a few years ago i mentioned that i wrote a book about the exciting, awkward and embarrassing experiences of growing up with computers and video games in the 80s and 90s.
i wanted to remember what it felt like being the only dorky computer kid at school. or what it was like to hear my first modem handshake sound. or starting the first flamewar on the school's national FirstClass BBS in the macintosh lab over the lunch-hour
it was originally something i wrote only for my family and friends who were there at the time.
and then i met all of you folks when i started my first masto instance 4 years ago. i had no idea there were so many hardcore retrocomputing and gaming nerds out there; unix and mac and ms-dos folks alike.
so i mentioned it casually. i was surprised by the interest in the book.
so i spent the better part of the past 3 years rewriting the book for *you* fellow mastodon dorkus malorkuses. the book is a celebration of all of the best (and worst) parts of a kid growing up in the digital age.
we're all busy old tired stressed folks now. so every memory and cringetacular story is short enough to read on a 5 minute bus/metro/toilet ride. they're weaved together into an arc that starts at my family's first Tandy TRS-80 and ends at my school's Mac LC II and building my first Pentium 133.
it's finally published, and i'm super proud of what it became thanks to everyone here nerding out for years.
enjoy the book. i wrote it just for you. ❤️
paperback edition: mybook.to/EDuUf
DRM-free ebook (EPUB format) and chapter samples here:
tomotama.itch.io/mages-modems
#books #indiePublisher #bookstodon #author #macintosh #vintageApple #vintageComputing #msdos #dosGaming #yeg #canada #alberta #bbs #smolWeb #indieWeb
a book of confessional tales by vga256
itch.io
Matt Blaze
Als Antwort auf Matt Blaze • • •Captured with a small mirrorless camera and 21mm lens, on a compact travel tripod.
This was a case where I hadn't really planned to make formal architectural photos and so had only a small camera with me, with no shifting lens. I made do by shooting wide with the camera level and cropping, which works but costs resolution and constrains how you can organize the frame. It worked well enough here, but I always feel like I'm leaving something on the table when I don't have the right gear with me.
Matt Blaze hat dies geteilt.
Matt Blaze
Als Antwort auf Matt Blaze • • •This composition plays with the contrast between the ambitiously-sized sign and the humble, rustic old store. The photo is about shapes and scale.
This is also a bit of a nod to Grant Wood's famous 1930 painting, American Gothic. (See artic.edu/artworks/6565/americ…). Wood's painting was inspired by a grandiose, ornate attic window in an otherwise humble rural farmhouse that Wood happened upon during a road trip. The absurdly oversized, incongruously Googie-style arrow sign here reminded me of that.
Matt Blaze hat dies geteilt.