To acquire a computer, to discover programming, and to eventually be eaten by a Grue

Green text placed me in an open field, West of a white house. I didn't know how I had arrived there, only that I was looking at a boarded up building with a mailbox, and surrounding this house and field were thick woods. I was in Zork.

I didn't have a computer growing up. The only one I had some access to was my maternal grandfather's IBM PS/2 system, on which I was only able to play with a golf game, interactive educational software, Minesweeper, Solitaire, and Paint. It was important that I didn't do anything else with it, and there was no attempt to teach me more about how it worked. It was basically a limited-use toy, when it wasn't being used for grandpa's business. 

It wasn't until I received a grant for my first year of college that I was able to afford to go out and buy a PC of my own. The machine was supposed to be for school work only, but I knew that its primary use would be gaming. I even knew the games I was going to buy for it, and when I picked up the HP PC bundle from Walmart (which I understand now is not the way or the place to buy a decent computer), I also purchased Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and a Doom collection which included Doom, Doom II, and the extra levels. 

After a couple of years of fooling around with my greatly treasured PC, exploring how it handled and played games, and using it to write papers for English and History, I eventually decided to switch my academic focus over to computers. I had always wanted to know more about them, but I had no idea where to begin. It actually wasn't until I watched a making-of documentary which came with the collector's edition of Halo 2 that I realized that programming was a thing and a major part of making these beautiful machines do everything they do. So, along with a series of technical classes which spanned telecommunications to office application usage I also took an introduction to programming course. 

Every Saturday morning I would bus down to Grand Rapids Community College and spend three hours, 8am to 12pm, to take an involving and exciting Introduction to Programming class taught by the affable and inspiring Donald Hruby, a former Bell Labs employee, IBM remote project manager, and adjunct professor. While there we'd move between writing pseudo-code and drawing flowcharts to understand logic structures and mapping logic to getting into building programs with QBASIC. It was a terrific environment, a sterilely lit computer lab with a sizable group of people, all there because the prospect of programming computers was too fascinating not to pursue. We worked in teams, analyzed each other's code, and we learned how to avoid common pitfalls and the sin of producing a mess of spaghetti code. All the time Mr. Hruby would walk around encouraging us and telling us, sincerely or not, that if he could he would hire us all into IBM because we had what it took to do the work. 

I took what I learned in that amazing course and brought it home. I dabbled in writing small QBASIC programs, and I read and re-read the class texts on logic design. That was the only year I didn't sell my textbooks back to the college bookstore because all of them seemed so invaluable, especially for what I wanted to do. 

Unfortunately, my depression and self-doubt swooped in and began chipping away at my confidence with programming. I fell off the rocket ship that was code and watched it sail away without me into the stars. I felt lonely and insufficient here on the ground, seemingly incapable or undeserving of taking the stellar trip which programming appeared to offer. My mind told me that this was how it had to be for me. For years after I avoided the idea of taking up the keyboard with the intent to program, and sadly, this did more damage to my general prospects and confidence than that initial doubt.

I hadn't entirely abandoned everything from that class and that period in my life, though. While there, on breaks between coding segments, a peer in the classroom would talk with me about video games. He started bringing me CD-Rs full of emulators, classic console ROMs, and various other types of gaming software. On those discs I discovered several games I had missed from my childhood as an Atari and Nintendo kid, but they also introduced me to an era of computer games I hadn't known. Through those discs I discovered text adventures. 

Zork was legendary, and it didn't take long to find out about it through research. I hit the college computer lab internet hard after trying out one of the random text adventures included on those discs, the title of which sadly escapes me. I learned about Infocom and their contributions to the world of games. I learned of Colossal Cave Adventure, Steve Meretzky, and a universe hidden behind text parsers and entrancing cover art for old game boxes. I didn't know how to acquire a copy of these games, though, as I didn't have home internet access. I had a computer but no internet, because the monthly fees for maintaining even dial-up service were too much for me at that time. 

