Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Seeing a bit of attention paid to "old computers" from an unexpected but notable direction did get me thinking of the home computer games I'd actually played when I was young (instead of managing to get around to them years later), and which of them might be called "personal standouts." I thought of the Pole Position imitation I would load and then twiddle the TV's tint knob until the blue "artifact colour" of the backgrounds changed to "green grass" (although the Radio Shack Color Computer 2 could start up with its blue and red artifact colours switched, which made for a different experience again), of the "first-person perspective maze" our disk had gone bad for unfortunately early on so that long years later it became one of my most notable pushes towards getting emulator programs working, and of several illustrated adventures, some easier to play all the way through than others. After remembering those and other Color Computer games, though, all of a sudden I reminded myself that before it my family had started out with a TRS-80 Model I. Even with its low-resolution black-and-white graphics (converted to black-and-green with a thick piece of green plastic foam-taped to the converted RCA surplus TV that served as its official monitor), we had some games for it. Two of them that came to mind right away were the Berzerk imitation "Robot Attack" and a "swoop a spaceship over an enemy base and through a cavern" game from a "software every month" cassette magazine, both of which I'd got working on emulators in recent years. That double revival, though, had also got me thinking of a third game stuck in my mind but which I hadn't been able to find in these latter days...
( The third game, and some illustrated proof )

When my parents said they'd be making another cruise to Northern Europe, the thought of coming along did appeal to me. Unlike the trip I'd made eight years ago, I'd be flying all the way out and flying back, but I suppose that could also mean more time to see things off the ship. One thing I did think I'd try this time was to look for wireless connections at the cruise terminals, remembering how expensive it was just to ration out ten minutes a day. There hasn't been quite as much wireless available as I'd hoped, though, so I'm trying to squeeze what I can out of a stop in Stockholm even as I tell myself there's nothing wrong with taking a vacation from more than one thing at once.
( Pictures within )

Without the prompting of my family I might well wind up content at the end of a year to have used up my vacation taking lots of long weekends, but when they started asking me what I was planning to do this year I did get to thinking. With foreign exchange rates what they were the thought of going somewhere inside the country seemed compelling. I'd been east not that long ago, so going west came to mind. Almost as soon as I started thinking about British Columbia, where I'd got off the cruise ship and on an airplane at the end of my cruise across the Pacific five years ago and spent a few more days there two decades ago, though, the idea of travelling that much further and heading north as well began to fire my imagination. I've read Pierre Berton's Klondike more than a few times; even if travel isn't anywhere near as challenging in the Yukon today as it was for the gold rushers at the close of the nineteenth century, it still seemed interesting to go.

With that vague thought of "going" and "seeing what I'd find" expressed, my brother decided he'd go as well and got to work researching details. Before too long we had an RV rented for a road trip that would take us on the "circle route" through the territory with a short leg over the border to Alaska. From the sights (and services) of Whitehorse to the edge of Kluane National Park to the austere, winding heights of the Top of the World Highway to the sudden sight of Dawson's City deliberate quaintness, and from there to jog north to Tombstone Territorial Park (which a cousin in Vancouver told us about) and back south again made for a full week of travel.

Among all the things I packed, I did once more overestimate how much I needed to bring just to keep myself diverted. Out of the books stuffed into my carry-on bag and the videos I loaded on my iPad (which did pick up cellular signals on the outskirts of the major settlements), I only looked at a few of them, concentrating instead on real-world sights and perhaps winding up thinking there was something worth considering to that juxtaposition. As well, though, while travelling in an RV was a lot more comfortable than the tenting that had me "camped out" by the time I was out of Scouts and quicker than setting up and taking down a trailer, it was a noisy ride in the passenger seat and demanding as a driver, especially as the road got bumpier in the permafrost zone. It all made for a great change of pace in any case. The thought of going back, even if at a different time of year to perhaps try and see the aurora, is certainly there.
( Pictures are ahead )

Still hedging against the day I can't come up with anything else for this journal, I can summarize another week's worth of posting computer magazine covers by saying that I added BYTE to the mix (although its first covers don't strike me as quite as striking as those of Creative Computing) even as I managed to get to the end of 1975. I then managed to repost someone else's anime-related comic (related to a series I'll have more to say about when I get to my next "quarterly review") just to keep the topics covered a little more varied.

BYTE, September 1975
Creative Computing, September-October 1975
BYTE, October 1975
BYTE, November 1975
Creative Computing, November-December 1975
BYTE, December 1975

There have been times in the years I've kept this journal going that finding one more thing to have an opinion on and then articulating those thoughts has felt a bit like pushing that mythical boulder uphill. Then, in the past month or so, putting posts together "every so often" somehow got that much more draining. I suppose I could have just admitted this, told myself I'd kept this journal going "long enough" after starting to post to it all of a sudden, and looked ahead to if I could still set down my "quarterly reviews" of anime watched. Instead, I got to thinking that much harder about a fallback plan I'd been toying with for a while.

Things have seemed "lively" on Tumblr for a good while more than that, but I suppose I've had the suspicion to go along with that that it seems "easy" to keep something going there because that service lends itself so well to recycling pictures other people have already posted. Even with that stern thought, though, it did sort of creep up on me that while there are many archives of scanned computer magazines in chronological order, the covers of multiple magazines would be something somewhat different... Too, the thought that it doesn't seem easy to have a "conversation" about something on Tumblr wound up juxtaposed against how there haven't been many comments posted here for a while anyway.

It did turn out the prefix I use here had already been claimed (and looking it up there was more than a little disconcerting), but adding one more initial worked, and I got under way. In any case, there are still ideas I have for long-format posts here, so I can at least hope things aren't about to close down even to regular summaries of crossposts. I also have an idea or two of things to try with pictures beyond "computer magazine covers," too.

Every so often I notice comments that soft drinks tasted better back when they were made with cane sugar and not corn syrup, but in the past I never tried to follow up on them and search out the old-fashioned soda pop that was said to still be found here and there. I suppose my thought was that I might succumb to a more expensive habit. However, while headed through my local grocery store, I happened to notice packages of soda on prominent end-of-the-aisle display, and by the time I realised they made a point of being made with "real sugar" a part of me already wanted to buy it...
( Photographic evidence within )