Enlarge/ Michigan’s State Maritime Archaeologist Wayne R. Lusardi takes notes underwater at the Lake Huron WWII wreckage of 2nd Lt. Frank Moody’s P-39 Airacobra. Moody, one of the famed Tuskagee Airmen, fatally crashed in 1944.
National Geographic
In April 1944, a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, Second Lieutenant Frank Moody, was on a routine training mission when his plane malfunctioned. Moody lost control of the aircraft and plunged to his death in the chilly waters of Lake Huron. His body was recovered two months later, but the airplane was left at the bottom of the lake—until now. Over the last few years, a team of divers working with the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum in Detroit has been diligently recovering the various parts of Moody’s plane to determine what caused the pilot’s fatal crash.
That painstaking process is the centerpiece of The Real Red Tails, a new documentary from National Geographic narrated by Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbot Elementary). The documentary features interviews with the underwater archaeologists working to recover the plane, as well as firsthand accounts from Moody’s fellow airmen and stunning underwater footage from the wreck itself.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military pilots in the US Armed Forces and helped pave the way for the desegregation of the military. The men painted the tails of their P-47 planes red, earning them the nickname the Red Tails. (They initially flew Bell P-39 Airacobras like Moody’s downed plane, and later flew P-51 Mustangs.) It was then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who helped tip popular opinion in favor of the fledgling unit when she flew with the Airmen’s chief instructor, C. Alfred Anderson, in March 1941. The Airmen earned praise for their skill and bravery in combat during World War II, with members being awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations, 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, 60 Purple Hearts, and at least one Silver Star.
2nd Lt. Frank Moody’s official military portrait.
National Archives and Records Administration
Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. (Ret.) Harry T. Stewart.
National Geographic/Rob Lyall
Stewart’s official portrait as a US Army Air Force pilot.
National Archives and Records Administration
Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. (Ret.) James H. Harvey.
National Geographic/Rob Lyall
Harvey’s official portrait as a US Army Air Force pilot.
National Archives and Records Administration
Stewart and Harvey (second and third, l-r).
James Harvey
Stewart stands next to a restored WWII Mustang airplane at the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum in Detroit.
National Geographic/Rob Lyall
A father-and-son team, David and Drew Losinski, discovered the wreckage of Moody’s plane in 2014 during cleanup efforts for a sunken barge. They saw what looked like a car door lying on the lake bed that turned out to be a door from a WWII-era P-39. The red paint on the tail proved it had been flown by a “Red Tail” and it was eventually identified as Moody’s plane. The Losinskis then joined forces with Wayne Lusardi, Michigan’s state maritime archaeologist, to explore the remarkably well-preserved wreckage. More than 600 pieces have been recovered thus far, including the engine, the propeller, the gearbox, machine guns, and the main 37mm cannon.
Ars caught up with Lusardi to learn more about this fascinating ongoing project.
Ars Technica: The area where Moody’s plane was found is known as Shipwreck Alley. Why have there been so many wrecks—of both ships and airplanes—in that region?
Wayne Lusardi: Well, the Great Lakes are big, and if you haven’t been on them, people don’t really understand they’re literally inland seas. Consequently, there has been a lot of maritime commerce on the lakes for hundreds of years. Wherever there’s lots of ships, there’s usually lots of accidents. It’s just the way it goes. What we have in the Great Lakes, especially around some places in Michigan, are really bad navigation hazards: hidden reefs, rock piles that are just below the surface that are miles offshore and right near the shipping lanes, and they often catch ships. We have bad storms that crop up immediately. We have very chaotic seas. All of those combined to take out lots of historic vessels. In Michigan alone, there are about 1,500 shipwrecks; in the Great Lakes, maybe close to 10,000 or so.
One of the biggest causes of airplanes getting lost offshore here is fog. Especially before they had good navigation systems, pilots got lost in the fog and sometimes crashed into the lake or just went missing altogether. There are also thunderstorms, weather conditions that impact air flight here, and a lot of ice and snow storms.
Just like commercial shipping, the aviation heritage of the Great Lakes is extensive; a lot of the bigger cities on the Eastern Seaboard extend into the Great Lakes. It’s no surprise that they populated the waterfront, the shorelines first, and in the early part of the 20th century, started connecting them through aviation. The military included the Great Lakes in their training regimes because during World War I, the conditions that you would encounter in the Great Lakes, like flying over big bodies of water, or going into remote areas to strafe or to bomb, mimicked what pilots would see in the European theater during the first World War. When Selfridge Field near Detroit was developed by the Army Air Corps in 1917, it was the farthest northern military air base in the United States, and it trained pilots to fly in all-weather conditions to prepare them for Europe.
Enlarge/ Ernest Shackleton died on board the Quest in 1922. Forty years later, the ship sank off Canada’s Atlantic Coast.
Tore Topp/Royal Canadian Geographical Society
Famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton famously defied the odds to survive the sinking of his ship, Endurance, which became trapped in sea ice in 1914. His luck ran out on his follow-up expedition; he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1922 on board a ship called Quest. The ship survived that expedition and sailed for another 40 years, eventually sinking in 1962 after its hull was pierced by ice on a seal-hunting run. Shipwreck hunters have now located the remains of the converted Norwegian sealer in the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The wreckage of Endurancewas found in pristine condition in 2022 at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
The Quest expedition’s relatively minor accomplishments might lack the nail-biting drama of the Endurance saga, but the wreck is nonetheless historically significant. “His final voyage kind of ended that Heroic Age of Exploration, of polar exploration, certainly in the south,” renowned shipwreck hunter David Mearns told the BBC. “Afterwards, it was what you would call the scientific age. In the pantheon of polar ships, Quest is definitely an icon.”
As previously reported, Endurance set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1914, with Shackleton joining his crew in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By January 1915, the ship had become hopelessly locked in sea ice, unable to continue its voyage. For 10 months, the crew endured the freezing conditions, waiting for the ice to break up. The ship’s structure remained intact, but by October 25, Shackleton realized Endurance was doomed. He and his men opted to camp out on the ice some two miles (3.2 km) away, taking as many supplies as they could with them.
Compacted ice and snow continued to fill the ship until a pressure wave hit on November 13, crushing the bow and splitting the main mast—all of which was captured on camera by crew photographer Frank Hurley. Another pressure wave hit in late afternoon November 21, lifting the ship’s stern. The ice floes parted just long enough for Endurance to finally sink into the ocean, before closing again to erase any trace of the wreckage.
When the sea ice finally disintegrated in April 1916, the crew launched lifeboats and managed to reach Elephant Island five days later. Shackleton and five of his men set off for South Georgia the next month to get help—a treacherous 720-mile journey by open boat. A storm blew them off course, and they ended up landing on the unoccupied southern shore. So Shackleton left three men behind while he and a companion navigated dangerous mountain terrain to reach the whaling station at Stromness on May 2. A relief ship collected the other three men and finally arrived back on Elephant Island in August. Miraculously, Shackleton’s entire crew was still alive.
