The date was somewhere near the end of 1991. The browser of choice was non- existent; text if you had Internet access. Bulletin boards were still the rage - elitist access if you were lucky. As for the Internet, there was Telnet, FTP, and FSP (if you knew what it was and how to use it), as well as Linux and DOS. My blazing-fast 486 33 had a math co-processor, a 130 Meg hard drive, and a sound blaster card.Mice were still vermin to me. Computer music meant MODs and perhaps Midi. Other sound files were just too big. The buzz was virtual reality, and the game system of choice was the NES.
In the late 1980s, the Nintendo power glove arrived. In the end, it was a big failure with the NES, but a big failure means a big drop in price. Enter one of my first computer-related projects. With some modifications, the Nintendo power glove could be interfaced with a PC. So modify it I did! The software, called Rend386, let you move around virtual environments, pick up objects, and move them around. Later, there was also a tennis game that you could use to pick up a racket and hit a ball.
So now we have the Nintendo Wii, and people are using the controllers for various applications. But I still have my power glove tucked away in a closet (I never owned an NES). I guess it was just ahead of its time.
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