Slashdot Mirror

Lest we forget TurboTape. You could cut that down to 3 or 4 days or better!

Some fun reading
http://www.devili.iki.fi/Computers/Commodore/artic les/Beyond_the_1541/

There are signs that even the familiar 5-1/4-inch floppy disk may eventually go the way of punch cards and paper tape storage methods.

I must second you here. I fear that, say, ten years from now there will be no easy way to switch to window managers like Ion, ratpoison, larswm, the newer clones of these, and whatever new innovations might happen during that times. WIMP policies will have been so deeply integrated into the basic windowing system. X (which is just a graphical input/output protocol!) and the ICCCM are excellent in that they don't dictate policy too much and thus allow for this kind of experiments and research without the system having to be rewritten from the ground up. Research into new interaction techniques must not be forgotten and WIMP considered the final evolutionary step of GUIs. (Infact, it was just the first step!)

Those who were talking about Sonic and his fast speeds, check this out - a near-perfect play through Sonic 3 & Knuckles; do check this one out, there's an AVI up on torrent here.

Those who were talking about Sonic and his fast speeds, check this out - a near-perfect play through Sonic 3 & Knuckles; do check this one out, there's an AVI up on torrent here.

Interestingly, this was one of the first ways Linus was paid for Linux: From a former office-mate of Linus's...

However, things went as they did, and Linux prospered. The success has resulted in fame and also material rewards for rewards, including money. One of the first rewards wasn't money, but virtual beer. You may have heard the expression, since it is still used somewhat, but these days it is just a general good wish phrase. Originally, it had a very concrete meaning. Two guys from Oxford, England, calling themselves the Oxford Beer Trolls, wanted to buy Linus some beer, but since it was impractical to move either themselves, Linus, or the beer physically around, they asked me to receive the money via mail, and buy Linus beer with it, and that's what happened. So, virtual beer really means money, preferably money sent to me.

Interestingly, this was one of the first ways Linus was paid: From a former office-mate of Linus's... However, things went as they did, and Linux prospered. The success has resulted in fame and also material rewards for rewards, including money. One of the first rewards wasn't money, but virtual beer. You may have heard the expression, since it is still used somewhat, but these days it is just a general good wish phrase. Originally, it had a very concrete meaning. Two guys from Oxford, England, calling themselves the Oxford Beer Trolls, wanted to buy Linus some beer, but since it was impractical to move either themselves, Linus, or the beer physically around, they asked me to receive the money via mail, and buy Linus beer with it, and that's what happened. So, virtual beer really means money, preferably money sent to me.

Well, you can always get out of that predicament by pressing Turbo Boost or Oil Slick (not to mention the ubiquitous Micro Jam)...

another site for speed demos. The difference (big difference) is that they seed videos from games running on emulators (most, if not all, of the Speed Demos Archive videos are recorded directly from the TV).
Except from the site: These are movies of various console games being played extraordinarily using an emulator as a tool to get over humanly limits such as "skill" and "reaction".
But it's interesting anyway.

Not relating directly to the above, but I think this may interest some people:

When I got a dualhead card, I knew that I wanted two separate desktops, between which I can switch with a hotkey, not by scrolling the mouse to the other display (I wanted to use virtual desktops on both). I was astounded that I could find absolutely no way of doing this, and no references to it on the Net.

The best I could do was make the screens separate and stop the mouse from going from the edge of one display to another, but then I found no way of moving the pointer to the other screen.

After a few months I found a suitable function call in the X libraries and wrote a small program, switchscreen, to switch between the displays. Now I've got two totally separate desktops between which I can move with a simple alt-tab.

You can read the details for configuring your X system like this in the README file included in the package.

Who use taskbar anyway ?

Thanks for the memory!

That's how I do it - I try to audit all possibly security critical software before beginning to use them. If it looks bad, I go look for another one. And if I can't make sure something is secure, I try to at least make it as safe as possible to use. For example if you crack into my anonymous CVS pserver, you're still not able to modify any of the existing files.

And here's some more old ranting..

Other Sierra adventure game projects on the net include reverse-engineered versions of old Sierra engines such as AGI and SCI, editors for both engines such as AGI Studio and SCI Studio, and fan-made games such as AGI Quest I and Space Quest: The Lost Chapter.

I'm mirroring the bigger images here as soon as I get them.

I use it for smaller tasks, and Jed for programming for the syntax highlighting... I even wrote Joe-like bindings for Jed. But maybe now I can move back to using just Joe and nothing else.