Enlarge/ This is the stern of the good ship Endurance, which sank off the coast of Antarctica in 1915 after being crushed by pack ice. An expedition located the shipwreck in pristine condition in 2022 after nearly 107 years.
Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/NatGeo
Shackleton’s last voyage
By the time Shackleton got back to England, the country was embroiled in World War I, and many of his men enlisted. Shackleton was considered too old for active service. He was also deeply in debt from the Endurance expedition, earning a living on the lecture circuit. But he still dreamed of making another expedition to the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska to explore the Beaufort Sea. He got seed money (and eventually full funding) from an old school chum, John Quillier Rowett. Shackleton purchased a wooden Norwegian whaler, Foca I, which his wife Emily renamed Quest.
Gamers of a certain age may remember Nintendo’s Game & Watch line, which predated the cartridge-based Game Boy by offering simple, single-serving LCD games that can fetch a pretty penny at auction today. But even most ancient gamers probably don’t remember Mego’s “Time Out” line, which took the internal of Nintendo’s early Game & Watch titles and rebranded them for an American audience that hadn’t yet heard of the Japanese game maker.
Now, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has helped preserve the original film of an early Mego Time Out commercial, marking the recovered, digitized video as “what we believe is the first commercial for a Nintendo product in the United States.” The 30-second TV spot—which is now available in a high-quality digital transfer for the first time—provides a fascinating glimpse into how marketers positioned some of Nintendo’s earliest games to a public that still needed to be sold on the very idea of portable gaming.
Imagine an “electronic sport”
Enlarge/ A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo’s Game & Watch games under the toy company’s “Time Out” branding.
Founded in the 1950s, Mego made a name for itself in the 1970s with licensed movie action figures and early robotic toys like the 2-XL (a childhood favorite of your humble author). In 1980, though, Mego branched out to partner with a brand-new, pre-Donkey Kong Nintendo of America to release rebranded versions of four early Game & Watch titles: Ball (which became Mego’s “Toss-Up”), Vermin (“Exterminator”), Fire (“Fireman Fireman”), and Flagman (“Flag Man”).
While Mego would go out of business by 1983 (long before a 2018 brand revival), in 1980, the company had the pleasure and responsibility of introducing America to Nintendo games for the first time, even if they were being sold under the Mego name. And while home systems like the Atari VCS and Intellivision were already popular with the American public at the time, Mego had to sell the then-new idea of simple black-and-white games you could play away from the living room TV (Milton Bradley Microvision notwithstanding).
The 1980 Mego spot that introduced Nintendo games to the US, now preserved in high-resolution.
That’s where a TV spot from Durona Productions came in. If you were watching TV in the early ’80s, you might have heard an announcer doing a bad Howard Cosell impression selling the Time Out line as “the new electronic sport,” suitable as a pastime for athletes who have been injured jogging or playing tennis or basketball.
The ad also had to introduce even extremely basic gaming functions like “an easy game and a hard game,” high score tracking, and the ability to “tell time” (as Douglas Adams noted, humans were “so amazingly primitive that they still [thought] digital watches [were] a pretty neat idea”). And the ad made a point of highlighting that the game is “so slim you can play it anywhere,” complete with a close-up of the unit fitting in the back pocket of a rollerskater’s tight shorts.
Preserved for all time
This early Nintendo ad wasn’t exactly “lost media” before now; you could find fuzzy, video-taped versions online, including variations that talk up the pocket-sized games as sports “where size and strength won’t help.” But the Video Game History Foundation has now digitized and archived a much higher quality version of the ad, courtesy of an original film reel discovered in an online auction by game collector (and former game journalist) Chris Kohler. Kohler acquired the rare 16 mm film and provided it to VGHF, which in turn reached out to film restoration experts at Movette Film Transfer to help color-correct the faded, 40-plus-year-old print and encode it in full 2K resolution for the first time.
This important historical preservation work is as good an excuse as any to remember a time when toy companies were still figuring out how to convince the public that Nintendo’s newfangled portable games were something that could fit into their everyday life. As VGHF’s Phil Salvador writes, “it feels laser-targeted to the on-the-go yuppie generation of the ’80s with disposable income to spend on electronic toys. There’s shades of how Nintendo would focus on young, trendy, mobile demographics in their more recent marketing campaigns… but we’ve never seen an ad where someone plays Switch in the hospital.”
Enlarge/ The Q*Bert’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Gottlieb
For years now, video game preservationists, librarians, and historians have been arguing for a DMCA exemption that would allow them to legally share emulated versions of their physical game collections with researchers remotely over the Internet. But those preservationists continue to face pushback from industry trade groups, which worry that an exemption would open a legal loophole for “online arcades” that could give members of the public free, legal, and widespread access to copyrighted classic games.
This long-running argument was joined once again earlier this month during livestreamed testimony in front of the Copyright Office, which is considering new DMCA rules as part of its regular triennial process. During that testimony, representatives of the Software Preservation Network and the Library Copyright Alliance defended their proposal for a system of “individualized human review” to help ensure that temporary remote game access would be granted “primarily for the purposes of private study, scholarship, teaching, or research.”
Enlarge/ Lawyer Steve Englund, who represented the ESA at the Copyright Office hearing.
Speaking for the Entertainment Software Association trade group, though, lawyer Steve Englund said the new proposal was “not very much movement” on the part of the proponents and was “at best incomplete.” And when pressed on what would represent “complete” enough protections to satisfy the ESA, Englund balked.
“I don’t think there is at the moment any combination of limitations that ESA members would support to provide remote access,” Englund said. “The preservation organizations want a great deal of discretion to handle very valuable intellectual property. They have yet to… show a willingness on their part in a way that might be comforting to the owners of that IP.”
Getting in the way of research
Research institutions can currently offer remote access to digital copies of works like books, movies, and music due to specific DMCA exemptions issued by the Copyright Office. However, there is no similar exemption that allows for sending temporary digital copies of video games to interested researchers. That means museums like the Strong Museum of Play can only provide access to their extensive game archives if a researcher physically makes the trip to their premises in Rochester, New York.
Enlarge/ Currently, the only way for researchers to access these games in the Strong Museum’s collection is to visit Rochester, New York, in person.
During the recent Copyright Office hearing, industry lawyer Robert Rothstein tried to argue that this amounts to more of a “travel problem” than a legal problem that requires new rule-making. But NYU professor Laine Nooney argued back that the need for travel represents “a significant financial and logistical impediment to doing research.”
For Nooney, getting from New York City to the Strong Museum in Rochester would require a five- to six-hour drive “on a good day,” they said, as well as overnight accommodations for any research that’s going to take more than a small part of one day. Because of this, Nooney has only been able to access the Strong collection twice in her career. For researchers who live farther afield—or for grad students and researchers who might not have as much funding—even a single research visit to the Strong might be out of reach.
