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How Myst Almost Couldn't Run on CD-ROM | War Stories | Ars Technica

Ars Technica · interview · Watch on YouTube

Game history & retro gamingGame programming & engines

What it is

Myst co-creator Rand Miller recounts how the HyperCard-built game struggled to run on 1x CD-ROM drives. He and his brother Robyn compressed image and audio data heavily to get acceptable performance. Part of Ars Technica's War Stories series.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters point to it as the first-person story of how Myst grew out of HyperCard and fit on CD-ROM, especially in threads about HyperCard and retro game constraints.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “is actually more fascinating and entertaining in my opinion.”

    Fascinating, entertaining account of Myst on CD-ROM

    nodesocket, 2020-03 · Strong recommendation · in “How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations [video]”

  2. “There's a documentary about it”

    Documentary on how Myst was ported from HyperCard

    anonsivalley652, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “HyperCard: What Could Have Been (2002)”

  3. “Rand Miller has a great video with Ars Technica”

    Rand Miller tells the Myst story himself

    clusmore, 2023-01 · Recommendation · in “When Douglas Adams wrote about Hypercard”

  4. “as Rand Miller discusses in this excellent Ars Technica piece”

    Rand Miller on why CD-ROM was no no-brainer for Myst

    rideontime, 2023-07 · Recommendation · in “Demoscene accepted as UNESCO cultural heritage in The Netherlands”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: myst, hypercard, cd-rom, rand miller, retro games

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