Remembering Original D&D, TSR and FITS

D&D Reprint

D&D Reprint

I recently picked a reprint of the original version of TSR’s Dungeon’s and Dragon’s. It’s a reprint of what many people call the white box version of D&D. Actually the first few printings of D&D came in wood grain cardboard boxes. After a few printings they changed to a white box.

D&D 3rd printing

D&D 3rd printing


This image is a third printing that I sold for $1600 a few years ago. My first copy was a first printing that I bought from Brian Blume. This was right after spending a Sunday afternoon in Gary Gygax’s basement exploring Greyhawk, his fantasy land. At that time, they sold the game by inviting people to play it. I believe that Brian told us at the time that they spent several thousand dollars printing that first 1000 copies. I think I learned later that Brian’s father financed the early TSR projects. I don’t know what happened to that 1st printing copy of D&D. I’m sure it was pretty well worn out, as we played the game quite a bit, back in the day. The 3rd printing copy I sold for so much, was a replacement for a worn out first printing that I picked up directly from Gary Gygax who often manned the TSR booth at GENCON.

Batwing - D&D circa 1975 & 2014

Batwing – D&D circa 1975 & 2014


My kids and their friends have recently enjoyed a few trips down into my old dungeon, which is called “Batwing”. Amazing that this old game still can capture the imagination of young people. Maybe more amazing that I held onto that binder for all these years.

FITS Box Cover

FITS Box Cover


Now if I could only convince them to give “Fight in the Skies” a try. “Fight in the Skies” is a World War 1 air combat game that has an element of role playing. FITS is said to be the one game has been played every single year at GENCON. Back in the day, I know I played FITS more than once at GENCON with Mike Carr, the author of the game.

Speaking of FITS, GENCON, Brian Blume and Mike Carr, I’ll never forget the first GENCON South in Jacksonville, Florida in 1978. At this time I was friends with a number of the TSR staff, but living far away in South Florida. Mike Carr and Brian Blume made the trip to Jacksonville to represent TSR. Some friends and I drove up to Jacksonville from South Florida. We ended up going out to diner with Mike and Brian. At one point, I told them that computer gaming wasn’t likely to take off, as the interactive social element wasn’t as strong in computer games as other forms of gaming. Most computer games in 1978 pitted you against the computer, or required multiple players to take turns at the controls. Boy, was my vision wrong. I hope I didn’t affect their business plans too much with my bad advice.

FITS Rules Book and Pilot Cards

FITS Rules Book and Pilot Cards


Speaking of FITS. I still have my pilot cards. My two best pilots are a German Albatros DIII pilot with 21 missions/1 kill and a Brittish Sopwith Camel pilot with 14 missions and 3 kills. By the way, during one of the reprints TSR or Wizard’s of the Coast renamed the game, “Dawn Patrol”. There appears to be an active group of people still playing it.

Model Railroad Foundation/Benchwork

Here is my first attempt at building a benchwork foundation for the first section of the City Point layout. Main motivation is light weight while maintaining maximum rigidity in order to allow for portability. My last layout used an L-Girder design. While the L-Girder design was very suitable for a stationary layout, because of space considerations, I need to make this layout movable. A L-girder design would be hard to make portable.

Benchwork

Benchwork-Foundation

It is made of plywood underlayment. It is cut into 3 & 1/2″ strips and notched to interlock on 16″ intervals.

notch in plywood

notch in plywood

While it is light, I’m hoping that when fastened to the bottom of the plywood layout that it becomes rigid enough that I don’t have problems with damage to the track work and scenery during moves.

Which Civil War General Wrote this Letter to his Sweetheart.

I had to share this – I have changed some of the names to make it harder to figure out the answer..

Corpus Christi Texas
Jan. 12th 1846

My Dear Nancy,

I have just been delighted by the receiving a long and interesting letter from the one I love so much and from the tone of her letter I am left with the hope that for the remainder of the time that we two are not one, she will be punctual in answering my letters. You do not know the pleasure it gives me to receive letters from you my Dear Nancy or you would write oftener. I write to you very often besides answering all your letters. You beg of me not to resign: it shall be as you say Nancy for to confess the truth it was on your account that I thought of doing so, although all the letters I get from my father are filled with persuasion for me to resign. For my own part I am contented with an army life, all that I now want, to be happy is for Nancy to become mine, and how much I would sacrifice if her parents would give now their willing consent. By Spring at farthest I hope to see the 4th Infy (You know that I have transferred from the 7th to the 4th) settled and that too on the Mississippi river, unless something should take place to give us active employment. Has Mr. Reeves ever delivered you the letters sent by him. It is astonishing Nancy what a place Corpus Christi has become. Already there are two Theaters and a printing office every night there is a performance play at one or the other. It seems strange to hear you talking of sleigh riding, for here we have although it is January weather warm enough for light clothing. Such a thing as a sprinkle of snow is rarely seen at Corpus Christi.

