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The Journals of Doc Surge is the personal blog of Chris Billows. This blog’s purpose is to explore ideas and concepts through the discipline of writing as an exercise to further personal understanding.

Check out more about me, some of my thoughts on Games and Hockey.

Sep 13

Video Game Development Segments: Electronic Game Machines

September 13, 2025 by Chris Billows in Nerdism in Winnipeg 0 comments tags: Book Writing, Video Game History, Winnipeg
This post took me about 18(!) months to write because of the volume of information I collected but it was worth it (I think). This post provides what I think is the first of its kind to my knowledge – a comprehensive timeline history of video games across all of its segments! Welcome to the next segment of Nerdism in Winnipeg. The previous post talked about Nerds by outlining various definitions, this post talks about Electronic Game Machines, and illustrates what they are through an extensive timeline. I do acknowledge that neither of these two posts provide any insights into Winnipeg as I am still in the definitions stage of this project. What is an Electronic Game Machine? It is any electronic device built to assist humans to play games. These electronic devices are the core of the video game industry and encompass everything including university computers, video arcade machines, video game consoles, personal computers, handhelds, mobile devices, smartphones, etc. There is a nice precedent to my definition that I just discovered before publishing this post related to a 2006 book called Encyclopedia of Game Machines. I want to emphasize that my definition has the word Electronic in it which […]
Feb 09

The Borderland

February 09, 2025 by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Human Condition, Poem
Today is my 55th Birthday and with it I have reached a privileged position. I am a contributor and beneficiary of a defined pension that allows me to officially retire! It has been close to 30 years of working and contributing to the public good through my efforts in health care. I am thankful that overall there were few moments that work required me to compromise my values. . . Now that I can officially retire there is a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but also some trepidation. I am now in the twilight of my career and my working life will soon be over. While I don’t plan to retire right now, I am sure that I will retire in the next 2 to 3 years. There is still some work to do and it can never hurt to pad the savings accounts! My identity will need to change, a rebirth essentially will be required. This is a crossroads moment and I need to begin thinking on who I will become when I do retire. Below is a poem I wrote to commemorate this moment. I also wrote two other poems: Mid-Century Contemplation and Middle of the Muddle which you’re […]
Jan 01

Happy New Year for 2025

January 01, 2025 by Chris Billows in Business Beller, Hobby Heedings 0 comments tags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
. I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2025. I wish that the new year brings you peace, good health, and good fortune. There is not much to report as far as my projects are concerned but I continue to plug away at them and do find myself inspired for periods of time. This past year had some non-serious health setbacks that impacted on my energy levels. Plus the full-time career does seem to take its pound of flesh from me. What is exciting is that I will have put in enough years of service at my career that I could retire with a pension later this year. That is very exciting but I don’t think I’ll retire just yet. There are some financial goals we want to meet before taking that step. It will be interesting to see how I will feel when I do reach the milestone. I’ve heard from others that knowing that they could retire, the relationship with work is transformed. . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I am thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
Oct 12

GameDev Skills: Year Three

October 12, 2024 by Chris Billows in Business Beller, Hobby Heedings 1 comments tags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, GameDev Skills, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been almost a three years ago that I made a commitment to spent time developing coding skills and I’m providing an update about my efforts. . . Thanks to Procrastitracker I am able to share these images of my progress when I started October 1, 2023 up to September 30, 2024: This past year of work on Heropath was limited to design and story research. In addition, some Procrastitracker data is missing and Heropath development was restricted due to: . Chris Zuchowski gave a YouTube talk about being careful about the genre of game you create for and that you should not try to make your first game your masterpiece. I am going to follow his advice by switching to a ‘prequel’ that is placed in the Heropath setting but will be much simpler, allowing me some momentum and easier skill development. This new Heropath-related game will be known as Mythway. In summary, I’ve spent about 41 hours working on the game including research, writing, and design. I’ve done no actual coding so at this rate it will take me years to get to 1,000 or 10,000 hours. This past year has not had the direct progress that I had planned for, but […]
Mar 03

Video Game Development Segments: Nerds

March 03, 2024 by Chris Billows in Nerdism in Winnipeg 0 comments tags: Book Writing, Video Game History, Winnipeg
In the first post, I said that I was going to write about Game Development in Winnipeg. Yet you cannot have Game Development without Nerdism (defined as the behavior and practices of Nerds). So this post will investigate the term ‘Nerd’ and its related terms such as Geek and such and explain why it is needed to for Game Development. So what is a Nerd and how is that different from Geek or other similar words? I believe that definitions are the first step to outline and guide one’s written (and coding) work. I am reusing the definitions from this comprehensive Gizmodo article. Nerd The word nerd was first used in the 1950 Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo, in which a nerd was one one of the many oddly named creatures in the titular zoo. According to Ben Zimmer of Vocabulary.com, a 1951 Newsweek article mentioned it as one of the new terms being used by teenagers. It seems unlikely for teens to have latched on to a single proper noun in a Dr. Seuss book so quickly, but there is no recorded source of the word being used previously. It’s possible that it was based on the 1940s slang […]
Jan 01

Happy New Year for 2024

January 01, 2024 by Chris Billows in Business Beller, Hobby Heedings 0 comments tags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2024. May the new year bring you peace, good health, and good fortune. There is not much to report as far as my projects are concerned but I continue to plug away at them and do find myself inspired for periods of time. . . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I am thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
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