AD&D Gold Box games

Does anyone remember the good old days of the Gold Box series of AD&D games by SSI? The screenshots below must look nostalgic then.

The Gold Box series follows a model for computer role-playing games that was set by the Wizardry series. You see a simple 3D shot of the city/dungeon as you walk around, and a summary screen showing the names and hitpoints of your characters.

The deviation from Wizardry is in combat. Here, the Gold Box series allows you to mimic role-playing games that use miniatures. You get to move your characters around on a 2D combat map, directing who they fight and where they place their area-effect spells.

This is a series of games that brings back old memories of hours spent in front of the computer, getting from place to place, fighting scores of monsters and trying to complete the games.

Just for the record, I have played ALL the games in this series (including the Buck Rogers and Spelljammer ones). Yes, I am a big fan of AD&D, and played the Gold Box series because they were the first to appear for the PC. And with DOSBox, I get to relive those memories...

List of Gold Box titles (Wikipedia)

Fearless 霍元甲

This is a Jet Li film, based on the historical martial arts character Huo Yuanjia (霍元甲). While there are quite some discrepancies (see the Wikipedia entries) between the film and the actual life of the martial arts hero, this movie is not a history documentary. Jet Li was trying to send a message through this movie about martial arts.

His key message, I think, is that martial arts is not about learning a skill to defeat your opponent, but rather, it is a way to learn about yourself, and to improve yourself. It is about learning how to control yourself. As he said in the movie, "You are your greatest opponent."

A great martial artist is not obsessed with winning. Instead, he is merciful. And there is no greatest martial arts. No martial arts can be said to be better than others. There are only good and bad practitioners.

Old DOS games

Those looking for those old DOS games can check out the sites listed here.

Feedburner and RSS

I guess those who have been following my blogs probably have already noticed. Yes, I found out about RSS and Feedburner, and have decided to use these to make it easier for those who read my blogs to keep themselves updated. So feel free to subscribe to my blogs through Feedburner.

C

My favourite programming language is C.

Why? Because it offers power to the programmer, yet the code is not so hard as to be difficult to read. And of course, if the programmer includes comments, then source codes become all the more easier to read.


I even had a copy of the book "The C Programming Language", by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie (the guys who came up with C).

I wrote my JC computer project in C. It was a simple database program that allowed me to manage my Magic: The Gathering card collection. I didn't try doing graphics, sticking to a text screen interface, because back then, graphics was still quite complex in C, quite unlike the ease which it can be done in BASIC.

I also had to use it for my micromouse competition, which required participants to program the micromouse using C and a set of special-purpose libraries.

And when I got to university, the lessons on C were a piece of cake, since I was already very familiar with it, while the rest of the class was struggling. In the end, I took an advanced module in C programming, and managed to develop a program to solve the 0-1 knapsack problem using less than 200 lines of C code.

Sad to say, my thesis was done in Java, which was the language of choice for my professor, who was into artificial intelligence. But since Java is quite similar to C, I managed to pick up Java in a very short time, and produced an application that I used for my thesis research. Of course, given a choice, I would have wanted to do it in C.

I am still very interested in programming, just that I don't have ideas on what to make.


Some C implementations:
GNU Compiler Collection
Cygwin
MinGW
Dev-C++ (this is an IDE)
wxDev-C++ (this is an improvement of Dev-C++)
DJGPP
LCC
LCC-Win

LOGO

My very first program was actually written in LOGO. Back then, I was taking a basic computer literacy class, and the class used LOGO to give the students some hands on with computers. It used this LOGO implementation known as LOGO Robot, but I guess no one can tell you where to get this now.

LOGO is a very simple language, good for getting the kids interested in computers, since they allow kids to draw simple diagrams with very English-like commands. Of course, you can write more complex programs too, but that can be reserved for other programming languages, and it may be easier in those languages too. LOGO is more for simple graphics.

