Hey, I got an idea!
Why donāt you look it up?
If youāre going to insist on making up a pack of nonsense, you might at least consider trying to add some humor or otherwise to add a touch of style. For example, you might have tried something like the following:
The phrase ādo not fold, spindle or mutilateā originated in the early days of computer disks, when rural users sometimes ran into trouble after the disks had been damaged by barnyard animals. For example, āfoldingā referred to the damage that might occur if a disk fell into a pen in which was enclosed a flock (or āfoldā) of sheep. This damage could seriously affect performance; more than one user became grue fodder after being unable to see because the wool had been pulled over his eyes.
āSpindlingā referred to the damage suffered by a disk when it was gored by the horn of a bull. Most research indicates that the term was originally āSpaindle,ā derived from the fact that it was virtuallly identical to the cornada wound often suffered by Spanish toreros (those who are well-versed in the art of the bull).
The female of the bovine species, on the other hand, could cause a disk to be moo-tilated (which eventually became corrupted to āmutilatedā).
Eventually, manufacturers began including the warning āDo not fold, spindle or mutilateā to alert rural users to the importance of keeping their disks away from the animals.
If you were to do something like that, at least your nonsense would have some entertainment value.
Robert Rothman
secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ā¦ _computers
In the late 1880s, the American Herman Hollerith invented data storage on a medium that could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media had been for control (automatons such as piano rolls or looms), not data. āAfter some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cardsā¦ā[24] Hollerith came to use punched cards after observing how railroad conductors encoded personal characteristics of each passenger with punches on their tickets. To process these punched cards he invented the tabulator, and the key punch machine. These three inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. His machines used mechanical relays (and solenoids) to increment mechanical counters. Hollerithās method was used in the 1890 United States Census and the completed results were āā¦ finished months ahead of schedule and far under budgetā.[25] Indeed years faster than the prior census had required. Hollerithās company eventually became the core of IBM. IBM developed punch card technology into a powerful tool for business data-processing and produced an extensive line of unit record equipment. By 1950, the IBM card had become ubiquitous in industry and government. The warning printed on most cards intended for circulation as documents (checks, for example), āDo not fold, spindle or mutilate,ā became a catch phrase for the post-World War II era.[26]
Youāre right about the spike though, Iāll give you that.
I had to smile. People on forums of, say, news sites tend to mistake politics for football and curseānāinsult everyone with the āwrongā political attitude, regardless of what they actually said. Got used to that, seems like the anonymity of the internet turns people into troglodytes on crack. But bitching about a data carrier of the 70es and 80es really takes this to a new level.
The biggest problem with the ignore filter (or whatever it is called in phpBB) is that curiosity compels me to see what people are responding to, and I end up loading each post one by one.
Back on topic, just for the novelty value: I grew up with Pirates! and M.U.L.E. and Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64, completely missing the commercial era of interactive fiction. I came across Jimmy Maherās Letās Tell a Story Together in October 2010 while rocking my newborn to sleep in an easy chair. I was utterly fascinated by the story, and that led me to some of the more abstract articles and essays about theory and design and then to Inform 7, and eventually here. At some point several days later, it occurred to me to actually download and try one (The Elysium Enigma, I think).
I bought Aaron Reedās book on the theory that an investment of my funding would compel me to invest more of my time and actually produce something. Theories are fun.
Iām 33. Iām married (11 yrs) with two children (3 1/2 and 10 months). Iām on active duty with the Army National Guard. I like to tie decorative knots. I speak Russian like a drunk 6-year-old, but I read and listen to it pretty well. I used to fix computers and networks for a living. I like Toyotas from the late 80s. I like Star Wars from the early 80s. I still own a 28.8 kbps modem (just in case).
Oopsā¦I didnāt see this intro sticky and I egotistically made my own thread. Iāve deleted that and copied the text hereā¦
Hi everyone. I figured I should introduce myself. Iāve been a periodic fan of interactive fiction. When I was a kid, I wasted countless hours on Zork I-III on my familyās IBM PC Jr. before eventually getting seduced by the graphics of games we could run on our lightning fast 75Mhz Pentium computer.
In high school, I rediscovered IF and the burgeoning indie scene, with the IFComp etc., and all those incredible games around the turn of the century (Photopia, Aisle, Galatea, and so on). 4 years in a computer science program made me slowly loathe sitting in front of computers, and I more or less stopped playing computer games or video games. A few years later now, Iāve picked up programming as a hobby again and, after seeing Get Lamp, realized that I need to get back into IF.
Itās great to see that the community remains thriving and that the medium is continually evolving. While I, of course, have grand intentions of writing my own story some day, I have not yet tried. However, in the meantime, as my IF collection quickly burgeoned thanks to the IFDB and such resources, I decided I needed a good program to organize them. I found one and eventually started hacking on it, so I have given my first contribution of hopefully many to the community (which has its own thread, so I wonāt go into it here).
So, glad to be here, looking forward to the discussions, and so on. Cheers
Hello all,
My friends (including my wonderful girl) call me the Doctor. Iāve been playing IF for 10 years and recently I decided to write my own.
