Revisiting the FMV game Conspiracies

September 28, 2023March 4, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: Anima PPD
Publisher: Got Game Entertainment
Year: 2003
Genre: Adventure Game

I just noticed from browsing MobyGames out of boredom that it has been 20 years this month since the game Conspiracies was released in the US. Conspiracies is a FMV game developed by Anima Ppd Interactive that I’ve had a long fascination with. I picked the game up near release when I saw it was pretty cheap at a Best Buy, during a time when we were desperate for new adventure games but also because back then I already had a morbid curiosity in FMV games. You play as the detective Nick Delios as you investigate a murder and along the way you discover a bunch of weird subplots and bigger mysteries. This case takes the player all around the world, to outer space, traveling through time, and also a concert for a Greek blues band that the developers seem to be a fan of since you must watch a music video featuring them. It plays exactly like a Tex Murphy game, but not quite at the level of quality that we would expect from that series. It’s hard to know where to start with why this game is so fascinating to me. Richard Cobbett wrote a great article about the game for PC Gamer a while ago about it.

picture of a balding man in a hoodie smiling — Our hero, Nick Delios

I guess a lot of the weirdness in Conspiracies comes from the main character, Nick Delios. He’s not particularly interesting but he’s just such an odd protagonist for an adventure game. Like all characters in FMV games, he wears the same outfit throughout the entire game but it’s just a grey hoodie and grey sweatpants. Since it was a game developed in Greece, he is also dubbed and it doesn’t quite fit but it’s also endearing at the same time?

The PC Gamer article mentions the starting puzzle where you cannot leave the apartment until you make coffee using water from your fish tank, but that’s just the beginning of the odd puzzles. Another puzzle requires you to get by a robotic dog, that is not intimidating at all, by filling an inner tube with water and feeding it to the dog. The most famous puzzle in the game requires you to get a signed cd from a real band called Blues Wire and give it to someone in another location to proceed.

Nothing about it really makes sense. Why is a band from today playing in the future? Why this Greek blues band? Why do you have to pretend you’re dying for them to give you the cd? Like most of the game, it’s not a particularly difficult puzzle, just a really weird one.

However, there is one puzzle that beats them all and caused my friend and I a lot of pain when we played through it. Conspiracies is a game that gives you a ton of inventory items, many of them being completely useless, and a very limited inventory space. Some of these items are small sticks of gum that are scattered throughout the game. My friend and I were playing through the game on our own computers while chatting about it over voice chat and while we each had to dump inventory items to make space, he chose to drop some of those sticks of gum. After all, surely you don’t need six sticks of gum? Well, it turns out you do. Apparently you can figure out what items are needed and which ones aren’t by going to your apartment, and using items on your trash can. If an item isn’t needed, the game will dispose of the item in the trash, otherwise nothing will happen. You’re meant to use the gum much later in the game, where you reach a cutscene of a flying car taking off and Nick combines gum and a tiny gps and throws it at the moving car to get it to stick. If you do not have all six pieces of gum, the game reaches a fail state. We did not know this and my friend spent an hour looking for the stick of gum that he dropped somewhere in this massive 3D space to get past this point. Eventually he gave up and I just sent him my save file so he could proceed. Even the cutscene itself is ridiculous and shows Nick unwrapping and chewing on all six pieces of gum before throwing the gps unit at the flying car.

The reception to this game was a bizarre thing to watch as well. This came out during a time when the adventure game community was desperate for adventure games and would rally behind every single game in the hopes that it would “revive” the genre that many perceived as dead. I think you could make a solid argument that the genre was fine if you were including freeware games and the adventure games coming from Japan, but if you were looking for commercial adventure games for the PC then it was a rough time. Adventure game sites often gave the few commercial games we had glowing reviews, only for bigger outlets to trash the games. This led to accusations that the mainstream gaming press was biased against adventure games and sounds oddly like a conservative talking point we’d hear today but no, the games were frequently just terrible. I have a vivid memory of PC Gamer giving The Moment of Silence, a completely forgettable adventure game, a poor review and the Adventure Gamers forums having a massive thread about it. Even games that I thought were decent, like Broken Sword 3, had unrealistic expectations placed on them and people in the community expected them to single-handedly make the genre popular again. This basically went on until companies like Telltale started making games and I’m glad I don’t see it anymore other than the occasional person at a games outlet saying the genre is dead and then the resulting discourse from that.

