Rough/early concept for a minimal Japanese keyboard based on the rather obscure タッチ16 layout. You spell out the sounds with the "a" group of consonants, then a vowel, then various levels or diacritic keys can do the han/dakuten.
I made a left handed version of the EPSON HC-45. The character layout is fairly standard, except modern JP keyboards generally use hiragana. Like the Beeb, this has a clear plastic thing over F keys.
I increased the screen size to 50x11 characters. Could be a modern nimble LCD screen with a nice filter. A receipt printer, speaker and battery could possibly fit underneath (the screen flips up). That or a regular cartridge slot. I don't know if these had a regular composite video out. Maybe.
A (Sept.) 1985 Yamaha MSX presented with a mouse – a rare conjunction mayhaps. Giving me Amiga tank mouse vibes. The Amiga 1000 came out in July, and originally with only 256KB RAM iirc. Its sound and graphical chipset was more impressive than MSX2 I'd say.
Looks like around 200K¥ for the bundle below. Hard to guess what that is in modern money since something happened to the yen in 1985 (the Plaza Accord).
Epson handheld computer HC-20, from Technopolis #7 1983.
Spotting a modem (top), mini tape(right), receipt style printer (left), and LCD display (center). The computer is a separate module to the modem and side peripheral boxes (cables, paper and a NiCd battery?).
Idea: Realistic fantasy game, but everyone are equipped with these types of '80s game ad armours and cheap cosplay outfits, and all take it very seriously.
Sometimes (or even often) when I search for stuff now it seems the search engine just latches onto one of the words and ignores the rest. Doesn't show up in the summary or where on the page when I ctrl+F. Perhaps it's partly due to so many pages being dynamic now.
@androidarts oh yeah google gleefully ignores a large amount of words if anything is even slightly uncommon and I have to tell it to keep them. Though it's usually a sign it's just not going to find it
@nyrath Those were pretty fun. I was reading the old Starsiege Tribes lore and in that universe they have a bunch of laws for the nanotech nanites just to avoid problems.
The First Limit: Control by Man
The Second Limit: Confine the Reach
The Third Limit: Confine the Generation
The Fourth Limit: Strike Not the Living
The Fifth Limit: Destroy Mutations
Cleaned up another old Tribes sheet a bit. Resources and consoles might encourage and put focus on social interaction (afaik newer versions have streamlined this element away and have pre-match class selection).
Added ideas for lifeforms to bump into. Maybe a predatory crocodile bird. Exploding longleg ticks, stupid herds of grazing duck cows, and floating blimps getting in the way (or usable as springboards).
@androidarts yoooo I loved Earthsiege. Felt like the only one who had it. Only had the second game oddly. Wonder if there's a good dosbox wrapper for it these days
Went back and gave Ramses high heels. Here I was going for a unified language for the Cybrids, downplaying the newer bug theme in favor of the older steel look. #Starsiege
Saw someone claim that games didn't use to have political content. Seems like bollocks. Final Fantasy 7? Too many to name? I think people just didn't notice because they were kids and controversy stirring was less of a thing.
Back then it was mainly outsiders being upset about games perhaps? I remember Commando Libya, Cannon Fodder and also the whole satanism panic...