I’m sure you’ve heard of Wordle, the once-a-day word guessing game from software engineer Josh Wardle which was recently acquired by the New York Times for, I’m sure, a ridiculous amount of money. The idea for Wordle is simple… guess the word in less than 6 tries. At the end, share your results with friends - win or lose. The game became an overnight hit, boasting over 2 million daily players.

Building on this idea, let me share with you a preview of a side-project I’ve been working on: Nazo. A retro video game box art guessing game… game.

This one is from the chaoscontrol.org vault. Post 9/11, the newly created Department of Homeland Security provided a web service where developers could pull the latest threat level of a terrorist attack. It was a color-based system… red meant immenant threat from Al-Qaeda, they’re about to kick in your door! While green meant enjoy your American-brewed beer and Freedom Fries.

This service was undoubtedly designed for parody. So let me present to you some code that was written sometime in 2006-2007… Oversized Monster Threat Level. This php script would load the DHS’s threat XML response and show an oversized monster based on the current threat level. If it’s red, Godzilla is about to stomp your ass so you better GTF outta Tokyo!

Hello!

Probably not so much for profit, but wether its to play some retro video games, a curiosity and interest in vintage computing, or maybe just a stroll through tech-nostalgia, getting DOS 6.22 setup in a virtual machine is a wonderful way to spend 45 minutes. In my case, DOS was the first “modern” OS I had ever used and this would be a nostalgic trip through early 90s computing. Honestly, I used it mostly to play Doom 1, Wolfenstein 3D, and a handful of other classics like Quake 1 and Oregon Trail.