Game 460: Little Computer People

Background: 

In late 1985, Activision's R&D department made a breakthrough computing discovery; that so-called "Little Computer People" dwell in every personal computer, and possess individual appearances, names, and personality traits. To aid in their study, researcher David Crane created the "House-on-a-Disk" diskette, a simulated three-story house with five rooms and a spacious attic, which said people can live in and be directly observed.

These studies have, of course, been long abandoned, superseded by projects such as "The Sims" and "The Sims 4" which do not require obsolete 8-bit personal computers. However, the sudden scarcity of RAM in the year 2025 impels fieldwork with more modest requirements, and with it, an opportunity for a retrospective in 64KB. How are these Little Computer People doing after 40 years? Can they tell that their natural habitat is also a simulation? Does the Y2K bug affect them?

 

Video log of activity:

 

Field notes:

 

9:30: Simulation begins. A Little Computer Person (henceforth to be referred to as LCP) enters the domicile and begins to inspect it. The kitchen pleases him. The computer in the study does not. LCP uses the washroom, does not flush or shut the door, and barely washes his hands afterward.

9:35: LCP goes to the living room and sits on the lounge chair for less than a second before standing back up. Exits and leaves the lights on. LCP inspects the bedroom and leaves the closet door and all drawers open. Attic and kitchen are re-inspected before he leaves via front door - at least he closed the refrigerator.

9:37: LCP returns with a small parcel of his personal effects. A small dog follows. LCP watches television, then acknowledges my presence by turning his head toward the glass of the computer monitor. He speaks, but I cannot understand his language. I suggest to him, through a teletype-like interface, that he type me a letter, but he ignores me and goes downstairs, leaving the TV on.

9:39: LCP picks up the phone and speaks. Did he mean to speak to a friend, or is he trying to speak to us? He didn't dial. Either way, I still can't understand him. LCP then does jumping jacks in the master bedroom.

I said please!

 

9:40: LCP puts on a 33 1/3 RPM record. "We Wish you a Merry Christmas," and sits and watches TV quite unmerrily. Perhaps a new record might brighten his mood?

9:41: LCP taps on the glass of the monitor and requests a game of "Card War."

This is an incredibly boring and drawn out game of chance with no strategy and no decisions whatsoever, but this is also the most interactivity that's been offered since the simulation started, so I humor him. Playing improves his mood somewhat, namely when he is winning, but beating his hands makes him grumpier.

9:47: I unilaterally end the game, being ahead by 26 cards at the time with no end in sight, and LCP is visibly unhappy. I send him a new record as a holiday present, which he dispassionately collects from the front door and stashes away.

9:49: LCP makes another unintelligible phone call. I call him, and we speak, unproductively.

 

9:50: LCP plays his new record, a progressive rock album, and leaves the house, not bothering to stop the player.

9:51: LCP returns and makes another phone call. I attempt to pat him on the back; he stands up before the network-activated mechanical hand can make physical contact. Nevertheless, and to my surprise, this immediately improves his mood. Could simple touch be the key to a good disposition? LCP turns off the record and feeling inspired, plays some piano, and shows himself to be fairly skilled.

The sprite animation does a reasonable job of looking like the LCP is playing music and not just pressing random keys.

9:54: LCP washes his hands and prepares a quick, unheated meal.

9:56: LCP brushes his teeth. I try to tell him to turn off the TV, but he ignores me again.

 

9:57: LCP makes another phone call, then goes upstairs to watch more TV. I end the observation, leaving him to his devices.

 

Addendum:

I return briefly in the afternoon. LCP is named Ian - I learn this as I'm able to coax a letter out of him.
 

Ian misspells 'typist' before backspacing and correcting.

Strange - his water cooler isn't empty! In fact, it's at the same volume as when I left it. Is he rationing?

I dutifully fill it to the brim and offer a phone call, but then I leave.

 

GAB rating: N/A.

Little Computer People is a cute semi-interactive toy, but it's not a game, and there's only so much to see and do. Even in 1985, I have to imagine that I would have exhausted the possibilities of this house-on-a-disk very quickly and gotten bored of it.

Also, in a rather consumer-unfriendly twist, though one that makes sense in-universe, once you generate an LCP, you're stuck with him on your disk forever, without any way to "reset" the game except by using fanmade utility disks. The manual even recommends ordering more house-on-a-disks if you want new LCP's. I don't think they can die through neglect a la Tamagotchi, but wouldn't it be cruel if they could?

Superauthenticity: NES aspect ratios

Early NES box art had square-ish pixels

Unlike the Atari 2600, the Famicon/NES had a standard resolution enforced by the video display processor; 256 pixels per scanline, and 224 active scanlines per frame (240 for the PAL versions which we won't be discussing here).

