2008 saw the passing of another star, a star that shone brightly since 1949 and one that, very likely, most people who do not follow motorsports will not know or care about.  The star I refer to is Petty Enterprises.  Lee Petty started the company in 1949-when is was called Lee Petty Engineering.  Lee Petty went on to win three national championships.  Son Richard, better known in NASCAR as the King, took over the company and went on to win a record 200 races and 7 national championships.  Only one other driver has won 7 national titles: Dale Earnhardt (whose father, Ralph, drove for Petty Enterprises.)

Richard Petty ran the company for years, but did not drive for Petty Enterprises all of the time. In 1970, he drove two races-and won them both-for Don Robinson and he drove the 1984 and 85 seasons for Mike Curb.  Petty won race number 200 in 1984.

Petty Enterprises won a total of 268 races in it’s 2,882 starts.  It’s placed a car in the top ten about 44 percent of the time and has both an average start and finish position of 15.7.  Since 1949, there has been a 43 car run every year but 1993 when Petty Enterprises fielded the number 44 for Richard’s replacement driver-Rick Wilson.

Numbers aside, just the name Petty stirs up memories, emotion and, until the last few years, it meant success.  Unfortunately, time has not been kind to the organization.  Petty Enterprises has had a difficult time adjusting to the new realities of modern NASCAR.  It’s last win was by another great name in motorsports: an Andretti, John Andretti.   Bobby Labonte,  the last driver to run in a Petty Enterprises stockcar, had moments of greatness in the 43 over the last three years, but did not pull off a win.  Inevitably, Labonte would suffer a mechanical failure or that monster of NASCAR: being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught up in a wreck.  Such was the history of Petty Enterprises since 1983, when Richard won his last race in a Petty Enterprises stockcar (his 84 win was in Mike Curb’s #43.)

Last season, General Mills announced that it was leaving the #43 for Richard Childress Racing.  While Petty resigned Labonte, the team was faced with the prospect of not have sponsorship for the storied 43 car for the first time.  In June, Richard sold majority interest in the company to Boston Ventures.  One of the first things to happen was the announcement that Kyle Petty would have very few rides in his #45 stockcar. 

Kyle drove on and off for Petty Enterprises, becoming a full time PE driver in 1997.  Kyle had driven for the Wood Brothers and for Felix Sabates, where he won most of his eight wins.  Kyle finished in the top 5 in points two years in a row.  Sadly, that was the extent of his racing success.  Oh, he had his moments afterwards, but he would not win again in NASCAR.  His last win was in Dover of 1995.  Kyle’s son, though, had lots of promise.

Adam Petty was a star in the making.  He showed great promise and landed a nice sponsorship deal with Sprint. In 2000, Adam entered his first Cup level race.  It would be his last.  Tragically, Adam was killed in an accident while practicing for what was called the Busch Series in New Hampshire.  Adam, who always had a smile, had visited a Paul Newman camp for ill children.  He got the idea that he and his family should run a similar camp.  After Adam’s death, Kyle and his wife, Patti, decided to fulfill Adam’s wish.  Victory Junction Gang Camp opened in 2004.  It is truly heart warming to visit the camp and see the joy on the faces of not only the campers, but the staff as well.  And Richard. And Patti. And Kyle.  Especially Kyle.  I had the honor of talking, ever so briefly, with Kyle and, while thanking him for giving my son the opportunity to go to camp-something that, at the time, would have otherwise not happened-he stopped me mid sentence.  He looked at me, with his grin, and thanked ME for letting HIM and the camp, share my child.  I was blown away. 

With the sale of the company in June of 2008, Petty Enterprises ceased to exist-at least the Petty Enterprises that I and every other fan knew.  There was hope.  This new company would bring much needed resources.  Labonte had re-signed.  Sponsor’s were rumored-briefly-to be a pen stroke away.  Somehow, though, it all fell apart in December.  Seemingly, anyway.  Labonte was released.  Merger rumors abound.  Rumors that, on the surface, had some truth.  As of this writing, the news is that PE is merging with Gillette-Evernham Racing.  The merged company would be known as Richard Petty Racing, even though he will have very little to do with the new company.  Reed Sorenson is supposedly the new driver of the 43. 

For those of us who are long time fans of NASCAR, this is indeed a sad turn of events.  A once mighty and proud organization reduced to a car number.  Not even the name will live on. 

I will always be a Petty fan.  The Petty’s have been among the most kind and generous family in any sport, racing or otherwise.  They have touched me and my family personally.  I will miss their participation in my favorite sport. 

Matt Akers of the Zune team posted the following message on the Zune Hardware Forum:

Today 5:25 PM

re: Zune 30 freezing issue

Guys I just received a response from the team. Looks like this issue will resolve itself over the next 12-24hours, great news!

Here is the response (it's also on the first page):

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used).  The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.  The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009.   We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on.  If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device. 

Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).

We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience. 

Q:  Why is this issue isolated to the Zune 30 device?

It is a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30 device.

Q:  What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation? 

This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.

Q:  What’s the timeline on a fix?

The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.

Q:  Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008? 

There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.

Q:  What is Zune doing to fix this issue? 

The issue should resolve itself.

