Ultimate Tetris: 'really cool'

They're playing games at Brown University -- in a big way. <br><br>A group of computer science and engineering students have constructed a massive computer game 100 feet tall, out of Christmas tree

Monday, April 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

They're playing games at Brown University -- in a big way.

A group of computer science and engineering students have constructed a massive computer game 100 feet tall, out of Christmas tree lights, homemade circuit boards, and thousands of feet of cable.

For the past several nights, the students have turned the Sciences Library building on the Brown campus into a giant video display screen so they could play a game called Tetris.

The students believe it is the largest fully functional Tetris game in the world.

"We completely agreed it would be a really cool thing to do," said Soren Spies, a Brown senior computer science and electrical engineering major, and a leader of the project.

Cool indeed. Since the project went live Friday night, it has garnered worldwide attention. Some 25,000 visitors have come to their Web site , Spies said, and he has fielded calls from the Sunday Times of London, Time magazine and the Discovery Channel Canada.

The Web site address is: bastilleweb.techhouse.org

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, and a self-described Tetris master, flew to Providence yesterday from his Los Gatos, Calif., home just to see the installation.

"When I tell people that I'm off to Rhode Island to play Tetris, people think that I'm stupid," Wozniak said in an e-mail exchange with a reporter from his plane yesterday afternoon. "I'm not stupid, just crazy."

The students credit Wozniak with encouraging them to "fulfill our dreams." They befriended him in December when he was at Brown on a speaking engagement.

Tetris is a computer game that involves maneuvering falling pieces shaped like squares, columns, the letter L, and so on. The object is to position the pieces as they fall so they will fit together and complete rows when they reach the bottom of the screen. The game was wildly popular in the early 1990s.

The Brown students' version uses a desktop computer to control 10,000 Christmas lights strung in the windows of the 194-foot high library building, one of the tallest buildings on the city's East Side. The lights span windows on 11 floors, illuminating each window separately. (Only 10 of the 11 floors are working). The grid replicates a crude but effective 10-by-10 pixel screen, visible from outside the building.

To play, students stand on the steps of an adjacent building with a laptop computer, which is connected, through the Internet, to a computer inside the library.

To keep from disturbing anyone studying at the library, the students have waited until midnight to play. Passersby are invited to play as well.

The idea was the brainchild of the students who live in Brown University's Technology House, an on-campus building that's home to about 30 students interested in science and technology.

The idea had been kicking around Tech House for several years, Spies said. A previous attempt to build it about two years ago didn't get far.

This year, more students were enthusiastic about the idea, and they had the technical wherewithal -- from computer science and digital circuits classes -- to pull it off, said Ryan Evans, who did much of the project's programming.

Initially, the plan was to sneak into the library at night, install the lights and equipment and run the game as an anonymous prank.

But Spies said the students decided they would be better off if they got permission. In fact, Nicholas Lochmatow, another project leader, persuaded his visual arts teacher to give him independent course credit for his work on the project, Spies said.

Brett Heath-Wlaz wrote some of the computer code over winter break. Meanwhile, Spies, Lochmatow, and Tech House president Kali Wallace, swept local department stores for post-Christmas sales on holiday lights.

They hit pay dirt at Ames, where they found $6 strands of lights selling for 99 cents. They bought 81.

They also bought 3,000 feet of cable from a supplier in Massachusetts for $170. They scoured parking lots for discarded wooden palettes, broke them up and used the wood planks to make frames that hold the strings of lights in the windows.

The total cost: $600 to $700.

Spies said he and Heath-Wlaz designed and built the circuit boards that take instructions from the main computer to control the lights on each floor.

Over spring break late last month, a crew of about 10 wired the library, running cables through an unused dumb waiter shaft that spans the height of the building. At each floor, wires emerge and snake across ceilings and walls to the south side of the building, where they are attached to the suspended Christmas lights.

The brain of the system is a standard computer hidden in a third-floor closet. The cables are connected to the plug on the back of the machine that's normally connected to a printer. The computer is connected to the Internet.

Aside from the technical challenge of making it work, the students were faced with the equally difficult task of convincing administrators to let them do it.

Spies said the process took many meetings over several weeks with various department heads to secure permission. Overall, he said the administrators were very enthusiastic. "They wanted to say yes," he said.

"I thought it was a great idea," said Barbara Schulz, head of Library Business Services at Brown. "They were excited about it. They made us get excited about it."

"Our only concern was not to disrupt other patrons in the building," added Schulz. "They promised us that wouldn't happen. We said fine."

Their plans also had to pass muster with the fire safety office, the university's electrician, and the facilities management people.

Many provided help, including one of their teachers, William R. Patterson III, a senior research engineer and an electrical engineering teacher. He helped the students iron out some problems that interfered with the main computer communicating with the lights.

"The basic design of how they controlled the lights was really there," he said. "They are quite resourceful and clever kids.

"I think it's great they got out there to show some enthusiasm for something they don't have to do, to put their knowledge to work on something."

Wozniak, who now teaches private computer courses to elementary school students in Los Gatos, said he told the Brown students in December he would return to see the project if they completed it.

In college, Wozniak was a big prankster, and this project impressed him, he said.

"This one really takes the cake," he said. "It's such an immense project."

Even though it's not all that useful, Wozniak said, projects like these, where students press their knowledge, often lead to real products that change the world, he said.

"Gosh, I think it should be on the cover of a magazine. I've read books about pranks at Cal Tech and at MIT. This is as good as any of them."

"I'm lucky to be able to see and experience it."