From my last letter you will see that I have been on a long trip through Texas and that I think the country beautiful and promising. If it should turn out after all that my Regiment should be retained here (it is not the opinion of any one that it will be kept) I could have but little to complain of. Your letter. and indeed all your letters, show your willingness to accompany me to any permanent Military post. It is very pleasant to hear such confessions from the one we love and in return I have to say that I would make any sacrifice for my Nancy’s happiness. But what an uninteresting letter I am writing you it seems to me that the more I write the worse I get.—I have not heard from Fred, since I have been in Texas. I have written to him once and I think twice since he wrote to me last. Tell him he must write soon. Fred is now about 3d for promotion. There has been two resignations at Corpus Christi that he has not heard of.—Mr. Ridgely and Mr. Sykes have gone to St. Louis on a sick leave; if I had known sooner that they were going I would have sent a letter by them.

I have written you several letters that remain unanswered so I shall look for another letter in every Mail. Give my love to all at White Haven. Soon I hope to see you again my dear dear Nancy and let us hope that it will be to never separate again for so long a time or by so great a distance.

Your Devoted
Ronald

A Clue…
Mary Lincoln supposedly once said of this man
“He is a butcher and is not fit to be at the head of an army. Yes, he generally manages to claim a victory, but such a victory! He loses two men to the enemy’s one. He has no management, no regard for life.”

In case you can’t figure out who the author of the letter was, I’ll add another post in a day or two with the answer.

Why Does Someone Recreate the Apple 1 in Exacting Detail with Original Parts?

This is the essence of a question someone asked on Applefritter.

Here are my thoughts on this topic.

It’s really not that complicated, people do this stuff cause it’s fun for them. This hobby is not for everyone. It’s about personality, if you don’t get it, you either haven’t been exposed to enough of the possibilities, or you have a different personality.

This question is really applicable to many different vintage systems with similar followings – the Apple 1 gets a lot of press because it’s the very first computer of a very successful company that, at the moment, happens to be near the top of it’s game.

There are three main activities in this hobby, with a little different motivation for each.

1) The collector – For some people, it is a lot of fun to own an item of significant historic value.
2) The operator – For some people, it is a lot of fun learning how to build or restore and operate a vintage computer.
3) The developer – Some people find it fun to expand the capabilities of vintage computers, providing capabilites to vintage machines that could not be dreamed of, back in the day.

There is a lot of crossover between the people participating in each of these activities.

For some of the rarer computers, you may decide it’s better to use a reproduction, rather than risk damage to an original machine or you may not be able to find or afford an original machine.

The reasoning behind installing date code original parts and making the reproduction as accurate as possible, is two fold.

  • First- tracking down these parts is like a scavenger hunt and can be a lot fun in itself.
  • Second- making a reproduction more like an original, raises the level of pride and satisfaction in the end result to a significant degree.
  • In case you are trying to decide whether you might enjoy the hobby or not, consider this: how could you decide whether you might or might not like swimming, without going in the water?

    Engine House Mock Up

    Using photoshopped, colorized images of the side, entrance and roof of the real engine house, I have created a HO scale mock up of 2 sides of the engine house and one side of the roof. Images were printed on matte paper on an inkjet printer and glued to foam core board. The engine house was actually 150 feet long by 50 feet wide – this is a true HO scale mock up, so its a little over 20 inches long and 7 inches wide. I will likely improve the look of the mock up in the future with a thinner roof made with cardboard or plastic instead of foam core and some detail parts and add the cupola that belongs on the roof. I have found that Grandt Line makes 6 over 6 windows that should made a nice upgrade over the printed windows. Any edges of the foam core that show will be painted over.

    engine house mock up ii

    engine house mock up ii

    A front view gives a little better perspective of how the mock up looks next to a Mantua General.

    engine house mock up with track plan

    engine house mock up

    Finally a view of this section of the layout with the rough track plan highlighted in yellow with photoshop. This gives an idea of the proportions of this part of the layout. The water tanks would be just to the side of the engine.

    engine house mock up track plan

    engine house mock up track plan

    The open space towards the bottom of the image will contain a bit of the bluff that was on both sides of the cut that lead to the wharf. The next module to the right side will contain a piece the end of the trench line that protected City Point, as well as some crossovers on the incoming tracks.

