The last couple of weeks have been a bit retro.
I have started programming again for the Android platform.
Already produced 1 new app called Ask the Universe. Think of it a bit like the old 8Ball toy.
I have also revamped an old game I wrote about 4 years ago called Spectre Splat, but thats still having a few tweaks done to it.
And I have written a new game based on an old 1970's game called guess. This is still a work in progress and still has a few bugs in it.
Since retro is the flavour of the week I though I would write about some retro computer games.
The first ever video game was developed in October 1958, by physicist William Higinbotham. It was a basic version of a tennis game, called Tennis for Two. The screen was a standard oscilloscope display.
 |
| Tennis for Two |
To the left can be seen a photo from the Brookhaven National Laboratory(BNL) of Tennis for Two being displayed on a Dumont Lab Oscilloscope.
The game proved to be very popular at BNL's annual public exhibition. Once the exhibition was finished the game was dismantled a virtually forgotten about. That is until the 1970 when Higinbotham testified in court about the game. The court case was between Magnavox and Ralph Baer over patents to do with video games.
Since then BNL has recreated the game several times. It is considered one of the first ever video games for entertainment. There where others before this but they where considered for academic research rather than entertainment. There was a noughts and crosses (Tic Tac Toe) computer game developed in 1952 and this is considered the first ever graphical game. So why isn't it considered the first ever video game. Well it depends on who you talk to. Many believe it not to be the first ever video game, because of its lack of moving or real time updating graphics.
I know its been a while. Normal life just got in the way of blogging.
But I am now back.
So I thought I would talk about the cloud.
To many The Cloud means free wifi when out and about.
To others it means Apple's online storage.
And to some it just means somewhere on the internet to store data.
In fact many companies now use cloud services, as they are called, to store or back up data. So in the event of everything going pair shaped they don't have to try and find the daily or weekly backup, which maybe difficult in the event of a fire. They just log on to the cloud service they belong to and all the data is there.
I use a cloud service called pCloud. Like many you get 10GB free plus another 4GB if you use their virtual drive software on your PC, so you can use the cloud as an extra hard drive.
There are also paid for options such as more space. This is currently €175 (was €480) for an extra 500GB or €350 for 2TB ( was €980). So both are great deals, especially as its a one off payment. There are monthly and yearly payment plans too.
At the moment I use their free service as its all I need. But I do see a time when one of the paid for options might be handy.
So what do I use my pCloud account for. Well to store all sorts of files from my PC and to automatically back up my phone's data. So when ever I take a photo it will automatically transfer it to my pCloud account. I have set mine up to automatically do it when ever I am connected to Wifi.
By doing this I now get no more "file storage low" type messages.
Another great feature is the share folder option. You can set up folders to be shared. You are given a link and you just send the link to the person you want to share files with. This is great for friends and family when sharing holiday photos or baby pics etc..
So what are you waiting for join the pCloud revolution and download the app for your phone and computer.
