HUNT FOR THE JACK | Space Quest 6 pt. 8

We didn't know Fester Blatz bartered in cyberspace jacks, but I've heard flimsier excuses to revisit beloved characters from the past. (Although, to be fair, not many.)
Closing theme: "Space Quest III Main Theme" by James Mulvale
(Originally composed by Bob Siebenberg)
Available here: / space-quest-3-intro
Support the show: / spacequesthistorian
Weekly live streams: / spacequesthistorian
Blogs, reviews, etc.: SpaceQuestHisto...

[@kazriko]

(oh, and Bottom up is because some systems like OS/2 use the normal mathematics way of coordinates on screen, and 0,0 is on the bottom left. I imagine some other systems did the same.)

[@Sephex]

I know most will be talking about this, but I adored the satire of "early" internet. That's one of those things that gets better with time as the internet changes and evolves for the, uh, better (for the most part)!

[@spacequesthistorian]

I love it, too. Such simpler times, too. I wonder how a modern day Space Quest would parody the internet. It would probably be a bit more disheartening and cynical than a Win3.1 screen with useless icons on it. (And this was pretty cynical for its time, actually.)

[@Sephex]

Space Quest Historian Yeah, these days it just looks like a straight parody rather than a cynical outlook.

[@ShadeMeadows]

That old PC area joke is just... I LOVE IT.

[@ceelist]

I loved the Sis Inny (sys.ini) reference and I always wondered if it was possible to wait in the waiting room long enough for the counter to wrap around from 99 back to your number (03) or whether they would pull some trickery once it got close and skip over you.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I had to ask on Twitter. I seem to vaguely recall that the numbers just rewind after a certain time. Others say that the ticker just skips your number. I can't actually say for certain. But I have no intention of letting the game sit there just to find out. 😏

[@TomSFox]

@@spacequesthistorian I actually tried it a few days ago and I can confirm that you _can_ wait until your number comes up. I can send you a savegame to prove it.

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@TomSFox That might make an interesting little video. Yes, please - send me the savegame at [e-mail] :) Thank you!

[@TomSFox]

@@spacequesthistorian Done. EDIT: By the way, the number flips once every minute, so you have to wait one hour and thiry-nine minutes until it’s your turn.

[@efeldman1995]

These make my day every time I watch one lol

[@spacequesthistorian]

Happy to hear that. Thanks! :)

[@davvigtu]

0:45 The other words are also element combinations, I think: SNOWY = S ulfur No belium W olfram Y ttrium NAPKIN = Sodium (Na trium) P hosphorus Potassium (K alium) In dium FENCES = Iron (Fe rrum) N itrogen Ce rium S ulfur So perhaps it's a hint to the puzzle, in that all of them are element combinations.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I think you're right. I won't go back and check, because it took me *way* too long to find the elements for the CORRECT answer and draw a red circle around them -- so I'll just take your word for it. :D

[@muziekjes6811]

I was gonna write all that and then i saw you did too. Snowy and Fences could also be this: Snowy - Sn=Tin, O=Oxygen, W=Wolfram, Y=Yttrium Fences - Fe=Iron, N=Nitrogen, C=Carbon, Es=Einsteinium I hope our historian will find the time to see what happens if he tries any of these.

[@jankjason]

I like the Windows 3.1 easter egg, but I can't appreciate it fully since my first Windows was 98 Second Edition.

[@spacequesthistorian]

This game came out juuust before Windows 95 was a thing, if I recall correctly. It was released the same year.

[@JDHJANUS]

Klaatu Barada Nikto are the names of 3 Return of the Jedi action figures that represented 3 of the alien species that were shown in Jabba's palace. Neat little reference! :) Ah, Windows 3.1. How I don't remember you fondly. :) Looking forward to more, as always!

[@spacequesthistorian]

I didn't know about the Star Wars reference to The Day The Earth Stood Still. Neat!

[@jasontucker3016]

It was also the command used for the robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still and the spell words to be able to pick up the Necronomicon in Army of Darkness

[@screamingfalcon71]

It was also on the wall of a cubicle in Tron, but it all refers back to The Day the Earth Stood Still.

[@jasonblalock4429]

LOL... Man, no one remembers Prodigy these days except those few of us who actually used it. Its only redeeming quality is that it wasn't AOL. (And speaking of rates, for awhile they actually tried to charge money per email sent within their own network!)

[@mortymer001]

I was wondering where ive heard that latin that roger says to the unknown device: Klaatu Barata Nikto. I guess it was from The Day the Earth Stood Still but I definitely remember Ash from Army of Darkness saying this too at one point

[@spacequesthistorian]

It originated from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Army of Darkness was making fun of it, too. :) It's not Latin, though; it's just scifi gobbledygook.

[@petergedye258]

I think I also heard it in a Babylon 5 episode

[@jasontucker3016]

Designing Women came out in 1986 and one of the stars was Delta Burke. That's what the planet name is a pun of

[@Terezar]

My favourite message in the game is the one in cyberspace where the director chides Gary Owens. Not even sure why but I like that 4th wall break.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Next episode opens with this. :)

[@mjc0961]

Wow!

[@bredmond812]

I'm going to take a guess at why the chip was a 1586. At around the time this game was made, there had been several upgrades of pentium chips, going from 386 to 486 to 586. A 1586 would occur some time in the future. Maybe I have some details wrong, I think I have the gist of it. EDIT: "chip" not "cop"

[@kazriko]

Looks like designing women went off the air 2 years before SQ6 was released. It might have been a current show when the script (for SQ5) was originally written...

[@spacequesthistorian]

Oh! Thank you. I honestly have no idea what the show is even about or when it aired. I just recognized the name and thought it sounded a bit like one of those early 00's reality shows, and figured, "Eh, it's probably just a coincidence."

[@bredmond812]

@@spacequesthistorian It's not a coincidence. One of the actresses in it was named Delta Burke.

[@crawdkenny]

Space Quest did the whole going to the internet thing years before Avengers.

[@keelhaulsthingsthatdontmatter]

It lists German and French, then "Nikto". Amusingly, "Nikto" are a race in Star Wars, mainly shown as minions of Jabba the Hutt.

[@markblacket8900]

also "nikto" means "nobody" in russian

[@darthzounds4889]

I know this stuff is beyond the scope of your usual material, but my mind has been digressing while watching this play-through... You mentioned somewhere before that you have a stable marriage, and even a child, so I was wondering if you could make a video / podcast / something where you discuss your thoughts on how all of that came to be, along with advice on how to make that happen for one's self? At the moment, I've asked Reddit for similar advice; I was recommended to commit myself to all-around self-improvement. The time is now to make that happen.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Dude, I am the wrong person to ask. I have no idea how I lucked into a loving marriage. It certainly wasn't any action on my part that led to it, and I just spend most days praying she never wakes up to the reality of the short straw she drew. I wish you all the best in your quest to self-improve, I really do.

[@petergedye258]

For those who don't use torrents. Fantastic game :-) There are 3 different versions, This is version 3 final release with full audio. Loved playing it, any Space Quest fan will love this to. And if you get stuck somewhere there are walk-through files out there Http://spacequestiv5.pytalhost.at/

[@amytant]

Chemical code: LaSaGNe

[@VitaEx]

Pretty sure that puddle is Elmo’s old vomit

[@spacequesthistorian]

That it probably is! Well spotted.

[@DosGamerMan]

Ah, bit late to the party for the periodic table puzzle I commented on in last video. Regarding the images filling from the bottom up on dialup, and without reading the comments, some image formats, BMP for instance, stored the image from last to first pixel.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I'd completely forgotten about that. Thanks :)

[@DosGamerMan]

​ @Space Quest Historian No worries. Love diving into your archives and enjoying past content. The main reason I know that because back in 94/95, I reverse engineered the palette and image data from 320x200x256colour bmp files using Borland C and was a brief participant of the South-African Demo scene. Needed a way to load in assets created in autodesk animator, usually silly font files and other logos. Actually reused some of the code for my intro and outro's on my silly little channel .

[@sandwiched]

@@DosGamerMan Demoscene FTW! I still have some I downloaded decades ago.

[@richardperspective]

Still think the Mr Soylent machine was a better place for the song than Sys Inny's radio.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Well, it plays on both. (If you click the Mr. Soylent logo on the machine, the jingle plays.) And I imagine the reason why it's on Sys Inny's radio is because it's, uh ... supposed to be a radio commercial, I guess?

[@derosiflo6524]

4:43 pretty nice German pronunciation. But English speaking people never get the "ch" right ^^ EDIT: i KNEW you can say German swear-words xD

[@spacequesthistorian]

German is compulsory in Danish schools, but I never bothered to learn anything other than the swear words. ;)