“You don’t go there just to play a game for a couple of hours,” Nooney said. “Frankly my colleagues in literary studies or film history have pretty routine and regular access to digitized versions of the things they study… These impediments are real and significant and they do impede research in ways that are not equitable compared to our colleagues in other disciplines.”
During the hearing, lawyer Kendra Albert said the preservationists had proposed the idea of human review of requests for remote access to “strike a compromise” between “concerns of the ESA and the need for flexibility that we’ve emphasized on behalf of preservation institutions.” They compared the proposed system to the one already used to grant access for libraries’ “special collections,” which are not made widely available to all members of the public.
But while preservation institutions may want to provide limited scholarly access, Englund argued that “out in the real world, people want to preserve access in order to play games for fun.” He pointed to public comments made to the Copyright Office from “individual commenters [who] are very interested in playing games recreationally” as evidence that some will want to exploit this kind of system.
Even if an “Ivy League” library would be responsible with a proposed DMCA exemption, Englund worried that less scrupulous organizations might simply provide an online “checkbox” for members of the public who could easily lie about their interest in “scholarly play.” If a human reviewed that checkbox affirmation, it could provide a legal loophole to widespread access to an unlimited online arcade, Englund argued.
Phil Salvador of the Video Game History Foundation said that Englund’s concern about this score was overblown. “Building a video game collection is a specialized skill that most libraries do not have the human labor to do, or the expertise, or the resources, or even the interest,” he said.
Salvador estimated that the number of institutions capable of building a physical collection of historical games is in the “single digits.” And that’s before you account for the significant resources needed to provide remote access to those collections; Rhizome Preservation Director Dragan Espenschied said it costs their organization “thousands of dollars a month” to run the sophisticated cloud-based emulation infrastructure needed for a few hundred users to access their Emulation as a Serviceart archives and gaming retrospectives.
Salvador also made reference to last year’s VGHF study that found a whopping 87 percent of games ever released are out of print, making it difficult for researchers to get access to huge swathes of video game history without institutional help. And the games of most interest to researchers are less likely to have had modern re-releases since they tend to be the “more primitive” early games with “less popular appeal,” Salvador said.
The Copyright Office is expected to rule on the preservation community’s proposed exemption later this year. But for the moment, there is some frustration that the industry has not been at all receptive to the significant compromises the preservation community feels it has made on these potential concerns.
“None of that is ever going to be sufficient to reassure these rights holders that it will not cause harm,” Albert said at the hearing. “If we’re talking about practical realities, I really want to emphasize the fact that proponents have continually proposed compromises that allow preservation institutions to provide the kind of access that is necessary for researchers. It’s not clear to me that it will ever be enough.”
Enlarge/ The final letter from George Mallory from Camp I, Mount Everest, to his wife Ruth Mallory, May 27, 1924.
The Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge
In June 1924, a British mountaineer named George Leigh Mallory and a young engineering student named Andrew “Sandy” Irvine set off for the summit of Mount Everest and disappeared—just two casualties of a peak that has claimed over 300 lives to date. Mallory was an alumnus of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, which maintains a collection of his personal correspondence, much of it between Mallory and his wife, Ruth. The college has now digitized the entire collection for public access. The letters can be accessed and downloaded here.
“It has been a real pleasure to work with these letters,” said Magdalene College archivist Katy Green. “Whether it’s George’s wife Ruth writing about how she was posting him plum cakes and a grapefruit to the trenches (he said the grapefruit wasn’t ripe enough), or whether it’s his poignant last letter where he says the chances of scaling Everest are ’50 to 1 against us,’ they offer a fascinating insight into the life of this famous Magdalene alumnus.”
As previously reported, Mallory is the man credited with uttering the famous line “because it’s there” in response to a question about why he would risk his life repeatedly to summit Everest. An avid mountaineer, Mallory had already been to the mountain twice before the 1924 expedition: once in 1921 as part of a reconnaissance expedition to produce the first accurate maps of the region and again in 1922—his first serious attempt to summit, although he was forced to turn back on all three attempts. A sudden avalanche killed seven Sherpas on his third try, sparking accusations of poor judgement on Mallory’s part.
Undeterred, Mallory was back in 1924 for the fated Everest expedition that would claim his life at age 37. He aborted his first summit attempt, but on June 4, he and Irvine left Advanced Base Camp (21,330 feet/6,500 meters). They reached Camp 5 on June 6, and Camp 6 the following day, before heading out for the summit on June 8. Team member Noel Odell reported seeing the two men climbing either the First or Second Step around 1 pm before they were “enveloped in a cloud once more.”
Nobody ever saw Mallory and Irvine again, although their spent oxygen tanks were found just below the First Step. Climbers also found Irvine’s ice axe in 1933. Mallory’s body wasn’t found until 1999, when an expedition partially sponsored by Nova and the BBC found the remains on the mountain’s north face, at 26,760 feet (8,157 meters)—just below where Irvine’s axe had been found. The name tags on the clothing read “G. Leigh Mallory.” Personal artifacts confirmed the identity: an altimeter, a pocket knife, snow goggles, a letter, and a bill for climbing equipment from a London supplier. Irvine’s body has yet to be found, despite the best efforts of a 2019 National Geographic expedition, detailed in the riveting 2020 documentary Lost on Everest.
Enlarge/ Final page of letter from Ruth Mallory to George Mallory, March 3, 1924.
The Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge
The collection makes for some fascinating reading; Mallory led an adventurous life. Among the highlights of the Magdalene College collection is the final letter Mallory wrote to Ruth before attempting his fateful last summit attempt:
“Darling I wish you the best I can—that your anxiety will be at an end before you get this—with the best news. Which will also be the quickest. It is 50 to 1 against us but we’ll have a whack yet & do ourselves proud. Great love to you. Ever your loving, George.”
Three of the letters were found in Mallory’s jacket pocket 75 years after his disappearance when his body was discovered, exceptionally well-preserved. Other letters detailed his experiences at the Battle of the Somme during World War II; his first reconnaissance expedition to Everest; and the aforementioned second Everest expedition in which seven Sherpas were lost. On a lighter note are letters describing his adventures during a 1923 trip to the Prohibition Era US. (He would ask for milk at speakeasies and get whiskey served to him through a secret hatch.) There are also letters from Ruth—including her only surviving letter to Mallory during his Everest explorations—and from Mallory’s sister, Mary Brooke.
Only the most dedicated “Carmen” fans—or North Dakotan educators of a certain age—are likely to have this one in their collections.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
These “pretty cool stickers” came from a “Carmen Day” kit the producer Broderbund sent to school to encourage themed edutainment activities that went beyond the screen.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
As a nearby placard laments: “When female human characters were depicted in early video games, they often fell into stereotypical roles”—nature-loving girls or sexualized adults being chief among them.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
Despite the lack of diverse female representation in early games, early game ads were often equal-opportunity affairs.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
Don’t be fooled by the wide variety of headshots on these boxes—you needed to invest in “Alter Ego: Female Version” to get the full suite of personas.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
Kyle Orland / VGHF
We’re struggling to think of any other video games that came packaged with a harmonica.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
A standard Game Boy Camera hooked up to USB-C output via a customized board. VGHF used the setup to trade customized postcards for donations (see some examples in the background).
