Good to receive all your replys. Simon, I remember you well, Mark, Andrew
and William (I still know all who bought the flight trainer back then
;-)).
William: the flight trainer was partly a response to the acorn world
wanting
to know that what we were saying was real. You maybe can understand that.
We
had truly real things up and runing, beyond what had been experienced, and
chose to show that it existed. The FT was only 15% of what we had in our
hands ( and still is ). Sure, the 'trek' was a little tough. It was a way
of
showing that the cosmological authenticity was accurate, and if you worked
that out, and trusted our knowledge at the time, you would be able to find
and solve the tasks, as indeed many people did.
This convincing reality was just a backdrop, and an im****tant one - if you
can believe the environment then the 'life' within it would be accepted so
much more easily, and the experience be so much more rewarding. I have no
doubts that we got things right, I have no doubts that what we wanted to
show you and for you to experience would have been (still is) totally
immersive and rewarding. Just imagine that realistic and huge space with
81
civilisations da****ng around it for a multitude of reasons...
Yes, manual flight was tough, that's why we had an autopilot, but manual
flight close to an object (satellite) going at 14 km per sec allows you to
****ge your ****p carefully and definately experience what it would really
be
like. Of course I have been lucky enough to pull up to space stations over
2
km wide and do the same with tiny 50m craft buzzing around, gets even more
fun :-). And can you imagine what it is like to 'hail' and communicate
with
any one of them and get a real answer?.. these 'people' know what they are
doing and why and speak back. I will never forget when Rick and I 'spke'
to
a ****p for the first time, Rick was reeeeaaaaallly doubtful but followed
and
coded a few things to help that connection (via assembler), and the guy
spoke back, told us who he was and what he was doing. Rick almost fell off
his chair! I knew it was going to happen, and knew that some off the
biggest
challenges were solved ( all in the head over a very crazy time, but I had
got it right, you cannot imagine how that felt).
[
....and just reading an Elite hyperspace post here now...it was a
wonderful
thing to step past that fiction and to allow people to really travel
between
stars, not a bodge, kludge, but true travel... andway, I digress ;-.).
]
Simon: I am so glad you understand that the concept is still valid. That
is
so true. I quote a lot of cash because the world has moved on and one
would
have to spend so much on artists and music, just to be recognisable in
today's market, let alone a team of good coders for 3 years to make it
happen, it is a different world. But the concepts ( and indeed the actual,
stilll present code and data ) have not been approached, thank you. The
big
change has been the internet of course, and I have worked out massive
multiplayer versions of , where we can preserve the spirit and technically
get thousands playing simultaenously, those conclusions are still valid.
And yes, I remember your HR diagrams...;-).
Mark: I really wish I had seen that discussion ;-). Not for the way the
cash
discussion went of course, but the fact the discussion happened at all.
My version of the game is obviously well advanced from what all you have
seen, I just wish you could come that step further. And my goal of the
game
is as it was and I still think would blow my mind away (afterall, that's
why
we do these things). Perhaps...if the right things fall into place, we
could
all enjoy that :-).
So...I am still able to run vsn. 1.23, thousands of 'people' are there,
ready to do there tasks...what a frustration that has been over the
years...the hard work ( in some ways ) was done, the stories (dynamic of
course ) are present, what a sadness.
But life is ok. The unfulfilled gane is not longer such a sadness for me,
I
am glad it is still within the imagination of others. I will never say
that
it cannot be fulfilled - it can. Perhaps life will introduce the
unexpected,
afterall, that's how it all started...
Regards to you all,
Ian.
"Mark West" <mark.west@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:op.t1m8t5txhw38fl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:54:53 -0000, Ian Robinson <ianr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>
>> Ian here, him of Karma fame ;-). Still fire up my acorns, mostly for
code
>> dev as StrongEd is still such a good editor.
>> Been living in Norway for almost ten years and worked with Guttorm Vik
of
>> StrongEd fame early on.
>> I still get entusiastic conversations on the Karma front from Sveinung
>> when
>> I see him, which is often a bit strange and hard work after such a long
>> time, but also kinda fun. Funny, the world has moved on so much since
>> those
>> heady days, but still there are aspects and concepts that have never
been
>> repeated. If I had 20 million of a reasonable currency, it would still
>> be a
>> relevent project to bring up to date. I have thought often about it,
and
>> about ****ting the CASE tool Rick and I made to hold all the data,
really
>> killer design tool back then, and still is I think.
>> It is now a long time since Rick died. He is often in my thoughts of
>> course
>> because that was such a special time, and his widow is still a great
and
>> precious friend.
>> If anyone wishes to talk, discuss, the project is still easily brought
to
>> the forefront of my mind. Like I say, just popped in to say hi.
>> Lots has happened since to us all, in code, I've covered a lot of C,
>> Oracle
>> (PL/SQL) and now mobile phone code ( very interesting ).
>> Take care all and keep the acorn flag alive.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Ian.
>> --
>> Ian David Robinson
>>
>>
>
> Good to see you're keeping busy! You should've popped in a few months
> ack - there was a brief discussion about how much we would pay for a
> version of Karma :-)
>
> And fifteen years after buying the Flight Trainer, I managed to finish
it
> with a little help from this group (now THAT's value for money!)
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
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