Reed Timmins

Wiki Entry #1: Alan Turing

==Alan Turing was one of the founders of computer science, mathematician, philosopher and code breaker. He was also a gay man and this is what lead to his unfortunate early death. Alan Turing was convicted of committing homo-sexual acts in 1952 in England. This lead to Turing accepting female hormones as treatment to avoid being sent to prison. Although this was a tragic outcome for a man that contributed so much to computer science and a man who served his country by decyphering German codes through world war 2 I would like to discuss his life and what it meant to those in it and the contributions he made to computer science and his country.

Alan Turing's father was in service in India for most of his childhood, this lead to Alan and his brother John to grow up in some foster care. Although he was not poor at all in fact it seems that his parents were upper middle class. His years in foster care while his parents were in India lead to a dull bringing up in which no creativity or real joy existed which may have helped spark his interest in science at a early age.

Alan Turing enrolled for his undergraduate studies at King's college, Cambridge in 1932."he entered a world more encouraging to free-ranging thought. His 1932 reading of the then new work of von Neumann on the logical foundations of quantum mechanics, helped the transition from emotional to rigorous intellectual enquiry. At the same time, this was when his homosexuality became a definitive part of his identity."(http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part2.html) I believe this is at the point in Turing's life were he is finally finds a place that he feels comfortable in. He met other intellects while in school and other gay men. This must have been a time in his life he was happy.

Now I personally cannot understand much of what Alan Turing is talking about in his papers about the Turing Machine, I barely know how to operate computers today using windows. What I do understand is for someone to actually think up the idea of the machine that he did that could understand commands and math and be used to solve and compute problems is far beyond me. Alan really was a genius. I wish I was smarter so I could understand what it is he is exactly talking about in his papers but sadly I will never have any of the math know ho to do so. When I read his work it is like reading a foreign language, the man was far ahead of his own time.

Even more interesting to me then his work and the life he lived is the final years leading up to his death. Throughout World War II he worked at Bletchly Park breaking German U-boat codes and helped change the tide of the war. So now here is a man who helped contribute to his country's victory in World War II, well educated, hard working and a man that contributed to the development to modern computer science and man that still would have contributed to all the things mentioned, outed for being a gay man and convicted as a common criminal because so. After being convicted of committing homo-sexual acts in 1952, Turing was chemically castrated which lead to a depression problem and suicide in 1954 just before his 42nd birthday. I think it is a shame that a man that did so much for society and his country was treated as a dishonerable person by the same government he help protect and serve throughout his life.

Cites

Alan Turing: A short Biography http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part1.html

Wiki Entry #2: SPACEWAR

Stewart Brand opened the door to a lot of questions about computers and the possibilities that they may potentially bring. The article shows how computer research is more successful when the people doing the research are given free reign over the research and allowed to have fun with it. This is how the game SPACEWAR was created.

If you have read the article then you know that the video game was created out of a group of researchers initially, then the game spread and was modified by other researchers across the United States. When I say modified I am talking about other people creating code to add new features to the game. This process that was taking place back then became a basis for how video games are made and improved on now. For example now some video games for PC's are able to have the users if they own the correct software to make new levels for the video game and post them online. In the article it mentions about how the advent of the web was being created for the purpose of the researchers to be able to share information with each other and even work with other together in real time through the web. Today you can see how this has gone from researchers connecting online to solve complex problems that are too hard to solve alone to people being connected for nothing more than to take the place of other inventions like the telephone.

Brand also started to hint on how newspapers were going to have to change and record stores when he found out that music files and news information could be sent through the web. Although both the newspapers and record stores are still around today it is easy to see how the advent of the web has altered the industries drastically.(300)

"I asked Alan Kay if Spacewar had been played over the Net. He said it's possible. I asked if there'd been international Spacewar yet, and was told a story."(SPACEWAR!) This is not only possible but has made video games even more popular today. Now because of the internet you see video games becoming away that people can socially interact with one another. Before the existence of online play the only way you could play a video game with someone else was by physically being in the same room with them, now you can play with 16 other people at the same time that you have never met before and have a conversation with them if wish to do so. This is also used as a research tool for video game developers because they can sit there and ask people they are playing the game with and ask the questions of what they like or dislike about the game to better improve it or improve other games. For instance my brother makes video games and he has me play his games and ask me those types of questions online while I am playing the game and others playing the game. Brand's questions about games being played with others online is now happening and changed how video games are played and created drastically.