Kyle Orland / VGHF
“EXTREME CLOSE-UP IS EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT.”
Kyle Orland / VGHF
Be the coolest beachgoer in all of Zebes with these promotional sunglasses.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
A ’90s photo of the Maxis team, including a downright baby-faced Will Wright (back row, second from left).
Kyle Orland / VGHF
VGHF’s Phil Salvador told me that this cow was one of the top results when you searched for “’90s mousepad” on eBay.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
The brief heyday of music-based CD-ROM “multimedia” experiences is rightly forgotten by most consumers, and rightly remembered by organizations like VGHF.
Kyle Orland / VGHF
Ever wonder what specific pantone swatch to use for that perfect “Joker jacket purple”? Wonder no longer!
Kyle Orland / VGHF
SAN FRANCISCO—Trade shows like the Game Developers Conference and the (dearly departed) E3 are a great chance to see what’s coming down the pike for the game industry. But they can also be a great place to celebrate gaming’s history, as we’ve shown you with anynumber of on-sitephoto galleries in years past.
The history display tucked away in a corner of this year’s Game Developers Conference—the first one arranged by the Video Game History Foundation—was a little different. Rather than simply laying out a parcel of random collectibles, as past history-focused booths have, VGHF took a more curated approach, with mini-exhibits focused on specific topics like women in gaming, oddities of gaming music, and an entire case devoted to a little-known entry in a famous edutainment series.
Then there was the central case, devoted to the idea that all sorts of ephemera—from design docs to photos to pre-release prototypes to newsletters to promotional items—were all an integral part of video game history. The organization is practically begging developers, journalists, and fan hoarders of all stripes not to throw out even items that seem like they have no value. After all, today’s trash might be tomorrow’s important historic relic.
As we wrap up GDC (and get to work assembling what we’ve seen into future coverage), please enjoy this gallery of some of the more interesting historical specimens that the VGHF had at this year’s show.
Enlarge/ Oil painting by Victor Eustaphieff of Charles Darwin in his study at Down House. One of the many bookcases that made up his extensive personal library is reflected in the mirror.
State Darwin Museum, Moscow
Famed naturalist Charles Darwin amassed an impressive personal library over the course of his life, much of which was preserved and cataloged upon his death in 1882. But many other items were lost, including more ephemeral items like unbound volumes, pamphlets, journals, clippings, and so forth, often only vaguely referenced in Darwin’s own records.
For the last 18 years, the Darwin Online project has painstakingly scoured all manner of archival records to reassemble a complete catalog of Darwin’s personal library virtually. The project released its complete 300-page online catalog—consisting of 7,400 titles across 13,000 volumes, with links to electronic copies of the works—to mark Darwin’s 215th birthday on February 12.
“This unprecedentedly detailed view of Darwin’s complete library allows one to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone but an expert of his time building on the sophisticated science and studies and other knowledge of thousands of people,” project leader John van Wyhe of the National University of Singapore said. “Indeed, the size and range of works in the library makes manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin’s research into the work of others.”
Darwin was a notoriously voracious reader, and Down House was packed with books, scientific journals pamphlets, and magazine clippings that caught his interest. He primarily kept his personal library in his study: an “Old Study” and, after an 1877 addition to the west end of the house, a “New Study.” A former governess named Louise Buob described how Darwin’s books and papers inevitably spilled “into the hall and corridors, whose walls are covered with books.”
The French literary critic Francisque Sarcey remarked in 1880 that the walls of the New Study were concealed “top to bottom” with books, as well as two bookcases in the middle of the study—one filled with books, the other with scientific instruments. This was very much a working library, with well-worn and often tattered books, as opposed to fine leather-bound volumes designed for display. After Darwin died, an appraiser valued the scientific library at just 30 pounds (about 2,000 pounds today) and the entire collection of books at a mere 66 pounds (about 4,400 pounds today). Collectors now pay a good deal more for a single book that once belonged to Darwin.
Enlarge/ An issue of a German scientific periodical sent to Darwin in 1877; it contained the first published photographs of bacteria.
Public domain
The two main collections of Darwin’s books—amounting to some 1,480 titles—are housed at the University of Cambridge and Down House, respectively, but that number does not include the more ephemeral items referred to in Darwin’s own records. According to the folks at Darwin Online, tracking down every single obscure reference to a publication was a case study in diligent detective work since Darwin often only hurriedly jotted down a few notes, with crucial information like author, date, or even the source of a clipping often missing.
Many of these have now been identified for the first time. One of the project’s major sources was a handwritten 426-page compilation from 1875, whose abbreviated entries eventually yielded 440 previously unknown titles originally in Darwin’s library. They also scoured Darwin’s reading notebooks, Emma Darwin’s diaries, a 1908 catalog of books donated to Cambridge, and the Darwin Correspondence (30 volumes in all), as well as historic auction and rare book catalogs.
The newly discovered items in Darwin’s library include works by philosophers John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte, as well as Charles Babbage and what was at the time a controversial book on gorillas: Paul du Chaillu’s Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. The naturalist also owned a copy of an 1826 article on the habits of the turkey buzzard by ornithologist John James Audubon. His personal library also included less heady fare, like a coffee table book of heliotrope illustrations, an 1832 road atlas of England and Wales, an 1852 treatise on investments, a book about chess, an illustrated 1821 book on the Nomenclature of Colours, and a book on the “water cure” for chronic disease. (Darwin was a devotee of the water cure—not to be confused with the method of torture—for his many ailments.)
As impressive as the Darwin Online catalog currently is, the project is still ongoing. “There can be no doubt that further works that belonged to Darwin and his family remain to be recorded here,” the folks at Darwin Online wrote, and the project welcomes any information that leads to those missing works.
Enlarge/ The frontispiece of the Principles of Geology, volume 1 by Charles Lyell, a book from which Darwin drew inspiration to explain how species change over time.
Enlarge/ “Expanding the Possibilities…..with Artificial Intelligence”
Even massive Sega fans would be forgiven for not being too familiar with the Sega AI Computer. After all, the usually obsessive documentation over at Sega Retro includes only the barest stub of an information page for the quixotic, education-focused 1986 hardware.
Thankfully, the folks at the self-described “Sega 8-bit preservation and fanaticism” site SMS Power have been able to go a little deeper. The site’s recently posted deep dive on the Sega AI Computer includes an incredible amount of well-documented information on this historical oddity, including ROMs for dozens of previously unpreserved pieces of software that can now be partially run on MAME.
