Slashdot Mirror
MIT Hack Turns the Green Building Into a Giant Game of Tetris
An anonymous reader writes "MIT hackers have turned the Green Building, the tallest building in Cambridge, into a giant, playable, full color game of Tetris. According to the IHTFP Hack Gallery, "MIT hackers have long considered 'Tetris on the Green Building' to be the Holy Grail of hacks.""
That is all.
I don't know how many times this has been done, but in 2007 ago electrical engineers here in Oulu, Finland made the same thing, although with regular 7-storyish building. Here's the Finnish news.
Check out the http://www.piwo.pwr.wroc.pl/?lang=en - it is the full-color universal display fired every year at Wroclaw University of Technology campus (Poland). Also on tour in 2012
Maybe Woz will show up to play this one too.
Wasn't this already done like 4 years ago? Okay, this time they managed to link up tetris, not just controlled animation (IIRC), but still...
I'll give you the link I gave on some other site that hosted that: They still have a lot of functionality missing to get to the level of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGU8dlvOPUY
I can see why Apple doesn't recruit at MIT. Real engineering means mass production, hiding craft, maximizing utility. Apparently MIT uses its monopoly on talented high school students to make art installations.
It's just another "crazy thing" that somebody did that really just takes time and planning.
Yeah, just like the first moon landing. Ho hum.
In 2000: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-239433.html
They called it La Bastille, for some reason: http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org/movies/
>> Yeah, just like the first moon landing. Ho hum.
More like the sixth moon landing.
Students of Delft University of Technolgy did this in 1995, at the 22-story EWI building. The lamps could also be controlled over internet.
I found a photo here:
http://retro.nrc.nl/W2/Nieuws/1998/02/27/Med/06.html
I just watched the video... I didn't know it was possible to be so bad at Tetris.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IAIPUGO1iko
Pretty much, yes. The ratings for Apollo 13 sucked before the 'problem'.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...but they really suck at playing Tetris.
Yawn. This has been done before. It's old hat. Do something new, MIT.
watch out, The Tetris Company LLC is going to sue them for trademark violation...
As chance would have it, I was at MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club open house last night (Saturday 21 April 2012). TMRC, for those who don't know, is a well-spring of hacker subculture. Their model railroad layout is fully automated using homebrew control and interface hardware, and their own Linux-based software. Formerly it ran on adapted telephone switch relays.
Anyhow, their layout includes a scale model of the Green building, and yes, you can play Tetris on it. Granted, it's not as impressive as doing it on the *real* building, but there's something to be said for prior art. ;)
I'll see if I can't get a video of it uploaded.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
No, this is Cambridge. Boston sucks for entirely different reasons.
if it had been Boston the whole city wold have closed in fear - IT'S got flashy lights OMG its a bomb Terrorists!!!
I see installed lighting with permission probably , not hacking ?
People still play that boring game?
The fellow should have practiced the game before going online in front of the whole city though!
I was on the bridge for that, some terrible skill for mit students, great show though!
"Eureka", Rotterdam, 1991.
Awesome video.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Ahh, the EWI building hack (at the time it was still the EE faculty, I believe?). Where I whiled away many an hour playing X-pilot, on the department's Sun workstations. And remembering when amazingly we got Unix going on a PC thanks to the hard work of a guy called Linus. Good times...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Is there a less shitty set of pictures? Opening the slideshow gives you access to a series of thumbnails and a bunch of frivolous crap all around it.
Because if it wasn't written in LISP then it still sucks.
We toured the MIT campus a few weeks ago during a trip to Boston to visit several schools that my daughters might attend. (My daughter that applied there didn't get admitted though.) Anyway we saw the Green building and the tour guides (some junior and senior students) told us the history of the hacks. (My favorite hack is still the smoot marks on the bridge). They mentioned that the lights in that building are ALWAYS on and if there was a time at night that the building was completely dark it would be a sign of the coming of the end of the world. So I suggested that a good hack would be to black out the building on "Mayan Long count Calendar rollover day". I was told that maybe I should not have said that! (Future hack?)
Students of the Wrocaw University of Technology turned one of the dormitory buildings into a color display. The event is called P.I.W.O. (Potezny Indeksowany Wyswietlacz Oknowy - literally Giant Indexed Display made of Windows, but the acronym means BEER) and was held for several years during the juwenalia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGU8dlvOPUY
Though my other, much tamer art project was removed by a distraught faculty member even though I had all the permits. Putting it up a second time (with the help of a facility person and friends) before class was over was a challenge!
All hail the (now defunct) Fish Bowl!
8-PP
Tetris games was wonderful When I was child I was playin my games eveyday. But graphics was so bad that time. whatever I am playin better games now http://www.duckgame.net/