Cites

Stewart Brand SPACWAR! http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html

Wiki Entry #3 Bulletin Boards

Bulletin Boards when talking about the online version of them and not the typical cork board found hanging in you teachers desk is a computer system running programs. You can log onto bulletin boards and run software that is posted on the bulletin board or play video games against others on the bulletin board system. 55

When I first saw the topic on bulletin boards I had know idea what it was but when I read more about I realized that like most other things dealing with the internet I have unknowingly used or had those close to me using them on a regular bases. For instance I read that this was a platform used by people hosting online video games to play each other. This is exactly what my brother used to play online video games on his computer with. 85

Bulletin board systems like mentioned earlier can be used to put up information on the web and have others connect to it to download or use it. Interstingly enough I talked to my oldest brother who designs video games and he informed me that a bulletin board is what he posted his levels he would design on and would use the programs placed on the bulletin board to make new levels and this led to him actually getting job offers to start his career. 83

Now although my brother was able to gain success off the use of things on bulletin boards this also presented a problem because this is the environment where a lot of shareware is posted and used by others who don't buy the product but may download it illegally and post it on other bulletin board systems for others to download for free. Along with the downloading of illegal content since a bulletin board can be hosted through your own computer the ability to upload illegal or dangerous content is also a problem. For instance people can upload viruses onto their own or others bulletin boards to have others download and destroy the person's computer or have a virus to steal information from the user's computer.123

Although there are a lot of pirated software programs on bulletin boards there are companies out there that place free shareware out there for people to down load legally and try and use the free software that is being place as a marketing strategy. For instance microsoft use to have a free shareware program of microsoft word that you could download, the program was pretty much the same except it had a few key disadvantages that the full software didn't have. Now once you would become familiar with the free software you are more likely to buy their's rather than another companies word document processing program.

Bulletin boards are a good platform for placing or obtaining information off of the web and a key point in dealing with them is be careful. Bulletin boards can be made by people with not so friendly intentions. Or, they can be used for the use of charity when you see companies post their software on them for people to share with others legally. Overall bulletin board systems seem like a very good concept to get to know about further if you have any interest in making content weather it just be simple text or complex software for others to download or add to.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

Wiki Article: Video games past and present

Abstract This article discusses a brief history of the video gaming industry in America. It start with a brief time line of the creation of the technologies that changed the video gaming industry. It also discusses who the people are that create video games and who plays them. It also demonstrates how the internet turned video games into a social function on some level. The article expresses how not only the hardware in the video game industry has played a key role in the development of the industry but also how the latest innovations in the industry have been spurred from software and not hardware.

Video games have been around since the 1940's and have been developing ever since. The developers of video games tending to be college students working at Universities in some sort of electrical engineering or similar field. With the advent of personal computers came a new kind of game developer, one that may not have had any formal education but shared a love for technology. These people became what we refer to today as the hobbyist, and the game developers of today are very similar to the hobbysit of the 1970's and 80' in that they may not have any formal education but they are brilliant and share the same love for technology. With the wide spread use and availablity of the internet brought a change in how these video games are played and who plays and creates them. The history of video game creation and the history of video games is almost identical. The first video games origin begins in the early cathode ray tube based missle defense systems that were created in the 1940's. These programs that were written for the military missle defense system later became the base for of video game programs in the 1950's. In 1951 a graphical version of tic-tac-toe was created by a man named Alexander Douglass at the Univeristy of Cambridge. The game was created to demostrate his thesis on human-computer interaction. This is very similar to how most of the video games in the 1950-1960 era were created. The games were created on Univeristy computers because personal computers were not around yet and created by computer hobbysit at the Univeristies. Another important video game created by college students at MIT was the game SPACEWAR!.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games) This is a important milestone in video game production because it again demonstrates how and who is making the video games at the time. Once again it is a group of college students who are fasinated by computers that create something fun and interactive as part of there learning process of how human-computer interactions work. The second important piece to the SPACEWAR! Game is that the very primitive internet at the time was used to help distribute the game and to also make the game better. The game was sent through the internet to other college hobbysit and the game was added to by others creating other versions of the game. One of the versions of SPACEWAR! That was created was the Galaxy Game that was first intalled at the University of Stanford's student union in the form of a video arcade game. In 1971 Nolan Bushnell and Ted Danbey created a coined operated arcade version of SPACEWAR! And called it Computer Space. A company bought the game, it became the first mass produced game and used for commercial use even though it became largley unsuccessful it still marked a milestone in the history of video games. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Danbey were both considered hobbysit with college backgrounds both went on to form the Atari Inc. Nolan Bushnell is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the video game industry.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games) During this same time period you see the creation of more video games by college students using Univeristy manin frame computers. This has been the trend of how and who many of the early video games were created. The home computers of the 70's and 80's allowed the people who owned them to program simple video games on there computer. This is around the time when new hobbyist groups form and help create new software for the video games. These video games were simple so all it took to recreate these games on your own computer was a copy of the video games source code which is one channel that these video games were distributed through. The source codes for video games started being published in magazines and books for others to copy. The games were also distrubted on floppy disk, cassette tapes, and ROM cartridges