LOGO implementations:
Lhogho
FMSLogo
MSWLogo

Pascal

I only started learning Pascal when I got to JC, since it was part of the course syllabus. By then, I was already well-versed in BASIC, and had some ability to program in C as well. Learning yet another programming language was a piece of cake, since the general principles are all the same, just the differences in syntax and commands.


This is how Turbo Pascal looks like. Back then, programming was done mostly in DOS, and you didn't have the fancy IDEs and program development suites that allow you to drag-and-drop together a GUI. No, you have to type it in yourself. And that was what I did when I programmed an application in Java for my thesis.


Turbo Pascal's development has stopped. But if you are looking for something similar, try out Free Pascal. It is an open source implementation of Turbo Pascal, complete with IDE. You can find it for download at its website.

Why Pascal Is Not My Favourite Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan
Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal

BASIC

BASIC stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and was the first programming language that I learnt. As I mentioned, before I got my first PC, I used to borrow books from the library to read about computers, and back then, some of those books would contain program code in BASIC. So before I even had a computer, I was learning to read programming code.

So once I got my first PC, of course I couldn't wait to try out some of those programs that I have read about. Imagine my surprise when my PC didn't boot up to BASIC like I was told it should. Eventually, I found out that only IBM PCs booted up to BASIC. Compatibles don't.

So I went to get a copy of BASIC that would run on DOS. And came upon BASICA. But it didn't really run. And now I know why. It still requires the BASIC code found in the ROM of IBM PCs, and compatibles didn't have that ROM.

Eventually, I got a copy of MS-DOS, and it had GW-BASIC included with it. And guess what? It ran! So I finally got a working copy of BASIC that can run on my PC. I happily proceeded to enter in those programs... only to find that they don't run, at least not 100% of the time. Why? Because BASIC comes in many dialects, and the programs that I read about in books were written for the BBC Micro, Apple IIe, and other older PCs. But I managed to find books with program code for the IBM PCs, and also learnt enough about BASIC to be able to convert some of the code into usable code that works on GW-BASIC.


Later, I came across QuickBASIC, which was different from the BASIC that I know, because now, line numbers are optional, and it is easier to create subroutines. Programming graphics was so much easier now, that my friends and I started experimenting with QuickBASIC code, creating our own screen savers and screen effects, such as text that slowly appears and then fades away.


Now, QuickBASIC has been discontinued, but there is an open source effort going on to create a free implementation of QuickBASIC, known as FreeBASIC. All I need is to find time to get back my BASIC skills...

Samurai Warlords

This is actually a mod for Medieval: Total War, which aims to provide something similar to Shogun: Total War. You can even see the similarities, since the game engine is similar in the first place.
The strategic map above looks so much like the one in Shogun: Total War. And the battle map below is also similar. By far, I think it is a very good re-creation of the older Shogun: Total War. However, instead of having 4 turns a year, this mod follows the 1 turn per year system in Medieval: Total War. So be prepared for a few generations of succession before completing the campaign.

Shogun: Total War

Shogun: Total War is the first game in the Total War series. The next game in the series is Medieval: Total War.

For those of you who have played Sword of the Samurai before, you will not be totally unfamiliar with the concept of play. Just like when you become a daimyo in Sword of the Samurai, you are presented with a map of Japan for you to plan your conquest. Similarly, you build up an army, but before that, you need to work on your economy. Unlike Sword of the Samurai, however, you have to conquer Japan fief by fief, instead of fighting a single battle against each daimyo.


And just like in Sword of the Samurai, you get to direct your army in battle, telling each unit where to go and who to engage. Skillful manoeuvring will allow even a smaller force to defeat a larger one, and you will need to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your units. If you are a bit lazy, you can always get the computer to resolve battles automatically, though the results may yield more casualties, and even defeat.

Hmm, where did my army go?

Those were the days - PCs of old (antiquity?)

In the past, before I had my own PC, I was already very interested in computers, and would go to the library to borrow books about them. Even before owning a PC, I was reading about how to program, how to write simple games that would run on the PCs of those days. This post is dedicated to the PCs of old.

