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Uploading the Mad Magazine Computer issue from 1985

Posted in 80s, computers, Mad magazine, magazine, pop culture, technology with tags Book Report, computers, Mad Magazine, magazines, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 19, 2011 by Paxton

Earlier this week I looked at the awesome Star Wars Q&A Book About Computers from 1983. In there we got to see Artoo and Threepio show us the until then current history of computers including an awesome painting of the droids playing an upright video game.

Then I took at look at the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984. In there we saw lots of BASIC code for programs based on Marvel Super Hero adventures like the Iron Man Robot Retriever and Doctor Strange and the Computer Gremlin.

Today, I’m continuing my look at vintage computer activity books with Mad Magazine #258 from October 1985.

This particular issue of Mad had a special “computer section” in the middle of the magazine. The feature article in that section was the Mad Computer Program.

The article provided code for three major BASIC platforms that you could enter into your computer and when you run the program, it would print out a special surprise output. You can click the images above to see the code more clearly.

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Learning BASIC with the Marvel Super Heroes

Posted in 80s, books, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews with tags Book Report, books, comic books, computers, Marvel Comics, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 17, 2011 by Paxton

Yesterday I looked at the Star Wars Q&A Book about Computers. It featured a history of the computer (through 1983) and some awesome art by Ken Barr. Today, I’m looking at another awesomely vintage computer book, it’s the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984.

This book is LOOOOOOOOONG and it features A LOT of programs. I’ll just be looking at some of the more notable programs and artwork. You can check out my Flickr set to see more.

Here’s the cover to the activity book and the intro page telling you what to expect inside.

And here’s the Fantastic Four to tell you how to use this book (in case you weren’t already aware that you used it to, you know, program your computer).

Here’s Capt America reminding you to code your 900 lines. He gives you 9 examples (there’s another page of code I’m not showing you) of 900 lines from different BASIC environments like the Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple II.

Here’s a program featuring Cap called Menace of the Gray Gargoyle. It’s a “fence busting” program. See the code here. Man, that Gray Gargoyle looks lame.

This program is called Iron Man to the Rescue. It’s a game in which Iron Man has to stop a ship from shooting missiles at a school filled with children. Hope you get them all or the deaths of thousands of small schoolchildren on your head. Is it just me or does that seem like a needlessly violent scenario for a kid’s computing activity book?

There are two other Iron Man programs. The first is called Robot Retriever. It’s awesome because the title page features MODOK and ROM: Spaceknight. The other is Iron Man’s Lock Problem. I like the artwork on the title page. I didn’t realize Iron Man was popular enough in the 1980s to get three programs in this book.

The article continues below the break…

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A look at the Star Wars Q&A Book about computers (1983)

Posted in 80s, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology with tags Book Report, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology on August 15, 2011 by Paxton

I love vintage kids books. I love vintage pop culture books. I also love vintage books looking at early computing technology. This week, I get all three wrapped into one. I’ll be looking at three early 80s activity books featuring awesomely retro computing technology. Being a tech guy and a pop culture guy sure pays off some days. The first book I’ll be looking at is the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers from 1983. Yes, I know, mixing Star Wars and computer technology? Yes, please. And the book is filled with some of the most awesome artwork mixing R2-D2 and C3PO and computer machinery. The artwork in this book is by Ken Barr. Ken Barr is a comic artist. He’s done a lot of work for Marvel, especially back in the 70s and 80s with titles like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, Savage Sword of Conan and Rampaging Hulk. Most of that work being for Marvel magazines that showcase the really nice painted look of Barr’s creations. You can see a lot of that here, too. This book is mainly an information dump about computers, how they began and what they can be used for. Much of the information is surrounded by Barr’s gorgeous paintings. However there are also pages without artwork but instead use photographs of actual computer machinery.

Here’s the intro to the book explaining about computers. Next to the intro is another information page featuring a picture of an Apple II. Click the images to make them BIGGER.

Here are some pages talking about computers and video games. You can see an adorable picture of R2-D2 playing chess against a computer and both Artoo and Threepio playing an upright arcade machine. I’m seriously in love with that arcade machine painting. See it much bigger here. Continue reading →

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Billy the Kid Week 2011: Review of The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid

Posted in Billy the Kid, books, pop culture, reviews with tags Billy the Kid, Billy the Kid Week, books, pop culture, reviews on July 15, 2011 by Paxton

Our final day of Billy the Kid Week. I am celebrating the 130 year anniversary of Billy the Kid’s death by reviewing a bunch of novels featuring Billy the Kid. Today’s book is The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid by Bill Brooks.

This book is somewhat a sequel to yesterday’s Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. It is a fictional story about what happened to Billy the Kid after Garrett shot him. It posits that Garrett actually shot a cow thief named Billy Barlow that night and covered it up. This book acts as Billy’s journal. It covers the events of Billy’s life up to the shooting and what happened to him after the shooting as well as if he ever got revenge on Pat Garrett.

