scene demos.
Now where did I store those old floppies..
There’s nothing for you in the past
There’s nothing for you in the past. It’s worth repeating that to yourself once in a while. There’s nothing for you in the past.
Many of us spend way too much of our time thinking about things that happened in the past. How we could have done this or that. Maybe if we made this decision, or chose that job, or that friend. Or maybe we reminisce on the good old times. Ruminate on what it would be like to bring something back, or to revisit something again.
It can become self destructive and can hinder both your direction in life and your mental health. Stop living in the past and live in the present. The past is a lonely place full of memories where nothing can be changed. Move on with your life, focus on the present and the future.
A love letter to Crash magazine
I have many fond memories of my childhood. One such memory was looking forward to receiving Crash magazine each month. I’d save up my pocket money and without fail I’d buy the magazine as soon as it hit the shelves. One time I was on a family holiday in the highlands of Scotland and I persuaded my family to take a trip to the nearest town with a newsagent just so that I could buy a copy!
Once I held my copy in my hands I would devour the contents, reading every article from cover to cover. The artwork and images were amazing and my young mind loved both the feel of the publication as well as the contents. I would take so much care to peel-off the sticky-tape holding the cassette to the front cover so that the precious cover art was not damaged. I’d load the cassette into my 48k+ Spectrum as soon as I could to try out all the free software on it.
As the years wore on I would enjoy other magazines such as Heavy Metal and Omni, but none matched my first love that was Crash magazine. The feeling it brought opening up a new world to me, one that would dominate my life for the next thirty years as I delved deeper and deeper into the world of computing.