Donkey Kong Recreated Using 6,400 Post-it Notes

NickFitz writes "Students at UCSC have recreated the first level of Donkey Kong using 6,400 Post-it notes stuck to the windows of the E2 building. It took a team of about 10 people five hours to complete the work, which will remain in place until May 1. There's a time-lapse video of the construction process."

Comments

If MIT students did it

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be playable.

Re:If MIT students did it

[gardyloo]

I doubt they'd go so far as to give the Post-It facsimile an attribute that the original didn't have...

I've Never Felt This Way Before.

[MankyD]

While this game's early '80s arcade popularity predates most of today's engineering students...

I suddenly feel so old :(

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

What's worse is that when we played DK, we just accepted the idea that DK threw fire. I don't remember anyone that questioned it.

I think what really happen was that he was supposed to throw feces but the focus group refused to play the game.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you did not need a quarter to play Donkey Kong (or any Nintendo game using the same cabinet). I had to get my DK fix and paper route money was not cutting it. Remember, back in this time frame, Atari was just about all anyone had for video games and cabinet games were a craze. Anyway, when I was was 12, money was tight but you could get around that. The front Plexiglas panel on the Donkey Kong cabinet could be manipulated so that you could lift it up get your hand in through the bottom of it. With your arm down inside the unit, you could play around for a little bit and find the metal clicker that a quarter would trigger when dropped in. You could simply keep clicking this and get credits up to the 99 max. Every time a credit was given (like from a quarter or you simulating a quarter), the game made a loud "blowwap" noise. To prevent being obvious, you could add one credit, hit the 1 player button to start a new game, then click that metal arm over and over again without that obvious noise. This trick worked better in the pizza shops and smaller venues then the full sized game rooms because the smaller places often did not pay attention or had no one around because the games were often in some side room or in the back somewhere. Full game rooms typically had too many people and employees around. I knew about the generals of how this worked because I had a few full sized video games in my basement, like Clowns, some tank game and a third that I don't remember, all back and white and all played to death. Yes it was wrong but I had to play DK somehow.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

[ari_j]

Just so we're all clear on this: You couldn't afford to drop a quarter on DK but you could afford to keep three full-size cabinet arcade games in your basement.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

[Andrew Kismet]

He threw two types of barrel. The blue barrels were filled with oil, and would turn into little fire characters when they hit the fire barrel at the start of the course. The fire would then chase Mario/Jumpman up.

Monkeys aren't donkeys

[aurb]

Stop messing with my head!

If Stanford students did it...

[__aaclcg7560]

... the IPO would be done. :P

Re:how long ago was this?

[__aaclcg7560]

So paper cuts don't count as bleeding edge?

First level?

[oneiros27]

... recreated the first level of Donkey Kong ...

How can you tell the first one apart from any of the other levels of Donkey Kong? That sure looks like the sixth level to me.

Quit messing with our minds!

[suv4x4]

Quit messing with our minds!

Re:Did they do this before?

[mikesd81]

You mean this?

If German Chaos Computer Club geeks did it...

[jd]

...it would be playable, but only if you had the side of a hotel to play on...

6,400

[Disharmony2012]

6,400 post-it notes ought to be enough to re-create any level.

about 10 people?

[Ruvim]

a team of about 10 people

What, was like 9.5 people?

Re:about 10 people?

[evanbd]

Unfortunately, one of the original 10 team members died in a freak accident involving a rolling barrel during construction.

Re:Wow.

[The Anarchist Avenge]

Do you actually have any idea what an old-growth forest looks like and how an an old-growth forest ecosystem works? Because if you did, you'd know that old growth forests have ecosystems that are far more diverse than monocultures. Also, monocultures require far more energy to keep healthy(gasoline + foresters time + spraying) than mixed vegitation(none).

MOD PARENT UP

[Deef]

There is a huge difference between an old-growth forest and the ones that the forest industry plants to replace them. Basically, the forest industry removes almost all of the plants and wildlife that are not the single tree species that they are trying to harvest, not to mention the many species that rely on living in or around dead and rotting trees (which are, of course, unprofitable to keep around since they make logging more difficult). What they forest industry leaves behind when it clearcuts an area is more like a park -- as close to antiseptic as a forest can be, with uniform trees of the same species, relatively evenly spaced, and with nearly all of the underbrush cleared out. The "normal" ecosystem of most of these areas has been effectively destroyed and replaced with a monoculture.

As a result, one disease, predator species or parasite that targets that single species of tree can wreak amazing amount of havoc. I vividly remember the Pine Bark Beetle infestation of lodgepole pines in central Oregon about twenty years ago -- there were dead and dying trees as far as the eye could see, and in many areas, about one tree in ten survived. You can imagine how much of a fire risk all of those dead pines were, in the middle of a high, dry desert that was somewhat known for frequent thunderstorms. Even today, there are still huge areas that were formerly heavily forested where there is now approximately one tree left standing every hundred feet as a result of this massive infestation.

The grandparent post seems to be implying that the forests maintained by the forest industry are in some way an equivalent replacement for the ones that grow naturally. This is very much not the case.

Re:This makes me happy

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Hooray for geeks with way too much time on their hands."

Said the guy posting on Slashdot.

The irony of it

[ciaran.mchale]

Years ago, people predicted that computer technology would result in the "paperless office". Now, people are using paper to create the "computerless video game".

Re:Wow.

[The_Wilschon]

That actually wasn't the point. The point is that the paper industry is planting new forest for the purpose of later cutting them down to make paper, instead of cutting more old forest. The secondary point is that not only do we keep the remaining old forest this way, but we also have a larger number of living trees on the earth at any given time than we would otherwise. True, the excess trees are not in a wonderful diverse ecosystem (I love forests), but at least they are trees.