Author: DOuG pRATt

You Are Standing at a Blog Post

Before Myst there was the interactive text game Adventure. Introduced in 1976, I first played Adventure on an Infoton dumb terminal in 1981. I can’t find a picture of the Infoton, so here’s a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A, also introduced in 1976.

I became an expert on dumb terminals (Dumb Terminals for Dummies?) and asynchronous data communication at the suggestion of the co-founder of my employer. My thorough understanding of 7-bit ASCII, RS-232 interfacing, start bit/data bits/parity bit/stop bits, and Xon/Xoff flow control served me well for about ten years, until it was rendered irrelevant by the PC revolution. I never got all the way through Adventure, but it’s available to play online for free.

https://quuxplusone.github.io/Advent/

Happy Boxing Day

Having nothing at the moment for Mother’s Day, I’ll use this instead. Borrowed from J.J. Sedelmaier on Facebook, a superb unpublished Jack Davis illustration. It was intended for MAD #26, 1955, the third issue after the switch from comic book to magazine format.

What a draftsman Davis was. He had such a confident mastery over his brushwork. He layered in so much detail and shading, and yet everything is perfectly clear and distinct.