An ’80s vision of AI’s future
Enlarge/ The Sega AI Computer hardware, complete with keyboard and Sound Box accessories.
The Sega AI Computer sports a 16-bit NEC chip running at a blazing 5 Mhz and a massive 128KB of RAM (those adjectives were much less ironic when the computer was released in 1986). SMS Power’s research suggests the device was “mostly sold to Japanese schools” between 1986 and 1989, which helps explain its overall obscurity decades later. Ads from the time suggest a US version was briefly planned but never released.
Despite the Japan-only release, the Sega AI Computer’s casing includes an English-language message stressing its support for the AI-focused Prolog language and a promise that it will “bring you into the world of artificial intelligence.” Indeed, a 1986 article in Electronics magazine (preserved by SMS Power) describes what sounds like a kind of simple and wholesome early progenitor of today’s world of generative AI creations:
In the prompt mode, the child is asked about his or her activities during the day and replies with one- and two-word answers. The computer program then writes a grammatically correct diary entry based on those replies. In more advanced CAI applications, the computer is more flexible than previous systems. It can parse a user’s natural-language inputs and evaluate the person’s ability level. It can then proceed to material of appropriate difficulty, rather than simply advancing one level at a time.
Besides its unique focus on an ’80s-era vision of AI, the Sega AI Computer is also notable for its use of a controller that features a large rectangular touch surface that could be customized with overlays included in the software to make a brand-new interface. The system also features a built-in speech synthesizer that could re-create basic Japanese phonemes and an FM audio chip that could play back samples like those stored on some of the system’s cassette-tape software.
A preservation mountain climb
Enlarge/ These ’80s-era Japanese schoolchildren are ready to learn about AI with Sega’s help!
While the general existence of the Sega AI Computer has been known in certain circles for a while, detailed information about its workings and software was extremely hard to come by, especially in the English-speaking world. That began to change in 2014 when a rare Yahoo Auctions listing offered a boxed AI Computer along with 15 pieces of software. The site was able to crowdfund the winning bid on that auction (which reportedly ran the equivalent of $1,100) and later obtained a keyboard and more software from the winner of a 2022 auction.
SMS Power notes that the majority of the software it has uncovered “had zero information about them on the Internet prior to us publishing them: no screenshots, no photos or scans of actual software.” Now, the site’s community has taken the trouble to preserve all those ROMs and create a new MAME driver that already allows for “partial emulation” of the system (which doesn’t yet include a keyboard, tape drive, or speech emulation support).
The title screen of a Gulliver’s Travels-themed piece of software for the Sega AI Computer.
That dumped software is all “educational and mostly aimed at kids,” SMS Power notes, and is laden with Japanese text that will make it hard for many foreigners to even tinker with. That means this long-lost emulation release probably won’t set the MAME world on fire as 2022’s surprise dump of Marble Madness II did.
Still, it’s notable how much effort the community has put in to fill a formerly black hole in our understanding of this corner of Sega history. SMS Power’s write-up of its findings is well worth a full look, as is the site’s massive Google Drive, which is filled with documentation, screenshots, photos, contemporaneous articles and ads, and much more.
There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Pirates! Specifically, an interview with historian Rebecca Simon on the real-life buccaneer bylaws that shaped every aspect of a pirate’s life.
One of the many amusing scenes in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl depicts Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) invoking the concept of “parley” in the pirate code to negotiate a cease of hostilities with pirate captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). “The code is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules,” he informs her. Rebecca Simon, a historian at Santa Monica College, delves into the real, historical set of rules and bylaws that shaped every aspect of a pirate’s life with her latest book. The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship.
Simon is the author of such books as Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How He Changed Piracy Forever and Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Her PhD thesis research focused on pirate trails and punishment. She had been reading a book about Captain Kidd and the war against the pirates, and was curious as to why he had been executed in an East London neighborhood called Wapping, at Execution Dock on the Thames. People were usually hung at Tyburn in modern day West London at Marble Arch. “Why was Captain Kidd taken to a different place? What was special about that?” Simon told Ars. “Nothing had been written much about it at all, especially in connection to piracy. So I began researching how pirate trials and executions were done in London. I consider myself to be a legal historian of crime and punishment through the lens of piracy.”
Enlarge/ (left) Fanciful painting of Kidd and his ship, Adventure Galley, in New York Harbor. (right) Captain Kidd, gibbeted near Tilbury in Essex following his execution in 1701.
Public domain
Ars Technica: How did the idea of a pirates’ code come about?
Rebecca Simon: Two of the pirates that I mention in the book—Ned Low and Bartholomew Roberts—their code was actually published in newspapers in London. I don’t where they got it. Maybe it was made up for the sake of readership because that is getting towards the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy, the 1720s. But we find examples of other codes in A General History of the Pyrates written by a man named Captain Charles Johnson in 1724. It included many pirate biographies and a lot of it was very largely fictionalized. So we take it with a grain of salt. But we do know that pirates did have a notion of law and order and regulations and ritual based on survivor accounts.
You had to be very organized. You had to have very specific rules because as a pirate, you’re facing death every second of the day, more so than if you are a merchant or a fisherman or a member of the Royal Navy. Pirates go out and attack to get the goods that they want. In order to survive all that, they have to be very meticulously prepared. Everyone has to know their exact role and everyone has to have a game plan going in. Pirates didn’t attack willy-nilly out of control. No way. They all had a role.
Ars Technica: Is it challenging to find primary sources about this? You rely a lot trial transcripts, as well as eyewitness accounts and maritime logs.
Rebecca Simon: It’s probably one of the best ways to learn about how pirates lived on the ship, especially through their own words, because pirates didn’t leave records. These trial transcripts were literal transcriptions of the back and forth between the lawyer and the pirate, answering very specific questions in very specific detail. They were transcribed verbatim and they sold for profit. People found them very interesting. It’s really the only place where we really get to hear the pirate’s voice. So to me that was always one of the best ways to find information about pirates, because anything else you’re looking at is the background or the periphery around the pirates: arrest records, or observations of how the pirate seemed to be acting and what the pirate said. We have to take that with a grain of salt because we’re only hearing it from a third party.
Ars Technica: Some of the pirate codes seemed surprisingly democratic. They divided the spoils equally according to rank, so there was a social hierarchy. But there was also a sense of fairness.
Rebecca Simon: You needed to have a sense of order on a pirate ship. One of the big draws that pirates used to recruit hostages to officially join them into piracy was to tell them they’d get an equal share. This was quite rare on many other ships. where payment was based per person, or maybe just a flat rate across the board. A lot of times your wages might get withheld or you wouldn’t necessarily get the wages you were promised. On a pirate ship, everyone had the amount of money they were going to get based on the hierarchy and based on their skill level. The quartermaster was in charge of doling out all of the spoils or the stolen goods. If someone was caught taking more of their share, that was a huge deal.