I love the idea of this book. The idea is very similar to another book I read, The Frankenstein Papers by Fred Saberhagen. It takes an existing work and continues the story from another point of view. I love that. However, I didn’t just LOVE this book. The main problem lies in the structure. This book’s story is literally all over the place. Brooks jumps around throughout Billy’s life in a non-linear way. You’ll hear about an event that happened in one chapter but not see that event until many chapters later. Plus, half way though the book, the narrator changes to Billy’s girlfriend. We’ll be discussing Billy’s mother in one chapter, then we’ll see an entire chapter on his friend Charlie and his wife. It was really hard to get a foot hold on this book’s story with all the jumping around. And the author kept sticking in poems and quotes from Shakespeare and Lord Byron. It feels like he was trying to turn this book into literature. And it’s decidedly NOT.

I don’t know, I really wanted to love this book because the hook is great. Billy escaped his death and went on living until he was in his 90s. What happened to him? But just as I would get into the story, the narrator or the timeline would shift and I would have to readjust. It was very disconcerting.

I did like how Brooks incorporated passages and events from Garrett’s book. It was obvious Brooks read that book and built his narrative off the text and events in it. But, again, the disconcerting way the novel was written really hindered my enjoyment.

So, a recommend? For western fans and/or Billy the Kid fans, yes, but with a warning, the narrative jumps around a lot. But it’s a good enough premise to keep you reading. I never once thought about stopping the book. It’s funny, when I got this book in the mail from Paperbackswap.com, the cover seemed very familiar to me. I honestly thought I’d read it. If I did read it back when I was reading all those western books (early-mid 90s), then I don’t remember it. At all. And I probably won’t remember this again in another few years.

Billy the Kid Week 2011: Review of Pat Garret’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid

Posted in Billy the Kid, books, pop culture, reviews with tags anniversary, Billy the Kid, Billy the Kid Week, books, pop culture, reviews on July 14, 2011 by Paxton

Billy the Kid, aka William H Bonney, aka Henry McCarty, was killed by sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico 130 years ago today. All this week I am celebrating the anniversary of Billy’s death by reading and reviewing books about the enigmatic outlaw.

Today I am reviewing the book about Billy. The main source of most of our information about him. The book was released within a year after Billy was killed and written by the main who killed him, Sheriff Pat Garret. That book is called The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Before I get started, I want to say I’m sorry if this runs a little long. It’s just such a seminal work in Old West literature and a very important book for me personally because of my enthusiasm for the subject matter. I’ll try to keep it short, but I may let my enthusiasm get away with me.

The two covers above are for one of the original printings of Garrett’s book around 1882 (left) and the more recent printing of the book in the Oklahoma Library Press Western Frontier series (right). The latter printing being the one I read. The official title of the book tends to change a bit with each edition. The title page of the edition I read has An Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid: The Noted Desperado of the Southwest Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood Made His Name a Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico. The cover of the earlier edition just has An Authentic Life of Billy the Kid The Noted Desperado of the Southwest. It was ghost written by Ashmun Upson, a sheriff buddy of Pat.

This book is considered the authority, but many people don’t realize there was another first hand account of Billy’s death. John Poe, a deputy who rode with Garrett the night Billy was killed, wrote his version of the events of that night. It was released in Wild World Magazine in 1919 and then collected into a hardcover titled The Death of Billy the Kid in 1933 (cover above). Poe’s account mostly matches up with Garrett’s but there are a few inconsistencies between the two.

I got Garrett’s book off Paperbackswap.com. You can also buy copies from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. Or, if you prefer, you can just read it for free on the internet. I’ve wanted to read this book for years and I thought the 130th anniversary of Billy’s death is as good a time as any.

This book is an interesting read. It’s fascinating on many levels. It’s a first hand account of events in the Old West. That alone is interesting. Plus, it details the events in Billy’s life by someone who knew him and it supposedly details the events of his death by the man who killed him. However, it’s obvious that this book was a PR move by Sheriff Garrett. Billy was very popular with the people of New Mexico and the way Garrett supposedly killed Billy in the dark in what can only be called a surprise ambush was certainly frowned upon. Garrett needed something to “clear the air” and tell his side of the story…however true that side was. Immediately several things are called into question. The first half of the book is obviously written by Ashmun Upson in the style of the old “dime novels”. The events in Billy’s life are portrayed in fantastic style. Plus, many of the supposed events are suspiciously similar to tales of outlaw daring-do from other dime novels. Some of the wording of the stories isn’t even changed from stories printed in the 1840s. The last half is written in straight forward frontier prose by Sheriff Garrett. He meticulously tells the tell of his hunting down and killing of The Kid.

However, his events and details don’t really mesh up with each other and he contradicts himself several times. A few days before he kills Billy, Garrett mentions that his party stumbled upon some voices talking in an orchard. They could also see a shadowy figure walking around but couldn’t identify him. Garrett would later find out it was, in fact, Billy. Then, on the night of the killing, Garrett says he couldn’t see Billy’s face but he immediately recognized his voice. If he could easily recognize just Billy’s voice, why didn’t he in the orchard?

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