Donkey Kong Recreated Using 6,400 Post-it Notes

NickFitz writes "Students at UCSC have recreated the first level of Donkey Kong using 6,400 Post-it notes stuck to the windows of the E2 building. It took a team of about 10 people five hours to complete the work, which will remain in place until May 1. There's a time-lapse video of the construction process."

If MIT students did it

It would be playable.

Re:If MIT students did it

I doubt they'd go so far as to give the Post-It facsimile an attribute that the original didn't have...

If Stanford students did it...

... the IPO would be done. :P

If German Chaos Computer Club geeks did it...

...it would be playable, but only if you had the side of a hotel to play on [blinkenlights.de]...

I've Never Felt This Way Before.

While this game's early '80s arcade popularity predates most of today's engineering students...

I suddenly feel so old :(

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

Actually, you did not need a quarter to play Donkey Kong (or any Nintendo game using the same cabinet). I had to get my DK fix and paper route money was not cutting it. Remember, back in this time frame, Atari was just about all anyone had for video games and cabinet games were a craze. Anyway, when I was was 12, money was tight but you could get around that. The front Plexiglas panel on the Donkey Kong cabinet could be manipulated so that you could lift it up get your hand in through the bottom of it. With your arm down inside the unit, you could play around for a little bit and find the metal clicker that a quarter would trigger when dropped in. You could simply keep clicking this and get credits up to the 99 max. Every time a credit was given (like from a quarter or you simulating a quarter), the game made a loud "blowwap" noise. To prevent being obvious, you could add one credit, hit the 1 player button to start a new game, then click that metal arm over and over again without that obvious noise. This trick worked better in the pizza shops and smaller venues then the full sized game rooms because the smaller places often did not pay attention or had no one around because the games were often in some side room or in the back somewhere. Full game rooms typically had too many people and employees around. I knew about the generals of how this worked because I had a few full sized video games in my basement, like Clowns, some tank game and a third that I don't remember, all back and white and all played to death. Yes it was wrong but I had to play DK somehow.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

Just so we're all clear on this: You couldn't afford to drop a quarter on DK but you could afford to keep three full-size cabinet arcade games in your basement.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

What's worse is that when we played DK, we just accepted the idea that DK threw fire. I don't remember anyone that questioned it.

I think what really happen was that he was supposed to throw feces but the focus group refused to play the game.

Re:I've Never Felt This Way Before.

He threw two types of barrel. The blue barrels were filled with oil, and would turn into little fire characters when they hit the fire barrel at the start of the course. The fire would then chase Mario/Jumpman up.

Loving it

I'd love to take part in something like that. Reminds me of freshman year, we'd have fun by making things out of our crappy food.
My favorites were the Lettuce Luigi, and the Mario Question Block that I made out of a stale bagel, the different colors on different sides made for a fun effect!

Bravo!

Nice to see students remembering the past. :)

Monkeys aren't donkeys

Stop messing with my head!

It's pretty friggin cool...

I saw it last week -- some great 8-bit action going on over at the engineering building. Ironically, it's the 8-bit stuff that's even remotely feasible to do with post-its, but its so old I wonder how many of those students actually played that game when it first came out...

First level?

... recreated the first level of Donkey Kong ...

How can you tell the first one apart from any of the other levels of Donkey Kong? That sure looks like the sixth level to me.

This makes me happy

Hooray for geeks with way too much time on their hands.

Re:This makes me happy

"Hooray for geeks with way too much time on their hands."

Said the guy posting on Slashdot.

Did they do this before?

Not with Donkey Kong but with Super Mario Bros (1)? I thought it got taken down cause they didn't get permission beforehand. Hopefully they have permission this time.

Re:Did they do this before?

You mean this? [yikes.com]

Quick question

What does UCSC think of this? How long will it stay up?

I'd like to do something like this on my UC campus... See you on the front page of slashdot in a week!

6400 of them?

seriously any slashdotter could do that with only 640 postits!

--

Nice!

Good thing they didn't have any, you know, work to do.

Wasted time!