You could get very severely punished perhaps by marooning or being jailed below the hold. The punishment had to be decided by the whole crew, so it didn’t seem like the captain was being unfair or overly brutal. Pirates could also vote out their captain if they felt the captain was doing a bad job, such as not going after enough ships, taking too much of his share, being too harsh in punishment, or not listening to the crew. Again, this is all to keep order. You had to keep morale very high, you had to make sure there was very little discontent or infighting.
Enlarge/ “The code is more like guidelines than actual rules”: Geoffrey Rush as Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
Walt Disney Pictures
Ars Technica: Pirates have long been quite prominent in popular culture. What explains their enduring appeal?
Rebecca Simon: During the 1700s, when pirates were very active, they fascinated people in London and England because they were very far removed from piracy, more so than those who traded a lot for a living in North America and the Caribbean. But it used to be that you were born into your social class and there was no social mobility. You’re born poor because your father was poor, your grandfather was poor, your children will be poor, your grandchildren will be poor. Most pirates started out as poor sailors but as pirates they could become wealthy. If a pirate was lucky, they could make enough in one or two years and then retire and live comfortably. People also have a morbid fascination for these brutal people committing crimes. Think about all the true crime podcasts and true crime documentaries on virtually every streaming service today. We’re just attracted to that. It was the same with piracy.
Going into the 19th century, we have the publication of the book Treasure Island, an adventure story harking back to this idea of piracy in a way that generations hadn’t seen before. This is during a time period where there was sort of a longing for adventure in general and Treasure Island fed into this. That is what spawned the pop culture pirate going into the 20th century. Everything people know about pirates, for the most part, they’re getting from Treasure Island. The whole treasure map, X marks the spot, the eye patch, the peg leg, the speech. Pirate popularity has ebbed and flowed in the 20th and 21st centuries. Of course, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was a smash hit. And I think during the pandemic, people were feeling very confined and upset with leadership. Pirates were appealing because they cast all that off and we got shows like Black Sails and Our Flag Means Death.
Ars Technica: Much of what you do is separate fact from fiction, such as the legend of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. What are some of the common misconceptions that you find yourself correcting, besides buried treasure?
Rebecca Simon: A lot of people ask me about the pirate accent: “Aaarr matey!” That accent we think of comes from the actor Robert Newton who played Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island. In reality, it just depended on where they were born. At the end of the day, pirates were sailors. People ask about what they wore, what they ate, thinking it’s somehow different. But the reality is it was the same as other sailors. They might have had better clothes and better food because of how often they robbed other ships.
Another misconception is that pirates were after gold and jewels and treasure. In the 17th and 18th centuries, “treasure” just meant “valuable.” They wanted goods they could sell. So about 50 percent was stuff they kept to replenish their own ship and their stores. The other 50 percent were goods they could sell: textiles, wine, rum, sugar, and (unfortunately) the occasional enslaved person counted as cargo. There’s also a big misconception that pirates were all about championing the downtrodden:they hated slavery and they freed enslaved people. They hated corrupt authority. That’s not the reality. They were still people of their time. Blackbeard, aka Edward Teach, did capture a slave ship and he did include those slaves in his crew. But he later sold them at a slave port.
Enlarge/ Female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read were a deadly duo who plundered their way to infamy.
Public domain
Thanks to Our Flag Means Death and Black Sails, people sometimes assume that all pirates were gay or bisexual. That’s also not true. The concept of homosexuality as we think of it just didn’t exist back then. It was more situational homosexuality arising from confined close quarters and being very isolated for a long period of time. And it definitely was not all pirates. There was about the same percentage of gay or bisexual pirates as your own workplace, but it was not discussed and it was considered to be a crime. There’s this idea that pirate ships had gay marriage; that wasn’t necessarily a thing. They practiced something called matelotage, a formal agreement where you would be legally paired with someone because if they died, it was a way to ensure their goods went to somebody. It was like a civil union. Were some of these done romantically? It’s possible. We just don’t know because that sort of stuff was never, ever recorded.
Ars Technica: Your prior book, Pirate Queens, focused on female pirates like Anne Bonny and Mary Read. It must have been challenging for a woman to pass herself off as a man on a pirate ship.
Rebecca Simon: You’d have to take everything in consideration, the way you dressed, the way you walked, the way you talked. A lot of women who would be on a pirate ship were probably very wiry, having been maids who hauled buckets of coal and water and goods and did a lot of physical activity all day. They could probably pass themselves off as boys or adolescents who were not growing facial hair. So it probably wasn’t too difficult. Going to the bathroom was a a big thing. Men would pee over the edge of the ship. How’s a woman going to do this? You put a funnel under the pirate dress and pee through the funnel, which can create a stream going over the side of the ship. When it’s really crowded, men aren’t exactly going to be looking at that very carefully.
The idea of Anne Bonny and Mary Read being lesbians is a 20th century concept, originating with an essay by a feminist writer in the 1970s. There’s no evidence for it. There’s no historical documentation about them before they entered into piracy. According to Captain Charles Johnson’s highly fictionalized account, Mary disguised herself as a male sailor. Anne fell in love with this male sailor on the ship and tried to seduce him, only to discover he was a woman. Anne was “disappointed.” There’s no mention of Anne and Mary actually getting together. Anne was the lover of Calico Jack Rackham, Mary was married to a crew member. This was stated in the trial. And when both women were put on trial and found guilty of piracy, they both revealed they were pregnant.
Enlarge/ Rebecca Simon is the author of The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ships/
University of Chicago Press/Rebecca Simon
Ars Technica: Pirates had notoriously short careers: about two years on average. Why would they undertake all that risk for such a short time?
Rebecca Simon: There’s the idea that you can get wealthy quickly. There were a lot of people who became pirates because they had no other choice. Maybe they were criminals or work was not available to them. Pirate ships were extremely diverse. You did have black people as crew members, maybe freed enslaved or escaped enslaved people. They usually had the most menial jobs, but they did exist on ships. Some actively chose it because working conditions on merchant ships and naval ships were very tough and they didn’t always have access to good food or medical care. And many people were forced into it, captured as hostages to replace pirates who had been killed in battle.
Ars Technica: What were the factors that led to the end of what we call the Golden Age of Piracy?
Rebecca Simon: There were several reasons why piracy really began to die down in the 1720s. One was an increase in the Royal Navy presence so the seas were a lot more heavily patrolled and it was becoming more difficult to make a living as a pirate. Colonial governors and colonists were no longer supporting pirates the way they once had, so a lot of pirates were now losing their alliances and protections. A lot of major pirate leaders who had been veterans of the War of the Spanish Succession as privateers had been killed in battle by the 1720s: people like Charles Vane, Edward Teach, Benjamin Hornigold, Henry Jennings, and Sam Bellamy.
