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> the non arrow key moving is so counter intuitive that many people never 'acquire' it.

There definitely is some truth to that. That's why I changed my keybinds to use IJKL because HJKL doesn't work for me and I imagine it sucks for a lot of people too.

> And honestly, how much slower is moving the hand to the arrow keys anyway?

You'd be surprised. Quite a bit. It all adds up. Press v, and want to select ...

* ... end of word alphanumeric only? Press w.
* ... end of a word all chars? Press e
* ... beginning of word alphanumeric only? Press b
* ... beginning of word all chars? Press B
* ... up-to but not including some character? Press t
* .. up-to and including some character? Press f

With the arrow keys you are constantly dicking around pressing them.

I found this Vim Cheat Sheet to be quite a handy reference.

Here is proof: Conan: Hall of Volta 1-bit stencil buffer

Yup, Vim FTW! I particularly like this VIM Cheat Sheet

MS forgot the first rule of programs:

"Those who forget the past are condemned to re-implement it, badly."

> Playing multi-voice music on an Apple II required learning hex-code "assembler" /Oblg. "Nibble Duet" on the Apple "squeeker" :-)

Here is the end music of Karateka in MIDI that one of the AppleWin dev's ripped and converted.

Have you seen this Vim cheat sheet? I found the dual layout to be interesting.

Vim Cheat Sheet for Programmers

I like it because it's simple and it works

You keep using that word. Notepad is "simple". This is not. Powerful, yes. Simple, no.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters" Correct. > with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels. Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

Condescending sarcasm only works if you're actually making an intelligent point, otherwise you just end up sounding like a jackass. The point of my statement, in case it went over your head, was that there are 26 characters in the English alphabet, and 9 pixel patterns are insufficient to portray them all. Nice try anyway.

It should also be pointed out that the 2x2 lowercase font you're bragging about isn't 2x2. The h is 2x3; n, m, u and v are 3x2, s, t and y are 3x3... and those are just the ones I spotted in the first line. So yes, BS for a 2x2 font was correct.

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

Those fonts are readable in the same way grass is edible. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's useful as a reading font. It can be used to convey information and the reader can with some adjustment get used to it. That is far from "perfectly readable." Reading anything longer than a paragraph becomes an exercise in masochism. They might be useful as a small machine readable font that needs to remain decipherable by humans, similar to OCR-A.

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...

Simply changing the color of text from grey to white doesn't make it boldface. What if the text is white to begin with? Boldface refers to using heavier weight strokes, which you can't do with your 3x3 font without making it unreadable.

people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts.

So now you're passing judgement on the knowledge or lack thereof of complete strangers on the Internet, when your own demonstrated credentials are the presentation of the work of another person?

I'd normally refrain from this, but you did bring it up. I worked with 8-bit machines running CRT displays in the early 80s. Those displays are pretty low res and the built-in text patterns tended to use an 8x8 grid. To fit more information on the screen, I designed 7x5 and 5x5 pixel character sets. I also made one for 3x5 but I thought it was terribly ugly. I was 12 at the time. In high school, I was a writer and later editor of my schools' papers. In later years, I did a lot of desktop publishing work -- editing, layout and graphic design. I've also run an in-house press for one company.

None of that really matters, because the original point, which others have also raised, is that your friend's 3x3 font isn't very readable. Not unreadable, but definitely far from anything any reasonable person would describe as readable. Anyway, you have a nice day, Mr. Has-a-friend-who's-an-expert-on-fonts.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters" Correct. > with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels. Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

Condescending sarcasm only works if you're actually making an intelligent point, otherwise you just end up sounding like a jackass. The point of my statement, in case it went over your head, was that there are 26 characters in the English alphabet, and 9 pixel patterns are insufficient to portray them all. Nice try anyway.

It should also be pointed out that the 2x2 lowercase font you're bragging about isn't 2x2. The h is 2x3; n, m, u and v are 3x2, s, t and y are 3x3... and those are just the ones I spotted in the first line. So yes, BS for a 2x2 font was correct.

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

Those fonts are readable in the same way grass is edible. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's useful as a reading font. It can be used to convey information and the reader can with some adjustment get used to it. That is far from "perfectly readable." Reading anything longer than a paragraph becomes an exercise in masochism. They might be useful as a small machine readable font that needs to remain decipherable by humans, similar to OCR-A.

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...

Simply changing the color of text from grey to white doesn't make it boldface. What if the text is white to begin with? Boldface refers to using heavier weight strokes, which you can't do with your 3x3 font without making it unreadable.

people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts.