Q:  Are you sure that this won’t happen to all 80, 120 or other flash devices? 

This issue is related to a part that is only used in Zune 30 devices.

Q:  How many 30GB Zune devices are affected? How many Zune 30GB devices were sold? 

All 30GB devices are potentially affected.

Matt Akers
Zune Product Team
.: This posting is provided "as-is" with no warranties, and confers no rights :. 

OK, fair enough. There is a bug in the clock code.  OK.  So, they are not going to fix this?  Will it repeat itself in four years?  Granted, I probably won’t be using this device then, but I might. 

What really irritates me about this is the length of time it took them to tell us to ‘just wait’ until tomorrow when the date changes.  It took them ALL DAY.  The problem was known in the we hours of the morning. I don’t expect them to look at it at three in the morning, but from 11 am (EST) until 5:20PM(EST) to tell us that?  Seriously?  To be fair to the Zune team, there could have been any number of things to cause this issue and we don’t know what they were doing to find an answer.  I know how difficult it can be to troubleshoot code, let alone hardware.  But…Seriously?  Seven hours?  I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, but they should fix it anyway…even if SHOULD NOT happen again, they should fix the problem.

Sometime during the night, my Zune 30-and many, many others-rebooted themselves for some reason still unknown.  When rebooting, the devices get to the 100% mark and then die.  You cannot reset them.  You cannot turn them off. You cannot do anything with them.  Apparently, the issue affects most users who have upgraded the firmware to 3.0 or later.  Microsoft has issued a statement saying that they are working on the problem and 'thanks for your patience.'  Well, that patience is pretty thin.  Zune was no runaway success before, this can only serve to slow it down even more.  That is unfortunate. 

I sure hope they resolve this soon...like today.  I don't have any patience for stuff like this.  None at all.

UPDATE:  ZuneInsider-via TWITTER-says “ok all. the issue is a bug in the driver that controls the internal clock. turns out it does not like leap years" and how to fix “as the date flips to 09 the device should be back to normal. let the battery die the plug in and restart once we flip the date.”  More information is coming.

Any end of year remembrance would be incomplete without acknowledging those we lost during the year.  2008 saw the loss of many great people, known and not so well known.  Among those we lost:

• Eartha Kitt: Known to many simply as the Catwoman from the 60’s Batman show, Ms. Kitt was a sultry singer and performer. She was one of the most talented and beautiful women to ever grace a stage.
• Ron Hornaday, Sr: NASCAR driver and father to Ron Hornaday, Jr, the Craftsman Truck Series champion
• Majel Barrett: wife Gene Roddenberry, she was the voice of the Enterprise computer
• Paul Benedict: best known as the Jefferson’s British neighbor on the Jeffersons TV show
• John Daly: British film producer
• Van Johnson: film actor
• Sir Edmund Hillary: the New Zealand beekeeper who was also the first person to stand at the summit of Mount Everest in 1953.
• Suzanne Pleshette: played Bob Newhart’s wife on the 1970’s sitcom named for the actor.
• Heath Ledger: will forever be known as the Joker in the Dark Knight film. 
• Roy Scheider: Actor, well known for roles in Jaws, Blue Thunder and the television show ‘SeaQuest DSV’
• William F Buckley, Jr: Author and journalist.  Perhaps the most well known and respected conservative in the United States.
• Arthur C Clark:  Science Fiction author, inventor of the satellite and futurist.
• Richard Widmark: well known actor, mostly played crooked businessmen or generally nasty people.
• Charlton Heston: another well known actor, played ‘Taylor’ in two ‘Planet of the Apes’ films and was the spokesman for the National Rifle Association-something that made him somewhat unpopular in his later years.
• Jim Mckay: ABC sports commentator, known for his narration of the Wide World of Sports
• Tim Russert: Respected NBC News anchor and host of “Meet the Press”. Mr. Russert was a soft spoken man who knew when and what to say.  His use of the whiteboard during the 2000 Presidential election in the midst of all of the technology available to him perfectly displays his ability and sharpness.

And, Paul Newman.  As I wrote in another post, Mr. Newman directly touched my own life through his Hole in the Wall camps.  I cannot say enough about this man.

There were many, many more good people that we lost. This is but a short list.  Many of us lost loved ones as well.  Please take a moment to honor and remember their contributions and lives.

As usual, I was browsing for something, came upon a link that lead me to another and I found this link.  Much to my delight, it was mostly Virginia specific, with mentions of stores and malls that I knew of or had once visited and there were mentions of my home city, Richmond.  So far, I am only about half way through reading the posts on the site.  I look forward to more, but thought I’d stop and share my find.  Even if you do live in or never lived in Virginia, you’ll probably remember some of the retailers mentioned or just enjoy the photos of quaint signs and store fronts or enjoy the linked videos.

Technorati Tags: nostalgia,mall,Virginia,stores,Richmond,signs,retailers,photos

Windows Live Tags: nostalgia,mall,Virginia,stores,Richmond,signs,retailers,photos

Link:  That Mall’s Sick And That Store’s Dead!