The above is a BBC Micro. It used to be a very popular PC, and had a lot of books written about it. Of course, I never had the chance to look at one before. It plugs in to a normal TV for display, instead of a dedicated monitor. You can connect a floppy drive to it. And back in the days of 300 bps modems, you can connect this to one of those too.
Another often written-about PC was the ZX Spectrum, which runs on a Z80 processor. Like the BBC Micro, you connect it to the TV for video output. And you connect a cassette player to it and use cassette tapes for storage.
Another common PC back in those days was the Commodore 64, commonly known as C64. There were books written about how to program in the C64's BASIC language, which got me interested in programming. Later, I found out that BASIC is a language available in many dialects, and there were differences between that used on the C64 and that used by IBM PCs.

The Atari ST is yet another computer that was mentioned by many books in the past. It was a competitor to the Amiga computers, in that it too had good graphics and sound, and was a good gaming PC during its time. But it eventually lost to the Amiga computers, which had superior graphics and sound.
The TRS-80 from Tandy was also one of the PCs of old. It was very much like a hobby kit, and was targeted at that market. There were books written about how to program using the TRS-80 too, which comes with its own dialect of BASIC. It can be connected to cassette players and floppy drives for storage devices.

I guess these are the PCs of old that I remember reading about. Those were the days, when PCs were still not very popular in the homes of Singapore, and these were the PCs that you read about in books.

Apple IIe

I wonder if many of those my age or younger will even have seen one of these before.

It is the Apple IIe computer. And I must admit that I have seen one, even touched and used one, before. By then, it was already obsolete, way beyond its time, but it still booted up and ran.

Before that, the Apple IIe was something that I read about in books. And before I got my own PC, I used to read about computers, borrowing books from the library on this subject. Many books in the past were written about how to use the Apple IIe, and how to even write your own programs and games that will run on the Apple IIe (and other Apple IIs).

But by the time I got to see this computer, many years had passed since I read those books, and I had gotten used to the IBM PCs, so I really wasn't able to figure out what to do with it. In the end, it sat there in a corner, just like it had for years before, collecting dust.

Amiga

When I was first looking to buy my first computer, one of the models that I looked at was the Amiga 500. Yes, Singapore was slightly behind times then, so this model only became affordable (relatively) when I was ready to get my first PC.

The Amiga series of computers were way ahead of its time. At a time when the IBM PCs were still struggling with DOS, and still using 16-colour or even 4-colour displays, the Amiga had 4096 colours, and a built in sound system that put the PC speaker to shame. It was a gaming PC, you can say, for its time. And it had a graphic user interface (GUI) that started to appear in IBM PCs only when Microsoft came up with the Windows series of operating systems (OS). And Windows was not standard packaging then, unlike now. No, you had to separately install Windows 3.0, which ran on top of DOS.

So why didn't I get an Amiga? Because the mainstream in Singapore back then was already the IBM PCs, and most software was for IBM PCs, rather than Amiga. So in the end, we decided on getting an IBM PC, instead of the gaming PC that would have mesmerised me with its superior graphics and sound.

My first personal computer - an AT clone

The very first PC that I ever had (or rather, that the family had) was an IBM AT compatible, basically an AT clone. It ran on an 80286 microprocessor, had only 640kb of RAM, and did not have a harddisk. Instead, it had two 5.25-inch floppy drives.

That was in 1990. Needless to say, it wasn't that great a PC, but playing Captain Comic and Test Drive on it brought endless hours of fun. And of course, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2.

Subsequently, we upgraded it by adding in a SoundBlaster sound card, and a small harddisk, plus gave it some extra memory. Eventually, we gave it a new CPU, an 80386 microprocessor. By then, the cost of upgrades was more than enough to get a new PC.

But those were the old days, when you needed to swap floppy disks to play games if you didn't have a harddisk. When games played in 4-colour CGA, 16-colour EGA, and there were few games that came in 256-colour VGA. When sound came from the primitive PC speaker if you didn't own a sound card. When you needed to boot up your system with a DOS disk before you can do anything at all. Those were the days.