Years later, I moved in with my girlfriend, who would eventually become my wife, and I discovered how the internet was not only amazing, it was absolutely necessary. She had constant access to it and treated it as a utility, which to this day I strongly feel it should be. It was through that regular home access that I was able to download games and dive further into the world of computers. I started programming again, because readily available resources restored some of my confidence and eliminated some doubts. I found and experimented with games and software I had only heard of or seen glimpses of through my early research. Then I found games I had never heard of. A new world opened up to me. 

Eventually, I found my way to a copy of Zork. I had to learn how to make it work on my miraculously still-running HP PC, which I kept going for about ten years after the original purchase. The game deceptively appeared to be so simple, as many text adventures do at the beginning, but as I put in time I realized how many layers it had and noticed how deep the experience was taking me. Of course, I became Grue food on several occasions, but each time I failed I started over. The value of graph paper, which I had only used for D&D up to that point, became apparent after a few attempts at running through the game. It became an experience which tapped into so many parts of my brain and my creativity. Zork, though a mere text adventure, was, for me, an awakening. 

So, here we are in the present, the cursed year of 2020. Zork is still available, and it is still as entertaining and as entrancing as ever. It can be played on PCs, tablets, and phones. It's available on archive sites, ROM sites, and through GOG. Last year internet archivist Jason Scott uploaded the entire collection of Infocom source code to the Internet Archive. There's no excuse for people not to play it at this point. 

I will always return to Zork and the Infocom library. Those games are priceless, and they have inspired me in so many ways. One of the most important was that they helped me trick my stupid brain into getting back into programming. It's a tough uphill path for me to climb, and there are times when I scare myself off of it, but every time I think of Zork, Grue, the phrase and documentary "Get Lamp," and those Saturday morning programming classes which started me on the road to Zork, I find inspiration to once again go back to the keyboard and keep trying. 

Maybe some day I'll be able to finally begin a career programming. Maybe I'll eventually be able to make my own Zork. Maybe all of it. Maybe some day. 

Thoughts from a Sick World - Entry 3

The period of isolation continues. Anxieties are still running high, and the news which pops up across the internet is sensationalized and grim.

I can see the green glow of bobbing leaves outside the dining room window as I type this, and I am, for once, thankful for the coming of Spring. The only season I have ever really enjoyed is the Fall, but I guess the renewal which comes with Spring, this year specifically, has finally seeped in and gotten to me. At least nature seems to be doing well, or so it seems.

Humans are terrible. That doesn't really need to be stated, but I needed a transition and to just type that sentence to get it out of me, because it's been bouncing around in my mind, all chrome and shiny, like the wobble text screensaver from Windows XP. We are under assault by a dangerous virus and a tremendous number of people are only thinking about themselves and defying logic, good sense, and science to stupendously live up to and redefine the term, "Sheeple."

We should have seen this response coming, though. For years the anti-intellectual movement has been growing, bolstering itself on a sturdy diet of anecdotal evidence, fallible logic, and the strongly worded sentiments of shallow, mentally deficient talking heads who actively seek out an audience to net them sponsorship dollars so that they can live lavishly in spite of being the exact human equivalent of slimy turds. In short, these people have thoroughly exhausted their rights to expression and influence upon our society as individuals. They should be shut out, dismissed, and fought with tooth and nail and dagger and pistol at every opportunity.

This is the great conflict of this age, this battle between humanity and virus, between science and ignorance. It's not as simple as Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. We are in a fight for our existence against other humans who, consciously or not, are tearing at the foundations of civilization in order to advance utterly stupid and intensely greedy individuals who are as obsessed with power and the high they get from being central to everything which has nothing at all to do with them. The intelligent and logical are at war with the myopic, moronic servants of a gluttonous class of scum.

The glow of the leaves is still visible through the dining room window, and I'm getting lost in it as I try to calm myself. The northern hemisphere might be experiencing Spring right now, but the world of humanity is deteriorating. We're in a fall, and not the natural, charming Fall I enjoy. This is the era of decline, and I'm wondering how to get off of this planet before the bad people win and bring about a Winter which will set us back so far that we'll lose everything of actual value to our existence. If they succeed, most of us will fade away, choking on the noxious waste of their decadence until true humanity, the humanity good people struggle to preserve, disappears entirely from this universe.

Thoughts from a Sick World - Entry 2

I used to think that I could sing. The other night, though, I was told that I was tone deaf and that it's something which has been bothering others for a while.

