Derek Smart's Desktop Commander

[Timemaster Tim]

The thread on Battlecruiser's keyboard template (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=52614) brought back memories of reading comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.space-sim and the insane flamewar that burned on Usenet for years. But more importantly, it reminded me that Derek Smart inspired some of the finest work to ever come out of Something Awful.

Derek Smart's Desktop Commander (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/derek-smarts-desktop.php)

It made literally made me laugh out loud when I saw it for the very first time. And it's still funny even today.

[Eric Majkut]

PETE HARSHNISH!

Some of the old SA videos are pretty funny.

[ArrowOfFortune]

Wow that flamewar was something. I remember dabbling in it on the side of the detractors for a while... it was just an insanely fun metagame irritating the crap out of DSmart (PhD)

[KiloOhm]

Nice - I have to ask - what's that movie all the clips are from (the little alien guys). It looks like one I'd like to see on my new desktop.

[drake113]

The little alien guys are from the movie "Feeders". Between knowing that, and actually having played (and sorta enjoyed) a good deal of Derek Smart games, I think I've achieved "Most Pathetic Person Evar" status.

[Volksy]

I couldn't remember if I actively participated in that bit of Usenet "brilliance", so I checked Google groups. Apparently I made a smart-ass comment on CSIPGS that led to me being plonked by the Taco Commander sometime in April 2001.

Thankfully he didn't take me up on my suggestion in my reply to the plonking, which was to team up with Romero to make Daikatana Millennium 4000...

[Dreamshadow]

The little alien guys are from the movie "Feeders". Between knowing that, and actually having played (and sorta enjoyed) a good deal of Derek Smart games, I think I've achieved "Most Pathetic Person Evar" status.

*shrug* I like his game concepts. I still try to play Universal Combat periodically (and I'm still trying to find a copy of the expansion), but the game is still an arcane mess of commands. And for some reason I keep coming back to bash on it in hopes of having an enjoyable ship combat experience.

[CJ Martin]

That retard tried to pin the F3 source code leak on me in one of the usenet threads...too bad for him I was working for EA, not Microprose. What a loon...

-CJ