Good afternoon!
We hope you’ve been doing well. We do not have any major announcements or updates for this week, but we are steadily working on various projects and plans.
Demo of the Week
The demo of the week this week is Nanosaur, on the iMac G3 Strawberry!
This demo is a personal favorite of the lab, so if you have seen it mentioned here before, that’s why! If you are at all competitive, you should come over and try and beat our high score! 😊
Object of the Week
The object of this week this week are the lab’s resident Furbies!
During the late 90s, these creatures were everywhere. Did you know they were, in part, influenced by the Tamagotchi? According to this article (which is a fascinating read), one of the big inspirations for the Furby was because the main architect of the toy, David Hampton, was disappointed that you “couldn’t pet” a Tamagotchi. Another part of what made Furbies such a hit was the innovative approach taken during their development; in order to stand out among many of the electronic toys of the time, the creators of the Furby decided to make it seem as if it had a life of its own, which, as Peters explains in the linked Bustle article, is also why they can also be seen as creepy. They are supposed to learn, adapt, and talk to each other.
We are big fans of the Furby here at the lab; we think they are ugly in an endearing way, which is why we have at least three of them. We have positioned them to guard our Laserdisc collection. They don’t quite work, so we don’t know what their personal opinions on our multitude of different movies and vinyl records are, but perhaps, in the future… 😉
Lab Hours and Room Number
We are located in ATEC 1.705, right next to ATEC’s welcome center. Our open lab hours are:
Monday: 4:00pm-6:00pm
Tuesday: 1:00pm-4:00pm
Wednesday: 1:00pm-3:00pm
Thursday: 4:00pm-6:00pm
Thank you for reading our newsletter! We hope to see you soon and wish you a stress-free week.
Sincerely,
The Media Archeology Lab
The University of Texas at Dallas
