Kirkman
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Looking closely at Xebec's screenshot, it appears Connect may be displaying ANSI "low" (or "dim") colors as "high"/"bright". Maybe there's a preference/option that needs to be un-checked? -
For the last few years, I’ve been researching and rescuing other people’s old disks. But recently Rob Sherman of Southern Amis BBS turned the tables and salvaged one of mine! https://breakintochat.com/blog/2023/07/19/unearthed-my-old-oasis-bbs-atari-floppy-disk/ It's all thanks to Rob's "Don't Toss That Floppy!" project, born in response an ANTIC episode earlier this year that discussed what to do with hand-labeled, noncommercial disks. For my part, I am really grateful they imaged my disk. I unloaded all my 8-bit stuff 23 years ago to none other than Brad Arnold, and of course since then I've sometimes wished I had some of it back. I would think about that OASIS disk occasionally, especially while I was making ATASCII Tube, since that floppy was where I first encountered ATASCII animations. Now that I have the disk back, it's been cool to read the BBS bulletins I customized, the messages I wrote, etc. And, to my surprise, the disk also contained three drafts of the first article I ever wrote for my junior high newsletter. The article included some historical details I had forgotten over the years. All in all, a very welcome surprise for the past. Keep it up, Rob!
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Hey guys ... I'm pretty excited about this: I am now serving some IGS content on my BBS, Guardian of Forever at guardian.synchro.net. Some of you may know that GoF is a modern Synchronet BBS, which is *not* Atari BBS software. But the beauty of IGS is that it's just a text script/language, so you can serve it from anywhere! Since Synchronet supports Javascript, I can write my own modern JS to generate and serve IGS code dynamically. This opens up a lot of possibilities, and also papers over some of IGS's limitations (writing loops and stuff in IGS is super convoluted, and nested loops are not supported, for example). Anyway, I made a video of the IGS stuff in action on Guardian of Forever: And if you'd like to try it yourself, make sure you are using the latest IGS that Larry provided above, then connect to guardian.synchro.net. Once you're connected, hit X > 6 > 4. (eXternals > 6: Other experiments > 4: Instant Graphics & Sound tests). One final note: Several of my 2023 demos will switch the ST into low resolution, and then perform bitblits. There are some bugs related to this in Larry's current release of IGS (v2.18). He has patched some of those bugs in a beta 2.19 version he sent to me privately, but which he has not yet released publicly. Anyway, that's why you may see something different on your Atari than what is shown in the video.
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I just used IGS 2.18 to connect to the BBS and sign up for Warlords. Curious to see what sort art it has, beyond the title screen (see below):
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I find the interface frustrating, and I'm still coming to grips with it. As I began trying it, I ran into various things I didn't understand or that didn't work the way I thought they would, so I after some flailing, I mostly limited myself to drawing only with the line tool. It was a lot of work to re-create the FTL ship with that constraint, but it came out nicely. IGS is capable of doing some cool stuff. The last couple nights I've spent some time trying to refine my original image with stuff I learned later (including that flood fill bug Larry mentioned above, which artificially slowed down the rendering). And that's the beauty of IG as a sort of scripting language ... You can go into the source and tweak stuff (to an extent).
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I have completed my first IG drawing ... I adapted the Federation Cruiser sprite from FTL. One of the things I love about IGS (and RIP, etc) is that since they are scripting languages, you get to see the artist's drawing process whenever you render the image.
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Larry, I played around just a little bit (in emulation under Hatari), and had a couple thoughts: 1. I tried using the Oval tool first, and couldn't figure out how to exit the tool. After several restarts I saw that for some of the other tools (like Arc or Elliptical Arc), you have a note that pushing both mouse buttons together exits. The Oval tool could probably use a similar message. 2. It might be good to have an alternative exit mechanism for those tools. Clicking both buttons together is somewhat tricky for me in emulation. 3. I'm curious, what algorithm do you use for generating circles, ovals, etc? It's not Bresenham, right?