If they had auto-framerate off, frameskip set to zero, and vsync or triple buffering enabled, as many emulator users do to get the smoothest gameplay, it would have run at whatever is their current refresh rate, maybe 75hz, as opposed to 60hz, unless they took the time to change the default. So they could play a faster game without having intended to do so. Another possible speedup would be using a pal rom instead of an ntsc rom, though their site says that they only allow ntsc.

I doubt they a have desire to claim official speed records, but rather to find the fastest times possible through perfect gameplay. If a recording is found to be fast due to emulator or recording tricks and not because of optimized (slow motion + heavy save state use) gameplay, they'd probably remove it without hesitation.

The original movie file which you could use to verify the speed is at:
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/kuvat/nesvideos/sleepz team-zelda.fmv
You'll need an emulator called Famtasia to play it. If it doesn't play back correctly under the default settings, you're probably using a different version of the emulator or they've tweaked it, like increasing the cpu execute % to speed through rarely occuring cpu bound delays.

It's not only about not getting hit. Like you said, anyone can do that.
But not anyone can (without lots of practice, thinking and planning) make new records.
The previous timeattack movie at Zelda was about 31 minutes. It was done the same way as this one. It featured nearperfect fighting, like this does too. So why is this movie shorter than that?
Find out.
The answer is out there.

We don't need yet another new WIMP toolkit. We need to totally abstract the UI to give the user more freedom, and to separate UI from functionality. See e.g. http://iki.fi/tuomov/vis/ for some ideas.

All across Canada, from Vancouver to St. John's, Kazaa Lite's hash routine is consuming millions of CPU cycles...

Use this this cute little script to kill the dupes, though you'll still have to audition to find the best bitrate and sound quality.

I think sprite graphics modes are the same as background graphics modes, i.e. they offer the same (dis-)advantages with regard to either colour "mixing" or resolution. (However, sprite/background modes needn't match.)

I really don't think hires graphics suffered from this limitation, though.

Am pretty sure it does. It might be just like in games on less "multimedia"-capable computers where moving your (non-sprite) 'avatar' over background objects will cause its colour to bleed into the underlying character-sized rectangle.

There is another (hires and text only?) mode, called "extended multicolour", that allows you to change the background colour (again: on a per-character-cell basis) but reduces the charset to the first 64 characters, freeing up 2 bits per character-code-holding byte in video memory for one out a palette of four user-defined background colours.

Found something... C64 Programmer's Reference Guide:

Standard bit map mode gives you a 320 horizontal dot by 200 vertical dot resolution, with a choice of 2 colors in each 8-dot by 8-dot section.

On the other hand, there was an excellent extension cartridge called Simon's Basic. Just could just fit it into the backside slot of your C-64, and you had the best BASIC in the whole 8-bit world. Dad bought me that on my birthday (?) and it was one of the best gifts I got in my entire life. I can't even imagine what would make me today as happy as I was back then with my Simon's Basic (a Porsche perhaps?).

Damn, it looks like we'll end up talking about 8-bit micros to our shrinks. "You see, doc, a friend of mine had a C-64 with a genuine 5.25" incher, and I felt so lame with my ZX Spectrum and its rubber keys...".

It sounds incredible to me that Microsoft actually tries to get governments to translate their software for them free, while Open Source localization groups are desperate with getting governments to participate or provide even little funding.

Perhaps we would need to organize better?

For some time, I've been trying to find out if there exists a collective effort for localizing open source software, which covers both all softwares and all locales.

Currently, we seem to have two types of localization efforts: software-specific and national efforts. For example, the major OSS softwares, such as KDE, Gnome, and OpenOffice have organized translation efforts. Then there are some national efforts. For example, in Finland, we have organized a joint national effort as a working group, which gathers the different Finnish localization teams together and aims to provide them publicity, recruiting, funding, other resources, and generally a channel for cooperation. We currently have KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice, Debian, and some other translation teams working together on common issues such as quality, vocabulary, and tools. I have noticed that there exists also some other national or language-specific efforts, such as for Arabic and South-African languages. However, I haven't found any cooperation effort between these national efforts, where we could participate.

So, what I'm looking for is a universal effort that covers both all the different localization projects for different softwares, and for the different languages (or nationalities). There exists some more-or-less generic efforts, such as the Translation Project, but those which I've seen cover only a limited set of software products (TP covers some 100 but it's still rather limited).

If you know about such an universal cover effort, please tell me.

