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We're miles ahead in every category.

Except in number of players per machine. Very few PC games support split- or otherwise shared-screen co-op using one TV and two to four USB gamepads. One reason is that apart from a few geeks, almost nobody is willing to hook a PC up to a TV or a TV-sized monitor. But perhaps Cracked columnist David Wong is on to the real reason, calling the requirement of a separate PC and copy of the game per player a cheap revenue-enhancing scheme for game publishers in his article.

Instead of letting e-mails bulk up with huge morraines of backlogs, use reference numbers to refer to the message in the mailbox that this message most likely was a reply to.

You'd have to save byte ranges for each quoted section as well; otherwise, you break middle-posting (point-by-point bottom posting), which appears to be the standard for quoting on Slashdot and on a lot of newsgroups that I used to be on. At that point, you might as well just compress the e-mails in one thread tree with some sort of LZ77-family text codec so that later e-mails can consist largely of back-references to the history buffer.

The Mac Mini includes an HDMI to DVI adapter in the box. I don't know what else you'd want, except maybe this DVI to VGA adapter that costs all of $0.01

They won't fit together.

There are two kinds of DVI signal: DVI-D (digital) and DVI-A (analog). DVI-D is the same signal as HDMI; DVI-A is the same signal as VGA. There are also two kinds of DVI connector: DVI-D and DVI-I (integrated). A DVI-D connector can transmit only DVI-D signals; a DVI-I connector can transmit both DVI-D and DVI-A. A DVI-A plug will not fit into a DVI-D socket because of extra pins around the "bar" at one side of the connector, as I describe in my article about DVI connectors. I'm pretty sure an HDMI to DVI adapter will produce only DVI-D, and such a cheap DVI to VGA adapter will require DVI-A.

Of course the iOS sim isn't completely accurate for how it's going to perform on a device.

I guess I've been spoiled by NES emulators, which are in fact cycle-accurate.

you would also need to include possible revenues of any apps you develop and sell

Which just goes toward the trend of people feeling the need to make even the simplest apps paid in order to recoup that $99.

if it already has AppleCare on it, it's fully transferrable.

Thank you for confirming this.

HDMI-out on video cards still isn't really widespread

DVI-D output has long been standard on even low-end video cards, even if not on desktop integrated graphics. I've seen several video cards with no VGA connector, just a DVI-A to VGA adapter hanging off a DVI-I port. My TV has an analog audio input next to one of its HDMI inputs, which appears to have been designed specifically for use with a DVI to HDMI cable and an analog audio cable.

But just because the port is there doesn't mean that TV owners A. know it's there or B. feel like using it. Is there anything I can do to promote the use of PCs with TVs to the general public, other than writing a HOWTO?

Have you any ideas for marketing the concept of connecting a PC to a TV to the general public, beyond what I already have on this page?

Ultimately people want to use the TV as a display for their 'smart' devices.

Then why do only geeks ever buy or build a PC to hook up to the TV, as CronoCloud has pointed out?

And never forget that your government that you elect[ed] is in favour of all this crap. If you don't like it, the proper remedy is to take the matter up with your friendly local pubic representative.

Threats to fire the representative over this in 2012 are empty. The movie industry already controls which issues and which candidates for U.S. office get exposure in the mainstream news media. Look at it this way: Would the pundits of CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News think of interviewing a candidate affiliated with the Pirate Party?

can you give me some examples of games you can play on your HTPC with a gamepad that aren't MAME or any other emulated game console?

When I asked the same question, I got answers that I've collected here. Also Lockjaw Tetromino Game works with a gamepad, but that's simple enough to run well even on Intel.

can you give me some examples of games you can play on your HTPC with a gamepad that aren't MAME or any other emulated game console?

When I asked the same question, I got answers that I've collected here. Also Lockjaw Tetromino Game works with a gamepad, but that's simple enough to run well even on Intel.

So do the sensible thing and have several native implementations.

Ideally, these native implementations should be able to share the same application logic, just with a different front-end per platform. This way, if I fix a defect in the application logic, it's fixed across all ports. This is one advantage of separating model and view layers. But apart from JavaScript in a web browser, is there a single programming language that can be used on Windows, Mac OS X, desktop Linux, iOS, Android, WebOS, ChromeOS, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Phone 7, in which to write this application logic?