Recently, I was asked to assist a family member in getting photos on a Sony PSP.  I suppose I was asked because of my knowledge of computers, which, apparently, qualifies me as an expert in all things electronic.  Sarcasm aside, I was a bit surprised at how unintuitive and, yet, simple, the process really is.  I criticize Sony almost as much as I criticize Apple.  I’m not a huge fan of Sony.  I consider them a bigger offender of price to value than Apple.  At least when you buy an Apple product, you can feel somewhat comfortable that what you have purchased is of a somewhat higher quality than your ‘average’ product and that the ‘experience’ will be above average as well.  The same is not true of Sony.  Bravia televisions are always going to be better than Westinghouse or even Vizio, but Sony Walkman’s are not going to be as good as an iPod or even a Zune.  Same goes for video games.  The PSP no DS Lite in both quality and games.  The only things the PSP are better than a DS are the beautiful wide screen and somewhat easy method of getting one’s own content on the device-a situation that will change with the DSi.

A memory stick must be in the PSP and you have to set the PSP into ‘USB MODE’.  Once in USB Mode, plug the USB cable into both the PSP and the computer.  Next, if on Windows, a dialog box will pop up asking you what you want to do.  Select the explore option. When Explorer opens, you’ll see the ‘root’ of the device.  Double click the PSP folder.  If there is no ‘PHOTO’ folder, right click and select NEW.  Select folder from the menu.  Type PHOTO in the folder name box (the words ‘New Folder’ will be highlighted in blue.)  Press Enter. Next, drag and drop your photos into the new PHOTO directory.  Once you are done, un plug the PSP or simply use the menu on the PSP to view your photos. 

A fairly simple procedure that is not obvious without some help.  I would have thought that Sony would have included some kind of PC front end to help move files onto or off of the device.

While the PSP has a very nice screen, and seems to do a good job at media playback, it looks and feels a bit cheap.  The case has, to me, a flimsy feel and the d-pad buttons looked undersized for the device.  However, I think that was an anomaly as other flavors of the PSP looked better.

I think the PSP has potential.  It’s form factor is almost there and, as I said, the screen is first rate.  Nice color, sharp and bright.  It almost doesn’t fit with the rest of the device. And the connectivity-once you know how-is pretty good.  I give it a five out of ten.

Well, it is that time of year again where everyone publishes their best of the year lists.  I'm no different, so below are my top news stories of 2008 lists:

2008 Tech News

1. Google and T-Mobile release the G1 phone, running Android.  Android is Google's open source phone operating system. Google's best software, though, showed up on the iPhone.
2. Apple releases the App Store.  The App Store is a game changer and other companies, including Palm and Microsoft, are following suit.
3. Windows 7.  Microsoft finally acknowledged the existence of Windows 7 and releases several alpha builds to developers and the press.  It is mostly received as a positive step for Microsoft.
4. Apple announces that 2009’s Macworld is its last and Steve Jobs will not be presenting the keynote address.  Nothing more to say here.

2008 Gaming News

1. Nintendo Wii sells one million units in a week.  During December, Nintendo sold one million Wii consoles during the week of December 13th, underscoring the console’s total domination of the current generation of consoles.
2. Layoffs, closures and cut backs.  Apparently, the gaming industry was not as immune to the economic downturn as we thought.
3. Nintendo announces and releases-in Japan-the DSi.  The DSi is the DS Lite replacement.  The unit features two cameras, internal memory, SD card slot and no GBA cart slot. It is already a major hit in Japan.
4. Microsoft reduces the XBOX 360 price.  Sales take off.  The 360 made great strides in both the US and Europe.  Still languishes in Japan.

2008 Top News Stories

1. Barack Obama is elected president of the United States.  Obama’s popularity soars.  I certainly hope lives up to the expectations, at least, the realistic ones anyway.  He will be a good thing for the country.
2. Economy-all over the planet-tanks.  Signs abound during the year, but it reached its zenith in September.  Major banks fail, some of the largest retailers file for bankruptcy.  One of the largest retailers (Woolworths) in the United Kingdom went into administration and one of the largest retailers (Circuit City) in the United States filed for bankruptcy.
3. Mumbai terror attacks.  The attacks were aimed at ‘westerners’, chiefly Americans and Brits.
4. Pirates.  The Somali pirates finally got the full attention of not only the press, but of the various navies of the world, including the Chinese, Iranians and Russians.

2008 Top Personalities (US)

1. Barack Obama:  Being the first African-American President is quite an accomplishment.  A President Obama can do a lot to heal the nation.
2. Steve Jobs:  The CEO of Apple should be in the press for turning around a failed computer company and reinvigorating the cell phone market.  Instead, the press is focused on his health. Even the mainstream media go in on the act.
3. Bill Gates:  Mr. Gates ‘left’ Microsoft in 2008, but did not leave the spotlight.  He starred in several rather bizarre commercials with Jerry Seinfeld and spread more of his foundation’s wealth around the world to help cure disease and educate children with computers-running Windows, of course.
4. President George W Bush:  The now lame-duck President is still letting the country-and world-know he’s not gone yet. He recently ‘loaned’ GM and Chrysler billions of dollars and did the same for many banks-at least one of which decided to party.