Another imporant thing to video games happened around the late 70's and 80's and that was the use of dial up bulletin board systems. This was a huge deal because it allowed people to get online and play games against others online creating a whole new aspect to video game play. The 1990's brought the video game industry to the main stream and the availability of broadband connectivity to the internet helped bring this about. As mentioned the ability for others to connect on play each other online created a whole new aspect to video games, especially the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre of vieo games. Quake was the pioneer in online play of FPS games, the game became so popular that it made online play of FPS's a requirement for most FPS games. Quake not only allowed others to play one and other but also communicate with the people you are playing with or against at the same time. The enabling of others to communicate to the people you are playing with added to the game play. It also added to the strategy of the game. Not only were games created for the single player console but now once a game came out the game could still be added to. For example games like quake would have new mods come out with things like capture the flag and a whole new set of maps or levels with the mod. The games being played over the internet also gave rise to more and more video game hobbyist and using the internet and new software the hobbyist could also add to these video games like making new maps for others to play online. These mods that were being created gave rise to the most popular mod right around the turn of the century. Half-Life was a very popular FPS for both is single player mode and even more so for its online multiplayer mode. With internet being a so widley used and the cheap availability of broad band the users of the video games were able to create mods for the video games. The most popular probably to date is Half-Life's mod Counterstrike. I personally remember this coming out and it completely changed how I viewed and played video games. I can remember that after I played Counter Strike online that all other video games became obsolete in my eyes. My friends would come over and want to get on play station for a game of NBA live or similar game but I had no interest. My interest didn't leave the PC gaming area until the the gaming consoles were able to hook up to the internet.

The first video game console produced made to hook up to the internet was the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was the first console entry into the sixth generation of consoles it was also the first console with a built in modem and has been said to be ahead of its time debuting in 1998. The Dreamcast had intial success it later pulled itself from the console production. The company Sega wanted to stop production of it hardware consoles so it could focus production on the production of software. Nintendo came out with its Game Cube console wich had limited success and Sony came out with the Play Station 2, for its version of the sixth generation consoles and microsoft made there debut with the xbox console. The xbox was the based highly on PC technology and is demonstrated by being the first console to have its own built in hard drive and also was based on the Intels Pentium III CPU. Microsoft put the console on the market and elegdily sold the consoles at a loss. Microsoft drew profits from the software portion of the gaming industry through it video game development and through the interent service of xbox live. Xbox live provided xbox users with an online service for internet multiplayer games. It connected all xbox users who of course had to pay a fee to use the service to each other in a very user friendly format. The consoles popular online play of Microsofts video game software company Bungie is also accreditted to the success of the xbox. The cration of Halo is one of the most popular games ever and probably the most popular FPS ever only to be currently rivaled by Call of Duty. The Halo game and its online play can be said to have been the reason the xbox had any of its success. I personally know people deciding between buying a xbox and play station 2 chose the xbox simply because Halo is exclusive to the xbox console, I too purchased the xbox console for this very reason. The popularity of video games becoming so popular that a single video game can determine how successful a playing console will be changed everything and a major reason for that was because of the software provided by xbox. The advent of xbox live made it possible to connect all the users of the same game to play with each other and even speak to each other while doing so. The xbox came with a headset and made it possilbe to talk to the other people you were playing on xbox live at the same time. The online play of Halo exploded and easily became the most popular game of its time.

The success of that video game put a new emphasis on the importance of the software aspect of the consoles. Xbox saw a huge success from the online service it provided and the popularity of a single game. Soon companies like Sony had took take notice of the success of xbox live. Sony's play station 2 may have had more overall sales than the xbox did but its online play didn't even compare with the xbox's online play.

Entering the seventh generation of gaming the two most dominate consoles are Microsoft's xbox 360 and Sony's play station 3. Xbox 360 is still provided with the xbox live service which has even more features such as a market place where you can subscribe to things such as netflix and stream movies through your xbox 360 directly onto your televivion set. Sony took notice of the success of xbox's online play and developed there online services for the play station 3. Although I don't think it is as user friendly and the overall quality of services may be lacking compared to xbox live, there is one major advantage and that is that the online portion of play station 3 is entirely free. The play station 3 also came with a bigger hard drive and its own internal wireless. The play station 3 also sold for about $200 dollars more than the xbox 360 and may have also loss some sales do to the fact that the xbox 360 was out on the market almost a full year before the play station 3. This being said it is easy to see that the success of the gaming industry has changed quite drastically. The video game industry now grosses more money per year than the hollywood movie business. This large scale of success that the video game industry has had can be said to have come from increasing technology that enable the graphics to be better and better and look more realistic but also how the internet has connected the video game players and creators.

Today the video game creators are both hobbyist and the users of the video games. The success of online play and the users taking interest in the games gave way to new mods of video games. Now people that once were making mods for video games for free or new levels for the mods for free can become the designers themselves. Essentially the hobbyist is still the same person creating today's video games. They are young brilliant people who love technology and love video games. The internet has made it easier for these people to gain recogintion for their levels or mods they are posting online. This is how they are discovered, I grew up watching my brother make levels for Quake and post them online for others to play for his own interest and enjoyment. He later did the same for the mod Counterstrike and had job offers before he could legally drive car. The creators of vieo games today are alomost the same as the ones form the 1970's with the exception of new technology they are brilliant people who love new technology and video games.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games

Greame Timmins Lead Level Designer at Gear Box Software Email: greame.timmins@gearboxsoftware.com Fernleigh