WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Polybius 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.600 Hey guys, Steve here, you are listening to one of 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.600 our original twenty six episodes. If you listen to any 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.280 of our new episodes, you're gonna notice that we're sounding 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:11.639 a little different in these ones. Yeah, there's a reason 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.480 for that. There is they've been remastered. They have been 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.040 remastered because they had a really annoying hum. Yeah, I 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.480 mean a huge thanks to listener James for doing almost 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.880 all of the legwork on this thing. They'll also notice 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:25.880 if you had listened to what we're calling the last 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.639 twenty six episodes before and you're re listening now, the 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.160 music and sound effects are gone. Yes, we've we've gone 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.720 back to straight audio, so be warned. We sound a 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.000 little different today than we do in what you're about 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:46.640 to listen to. Yeah, bye bye, Thinking Sideways. I don't 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:56.200 under say you never know the story is of things 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.720 we simply don't know the answer too. Well. Hey there, 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.160 and thanks for joining us again. And this is Thinking 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.080 Sideways the podcast, and I am Steve, as always joined 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.680 by and this week we're going to take on yet 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.640 another thing that I don't quite understand. Yeah, well this 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.080 one I don't quite understand. Because ladies and gentlemen we 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.400 haven't quite gone in this territory before, but we're gonna 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.720 do it anyway. Is what a lot of people believe 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:34.360 to be an urban myth? Yeah, and it's hot. Well 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.600 this one when you when and we'll get into the 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.240 details of it in the name of but when you 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:39.760 get into a lot of things on the net, it 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.319 seems like you find a pretty solid opinion one way 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.000 or the other. It's you know, oh, let's real or 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.520 oh no, total urban myth. Even Snopes on this one 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.720 is said, oh no, this is a total urban myth. 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.120 Except my problem is as I read it, I thought that, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.200 and then I came across some details it started making 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.200 me think that maybe there's and gems of truth in it. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.720 So what the heck we're going to run down that road. 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.560 I'm really this is like opening up new territory for us. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.880 This is like nothing like we've done yet where show 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.160 has gone before, but this show has gone before. I 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.480 listened to that, so no show ever, So no show 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.440 has ever done this before. Awesome. Yeah, all right, Well 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.800 tonight we're going to talk about Polebius. If you wait, 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.040 like the Greek philosopher. No, no, no, no, not that guy. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:37.639 Polebus which is supposedly a arcade game that came out 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.120 in We're going to step into a little time machine 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.000 here because not everybody understands this, and we're going to 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.800 go back to one. And when you played a video game, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.320 you had to go to an arcade because they were 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.320 the stand up machines. It was pinball and stand up 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.840 arcade games. There's almost no home video games. Hardly anybody 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.239 out a home computer. Well in Atari had been I 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.160 don't even know that the Atari gaming system had come out. 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.799 If it had, it was still in its infancy. They 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.640 were really expensive. They were very exc and to hook 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.240 it up to your TV to have a TV that 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.240 was compatible with something like that also crazy expensive because 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.880 on tube TVs did not have a bazilion ports on 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.440 the back well, and they also were they weren't digital, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:24.639 so you had to get a demodulator and or modulator 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.400 or whatever to you could actually interface those things. But 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:28.920 you had to buy this box to do it with. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.360 Some had It was kind of fuzzy and crappy looking too. Yeah, 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.680 so it wasn't easy to do. Playing video games meant 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.320 you had a roller cords in your pocket and you 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.520 went down to the arcade that's just how it happened. 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.800 I remember many a time begging money off of my 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.160 parents could have a couple of books so I can 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.920 go play video games. Yeah, yeah, go go. I mean 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.920 that's just the way to So we're gonna talk about 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:56.000 Polebous and let's go ahead the story. Because it's considered 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.920 an urban legend or an urban myth, there are all 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.920 lot of variants and versions of it out there, and 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.680 I'm gonna do my best to try and wade through those. 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.240 But let's just get the basic story to start with, 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.200 and then we'll build from there. All right. So, according 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.040 to this story, an unnamed arcade here in Portland, Oregon, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:24.880 in one got a new game one or was it several? 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.240 I heard it was several, you you just right off 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.719 the bat. I've heard both ways. I've heard it was 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.000 one arcade. I've heard it was multiple arcades in this city. 