If they're going to make it so big the least those billy goats could do is use 2xSaI [tudelft.nl]. *sigh*

Must've used quality post-it notes...

If they used the ones I have at work they'd still be trying to get the first one to stick for more than 3 seconds right about now.

Quit messing with our minds!

Quit messing with our minds! [ytmnd.com]

May I be the first to say...

NNNNNeeeeerrrrrrrrddddddsssssssssssss!!!!!!

post it

I wonder how feasable it would be to do this on walls in bedrooms and such. Maybe a simple Mario or mushroom could at least be done.

I just hope they branch out a bit more from Mario, stuff like Zelda and Metroid need love too

6,400

6,400 post-it notes ought to be enough to re-create any level.

Watch out for lawyers!

Are they "infringing" on copyrights?

Is this legitimate, licensed use of Post-It notes -- or will 3M send a cease and desist notice?

Oh heck.

I just walked right by this building on Friday but didn't have the presence of mind to look up.

Woops. I'll have to check it out tomorrow.

Meh...

640 post-its should be enough for anybody

*ducks*

about 10 people?

a team of about 10 people

What, was like 9.5 people?

Re:about 10 people?

Unfortunately, one of the original 10 team members died in a freak accident involving a rolling barrel during construction.

MirrorDot -mirror [of TFArticle..]

http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/0d70e490ec1eae07e 01c98ea762c1c1a/index.html [mirrordot.com]

=]

Weak stack

This is what 14,000 post-it notes look like:

Another day at the office?

Reminds me of Freshman Year

Reminds me of my freshman year in the dorms. We never did anything this impressive or visible, but we did spend most of one weekend making a movie, and designed a 'shack' for a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser that was two stories with running water (kind of). Now I'm a senior with more practical projects, drinking, and living in an apartment getting in the way... I suppose I did learn video editing along the way though.

Is it bad that I'm not even graduated and already reminiscing?

game vs. art resolution

I believe the orginal Donkey Kong had a screen resolution of 224 x 256 pixels. I don't think the art quite matches that resolution (with a 3" x 3" post-it covering 4 floors, you would need 16-foot floors to obtain the same effective vertical resolution). To be fair, they condensed the first level a bit on the top (the girl used to be on a raised platform, no?), so they are looking at fewer vertical pixels in the game -- and those do look like pretty tall floors...

[sigh] I'm saddened that I even bothered to think about this...

Too much time on their hands?

That's why the national savings rate is negative in this country.

Remember ATHF?

How long before someone calls the bomb squad on this one?

Hey, how about that: "someone set up us the bomb-squad"

They were going to do Duck Hunt....

but someone kept shooting at the window....

The E2 Building??

The E2 "building" is right here [everything2.com]. Dang kids; get off of my lawn.

yay!

Go banana slugs [ucsc.edu]!

I wonder..

Who got first post(it) ? :)

Free post-it ad on slashdot

respect - nice scheme to have a free post-it ad presented to a crowd the size of the /. audience.

The irony of it

Years ago, people predicted that computer technology would result in the "paperless office". Now, people are using paper to create the "computerless video game".

Dead Pixel

:-p

Very disappointing

When I read the headline I thought it meant that they had reproduced the first level programming as a flow chart using Post-it notes. Modern programmers won't remember this, but once upon a time you diagrammed the program logic before coding, rather than coding first and then using tools to produce the diagrams. Post-it note programming isn't a bad idea. You can create all the major code points on post-its, then join them up on a board, then rearrange the sequences for optimisation.

I just made myself feel so old, I need to go and chip a hand axe out of flint and kill myself.

Next on the agenda:

Animate it!

Re:how long ago was this?

So paper cuts don't count as bleeding edge?

Re:Wow.

This being UCSC, they probably used both in equal amounts. It's like Night of the Living Dead over there.

Re:Wow.