Otherwise, perhaps the time is ripe for starting to plan for such an effort. I'm not talking about any massive organization, just a loose, light-weight organization that would serve as a center for information sharing and cooperation. Well, basicly a well-structured web portal would suffice.

I begun to wonder about this last fall, when I started designing a portal-based information system for the Finnish national localization effort and did preliminary organization analysis. I noticed that many of the tools we would need would also be useful for others. Well, of course it may be difficult to unify such tools between different efforts, as different efforts have their own preferences, but it would be nice to get to know what other efforts need and what they could contribute.

Our Finnish national effort is still slowly forming, but we are quite active in certain areas such as quality assurance. We have had one joint workshop event so far and have planned to have one twice a year (next one is scheduled for May). Last year, we produced a 26 page report about the status of different Finnish localization projects. We have also tried to make contacts with translation departments of universities. Our effort for getting funding is still in infancy.

We would very much like to share "patterns" of organizing national and software-specific efforts and serving the actual translation teams.

So, is there anyone interested in world domination?

This is where input validation comes in. Check every input value for sanity.

Writing bulletproof software is TEDIOUS. You still have to verify everything, and still somebody's going to find the one thing you missed and exploit the hell out of it...

More ranting about the subject..

Here is the account by the friend I was talking about, and BTW his name is Lars Wirzenius.

Here is the account by the friend I was talking about, and BTW his name is Lars Wirzenius.

It all depends on what you mean by "fake".
The videos are exactly what they promise to be, so in that sense they are very real.

Yeah, it looks like a Commodore monitor. Noted it last time. Good taste, it seems =)

I've personally only tried a GameCube on a 1802 monitor, though...

The patent claims functionality that IKI.FI, among others, has been providing publicly for thousands of users since 1995.

IKI.FI has a web page that documents the prior art for the patent 6,617,714.

The patent claims functionality that IKI.FI, among others, has been providing publicly for thousands of users since 1995.

IKI.FI has a web page that documents the prior art for the patent 6,617,714.

I've posted this before so here's just the link.

I propose an IPR-based world domination plan:

1. Relax your own restrictions for patents and other IPR, start accepting any bogus patent application, business model patent application, etc in your own country. Build up a large amount of bogus IPRs for your country with your lax policy.
2. Push other countries hard (through WIPO and other means) into tightening their IPR protection laws while making sure they still accept your lax IPR, too.
3. Profit! This would provide a great 20 to 30 year plan for dominating the global IPR market for the country who does this first...

Oh wait! the USA started implementing this plan already a decade ago...

Here is one example of what actually does happen when this plan is in action: When someone tries to apply for a real, innovative, detailed patent in another country, say EU for example, it will be rejected by the EU patent office because of an existing over-broad US "patent" which "covers everything". Perhaps patents from overly lax countries should be considered less valid by default?

P.S. Here's my prior art contribution for this bogus patent: IKI.FI, a non-profit society, has been doing since 1995 what they claim to have invented in 1999. I wrote a page about this at http://www.iki.fi/iki/faq/boguspatent6671714.html so it's easy to find when googling with the patent number.

The IKI chairman has put up a statement about this (in English).

This tidbit from Lars Wirzenius is a part of Linux Lore:

"Linus also got some other stuff via mail. For example, a pair of 40 megabyte hard disks. That was really nice, since it meant that Linus was finally able to keep some backups. Not that he did, of course. One of his well-known quotes is: "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." He said that even after dialling his hard disk.

"At one point, Linus had implemented device files in /dev, and wanted to dial up the university computer and debug his terminal emulation code again. So he starts his terminal emulator program and tells it to use /dev/hda. That should have been /dev/ttyS1. Oops. Now his master boot record started with "ATDT" and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day."

I once did something similar -- I was going to back up my MBR to a floppy. Using the 'dd' utility. I got the command line options backwards, and overwrote the first 1.44MB of the hard drive with the contents of a blank floppy disk. Required a low-level format of the hard drive to reuse the sucker. Thankfully, it had no critical or irreplaceable data on it.

This tidbit from Lars Wirzenius is a part of Linux Lore:

"Linus also got some other stuff via mail. For example, a pair of 40 megabyte hard disks. That was really nice, since it meant that Linus was finally able to keep some backups. Not that he did, of course. One of his well-known quotes is: "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." He said that even after dialling his hard disk.

