ztaylor

From Timeline, a collection of photos of video arcades in the 80s.

The years between 1978 and 1983 are generally considered the golden age of video games. Most recognize Space Invaders as the original, arcade game to reach mass audiences, quickly followed by Asteroids (1979), Centipede (1980), and Pac-Man (1980). Space Invaders was such a hit it was rumored that Japan suffered a shortage of ¥100 coins in its wake. But Pac-Man was the real game changer. Stateside, reception of the ground breaking character-driven game was ravenous, and by the end of the 20th century it was estimated that Pac-Man’s total gross consumer revenue had hit $2.5 billion (or 10 billion quarters).

Johnny Thunders

Borland Turbo Debugger

Image: Virtual Reality System at Chilton Computing, July 1995.

SGI Onyx

The SGI Onyx, code named Eveready (deskside models) and Terminator (rackmount models), is a series of visualization systems designed and manufactured by SGI, introduced in 1993.The Onyx’s basic system architecture is based on the SGI Challenge servers, but with the notable inclusion of graphics hardware.The Onyx was employed in early 1995 for development kits used to produce software for the Nintendo 64 and, because the technology was so new, the Onyx was noted as the major factor for the impressive price of US$100,000 –US$250,000 for such kits ($157,999 - $394,998 in 2016).

The Onyx was succeeded by the Onyx2 in 1996 and was discontinued on March 31, 1999.The deskside variant can take one CPU board, and the rackmount variant can take up to six CPU boards. Both models originally used the IP19 CPU board with one, two or four MIPS R4400 microprocessors, initially with 100 and 150 MHz options, later increased to 200 and 250 MHz. Later, the IP21 CPU board was introduced, with one or two R8000 microprocessors at 75 or 90 MHz; machines with this board were referred to as POWER Onyx. Finally, SGI introduced the IP25 board with one, two or four R10000 microprocessors at 195 MHz.

The Onyx initially used the RealityEngine2 or VTX graphics subsystems, and later, InfiniteReality, which was introduced in 1995. RealityEngine refers to a 3D graphics hardware architecture and a family of graphics systems that implemented the aforementioned hardware architecture that was developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics during the early to mid 1990s. The RealityEngine was positioned as Silicon Graphics’s high-end visualization hardware for their MIPS/IRIX platform and was used exclusively in their Crimson and Onyx family of visualization systems, which are sometimes referred to as “graphics supercomputers” or “visualization supercomputers”. 

Here’s a color pencil sketch for an unused cover of Eightball #23, which Daniel Clowes drew sometime in 2003. 

After drawing, inking, and coloring the finished version of this illustration, Clowes decided it wasn’t right for the issue, wanting something bolder. Here’s another cover sketch:

Based on the above sketch, the image below is the comic’s cover ( the issue was released in June of 2004.)

The finished version of the first cover was eventually made into a large print by Alvin Buenaventura: