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Rebecca Heineman has died
- Rakshith 10mo ago[dead]
- noufalibrahim 10mo agoWow. What an impactful person. I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I did know about her till her death though I've played many of the games mentioned in the WP article about her. RIP.
- nottorp 10mo agoPop-up when pressing back on mobile that stopped returning to HN. Sheesh, the mobile web is really predatory. Good that I don’t use it much.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- roryokane 10mo agoIt’s not just on mobile – PC Gamer’s website does that on desktop too. Even with uBlock Origin. :(
- alecbz 10mo agoSo scary to go from diagnosis to passing in such a short time. Cherish every sunrise.
- empressplay 10mo ago@dang could we have a black banner please?
- zote 10mo agoFor posterity, we have gotten a black banner. Farewell to a true hacker. She will be missed.
- jpgvm 10mo agoRIP Burger. Thanks for all the epic games and stories.
- yawaramin 10mo agoAlso, would it be possible to make the black banner a hyperlink that points directly at the HN submission?
- squigz 10mo agoHere is a good response/thread from last year on that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39064497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39064497
- altairprime 10mo ago(@dang has no effect in HN comments. Contact the mods using the footer contact link for attention to threads.)
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- evan_ 10mo agoThe first time I became aware of her was in the "Another World 101" series, about her SNES port: https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/index.html https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/index...
- memonkey 10mo agoWhat an amazing career. RIP.
- CursedSilicon 10mo agoI was lucky to catch some of Becky's livestreams on YouTube over the years. More than a brilliant programmer she was truly a kind soul. She never approached topics with any kind of ego. Just a joy and love for the things she'd worked on and the people she'd worked with
- some_furry 10mo agoYeah, that's the impression I got from everyone who's saddened by her loss. We lost a legend.
- deeg 10mo agoI didn't know her but reading the eulogies it was obvious she was a kind person who touched so many people. I hope some day my eulogies will be similar (if lower in scope).
- thesuperbigfrog 10mo agoMany years ago I played one of her works, Bard's Tale 3: Thief of Fate and enjoyed it very much. It was a masterful blend of RPG, dungeon crawl, and puzzles and had a memorable soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5kg35dNso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5kg35dNso Having a bard in your party let you choose a soundtrack and their songs brought magical effects. For example, the Rhyme of Duotime let your party attack more frequently in combat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oR4j7w4FIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oR4j7w4FIY BT3 is available on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/msdos_The_Bards_Tale_3_-_Thief_Of_Fate_1990 https://archive.org/details/msdos_The_Bards_Tale_3_-_Thief_O...
- sosborn 10mo agoThe original Bard's Tale was my first RPG and I've been hooked ever since.
- mitb6 10mo agoBT3 was wonderful, lots of nostalgia for me. Sad to hear of her passing.
- senectus1 10mo agoahh i have fond memories of this game... and the silly anti piracy attempts (decoder ring) they shipped it with.
- slfnflctd 10mo agoIn middle school, a friend and I 'cracked' that decoder ring by copying all the info by hand on to paper so we could both play the game from one store bought copy because we were poor. I don't think we ever finished the game, but it's still one of my happiest early gaming memories. They remastered all three of the first Bard's Tale games a few years ago and released them on Steam with many quality of life improvements-- I bought the set without a second thought even though I know I will probably never take the time to play it all the way through. I've spent a few dozen hours on it so far, though.
- amatecha 10mo agoVery sad news. This one hit pretty hard for me as not only was she so awesome and contributed so much to so many great games, but the short timeline between "oh dang I have cancer and we're fighting it" to, well, today... was just way too short :(
- djmips 10mo agoYou are not alone. I can only think that her post about being very vulnerable after chemo from immune system supression made me realize how lucky you have to be to beat cancer with chemo.
