Computer Active Quotes Me on Lemmings

Computer Active has a very nice blog post about the 20th Anniversary of Lemmings; very nice because they've quoted me and asked nicely about using one of my photos! This is probably as good a moment as any to show off my belated joining of Flickr, to which I've added a selection of pics from the celebration. Here's the selection I've uploaded.

The (temporary) plaque at DMA's "old old office". I'm told that there are plans afoot for something a little more permanent. I've also taken the opportunity to add this location - and DMA's other office - to Ben Goldacre's Nerd Map in case anyone wishes to make a retro computer game pilgrimage.

BBC Radio Scotland

It's always amazing how persistant DMA Design has been in my life.  Immediately after the museum exhibition opened, I was interviewed by James Christie from BBC Radio Scotland as one of the founders of DMA Design.  You can read my thoughts on being a 'founder' elsewhere on the blog, though it's certainly true that, in the fashion of Londo from Babylon 5, "I was there at the beginning..."

It was to be a half hour documentary, and it has just aired this morning.  I'm always nervous when something is broadcast with a contribution from me in it.  And, yes, it's still amazing when I think about it, that I can casually write a sentence like the previous one.  This one, however, was especially nerve-wracking for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.  Would I sound OK?  Did I make sense?  Would my contribution even get used?

Fortunately the answer was yes, and now I'm left with a curious mix of nostalgia and excitement, even as I realise that only a small fraction of my interview was used and only those parts which fitted the 'narrative' that documentaries use.  I'm sure it was the same for both Mike and Russel who were also part of it.  But it means that there's a huge amount of story that hasn't been told, that doesn't exist on Wikipedia or anywhere else aside from in our heads and the odd fragment on a website here and there.  I close my eyes and I can see the old, old, office.

I recorded some important events in a journal I kept at DMA in 1996, but I so wish that I'd done the same for 1995, 1994, 1993...  But of course at the time none of us had any idea that DMA would be important and very little was jotted down and nothing at all formally recorded.  It makes the piecing together of DMA's history an exercise in deductive work where I still have scraps of paper, or tickets to hint at the exact date something occurred.

And that's what it was like in the days before blogs, twitter and 24/7 recording, when it was still possible for a mythology to arise.

You're definitely over the hill when...

... you've literally become a museum exhibit.  Seriously, this has just happened to me.  I thought hitting 40 was a doozy, but it has nothing on this.  Incidentally I'm using the word literally in the sense of actually being literal.  Dundee's MacManus Galleries has just completed several years worth of refurbishment, opening last weekend.  Part of the exhibit is some comparatively modern Dundee history, namely DMA Design.  (Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, worked for them, yadda yadda, you know the drill.)

I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but was informed by my family that my photo is part of it, and my name too!  Now this is all very lovely and I've no problem with that, especially since it was mainly enabled by Mike Dailly who, like myself, was there from the start and has a ton of stuff hoarded from the early days.  Early, as in late eighties onwards.

Being late on a Sunday, I ran down to the place since I am literally (in the sense of being literal) five minutes walk from the place, but unfortunately got there just as they were closing and told me to get out.  My ego is not quite at the stage where I can legitimately say "don't you know who you're talking to"...

Oh well, so I got out and so far haven't seen it yet.

All very lovely, as I say, but I can't help feeling that an invite to the opening would have been nice...