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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Nostalgia Trip

The Boy, like his progeny Mason, hated naps and would often fight sleep tooth and nail. But I had a secret weapon:



I had an Amiga 500 back then, and “demo” writers would compete to create the most mind-blowing graphics and sound effects that would run. You might not think it much, but remember this was running on 23-year old hardware. Amigas had special graphics and sound hardware built-in, taking the load off the CPU — the name “Wild Copper” came from the nickname of the graphics co-processor. Modern CPUs are hundreds of times more powerful these days, and don't need all the help.

Back to The Boy. At Mason’s current age, he was fascinated with “Copper,” with its spinning wireframes and scrolling text. When he needed a nap, I’d ask him “Do you want to see Copper?” and he’d sit still to watch it, sometimes bouncing to the music, until he slowly leaned back against me then turned around to fall asleep on my shoulder.

Display the video full-screen to get the full effect.

3 comments:

  1. I was bouncing to the music too - that was very cool, no wonder it sends him to sleep I'm ready for a nap now as well :)

    Helen

    ReplyDelete
  2. We didn't really have a nap video but I do remember the boys absolutely loving Viking Kittens. They still love "Immigrant Song".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Evening!

    Helen, it kept him sitting still and not thinking about fighting sleep. Mason will zorch out in the car (which is what I did tonight). They both like(d) being rocked though.

    Hi Wooly! There's a flash somewhere with a bunch of kittens, dressed in Mao jackets (or were they Meow jackets?) stomping to "Tanz mit Laibach" — that was pretty funny. I'll have to look for Viking Kittens.

    ReplyDelete

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