- empressplay 10mo agoMy understanding is the cancer had already metastasized by the time it was discovered. Chemo was always a hail Mary sadly :(
- lez 10mo agoYou are not alone being hit hard by the pace of the cancer's progression. Dr Makis talks about his shocks lately as an oncologist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gIYQCjB_NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gIYQCjB_NU
- _cenw 10mo agoWeirdly specific person to bring up. Almost cult-like. Ivermectin, again? https://cpsa.ca/news/statement-william-viliam-makis-not-licensed-to-practise-medicine-in-alberta/ https://cpsa.ca/news/statement-william-viliam-makis-not-lice...
- zeta0134 10mo agoRebecca was well known in emulation circles for her high quality work on various games of the era, often pushing the hardware in unusual ways. This article is one of my favorites, detailing the wacky tricks she used to get Another World's 3D rendering system running acceptably on a Super Nintendo https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/ https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/ Rest in piece, you absolute legend.
- edf13 10mo agoToday I learned... "Super Fami-Com ("FAMIly COMputer")" Doh!
- rob74 10mo agoShe also somehow pulled off the port of Doom to the hopelessly underpowered hardware of the 3DO in just a few weeks, after others had tried and failed for much longer than that. The final release had a reduced viewport and a bad framerate, but the background music was great (recorded with a band and stored as audio tracks on the game CD). https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do Also, 62 years is much too young! And one month from diagnosis (because of being short of breath) to dying is really rough - although there's a lot of progress on cancer treatment, some forms have symptoms at such a late stage that they're unfortunately still a death sentence...
- siev 10mo agoGonna link SSFF's enjoyable telling of the 3DO port story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxF1_wg2d_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxF1_wg2d_Q I will never get over the company CEO sending here PNGs of new weapon models and saying, essentially, "Yeah so you can just copy & paste these into the game, right?"
- SequoiaHope 10mo agoAww I’m very sad to hear this. She was close friends to a partner of mine and I met her about ten years ago through that connection. She seemed to be a lovely person.
- awaymazdacx5 10mo agoRunning x86 server architecture in software development. PC Gamer's obituary claims she was debugged.
- Dedime 10mo agoAdmittedly I didn't dive much into this to get the full context, but it's saddening to me that a legendary game designer had a GoFundMe. I was hoping achieving that level of status in a traditionally well-paid industry would leave one well off, financially.
- reactordev 10mo agoCancer and US Medical Care has a tendency to drain any savings you have. Also, it was sudden so it’s not like she was ready to retire at all.
- nemomarx 10mo agoI'm wondering if she actually got the fundraiser money, considering how quickly this moved - the last update implied it would have to go to her funeral, and I hope it pays for the bills or helps her family.
- textfiles 10mo agoSome funds were used to cover treatments. She has arrangements with her family, and this fundraiser helps.
- stavros 10mo agoI was hoping one wouldn't need to be well off to get treatment for an illness, but that's the US for you.
- ido 10mo agoThe games industry is not traditionally well paid, unfortunately.
- swiftcoder 10mo agoThis. It's consistently lower-paying than the rest of the software industry.
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
- JohnBooty 10mo ago"Legend" barely begins to describe. She is up there with the Carmacks et al. She was probably the first programmer I knew by name as a kid, following the games industry as a kid.
- Tiktaalik 10mo agoI'd heard the 3DO doom port story linked here before and it is absolutely wild stuff. Legend.
- VikingCoder 10mo agoRIP, Burger. I played BT1, BT2, and BT3 for hours and hours.
- DonHopkins 10mo agoThis breaks my heart, I will miss Burger Becky, she was the sweetest kindest person and a legendary programmer. https://www.burgerbecky.com/becky.htm https://www.burgerbecky.com/becky.htm The first "Boom & Bust" episode of Netflix's series "High Score" series told the story of her winning the first Space Invaders U.S. national championship as a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Score_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Score_(TV_series)
- sevenseacat 10mo agoI knew I'd seen her somewhere before, that was it!
