The secret origins of AOL, Pixar, LucasArts Games and MMORPGs in general. This stuff already sounds like people reminiscing about the golden age of silent movies, even though it was just 1985. To add to the ambience, here’s Andre and Wally B, the SIGGRAPH short that alledgedly cost George Lucas $500,000, and prompted him to sell-off almost all of the computery bits of Lucasfilm (including Pixar and DroidWorks). It just reeks of those odd, flickery, and honestly rather dreadful forays in the early days of cinema.
“Even though it was just 1985”. 1985 is almost twenty years ago now. I was born in 1969; as far as I can work out, modern television hit its stride in the early 50s (let’s say 1954). So TV was 25 years ago when I was born. When I was growing up, TV seemed to be something that had existed forever – or, at the very least, it was a medium that had finished growing up. But now I’ve seen it for over half its life. Twenty years ago seems about right for the start of computer animation; I can imagine that stabilising out in five or so years time. How long does television last? Could it outlive me? I can imagine “100 Years of Television” – I might live to see that. Will I live to see 100 Years of Computer Animation? What will they play “Andre and Wally B” on then?