Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.62.0504140012550.15353@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Blip
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 00:13:04 -0400 (EDT)
Blip Blip The Digital Game by Tommy appeared in 1977-78 (Japan). It was based on Pong and similar early computer games. There are three buttons on each side; when the "ball" comes towards one of them, the player presses that particular button (if she can) to send it back. The ball is actually an LED, and the entire game is mechanical, complete with a wind-up knob. It takes two batteries for the LED. Blip is quite difficult to play; Foofwa d'Imobilite told me he had one as a child and loved it. The mechanism that moves the LED back and forth is hidden behind dark plastic; only the red light shines through. This is an early analog mimicry of an early digital game based on analog ping-pong. The type-face is close to the same font used by early card-readers. So here is a mapping, which, by virtue of the noise embodied in the hidden mechanism, seems actually harder to play than its digital counterpart. It's a bit eerie, given the later development of handhelds. I hope, by virtue of this video, to give you some idea of the excitement of the simulacra of early gaming, as well as stimulate a vigorous debate on the relationship of digital and analogic phenomena to the exigencies of flesh. http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim/blip.mpg __