Re: [-empyre-] pieces of history

[Nick Montfort <nickm@linc.cis.upenn.edu>]

Noah,

Infocom's interactive fiction was also an important and influential part
of my early computing experience, as you might guess. I particularly found
the ambitious A Mind Forever Voyaging, a commercial failure, to be
inspiring. Many of my own other early influences are from popular
computing: Galaga (Coin-op), Pitfall (Atari 2600), the BASIC programming
languauge (Commodore PET, C-64, Epson QX-10, Apple II), Karateka and the
Ultima series (Apple II). And a bit later, I found things to like in Doom,
Freak Show, Victory Garden, and Suck.com.

A nice thing about the near-ecstasy of coin-operated video games, of Apple
II warez, and of the early Web was that there were always dozens of new
media works to experienced that were novel and had something worthwhile
about them, even if they weren't the most memorable and perfect things
ever.

-Nick Montfort
 http://nickm.com  nickm@nickm.com
 My new book, Twisty Little Passages: http://nickm.com/twisty