Twelve years of Quake
This last sunday it was exactly twelve years since the shareware release of Quake by id Software was released. Twelve years! (my goodness I’m getting old). It was a coincidence I noticed it. This last weekend I was spending some more time on my Octane and after I installed all the (more or less) serious stuff, I felt like installing a game too and what else than my all time favourite game, Quake?
click to enlarge
Well, the Octane is quick enough to run Quake III (not that that is a major feat nowadays, with iPhones and iPod touches running it too), but I’m having some small issues with that and so I thought I grab back to good old Quake 1 for now and have a trip down memory lane running around some levels. (I hardly played Quake II for no particular reason)
Ages ago already I’ve written a little bit about how my roommate and I used to connect our Pentiums (oh yeah!) together with a homemade serial cable. Back in 1996 I bought a Pentium 133 (on an Asus P55T2P4) and at the same time they gave these CDs away at my university with this very shareware version of Quake. After years of watching Doom and Wolfenstein on other people’s 486s, I had a machine that could games like that and even something better and that was, of course, Quake.
Not long after the shareware version, my roommate and I got a full version of the game and later on also the first mission pack, Scourge of Armagon and we’ve wasted hours on that, especially on the deathmatch level of Scourge of Armagon.
(and I just knew that, back in the days, I read about Quake on well, a blog before there were blogs and I found it (it’s in Dutch). Coincedentally, the guy who wrote all that (and a lot about Quake too) is now my editor in chief at Bright.)
two networked SGIs running Quake… Bates?
click to enlarge
Well, back to here and now. While I was busy building my ultimate Quake 1 setup (I mean, two networked SGIs running Quake, this was the stuff of (my) dreams twelve years ago), just for the fun of it, I also googled a bit and found Scourge done Slick, Toon version, a machinima ‘movie’ made by QdQ, Quake done Quick taking place in Scourge of Armagon, the first mission pack. It’s a nice movie and good to bring back memories without the need to install the game.
Also good for getting back those memories is this speedrun through Quake 1:
direct link to video on youtube
link to higher-res version on archive.org
It was only now that I found that Quake (and Doom too) actually has been developed on NeXT/NeXTSTEP. Those must’ve been some exciting times (read that post by John Romero!)
Googling around, I guess I also found the ultimate setup when you happen to have a CAVE at your disposal. I mean, take a look at this! (and wait for the weapons at around 30 seconds):
(FYI, the guy is wearing 3D goggles, so he sees all this *in stereo*)
direct link to video on youtube
CAVE Quake III Arena
(check out the download section if you really happen to have a CAVE)
Well, as long as I keep blogging, every once in a while I’ll probably grab back to Quake 1 and I’ll be back with some Quake III goodness too once I’ve got that up and running on my iPhone Octane2. Quake (and the stuff of id Software in general) made such a big impression on me back then, that it keeps coming back. But well, maybe I’m getting as obsolete as the games I play and the hardware I own.
Whatever the case (and even though I’m late):
Happy birthday Quake!
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(my dad bought a book with all doom cheat codes…when we had the 486…well, i still have it (: )
(are we going to play quake together like those cybergeekteenagers?)
Hi :)
I loved Quake! It was the first game I played online, and still have IP Addresses of a few servers written down (not sure if they are still up). Did become rather addicted!
It’s the sounds in Quake (1) that do it for me, mmmm :)
You know, I’m surprised that you haven’t done anything yet with the Asus EEE PC. I have one and even I who does practically no mods added internal bluetooth
Well, I have done something with the EEE PC for the Dutch Bright magazine, but not here. I mean, with all the possible hacks done in no-time, I wouldn’t know at this point what I could do with it. It never has been my goal to simply copy hacks over here.
omg… can it be run on iphone? how?
...what kind of speakers and stands are you running there?! I am trying to come up with a solution to mount a pair of studio monitors just like that and all the professional stands are $$ and look bad.
thx for your help
the speakers are a pair of 2nd hand Mission 760i and the stands are… from IKEA
I connected them to an old Sony amplifier and it sounds quite good actually, much better than whatever kind of ‘computer speakers’ if you ask me.
Only thing is, the speakers aren’t magnetically shielded, but they’re not close to any CRT or such for causing distortion of any kind.
How well does your Indigo2 play Quake? What kind of graphics does it have?
I connected them to an old Sony amplifier and it sounds quite good actually, much better than whatever kind of ‘computer speakers’ if you ask me.