2008 Best Tech

1. Google T-Mobile G1 phone:  The open source Android operating system presents a formidable challenge to the iPhone and is as much a game changer as 2007’s iPhone. 
2. Apple iPhone 3G: while not completely new for ‘08, the changes are significant enough to qualify.
3. Nikon D90 DSLR:  This digital SLR from Nikon does HD Video.  Until its release, no digital SLR on the market could do video-something that even the cheapest point and shoot digital camera could do. Like the ten dollar Vivitar digicam from CVS.
4. Microsoft Zune:  While the hardware did not change-other than new colors and capacity-the software and ecosystem did change.  And the updated software worked on ALL previous models as well, even on my 30gb BROWN Zune.

The only cameraphone that I regularly have with me is the camera in my Motorola Q Smartphone.  Unfortunately, the camera is really bad.  You need a steady hand and LOTS OF LIGHT to get a somewhat OK picture. However, you can use some free software to help make them better.

First, let’s talk about the cameraphone.  To get acceptable photos, you should set your resolution to the highest that your phone supports.  If you have the option, you should set the brightness to something appropriate for everyday use. On my Q, that would be ‘0’. Your zoom should be 1x.  Most camerphones only have digital zoom.  Set it to 1 so your photos won’t be overly blocky.  White balance should be set to automatic.  Unless you are specifically taking lots of photos in inside, automatic should work fine.

Once you have taken your photos and imported them into your computer, you are ready to begin fixing them.  It is possible that some won’t need any work. That is fine, just ignore them.  For our purposes, the photos will need some work.

There are two decent-and free-tools you can download to aid in fixing your photos. One is specific to Windows and the other is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.  That is Picasa from Google.  Both applications do a decent job at fixing basic problems like color balance, sharpness and contrast.  Both feature an automatic fix button, which does surprisingly well and will suffice in many cases.

Picasa 3

Select your photo and double click.  You will see your photo in the editor.  You have several options to choose from. Look at the tabbed pane on the left side of the window.  To perform an overall ‘fix’, click the ‘I’m Feeling lucky’ button.  Contrast, color balance, and light are all fixed, at least as best as it can.  Picasa offers a few more fixes that you can do manually.  Say your photo is an outdoor photo, but the sky is not the proper color.  Go ahead and click the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button and then click the Tuning tab.  Next, look for ‘color temperature’.  Slide the bar to the left to make the photo bluer or to the right to make it more orange.  Blue is cool, orange is warm.  You want warm is the day was really sunny and you want cool if the day was more overcast.  You also want cool if you want your photo to appear more blue if the camera did not capture the sky correctly. Frequently, my Moto Q will render the sky more white or grey if the lower portion of the photo is busy and colorful. I have yet to figure out why it does this.  If any photo experts know, please share your knowledge with us.  Anyway, the next thing you can do to ‘punch up’ the photo is experiment with the shadows. Move the Shadows bar to the right just a little.  Portions of the photo will darken.  Don’t worry.  Slide the Fill light bar to the right to balance out the rest of the photo.  By experimenting with these two bars, you should get a reasonable looking photo.  The highlights bar should not be moved much at all.  All it will do is enhance the noise in the picture.  I usually leave it alone.  If you look at the bottom of the Tuning box, you will see the ‘natural color picker’.  This works well when you have a legitimate color to select. Usually something white.  Click the button on the right and then click a white area on the picture.  Picasa will make a best guess-which is often correct-as to the proper color tint and balance.  If you don’t like it, you can click the undo button. Once you are satisfied with what you have done, click the ‘Back to Library’ button above the options.  Remember to save your work once your back to the library.  You will find the save button in the upper right of the current library selection.

I will focus on the Windows Live Photo Gallery in another post.

I like to give photo books to my family, that show-in photos-what we did during the year.  I take lots of photos during the year, so it is often difficult to pull out about sixty or seventy to fill up a coffee table book of ten to twenty pages.  Until this year, I have been buying the kits and doing it myself.  The kits usually have software that aid in page layout, but, even so, it can be time consuming.  Well, this year, my sister gave me a pile of old photos of my mother and her family, my sister and myself.  Most of the photos were damaged and needed to be restored.  I wrote a posting about this a few months back.  Well, I thought it would be nice to give my mother a photo book comprised solely of these photos.  Since time was of the essence, I decided to try the service at one of the local pharmacies.  They all run about the same in price, which was actually cheaper than the kits.  I put 84 of the photos on an SD card and headed to a CVS.  Only reason that I chose them was because it was on the way to another store I had to go to.  With the aid of a very nice young lady, I was able to pick about 60 photos that would look good in the book.  I made a cover photo selection, picked the background colors and pressed done.  In about ten minutes, the pages were printed.  The paper is very nice Kodak paper and the quality of the print was excellent.  It made the restored photos look really nice.  The same young lady used a staple guide to staple the pages, then she attached a slick front and back protective page and inserted them into the hard covers.  The whole process took about twenty minutes.  The result is very nice and a pleasant surprise.   The only complaint I have is that I was not able to arrange the photos in any kind of chronological order, but that is ok.  It would have just added more time to the process.

Photo books are a nice gift at any time and these services sure make it easy.