- sitzkrieg 10mo agorip burger o7
- markus_zhang 10mo agoDamn I knew she had cancer but never thought it is so quick. “We have gone on so many adventures together! But, into the great unknown! I go first!!!“ Such a legend. RIP.
- INTPenis 10mo agoShe was responsible for a large part of my early gaming years, without me even knowing it. Another legendary account retired.
- netule 10mo agoRest in peace, Burger Becky! I really enjoyed her interview with CoRecursive a few years ago about porting DOOM to the 3DO[1] and highly recommend a listen. [1]: https://corecursive.com/doomed-to-fail-with-burger-becky/ https://corecursive.com/doomed-to-fail-with-burger-becky/
- cast4 10mo agoAs a retro-enthusiast, I was captivated by the stories she shared in her interviews, particularly about working on the cancelled Half Life port to Classic Mac OS (supposedly it even ran on 68k Macintoshes, How amazing is that !?). She said that she still had a CD of the gold master on her shelf. I really fear that work may never see the light of day now...
- jonbaer 10mo agoRIP, https://www.mobygames.com/person/343/rebecca-ann-heineman/ https://www.mobygames.com/person/343/rebecca-ann-heineman/
- splitbrain 10mo agoOfftopic: several of the embedded Bluesky posts at the end of the article show "The author of the quoted post has requested their posts not be displayed on external sites." Seems not to phase the PC Gamer "journalists".
- DerekL 10mo agoIt's faze, not phase. It's a common mistake.
- zimpenfish 10mo ago[0] is a good article about this; not least that this has been happening since at least 1889 (to the point where I'd say we could now probably consider it a valid alternate spelling.) [0] https://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001166.html https://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001166.... (no, I've no idea why they're behind the wrong subdomain certificate)
- wizzwizz4 10mo agoBecause they don't really live on that server any more. The correct URL for the languagelog archives is https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001166.html https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/..., but none of the links will keep you on that domain.
- RamblingCTO 10mo agoLooks to me like it's the quoted post that's not to be displayed, not the post itself.
- rsynnott 10mo agoThese are quote-posts; the quote-post isn't protected but the quoted-post is. Bad choice by whoever wrote the article (in fairness the default Bluesky interface doesn't make this particularly clear), but nothing is being displayed that shouldn't be displayed.
- deleted 10mo ago
- gong_fone 10mo ago[dead]
- Dilettante_ 10mo ago>Heineman's cancer fundraiser is now collecting for her funeral. Am I crazy or does that sentence have, I don't know how to explain it, the 'rhythm' of a joke? Feels like accidental rhyming, a mark of bad writing?
- siev 10mo agoIt unfortunately reads a bit like an unintentional punchline, yes.
- johnwheeler 10mo agoSounds like it’s trying to be ironic
- altairprime 10mo agoMy family would say that sentence “with a wry smile”, a useful literary phrase for that particular variant of humor.
- nebula8804 10mo agoWhat a true legend. The amount of people she has touched with her work is enormous. Feeling a bit of regret. I feel like I made a poor first impression on Rebecca when I first met her a few years back at VCF East. I saw her again recently but was suffering from severe undiagnosed sleep apnea so much so that I was practically asleep at the event. I didn't know about the cancer. Thought I would have another chance. This is happening more and more in my life. :/ Let us cherish all the great moments that she helped bring to us.
- dmead 10mo agoIm reading this wearing a CPAP.
- ascagnel_ 10mo ago> I saw her again recently but was suffering from severe undiagnosed sleep apnea so much so that I was practically asleep at the event. Go visit a pulmonologist and get a diagnosis. Getting one and starting on a CPAP was life-changing for me.
- nebula8804 10mo agoJust began using a CPAP last week. My first attempts were to try and use a nose clip, sleep wedge, and other tools to no avail. Following a take home test I discovered my apnea was severe. I have now started with a CPAP machine. Results are promising.