RAS syndrome is for disambiguation.

And of course the term "post PC" does not mean the PC is going away, just that it may not be the primary device for everyone with a computer as it has been.

By post-PC, some people refer to post-prosumer. A "prosumer" device such as a PC allows creating works ("pro") in addition to viewing works ("sumer"). A tablet, smartphone, or video game console allows viewing works, but its capacity for creating works is very limited or none.

I believe 10 or 15 years from now, it will be somewhat unusual to have what you would consider a full powered desktop PC at home or at the office, and so will doing evelopment work for these no longer very common devices be.

That's a problem. Doing development work currently requires a desktop- or laptop-class computer because Apple doesn't want compilers, interpreters, and such running on iOS. If medium-duty creative work requires a pc,* but few people still own a home pc after some point, then the economies of scale will drop for pc hardware, and a lot of people will be shut out of doing medium-duty creative work at home.

* lowercase for a reason

That wasn't patent law. The GEM lawsuits were over copyright before it was established in court (in cases such as Lotus v. Borland) that user interface has a thin copyright. Much of it is a method of operation more than it is a pictorial or graphic work, apart from specific graphical elements such as the Aqua buttons. I guess the confusion between copyright and patent is one reason why Richard Stallman of Free Software Foundation rails against the term "intellectual property".

From a screenshot in the ExtremeTech article: "Never run downloaded programs that are unknown to SmartScreen". So how does a software developer make a program "known to SmartScreen" for the first time other than by selling it on the Windows Store?

From the same article:

if you try to boot while an infected USB memory stick is plugged in, Windows 8 will warn you and refuse to load.

So how do I tell Windows that a USB mass storage device containing an Ubuntu install image is not "an infected USB memory stick"?

Microsoft wants you to hibernate Windows 8 rather than shut it down

So will we finally have the ability to come out of hibernate without that one peripheral not responding?

Reset restores Windows 8 to its base, just-like-new state. Refresh is similar, but it preserves all of your documents.

So now "reformat and reinstall" is becoming institutionalized.

The article links to an article about the Windows Store. It claims that "the process for getting an app certified and listed in the Windows Store will be as painless as possible." Does this include applications developed by high school students who aren't 18 yet? Or college students who don't want to spend $99 per year? It also mentions "content compliance checks", and if "content compliance checks" are anything like the ones that Microsoft uses for Xbox Live Indie Games, this could shut out entire genres of applications. It says "you won't be able to download a Metro app from Download.com", but wouldn't one just be able to load an app into Visual Studio Express and run it that way?

if I understand correctly you have to develop for each console separately.

Unless you make your game exclusive to one console. The market encourages this: Microsoft's "Xbox Live Indie Games" is the only console developer program open to the public.

Better start with the PC platform

Which doesn't work for all genres because people like CronoCloud appear to be under the impression that people are unwilling to plug in USB gamepads and play shared-screen co-op games on PCs. He thinks shared screen is for consoles only and PC games should require a separate gaming PC per player, despite that TVs have PC inputs and desktop PC monitors are getting as big as bedroom TVs were in the N64 era. So if this game had a two-player co-op mode, for (let's say) one driver and one photographer, he'd make the PC version require two computers as opposed to making available a mode suitable for one computer, one gamepad for the driver, and one mouse+keyboard for the photographer.

Jeans? Who needs jeans? A kilt gives more room "down there" and can improve circulation around the equipment that a man uses to pass on his genes. So does an ankle-length shirt.

Same with free speech. Why do you think you should be able to say that? None of your damn business.

The historic argument for free speech is that regulation of political speech has led to abusive governance.

The makers of the major video game consoles don't even want there to be a public discussion "about whether you should be *allowed* to do so". They might try to preempt such discussion by arguing that there is already an open alternative to video game consoles, namely gaming PCs. The existence of such an open platform thus lessens "the impact that the prohibition on the circumvention of technological measures applied to copyrighted works has" under 17 USC 1201(a)(1)(C) and takes away the pressing need to jailbreak consoles.

Furthermore, they might argue under 1201(a)(1)(E) that the authority of the Librarian of Congress to make exemptions extends only to 1201(a)(1), and thus only Congress, not the Librarian of Congress, has the authority to grant exemptions involving circumvention devices under 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b). And Congress is already thoroughly bought by the entertainment industry, which controls the media through which candidates are promoted.

