Yeah, those were different times and we all tried doing stuff that hasn't been done before... And now, pretty much everything has already been "done before". It's intriguing and maybe a little sad to watch these two different points in time simultaneously.
Indeed. However the older I grow the more I'm fascinated with projects like this (or more recently with games like Nox Archaist or Realms of Antiquity) because I can fully appreciate the pioneer spirit behind it. It intrigues me how it's possible to achieve such projects with the very limited resources of these old computers. That's something I appreciate much more than any triple A production with fancy graphics and whatnot.
Well... it's good for the creator when the medium is limiting. It's a bit why I think most modern CGI movies suck... if you can do *anything* you wish you lose the gravitas. I mean we got some really brilliant games on ZX Spectrum and other 8bit computers, even later 16bit like Amiga & ST... And now you can't fit a texture for a thimble into a 48K. Having to fit a game into a 48K block makes you focused as hell :) And having possibly any resource you can think of... I don't really know what that makes you, probably not focused, needlessly excessive I suppose?
Exactly! There is a connection between limitation and reaching perfection. I remember a thought I once read in a work of Baltic philosopher Hermann von Keyserling: If we have no limits to our aspirations we will stay incompetents in all fields. The more options and possibilities there are the harder it is to perfect yourself. The CGI-technology is a good point. I always wondered why most movies after 2000 seem so cheap and uninteresting to me while in the 90ies there still were some good movies. I'm almost sure it has to do with the excessive use of computer technology and the boundless possibilities it opens. While we can still enjoy 100 years old Chaplin movies I'm almost sure nobody will talk of all the CGI-Superhero-stuff in 10 years.
By the way: I just purchased myself a TI-84+ calculator - simply because I intend to figure out what can be achieved on such a limited device There are tons of games and programs.