In one of my late-night, insomnia-driven work sessions I popped over to Slashdot and noticed to my surprise that one of my Internet acquaintances made it to the front page and the Games section for his work on ASCIIpOrtal. Immediately I sent a tweet and e-mail to him warning of the impending slashdotting.  My elation turned on a dime to “Oh no.”

Fortunately it was still early in the morning when I noticed it (around 2am my time), so most of the U.S. geeks wouldn’t be hitting it up for a few hours.  It was entertaining and also depressing to watch a server crumble under the load so quickly. Like watching helplessly from atop a hill while the tsunami washes away everybody below you.

Now that the tide has subsided, I feel safe about putting links in this post.

Meanwhile, the Retro Remakes server, which hosted Cymon’s Games, was taking a massive flogging. Fortunately the sysadmins were on IRC and weren’t too peeved by the event, once we told them what was happening. We spent the next hour battling the traffic onto the server to get caching set up and running, which thankfully helped lessen the load. So now when ASCIIpOrtal is ready for release, it’ll be able to take more of a beating.

I’m glad Joe Larson is getting some recognition now for his tireless work. ASCIIpOrtal was something he has been working on for the better part of a year, and it’s great to see that it is so popular.  However, people should also take note that he has managed to post type-in C and C++ games for beginners, one a week, for over a year.  It’s a great resource for those that want to tackle the subject of game programming from scratch, type it in, compile it, and watch it run.

It’s that same enthusiasm that gave me so many hours as a kid doing type-ins in BASIC from magazines back in the 1980s.  So much so that I ported an old BASIC game to C as a contribution, one that you might recognize from right here.

Edit: Fixed broken link going to the old Cymon’s Games.  Everything now points to the new Cymon’s Games site.