That or they can do what AbiWord and VirtualBox used to do: the Free versions were called "AbiWord Personal" and "VirtualBox OSE". The Free version of Android would thus be called "Android AOSP" (Android Open Source Project) and the approved version "Android OHA" (Open Handset Alliance). I've already been using these names to distinguish devices with Android Market from devices without, especially when talking about the lack of an Android-powered close substitute to the iPod touch.

How relevant is "big media"?

That depends on how many people rely on Big Media to help them figure out whom to vote for.

there is no lack of FOSS out there to provide the same functionality in Linux as many Windows apps.

I noticed that you said "games" in connection with Mac OS X, not in connection with Linux. Also tax preparation software and subscription video streaming software tend not to be developed for Linux. I've written a bit more on these.

In almost any kind of software other than games, the stock response to "If only" is "Patches are welcome." But for some reason, games as a whole tend to be more resistant to free software principles than other kinds of software. I've written a couple reasons why that might be.

the more likely problem is that the EMULATORS themselves are not running on the hardware efficiently.

Now consider that most of the emulators are designed to run on Windows. ZSNES started in DOS, SNES9X started in Windows, both of them were ported to MacOS/Linux later.

That shouldn't really matter. As long as multiple platforms can run the same programming language (C++ runs on every 32- or 64-bit platform that runs unmanaged code, and x86 assembly runs in DOS, Windows/x86, Linux/x86, and modern Mac OS X), an emulator can be written with a separation between the platform-specific front-end and the platform-independent emulation engine. Now if the front-end takes up more than half the CPU time, that's a completely different story.

The real problem is that standards for emulator accuracy increase over the years, and for example, bsnes takes a lot more CPU time because it emulates the corner cases of the Super NES chipset more closely. In addition, people expect to be able to emulate fifth- and sixth-generation consoles nowadays (PS1, N64, PS2, and GameCube/Wii).

21" monitors seem to be fairly standard for desktops these days, yes.

Thank you. That takes care of two players, but not necessarily four.

Most decent-sized HDTVs have a VGA input.

I've talked to a few Redbox customers in August 2011, and many of them appear to still use a CRT SDTV as the primary living room TV. Most people don't know that VGA to SDTV cables exist.

Hooking up a PC to a big telly is a piece of cake.

But the public doesn't know this. I've done a lot of asking around on Slashdot about a PC using a TV as a monitor. It appears a lot of people disagree with you that it's a piece of cake (see 1 2 3 4 5). And one still has to buy or build a gaming PC for the TV room whose case has a decent spouse acceptance factor, such as the roughly Xbox 360-sized Acer Aspire X1 (AMD CPU, NVIDIA integrated graphics). A typical tower PC case like the one seen in the article lacks this factor.

I already did, you just split the relevant part out. You can do it on a PC and then push it out to the XBox.

I was just trying to make absolutely sure whether or not XNA was the only viable means of entry for a new studio before I buy an Xbox 360 console and an App Hub subscription. (The rest of my post tries to explain what I mean by "viable".)

Yes, for your *extreme* niche where you want local multiplayer on a TV but you don't want it on Wii or PS3 and you want it without an XBox devkit and for the people who don't want to hook their PC up to their TV there is only that solution.

Lately I've had trouble properly estimating the size of a given niche or edge case. I wrote about this difficulty in a recent journal entry. So let me say it as I understand it: Micro-ISVs tend not to qualify for the full Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360 devkit. They're a niche, I'll grant, but an extreme niche?

However if your product is any good you shouldn't have any problems with people hooking a PC to a TV to play, or even playing on their monitors.

"Putting it bluntly, no one gives a damn about same screen multiplayer in PC games. Designing such a game is futile, there is no real market for them." --CronoCloud

"Let me say that again: Most non-geek people simply have no desire to hook up their computer to their TV" --CronoCloud

"I don't want to hook a computer up to my TV" --hawguy

"You're overestimating the technical knowledge of at least 80% of consumers -- I'd never be able to talk Dad through hooking up a VGA cable between his TV and laptop and then get him to use the computer to watch video." --hawguy

What I gather from the above comments is that even if I made a page about how to buy a gaming HTPC, a page about how to hook it up, and a page about how to configure the operating system to make text readable, people would still not be willing to give it a try.