While the Wii continues to blow away the competition, Sony can hardly manage to give away the PS3. The news is worse than that: software sales for PS3 are not good either.  In the latest sales figures, PS3 had no games in the top 10 only one game in the top 20: Call of Duty.  One of the games that was supposed to sell the console is no where to be found in the top 50: Little Big Planet.  Sony does have one glimmer of hope:  the PSP is selling moderately well.  PS3 does a bit better in the Japanese market.  In Japan, Microsoft suffers the same fate as PS3 does in the Americas.  XBOX 360 is a distant fourth at times, behind even the PS2.  Worse for Microsoft, it’s software sales are just as abysmal in Japan as PS3 is most everywhere else. 

Microsoft does substantially better outside of Japan.  Frequently, software for the console outsells most of the Wii titles, but both do, however, make up the majority of the top 50, no matter what region you look at, except Japan. 

Worldwide, Nintendo is the best selling software publisher, followed by Electronic Arts, UBISoft, Activision and THQ.  Sony holds a slight lead over Microsoft.

The real kicker in all of this are the number of titles for the DS and the Wii that have been out for a year or longer that still chart and chart very high.  Nintendogs, for example, still cracks the top 30, often landing in the top 20 (number 15 for the week of Dec. 12.)  Mario Kart DS is another that consistently does very, very well.  Wii Play has been in the top 10 since it’s release.  Both of the Brain Age games are also perennial favorites.  Wii Play can be explained away (and most ‘experts’ love to do this) because of the pack in controller.  The thinking is that people are really buying the controller and getting a crappy ten dollar game for free.  Maybe.  I happen to like most of the games in the package and they get played quite a bit.

Japan loves hand held gaming.  Sales of the DS have blown away everything but the PS2 and, so it appears, it may be well on it’s way of doing that.  PSP sales are up in Japan as well and software for both consoles do very well, with DS often making up the majority of the top 10 sales charts. 

Year over year sales numbers are interesting.  In the United States, the Wii showed a 354% increase in sales, no doubt due to better availability while the DS is down by four percent.  360 sales are up 18%, likely due to price cuts and better quality control.  PSP, PS3 and PS2 are down.  PSP is off 19%, PS3 down 13% and PS2 a whopping 63%.  Again, this is the same time period as 2007 and in the U.S.  Japanese sales figures are likely to be different. They are not yet available, but I imagine Wii is up, XBOX was up, not sure it matters, while PS2, PS3 are likely down with PSP gaining some.  Again, just a guess on those.

Overall, though, the video game business is up for 2008. November saw record sales for games.  I bet December will be as good, maybe better.  Even so, companies remain cautious and a few, like Atari, are not doing well.  This current company named Atari, like all of it’s predecessors, has just bled money.  I don’t know what it is about the name.  For whatever reason, any company calling itself Atari seems to run into trouble, either through mismanagement (like it’s first incarnation-you don’t make more copies of ET than you have consoles to play it) or bad games-like the latest.  Very sad for a company that was there at the beginning of the industry.

Now, I’m off to play my seven year old XBOX and shoot some bad guys.

Sources:  VGChartz, GamePro, Edge Online, Forbes, MCV, Joystiq

I’m a retail history buff as well as a tech history buff.  As such, I love sites that specialize in various aspects of our retailing past.  Once again, one link leads to another and another and then to THIS picture.  I had NO IDEA that such a product ever existed.  I can only imagine what it must have tasted like.  Click the link to see for yourself, then come on back here and enjoy the rest of the site.

Link:  7-11 Beer can

Back?  Good. Can you believe 7-11 BEER!?  Oh my…

One of the earliest known computer games was called ‘Tennis for Two’ and was created by Willy Higinbotham in 1958 for a hands on demonstration given during tours of the lab in which he worked.  Mr. Higinbotham worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.  The computer he used was an analog computer that worked by manipulating voltages.  His ‘game’ was made up of hardwired electro-mechanical relays, switches, resistors, capacitors and other components.  An oscilloscope was the output device.  The scope interprets the electrical signals and shows them on the screen as dots or connected lines.  The game, as it was, was a hit with visitors.  Sadly, once that series of tours was complete, so was the game. It was dismantled and ignored by its creator.  Until 1985, that is.  In 1985, Nintendo was involved in a lawsuit by Sanders Associates.  Nintendo called upon Higinbotham to testify that he had created the video game and not Ralph Baer. They wanted to establish ‘Tennis for Two’ as prior art and invalidate the video game patent that Baer and Sanders held.  Unfortunately for Nintendo and Willy, a ‘video game’ is defined as something that is interactive and connects to a television or video monitor.  An analog computer connected to an oscilloscope does not qualify and the judge agreed with Sanders.  Nintendo and Willy lost.

Interestingly enough, Willy’s game, as it turns out, is not the fist game to be  played on a video screen. The first ‘game’ to use a CRT was patented in 1948. The patent application was filed in 1947 and granted in December of 1948.  The device was simple and simulated a missile being fired at a target.  The target was an overlay placed on the screen.  The ‘game’ consisted of eight tubes that controlled the CRT.  Several knobs were available to control the curve and speed of the missile.  The device was built by Thomas Goldsmith and Estle Ray.

