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SiliGoneValley-MagicEdge

Tue, 7/5 12:28PM • 15:31

SUMMARY KEYWORDS edge, magic, theming, entertainment, silicon valley, idea, important, onyx, technology, system, flight simulator, home, network, silicon graphics, gaming, game, simulation, squadron leader, shoreline, people Come with me we're going to Silicon Valley. For immediate release magic edge launches location based entertainment in US Mountain View California August 25 1994. Magic edge Inc today unveiled a new location based entertainment venue that's going to rock the entertainment industry. The new 12,000 square foot facility located at 1625 shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View, incorporates a dazzling combination of special effects, thrills, and cutting edge cuisine. The attraction was designed from the ground up by magic edge Inc. and the project was funded by Billion Dollar Game Maker Namco. Namco owns the US site along with an additional magic edge installation in Tokyo, Japan, which opened July 16 1994. Quote, In researching some of the world's top entertainment venues and theme parks, we have developed a format which captures a spirit and excitement that is really going to surprise and captivate people, unquote. enthuses Don Morris, president and founder of magic edge growing up in Silicon Valley in the 1990s. There was entertainment everywhere. There were a couple of amusement parks, most notably, the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk in wait for it, Santa Cruz, the wonderful, great America still there today. There were movie theaters just dotting the landscape. It seemed like every neighborhood had a movie theater, except for the Richmond there were smaller attractions. And for Silicon Valley, one of the things that really sold it was this idea of an attraction that was I don't want to say on a personal level, but was kind of on a personal level. Think Chucky Cheese, yeah, they're the shows with the animatronics going. But most of all, there was this idea that you could go and interact with a machine, a personal one on one interaction with the machine within the scope of this larger venue. And of course, that was Nolan Bushnell is genius. And later on his kind of downfall and a couple of different companies. And that dates back, of course, to the days of the Nickelodeon of Edison's so practice scope, I think he was what he called the system, the one where you could watch it as one person looking down into a box with the film. And you would have this interaction, which was personal, but within a broader context. And one of the things that happened was Silicon Valley began to very heavily depend on this idea that it was the technology capital of the world. And that needed to be in all aspects, including entertainment life, and magic edge, which I love was a flight simulator group that was just ridiculously awesome. Now, flight simulators go way back way back into the 19. Well, technically, the 1940s, the attempt of the whirlwind computer was to build a the Navy to build a flight simulator to train and it didn't quite work out because the processing power wasn't there, of course, so what magic edge was is you got yourself strapped into this pod, and there's a monitor, and the canopy comes down and it's dark. So what you're experiencing is a almost completely wraparound view of what you would see in one of I think it was three, I remember being three planes, but maybe I'm wrong. And you had a helmet on and you were I remember was a helmet or a headset, I kind of think it was a helmet. But what happened was you would go through and you'd have this great experience of flying a plane yourself and almost invariably crashing. It wasn't very long. It was like 12 minutes, I want to say 12 to 15 Maybe, and you flew a mission. And if you were like me, you tried to crash as hard as possible. And that was that the location for magic edge was really important. 1625 shoreline Boulevard, roughly two blocks from where I'm sitting now recording this was one fairly long block away from the century 16 Mountain View, movie theater, and maybe maybe three blocks away from Silicon Graphics, which was the company that provided the hardware. And it's a really important idea, because if you look at the pictures of the pods, it's it's super impressive, because if you look at them, they're you know, they're multi motion. They're, they're super, for the time super high res stuff, and it used an SGI system called the onyx and I want to read again from the press release, which by the way was posted by a guy named Mike Wang to sigh dot aeronautics dot simulation, the Usenet group now available via Google Groups. And I want to read about the system they use. The opening of magic edge marks huge technological advancements for the entertainment industry, taking virtual reality to the next level. Magic edge is making use of Silicon Graphics Onyx reality engine, a four processor multi rack multi channel option, option boards network 18 Different capsules allowing six capsules at a time to interact with one another. The Onyx machine also delivers the ultra realistic graphical images to players interact with inside the cockpit paradigm simulation Inc, a leading developer of real time tools and gaming software develop the game for magic edge. The game is based on paradigms Vega product and is a major breakthrough in network gaming guaranteed to challenge the most discriminating video attic. These landmark technologies the immersive full motion flight simulator together with the detailed theming and special effects of the environment promised to set the standard for Out Of Home Entertainment in the Bay area and beyond. This was just based on the pod the movement, the effects that moved this beyond what was possible in a home gaming world. Because flight simulators have been popular for years, Microsoft Flight Simulator is hugely important in the history of simulation and the history of graphics for mainstream computing systems. In fact, the fact that there are mainstream computing systems pretty much proves that what's impressive about the system was the Onyx is a really important system in the history of high end graphics simulation. I don't think we have this machine we have an onyx, or at least part of a system. But I don't think we have the Onyx that was used here. And maybe at some point, I'm gonna have to do an oral history with these folks because I really need to know and understand how they developed it if it was just a off the shelf Onyx system with this paradigm Vega tattooed over it was something more complex, but it was here it was in the heart. None of the heart of Silicon Valley. It was in the heart of technology Silicon Valley, because Mountain View now is known as Google town. Mountain View then was SGI town with this little outpost of entertainment. The movie theater, there was shoreline billiard cues are now there's a computer history museum, and Google and pear Avenue theater down the way. What's really important was the network aspect, you were still interacting one on one with your system, but it was within this network dogfight concept, which is great. But what happened here wasn't a failure of technological ambition or technological delivery. But this idea that the world for each individual was getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, wonderful example, these systems could not be easily upgraded to keep up with the advances in graphics. And if you look at that, you see that as computer