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- Why Doom has an inside joke to Usenet, or
- How I helped create a cheat key code.
-
- By Seth Cohn (seth@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu)
-
- Doom came out Dec 10th, and first I did was go looking for cheat keys for it.
- Didn't find any, but I came close. My brother Dale and I had a funny feeling
- (call it a hunch) that somewhere in the game SPISPOPD was embedded. We didn't
- find it in the code, but turns it it was there after all.
-
- What is SPISPOPD? Well, to make a long story short, due to all the Doom hype on
- the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action Usenet newsgroup, someone posted a suggestion
- to id that the next game be named something less likely to be used as a subject
- header (ala When is DOOM coming out? The DOOM beta is so cool, and the ever
- popular DOOM FAQ) They suggested the unlikely name of Smashing Pumpkins into
- Small Piles of Putrid Debris. Of course, someone else immediately posted that
- they wanted the beta of SPISPOPD and where was it? I joined in the fun, along
- with a long list of others and started to DESCRIBE this fictional game. We all
- got into the fun, and it was in part a healthy humorous response to the
- pressures of such a long wait for Doom.
-
- I probably posted more SPISPOPD stuff then anyone else at first, and when
- someone else posted a signature spoofing DOOM FAQ author Hank Leukhart's saying
- "SPISPOPD FAQ 1.0 coming soon" I flamed them and stole the idea. I claimed to be
- the REAL FAQ author and asked for submissions. I got a number of good ones, and
- taking these and all of the posts up to the first mention of SPISPOPD (I saved
- them all, think it was a great thread) I created a really funny spoof of the
- DOOM FAQ. In the process, id became ego for one reason: I was afraid of getting
- sued. I mailed Jay Wilbur and asked what he'd prefer out the range of options
- (id was doing SPISPOD, wasn't, etc..) and the only answer I got from him was...
- well... I used it as his quote in the FAQ. <Big grin>
-
- I got LOTS of mail including congrats, flames (such as GET A LIFE!), more
- submissions, and my favorite, people asking where they could get a copy of the
- game.
-
- The best for me was getting a note from David Taylor at id, one of the Doom
- coders, saying how much he enjoyed the FAQ. Little did I know...
-
- To make the matter more confusing, a bunch of guys at Cal-poly decided they
- liked the idea, and ignoring whatever features they didn't want to write into it
- (and I don't blame them... some of the FAQ was truly outlandish), they wrote a
- game called SPISPOPD. This game is cute, and using VGA and SB, is actually
- playable and well worth downloading. I am amazed they wrote it in 48 hours...
-
- So, I logged on Dec 15th having beaten the game a few times, and lo and behold,
- someone has posted the cheat keys, and idspispopd is one of them. Someone
- (Patch) suggested I write a little explanation of just how and what SPISPOPD is,
- to help all those folks who don't know the inside scoop.
-
- And as Paul Harvey would say, That's the REST of the story....
-
- (I'm also including a copy of the FAQ, posted separately. This is MUCH funnier
- if you have a copy of DOOM FAQ 2.X around...)
-
- SSSS PPPP IIII SSSS PPPP OOOO PPPP DDD | Official SPISPOPD FAQ Author
- S P P II S P P O O P P D D | Seth Cohn
- SSSS PPPP II SSSS PPPP O O PPPP D D | seth@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu
- S P II S P O O P D D | FAQ 1.1 coming soon! SPISPOPD Feb 29!
- SSSS P IIII SSSS P OOOO P DDD | Easter Ernie May 94! WAY Cool!
-
- [Please feel free to include this article in any media, so long as it's
- not altered in any way]
-
- --
- Seth Cohn - Warning - I use CAPS to emphasize, not to yell |If you read
- email preferred - I consider spelling errors and grammar |RUOW, Honk!
- Net Junkie since 89 to be secondary to the meaning itself |Orange Rainbow
- [Space for rent] - I take unpopular positions & get flamed|Spirits R #1!
-
-