Crawling in the Dungeon

Posted June 25, 2010 @ 11:03 am — Filed under: Games,RetroGeekery

[Note: this was edited from an e-mail I sent to my brother-in-law, which I thought deserved some space on the blog since I haven't talked about games much on here yet.]

I’ve been poking around on the internet for the last couple days, looking into a genre of game called Roguelike, a.k.a. dungeon crawlers.  These games seem to be sort of the precursor to modern RPGs and are largely inspired by Dungeons & Dragons (a role-playing board game).  They have a few defining characteristics:  Randomly created dungeons for maximum replayability value, permanent death (i.e., you can save your game as often as you want but once your character is dead, that’s it), and turn-based play.  I’m not really qualified to do a full-on review of them because I’m just messing around (and I’m not very experienced in terms of RPGs), but I thought I’d throw out some links if anyone wanted to try any of them out. We’re talking super old-school here… the simpler ones (graphically) require some imagination but seem like they could be pretty cool once you’re used to them– and the purists say the DOS-style graphics are the only way to go.  Most of them are keyboard-controlled so if there’s a built-in tutorial or instructions I recommend going through them to learn the shortcuts.

First, some links for general info and history:

And now some games… I checked to make sure there are Windows versions of all of these (there are, of course, Linux versions because the whole phenomenon began on Unix mainframes), and they all seem to be still pretty widely played and/or updated:

So far I’ve played NetHack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.  NetHack was my first venture into the genre, a few months ago, which ended badly and left me somewhat disinterested — the learning curve on these games is a bit steep for us modern gamers with our fancy “plots” and “controllers”.  But earlier this week I played a few rounds of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and found that there was a tutorial built-in, which helped me grasp some of the basic concepts (and keyboard commands).  After quickly killing off the first two characters I created (Rigot the Mountain Elf and Buttons the Minotaur), I finally got into the swing of things and completed my first dungeon level.  So the seed has been planted.

Besides the games listed above, there are tons more — such as the original Rogue, the one that made the genre popular-ish, and a vast swath of games created by an online community of Roguelike fans.  They even have create-a-Roguelike-in-a-week competitions, called 7DRLs.

Some of the older games require a DOS environment,  which you can get by using DosBox.  I recommend grabbing a frontend for DosBox from their download page as well, which allows you to save per-game configurations and launch them with a few clicks.  There are also Roguelikes available for other systems, such as Commodore 64 and Amiga (for which there are also emulators available).

As a side-note, another game that is more of an old-school action/adventure RPG with pre-made levels (and was written because the author didn’t like Rogue), is the Kroz series, which 3d Realms (formerly Apogee) recently released as freeware — you’ll *definitely* need DosBox for these.  I remember a friend of mine playing this on his wicked fast Pentium computer under DOS 6 back in elementary school.

Have fun… or maybe you’re not really into these old games… That’s cool too. :)

Why

Posted June 18, 2010 @ 2:13 pm — Filed under: Thoughts

“Social justice” is a misnomer, for what is “just” about giving the poor more than they have earned? What we really mean is “social mercy”: in this world, all men are not created equal, and they are certainly not given equal means– rather, they are made equal by the application of mercy. “Social justice” would mean letting nature run its course; letting humanity evolve by the survival of the fittest, giving people exactly what they deserve: nothing. But we don’t do that: we heal the sick, build homes for the poor, and help those who can’t help themselves, because we believe all human lives have equal value. But how do we justify our longing for social mercy when we do not trust in the God who first showed mercy to us? For if we believe in an impotent or nonexistent god, we are forced by the rules of logic (i.e., you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”, short of appealing to divine mandate) to conclude that our convictions for uplifting the downtrodden are merely vestiges of our meandering, directionless evolutionary past, and thus the value we give life is nothing but an illusion or a by-product: a tumor on humanity’s side. But we all live as though dignity is real; indeed it is not possible to deny its reality without either lying to one’s self or becoming a sociopath. So from there we are only a “modus ponens” away from concluding one of two things: that either our quest for equality is wholly invalid, such a quest only holds back the evolution of our species, and the only correct option is to let the cold hand of “social justice” run its course — leaving the poor with nothing, and the greedy with whatever they can envelop — or, that a merciful God exists, and that He mandates our quest for equality by creating us all in His image; and that He gives us greater dignity through the valuation of our souls than we are capable of arbitrarily giving each other.

Or, as C.S. Lewis put it, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?”

Suitcase computer build

Posted June 14, 2010 @ 3:28 pm — Filed under: Electronics,Pictures,Projects

A few months ago, I built a computer into an old suitcase from a thrift store. My documentation of the process is a bit sketchy, but here is what I could piece together for a description of the project:

  1. First, I ordered some nice components from NewEgg.  Here’s what I got:
    • Intel DG45ID multimedia motherboard.  I wasn’t interested in building a super-duper powerful workstation, and I didn’t want to get a separate video card.  So I went with this mobo because it has a decent on-board Intel video chipset; Even though Intel has had some spotty Linux driver support in the past, the drivers are open-source so they’ll tend to improve with time and with community contributions.  Plus it has an HDMI output, which could have cool potential.  Giant video iPod -slash- portable console emulator anyone?
    • An OCZ 700w modular power supply.  This was perhaps overkill, but it was the cheapest modular supply I could find at the time.  “Modular” means that instead of having a thousand wires hanging out of it, it comes with cables with plugs on both ends so you can have exactly as many hooked up as you need.  This was important because I needed to cut down on clutter.
    • Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 CPU.  Nice.  This CPU should give me plenty of power without getting into ridiculous server-grade stuff.
    • 8 Gigs of Mushkin DDR2 800 memory.  Nothing spectacular, but again I wasn’t planning on building a dream machine.  But I did want lots of memory, and I was planning on making the machine 64-bit (or at least use a PAE kernel).
    • Two 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda drives.  I wanted lots of storage, and I wanted it to be safe.  So one of these drives would be mainly for full-system historical snapshots (using rsnapshot).
    • A Gigabyte wireless PCI card (I forget the model).  If this is going to be a semi-portable computer, it needs wireless networking, right?  I also got a riser card so I could put the wireless card in sideways, but I didn’t end up needing it.
    • A 22″ widescreen LG LCD monitor.  My plan was to immediately void the warranty on this by tearing it apart and putting the LCD separate from the components inside the suitcase.
  2. The suitcase itself.  I actually found this after I ordered the components… It just happened to have exactly the dimensions I was looking for.  Well, close… it seemed a bit small to me, but I figured I could make it work.  I didn’t even have to shell out 50 cents for it as the sticker indicates… I found it in the Blacktown studio.  Turns out it belonged to one of the guys from A Voice Like Rhetoric… They were probably going to use it to store some gear or turn into a pedalboard.  Sorry fellas, I owe you four bits. :(
  3. Socks helped me make some preliminary component layout plans.
  4. I got impatient and hooked everything up so I could install Arch Linux and start configuring it.  It was my first full-on Arch-only system — a true geek machine.
  5. This is when I got nervous.  I took the LCD screen apart, and reconnected everything outside of the plastic case to make sure it was all going to work.  But, as luck (or providence, as I prefer to think of it) would have it, the screen fit perfectly inside the lid of the suitcase.
  6. I went to Blacktown Woodworks one night, while Si was building a monster of a modular-commodore-64-vintage-bass-amp-thingy, and made this panel to cover up the components with.  I didn’t do too bad a job, but it was poor enough that I decided I wanted to cover the panel with some sort of tolex or vinyl instead of just staining the wood.
  7. The next step was to figure out how to mount the LCD panel’s external components — the power supply and, because I don’t know the technical name for it, a PCB I’ll call the “controller board”.  This involved snipping the backlight power supply lines and soldering in extensions.  Initially I used CAT6 for this, but that turned out to be a really bad idea because I later discovered (when I finally dug up a service manual) the CCFLs require 700V!  Eventually the current leakage resulting from this poor choice led to the death of the inverter on the power supply board… A fuse blew on the board, and after replacing it I found that the output voltage had dropped down to somewhere around 250V and the lamps would no longer light.  This meant I had to replace the board (I couldn’t find a drop-in inverter replacement) with a new one from LG.  When I replaced the supply board, I also beefed up the high-voltage lines to 18AWG with a heavier jacket (CAT6 is 22AWG).  The CCFLs and the inverter seem much happier now (the inverter puts off less heat).  Some advice to DIYers:  Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. :)
    Oh yeah, I also had to get myself a longer 30-pin flex cable because the one connecting the LCD with the “controller board” wasn’t long enough.  Getting the old connector on the new cable was a scary exercise involving a knife, superglue and a bit of magic.  Seriously I’m amazed that it works.  In these shots you can also see the power button with an LED that I snagged from a box of spare broadcast mixer parts.
  8. Getting close to completion here.  I mounted the motherboard, built a small frame to hold the LCD in place, and cut some holes for the external connectors.  I went with Neutrik connectors for everything I could… They make some pretty cool USB and RJ45 jacks.  They make an HDMI jack too, but I decided to put that off till later.
  9. Here you can see the last few things I did.  I built a smaller panel for the right-hand side, with a compartment to store the mouse and power cable in.  Unfortunately the keyboard doesn’t quite fit inside… I’m still thinking about how to remedy that.  I may end up modding the keyboard, actually… Or maybe I should get a nice steampunk keyboard to go with it?  I also got a few nice little brass filigrees as a finishing touch.  Maybe I should paint the power supply?  I’m sure I’ll keep working on little touches here and there.

Some classical guitar tunes

Posted June 11, 2010 @ 8:21 pm — Filed under: My Music,YLS

Here are some songs I recorded for Beth’s birthday a few years ago. (This is pretty much the only remaining evidence that I ever studied classical guitar…)

  • Bouree
    (J.S Bach)
    Audio MP3
  • Valse Venezolano No. 4
    (Antonio Lauro)
    Audio MP3
  • Legend Of Zelda Theme
    (Koji Kondo)
    Audio MP3
  • Prelude 1
    (Heitor Villa-Lobos)
    Audio MP3
  • Storybook Love
    (Willy DeVille)
    Audio MP3
  • Download all songs

Blacktown Photos

Posted June 10, 2010 @ 8:50 am — Filed under: Pictures

Since the old Blacktown Sound Labs web site featured pictures of the studio prominently, I never posted a blog with those pictures.  But now they don’t have a home on this site, so I figured I’d post them so there’s still a photographic record of the Blacktown setup.  Plus I threw in the Blacktown Sound Labs logo for good measure.

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