Can you remember what the documentary was?I might hunt it out (or something very similar). I love all kinds of history too anyway, and the nostalgia value of the 80s and early 90s gaming scene for me is quite impressive.
I've just been watching videos of Frontier Elite 2 which for me is still one of the two or three best games ever (the others being maybe Super Mario World and Time Splitters: Future Perfect. Oh, wait, also Geoff Crammond's GP series, taken as a whole, so you may as well have GP4 which looks the nicest. And Thief. Thief was fucking brilliant.) I might waste the evening drinking cheap lager and playing Elite 2.
Edit: Also, now in scientist mode, we owe a massive debt to the world of gaming. Some of the best chips for scientific calculation are GPUs, so long as you know how to program for them (I don't, but I know people who do and what they achieve is utterly mind-bending). GPUs have been developed almost entirely for the gaming market, which apparently dwarfs the professional market (including that of film and TV) in terms of revenue for the chip manufacturers. Doubtless the push of Hollywood and big TV has also been extremely significant, but gaming has certainly played a very big part in getting GPUs to the state they're in now, which is one of amazing potential. I keep meaning to find time to start programming on them because almost every code I write professionally can be massively parallelised and would be pretty much ideal for a GPU.
(I've just been watching videos of Frontier Elite 2 which for me is still one of the two or three best games ever (the others being maybe Super Mario World and Time Splitters: Future Perfect. Oh, wait, also Geoff Crammond's GP series, taken as a whole, so you may as well have GP4 which looks the nicest. And Thief. Thief was fucking brilliant.) I might waste the evening drinking cheap lager and playing Elite 2.
Edit: Also, now in scientist mode, we owe a massive debt to the world of gaming. Some of the best chips for scientific calculation are GPUs, so long as you know how to program for them (I don't, but I know people who do and what they achieve is utterly mind-bending). GPUs have been developed almost entirely for the gaming market, which apparently dwarfs the professional market (including that of film and TV) in terms of revenue for the chip manufacturers. Doubtless the push of Hollywood and big TV has also been extremely significant, but gaming has certainly played a very big part in getting GPUs to the state they're in now, which is one of amazing potential. I keep meaning to find time to start programming on them because almost every code I write professionally can be massively parallelised and would be pretty much ideal for a GPU.
boris the spider,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 18:50,
archived)
clive sinclair drama/comedynot sure if you can still watch this on iplayer....
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92
(,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 19:53,
archived)
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92
ta, i think i dimly remember hearing about that but never watched iti can't get iplayer where i live but doubtless it's on youtube, or other slightly more nefarious sites
( boris the spider,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 20:53,
archived)
there's scarcely been any development in ideas since the 1960s,the things that supercomputers were doing back then are only just becoming mainstream. Of course it's many times refined by now in terms of actual implementation but in terms of concepts there's really nothing new.
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 20:27,
archived)
if you look at what a chip is actually doing nowit's not really strictly true that things that were being done on supercomputers then are mainstream now. your mobile phone is a wonder of technology compared to a 60s mainframe.
i think i know what you mean though, i'm just very pedantic :) ultimately there's a limit to what we can use to do computing with. until something like quantum (or photonic) computing gets anything like usable, we're stuck with semiconductor physics, and increasingly complicated ways of harnessing it. the thing i find most impressive is that basically there is no-one in the world who really understands how, say, a third generation i7 chip actually works overall except in fairly general terms
(i think i know what you mean though, i'm just very pedantic :) ultimately there's a limit to what we can use to do computing with. until something like quantum (or photonic) computing gets anything like usable, we're stuck with semiconductor physics, and increasingly complicated ways of harnessing it. the thing i find most impressive is that basically there is no-one in the world who really understands how, say, a third generation i7 chip actually works overall except in fairly general terms
boris the spider,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 20:41,
archived)