Anyway, this all meant that when PC Gamer gave the game a poor review, as it should have, people were not pleased. The developers wrote an angry letter to PC Gamer and the magazine actually published it.

“We at Anima PPD-Interactive are new developers. Conspiracies is our first game, and it took us five years of development and our own funding. Do you believe that judging the game that hard is leaving us anything? The most likely thing that may occur is that we sell nothing in the U.S. and stop our efforts here. Is that what your magazine wants? Fewer independent developers?

Also, did you play the game till the end? You think there’s nothing worthwhile? Not even the story or the Puzzles? I think that you’re on the slope that Hollywood is on – lots of effects and explosions, but boring stories or no stories at all. Just kill, kill, kill. Of course I don’t say that our game is at the edge of technology , but all of the gamers that played our game up to now had a lot of fun. FMV games are very expensive to develop, and there aren’t many of this kind on the market anymore.

We’re very frustrated that you don’t count the story factor or human factor but only graphics and effects. As adventure gamers we feel that a game with a boring story and great graphics is worse than a game with a good story and poorer graphics.

We feel sorry that you’re not supporting us independent developers at all.”

Anestis Kokkinidis, Anima PPD-Interactive

To which PC Gamer writer Chuck Osborne responded with:

“I’m not sure which is more surprising: That we’re supposed to award brownie points to independent developers, or that Conspiracies took five years to make. As I said in my review, I’d gladly play an all-text adventure game (and have!) if it had a great story and compelling puzzles. Sadly, Conspiracies received a 23% because of its confounding plot and pathetic gameplay. To answer your question: Yes, we enthusiastically support small developers – we just don’t support bad games.“

Again, this was a thing that frequently happened with negative reviews of adventure games in the early 00’s. I remember Chuck Osborne going onto the Just Adventure forums to explain how he’s not biased against adventure games just because he gave a negative review to the latest Dreamcatcher game and what not, and other journalists would pop onto the Adventure Gamers forums to explain the same thing.

The game must have been a success because in 2011, 8 years after the first game, there was a Conspiracies 2. Even with the long gap between games, it manages to bring back everyone from the first game, including the people who did the dubbing for the English version. It’s an improvement over the first game, although I felt like it removed the weirdness from the game so I never finished it. One day I’ll have to, so I can see how the cliffhanger from the first game is resolved.

While they only developed the two games, Anima PPD seems to still be around today doing video production. You can even buy physical copies of Conspiracies 1 and 2 from their website. I believe this is the only place where you can legally buy them, as they never got a release on Steam or GOG. I hope they do get a digital release someday. While it’s clear I don’t think they’re “Good” games, they are fascinating and must have done something right if I’m still thinking about Conspiracies 20 years later.

On a final note, after our playthrough of the first game together, my friend wrote the studio an email thanking them for making the game. I don’t think the email was entirely sincere but there wasn’t any sarcasm in it either. To his surprise, the studio responded and sent him a bunch of Conspiracies swag like a poster and a copy of the game with a bonus dvd of extra material, which I believe was signed? Just an incredibly kind gesture from a small studio that didn’t need to do so, and this enthusiasm is probably why I’m still recommending it to streamers and enjoyers of obscure games today. It’s not a good game and I strongly recommend having a walkthrough open while playing it, but good lord is it a fascinating fever dream.

Modding Music in ScummVM

September 25, 2023April 5, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

A nice little feature I’ve discovered this year in ScummVM is the ability to replace the soundtracks of some games with other versions. The ScummVM website mentions it but I didn’t know of it until I saw that George Sanger, also known as The Fat Man, started selling soundtracks of his games on Bandcamp that also included files for ScummVM that allow you to listen to a higher quality version of the soundtrack of games like Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo while you play. It’s been really nice listening to these while revisiting the games with my kids. The soundtracks you can do this with are currently:

Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds
Let’s Explore the Airport!
Pajama Sam 3 (also works with Pajama Sam: Games to Play on Any Day)
Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon
Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo

cover for the Putt Putt Goes to the Moon soundtrack, showing a top down view of Putt Putt driving across the surface of the moon — Cover of the Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon soundtrack

But I would also encourage you to check out the other albums on his Bandcamp page because there’s a lot of great stuff on there.