"At one point, Linus had implemented device files in /dev, and wanted to dial up the university computer and debug his terminal emulation code again. So he starts his terminal emulator program and tells it to use /dev/hda. That should have been /dev/ttyS1. Oops. Now his master boot record started with "ATDT" and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day."

I once did something similar -- I was going to back up my MBR to a floppy. Using the 'dd' utility. I got the command line options backwards, and overwrote the first 1.44MB of the hard drive with the contents of a blank floppy disk. Required a low-level format of the hard drive to reuse the sucker. Thankfully, it had no critical or irreplaceable data on it.

It's hard to explain, but I couldn't stand listening to several pieces of music without a playlist-based system like XMMS. For example, you have this list of 100 songs and you want to jump into a specific piece (not just the next or previous one). Try doing this with a keypress or two on mplayer -shuffle.

For movies I use MPlayer, and I like to keep these two things separate. I haven't come across a situation where I'd need a playlist of movies, and MPlayer's CLI is just perfect for what the program does.

[Shameles plug alert] However, XMMS is not IMHO the best possible playlist, which is why I've hacked together a textmode frontend for XMMS.

Besides his calculator endeavors jimmy's also a known fast typer :)

#23 all time on typerA.

(Not intended as a flame =)

Inline view any of the online-available movie trailers in my browser

::jaw drops to the floor:: HEATHEN! Video is meant to be played on the Player, as God intended! Browser inlining is work of Satan! =) (As is, in my opinion, quite a bit of Mac UI, but I'm not going to argue here... I'll just say that I far more prefer Window Maker over any other UI. Unlike many UIs out there, this thing was meant for work.)

Finally, I won't step back because I just enjoy typing this on the sexiest computer I ever owned (I also own an Acorn RiscPC, a NeXTstation, a Bebox, a P4 PC, a Zaurus and a Sinclair ZX81).

*snort* In order, the sexiest computers in the universe: NeXT Cube, Apple cube, and Commodore 64 model G (which is only one of the three that I own - anyone got the other two, really really cheap?)

So ".NET" hasn't even really hit the ground running yet, and already it's sucessor is being announced? Too bad the Osborne curse never seems to affect MS when they do the same things that Osborne did.

So now we have new SNES game translations.
- http://bisqwit.iki.fi/topshu/ - Tales of Phantasia in Ensligh.
- http://bisqwit.iki.fi/ctshu/ - Chrono Trigger in Ensligh.
There are screenshots of both.

So now we have new SNES game translations.
- http://bisqwit.iki.fi/topshu/ - Tales of Phantasia in Ensligh.
- http://bisqwit.iki.fi/ctshu/ - Chrono Trigger in Ensligh.
There are screenshots of both.

Yeah, I was still thumping out essays using GEOS and a 9pin dot matrix until the mid 90s. Like the old Commodore 128 ad says, "Thanks for the memory".

Awwww, you're just a whiner!
The proof? Your sig:
How to recognize a cheater in Counter-Strike.

What's the matter with just wheany@iki.fi?

Speaking of rats, I'm always glad to have an opportunity to present these pictures of
pet rat mayhem; here he's posing in the computer.

Speaking of rats, I'm always glad to have an opportunity to present these pictures of
pet rat mayhem; here he's posing in the computer.

From my POV, peoples' biggest problem with C++ is that it doesn't prevent you from hurting yourself. That's okay. I hate all the consumer protection bullshit, and Nader and his "don't run with scissors" party, so I have no problem with my language having some teeth.

As someone who has fairly recently joined a team that's maintaining a 400KLOC system (Java, incidentally), I'm more interested in protecting myself from previous programmers on the team than protecting myself from myself. I'd like to think that those who follow don't need protection from me, but their opinions may be different. In any case, using a language that doesn't allow any of the previous programmers to shoot me in the foot with a bad pointer is a Good Thing (tm). I dont' want to have to waste time chasing down obscure nasal demons.

I guess it would be the same place you get these.

Wrong, the C64 has 64K of RAM. All the other stuff (IO, screen, BASIC) is mapped into this space but the RAM is accessible if you switch banks. For example, no games to speak of use BASIC, so the first thing you do is bank switch that 8K ROM space to expose 8K of RAM.
E.g. see this reference page.

Also if anyone is interested, see this text preservation of the M.U.L.E. Manual, particularly the text on the back cover, and see the cover art here. Hilarious!

I'll keep them there for some hours, depending on the load induced to my puny 384 kb/s (<48 kB/s) bandwidth.
So far it seems though that the actual site is enduring pretty good too.