Recognizing Constraints An Article by Jeremy Wagner css-tricks.com Super Nintendo games were the flavor of the decade when I was younger, and there’s no better example of building incredible things within comparably meager constraints. Developers on SNES titles were limited to, among other things: 16-bit color. 8 channel stereo output. Cartridges with storage capacities measured in megabits, not megabytes. Limited 3D rendering capabilities on select titles which embedded a special chip in the cartridge. Despite these constraints, game developers cranked out incredible and memorable titles that will endure beyond our lifetimes. Yet, the constraints SNES developers faced were static. You had a single platform with a single set of capabilities. If you could stay within those capabilities and maximize their potential, your game could be played—and adored—by anyone with an SNES console. PC games, on the other hand, had to be developed within a more flexible set of constraints. I remember one of my first PC games had its range of system requirements displayed on the side of the box: Have at least a 386 processor—but Pentium is preferred. Ad Lib or PC speaker supported—but Sound Blaster is best. Show up to the party with at least 4 megabytes of RAM—but more is better. constraints
Numbers/Words A Gallery by Daniel Eatock eatock.com Christmastime 04:04:044:56Numeric anagrams
Christmastime 04:04:04 Turn it upside down. I was in a hotel room a few years ago and I woke up in the early hours and glanced at the digital clock radio. It displayed the time using six digits HH:MM:SS Just at the moment I glanced it flicked over to 04:04:04. It occurred to me that, using calculator word logic, this would read ‘ho ho ho’ if viewed upside down. That year I produced a Christmas card with those digits on the front and ‘Christmastime’ printed upside down as the message on the inside. In the absence of any further explanation, absolutely nobody understood the card. numbers
4:56 I was looking at my digital clock last-night and it occurred to me that 4:56 is quite an interesting time. 4 uses four segments of the seven-segment display 5 uses five segments of the seven-segment display 6 uses six segments of the seven-segment display numbers
Numeric anagrams "Eleven plus two" is an anagram of "twelve plus one". — Craig Sharp / Twelve + One = Eleven + Two I love the beauty of this numeric/anagram equation for 13 — Linda Vanderkolk words