Tom McGurk has also rereleased his soundtrack for Spy Fox 2, which comes with files for ScummVM.

Another place where you can find mods for game soundtracks is through the ScummVM Music Enhancement Project by James Woodcock. The project is focused on recreating midi soundtracks of games at a higher audio quality level and isn’t trying to do an “improved” soundtrack or make any drastic changes, and the site is very open about how they are a big fan of the original soundtracks and are just doing it as a fun personal project. Also from reading this post about The Gene Machine, it sounds like he gets permission before releasing an enhanced soundtrack. I think they’re really neat and will have to use them when I replay some of these games. You can check out a video doing a comparison of the original and new Beneath a Steel Sky soundtracks here:

Currently the games supported by the ScummVM Music Enhancement Project are:

It sounds like there’s an enhanced soundtrack being made for Simon the Sorcerer 2 right now, so be sure to follow the project for future updates.

The ScummVM website also links to ways to replace the Loom soundtrack with your preferred version of Swan Lake and building a talkie version of the original Monkey Island 1 and 2 using the voice acting from the special editions. I just think it’s really nice that these things exist when we revisit some of our favorite games.

Computer Store Photo Dump: Celebs at CompUSA

September 20, 2023September 19, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I’m not actually sure where any of these pictures originally came from on the web and I can’t find them anymore. So for the sake of preserving important computer history, here are photos of famous people at CompUSA. If you would like more, here’s some pictures from Getty Images of Bill Gates signing copies of Windows 95 and a couple of Steve Ballmer. Depending on your definition of famous, here’s some of Richard Garriott and Warren Spector at Egghead Software. So uhhhhh, enjoy!

picture of Emmanual Lewis giving a thumbs up next to an employee — Emmanual Lewis from the show Webster

Andre 3000 standing next to an employee at the store. — Andre 3000 from Outkast

Steven Seagal shaking hands with an employee — Steven Seagal, actor and Russian propoganda tool

Shareware Game Developer Websites

September 18, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Update: A lot of people replied on social media of other sites they liked so I have added a list of them at the end.

This morning I went looking for a shareware game I remembered playing 20 years ago and discovered that not only was the game now free, the same website I downloaded the game from two decades ago was still up. This led to me thinking about other old shareware game developer sites I knew of, and discovering some others that were new to me as well.

Spheres of Chaos

screenshot of the game showing a triangle shaped ship in the middle and a blend of mostly reddish colors all over the screen

This was the game that kicked off my whole dig into old shareware developer sites this morning. Spheres of Chaos is an arcade game like Asteroids, where you fly around shooting at various objects and they break into smaller bits, while dodging other space ships trying to shoot at you. The game was originally released in 1992 for the Acorn Archimedes and then re-released in 1998 for the PC, where it has received a few updates since then. The visuals remind me a lot of Llamasoft’s games, with a psychedelic aesthetic with bright colors coming from every movement and explosion. I originally discovered this game almost 20 years ago, on the Idle Thumbs website before it launched a podcast. The review does a much better job explaining why you should play it than I could. At the time, I did not have a credit card or the money to pay for the small amount the developer was charging. Fast forward to this morning when I suddenly remembered playing this game and dug around the site to find the name of the game. I was pleasantly surprised to see the website was still up, looking the exact same as it did when I first downloaded the demo, and the game was now available for free. Best of all, the game still holds up! It was a blast flying around, blowing everything up, and the screen filling up with various colors. Highly recommended if you’re a Llamasoft fan.

Redwood Games

screenshot from Pickle Wars showing a platforming game with a person in the middle and a door and ladder next to them

This led me to discovering some shareware game developers that still have websites going, even if they aren’t actively developing new games. Redwood Games was created about 1990 by Karen Crowther and the studio is most famous for the games Math Rescue and Word Rescue, which were published by Apogee Software. Both games are still available on Steam today. The site also features downloads of other games they worked on like Talking ABC’s and the shareware version of Pickle Wars.