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.080 I've heard that they were all in the suburbs. And 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:37.920 I've heard that there was a couple that showed up 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.240 in other towns on the other side of the country. Yeah, 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.160 and we should, you know, make a point of saying this. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.280 It was like an unknown game, but that was really rare. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:48.440 Then I mean, you know, if you were going to 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:50.920 get a new Arcade game, you were telling everybody about it. 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.240 You're saying, oh, yeah, we're finally going to get this. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.200 You know that you kind of you wanted to build 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.200 hype around it. Yeah. But I also got the impression 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.800 that this might have been a beta test situation. If 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.120 they only build a certain number of game cabinets, then 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.640 that would explain, you know, well, we've just got to 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:10.479 try it out and see how it does, and then 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.680 we'll take it back to the shop and and make 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.320 our changes and then do our big marketing dump. Probably 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.040 not a bad idea to just sticks them out there 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:19.839 and see how people like him or not. I guess 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:21.919 I just feel like, I mean, even at that in 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.200 beta testing, you as an Arcade kind of say we're 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.600 getting this beta. You know, the amount of people that 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.640 would come out for this thing. You say, this is 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.080 one of four units in existence. Come play this game 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.919 before anybody else, you know, So to have it just 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.200 kind of appear mysteriously is is like the first little 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:46.080 question mark exactly exactly. Uh so let's keep going here. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.000 It turns out this game was super popular and from 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:56.080 many accounts, almost addictive. People were lining up, playing it 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.599 like mad NonStop, and at least one arcade, according to 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.039 these accounts of it being released, the owner of that 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.640 arcade said that he noticed, and I'm using air quotes, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:15.320 men in black hanging around, watching the players, watching their reactions, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.760 going to the machines, not collecting money, but doing something 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.120 on the inch side of the machine, and then walking away, 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.080 which is weird. Well, you know, and I gotta say, 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.560 I really have a hard time believing that, because I mean, 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:33.800 are you really going to send some guys like, you know, 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.279 with porked by hats and black suits and skinny times 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.400 to an arcade full of teenagers and people? I mean, 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.480 come on. And of course this is a government, so maybe. 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.800 But still throughout history you get these reports. A lot 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.880 of conspiracy theories or urban legends have these like mysterious 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.680 men in black characters, and I think that it's often 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.640 used as a term, not as like an actual description, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:01.400 so as possible, yeah, that these guys were actually casually dressed, Yeah, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.920 and it could be that they just they weren't in 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:10.160 jeans and Randy T shirts and yeah, thirty five year 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:15.080 old FBI agents, you know, in sweatshirts. Yeah, I picture 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.440 the like Steve Bushemy as a teenager in that episode 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.880 where Steve Bushey plays a um personal investigator private eye, 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.320 and he says something about, you know, he was doing 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.520 an undercover thing in high school, and its just like 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.040 it just like you know, shows him in a high 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:36.200 school like literally just Steve Bushemy, but like wearing kids 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.720 clothes with skateboard like hey dudes, and dude debts like 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.320 what are we doing tonight? So I feel like that's 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.600 like also totally feasible men in black, right, It's just 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.080 like dudes who are like, oh no, we're thirteen, clearly 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.280 in their thirties. Yeah no, no, no, I chaved my 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.080 hair this high up on my fore Yeah no, I 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:02.160 diet gray man. It's cool, but it could have been. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.320 It's not necessarily been men in black, but just men 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.040 from the corporation that built these things. Yeah, I just 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:09.600 want to see what it could be, some kind of 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.480 businessmen of some kind. Again, this is as with this, 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:19.400 it's rife with possibilities for plausible reasons or yeah, if 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.280 you've built these machines, you've got them out there for 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.640 testing purposes to see how people like them. It makes 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.640 sense to go by the arcade and just see what 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.440 what people are doing. You absolutely, so this is where 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:35.640 things go a little sideways. No pun intended for this 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:42.120 particular show. Uh So. Evidently, according to the allegations in 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.040 the multiple versions that you come across, the machines were 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:52.160 having psychoactive effects on players. So they were they were 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:59.760 having amnesia, insomnia, night terrors, suicidal tendencies like all this 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.280 easy behavior. I feel like it should also be mentioned 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.960 that in every account that happens, right, that's consistent throughout 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.439 almost every account it is, except here's here's why I 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.959 don't put a lot of credence in It's in every 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.320 account because the order of those things written is always 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.360 is always identical. It's abc D. You think there's a 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.120 little cutting and paste going on there, Yeah, a lot 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.720 of that on the internet. But again, and this is 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.280 this is one of the things that makes me scratch 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.480 my head is how did they find out that these 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.400 people suffered from, say, amnesia. That's a very good question, dude, 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.920 I don't I don't know where I am. Where am I? Well, 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.040 I'm missing ten dollars in quarters where I don't know. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.520 You know, you know, the crowd, the crowd pulls the 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.280 kid away, right, because they're like, they all want to 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.880 play the game too. It's finally he's died like a 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:51.640 million times in a row and he like wakes up 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.520 from a trance and it can't remember doing it. That's 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.240 I mean, quantifiable reportable asia. Right, Yeah, that's absolutely possible. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.959 Insomnia ssomnia. Again, it's a it's a kind of kind 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.800 of a tricky one. Unless they did interviews with these 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.320 with these kids, I assume that these are all just 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.040 like accounts, right, like kids being like I couldn't sleep 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.439 last night. That game is messing me up or whatever. 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:19.360 Absolutely correct. So here's where things really go bad is, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.640 according to the story, it was the game was pulled 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.360 out of the arcades within weeks of having been installed 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:35.360 because one player of it's supposedly a boy, had an 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.480 epileptic seizure from playing the game, which might not even 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.040 be related to the game. I mean, maybe he was 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.720 just you know, just passed out. Yeah, it's possible, and 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.120 we'll get into some descriptions of what happens on screen 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.400 as to why it could have caused a seizure. But 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.680 it's you know, it's believed that basically he had a 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.800 seizure and whoever made the game just in a panic 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:03.960 pulled it and disappeared, and it's going there's there's never 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.720 been a cabinet, you know, physically inspected, and people like, 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.480 look right here, this is plevious. We've got it. There's 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.600 some photos on the net. Again, we're gonna get into 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.080 some of that stuff, but the story itself is really 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.240 the main basis we've got to operate from. Yeah, but yeah, no, 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.960 that's that's one of the reasons I'm kind of doubting 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.880 this story, just because the people that made this thing. 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.280 I mean, you know what what somebody would have held 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.840 onto it a souvenir or whatever, um you know, or 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.480 maybe all of it. Some one of those machines should 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.800 have showed up on eBay by now if there were 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.000 like seven, right, I mean you assume if if you 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.720 have decided as a game manufacturer, no, we're pulling this 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.600 for good. Right, they made their cabinets, but the cabinets 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.880 all kind of looked the same, and if they are 0:11:54.360 --> 0:12:01.000 making other games, they either repurpose it or are motherboard 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.079 in it. And the way you go, because I think 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.719 that saves a lot of money on yeah, I mean 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.600 it would, but you know, and I'm assuming if these 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.880 were prototypes, they were probably in generic boxes. But the 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.480 thing is, somebody would have saved all the guts and 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.200 they would have shown up somewhere. Like one time, for example, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.000 I bought it. I bought an Asteroids machine years ago, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.360 and it was this guy who had everything but the box. 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.160 He had like the power supply and the motherboard and 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.400 the control ward and the monitor and everything except the 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.120 box the cabinet, and I bought it from this guy, 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.520 and I played Asteroids for years on this thing. I 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.240 built a crude box to put it in. So somebody, 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.560 you know, somebody still has those guts somewhere if the 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.000 game ever existed. Maybe, I guess. I just think that, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.240 like if if you have a game that causes seizures 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.320 and maybe a bunch of other stuff, you maybe just 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:54.160 destroy it. I mean, again, you want to recoup your cost. 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.319 You repurpose it, like you said. So it's it's hard 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.240 to say, but again you real story says that this 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:11.640 happened in the story itself didn't surface until August, so 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:17.840 that's what Seventeen years later, suddenly the story just pops 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.520 up on the Internet. The story comes up on a 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:26.360 forum which is coin op dot org, which evidently is 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.560 a big gaming forum. I looked around a little bit 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.240 on it, but I'm not a forum guy, so I 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.199 didn't really know what I was doing it. It's a forum, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.160 not a repository of any kind. Again, I'm not positive 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.760 it might be. I think that in the reading like 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.880 coin op got bought by somebody else, and so I 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.680 think that, like the old archives are held, I wasn't 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.360 clear and I couldn't get a direct line aside. Well, 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.520 and to be fair, you know, the Internet is way 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.040 different than the Internet now, and