    Engine House colorization version 2

    engine house side-version 2

    engine house side-version 2

    I hope that this is the final version, as I have other projects to pursue. Changes include coloring railroad trucks, the engine and most noticeably the wagon. I also slightly “weathered” the roof and tweaked things around the foliage. The color I’m least confident of, is the wagon box. I made it blue to match quartermaster wagon colors, but it’s just a wild guess. The red wagon and railroad wheels were very common at the time, so at least they are plausible.

    Next thing I’m going to try to do is to build a model engine house with foam core board covered with printed (colorized) images of the actual engine house.

    Colorized City Point Engine House Picture

    Just learned how to colorize a black and white image with photoshop. It’s easier than I thought it would be. Though this image is just a hack job, it shows what it possible. It also can be used to help pick the colors in my actual model.

    Colorized Engine House Picture

    Colorized Engine House Picture

    Let me know what you think of the color choices.

    First Mantua General Remotoring Experience

    Mantua Remotoring

    Mantua Remotoring

    I generally followed Al Muellers recommendations for replacing the drive line – though I did have difficulty drilling and soldering the music wire into the brass rod on the engine side. The tender side was easier, since I drilled the smaller hole and used it as a pilot hole for the motor shaft. This caused the drive wire to be lined up with the shaft, even if it wasn’t perfectly centered in the brass rod.

    The shortened drawbar was cut out of scrap PCB material. The copper side is cut, so that there is no short circuit between the tender and the cab.

    The other thing I changed was mounting the Nichibo PC-130 motor. I found I had a couple of screws that fit the mounting holes on the face of the motor. I presume that these are a metric size. I decided to use some scrap sheet metal to make a mount. It is bent at a 90 degree angle and using a #6 screw, mounted to the tender floor, opposite the hole that is used for feeding track power back to the tender. This provides a solid mount that, if necessary, can easily be removed or adjusted. I will eventually add DCC, but not sound, as I am looking at developing an external sound system, which will be able to produce far more dramatic effects that the small speaker in a tender could produce.

    The Nichibo PC-130 motor produces incredibly improved low speed operation. I’m just amazed at the dramatic difference that this made. I haven’t yet calculated scale top speed using a traditional 12 volt power pack, but I’m guessing that it is way below capabilities of a real 4-4-0. Since I’m only modeling the yard and port, where speed would be low anyway, I’ll probably live with it.

    I have some more things to do with the locomotive.

  • improve tender truck electrical pickup
  • replace front truck and tender wheels
  • address an issue with tractive effort, which seems inadequate at this point – perhaps more weight is all that is needed
  • add tender couplers – may use knuckle couplers initially in order to do some testing, but eventually I want to use link and pin
  • paint and detail as Liet. Gen Grant
  • Brass Bands at City Point

    During lunch hour today, I took the opportunity to visit the Addison Gallery of Art on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. The purpose of my visit was to see the original painting, “City Point, Headquarters of General Grant” by Edward Lamson Henry. The painting is currently in storage, but by arranging with them in advance, the curators were kind enough to bring it out for me to see.

    City Point by Edward Lamson Henry

    City Point by Edward Lamson Henry

    What a treat to see the painting in person. The painting is incredibly detailed and digital images do not do it justice. Here is a better image than what I was able to capture. View the zoomable image to see the amazing degree of detail in this painting. Among them, is a brass band, playing in front of Grant’s Headquarters. Brass Bands were a fixture at City Point, especially during the winter, when active campaigning was of questionable value, due to what the weather could do to the the Virginia road system.

    Brass Band at City Point

    Brass Band at City Point

    I expect that the figure sitting on the bench at the left side of this detail, is meant to represent Grant, himself. I think Mr Henry was trying to tell a story with this painting, much like some model railroaders do. I’ll try to make an effort to post some more images with details over the next few days.

    ambrotype studio at city point

    I just noticed in the corner of this picture of the turntable and engine house at City Point that there is an ambrotype studio.

    Turntable and Engine House

    Turntable and Engine House

    A high res version can be downloaded front the National Archives or from Wikipedia.

    A few observations. The wagon isn’t a typical military wagon, so I suspect it might be a support wagon for the photographer. The Ambrotype sign written on the side of the railroad machine shop on the left side of the image also is a bit puzzling. I doubt that the army would allow a private photographer to advertise on the side of their building. The most likely explanation that I can think of, is that this is actually A.J. Russel’s studio, as he was an army captain tasked with documenting by photograph, the US Military Railroad during the Civil War.

    Here is a crop of just the Studio. Notice the north facing open roof. Before the advent of high intensity lighting and flashes, photography studios typically would have large north facing windows to indirectly light the scene. Looks like that in this case, they just opened up the roof.

    Ambrotype Studio at City Point

    Ambrotype Studio at City Point

    The remaining question, which I can’t answer, is whether Russell was also doing some freelance work while at City Point.