I already did, you just split the relevant part out. You can do it on a PC and then push it out to the XBox.

I was just trying to make absolutely sure whether or not XNA was the only viable means of entry for a new studio before I buy an Xbox 360 console and an App Hub subscription. (The rest of my post tries to explain what I mean by "viable".)

Yes, for your *extreme* niche where you want local multiplayer on a TV but you don't want it on Wii or PS3 and you want it without an XBox devkit and for the people who don't want to hook their PC up to their TV there is only that solution.

Lately I've had trouble properly estimating the size of a given niche or edge case. I wrote about this difficulty in a recent journal entry. So let me say it as I understand it: Micro-ISVs tend not to qualify for the full Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360 devkit. They're a niche, I'll grant, but an extreme niche?

However if your product is any good you shouldn't have any problems with people hooking a PC to a TV to play, or even playing on their monitors.

"Putting it bluntly, no one gives a damn about same screen multiplayer in PC games. Designing such a game is futile, there is no real market for them." --CronoCloud

"Let me say that again: Most non-geek people simply have no desire to hook up their computer to their TV" --CronoCloud

"I don't want to hook a computer up to my TV" --hawguy

"You're overestimating the technical knowledge of at least 80% of consumers -- I'd never be able to talk Dad through hooking up a VGA cable between his TV and laptop and then get him to use the computer to watch video." --hawguy

What I gather from the above comments is that even if I made a page about how to buy a gaming HTPC, a page about how to hook it up, and a page about how to configure the operating system to make text readable, people would still not be willing to give it a try.

I already did, you just split the relevant part out. You can do it on a PC and then push it out to the XBox.

I was just trying to make absolutely sure whether or not XNA was the only viable means of entry for a new studio before I buy an Xbox 360 console and an App Hub subscription. (The rest of my post tries to explain what I mean by "viable".)

Yes, for your *extreme* niche where you want local multiplayer on a TV but you don't want it on Wii or PS3 and you want it without an XBox devkit and for the people who don't want to hook their PC up to their TV there is only that solution.

Lately I've had trouble properly estimating the size of a given niche or edge case. I wrote about this difficulty in a recent journal entry. So let me say it as I understand it: Micro-ISVs tend not to qualify for the full Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360 devkit. They're a niche, I'll grant, but an extreme niche?

However if your product is any good you shouldn't have any problems with people hooking a PC to a TV to play, or even playing on their monitors.

"Putting it bluntly, no one gives a damn about same screen multiplayer in PC games. Designing such a game is futile, there is no real market for them." --CronoCloud

"Let me say that again: Most non-geek people simply have no desire to hook up their computer to their TV" --CronoCloud

"I don't want to hook a computer up to my TV" --hawguy

"You're overestimating the technical knowledge of at least 80% of consumers -- I'd never be able to talk Dad through hooking up a VGA cable between his TV and laptop and then get him to use the computer to watch video." --hawguy

What I gather from the above comments is that even if I made a page about how to buy a gaming HTPC, a page about how to hook it up, and a page about how to configure the operating system to make text readable, people would still not be willing to give it a try.

Console Gaming is on the decline anyway.

In favor of what? PC gaming? Let me know when a PC maker starts selling a home theater PC that appeals to people other than geeks and I'll agree.

If you're the one doing the developing, why don't you develop for HTPCs?

Because as CronoCloud and others have repeatedly pointed out, statistically nobody has put together a home theater PC. (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) Among the general public, it appears people have trouble hooking up a DVD player, let alone a computer. (8 9) And in my experience talking to other Redbox customers when in line to return a DVD, most people I meet have a CRT SDTV in the living room, not the HDTV needed to display PC video without an obscure adapter (a scan converter) that nobody but devout geeks know exist.

If you're the one doing the developing, why don't you develop for HTPCs?

Because as CronoCloud and others have repeatedly pointed out, statistically nobody has put together a home theater PC. (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) Among the general public, it appears people have trouble hooking up a DVD player, let alone a computer. (8 9) And in my experience talking to other Redbox customers when in line to return a DVD, most people I meet have a CRT SDTV in the living room, not the HDTV needed to display PC video without an obscure adapter (a scan converter) that nobody but devout geeks know exist.