Itās gonna be awhile before its polished and finished but thats where I am on it
Thanks for you time.
The Doctor
and Iām back there ! because of the previous post, I specify that Iām the Dottore (doctor) from Italy, whose in the end, I resigned to accept the shifting to this forum
to introduce myself or not to introduce, because Iām known by the former denizens or r*if ?
Anyway, Iām 41, from Italy (of course) and more oriented to old school in development (preferring mature dev systems) albeit I appreciate the unique advantages of I7 IDE but suffering of āWIPiteā and never finding my WIP worth of release (what WIP ? well, because of this, I never talk about my WIPs)
Hope is enough, and
Vest regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
Hello everyone,
Iām relatively young, and have been writing simple parsers and adventure games since I started out with an Adventure Games in BASIC book in my early teens. This year Iāve decided to move out of silently lurking in the darkness and enter IFComp 2011.
Though I havenāt finished many games, I enjoyed Zork and ADVENT quite a lot during my youth, and went on to have a lot of fun playing more recent games which have been released in the last thirty years.
Itās very nice to meet everyone here, and I am glad to finally be brave enough (and be wearing enough light-absorbing objects) to join such a creative community.
My name is David Good. I am 44 years old and I live in California with my wife and dog.
Growing up I fancied myself becoming a famous writer, as I liked to write short stories. But it never happened. I became a web developer and computer support specialist instead.
Stephen King wrote in his āOn Writingā memoir that once on a long drive, his wife Tabitha was reading one of his manuscripts. He kept glancing over at her to see her reaction to certain things, and she finally, annoyed, said āStop being so goddamn needy!ā
I write interactive fiction because I am goddamn needy.
My first released games were written in ADRIFT, but I am currently working in Inform 7. It may be more complex but I like that itās more flexible than form-based systems.
troglodytes on crack
God, I should start a band with that name.
My username is ultimate (no pun intended!) and Iām new to this forum. Some of you may already have me on their radar.
I like to prank people, like the guys from FridayNightCranks do, but I donāt do pranks on the phone but on internet forums and communities. Checkāem out. They are really funny!
A friend of mine, who is a fan of interactive fiction, told me I should use my pranking skills to try to prank intfiction.org with some unusual posts without being called a ātrollā. It turns out I failed. This community is really hard to prank with.
Just wanted to inform (no pun intended!) you, so you donāt wonder what my past posts were all about.
A friend of mine, who is a fan of interactive fiction, told me I should use my pranking skills to try to prank intfiction.org with some unusual posts without being called a ātrollā. It turns out I failed. This community is really hard to prank with.
Weāve had a lot of experience, unfortunately.
Hey yāall, Iām Sean.
Iāve been loosely following IF on-an-off since some time in the late '90s, if you donāt count playing a few of the old Infocom games when I was an infant (or thereabouts).
By day I write software for a living. Late afternoon/early evening, I fly kites. At night, I generally write more software. Iāve been between serious hobby projects lately, so Iād be curious to hear if there are any projects in the IF-o-sphere-o-verse that could use another contributor.
By day I write software for a living. Late afternoon/early evening, I fly kites. At night, I generally write more software. Iāve been between serious hobby projects lately, so Iād be curious to hear if there are any projects in the IF-o-sphere-o-verse that could use another contributor.
Always happy for more contributors to Quest
Ooh, I didnāt know there was anything going on in my native platform. Must investigate!
Greetings! I am new to this forum and writing IF. Letās seeā¦Iām 34, a grad student, and all-around bum. I recall playing text adventures as a child, and I played MUDs in my twenties, and now again Iāve been bitten by the IF bug. Iāve always wanted to write a text adventure game, but I donāt have strong programming skills. However, I recently discovered Inform 7 and was blown away. This is something Iāve wanted for a long time. I remember dabbling around with BASIC back in the day, but never could figure out the more complex aspects of programming (in particular, Iām not good at quantitative thinking. Once numbers are involved my brain vanishes!). Anyway, Iām glad I found this forum, because I will probably have some questions about how to do things. Hopefully Iām not too annoying.
Welcome Rymbeld. Glad discovering Inform 7 has been so exciting for you. I must say Iām really inspired by it too. I have coded in MUDs before (LPC, an object oriented language), and a bit of Inform 6. But Inform 7 is the first time that writing text adventures has seemed quite so much fun, and interactive. Though MUDs came pretty close. I loved the way I could summon up objects and rooms in the game, while playing. It had that similar mix of playing and coding that Inform 7 seems to manage.
My problem isnāt the programming one (my first degree was computer science), but more the creative / writing one. Thatās hampered me writing more text adventures. But Iām determined to overcome it and become more creative
Hello, Iām guessing Iām a bit late joining the game heheh. Where to start? Okay well Iām 17, I know a bit young to be into text games, I might not have grown up with them but I find it interesting how compelled you can become to a game with just the story. Anyway Iām here to discuss games among others that play, and cure my ignorance on some stuff that I honestly have no idea how to figure out.
Welcome! How did you get introduced to IF? What was your first game?