Random reports from screwing around on the internet:
- There exists video of M. C. Escher creating his last major woodcut, Snakes: link. I haven’t figured out where this video comes from or why it doesn’t have sound. The camera movement and so forth make it seem like it isn’t a home movie — so I’d like to know more about the source material.
- H. G. Wells wrote two books of rules for playing what we would now call strategy games using tin soldiers as game pieces: Floor Games and Little Wars. The complete text of both is available online at Project Gutenberg. Gary Gygax wrote the forward to a 2004 edition of Little Wars.
- The complete text of the screenplay to the 1961 movie The Hustler is available online. Regarding the line from The Hustler, “J. T. S. Brown, no ice, no glass”, J. T. S. Brown bourbon exists and is still produced.
- Apparently Apple was still selling HyperCard all the way into 2004 … Maybe it is just my old guy view of the world– because I now divide time into a vague extended present which includes 2004 and a vague personal olden days which includes things like HyperCard — but I find this somewhat incredible.