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I've heard that Linux on SH is further along in terms of booting to console then NetBSD is. I also have a Linux bias, but I'm willing to try out NetBSD when I get my stuff together. I've been wanting to try out FreeBSD as a devel. platform for a while now, just haven't had the time or motivation ;P.

SDL is the Simple Direct media Library at libsdl.org. It's a small, low-level (but it sits over X, the frame buffer, GGI, DirectX, etc.) multimedia library that is responsible for most of Loki's ports to Linux.

Marcus

As I understand it, right now licensed developers can use Sega's built in OS for low-level stuff on the DC, or they can use WinCE + DirectX. I've read that there is OpenGL support for the PowerVR2 that powers the Dreamcast, but whether or not that's available to developers now, I have no idea.

Instead of WinCE and DirectX, we could finish the port of Linux and add OpenGL. Linux would handle all MM, networking, input devices, and the framebuffer (which is 8MB on the DC). Then we could also port SDL because I see it as the most full-featured and cross-platform (7 different platforms) open source multimedia library in existence. For example, this would allow a port of QuakeForge much simpler than a full native DC port.

Finally, OpenGL (which can be accessed through SDL) would be ported (still fuzzy on this) and you would have a full development system for the DC that was fully open source and useable by anyone with a DC (without a GD-ROM).

DC software developers would be able to choose which kernel features and libraries they want distributed with their final project. Even Sega would win with something like this, only problem is, finding concrete specs on the Dreamcast is next to impossible. Hopefully this could be started without waiting on the DC to be "opened" by Sega.

Right now I'm trying to determine how the CDX demo CD fooled the DC into thinking it was a valid DC app. This DC development site has info on how to build a serial cable to interface to the PC. If software can be burned that accesses the serial port, then we can do cheap development on the DC. I've also e-mailed the guy who put up the DDH page (for more info + schematics), but I haven't got a response yet. If anyone out there has any low-level info at all on the DC please let me know.

Marcus

The above post should be read to the tune of Baz Lehrman's "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" speech.

Insightful, yes, funny, but when you're 11, you shouldn't be reading on /. all day. Go out and program! Write your own version of Pac-Man, complete with homing missiles, explosions, and profuse gore.

(Rant: )

Once you start on Slashdot, there's no going back. You start getting Karma, then you start craving more. First you post stuff that's insightful, maybe informative... after a while it trickles down to a few points of "interesting" here and there. "5"'s become rarer and rarer, then you do the unthinkable.

You resort to humor. All out "hope they don't think this is a troll", karma-whoring humor, the kind that only flies on Slashdot.

And before you know it, Slashdot is your browser's home page, and it starts taking up all of your free time. All of a sudden, there's precious little time to program, and you can forget about keeping your pretty GPA above C-level :-).

I broke 90 today. Karma that is. Weeks ago I've stopped reading /. all the time, but the Karma keeps pouring in. I feel dirty. I'm a karma whore. I've only been on this frickin' forum since November, and I'm at 90+ karma. I could troll all day and all night for a week and still post at (Score: 2) by default.

I've moderated 6 times, mostly on weeks when I was too busy to post.

People think I'm funny, insightful, interesting (and overrated, but those moderators suck! ;).

These are presumably rational adults, and I'm not even 18!

It's with this in mind, that I've decided to take a vacation from Slashdot. That means checking /. no more than three times a day. Three shall be the number of the checkings, and the number of the checkings shall be three. Check thou not 4, neither check thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out!

Okay... sorry, just letting off steam.

And that also counts checking my "User Info" to see how much Karma I've gotten. Honestly, the stuff's pretty much useless once you reach 25, and can post at Score: 2. Of course, it's always nice to have some padding in case the moderators get bitchy.

And no more than 1 post a day from me, either. Maybe two if I'm on a roll. But that's it, except on days ending in "y". Then three's the limit.