Gray Design Associates

a collage of screenshots from Hugo 1 showing rooms of a haunted house — Screenshot taken from the Gray Design Associates website

Gray Design Associates is the name of the developer owned by David Gray, most famously known for The Hugo Trilogy of adventure games, which started with the 1990 game Hugo’s House of Horrors. While GOG does sell the Windows version of the games running in ScummVM, David’s website sells both versions of the trilogy in the bundle if you want to own the DOS versions as well. It’s also the only place where you can legally buy Nitemare 3-D, the FPS spinoff of the Hugo games released in 1995. Since then, David has been focused on creating jigsaw puzzle games and still makes them to this day.

SophSoft

SophSoft is a developer that started in 1982 and is still going today! As someone that is interested in the history of Michigan game development, it’s cool seeing someone that has been making games for so long in Lansing, Michigan. Their portfolio also shows games they helped with, such as Legacy of the Ancients and The Legend of Blacksilver by another local game developer, Quest Software.

Adept Software

screenshot from jetpack showing someone with a jetpack flying around stone platforms that have gold coins

Adept Software is a software developer that is most famous for the shareware game Jetpack. The developer started in 1996 and is still working on things today. The Classic Games section of their site is a delight, resembling a 90’s website, and features their classic games for free.

Game Crafters

Game Crafters was a studio that developed one game, The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian in 1992. That hasn’t stopped the studio from having a website with updates as recently as 2012. The site has downloads of the game for various platforms and you can also read news posts about an attempt to make a sequel in the early 00’s.

MVP Software

MVP Software was a publisher in Grand Rapids, Michigan that started in 1985 and kept going all the way to 2014. While the site itself isn’t anything exciting to look at, I think it’s great that it’s still up and offering free downloads of all the games they’re legally allowed to offer such as Pickle Wars, the game I mentioned earlier by Redwood Games.

If you enjoyed reading about these studios and visiting their sites, I highly recommend the book Shareware Heroes. The book goes into detail about the shareware scene, including some of the developers mentioned here. If there’s an older site belonging to a game developer that you’re a fan of, or you’re a game developer with a site that’s been around for a long time, feel free to leave it in the comments!

Sites Recommended by Others!

I didn’t expect people on social media to have so many other shareware game dev sites that they like so I have made a list of them here!

3D Realms – The legacy version of their site. (Suggested by Richard Moss)
Bluemoon Interactive – Developer of classic DOS games like Skyroads. The history section of the site has links to download full versions of their games. (Suggested by Pulsar)
Cap’n Magneto – Shareware game for the Mac. (Richard Moss)
Carr Software – Developer of shareware games, all available in a bundle. (Hard Drive Noises)
Crazy Bytes – Recommended by LunarLoony
Everett Kaser Software – Developer of Sherlock and other games. A great post by Ian Michael here about why he is a fan of the developer.
Goodsol – Developer of a Solitaire application that is updated every year (Richard Moss)
Hamumu Games – Developer of shareware games that has recently rereleased them on Steam. (Andy Hat)
JunkGames – Recommended by LunarLoony
KPixGames – Developer of PathPix and other shareware games (ROTOPE)
Lena Games – Developer of Solitaire shareware and other games (LunarLoony)
Louise Hope – A World Builder dev that includes games you can play in your browser. (Mike Piontek)
Ray Dunakin – World Builder dev, including a modern Mac remake of one game (Mike Piontek)
Sean O’Connor – Suggested by Greg. “Sean O’Connor made a rather addicting Empire clone called “Mother of All Battles” for Windows 3.0 that is still getting some updates and being sold today!”
Semicolon – Modern ports of his old software, including Mac games (Richard Moss)
Spiderweb Software – Actively making rpgs since the 90’s (Andy Hat)
Stick Software – Developer of various applications and games for the Mac (Richard Moss)
Storm Impact – Developer of MacSki and other Mac games. The downloads come in an emulator friendly format. (Mike Piontek)
Wendell Hicken – Creator of Scorched Earth (kilowatt)
Winograd – Developer of Mac and Windows games (Richard Moss)
Zugg Software – Creator of MUD clients (Richard Moss)

Myst Parodies

September 13, 2023December 24, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ 3 Comments

When Myst came out, it was a gigantic hit that made its way into pop culture. There were books, a board game, and even some discussions with Disney to do something in one of their parks. So it’s not surprising that a game as popular and challenging as Myst also had a few parodies.

