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Tetris
takes over tower block.
Damian Carrington. BBC News
Online. April 19, 2000.
This
story is also online here - with photos
The world's
largest game of Tetris is currently dropping its frustrating
electronic blocks down 10 storeys of a university building
in the US.
A student
group at Brown University converted their Science Library
into a giant video game screen by installing over 10,000 Christmas
lights in the windows.
Also
needed were 11 custom-built circuit boards, a data network
running through the tower and a personal computer running
Linux. The result is a game that can be played by bystanders
and seen for several miles.
The group,
Tech House, says it is currently the world's largest fully
functional Tetris game. The current record holder according
to the Guinness Book of World Records is a Dutch effort that
lit up 15 floors at Delft University in 1995.
Hallucination
inspiration
La Bastille
cost less than $900 but took five months of planning, construction
and installation. It will operate until 21 April with a live
band accompanying the players with Tetris music.
Unfortunately,
the giant screen does not make the game any easier. Soren
Spies, Tech House's Projects Manager, told BBC News Online:
"The game was originally difficult to play because the response
to user input was rather poor.
"But
we sped things up and it is now fairly easy to play, though
occasionally people are overcome with awe and excitement and
have trouble doing the right thing."
Long-time
Tech House member Keith Dreibelbis first came up with the
idea for the project.
He said:
"The concept mainly has to do with hallucination from excessive
video gaming.
"For
anyone who has ever played way too much Tetris, and looked
at squareish buildings, it is easy to start hallucinating
Tetris blocks in them."
Tech
House call La Bastille an art installation and explaining
what it means, Mr Dreibelbis said: "There are three ways to
look at it. If you want a philosophical take on it, you can
say that actually putting the game on the science library
is a little nod to video game addicts everywhere.
"If you
want a more technical take on it, it's a challenge in hardware,
software and resource management. Finally, if you want a more
geeky take on it, it's a hack."
The Dutch
game was also built by students, from the Electrical Engineering
department at Delft University of Technology.
It was
displayed on 15 floors of a 96-metre tall building and used
3.5 kilometres of cable and 400 lights. Internet users could
play the game through a telnet session.
©
2000 BBC
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