Slashdot Mirror

"Almost any software can be converted into a physical machine"

I think you maybe meant "virtual" machine?

No: the GP means physical machine. In the end, all software consists of logical operators, and those operators can be built in hardware (for example in lego).

"Virtual machine" would make no sense in the context of the GP: the distinction between hardware and software is (in a sense) arbitrary - we knew that already, hence "firmware" which has properties of both software and hardware. The reasoning of the GP could not only be used in favour of software patents, but also against all (including hardware) patents.

Also, his argument fails, since anything which can be formalized - and that's quite a lot - can be made into software, which can be made into a machine. According to his argument, all inventions in mathematics, logic, most physics and god knows what else should be patentable.

Does this: http://goldfish.ikaruga.co.uk/andnor.html mean the idea of a conjunction (all uses of "and") is patentable?

Any such list is insufficiently researched in my opinion without listing mechanical LEGO logic gates.

"I always thought it would be cool to build a wooden computer, where you have to turn a crank and it does logical operations"

Hey, you could still do it with lego, and I mean a real computer with logical gates - http://goldfish.ikaruga.co.uk/logic.html

It's possible to clear Ikaruga without firing a single shot. I don't have any video examples of that, but here's some of each level without dying: http://www.ikaruga.co.uk/downloads/videos_chapters .php?play=1p&mode=arcade&diff=normal [ikaruga.co.uk] And yes, the game is hard as hell.

Try playing Japanese style shmups like Ikaruga or the Zun games on harder difficulty.
Watch one of the Ikaruga gameplay vids (level 3 to 5 are mad).
Or look at a screeny from a game like Perfect Cherry Blossom here. The playable char is the girl on the bottom.

In both games, one hit from an enemy or a projectile means death and extra lives aren't easy to come by.

It saddens me aswell that Ninja Gaiden is an XBox exclusive, meaning I will probably never play it (and get raped).

wtf I made his game last month.
http://www.ikaruga.co.uk/bodythumper/
the end

http://ikaruga.co.uk/~nd/vm.zip

256MB RAM, 8GB IDE Hard-Disk, CD-ROM Set to Auto-Detect, Bridged Ethernet, Audio Enabled, Shared Folders Disabled, Snapshots Disabled, Guest Isolation Enabled

Note: I will be taking this down within a short amount of time simply to avoid sucking up too much of my bandwidth. Please mirror this file.

Note #2: I didn't actually test this in VMware Player. It should work and should boot off of your virtual hard-disk (which should fail, as it's blank) and then fall back to booting off of a CD in your CD-ROM drive (assuming the Player works as I think it would, which it probably doesn't).

ND

I'm really sorry I can't provide a download link to the movie, but it shows the game in the middle and the player's hand on both sides of the screen, with his modded double arcade stick.

That video is currenlty impossible to get, tho it appeared on the official ikaruga website on Treasure's homepage.

Some double-play (again, NOT just 2 players), but without the stick views are provided here
Check out the other videos sections too!

One example of a 2D game using 3D rendering is Ikaruga.
It's basicly a standard 2D shmup (well not so standard ;) but the graphics are in 3D. The ships and enviroment are rendered and well here's a vid from the game (map4, hard). The gameplay is amazing too ;)

1 molecule is only an order of magnitude below the number of molecules in these logic gates.

(For those that don't get it, each lego block is a giant polymer molecule)

Bah! That's not a lego computer. This guy is working on a REAL lego computer.

It's not down, it's just very slow. With 4cm logic, you probably only get about 0.002 hertz CPU speed.

Hrm... 386 has about 275,000 transistors and looking at the
gates
I'd estimate that works out to about 10 legos a transistor.... That's one expensive server!

More uniquely, the same guy also has what is probably the world's only complete page on lego logic circuits.

More uniquely, the same guy also has what is probably the world's only complete page on lego logic circuits.

If you're interested in Ikaruga, you might like this ikaruga fansite, where there are scoreboards, discussion forums, and replay videos of experts playing each level.

There are also some Radiant Silvergun videos.

</spam>

If you're interested in Ikaruga, you might like this ikaruga fansite, where there are scoreboards, discussion forums, and replay videos of experts playing each level.

There are also some Radiant Silvergun videos.

</spam>

No disrespect to Kiken, but his videos are nothing compared to the cream-of-the-crop selection available at ikaruga.co.uk. Incidentally, the guy who did the chapter 4 video available there has since improved on it quite a lot, but he hasn't been doing video capture lately. For something more optimal, check out the chapter 4 prototype mode video.

No disrespect to Kiken, but his videos are nothing compared to the cream-of-the-crop selection available at ikaruga.co.uk. Incidentally, the guy who did the chapter 4 video available there has since improved on it quite a lot, but he hasn't been doing video capture lately. For something more optimal, check out the chapter 4 prototype mode video.

No disrespect to Kiken, but his videos are nothing compared to the cream-of-the-crop selection available at ikaruga.co.uk. Incidentally, the guy who did the chapter 4 video available there has since improved on it quite a lot, but he hasn't been doing video capture lately. For something more optimal, check out the chapter 4 prototype mode video.