graphics for your home computer really skyrocketed in abilities, largely because of the development of really good coprocessors and video boards, and utterly important soundboard Sound Blaster and all of their follow ons. Really, home gaming was becoming something that was big. Add to that the internet, because you'd have to be a fool to not notice that 1994 was the year that we started to see mosaic and then Netscape. And whenever you add a networking capability to a system and give people downtime to use that system where they're not doing just work, but they have leisure time, they begin to be used for games in a networked sense. You saw it with Plato, you saw it with Dartmouth time sharing system. You saw it with everything that came before. And there's a wonderful article on a site called Island man.org. About magic edge. And it's it's impressive. I gotta say, it's a very impressive little older site that is by a guy named Robert Lorre. And here's the guy who has been around and he was at Magic edge. As a software engineer from 1994 through 1997. Pretty much the heart of the company and I want to read a section called end game. We had a major Christmas party in 1995 Lots of toast to our success and dreams of the future. Several months later in 1996 management amounts the cashflow problems and asked for everyone to go on half pay for a short time. Three months later, there was no cash for salaries but the investors were right around the corner they said I took the summer off and returned home to the shores of Lake Superior. Upon returning chapter seven bankruptcy was filed. My $13,000 in back salary was placed on a low priority creditors list. I never did see a dime. That's a story of a whole lot of really sad stories about Silicon Valley startups, and often their Silicon Valley startups that technologically were so far ahead of the game that it was not even funny, but almost always what kills these startups isn't that their technology isn't good enough. It's that there is some technology that is okay, but better placed within the current world. The Newton failed, but the Palm Pilot, the Palm Pilots exceeded magic edge had this idea also that Allah Other places hadn't. I'll be talking about you wink and other Nolan Bushnell concept a little later but but this idea that unexperienced required food, and the technology experience especially and this is also from the press release, their missions may be completed but their magic edge experience is not guests may refuel in the officer's club, a high tech futuristic Restaurant and Bar, they can trade tales of adventure over one of many unique microbrews. Offered or splashdown with a personal wine tasting by the class, they will enjoy vicarious thrills as they watch the live action of current missions on giant color screens. The officer club menu offers such culinary delights as spicy mandarin duck salad, or rosemary cornish game hen. Think about this for a second, as you are marketing this, you are not thinking that if you're offering mandarin duck salad and rosemary cornish game hen, you're not thinking of drawing at that point for me. 21 year old, I think of draw drawing tech bros. Honestly, that's the best way to put it. But at the same time, you're not going to draw tech. Why? Because what they have is better than what you can present, their graphics are better, their soundcard is better, at least after the initial introduction. And suddenly everything sort of falls into place of White didn't succeed, it probably succeed technologically. But why it didn't take off. And why wasn't there a magic edge on every corner in Silicon Valley? That's easy, because the acceleration in the technology that was being made available for the personal computer and from networking for personal computers, killed it off, just flat dead, and I'm gonna tell you something, it's probably for the best because as cool as a entertainment concept as virtual reality has been, the reason why it has never taken off to the level that it is, is because of this idea of a separate but together experience. Where immersive technology work is when you can with other people share the same experience. It's why the Nickelodeon concept of staring down into a box was so quickly replaced by the projected image with a theater group. Yes, the video game arcade took off. But look at how often it's failed. And now it's more or less gone. You can find arcade, you're lucky and you're pretty much preaching to the nostalgic choir. But the idea that if I'm going to have an entertainment, I either want to be immersed in a experience with people or I want to be immersed with an experience by myself in a space that I control. And as time has gone on. The desire for the group experience has really slacked while the desire for the individual experience that you can personalize and use on your time in your space. As you control it has increased but still managed to get what's cool, and the press release which by the way poorly written sort of gives you the idea of what it was. The magic edge experience begins the moment guests walk across the diamond plate steel floor to the check encounter, where they're issued their flightsuit an orientation delivered via LaserDisc in a highly themed Briefing Room is followed by question and answer period with a magic edge Squadron Leader guests are fully briefed on the capabilities of the x 21 Hornet, a 21st century super cruise multi-role strike fighter aircraft as guests stepped through the steel girder and column portals to the hangar deck. Their senses are overwhelmed by a multitude of lighting and sound effects including 8000 watts of 3d Doppler effect, they actually feel the thunder of fighter jets passing overhead 12 Full Motion X 21 aircraft hover in the fog guest to send the gleaming metal steps to their aircraft and strapped into the fully equipped cockpit network together and under the command of their Squadron Leader they embark on an interactive story complete with barrel rolls, where they do get out in the air with each other and explore hundreds of miles of beautiful landscape chock full of challenges. After the flight they debrief with their squadron leader who guides them through the triumphs and tragedies with an instant replay Video Note while you're playing a video camera is watching you and you could potentially be one of the pilots displayed on the TVs in the entranceway in the cafe. looking stupid or studly. I don't remember that being the experience myself. I kind of remember the video and I kinda remember the theming. But honestly, what I remember more than anything, is the flight. And I think that that's that's an important thing because what is true about that more than anything is that it is an idea that the theming is as important as the ride. That idea has proven to be both true and false. It's true when it's already a part of some experience that people want to have Disneyland the lead up into the ride's The best example is Indiana Jones. But if that if Indiana Jones was its own thing, trying to draw people that teaming doesn't matter here the theming was one half well, maybe 1/3 of the draw. And it's not enough. Yeah, the technology was cool, but you could get that at home fighter 10 USA and what I'm going to be talking about next, of course, my personal favorite cues are maybe Laser Quest to provided this idea that technology was going to be the next entertainment form. And they were right. Just the shape of it was completely different.

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