Ran 乱

This is the famous Japanese director Kurosawa Akira's last great epic. It is set in medieval Japan, in the Warring States Period of Japan (Sengoku Jidai 戦国時代). The story is about an aging warlord who passes on his authority to his eldest son, thinking that his three sons will stay together and aid each other. Instead his youngest son, who knows the ambitions of his brothers, speaks out against his father's decision and was banished.

In the end, the eldest son drove his father out of his own castle, and the second son took the opportunity to kill the eldest and gain control of the clan. This drove his father mad, wandering lost in his own land. When the youngest son came to look for his father, brother ended up fighting against brother, and in the end, all three sons died, and the land was lost to neighbouring warlords who took the chance to invade their lands.

This is a great movie made in the 80s, with many samurai war scenes showing how battles were fought during that era. I especially like the cavalry charges, and how musketeers and archers hidden in the woods can be an effective tactic against a superior mounted force.

Ran in Wikipedia

Medieval: Total War

I like playing strategy and wargames, and thus, the Total War series of games by The Creative Assembly naturally appealed to me. Medieval: Total War is the second game in the series, after Shogun: Total War.

The setting is in the middle ages of Europe, with the game world extending into the Middle East and northern Africa. You control a faction, which is basically a kingdom, such as the Byzantines, the Turks, the English, etc. Each faction also belongs to a religion, either Catholic, Orthodox Christian or Islam. The Catholics and Muslims are able to send out crusades and jihads respectively, bringing their armies far further than their immediate borders.

Besides the strategic map, in which you manage your kingdom's economy and troop production, the main appeal of Total War games is the battle map. Here, you control units of your troops in battle against the enemy's troops. Each type of unit has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the battle map allows you to exploit the strengths of your units against the weaknesses of your enemy, such that even a smaller force may be able to win against a bigger force using skillful manoeuvre and superior tactics.

Of course, if controlling units in battle does not appeal to you, you can always get the computer to automatically resolve battles for you. In such a case, the computer computes victory or defeat based on numerical strengths as well as unit strengths and weaknesses, but does not factor in the human genius in manoeuvre and tactics.

There are also many mods available, which can be found at The Guild, a fan site devoted to the Total War series. They allow you to play using the game engine in different settings, such as during the Napolean war, Hellenic times, even the ancient world. There are also mods that add factions to the original medieval world and improve on the units.

So if you are a wargame/strategy game freak like me, this is something that you will not want to miss.

Survivor

I am sure there are some of you who watch this reality TV show known as Survivor. The motto is "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast".

A friend of mine was talking about career advancement today. He said something similar to the Survivor motto. Basically, you don't need to outperform your fellow colleagues to get to the top management positions. You just need to outlast them.

Passport

I went to collect my new passport today.

And realised how crowded it can be close to the holiday season. Yes, the school vacations are round the corner, and people are rushing to get their passports done so that they can go for that trip they are planning for.

So I ended up waiting for 2 hours, just to spend less than 5 minutes to collect my passport.

Anyway, the new biometric passport is valid only for 5 years (instead of the usual 10) and it comes with its own passport number, unlike in the past, when your IC and passport shares the same number. Guess that means having to refer to the passport everytime I fill in an immigration card...

Singapore Turf Club

I went to the Singapore Turf Club for the first time in my life today. My wife and her friends were performing Japanese drum for today's event at the Turf Club. I think it is the Sakura Cup, sponsored by Panasonic. So I took this opportunity to tag along and see what the Turf Club is like.

Firstly, the horses are great. The winners have this majestic look to them, they walk as if they deserved to win. Yes, those winning horses all walk with a certain grace and confidence. They have that "winner's look".

And of course, there is that magic of the race. When the race starts, you look at who is leading, you look at your favourite horse. And then, halfway through the race, you see your favourite catching up to the lead, slowly but steadily, and you start to think, "There's a chance!!" And you start shouting to cheer it on, until the results are set when the horses cross the finish line. Then, it is either joy or sorrow or frustration.