A few years later, in 1952, A. S. Douglas created a Tic-tac-toe game on the EDSAC computer in the United Kingdom.  The game was displayed on a CRT and is the earliest known graphical computer game. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing Willy  at all and he deserves credit for demonstrating that computers can be somewhat personal and he did come up with on of the first computer games.  Willy, though, never even got THAT credit.  That went to a guy named Steve Russell.  Mr. Russell wrote a game for a ‘minicomputer’ called the PDP-1. The PDP-1 was the size of a stand up refrigerator.  The game was called ‘spacewar’ and it employed the type of ‘graphics’ that the much later ‘Battlezone’ used.  Spacewar was not a commercial game. It’s source code spread like wildfire and the game became quite popular.  So much so, in fact, that Nolan Bushnell attempted to capitalize on it and developed an arcade video game called ‘Spacewar’.  Clever man, he is. 

So, who is Ralph Baer and what is Sanders?  Baer is the only man who deserves to be called the father of video games.  In 1951, Baer worked for a company called ‘Loral’ and was tasked with building the best television set in the world.  Simple, huh?  Well, Baer suggested that the television include an interactive game to make it really unique.  The idea was dismissed, but Baer kept thinking about it.  Fast forward a few years and Baer is working for Sanders Associates, which is primarily a contracting company and did not actually market directly to the public.  While waiting for a colleague to arrive at a bus station, Baer sketched out the primitive schematics for his interactive game.  Over time, he convinced the management at Sanders that this could make them money, he was allowed  to further develop the product.  A product that they would then license to other companies to actually produce and market.  Many companies were intrigued, but decided that there was no future.  Magnavox, though, liked the demos so much that they did license the product.  During one of the marketing tours that Magnavox sponsored, one man, Nolan Bushnell attended and signed the guest book-an action that would later haunt him.  Magnavox brought the Odyssey 1 to market in 1972 and sold just under 400 thousand units over a two and a half year period.  The Odyssey was, essentially, an analog computer.  A very crude one and many would argue that.  It was ‘programmed’ by using simple little cartridges that consisted of a double sided circuit board with certain pins jumpered together.  This ‘told’ the Odyssey where to put the ‘spots’ that made up the playfield.  Plastic overlays went on the television screen to add more ‘realism’ to the game.  The game was quickly obsolete.  The version that Magnavox sold was actually dumbed down and some features-like color-were left out entirely.

Bushnell created Atari and, along with Al Alcorn, brought out PONG in 1974.  Of course, Atari had not gotten a license and Sanders sued.  Sanders won mainly due to that guest book that Bushnell had signed.  Atari settled and took out a license.

The story of the video and computer game is pretty interesting and there are probably more people involved than this small number of people that we tend to focus on.  The fall of the gaming market in 1984 and its subsequent resurrection is equally intriguing.  It also shows, unfortunately, how petty we can sometimes be.  Bushnell, for instance, will admit that the video game was Baer’s invention, but he will also follow that up by saying how bad that game was.  Well, in 1972, it was state of the art and no one else had done it.   Likewise, Baer is very quick-apparently-to point out that Higinbotham’s demonstration was just that and that Baer more correctly created the video game.

Personally, I think they all deserve credit They all did something that others had not done and, in Bushnell’s case, able to capitalize on what they had done.  Sanders went on to collect royalties on that game patent.  Baer got to defend that patent, have many documentaries made and articles written about him.  Higinbotham, well, he’s famous for other things as well.  He did work on the Manhattan Project and was well respected.  He died in 1994 at the age of 84.  Mr. Bushnell and Mr. Baer are still alive and actively involved in the industry.  Baer, by the way, designed lots of handheld games, including Simon.  He’s a pretty smart guy too.

• Apple releases Windows drivers for it’s multi-touch track pads. TUAW has an short little piece on the release of the driver.  The thing I find so interesting about this is that Apple has even bothered to support Windows at all.  I’m glad they do, but it just seems weird to me.
• Apple announced it’s last Macworld will be the 2009 show and Phil Shiller will give the keynote.  I blogged this earlier and others have covered it to death.
• RIAA drops it’s lawsuit pursuit for ‘individuals’.  That’s the key and even that is has limits. They will continue to sue anyone who downloads thousands of songs illegally.  The catch, though, is that the ISP now has to play traffic cop.  Go to C|Net for more.
• Finally, a ‘cloud’ service is shutting down in favor of PC based software.  FixMyMovie will shutter it’s web service in favor of a desktop software.  The service-and, presumably the desktop software as well-takes your low quality movie and attempts to sharpen or, at least, enhance the visual quality by analyzing frames and filling in missing or bad data with information from those analyzed frames.  Kind of like upscaling a DVD.
• Cables connecting parts of Europe, the Middle East and the United States were severed.  No one is sure how it happened, the cut cables has affected internet service and some cell phone service in France, Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Italy and Egypt.  France Telecom says they are going to send a ship out to fix the problem, which they hope to have completed by December 31.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of the late Gene Roddenberry and Deanna Troi’s mother on Star Trek The Next Generation died of Leukemia at the age of 76.  Ms. Roddenberry became the keeper, so to speak, of things Trek when her husband died in 1991.  She was a regular part of the Star Trek universe since she debuted on the original show playing a character named ‘Number 1’ in the original pilot ‘The Cage.’  Much of the original pilot was left on the cutting room floor, including the ‘Number 1’ character (which later resurfaced as a man on the Next Generation) but the actress was retained.  She took on the recurring character of Nurse Christine Chapel. She also did duty as the voice of the Enterprise computer-a role she carried on in all of the movies-including the not yet released film-and most of the television shows.  Her voice talents were utilized in the animated show as well. She is survived by a son, Eugene Roddenberry, Jr.