- geenat 10mo ago[flagged]
- squigz 10mo agoWhat a horribly cold-hearted and tactless thing to say. From what I've read, she got diagnosed a month ago. Is our treatment here in Canada so damn good that we'd have been able to save her? I doubt it.
- geenat 10mo ago[flagged]
- squigz 10mo agoHow do you know that? You're making assumptions based on nothing. You know people die of cancer in Canada too, right? You know people die of preventable illnesses in Canada too, right? Stop pretending we're perfect. Anyway it simply does not matter if you are right - this is not the time or place for it.
- geenat 10mo agoMy mother had it detected well in advance, and is currently being treated, the cancer is in remission now. I doubt Rebecca ever got that chance. Sure, surprise late stage cancer happens, but it's often caught when you get semi-annual checkups.
- squigz 10mo agoOnce again, how do you know that? Or are you just making assumptions based on your pre-conceived ideas of how all 350m people in America live their lives?
- wk_end 10mo ago“Routine visit”? “Semi—annual checkup”? Where I live in Canada (Victoria) the health care system is so overburdened that this reads like a sick joke. The cost of living is too high and the government doesn’t pay enough to get family doctors out here, so we mostly just have the ER. This is with an NDP government for nearly the past decade, mind you.
- JensenTorp 10mo ago[flagged]
- pm90 10mo agoIm inclined to blame the US healthcare system. It looks like a gofundme was setup to pay for her cancer treatment. A sensible system a) wouldn’t need patients to pay for treatment and b) might have caught it earlier through regular screening
- enkonta 10mo agoSo nobody dies or cancer in places with universal healthcare?
- CrazyStat 10mo agoDo you have any evidence that the cancer is a type that would have been caught by a screening regime currently in place in other countries which is not in place in the US? Without such evidence your post reads more like propagandizing a death for political purposes than an honest argument.
- LexiMax 10mo ago> Do you have any evidence that the cancer is a type that would have been caught by a screening regime currently in place in other countries which is not in place in the US? Do you have any evidence that it wasn't? I honestly don't know if earlier detection was possible, or would have helped her out or not. What I can tell you is that given the state of health care in this country, you can bet that my default assumption would be "yes" until proven otherwise. Starting with the assumption of "no" gives our system more slack than it deserves.
- AdmiralAsshat 10mo agoHuge loss to the community. She was, by all accounts, an amazing programmer. I remember when she uploaded the source code of her Doom 3DO port she indicated that she had to write her own string lib because the base one sucked: > I had to write my own string.h ANSI C library because the one 3DO supplied with their compiler had bugs! string.h??? How can you screw that up!?!?! They did! I spent a day writing all of the functions I needed in ARM 6 assembly. https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do I can't even imagine the level of skill required to just say, "Fine, I'll write MY OWN string lib!" while chasing a deadline. As an aside...I wonder what will happen to her personal artifacts. There was a media blitz awhile back when Tim Cain said he doesn't have the original source code to Fallout because he was "ordered to destroy it" by Interplay when he left. But Becky then chimed in to say that she did have a surviving copy, because she was a founder. [0] I hope someone else on her behalf would be able to continue that effort, but I worry that with her death, Bethesda would assert that no one else has "legal standing" to do so. [0] https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/fallout-1-2-source-code-saved-rebecca-heineman/ https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/fallout-1-2-source-cod...
- archon810 10mo agoNot just "write my own string lib", but "write my own string lib in assembly"! Wow.
- DonHopkins 10mo agoNot just strings but burgers too! https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/burgerlib https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/burgerlib Welcome to Burgerlib The only low level library you'll ever need Burgerlib is a low level operating system library that presents a common API that operates the same on numerous mobile, desktop, and video game platforms. By using the library, it will allow near instant porting of an application written on one platform to another. Burgerlib is not meant to be considered an engine, it's a framework on to which an engine can be created on top of and by using the common API, be compatible on dozens of platforms. Filenames and paths are standardized, all text is UTF-8 regardless of platform. Display, input, audio, music, math, timers, atomics, and typedefs operate the same.