This was not true 10 years ago when HTPC didn't really exist

HTPCs exist, but still not enough to matter. FunkSoulBrother, CronoCloud, and Altrag seem to be under the impression that apart from devout geeks, so few people have HTPCs that they might as well not exist (1 2 3 4). People are under the impression that computers are for desks and consoles are for TVs, and never the twain shall meet, according to hawguy and Endo13 (5 6 7), especially when people already have enough trouble plugging in a DVD player ( 8 9).

HTPC's (as if that were a market segment?)

Exactly my point. Wii has carved out a market segment for itself among the general public; HTPC has failed to.

You need to check out Indie developers, these guys are doing incredible things with games.

Then why are Slashdot users like CronoCloud trying to talk indie developers out of making games with HTPC modes (see links from here)? Apparently, if one has an idea for the next killer party game, the correct preferred of action is to move hundreds of miles away from friends and family to take a job at an established video game developer for several years and then, years later, find a business partner and use one's video game industry experience to score a console license. He has made an analogy: "if you want to be a star on Broadway, you're going to have to go to New York City."

there are lots and lots of other devices from which to choose.

The alarmists . Say I want to play multiplayer games with friends who are visiting my home, and they aren't able to bring their own computers. The only viable choices are appliances: Sony (locked down), Microsoft (locked down), and Nintendo (locked down). Since 2007, when most TVs have started to include PC video inputs, there has existed such a fourth option: the "home theater PC". But PC games still tend not to include multiplayer modes tuned for a home theater PC, and I've been told that's because HTPCs are still too rare among the general public for the major video game publishers (EA, Activision, etc.) to have noticed much demand for HTPC games.

The main thing the "consumption only" argument misses is that most people only use their computers for consuption.

Consumption is tuberculosis.

Sure, someone may buy a computer with the intent to use it to view works and information created by someone else. But if the computer is also useful as a tool for creating works, then perhaps the user may be tempted to try his hand one day at creating. The leap from viewing to creating isn't so easy for people who own only a device for viewing.

It's what happens when a 'news' channel is a arm of a specific ideological group.

In the same way that the major U.S. TV news channels are all arms of the MPAA?

True, it should be. But the U.S. Congress has shown itself to be somewhat more corruptible by for-profit special interests than the courts. Copyright in particular suffers from the entertainment industry's control of the means of reaching the electorate. If we don't want to (ab)use the courts to help clarify the statutes that Congress has enacted into law, I guess we need to fix Congress first.

[People care that] they get the apps they want. WP7 is newer and lagging behind Android and iOS in this regard. Getting more developers will help.

All third-party applications for Windows Phone 7 must be written in verifiably type-safe, Emit-free CIL, which is all that runs under its limited version of the .NET Compact Framework. This means a lot of existing applications will never be ported to Windows Phone 7 because their logic layer is written in a language that does not compile to verifiably type-safe, Emit-free CIL. Standard C++ and Objective-C aren't verifiably type-safe, IronPython and other DLR languages aren't Emit-free, and I've read that several other .NET languages don't have runtime support on Windows Phone 7.

I mean with Netflix and bit torrent who needs cable

You need cable Internet or fiber Internet for Netflix, and you need cable TV or satellite TV for anything Netflix doesn't carry. See archived pros and cons. As for BitTorrent, which owners of copyright in video make their videos lawfully available over that?

Are you talking about dedicated handheld game systems, smartphones, or laptop computers?

Handhelds and smartphones.

With the DS, it's no different: find Game Card, turn on system, wait for health disclaimer.

Allowing a more "spur of a moment" gaming in contrast to the "let's sit down and play a game" "planned event" we have with current home consoles.

That's not a planned event. A planned event is a LAN party, in which the host makes sure before everybody comes over that they 1. own a separate copy of the game, 2. own a PC capable of running the game, and 3. "fight with the rest of the family for" permission to borrow the PC for the night. Multiplayer on portable is similar, except #3 is far easier to come by. But with a home console or one of the (admittedly few) games that support HTPCs, you'd just put in the disc (only one, not one per player), plug in or pair your controllers, and go.