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Larry, I’m super-impressed you stuck with it. Can’t wait to check it out. —Josh
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For the last five days, I've been releasing previously-lost software by the Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, recently rescued from floppy disks. Today, the story reaches the Amiga: https://breakintochat.com/blog/2022/11/29/unearthed-kirschens-music-creator-for-ibm-pc/ From 1986 to 1989, Kirschen and his team of student programmers at LKP Ltd. developed an Amiga-based "artificial creativity" system to let computers compose their own music, by extracting the "musical DNA" of existing songs or classical pieces, then recombining these components in new ways. He used his system to score background music for a BBC TV documentary called "The Demjanjuk Dossier" which aired in 1988. I posted the end credits on YT, which feature some of the music. Kirschen and his "Jiffy Box" were later profiled by the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press. But he never found the big commercial success he dreamed of. Read the full story on the blog. Unfortunately, the Amiga software is likely gone forever. But a later PC adaptation of the software, "The Music Creator," has been saved. It lacks the fun "artificial personality" interface of the Amiga version, but it is functional, and you can download it from the blog post above.
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Yes ... "Mom" and "Murray" are what initially sucked me down the rabbit hole, which has lasted many years. I know we're not all be Apple II or Amiga fans here, but still, I hope you all read the earlier parts of the story, which I shared this weekend (plus the final the one I add tomorrow): Bringing dry bones back to life: The Kirschen software collection Unearthed: Kirschen’s Apple II games for Gesher Unearthed: Kirschen’s independent Apple II projects I think it's such a fascinating story, this outsider with big ideas trying to make an impact on the software industry. Ultimately he didn't. But the story is worth telling!
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Yep! Antic learned of "Murray" as a result of the London computer show and worked out a deal with Kirschen to sell it through their catalog. "Murray" was the cover art for Antic's winter 1985 catalog, and they ran big color ads for Murray and Mom in later issues. Also, you were not alone in not being quite sure what it was. Atari's Sig Hartmann told a reporter at the London show: "I don't know, I'm trying to figure out what I saw. It's cute, but what are you going to do with it?" (And Hartmann was the guy who helped Kirschen and Ariel set up their JFY company) Regardless, now you can try both of them for yourself! Both programs work great in emulators, so long as you boot from floppy and not from a hard drive image.
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This weekend, I've been publishing the previously lost 1980s software of Yaakov Kirschen, which I rescued from various disks with the help of Kevin Ng and Keith Hacke. After years of research, today I'm happy to share a condensed version of the fascinating story behind Murray and Me and Mom and Me — two of the earliest entertainment offerings for the Atari ST. Despite being profiled by the New York Times, London Times, and other big newspapers in 1985, the programs didn't sell well, and went mostly unarchived (until today). But "Murray" was never meant to be sold. In fact, he began life as the "artificial personality" interface to an Atari ST-based greeting card kiosk project that Kirschen proposed to Jack Tramiel in 1984. Read more (and download the .ST disk images) at: https://breakintochat.com/blog/2022/11/28/unearthed-kirschens-atari-st-projects/
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I have been wanting to play Battlemorph forever, and hoped the GameDrive would help make that possible, but so far I've had no success getting farther than the first mission. The game always hangs eventually (not to mention animations ending prematurely, etc). Anyway, I hope someday I'll get to play it. I have a feeling that once I do, I'll be among the game's admirers. I have always been partial to Cybermorph.
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Is JagStudio pretty much only for use under Windows? I tried downloading it today, and most of the files I saw were .bat, .exe., and .dll. I'm a Mac guy, though I also have a Linux virtual machine. Was just wondering if there was any hope of Mac/Linux support in the future, or not.
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I finally got my GameDrive firmware updated and I'm finally trying some JCDs from the Internet Archive. I have a K-series Jaguar (got it for Christmas in 1993). Here's the serial if that's helpful: I've been trying hardest to play Battlemorph. I frequently get a black screen if I hit a button at the Jaguar logo. Sometimes if I just wait, then the Battlemorph title screen will appear by itself and I can play. I seem to be able to get through one mission, but after I select a second mission, the game usually glitches out and crashes. Something similar happened with Primal Rage. It loaded just fine, but when I got to the character select screen, the color palette was completely wrong and eventually the game crashed. Most of the others that I tried didn't load (just a black screen), at least at the first attempt. If I ever get some free time I need to go through them all systematically.
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