- alsothrowaway 10mo ago[flagged]
- ronniefalcon 10mo agoI doubt anyone can answer that so why even ask it?
- alsothrowaway 10mo ago[flagged]
- thunderfork 10mo ago[dead]
- tony-john12 10mo ago[flagged]
- devnull3 10mo agoMeta: I think such black strip moments should be pinned at top of the hacker news while it lasts.
- alecco 10mo agoPlease no. It would be impossible to decide the cutoff for who deserves it. Loud communities would bring drama when their favourite person doesn't get pinned. A black strip might be fine, though.
- devnull3 10mo agoIn this case, I had to search for the word died/dead/"no more" to even know who is no more.
- parpfish 10mo agoi think the comment is saying that "if there's a black strip, we should pin the article/news that justified it" because there's currently a black strip up but there's no articles about a death on the first page
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- mlindner 10mo ago[flagged]
- netrap 10mo agoWeird. I just googled it and it said her partner also died of the same thing?
- WorldMaker 10mo agoHer partner died of complications of Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Her partner was also a beloved figure in the TTRPG design space.)
- teraflop 10mo agoNo, Jennell Jaquays died from Guillain–Barré syndrome, not cancer.
- matthew28845 10mo agoWas it the AI response hallucinating?
- erickhill 10mo agoI had the honor and pleasure of meeting her in 2018 at PRGE (Portland Retro Gaming Expo). She was sitting at a signing table after being on a panel. When it got to be my turn, I asked her if I could get a photo instead of a signature. She quickly said yes and I bent down to get into the frame. She was extremely kind and always cracking jokes. What I didn't know until I got my phone back and later looked closely was that she'd given me rabbit ears in the picture. RIP, Becky.
- throw_m239339 10mo agoNever heard of her name before, but I certainly heard of the game she developed, like many here. RIP to a prolific game programmer.
- mmmlinux 10mo agoI saw her last few talks at VCFeast. Always extremely engaging to hear from someone with as much skill and knowledge as her. Amazing to hear how she built her own debugger for the (i believe, i have the memory of a goldfish) Atari 2600. I always tried to catch her talks if possible, if just to get a glimpse of what the past looked like. I'm going to miss having those to look forward to. RIP
- umvi 10mo agoFeature request: make it so the black bar is a hyperlink and it takes you to the thread it is referring to. This article is not on the front page so it took me a while to find what the black bar was referring to.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- bane 10mo agoA little late, but man this sucks, cancer sucks. Rebecca was not only an amazing programmer, but a true hacker from the get go. From what I understand she managed to achieve what she did without even a high school diploma -- a real natural talent. I first really learned of her from the ANTIC podcast [1] in 2015 and was just kind of blown away by this cool, intelligent, creative and humble human being. I'm personally sad she's gone, but also really...proud? to see how she went out, with tons of witty communications to her friends and associates in her recognizable voice. To have such a positive impact in the world is something worth achieving. 1 - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-64-rebecca-heineman-racing-destruction-set-and-mindshadow https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-64-rebecca-h...
- noman-land 10mo agoThank you so much for linking to the (ten year old now?!?!) podcast.
- bane 10mo agoYou're welcome. I think hearing her talk about her life and experiences in her own way is incredibly rewarding. The ANTIC podcast has done a great job of preservation of people involved in early computing and it deserves a lot of support.
- QuantumAtom 10mo agoMay her memory be a blessing
- itbeho 10mo agoOne of the greats. Not only did great things but inspired others.
- darqis 10mo agoWhat ... this is so sad. She influenced me with her games as a young teenager. :(
- masfoobar 10mo agoVery sad news. Always appreciate her work on the 3DO Doom. Although the worst port it certainly was no fault of Rebecca. Always enjoyed reading her stories and respected her skill level as a programmer. condolenses to her family and closest friends.