I'm gonna sit down and program, play video games, go with friends to see movies, maybe get a <gasp> j-o-b, and maybe find a like-minded member of the female species to play videogames with, or whatever it is you're supposed to do with the opposite sex.

I'm going to code a decent game or two this summer. Maybe just one if I actually succeed at finding that elusive MOS. (You can bet your ass they don't hang out in chat rooms!)

I'll update my personal web page. Read more books. (An even 50/50 between reference manuals and sci-fi/fantasy novels).

Just as long as I can refrain from posting to Slashdot. Hey, maybe this means that I can finally disable cookies on my browser. (Mozilla's still crashy, even M16, so I can't use it for day to day stuff. M13 was good, though, and I did use that as my main browser for a time.)

Maybe I'll even update my Sourceforge project.

Whatever I do, I've just got to stay clear of this forum... it's addictive. As one reader's sig says, "I miss my free time, Rob". I agree so wholeheartedly it's not even +1, funny anymore.

I do have a suggestion, though. Weight the karma based on the posts you're trying to achieve.

If you think too many people are clowning around, make a "funny" post worth .5 karma and an "informative" post worth 1.5. If you think it's getting to dry, post a silly story and reverse the above. Change it around, but keep posters aware of the current settings.

And get rid of that damned "overrated" markdown. Moderators should be given better tools than "overrated" to articulate exactly what is wrong with that post.

Finally, kudos to the best change I've seen in /., that is the change of the default threshold from 0 to 1. ACs (and, yes I'm being hypocritical right now, but bear with me) keep getting lamer all the time.

So, I'm out of here for a while... tomorrow I'm going with a group of close friends (some of whom are actually, Females, to see Titan A.E., regardless of what Jon Katz may think of it [IMO, Katz himself is proof that just because someone bashes something/someone, it doesn't mean that they deserve that criticism.] Jon, kudos for Hellmouth and Geeks, both of which I strongly identified with. Keep cranking out stuff like that, and leave movie reviews to videogame-playing, anime junkie coder types like CmdrTaco :-).

And a big kudos to the Geeks In Space. Love the show (and no, I'm not taking a vacation from listening to GiS! Crank out that episode 31!)

Ahh... in the morning I get to decide whether to use SDL, Clanlib, or GGI for my game. So many choices, so little time. And, of course, it'll be GPL'ed so all y'all can enjoy it :-).

Good night, Slashdot. See you less often, for the time being.

But please don't take it personally. (It's not you, it's just me... I think I need more space... it's too much of a commitment... can't we just be friends? ;-)

Feel free to moderate me into oblivion, or to leave it at the default AC score of 0. It really makes little difference to me, and honestly the impact you'd be making either way is negligible. Nobody reads at zero anyway, unless they want to see posts like this one.

Perhaps we need to get rid of "topics" as they're known, and have a giant message board for all stories. That could get interesting.

Your poster geek-in-training, the kind who's going to keep free software alive as the old demigods fall off the 'Net... signing off.

I've been using PySDL since version 0.0.2 and it's great! It may be what you're looking for in order to give your child(and yourself) some visual feedback. The SDL homepage is http://www.libsdl.org and PySDL is at http://pysdl.sourceforge.net. With a couple of facility functions you should be able to easily create game-type graphics, PySDL allows you to work at the pixel level and/or using SDL's rectangle type functions. Also, the windows port is coming along nicely so you can run it on either platform without a recompile. I hope mac gets there soon ;-).

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SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) is an excellent API for the graphics and input portions. It's even cross-platform, using DirectX 7 under Win95/98 and GDI under WinNT 4. Not to mention Linux (X, X/MIT-SHM, SVGAlib, AAlib, fbcon, ggi), Be, Mac, etc.

FWIW, it's what Loki uses for their ports.

Coupled with OpenAL (used in HG2, SMAC, SC3K, SoF, and Descent3), it's solving real-world problems now.

The API's are there, and maturing quickly. Feel free to use them :-)