Pyst

The most well known of these Myst parodies is the game Pyst, released in 1996. The game was written by Peter Bergman, a member of the Firesign Theatre, and the first game developed by Parroty Interactive. The Firesign Theatre was a surreal comedy troupe that was around from 1966 to 2012. The concept for Pyst isn’t too bad. You explore Myst island after millions of others have already visited it and see how trashed it has become. The problem is that it’s just not a very good parody. The jokes all fall flat and even a short cameo by John Goodman, who was friends with the comedy troupe, couldn’t save it. It’s not very long either. You navigate the rooms in a slideshow-like format by clicking the left and right arrows to navigate to other cards, clicking on various elements in each card to find jokes, until you reach the end. That’s all there is to it. There’s no puzzles or any real sense of navigation, so the game takes about 30 minutes to play through. If you have an interest in the game, you can watch a playthrough on YouTube and probably get the same out of it as I did and with less work.

The game is not available for sale anywhere so I feel ok with linking to The Collection Chamber if you really want to download a version of it that’s already setup to work on modern PCs. Personally, I got more enjoyment from watching the bizarre Making of Pyst video and listening to the theme for the game featuring John Goodman on vocals.

Negative reviews of the game didn’t stop it from being a commercial hit. The game remained on the cd-rom best seller list for a long time due to its low cost and availability. I remember seeing the game at the checkout counter at CompUSA when it came out. The success allowed Parroty Interactive to develop a few more games:
Star Warped (1997), a parody of Star Wars.
The X-Fools (1997), a parody of The X-Files
Microshaft Winblows 98 (1998), a parody of Microsoft Windows 98

There were also plans to develop Driven, a parody of Riven: The Sequel to Myst. This would have had more of a car theme but was never completed due to the studio closing after being acquired by The Learning Company. A demo of the game exists on later Parroty Interactive releases and you can watch a playthrough here. Despite my criticisms of the game, I do think the Firesign Theatre is worth listening to if they sound interesting to you.

Mylk

Pyst wasn’t the first Myst parody. Mylk was a freeware game released in 1994 with a dairy theme. You find the trapped Farmer Ben and Frances the Chicken, who have little videos just like the two brothers in Myst, telling you to bring them bring pink and yellow pages that you find by exploring cheese-themed areas. It’s a fun little parody with some cute cartoon graphics and like the About screen states in the screenshot above, it was made as a tribute to the game instead of being angry at it like some of the other Myst parodies out there. If you want to check it out, it’s on the Internet Archive. The creator of the game would go on to write a lot of Shrek-related cartoons.

Missed

Missed is a browser game created by Jason Bloomberg and published in 1996. You navigate the island using buttons at the bottom of the screen with a text description telling you what each button will do, with jokes about how Myst is too hard and other frustrations people had with it at the time. Fortunately the game has been preserved in the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine has also preserved the page detailing the making of the game and a walkthrough that you can read here.

MYSTy

MYSTy is a parody released for the Macintosh in 1995 by Twin Software. You enter a Powerbook and explore an island similar to Myst. The game is playable on the Internet Archive.

Modern Parodies

screenshot from lyft showing chairs and tables in an office — Screenshot from Lyft

People are still making Myst parodies and tributes today. In 2016 there was a Myst jam on Itch.io where there were dozens of entries, most by fans of the game. There was also the attempt to make Myst more exciting by making it a FPS. It has been interesting seeing the things people take from Myst and having a more positive view of it, when it doesn’t feel like it’s everywhere and have had more time to understand the design of the game.

Mast

After publishing this post, I was made aware of Mast, a porn parody of Myst, thanks(?) to Phil Salvador and Frank Cifaldi from the Video Game History Foundation. As far as I know, this ad from an adult cd-rom magazine is all we know about it. Hopefully we’ll see it uploaded to the Internet Archive one day so we find out what this game is actually like.