So now you're passing judgement on the knowledge or lack thereof of complete strangers on the Internet, when your own demonstrated credentials are the presentation of the work of another person?

I'd normally refrain from this, but you did bring it up. I worked with 8-bit machines running CRT displays in the early 80s. Those displays are pretty low res and the built-in text patterns tended to use an 8x8 grid. To fit more information on the screen, I designed 7x5 and 5x5 pixel character sets. I also made one for 3x5 but I thought it was terribly ugly. I was 12 at the time. In high school, I was a writer and later editor of my schools' papers. In later years, I did a lot of desktop publishing work -- editing, layout and graphic design. I've also run an in-house press for one company.

None of that really matters, because the original point, which others have also raised, is that your friend's 3x3 font isn't very readable. Not unreadable, but definitely far from anything any reasonable person would describe as readable. Anyway, you have a nice day, Mr. Has-a-friend-who's-an-expert-on-fonts.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters"
Correct.

> with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels.
Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

> I call BS.
1. "Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
2. You've designed which fonts again? That's what I thought ...

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_sources_ken.png

If you have an iPhone 5 you can see the font at a native 1:1 pixel mapping ... Uppercase is readable, lowercase is beyond the limitations of the human eye which was one of the goals of the exercise: To see just how small one could go since no one had investigated this.

* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_iphone5.png
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase_iphone5.png

He will be doing a proper writeup discussing these things in greater detail to educate people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts. No idea when though.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters"
Correct.

> with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels.
Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

> I call BS.
1. "Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
2. You've designed which fonts again? That's what I thought ...

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_sources_ken.png

If you have an iPhone 5 you can see the font at a native 1:1 pixel mapping ... Uppercase is readable, lowercase is beyond the limitations of the human eye which was one of the goals of the exercise: To see just how small one could go since no one had investigated this.

* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_iphone5.png
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase_iphone5.png

He will be doing a proper writeup discussing these things in greater detail to educate people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts. No idea when though.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters"
Correct.

> with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels.
Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

> I call BS.
1. "Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
2. You've designed which fonts again? That's what I thought ...

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_sources_ken.png

If you have an iPhone 5 you can see the font at a native 1:1 pixel mapping ... Uppercase is readable, lowercase is beyond the limitations of the human eye which was one of the goals of the exercise: To see just how small one could go since no one had investigated this.

* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_iphone5.png
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase_iphone5.png

He will be doing a proper writeup discussing these things in greater detail to educate people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts. No idea when though.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters"
Correct.

> with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels.
Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

> I call BS.
1. "Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
2. You've designed which fonts again? That's what I thought ...

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_sources_ken.png

If you have an iPhone 5 you can see the font at a native 1:1 pixel mapping ... Uppercase is readable, lowercase is beyond the limitations of the human eye which was one of the goals of the exercise: To see just how small one could go since no one had investigated this.

* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_iphone5.png
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase_iphone5.png

He will be doing a proper writeup discussing these things in greater detail to educate people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts. No idea when though.

> 2x2 for lowercase. Right. That's 16 possible "characters"
Correct.

> with one of those being empty space and 4 of them being single pixels.
Wow you figured out not every possible combination is -> useful <- all on your own? Here is your sticker.

> I call BS.
1. "Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
2. You've designed which fonts again? That's what I thought ...

As you can see the uppercase is perfectly readable ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase.bmp

The lowercase is "mostly" readable ... it is a great test to see what DPI is good, poor, and fail. (The lower the better for readability, but poorer for sharpness.)
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase.bmp

And just to demonstrate one can bold any font ...
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_sources_ken.png

If you have an iPhone 5 you can see the font at a native 1:1 pixel mapping ... Uppercase is readable, lowercase is beyond the limitations of the human eye which was one of the goals of the exercise: To see just how small one could go since no one had investigated this.

* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_uppercase_iphone5.png
* http://peopleofhonoronly.com/michael/dev/fonts/font_lowercase_iphone5.png

He will be doing a proper writeup discussing these things in greater detail to educate people like you who know absolutely nothing about fonts. No idea when though.

> those toy 2d simulators of gravity of stars and planets: start with a chaotic configuration, let it evolve for some time, and see how the stuff often evolves in one big central blob with possibly some circular orbits and short lived elliptical ones

The technical term is called N-Body simulation/problem and is impossible to solve an exact solution with our current mathematics and computers where N > 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_simulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem

I found one demo here ...
http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/dev/nbody.html

In order for the simulator to work properly, every simulator has to use a hack: gravity has infinite speed, which contradicts the mainstream assumption that gravity is limited to the speed of light.