you know, I think 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.160 it's likely right it may have been a forum, but 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.599 they're just like really basic forums. But I guess the 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.520 impress and I kind of have, is that it's just 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.280 like a repository of Rom's Basically, you know, you download 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:06.600 the game you want to play, and you just play 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.960 it on your computer. That's well, though, I got the 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:14.280 impression that coin op was originally basically a BBS old 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.640 school BBS. Again, I don't know, but here's here's what 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:23.520 happens is this original story comes out. There's almost no 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.760 information about the history of the game. They just say 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.360 that it's a space shooters slash abstract puzzle game. It's 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:37.160 named after a Greek historian Um and I mean, honestly, 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.280 it doesn't lend itself to a whole lot of credibility 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.640 right off the bat. From that, and everybody on the 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.800 Internet from day one has ripped this thing to shreds, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.080 and that's continued to happen. I mean, if you do, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.560 ladies and gentlemen, if you go out and you search 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.200 for information on this game and you type it into Google, 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.560 you're gonna come up with a gazillion hits on it. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.280 And you're gonna find people who say it's fake. You're 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.040 gonna find people who say it's real. You're gonna find 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:05.880 some guy who says it's he's got it in his 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:10.400 mom's basement. I mean, it's everywhere. Okay, well, the forums aside. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.160 Let's and let's just walk through some of the details 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.240 that have been put out out there. And again I'm 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.400 putting air quotes around the word details. But the things 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.520 that I have found that people say about the game, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.120 and we'll start with how does the game work? Is 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.120 the game? It's the game. That's kind of the first 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.880 thing is there's some conflicting data on that too. Oh yeah, 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:37.960 there's data all over the map on every point that 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:39.920 I'm gonna bring up in here, and that's that's the 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.120 hard part. And bear with us, folks, because there are 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.800 some things that we are hanging on till the end 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.080 that maybe tie some of this together. But okay, So, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.320 according to the information that I've come across, the game 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:58.240 was either a an action puzzle game that had a 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:02.680 rotating three D puzzle that had it had logic puzzles 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.280 in it, and it had a maze built in it, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.560 kind of like do you remember pac Man, the original 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:09.440 pac Man, how you had to run through the maze. 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.000 That's what they mean by a maze. Um not you 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.880 know in these new games where your your first person 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.360 shooter going through these crazy mazes where you can only 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.880 see ahead. Yeah, we're still probably look at graphics and 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:29.040 very simple. It's absolutely simple graphics. The second b is 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.520 that you're flying through a tunnel and you have to 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.280 dodge things that are in your path, and as you 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.880 get farther through the game, things start going faster and 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.360 lights on the screen began to flash, almost in a 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.640 strobing effect. So not like that. One that reminds me 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:53.160 a lot of um Space age and Dragon Quest or whatever, right, 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:57.800 that like stuff and Dragon Slayer. Yeah, Dragon Slayer that 0:16:57.920 --> 0:16:59.760 where you like just go through and dodge stuff. We're 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.240 talking something like that. Are we talking, No, we're talking. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.320 We're talking generations before that that came out much later. 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.840 We're talking about more of you know, it's you've got 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.800 a T junction head and you've got to hold the 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.639 joystick to the left until you get to that junction 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.439 and then it's upper down right. I think that this, 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.000 like the graphics on the screen maybe are rotating that 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.520 this is this is my gas. This is kind of 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.720 almost three D graphics. It's in some of the some 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.119 of the stuff that I came across most video games 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.280 of the time. If you think of everybody's seeing Super 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.960 Mario Brothers and the original arcade of Super Mario Brothers 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.640 or Donkey Kong, and they were in raster graphics, which 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:49.239 is just little pixels that turn on to paint an image, right, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:54.560 little bit images. Well, there is discussion that Polybius was 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.960 a vector graphics game, which is more along the lines 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.600 of if you remember, like you said, Joe Asteroids. Uh, 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:05.880 there was a game and we're going to talk about 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.040 later on, but battle Zone battle Zone is what I 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.359 was thinking of, because that was also Antari game, which 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.840 came out not too long after Asteroids, and that was 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.760 actually a three D game. Yeah, and if if you 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.480 haven't heard of any of these games, take a minute 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.320 and just do a Google image search and you'll see 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:25.960 what we mean by simplistic line graphic work and vector graphics. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.720 And this is kind of a computer thing in terms 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.520 of how things work. But vector graphics are smaller and 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.080 easier to render than rester would be. So if your 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.240 game can do these in vector, then it's faster, especially 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.280 with the processor in one which is compared to today's 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.439 standards a snail, it's going to be able to go faster, 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.320 which is going to be revolutionary for anybody. They've never 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.679 seen this happen before, so I've heard discussions that it 0:18:55.720 --> 0:19:00.680 was some experiment to use the vector graphic form. If 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.840 that's right or not, I don't know. So we're not 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.480 talking like just an animated sequence, because that's all that 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.080 like Space Age was was really. I mean, in terms 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.560 of programming, it wasn't much more complex than pac Man 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.600 or anything like that. It was just that they had 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.400 done these like full animated scenes. So we're talking like 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:26.760 like really basic, extremely basic. Again, Pong was kind of still, 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.000 you know, the grandfather of all of these games at 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:36.000 that time. I'm still waiting for the movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.320 Another game that was kind of vector based, and this 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.080 comes up in the research saying that maybe this was 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.400 based upon it is Atari put out a game called Tempest, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.960 and I know that we watched the video of how 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.800 Tempest works, which is, you know, it's vector graphics and 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:57.960 you're kind of sliding around the edges of a maze, 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.680 avoiding things and shooting stuff. People say that it could 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.320 have been based on that, or a beta version of that, 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.080 because Tempest, according to everything, came out about four to 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.959 six months after this supposedly hit Portless. So now the 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.280 image that I have in my brain is you know 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.119 in Star Wars when he like has his like like 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.000 a little guiding thing come down or he's like gonna 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.480 do and it's like that there, Yeah, when he's in 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.000 the trench. That's now in my brain, and that's that's 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.879 that's basically what the graphics. Yeah, that it's that level 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.359 of sophistication and it's moving quote unquote right past you 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.720 and I guess if that were going fast enough and 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.040 you're trying to dodge things and there were lights flashing 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.440 at you. Okay, I'm getting a good picture here. Yeah, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.760 sounds like a fun game. And none of these games 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.200 that we've talked about so far are anything that would 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.359 give someone a seizure. But I did watch and I 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.439 know again I put this up, and I know you 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.760 guys have watched it. There's a current game out there 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.840 was that Super Hexagon. It's a game that basically flash 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.280 is and your everything's rotating and spinning. If it was 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.399 in line with that, And again, ladies and gentlemen, you 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.520 might want to google this. You might want to kind 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.240 especially pause this, go watch it for a minute and 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.520 a half and then come back to us. Actually, for anybody, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.560 if if you do have epilepsy, you probably don't want 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.959 to go to watch that one because that would be 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.080 a bad thing. Yeah, everybody else go look, so welcome back. Yep. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.400 That was crazy to watch. I know now you kind 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.920 of get how somebody could have a seizure because it's 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.280 not easy to watch that stuff flashing around. Yeah, and 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.880 then imagine playing it like you're just passively watching it. 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.840 Imagine like trying to be in charge of that thing. Oh, 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:45.119 I would imagine that you'd be like seasick after a while. Yeah, 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.199 I can't. I can't imagine that going on. It's not 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.480 just watching it makes me dizzy. Yeah, So let's let's 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:58.600 move forward into the actual person. Polibius the Greek historian. Yes, 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.719 because the name of game is based upon a real person, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.560 and Polybius lived the actual guy. He was a Greek historian, 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:12.320 lived in two sixty four to one forty six b c. 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.120 He was a historian. He had some views on how 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.760 things should be recorded, which is fine. But really, what 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.520 I like about this guy, and I didn't really know 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.560 about it until I started doing the research, is he 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.760 was one of the first He came up with an 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.840 early cryptographic system to use for communications over long distance. 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.600 So it's called the Polebia square. And what it is 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.879 is you take a grid of five across and five 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.560 down and you start in the upper left hand square 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.040 and you put A B, C, D, and E, and 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:51.640 then you go down in the next line and there's 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.040 twenty six letters in the alphabet. So he combined I 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.720 and Jane in the same one. Yeah, if you're communicating 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.399 over a long distance. You can use flashes of some kind, 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:03.480 and you know that the first number is going to 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:05.760 be the top of the grid and the sex second 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:09.240 number is going to be on the vertical access of 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:11.399