Nacah

Thanks to Lori on Mastodon, I am also now aware of Nacah. Nacah is a Bible-themed Myst clone by Virtue Games where you explore a group of islands that you are stranded on and solving puzzles based on the Bible. It’s not a parody of Myst but is strongly inspired by the game and is marketed as a “Biblical alternate to Myst” so it deserves a mention.

Ryven

I hesitate to put this one here because it’s more of a tribute or game inspired by Riven, but I think it’s still neat. The bad news is that it hasn’t been completely preserved, but you can check out part of it on the Internet Archive. According to a Reddit thread a few years ago, someone has been talking to the developer to get the rest of it preserved.

There are far more Myst parodies and tributes than I could have imagined and I suspect there’s plenty more out there. If there’s a Myst parody that you don’t see here, please let me know in the comments.

J.B. Harold: Blue Chicago Blues – English Patch

September 12, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

J.B. Harold is a series of Japanese adventure games that started in the mid 80’s with the game Murder Club. As you can guess, each game involves you playing as the detective J.B. Harold and you investigate murders. While some of the games have received official English translations, a lot have not. So I’m thrilled to see that the 1994 game Blue Chicago Blues has just received an English fan patch. This was one of the later entries in the series and most importantly, it’s a FMV game!

a man wearing glasses and a cozy sweater — Screenshot taken from MobyGames

Most of the game is made up of interactive movies and making choices whenever the movie stops. Each choice advances the clock and it’s up to the player to solve the murder before time runs out. If you’d like to check the game out, the English fan patch is available here.

DOS Games on Itch.io

September 10, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Even if the games industry has largely moved on to making games for other platforms, there’s still tons of games being made for DOS every year. I’ve previously made a post about the DOS Game Jam, which also includes some recommendations, but someone from the DOS Game Jam discord has put together this really good list of native DOS games that were submitted to the jams.

a screenshot from DZZEE showing rings with gaps in them. — A screenshot from DZZEE

There’s also lots of DOS games outside of game jams on Itch such as The Aching, Hibernated 1, and many others with the DOS and msdos tags on their product pages. Some of the games with these tags are just (very good) games inspired by classic DOS games, but there’s plenty that run natively on DOS as well. If you’d like to find more DOS games, including ones outside of Itch, this site seems to have a good list of some of the games out there.

a barren planet screenshot showing two armies facing each other

If you want to talk about DOS game development, find out about upcoming DOS game jams, just want to talk about DOS games in a welcoming and inclusive environment, consider joining the DOS Shareware Zone discord.

Computer Store Photo Dump: State Street Computer

September 9, 2023September 19, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Here is a series of ads for a place called State Street Computer in Ann Arbor, Michigan showing the initial excitement for the Amiga, ads selling the computer, and then the final ad for the store showing their liquidation sale. I don’t have dates for all the ads because I saved these images a while ago and didn’t take notes then, but I can guess that it’s roughly from the mid 80’s to the very late 80’s or very early 90’s. These images came from looking through local newspapers and also from the Ann Arbor District Library website.

An ad introducing the commodore amiga for $995.00 and listing the computer's features and the store's address

An ad listing why people should pick up an Amiga instead of a Macintosh

There’s a few other ads that I found as well. I’m guessing the freedom of the press one is aimed at college students looking to start their own zines or newspapers since this was right next to the University of Michigan.

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one!

Buy a Computer AND Laser Printer AND Software for only $2995

Atari Mega-2 Computer w/monitor
Atari SLM804 300 dpi Laser Printer
Microsoft Write & VIP Professional
2 Megabytes of memory
User-friendly mouse environment

STATE STREET computer

334 S. State, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (313) 663-0090

12 1/2% NBD bank financing available in one business hour.