Going to the races is a great experience, even if you don't bet on them. Just go there and soak in the atmosphere, the cheering as the horses round the bend for the last burst towards the finish line. On this tiny island with few places to go for the weekend, the Turf Club is a getaway from the shopping malls.

My quilted blanket

My workplace has its air conditioner tuned to a very low temperature. And every once in a while, I have to stay over because of work.

My wife does quite a bit of sewing as a hobby, and has made a few quilted blankets in the past. We have a queen size one that we use at home, and she has made a similar one for her sister, as well as a baby-size one for her friend.

So when I asked if she could make one for me to bring to work, she agreed, and after 5 months (actually, she only spent about 3 months working on it), the final product is shown above.

The Twilight Samurai たそがれ清兵衛

This is one of the three samurai movies by Yamada Yoji (山田洋次). The other two movies are The Hidden Blade and Love and Honour. As with the other two movies, this movie is about the changing times of Japan just prior to the Meiji Restoration. In all three movies, the lead characters are samurai belonging to the ficticious Unasaka clan.

While this movie seems to be the more highly acclaimed one, winning many awards in the Japanese Academy Awards, I myself thought that the movie wasn't as good as the other two. The love story lacked depth. And there was also no compelling reason why the lead character would even hesitate when tasked to kill a rogue samurai, unlike in The Hidden Blade, when the target was an old friend of the lead character. There wasn't the conflict between duty and conscience found in the other two movies.

The Hidden Blade (隠し剣 鬼の爪)

This is a movie directed by Yamada Yoji (山田　洋次), who also directed Love and Honour. The story is about a low-ranking samurai who must decide between his duty to his lord and clan, and what he thinks is right.

For the similarities between kenjutsu and taiji brought up in this movie, read my other post at my taiji blog.

The lead character, the low-ranking samurai Katagiri Munezo, is first torn between his love for his former maid, Kie, and the social divides of caste. They cannot marry because one is samurai, another is peasant. Eventually, he renounced his samurai status to become a peasant, and married Kie.

Katagiri was also tasked by his clan to kill his former classmate and old friend, Hazama. Hazama had plotted revolt, and was captured, but he managed to escape. Much as Katagiri did not want to obey this order, he was compelled by his duty to his clan and his obligation as a samurai to obey his duty. He obeyed his orders and sought out his old friend in combat, coming out the victor.

The movie is also about the changing times in which the movie was set in. It was just before the Meiji Restoration, and people's thinking was changing because of the changing times, brought in largely because of the increasing Western influence ever since Commodore Perry forced open Japan's gates with his Black Ships. While there were conservatives holding on to past traditions and old practices, there were also people like Katagiri, who dared to break the old rules (like carrying his former maid out of the house of her husband, who was ill-treating her).

Ouch!

I went for a day surgery today, nothing major. But the experience is worth noting down.

Apparently, in hospitals, the trash is taken out from the operating theatre for disposal before allowing the next patient into the theatre. I guess this is for hygiene purposes. After all, the trash is biological waste.

General anaesthetic was an experience too. You can feel it flowing in from the needle into your arm. Besides the injection, it is also given in gas form, and after two deep breaths, the next thing I knew was waking up in my ward.

Paying the bill also made me realise how important medical insurance is. So don't wait until you need it, it will be too late by then.

Good teachers

A student's success is as dependent on his own talent as it is on his teacher's talents.

Without a talented teacher, a student's talent will lay hidden, undiscovered.

I used to keep telling my calligraphy teacher that the reason why my calligraphy was able to improve so much in such a short time, and with so little practice, is because she is a good teacher. She always laughed it off, thinking I was just pulling her leg and making her happy.

Today, she was told that her recent calligraphy piece has gotten an award. The award is highly prestigious, given to outstanding works by calligraphy masters. Being a relative new calligraphy master (she was recognised as a master within the circle only about 9 years ago), it was quite a surprise that she got the award this year, over the more established masters.

Yes, she really is a good calligraphy teacher. And I am not kidding.