These kinds of revelations can be shocking, sure, but when you have so few abilities in which you're confident, it's devastating to learn that you've been kidding yourself. It breaks a piece of you, in a way, and it's difficult to recover.

This might seem silly, but I only have a couple of things which I seem to be decent at doing. Those things aren't the focus of my life, and they don't define my daily existence. However, it's believing that I can do them which gives me a sort of comfort and hope in my abilities and this helps me to keep going. Now I'm unsure if I'm actually decent at any of them. Maybe I've been lying to myself this whole time, and my reality is based around lies of comfort in which I've been hiding.

It's a dark time, these days of pandemic. It's hardly the time to have one's foundations compromised, especially when existence seems so pointless already. But here I am, shaken, shattered to pieces.

I hope that there aren't too many others out there who are each, like me, being slowly consumed by some darkness produced within their own minds, but I know better. I've met others. Who knows how many of us will actually make it through this period.

Thoughts from a Sick World - Entry 1

Two days ago, on Wednesday, it was my birthday. It was a relaxed day at home. I turned thirty-five, my wife did her best to celebrate it, and the world outside continued in its decline in this age of viral devastation.

That's a thing now. We're in a time of existential dread brought about by a virus which has, so far, killed over 50,000 people around the world and is still spreading amongst the ignorant and irresponsible, who fail to heed warnings from scientists and experts. We have been given shelter-in-place orders to limit or stop the spread of the virus, but a great many people are actively ignoring or defying this. This is our reality, a world in which a virus is killing us and stupid people are accomplices to it because they don't feel sick, hate being told what to do, or just can't grok how viruses work. The ignorant and foolish are the hammers which will shatter the foundations of our species.

Well, it looks like we made it. After so many years spent dreaming of a dystopian or devastated world we have finally achieved it. It's like my college English professor would say, if you aspire to something, good or ill, you will achieve it. He cautioning us by referring to mediocrity related to writing, though, and not the downfall of humans and their society.

It's a great time for people to see lies revealed, fallacies unveiled, the confirmation of the fragility of systems we took for granted, the confirmation of the ineptitude of leaders who should never have been, and how truly horrible and selfish our neighbors can be. It's a period in which we can and should learn so many valuable lessons, but I have sincere and powerful doubts about our ability to do so. The people of today are incapable of something so simple, useful, and intelligent, it would seem.

My natural pessimism and misanthropy are bolstered every day now. It doesn't feel good. It's like getting kicked awake when you're trying to sleep after not resting for years. Every negative confirmation is like an earthquake of sadness.

I'm trying to look up, though, to be more positive. I'm trying to do things which help my mind and take me away. I've been playing a bunch of video games. Thanks to these wonderful digital experiences I have been and continue daily to successfully escape. It's doing my sanity wonders.

I haven't expressed it here before, but I've been wanting to create and live in worlds beyond the physical for most of my life. One day, if it all works out, I would love to be a part of creating an alternate existence for humanity. In the worlds to come we wouldn't have fears like this coronavirus (the type of virus currently plaguing the species), and we wouldn't have to worry about leaving important decisions regarding supply and care to imbeciles who craved power and have thus far been woefully incapable of doing the work part required of people in their roles.

One day I will create, or help to create, a world, or worlds, in which we will be able to live the lives we need to live in order to satisfy our hearts and relieve our minds of the burden of existence which was forced upon us by chance. I have to be a part of such a thing, not because my ego demands it or because I feel like I'm somehow exceptionally equipped to do so, but because I want it to be so badly that every moment I am aware of such a thing not existing I notice that it's absence feels like a hole in who and what I am. Such a thing has to exist because it would help complete me. I need to bring about and confirm a better world to finish the being that is me, to be made whole.

Well, that's enough of that. My mad ramblings will continue some other time. Now I need to go back to living at home, in isolation from others, all so that I don't contribute to the spread of the virus through my flawed human body, which has no choice in playing its part in the distribution of disease and death. Sadly, we are apparently designed to break ourselves and each other, one way or another.

Until next time, kids, stay safe, stay healthy, help others, and dream of better times and worlds.