For a long time, NES emulators would draw square pixels, and that's just not authentic! Many give the option to scale the raw image to a TV-matching 4:3, and for many this is preferred, but that isn't actually authentic either, for two reasons.

The first, more nitpicky one, is pixel aspect ratio, which was subject to an analog variance that most emulators don't account for (and would you want them to?), but would always be slightly wider than tall. Without going too deep into the electronics, an ideal NES pixel length is about 1.14 times wider than the scanline height, or a PAR of 8:7. Which is potentially confusing because 8:7 is also the resolution ratio, but these numbers are completely unrelated. In any event, if an NES screen is drawn with perfect 8:7 pixels, the display aspect ratio is about 1.306:1, which is very close to a television aspect ratio but not quite 100%. Most emulators don't even account for this and just give you a 4:3 scaling option. Close enough, honestly.

The second reason is overscan.

240p test suite

 

On a real analog television, you'd lose significant portions of the picture on all four sides, and it's impossible to emulate this 100% accurately because the amount lost would vary. And you probably don't want this eliminated, because games often rendered artifacts in the overscan areas, which would be hidden under normal conditions, but distracting on an emulator that just shows everything. Emulators do account for this, but there's no perfect setting that gives optimal results for all games.

The overscan issue is less of a concern among the earliest, single-screen NES games, where the lack of scrolling means no loading seam, and for this set of comparisons I'll just use the default FCEUX overscan settings which use lines 8-231 for NTSC games and don't perform any horizontal edge cropping. But it is something that superauthenticity needs to consider.

Donkey Kong

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

 

Oh my. With wider pixels, Donkey Kong ought to be called Chunky Kong!

Let's look at the vertically-oriented arcade version for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 3:4

These are the same sprites! The colors are a bit different and the hammers are redrawn, but apart from that, the sprites have the same pixel layouts. Nintendo did account for horizontal orientation by redesigning the stages for the NES conversion, but they apparently did not account for a wider PAR.

Verdict: Square pixels. These sprites were originally composed of tall pixels, not wide pixels. Authentically wide pixels do not improve the look or align with Nintendo's artistic direction.

Mario Bros

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Subjectively, wide pixels just don't look as good as square ones, once again. Let's pull up the arcade version again for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Resolution and orientation is the same here, but the sprites and tiles are not the same. Overall, I think the arcade version looks better at 4:3 than the NES version does, but square pixels look more consistently good on either platform; the font in particular looks distorted at 4:3 and I have a hard time getting over the non-square platform tiles.

Verdict: Square pixels.

 

Let's look at some Famicom originals.

Baseball

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Ok, so the perspective here makes no sense. The lines at home base make a perfect right angle, as they should from an overhead perspective, but the players' orientations suggest an oblique perspective. But the lines just aren't obeying any sort of consistent geometric laws.

Subjectively, I think 8:7 PAR looks best overall, but not so clearly that I can be sure this was the intention.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Tennis

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

A regulation doubles tennis court viewed at a 52° overhead angle looks like this:

If anything, square pixels on the NES make it slightly too wide!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Duck Hunt

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Despite the large sprites, this looks right at any aspect ratio. The dog and ducks just get longer. I guess the font looks better with square pixels.

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Excitebike

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

At 8:7 PAR, the wheels are about as perfectly round as it's possible for them to be at this resolution, even when you're doing flips. At square pixels they're just a smidgen too narrow.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR

 

Balloon Fight

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Balloons are oblong, not spherical!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Ice Climber

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Low detail makes these visuals resilient to distortion, but I think the sprites' chubbier, rounder look with 8:7 PAR is more in line with Nintendo's artistic intentions.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Super Mario Bros.

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

And here it is, Nintendo's ultimate 40KB showcase! And what's the story? Honestly, wide pixels might be more authentic, but they don't do Mario's highly geometric world or his figure any favors. A few visual elements, like the clouds, look better stretched, but most don't.

Verdict: Square pixels

My conclusion? There's enough examples of 8:7 PAR looking better that I think we can conclude some of Nintendo's artists were thinking about pixel aspect ratio, but for the most part, these games look better with non-authentic square pixels. I expect the artists just found it easier to plot sprites on square graph paper and were not overly worried about a level of video precision that the televisions of the day weren't equipped with. If Mario is 14% too fat, oh well, hitting the deadline matters more!

For these games, a square pixel aspect ratio (which is what 8:7 will actually mean most of the time in the real world!) can, I think, better preserve the visuals as the artists envisioned them and achieve superauthenticity, but not always! 8:7 PAR is never going to be wrong; this is what players experienced back in the day, but 8:7 DAR can be wrong sometimes, even if it's usually an improvement.

I will probably play most first-party NES games with square pixels for this reason, but 4:3 will always be there if things look a little too thin.