It was just becoming too risky. And by 1730 a lot more wars were breaking out, which required people who could sail and fight. Pirates were offered pardons if they agreed to become a privateer, basically a government-sanctioned mercenary at sea where they were contracted to attack specific enemies. As payment they got to keep about 80 percent of what they stole. A lot of pirates decided that was more lucrative and more stable.
Ars Technica: What was the most surprising thing that you learned while you were researching and writing this book?
Rebecca Simon: Stuff about food, oddly enough. I was really surprised by how much people went after turtles as food. Apparently turtles are very high in vitamin C and had long been believed to cure all kinds of illnesses and impotence. Also, pirates weren’t really religious, but Bartholomew Roberts would dock at shore so his crew could celebrate Christmas—perhaps as an appeasement. When pirates were put on trial, they always said they were forced into it. The lawyers would ask if they took their share after the battle ended. If they said yes, the law deemed them a pirate. You therefore participated; it doesn’t matter if they forced you. Finally, my PhD thesis was on crime and the law and executions. People would ask me about ships but I didn’t study ships at all. So this book really branched out my maritime knowledge and helped me understand how ships worked and how the people on board operated.
Enlarge/ This photo is exactly what it was like to be on the E3 show floor. Exactly.
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images
Today’s news that the Electronic Entertainment Expo is officially, totally, and completely dead was a bit bittersweet for your humble Ars Technica Senior Gaming Editor. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss the chance to meet industry luminaries, connect with far-flung associates, and play games months ahead of time in a setting that’s as much a theme park as a trade show. But after spending many a late night covering 15 E3 shows in 16 years, I can say that the crowds, the smells, and the sensory overload associated with the LA Convention Center aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be.
Still, those who have been there will tell you that, for a gaming fan, there was nothing quite like the bombast and spectacle of the E3 show floor in its heyday.
For those who haven’t been there, we’ve sorted through literally hundreds of E3 photos taken by Ars journalists over the years to assemble a few dozen of the best into this visual travelogue-meets-history-lesson. We hope that skimming through the galleries below will give you some idea of the madcap event that E3 was and why it has generated so many lasting memories for those who attended.
The people
From corporate cosplayers to celebrity guests, E3 was a great place for people-watching. Here are some of the favorite people we spotted over the years.
2013: Shigeru Miyamoto himself makes a stateside appearance to promote Pikmin 3.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains introduces Rocksmith at the Ubisoft press conference.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: The Shins play Microsoft’s preview event/press conference.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: I’m pretty sure Kratos can take this guy.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: I’m ready for my close-up, and my BRAAAAAAAAINS!
Andrew Cunningham
2015: People scoffed when Capcom added a balding journalist to the Street Fighter lineup, but he has become one of the series’ most enduring characters.
Mark Walton
2016: To promote Mafia III, 2K Games had a jazz band play a fake, New Orleans-style funeral procession up and down the E3 halls and sidewalks.
Kyle Orland
2016: Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves brought the sea shanties to the show floor.
Sam Machkovech
2016: The escort missions in “Warrior Princess meets Captain Carrot” are pretty hilarious, I have to say.
Kyle Orland
2016: Heihachi still knows how to impress the ladies.
Kyle Orland
2016: This “walker” from Horizon: New Dawn wandered the show floor as a giant puppet operated by a single person.
Sam Machkovech
2018: Good dog…
Kyle Orland
2018: A group of B-boys add to the atmosphere of a fake New York street Sony set up to promote Spider-Man.
Kyle Orland
2018: Sony’s Astro Bot isn’t quite as popular as Mario, but it’s not for lack of trying (or maybe it is…)
Kyle Orland
2018: This woman was literally screaming and running away from these costumed zombies just before this picture. I still don’t know if she was part of the act.
Kyle Orland
2018: Before playing the remake of Resident Evil 2, you had to walk through a “blood”-stained hallway featuring this fellow.
Kyle Orland
2019: The EA Play event at the Hollywood Palladium included this impressive cast of paid Apex Legends cosplayers. Yes, the person cosplaying as Octane is a bilateral amputee.
2019: Nothing says “E3” like a guy in a Yoshi/Mario costume livestreaming himself as he balks loudly at the show floor’s $6 pretzels.
Kyle Orland
The scenery
Publishers easily spent tens of thousands of dollars for decorations that they hoped would make their booth stand out on the crowded E3 show floor each year. Here are some of our favorite larger-than-life statues and installations.
2014: A life-sized Mario Kart adorns Nintendo’s booth to promote Mario Kart 8.
Andrew Cunningham
2014: You might say that riding this hover-bike is my… destiny.
Andrew Cunningham
2014: Tanks hanging from the ceiling are what E3 is all about.
Andrew Cunningham
2015: Lego Hulk smash!
Mark Walton
2015: Doom enemies are WAY more intense in person…
Mark Walton
2015: Life-size Pip-Boy approves of E3!
Mark Walton
2015: I, for one, welcome our alien overlords…
Mark Walton
2015: You died… at E3!
Mark Walton
2016: Sea of Thieves apparently has an ESRB rating of “Arrrrrrrr.”
2017: Why settle for balloon animals when you can have balloon demons?
Sam Machkovech
2017: It’s not a floating tank, but it’ll do.
Kyle Orland
2017: A rare viewpoint on a cross-eyed Mario tank.
Kyle Orland
2017: One of these things is not like the others…
Kyle Orland
2017: Donkey Kong has been taking a lot of performance-enhancing drugs, and it shows.
Kyle Orland
2018: This loop treadmill was closed after the first day of the show after someone fell over and cut their lip when trying to do a cartwheel on it.
Kyle Orland
2019: Link delves into a dungeon in a cute Nintendo booth diorama.
Sam Machkovech
2019: I’ll get you for this, Lego Jabba the Hutt!
Sam Machkovech
2019: This re-creation of an iconic FFVII backdrop was there to promote the remake.
Sam Machkovech
The history
Multiple E3 shows featured a small corner devoted to showing off rarities and collections from various video game history museums. Here are some of our favorite artifacts on the E3 show floor.
2013: An attendee plays Wario Land on a retail display unit for Nintendo’s Game Boy.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: We’re all used to game achievements now, but Activision was a real pioneer here. Each of these patches could be won by achieving certain goals in Activision games, photographing your TV screen, and mailing the photo in. Atari Age has an excellent roundup of the patches and the actions needed to get them.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: Only 116 of these cartridges were produced and given to competitors in a 1990 game championship held by Nintendo. In the rare events when these cartridges have been sold, they commonly fetch more than $10,000.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: An in-store demo kiosk for the Atari 800, a computer and game system that originally shipped with 8KB of RAM.
Andrew Cunningham
2014: Atari feels the existence of the “Game Boy” implies the necessity for a “Game Girl.”
Andrew Cunningham
2014: Before the Apple Watch, this was some of the best interactive content you could get on your wrist.
Andrew Cunningham
2015: A rare relic from the NES’s limited New York launch in 1985.