AFAIK, the paper industry actually plants new forest for the purpose of cutting it down 20 years later, rather than cutting any more old forest. So, because of the paper industry, we actually have more forest than we would otherwise. I know hating paper waste is "eco-aware", but really, it is more like "eco-sheeple"... FYI, recycling produces a lot of very nasty pollutants, too. Not that those necessarily outweigh the benefits of not just filling up landfills, but you've got to be aware of these things or you'll end up harming your cause rather than helping it.

Re:Wow.

Do you actually have any idea what an old-growth forest looks like and how an an old-growth forest ecosystem works? Because if you did, you'd know that old growth forests have ecosystems that are far more diverse than monocultures. Also, monocultures require far more energy to keep healthy(gasoline + foresters time + spraying) than mixed vegitation(none).

MOD PARENT UP

There is a huge difference between an old-growth forest and the ones that the forest industry plants to replace them. Basically, the forest industry removes almost all of the plants and wildlife that are not the single tree species that they are trying to harvest, not to mention the many species that rely on living in or around dead and rotting trees (which are, of course, unprofitable to keep around since they make logging more difficult). What they forest industry leaves behind when it clearcuts an area is more like a park -- as close to antiseptic as a forest can be, with uniform trees of the same species, relatively evenly spaced, and with nearly all of the underbrush cleared out. The "normal" ecosystem of most of these areas has been effectively destroyed and replaced with a monoculture.

As a result, one disease, predator species or parasite that targets that single species of tree can wreak amazing amount of havoc. I vividly remember the Pine Bark Beetle infestation of lodgepole pines in central Oregon about twenty years ago -- there were dead and dying trees as far as the eye could see, and in many areas, about one tree in ten survived. You can imagine how much of a fire risk all of those dead pines were, in the middle of a high, dry desert that was somewhat known for frequent thunderstorms. Even today, there are still huge areas that were formerly heavily forested where there is now approximately one tree left standing every hundred feet as a result of this massive infestation.

The grandparent post seems to be implying that the forests maintained by the forest industry are in some way an equivalent replacement for the ones that grow naturally. This is very much not the case.

Re:Wow.

That actually wasn't the point. The point is that the paper industry is planting new forest for the purpose of later cutting them down to make paper, instead of cutting more old forest. The secondary point is that not only do we keep the remaining old forest this way, but we also have a larger number of living trees on the earth at any given time than we would otherwise. True, the excess trees are not in a wonderful diverse ecosystem (I love forests), but at least they are trees.

Re:Wow.

Perspective? What perspective?

These folks brought a little art, entertainment, and joy into their own lives and the lives of others. Not only did they select a relatively environmentally friendly medium for their art, but these post-it notes may have been from recycled paper, may still be re-used, and can also be recycled.

You want some perspective? Get your head out of your bong (or wherever else it happens to be).

Re:why don't we just burn down the Amazon?

Congratulations on your BA in "Being a loud mouthed pillock".

Perhaps if you gave your brain the opportunity to engage, you'd realise that maybe there are people out here who just simply ***ENJOY GAMING*** rather than caring about making fashion statements.

My friend, I'm 45 years of age and I was probably playing computer games when you were just a twinkle in your dad's eye. At the moment I'm working my way through "Halo" on the PC, last night I had a semi-drunken evening with a few good buddies playing "Super Monkey Ball" on the Gamecube and having a "Speedball 2" league with them on a PC emulating a Commodore Amiga.

If you're short-sighted enough to only care about modern games, then that's your problem - just leave the rest of us to our fun.

And as for the "Donkey Kong" thing? Yep, a complete waste of paper but it's a few people having a bit of fun and not just sitting there moaning at what everyone else is doing...

Re:why don't we just burn down the Amazon?

Er... I hate to get personal here, but what the heck is wrong with you?

They used a few dozen packets of post-its. A single copy of the Sunday New York Times probably has five times as much paper in it.

And it's art. Your opinion of how much material they used for their art project, compared with your recollections of how much paper you used to get your oh-so-valuable degree, means precisely bubkis. Are you livid with rage that Shakespeare messed up all of that parchment? Carrying a grudge against van Gogh for wasting all of that canvas? Does the thought of those cavemen in France destroying their environment by blackening the roofs of their cave fill you with rage?