Before you Kickoff on the wrong foot check out our everyday low prices

Commodore PC20-III
Clock Speed 4.77, 7.16, and 9.54 MHz
Graphics 720x348 Monochrome, 320x200 16 Color, 640x200 4 Color
Expansion 3 Expansion slots,1 Serial 1 Parallel port, Separate Hard Disk connector
Memory, 640KB Memory
Keyboard, Enhanced PC Keyboard
Storage, 5 25" 360K Floppy Drive or 3.5" 72OK Floppy Drive, 20 Meg Hard Drive
Software Included, WordPerfect v.5.0

$1580.00 our everyday low price

IBM PS2 Model 30
Clock Speed 8 MHz
Graphics 720x348 Monochrome,320x200 16 Color,640x200 4 Color
Expansion 3 Expansion slots, 1 Serial 1 Parallel port
Memory, 1MB Memory
Keyboard, Enhanced PC Keyboard
Storage 3.5" 720K Floppy Drive, 20 Meg Hard Drive
Software Included, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word

$2025.00 The University price quoted from the 'Computer Kickoff"

Come in and see our complete line of Commodore, Amiga, Atari ST, and Delta Gold PC products.

Commodore is a trademark ofComnodor Business Machines. Inc.
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines, Inc.

Stop in or Call

STATE STREET COMPUTER

12 1/2% bank financing available in one business hour.

334 S. State. Ann Arbor Ml, 48104 (313) 663-0090

Unfortunately I cannot find any images of the actual store. I looked up the location of the store on Google Maps and it would have been a high traffic spot near the University of Michigan.

Google Street Screenshot from 2011 showing the Nickels Arcade area of downtown Ann Arbor

If you have any photos of the store, I would love to see them posted somewhere.

Sources:
1. https://aadl.org/node/245897
2. https://aadl.org/node/245702
3. https://aadl.org/taxonomy/term/76102
4. https://aadl.org/node/245850

Hyperland by Douglas Adams

September 7, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Just finished watching Hyperland, a documentary about hypertext and other related computer technologies in 1990. It was created by Douglas Adams and stars Tom Baker (Doctor Who) as a software agent that shows Douglas the future of tv, Interactive Multimedia. I thought it was a fascinating time capsule of what Douglas thought the internet was going to be like in the future, even before people were using web browsers. The documentary talks to a variety of people like Ted Nelson and Robert Winter, but the highlight for me was Amanda Goodenough presenting Inigo Gets Out, an application for kids made with Hypercard. There’s even a fun little reference to Douglas Adams writing interactive fiction in the 80’s.

screenshot from Hyperland showing a hand choosing between icons that are hovering over someone's face while they talk

Hyperland gets some stuff wrong as anything like this is always going to but he was right about a surprising amount. Even less desirable elements like your fridge being connected to the internet are predicted here. If you have an interest in Douglas Adams or computer history I think it’s worth checking out. There’s a lot of interesting interviews about hypertext history, Tom Baker is a lot of fun to watch, and it’s only 50 minutes. You can watch it for free on the Internet Archive.

Egghead Software

September 6, 2023September 19, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

A weird but fun thing I like to do is post photos of old computer stores on Cohost and Mastodon, which means that I have found a ton of random things over the last couple of years. I’m going to start posting more organized collections here in case something happens to either place, since that account is now the only source of some photos after the sources have gone down (see my CompUSA post here).

One I’ve always loved finding more photos and documents of has been Egghead Software. If you’re feeling nostalgic for computers in the early 90’s, or specifically the Egghead Software store chain, check out their quarterly reports that have been archived here. For some reason it’s a chain that doesn’t have a ton of photos like other computer stores do, so it was fun finding these. I also thought it was interesting reading the reports in the later years and watching the slow decline they were going through.

a woman looking at a copy of MS-DOS Upgrade 5

a family trying out a computer in the store

My other favorite source of photos of Egghead Software is obviously this set of photos taken of Warren Spector and Richard Garriott to promote games by Origin.

photo of Richard Garriott in a store holding a copy of Ultima: Martian Dreams

I’ve also found a lot of random photos of now closed computer stores by checking out Facebook groups that former employees post in. I’ve only gone in public groups but there’s been a lot of interesting things that employees kept from the store like these items. Unfortunately the groups seem to randomly disappear, probably from Facebook constantly making changes, so there’s always a feeling I have to grab the photos before they’re gone forever.