I stumbled upon this video and asked Chatgpt if I could play Zork via AI, and it works GREAT! It's really fun to close your eyes and play via voice.

8:25 lol

Thank you for this!

The Implementors are being too kind. "Cornerstone wasn't that bad." "Cornerstone was ahead of its time." Et Cetera. If anything, Cornerstone came too late. Its time was before dBase and Lotus ruled the roost. Cornerstone was, to be sure, easier to use than products like dBase. But its lack of programmability was a two-edged sword. There comes a time when you want to write a script to get a more complicated task done. Cornerstone couldn't do this. Then, a few months after Cornerstone came out, the Paradox database was released, which offered similar ease of use, but also had a scripting language for more complicated tasks. Cornerstone could never compete with that. Cornerstone's best feature, easy portability to other platforms, which was so important to the success of Infocom's *games*, was almost useless. By 1985, the IBM PC and its clones ruled the business world. Putting Cornerstone out on Apple ][ would have been pointless, even if they'd bothered doing it. Anyone willing to shell out $500 for a database would have been using PC's anyway. Worse yet, the portability made Cornerstone run slower than its competitors did. Cornerstone's real market was as a database for the average person. Not a business willing to spend $500 on a database, but an individual willing to spend $50 to catalogue his videotapes or stamp collection. That's actually a market that hadn't been tapped. But they'd sunk too much into Cornerstone to market it that way. But it wasn't just Cornerstone that killed the company. If the games had kept growing, the company might have taken the hit from Cornerstone. But Games sales shrank by about 30% in 1985. The people who were playing text games for their own sake were vastly outnumbered by the people who were playing them because the graphics of those days were awful. By 1985 graphics were getting better, and Infocom's games market was diminishing. It's a shame because they put out some of their best stuff in 1987. But text games were on borrowed time by then.

It seems to me that it would be helpful for people to see just what happens when some long term curator, like the Smithsonian, comes into contact with the family of someone with a "legacy" that might need to be preserved. There are things they obviously want and seek out, and things they don't... it would be helpful for the rest of us to match their "impedance" and help their mission by weeding out the stuff they wouldn't want ahead of time. Also, the BBS as a form is dead... but clearly needs to be reborn for the modern enshittified reality we find ourselves in. Discord, for example, *seems* like you're running your own system, but it's all subject to their whims, and it's the same with anything you can pay a periodic fee for. Do you have any inkling of what could replace BBSs?

"Text is timeless. Prose never goes out of style." Truer words have never been spoken.

I was such a huge fan of infocom on my commodore 64, those games basically taught me to to type on a keyboard and I was oddly the fastest typer on my high school newspaper (that used state of the art new apple 2 computers). This was in san jose, "silicon valley." We would spend weekends hanging out, several of my friends yelling at me on what to type to figure out the puzzles, what items to mash together to jerry rig a solution, or just getting around and how to interact with people and creatures or automated robots and computers. I have the 30 best of disc that I have installed on every desktop computer I have bought over the years (about 5), since windows 95 days. I always want activision, or whoever currently owns the rights, to turn it into an rpg game, or basically an open world that may combine several games? The inventory would be horrible to combine games, I suppose. But there has to be a way to incorporate the original games into today's controller play style. I liken the fallout and mass effect series and those like it as spiritual grandkids of infocom, where you get compantions to join you on your quest. I still hold tribute to Floyd from Planetfall, and still love the robots of suspended and wish to continue or even redo those adventures in video game form. As heartbreaking as disney breaking up lucasarts games.

Grats! Sounds like an excellent space!

I worked for HNet in the old Fox Street office in Portland, ME and then later when they were moved to the Westbrook location. While I never worked with you directly, your exploits were legendary to us folks up North and this podcast brought back many memories - some bitter but most are positive. Thanks for sharing this!

Congratulations on completing the move. I remember the Computer Shopper, the joke I always made about them is that they were sold by the pound.

(1) A very calm yet focused host (2) A businessman to the bone

Also the flickr archive, which will be deleted if you do not fork up money after someone bought the company, was from 2018. Not really new.

Money changes everything....