Sam Machkovech
2015: You might remember Columbia House for its “11 albums for a penny” catalog offers, but did you know it had a video game offering, too?
Sam Machkiovech
2015: If you mess with a retro console maker, you mess with me, pard’ner…
Sam Machkovech
2015: You’re asking a lot of questions about my “Just another high-strung prima donna from Atari” shirt that are already answered by the shirt.
Sam Machkovech
2015: In an alternate universe, we all fondly remember this multicolored monstrosity rather than Atari’s wood-grained Video Computer System.
Sam Machkovech
2018: Sega eventually abandoned this modem-equipped version of the Saturn for the Dreamcast.
Sam Machkovech
2019: The innards of an extremely rare prototype of a full-color Vectrex console.
Sam Machkovech
2019: Members of the original Xbox team got a limited edition system signed by Bill Gates himself.
Sam Machkovech
The crowds
Fighting through a wall-to-wall sea of people as you rush from South to West Hall for an appointment is not an experience we’re eager to repeat. Hopefully, these photos will give you some idea of the massive throngs of humanity that filled the LA Convention Center for E3 each year.
2013: The line to get into Microsoft’s Xbox press conference snaked around the block.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: Food trucks with huge lines feed hungry journalists between the Microsoft and EA press conferences
Andrew Cunningham
2013: A mad rush of attendees swamps the escalators as the show floor opens.
Andrew Cunningham
2013: A sea of humanity in the third-party-publisher-filled South Hall.
Andrew Cunningham
2014: Very little elbow room at Sony’s booth.
Andrew Cunningham
2015: Microsoft’s press conference lit the assembled throngs in Xbox’s signature neon green, which made everyone in attendance look like the Incredible Hulk.
Mark Walton
2015: Sony’s press conference crowds are lit in a much more flattering blue light.
Mark Walton
2015: These innocent bystanders should really get out of the way just in case the console war becomes a shooting war.
Mark Walton
2016: One of the longest lines at this year’s E3 was for Naughty America VR, the first porn company to have an E3 booth in as long as we can remember.
Sam Machkovech
The oddities
Since the days of the departed Kentia Hall, E3 has hosted some truly odd, loosely game-related products and displays. Here are a few of the oddest sights we stumbled across.
2015: Want to run in place on a slippery floor while in VR? The Virtuix Omni has you covered.
Mark Walton
2016: This giant NES controller was a big attraction for the 8bitdo booth for many years.
Kyle Orland
2019: Sega promotes the Genesis Mini with a not-so-mini controller.
Sam Machkovech
2019: While E3 has featured plenty of giant controllers, it has only featured one with a screen embedded inside, as far as I can tell.
Kyle Orland
2016: The Fulldome Pro was supposed to be some sort of immersive 3D display, but it looks a little hard to imagine in a living room, to be honest. One of the smaller projection domes on the show floor was by Fulldome Pro.
Kyle Orland
2016: I like to look at this picture and imagine the man in the cardigan is about 2 inches tall.
Kyle Orland
2016: A PC case shaped like Winston helps promote Overwatch.
Sam Machkovech
2016: Attendees get a hold of some, uh, unorthodox controllers at the Devolver Digital parking lot just outside of E3.
Sam Machkovech
2018: Hard to argue with this slogan for an accessory that provides wireless virtual reality.
Kyle Orland
2019: Pixl Cube was one of the more inventive games at the Indiecade booth, a tilt-sensitive box with LED dots that moved through a maze as if pulled by gravity.
Kyle Orland
2013: Parappa and I bid you a fond farewell from the storied halls of E3.
February is Black History Month and it’s not too late to honor through the magic of XR thanks to these activations from ROSE, TIME and Meta, and Virbela.
Walk Through Black History With ROSE
As a Black-owned company, ROSE makes an effort every year to create an immersive and educational experience for Black History Month, and this year the company delivered yet again. This year’s AR experience, with “resistance” as the highlight, is titled Marching Forward.
The experience, which you can visit here on your smartphone, takes the form of a double row of AR statues. You walk down the aisle and tap the statues to learn more about their inspiration.
“We really wanted to create balance within the experience with the solid bronze look of the statues and in turn, draw the users to explore the changing Black Lives Matter text on the ground,” explained ROSE Art Director Jourdan Johnson. “The text updates to display colorized images related to the moment to get a better understanding of what they are learning about.”
This involves physically moving down the aisle, which is a powerful experience but can be complicated for example in smaller spaces. If you need more room or have mobility issues, you can reposition the experience to make it easier.
The stories start with the roots of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, moving up through the Black Panther Party, art and literature movements through the 1980s, and moving up into the current-day BLM movement. The story behind each statue is read by professional voice actress Joy Ofodu. You also have the option to read the information yourself.
“From a podium or a canvas, your voice can be heard and can make a difference. That is an important message for everyone going through this experience,” said Johnson. “We can use the knowledge of the past and get inspired, particularly for those who are not Black, to support and amplify Black voices in our communities in a multitude of ways.”
Experience the Struggle With TIME and Meta
Meta teamed up with TIME to create MLK: The Time is Now, a free experience exploring how ongoing issues like housing, voting rights, and law enforcement practices remain real issues facing the Black community 60 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The experience works comfortably while sitting and employs hand tracking.
Hand tracking is often an intimate part of the experience, bringing users into the different vignettes presented in the experiences. For example, the second experience, putting you in the seat of a Black man in a car that has just been pulled over, only progresses when you take your hands off of the steering wheel, escalating the situation with the four police officers.
The experience, available on Meta Quest, uses a combination of artistic and engaging virtual reality, moving voiceovers, recorded interviews with modern subjects, and archival footage and audio. Overall, the experience is a brief but powerful exploration of the fact that the Voting Rights Act did not bring complete equality.
This experience was not created specifically for Black History Month – it actually came out last month. But, if you’re looking for educational XR experiences to celebrate BHM, put this on your list. And, if you don’t get around to it in February, it isn’t going anywhere.
Step Into Virbela’s New and Improved Black History Library
For our final stop this Black History Month, we’re visiting Virbela. If you’ve celebrated Black History Month with ARPost in the past, you already know about Virbela’s Black History Library. It’s true, this isn’t the first time that the platform has hosted this initiative, but it is the first time since the platform got a major graphics update last spring.
The library is bigger, brighter, and better than ever in its new home. Inside, the library is divided into sections on musicians, authors, playwrights, programmers, and more. So, browse around or go straight to what interests you. The actual items in the library are links that take you to reading suggestions, music playlists, and other resources.
To find the library, enter the Virbela open campus. Then, click on the map icon in the upper right corner. At the top of the page, change the view from “Campus Map” to “World Map” and select the Black History Library from the menu on the right.
How Do You Honor Black History Month
Whether you’re walking through Black history with ROSE, putting your hands on it with TIME and Meta, or reading up on it with Virbela, we hope that you make the best of this Black History Month by diving into XR.
