Dust for neglect, or construction, or speed?  It’s been a busy time – 2017 had me receive my doctorate, as well as help release Walden, a game.  We’re busy porting Walden to a few other platforms, and currently I’m updating and re-organizing this site along with posting some of my work, new and old, to my tumblr page.

Along with the usual work, I’ve been spending a lot of time on several things, including acquainting myself with the Microsoft Hololens and development for the Atari 2600.  Batari Basic has been handy – you can do quite a bit with it.  The conventional wisdom is that an experienced assembly programmer could do an Atari game is a few months, whereas someone kind of experienced in code can make a Batari Basic game (admittedly without as much freedom as raw assembly) in a few weeks.  My own experience has seemed to bear this out.  I decided to implement cellular automata on a 40-year old platform alongside a modern augmented reality peripheral.

The 1-dimensional cellular automation was a nice, elegant way to make sure I knew how to get something onto the Atari VCS.  Atariage.com and Random Terrain’s site were key sources of knowledge for a lot of this stuff.  On the other hand, the Hololens is one of the first platforms I’ve used that can properly do 3-D cellular automata right.  No 2D display can visualize the forms generated in a proper way.  You want to stick your head inside the simulation.  The AR element grounds the whole thing in a way I find more effective than doing such a sim in VR, although that would be a next step.

Happy new year to all!