Another anomaly is that the the galaxy "seems" to rotate in lock-step.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve

It "appears" the orbits of the planets also seem to be quantized.

Celestial Mechanics is not going to be "solved" anytime soon.

Some cool Apple ][ trivia ...

- Karateka was one of the first games to have cut-scenes. Here is the end-game music in MIDI format =)
http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/dev/applewin/karateka/karateka_end.mid

- Conan: Hall of Volta by Datasoft (*) was the one of the first games to use a 1-bit stencil buffer!
http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/dev/applewin/conan/conan_stencil_buffer.bmp

- Broderbund games (Drol, Spare Change, Captain Goodnight, Choplighter, etc.) offered smooth animation because they used the (initially) undocumented V-SYNC: (Vertical Blanking) !
RDVBLBAR = $C019 ;not VBL (VBL signal low)

I highly recommend AppleWin for finding out old Easter Eggs =)
http://applewin.berlios.de/

* To see the stencil buffer you need
a) disk image
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II//images/disk_utils/cracking/the_saltine/Conan%20A.dsk
b) Mount disk A in the first drive in AppleWin
c) press F2 to boot
d) at the intro. screen press F7 to enter the debugger
e) in the debugger type the following commands to view the HI-RES pages 1 or 2 respectively
HGR1
HGR2

Some cool Apple ][ trivia ...

- Karateka was one of the first games to have cut-scenes. Here is the end-game music in MIDI format =)
http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/dev/applewin/karateka/karateka_end.mid

- Conan: Hall of Volta by Datasoft (*) was the one of the first games to use a 1-bit stencil buffer!
http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/dev/applewin/conan/conan_stencil_buffer.bmp

- Broderbund games (Drol, Spare Change, Captain Goodnight, Choplighter, etc.) offered smooth animation because they used the (initially) undocumented V-SYNC: (Vertical Blanking) !
RDVBLBAR = $C019 ;not VBL (VBL signal low)

I highly recommend AppleWin for finding out old Easter Eggs =)
http://applewin.berlios.de/

* To see the stencil buffer you need
a) disk image
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II//images/disk_utils/cracking/the_saltine/Conan%20A.dsk
b) Mount disk A in the first drive in AppleWin
c) press F2 to boot
d) at the intro. screen press F7 to enter the debugger
e) in the debugger type the following commands to view the HI-RES pages 1 or 2 respectively
HGR1
HGR2

You mean like this? ;-)

"failure to modernize its copyright regime" ??

Canada's copyright system is MORE modern then the US. Common sense tells us that there is no difference "If I loan a CD to a friend to listen to", or "make a copy for him to listen to." I guess we should ban libraries too since the artist is not getting "his fair share."

Copyright & Intellectual Property Rights (which are neither property nor rights) are artificial rights from a world where only people care about greed, instead of sharing knowledge.

What price do you put on a patent that could cure cancer? Why is it OK to profit off the sick & dying? Have we really made that little progress in the past million years, that we still cry & whine like a 2 year saying "mine" -- simply because we were the first to come up with an idea, that we could care less about our fellow human beings??

Copyright: Because it's _such_ a crime against humanity, that people want to share what they find entertaining with others, for free!

--
Because its easier to get mod'd down for having the courage to look at the facts, then ignore Forgotten Christian History.

Awwwwww, Did I hurt the itty bitty moderator's feelings with facts?

Couldn't let the facts get in the way of an emotional argument now!

--
Forgotten Christian History

> C++ is a tremendously type safe language,

Eh?

* The fact that it is impossile to distinguish between ARRAYS and POINTERS causes all sorts of problems.
* There is no native NULL pointer
* There is no way to DISABLE the automatic up-casting of floats to doubles. (This SUCKS for console programming.)
* No way to prevent integers being promoted to FLOATS. (SUCKS again, for console programming)

Counter-examples:

void func( const int v[3] ) // init from vector

void func( const int v[4] ) // "already defined" // won't compile since arrays == ptr

void func( const int n )

void func( const int *aArray ) // func( NULL); // doesn't call the pointer version!

I _really_ wish there was a way to declare/define arrays, and functions via keywords. If C was consistent in reading from Right-To-Left, you wouldn't need the typedef hackery to define function pointers, etc.

i.e.
func( int ) *pFunc;
int* aPointers[3];
int array[3] *pArray;

That said, I love C++, because it is a pragmatic language.

--
Forgotten Christian History