Tomoya Ikeda – Macintosh Artist

This sort of internet click hole is exactly what I enjoy most about Hacker News. Led me into an interview with Jack Eastman - the physicist turned screensaver designer who made the original flying toasters: https://sleepmode.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/jack-eastman Leading to discovering the strange world of After Dark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_(software)) that just screams Berkeley, CA, 1992, #1.

I had partially forgotten the pixel graphics style of 80s - 90s Macintosh scene. Damn, it's crisp and graphical compared to Amiga and PC graphics.

It would be fun to read about the similarities and differences between it, PC, C64 and Amiga graphics scenes as the aesthetics are quite different and limited / moulded by the graphics peculiarities of every system.

A sad ending.

But it reminded me of what a wonderful brave new world (and I don't mean that in a negative, ironic way) it was back then. The computer really was become a tool the artist could enthuse about, make new art with.

> The original prototype artwork was done by Jack Eastman, at which time Ikeda-san was brought in as a contractor to draw the final 1-bit artwork.

This reminds me I've seen people call the Japanese staff X-san in work emails sometimes. But this courtesy never gets extended to any other countries.