dɸ/dt » computing http://hackerfriendly.com The best Science is Mad Science Tue, 11 May 2010 22:40:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 The road to the Metaverse http://hackerfriendly.com/2010/02/the-road-to-the-metaverse/ http://hackerfriendly.com/2010/02/the-road-to-the-metaverse/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:15:28 +0000 rob http://hackerfriendly.com/?p=246 It has been a while since I checked in on the Metaverse scene. Tonight I downloaded Snowglobe (the open source viewer from Second Life, remember them?) and OpenSimulator (the still-alpha but apparently working mono-based server simulator). In about five minutes, I had my very own grid-ready simulator running on my local network. I became a god in my very own isolated box.

Now the real question: If I invite over some friends, and we make models in this world, can we click “print” and have the results come out of the Makerbot?

UPDATE: My mistake. The viewer you’re looking for is Meerkat. It lets you export all of your old juicy Second Life data, and re-import it into your new simulator. Virtual Sushi 2.0!

]]> http://hackerfriendly.com/2010/02/the-road-to-the-metaverse/feed/ 0 My First Computer http://hackerfriendly.com/1982/12/my-first-computer/ http://hackerfriendly.com/1982/12/my-first-computer/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 1982 16:34:42 +0000 rob http://flickenger.net/1982/12/my-first-computer/ pwn3dI got my first home computer for Christmas, 1982 (about a month before my 8th birthday). It was a TI 99/4A with a speech synthesizer, built-in BASIC interpreter, and audio tape storage device. I had a chance to play with the Apple II in elementary school, but this one was ours!

I played my first video games on it. I remember my two favorite games were Henhouse and Ambulance. I even got an introduction to text-based adventure games with Adventure.

But twitch-games can only entertain you for a while. It wasn’t long before I started fooling with the BASIC interpreter to make my own sounds and graphics. My crowning achievement was a program that would tell you how many marbles were in a jar by estimating.

I remember when it dawned on me that since the storage device used regular audio tapes, it might be possible to copy them using another tape recorder (and it was!) Too bad I only knew one other person with a TI.

The only thing missing was a modem. In retrospect, it was probably all for the best that I didn’t have access to a modem for another few years.

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