This genius writer over at Slate.com wrote a profoundly ignorant and short sighted ‘piece’ on Monday entitled ‘Gentlemen, Stop Your Engines’.  Robert Weintraub states that he is a NASCAR ‘fan’ but that the sport should be 'euthanized’.  He contends that the financial woes of the ‘big three’ automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler-he apparently does not know that Toyota is now ahead of Chrysler and probably Ford as well)  will, undoubtedly, trickle down to NASCAR and cause all kinds of devastation to the sport.  He also contends that NASCAR should voluntarily shut down until it can race a ‘green’ car.  You know, those 43 cars just spit out all kinds of nasty, noxious fumes and consume so much gas that shutting down NASCAR will solve our problems.  Why, we should not be we wasting our natural resources on such diversions, as he puts it.  Diversions.  Hmm, OK.  Taking his reasoning, then we should also have the following shut down so as not waste precious resources on these diversions (and also save the fuel and prevent the noxious fumes, etc.):

• Amateur and professional football-the NFL should voluntarily shut down
• Baseball
• Hockey
• Soccer, indeed, all sporting events
• Movie theaters
• Movie production
• Television production
• Television series production – save for the vital informational stuff we need, like SLATE.COM
• Amusement parks (just think of the power those rides suck up)
• Bowling alleys
• Shopping Malls
• Newspapers should only print news and weather, nothing else
• Music industry
• Anything not related to survival
• You get the idea

Pretty absurd, isn’t it?  Look, I know that allot of people don’t care for motorsports.  I don’t care much for Basketball (damn, left that off the list, consider it included) either but I would not advocate it’s demise either, even if it is the dumbest sport this side of water polo. 

Mr. Weintraub also fails to realize that the factories have pulled out of NASCAR on several occasions.  Chrysler only re-entered the sport six or so years ago.  The point is, the sport endured before and will do so again.  Yes, some teams will suffer, no doubt.  Yes, some sponsors have left the sport but others have come in to NASCAR.  Times might get a bit tight, but the sport will endure them.  Just like baseball endured the idiotic strikes and scandals.  Speaking of which, when was the last time a NASCAR driver was hauled before Congress to defend steroid use?

Slate has a bias against NASCAR.  Most of the articles it posts regarding NASCAR are negative.  I supposed NASCAR’s origin and early fan base make for good fodder for SLATE.  What they don’t see is that NASCAR reaches across all fifty states and even outside the country…what a concept, eh?

As for Mr. Weintraub, he’s hardly a fan.  How many fans, other than Redskin fans, call for their sport to disappear?  How many fans would not know something about the history of the sport of which they are a fan?  He’s hardly a fan.  He sounds about as much a fan of NASCAR as I am of NBA Basketball.  I can spout of names from that sport, like Magic Johnson, Larry Byrd and Michael Jordan.  I even know a little bit about them.  That does not make me a fan. So for Weintraub to spout off a few names and talk a little about Jimmie Johnson hardly qualifies him as a fan.  I suppose to the readership of Slate, most of whom probably would agree with him, he might seem like an expert.

Hmm..I wonder if the NBA would agree to a voluntary shut down?

Link:  http://www.slate.com/id/2206711/

Today, Apple announced that not only will Phil Schiller present Apple’s keynote (instead of Steve Jobs) it also announced that that speech will mark the end of Apple’s participation in the Macworld event.  Apple has steadily dropped out of trade shows such as the NAB and the other Macworld events.  With Apple ending it’s participation in the event, several questions arise.  Questions like:

• is this end of Macworld?  NO! IDG Says that the 2010 show is going to happen without Apple.
• why is Schiller giving the speech?
• how will Apple make it’s big announcements?
• where will the Apple faithful gather in January?
• what will the Apple faithful have to fret over with no Apple at Macworld?

OK, those last two aren’t very fair, but they were funny, no?  So, I’m wondering how long it will take before the speculation starts about Steve Jobs.  Is anything wrong?  Why is he not giving the speech?  Does Apple not have anything big to present?  Is Jobs tired of the lukewarm responses he got through 2008?  Do we care?

I suspect Apple will be replacing Macworld with some kind of event of it’s own.  You know how they want total control.  At any rate, today’s announcement has caught everyone, even me, off guard.  It is generating buzz, and maybe that was the goal.  Who knows. I wonder if Schiller gets the same adoration during his keynote that Jobs got.  I wonder if anyone shows up.  I wonder why I care.