Well it feels like a "planned event" to me personally. Maybe it's just me.

I explained it in an earlier post (last 2 paragraphs):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2381150&cid=37107792

Could have copied and pasted it here, but that kind of feels like spamming.

xmas gifts depend on physical cartridges.

How so? I've heard a lot of cousins ask for an iTunes gift card last Christmas; Nintendo Points cards are not much different. But why do people hold back generosity until a birthday anyway?

It allows you to play anywhere (eg. on the couch, laying in bed), you don't have to fight with the rest of the family for the living room TV, you won't distrub anyone sleeping if you play at night and you get privacy.

Are you talking about dedicated handheld game systems, smartphones, or laptop computers?

Just pick up and play, instead of turn on TV, find disc, wait for the console to boot

With the DS, it's no different: find Game Card, turn on system, wait for health disclaimer.

Allowing a more "spur of a moment" gaming in contrast to the "let's sit down and play a game" "planned event" we have with current home consoles.

That's not a planned event. A planned event is a LAN party, in which the host makes sure before everybody comes over that they 1. own a separate copy of the game, 2. own a PC capable of running the game, and 3. "fight with the rest of the family for" permission to borrow the PC for the night. Multiplayer on portable is similar, except #3 is far easier to come by. But with a home console or one of the (admittedly few) games that support HTPCs, you'd just put in the disc (only one, not one per player), plug in or pair your controllers, and go.

In another ten years I'll probably be demanding a 40" screen for my PC.

A 42" LCD TV with VGA and HDMI inputs has been available for a few years now. I see them on Google Product Search for under 500 USD. But there appears to be some hang-up among the general public about connecting a monitor bigger than 24" to a PC.

There's a difference between a monitor and a TV... TVs are meant to be viewed from a distance, and monitors from up close. As a result, the monitor will generally have much finer pixels. I was talking about attaching a monitor that size. Though now that I think about it, eventually we're going to start running into a field of view limit. Though I guess that doesn't really matter to the point I was making, which was that tablets don't have large screens, and those will always be desirable.

So will one be able to develop tablet apps on a tablet by itself, or will one need to buy an Expand-O-Tron 4000 at prices only an established business can afford?

Depends on your definition of 'only an established business can afford'. If one of these machines cost $800, (a typical price for a good gaming PC these days) but everyone was using tablets that cost $80 then many people would balk at the price jump.

the PC model is obsolete and no longer fits the needs of consumers.

So what model fits the needs of people who do something other than consume?

In another ten years I'll probably be demanding a 40" screen for my PC.

A 42" LCD TV with VGA and HDMI inputs has been available for a few years now. I see them on Google Product Search for under 500 USD. But there appears to be some hang-up among the general public about connecting a monitor bigger than 24" to a PC.

The only way tablets are going to make PCs "go away" is by merging with them.

So will one be able to develop tablet apps on a tablet by itself, or will one need to buy an Expand-O-Tron 4000 at prices only an established business can afford?

The PC will not be obsolete as long as there are still a few people around who actually *do some work*, rather than just consume entertainment.

I agree with you. But a divide between devices for consuming entertainment and devices for doing some work raises a barrier to individuals who would try creating for once.

mini-comps will be dedicated workstations (production)

But will home users still be able to afford these? Otherwise, it'll be more difficult for home users to make the leap from consumption to amateur production.

It may not be on grandma's desktop, but again, why would I care?

Developers of specialized software lack the resources to support every platform. They choose which platforms to support based on which could make the most money for them. And right now, Windows and Mac OS X have much clearer economies of scale than GNU/Linux. So if GNU/Linux isn't widespread, it won't draw a large selection of specialized software, especially in those markets that free software has historically had trouble serving.

PHP programmers should be using bind variables.

I use bind variables in my PHP code in all but two cases that MySQLi's $stmt->bind_param() makes overly cumbersome. To handle these, should I be switching from MySQLi to PDO already?

I am not bound to any single repository or app store.

Name a platform other than the iPhone/iPad that DOES have that limitation.

All current set-top devices for playing video games.

the package manager software usually allows 3rd party repositories to be added

But do they maintain up-to-date HOWTOs on running a repository for your own software? Or do they stress distributing your software as free software (which isn't always practical) and trying to get it into the official repository?