23:32 Damn, this part in particular.

Interesting how Dorner somewhat implicitly makes freedom from government regulation dependent on manners - or in other words, people making the appropriate choices themselves.

I too have given my talk. In my case, it was about my friend Ward, who I would consider the Hacker's Hacker. I think I did ok. There were other aspects to his life that I was happy to learn about from others. Explaining the difference between Xmodem, CBBS, and the like to his family was surreal. I'm glad it went well for you.

Is that little boy Ethan? Sure looks like it.

The part about internet users turning into pure viewers or consumers stood out to me, as did the idea of the emerging "haves and have nots" distinction between those who understood the internet on a technical level and those who didn't. Also loved how formal and letter-like that email was.

HELL YEA BROTHER Would LOVE a video tour of the new space!

You are describing my day. I, too, have a very large job to archive everything I have gathered about the 80s and up until late 90s.

300th video from a guy I've never heard of. Cool

Thank you!

Maybe the most interesting episode from a modern perspective. Imagine, one day, being able to play audio and video in real time on a website?

I really wish you got more views

There's definitely a kind of optimism here, but it's interesting to see that some of the problems with the internet that people talk about today were actually known at the time. They just hoped that they'd be able to figure it out.

Thank you.

We are listening, Jason. But you never respond to KZbin comments!!!

That picture needs to be a book cover, poster, business card, etc, etc, etc. :)

You interviewed and published, thus helping to immortalize my friend Ward and his friend Randy that brought me to be one of the many listeners. I'm not sure even now what, if any story I'll share about him at his memorial later today. I am sure you've already helped tell his story more than I could ever hope to do. Thanks for that. --Mike--

300th already? Where does the time go? :)

It's too bad that everyone just copyright strikes everything now so I can't find the Official UK Playstation magazine (among many others) on most websites anymore, including IA. So I found a guy who had most of them and he sent them, and now I'm hosting them on my own website. If everyone did this, these magazines would be more easily available but everyone is scared to share.

The lamp in every scene...

This medium rare

Nuts that this was the start of the zip file utility

Jason, thanks for the mention. Just a note-- my last name is pronounced "Garry" as in "Glengarry Glen Ross". It's a Scots name. I'm assuming given your name that you might be sympathetic;) btw Loved Get Lamp!

Hey, Mr. Scott! Thanks a lot for uploading this on KZbin - the only thing that doesn’t fit are the subtitles. Any chance to fix them ? (e.g.: Feelies should not be transformed into “Feel ease“. They deserve better!)

Boo for the paid BBS software. Bunch of venture capitalists that could care less for computer enthusiasts. The ANSI art is what blows my mind for this series though.

She sounded like an amazing person. People like that are a gift, and its wonderful to know she had lots of people who cared about her. Wishing you the best.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm trying to sort out what I'll be saying at a friend's memorial service later this month as well.

13:40 80 Micro magazine for TRS-80 community

Jim is certainly a national treasure.

I am gratified to know that humans I admire as much as Sketch are persisting.

Brilliant!

It's one of the places I've wanted to visit. A slice of Americana as it was, but a WHOLE lot of it all at once.

If I was going to have to pick, I think it would be whatever font was used on the DEC VT-100 terminals that filled the computer labs in my youth. I kept a VAX 11/780 running VMS in my phone for a while, just out of that kind of nostalgia. Then I learned that upgrading TMUX causes it to lose everything... 8(

“…He didn’t care about right or wrong…” Numbskulls only care about the first story they get told. Humanity is frustrating. Only a few pushing forward while the others are making phone threats to their weatherman over the forecast.

I believe seeing this story before. SEA got copied by “the little guy”. There’s not much to say; this was plagiarism.

What debate and context am I missing, that these cartoons so heavily promote 1% milk, any time milk is mentioned?

What song is the intro track? it's not featured or mentioned on the documentary production credits?

49:16 “it’s so much easier to find a folio from the 1800’s and do things than it is to walk into a 1960’s radical magazine and be terrified that you’ll be sued into oblivion” I don’t understand this - are protest / anarchy / counter culture magazines just not available in scanned form