Author: DOuG pRATt

Hanks Hiatus Hijinks

Debbie Daughtry at Boss Radio 66 says Tom Hanks won’t be available to do his DJ gig again until July. He’s busy with his day job, whatever it is he does to make a living. Here’s the complete Sh-Boom Sh-Bang of Songs from the Back of the Station Wagon shows so far.

https://www.mixcloud.com/pinbot/playlists/songs-from-the-back-of-the-station-wagon-with-tom-hanks/

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 Borrowed from J.J. Sedelmaier on Facebook, a superb unpublished Jack Davis illustration.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.