[Simh] Improved CRT simulation

[Alan Frisbie]

On 12/17/2018 05:08 PM, Tom Morris wrote:

 > When the Computer Museum was in MR2, they definitely fired up Spacewar!
 > for receptions and open houses.
 >
 > I think later on they hooked up an external controller to save wear
 > and tear on the front panel switches, but originally you played
 > standing shoulder to shoulder at the front panel switch register,
 > peering to your right at the display off to the side.

After they moved to Museum Wharf in Boston, they had an emulator running
on, I think, a Mac, with a pair of hand-held controllers.   Visitors
could run it any time the museum was open.   Which leads to this story:

Sometime in the 1980s, I was in Boston with a day to kill, so I went to
the Computer Museum.   It was early in the day, and there were very few
people there.

I came to the Spacewar! display and found a young lad and his mother
playing the game.   The kid, as his kind typically do, was beating
his mother every game, not even giving her a chance.   It wasn't a
fair fight.

The mother eventually noticed me and asked, "Would you like to try
it?"   You could almost hear the pleading in her voice, "PLEASE!"
"Of course", I replied, and sat down.   The kid then "explained" the
game to me, while I bit my tongue and kept silent about his mistakes.

The first game ended badly for me.   My reflexes were rusty, and the
controller was unfamiliar.   "Would you like to try again?", the kid
asked.   "Sure", I replied, as images of Dirty Harry ran through my
mind.

When he pressed "Start", the old reflexes kicked in. TURN, THRUST,
FIRE!   The torpedo looped around the sun and up his tail before he
knew what hit him.   The look of shock on his face was priceless;
he had never had an adult beat him at any video game.   He wanted
a rematch.

The remaining games went the same way.  He couldn't understand how
an old fart was beating him every time.   I glanced at his mother,
who now had a big grin on her face -- her son was getting a taste
of his own medicine!

Eventually I tired of this and got up to leave.   As I walked away
down the hall, I turned to look over my shoulder.   The two of them
were standing there, side-by-side, staring at my receding back.
I could almost hear them saying the words from the end of many
Lone Ranger TV episodes, "Who WAS that masked man?"   :-)

Kid, if you ever read this, I apologize.   It was not a fair fight.

Alan Frisbie