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An Interview with Howard Sherman of Malinche Entertainment

Howard Sherman: Malinche Entertainment's Big KahunaHoward Sherman: Malinche Entertainment's Big KahunaAs many of you are well aware, I've always been a big fan of Infocom and interactive fiction. Although text adventures aren't nearly as ubiquitous as they were back in Infocom's heyday, they are still being developed and published today--and, thanks to the chutzpah of one man, Howard Sherman, they are becoming commercially viable once again. Sherman's company, Malinche Entertainment, is, to quote Sherman, "Infocom 2.0." I think you're going to really enjoy reading the following interview, in which Sherman talks about his ideas and goals to promote and support the interactive fiction community. Howard is a great guy, and I really appreciate what he's doing for an often underrated (and unappreciated!) genre. Big thanks to Howard and Malinche Entertainment for taking time out to answer my questions!


Introducing: The SLOG

You can slog it! Slog it good!You can slog it! Slog it good!Don't forget it: You heard it hear first, folks. First, there was weblogging. Then there was blogging, vblogging, podcasting, twittering; the list goes on. Now I'm pleased to introduce a new buzzword into the mix: Slogging!


Future of Single Player CRPGs

Want to make a good single player CRPG?Want to make a good single player CRPG?Probably the hardest part of my new book to write was the conclusion, where I tried to think about the future of our favorite genre: the standalone, single-player CRPG. That genre includes all the classic Ultimas, Bard's Tale, Gold Box games, and so on. It's all the genre that has suffered the most attrition from game developers and publishers, though the better ones still attract mainstream attention (Oblivion, Mass Effect). What I want to do here is focus on a few subgenres, if you will, that to my mind have the best chance of thriving in the current market. I will naturally focus on PC games, though where possible these concepts could be applied to any of the new consoles.


A Rare Gem Uncovered? Is an NTSC VZ200 Color Computer (1982) a Reality? (Plus bonus discovery!)

I don't have time to do a thorough analysis (i.e., plugging it in) just now as I need to take care of some pressing Intellivision stuff (since last night I did our taxes), but I seem to have stumbled upon a bit of good luck x2. Even though that luck doesn't involve finding a mass of riches, in the world of retrocomputing, it's still kind of neat. I recently acquired what was purported to be a Dick Smith VZ200, which is the Australian version of the Video Technology (Laser) VZ200. To my surprise, this is an actually an NTSC version, which from all that I've seen, has been pretty much an unknown quantity to this point, at least on the Web. When I get a chance, I'll be doing a thorough analysis of this budget system, but I took a few quick snapshots in the meantime. (read towards the bottom for the bonus bit of good luck)


Quick Look at the AT&T 6300 PC (1984) with Lots of Photos

Why a quick look at what first glance resembles a generic IBM PC clone? Well, the reality is, this clone has a few special elements that you might find interesting. With IBM romping in the professional PC market since late 1981, it was only a matter of time before some other big companies would want a piece of the business pie. Enter AT&T, the powerhouse behind UNIX and C, and oh yes, the monopolistic phone company, who started their own rumblings in the industry when it was rumored that they would soon be entering with a stunning new mystery system or two. It turns out that instead of coming out with something truly radical, they merely decided to one-up the original IBM PC, with a faster processor (the 16-bit 8086 at 8Mhz versus 8/16-bit 8088 at 4.7 Mhz), extra proprietary 16-bit expansion slots and a built-in combination monochrome and color graphics adapter (versus one or the other). In reality, this was a rebranded Olivetti M24, a highly compatible IBM PC clone from Italy. The only area where it definitely wasn't compatible was in its ability to use IBM PC memory because of the Olivetti/AT&T's higher processor speed. It even passed the difficult "Microsoft Flight Simulator" test with flying colors, something that not every clone could say. AT&T's system could come with either a monochrome or color monitor and either two 5.25" 360K floppy disk drives or one 5.25" floppy disk drive and a hard drive.

With some of the preliminaries out of the way, let's take a look at the system in hand and some of its features:


SHMUPS - Third Person Perspective Shooting Games - Part 1

What is it about these physics-defying games that makes them one of the most long lasting genres around? Click on - read more - to find out what I have to say.


Photo of the Week - Know your History! (07 - Bally BASIC (Bally Astrocade) (1978))

While I've done a few of these informally since the last one, the C-128DCR, which was number 6, I decided to continue the numbering from there since I wasn't going to do anything special at the moment with this other than take a series of photos. The Bally Home Library Computer or Bally Professional Arcade (and several other names over its lifetime), better known by its informal nickname, the Bally Astrocade, was a videogame console released in 1978 with the promise of future computer capabilities. While the full-blown add-ons never made it out from its two parent companies (Bally would give up on the system within a few years and a new company would form as Astrovision, but also never had much success with the technology), the first of two cassette interfaces was released in 1978, which ran at 300-baud. This 300-baud interface consisted of a beefy book, cartridge and interface cables that hooked into the accessory jack and the system's control port number 3 (it had four controller ports). You could then type in programs on the system's 24 calculator-style keys. Yes, people actually programmed on that!


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