UPDATE:  IDG announced that this is not the end of the show.  While they may have the 2010 show scheduled, that does not mean that it will still take place.  And, even if it does, is it REALLY Macworld without Apple?  I’ve never been, never cared to go, but, from what I can tell from the last decade, the Apple presence is what people went to see.  They went to see what Jobs was going to show and hear what he had to say.  With out that, what’s to see?  Oh, sure, there will be other vendors there showing off Mac oriented goods.  Hey, here’s a thought: what if Microsoft shows up with a significant presence…they become, by default, the biggest Mac company there.  How delicious for them would that be?  Food for thought!

Technorati Tags: Macworld,Apple,Phil,Schiller,Steve,speech,event,January,speculation,announcement,announcements

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Ok, so anyone who has read my blog knows I am a big fan of Vista and of Microsoft in general.  Tonight, though, I was getting so fired up, I almost wanted <GASP!> to get a Mac.  The problem started when I logged my son off of my HP laptop and attempted to log myself in.  It took longer than normal and, when it started to show the desktop, I was greeted with the pleasant little dialog box informing me that my copy of Vista needed to be activated.  What?  So I clicked ‘Activate Windows Now’.  After a minute or so, I was informed that my copy of Windows was not GENUINE.  Huh?  It’s the same bloody copy that with with the machine, I’ve had it nearly two years.  Then I remembered that I did a factory restore last month, but, still, it is the SAME BLOODY COPY.  So I restarted into safe mode.  That worked.  I then went and checked the most recent app installs and updates.  Updates were made on December 12, but the machine has been restarted at least twice since then.  I had installed a couple of apps over the weekend, but I could not uninstall them since the installer service does not run in safe mode.  So, I searched the internet for a solution.  The usual came up:  SATA drivers, some RAID drivers and a few other things can trigger this whole damned mess.  After about an hour and a half, I finally restarted the machine, let the ‘do not activate’ button show (Microsoft makes you WAIT) I clicked it.  Vista started normally.  Lord only knows how long you can use it this way, but I don’t like things being broken.  So I go and uninstall the two apps I had installed and restarted.  NOTHING CHANGED.  So I restart, wait for the damned button to show and click it.  I then went to the About this computer page and tried to activate from there.  It failed, but then I got another message:  I should re-enter the key.  So, I did.  It then went through the activation and it activated just fine. 

Now, the only thing I can think of is that when I did the factory restore, Vista did not activate. It has been about thirty days, but I never, NOT ONCE, got the damn pop up telling me to activate.   This whole dis-Ingenuous program they have is ludicrous. The only thing it manages to do is harm honest users. It is things like this that make Microsoft look utterly stupid and misguided.  It obviously does nothing to deter pirates-look to China and all of the illegal copies running there.  I sincerely hope that the Windows 7 team has it’s act together and leaves this garbage out.

I went to this site because of a reference about e-ink displays.  When I went there and clicked the link to the story, the browser became unresponsive.  So, I went to close that tab.  The tab closed, but then a storm of browser windows opened.  A dozen or so opened up and began to render something. I tried to close them immediately and got down to three windows when my antivirus kicked in and informed me that a harmful file wanted to download and asked if I wanted to allow it. Of course, I said no.  The window did not want to close so I ended up opening the task manager and killing all instances of the browser.  This site looked legit and had tons of news and legit looking stuff.  Unfortunately, it appears to want to drop crap on your computer as well.  The site appears to live in the U.K. as it had a .co.uk url.  Avoid it.  Bloody pirates!

Sony, what the hello are you thinking?  In yet another boneheaded move, Sony felt it was OK to collect private information on children 13 or under.  Thursday, they agreed to pay a million dollar (US) fine to the Federal Trade Commission for collecting information on about thirty thousand children without parental consent.They did the data mining using web sites ranging from those of Kelly Clarkson to Britney Spears and other artists.  What? 

C|Net has a funny list of missteps and bad judgment from Sony.  Check it out here. 

It is but one more reason why this company just needs to reboot itself. They need to can all of it’s management and just start over.  Remember, this is the arrogant company that truly believed that people would get second, third or fourth jobs just to buy it’s bloated and over price video game console. It is the same company that keeps trying to foist funky memory media upon the world.  It is the same company that felt it necessary to put root kits on your computer IF you had the nerve to want to listen on of it’s CDs.  It is the same company that is cutting five percent of it’s workforce and shuttering ten plants because NO ONE WANTS TO BUY IT’S PRODUCTS.  It’s products, while nice and well made, are terribly over priced.  Sony makes terrific stuff.  Even the Playstation 3 is a quality product. I never read stories about them failing and, to my knowledge, they have not lost a billion dollars due to quality control. No, they lost the billion or more dollars because it is over engineered and too damn expensive.  And, Blu-Ray?  Seriously?  Your average Wal-Mart shopper is NOT going to pay more than twenty-dollars-IF THAT-for a movie that they can get on DVD at the same or lower price. They are not going to pay two hundred or more dollars for a Blu-Ray player, even if it is a game console too. 

When Sony realizes that they cannot act like teenagers and sell expensive products, they may actually be profitable again.  In many ways, Sony is like Apple.  They both make fine products, most of which are terribly over priced.  The difference, though, is that Steve Jobs does not act like a teenager.  Apple will never have ‘comely women dancing topless’ and rotting carcasses at it’s press events.  If Sony wants to play in the over priced product market, then they should take a page from Apple’s play book and act like adults.