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bash

rc

or python, or perl or awk or anything really.

If you want to learn, write your own, http isn't that hard unless you plan to get fancy

Before Alcatel took over Lucent was losing money hand over fist. The were removing every other light bulb in Bell-Labs to save money in about 2003 I think.

Sadly I've been watching the demise for quite a while but hey, at least Jim McKie is still there.

Dennis retired. Dave Presotto, Rob Pike & Sean Dorward went to Google. Tom Duff went to Pixar.
I don't know about the rest.

Whereas the original Monolithic Unix kernel was built by two guys in a weekend.

Then the Lab team got involved and they released 10 versions in 15 years.

And then a rewrite Plan 9 From Bell Labs had 10 people

Clearly 17 people isn't enough to write 1 micro-kernel in 23 years.

23 YEARS

> unless you are running a text-only OS, has an area of the screen that contains something similar--system clock at least.
> Simply admit your ignorance

after you, my GUI has no such bloat

here's my desktop http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/plan9/desktop.gif

where's this pointless waste of space you think I have ?

My early gaming years were littered with box art promises. They always used to put the Commodore64/Atari version screenshots on the box but never their crummy port to the BBC Micro.

Still at least Acornsoft knew what they were doing.

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/Elite.jpg

I was one of the people responsible for the UK's PCWorld having to remove their advert for a Centrino laptop that promised "the internet wherever you are"

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/asa_pcworld_haha.tif

It is in our hands as knowledgable people to notice such rip-offs and report them :

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/little_mendls_trip.h tml

I got

Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park Find anything and everything!
www.searchingmsn.co.uk

Pack Trips in Yellowstone
Discover hidden backcountry gems. Wildlife education & Eco-Adventures
www.YellowstonePacktrips.com

Grand Canyon Hiking Tours
1-11 days. All inclusive adventures Go deep below the rim with a guide
www.grandcanyonhikes.com

The Day I Became Elite

oh and falling alseep while on CompuServe and waking up 40 quid poorer

I think we'd better agree to disagree

I'm sorry I called you deluded, it's just the fun of bravado and certainly nothing personal =)

I'm not even that in love with OpenBSD tbh. it's just the better of a bad bunch. And it does my things the way I want them doing. I guess my desktop would fill you with horror =)

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/basic_screen.gif

Superusers are a design mistake, forgivable for the 60s/70s but just plain idiotic now. Almost everything else stems out of that crippling blow. Privilege escalation is the curse.

Windows has it's own design problems built out of trying to bring a rich set of features to the user/developer. Perhaps the biggest problem was the late incorporation of HTML into the UI due to the failure of the pre-HTTP MSN.

Now both camps are dealing with the horrors of backwards compatibility and Windows ubiquitous monoculture gives them this massive inertia.

You can keep your HumVee. They don't even fit on our roads so if you ever come here you'd better hire a horse !

My plan9 desktop, (at 50% zoom) the open window is a vnc to my X desktop with 9wm running.

"the only place for icons is in a church, a burning church at that" -- maht

[posting anonymously because the general lack of sense of humour among /. moderators]

but it did!

I hope my disks sat readable for that long.

I've had floppies corrupt in the time it takes to walk across the room !

I still have some BBC games on cassette and disk.

plan9 is in graphics mode but there's no buttons, sliders, radio boxes, tick boxes etc.

(well there is a widget set but I've never seen it used)

here's some of my desktops :

screeny_dec_03.gif

screeny_dec_03-a.gif

plan9.desktop-Dec-2002.jpg

plan9 is in graphics mode but there's no buttons, sliders, radio boxes, tick boxes etc.

(well there is a widget set but I've never seen it used)

here's some of my desktops :

screeny_dec_03.gif

screeny_dec_03-a.gif

plan9.desktop-Dec-2002.jpg

plan9 is in graphics mode but there's no buttons, sliders, radio boxes, tick boxes etc.

(well there is a widget set but I've never seen it used)

here's some of my desktops :

screeny_dec_03.gif

screeny_dec_03-a.gif

plan9.desktop-Dec-2002.jpg

Best game evar!

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/Elite.jpg

there is no such thing an an intuitive interface if you have never used a computer

once you've started then you become engrossed in the culture and pressing TAB becomes "intuitive" for moving between web form fields.

(you know the TAB key, the one that says :
|<-
->| on it)

This might feel a bit strange if you come from a land where you used a non PC keyboard and spend your time looking for the "next field" key.

For me pressing alt and dragging windows around in enlightenment is "intuitive". Then I use Windows and I have to find the little bar at the top with the program's name in.

For some people scrolling around using a little wheel in the mouse is intuitive but when they come to my house they can't use the web because I have a proper 3 button mouse with no wheels. If I want to scroll I use the pageup/pagedown keys or the spacebar.

Intuitive means nothing. Even the fabled nipple is learned.

What people need to realise is that you cannot make an interface that is right for everybody.

The best one I've ever used is this one :
plan9.desktop-Dec-2002.jpg

I find it more "intuitive" (and like 10x faster) to open a terminal window and type "ftp remote.domain.com" than to play the menu game with "start .. programs .. leechftp .. bookmarks .. remote.domain.com", naturally Everyone's Milage Varies.

I can't be arsed looking for icons in Windows any more. I just do a WindowsKey-R .. browse and then tab auto-complete my way to c:\Progra~1 and beyond.

Linux/Unix/other interface is only daunting if you haven't invested your time learning it.

Just like you did when you learned to use Windows.

If it is so easy to use and set up why are there still so many people still using 800x600?

last week we had a nice" /show corpse" bug which brought you back to life if you got killed, that was a fun night. s'been fixed now bah

Non of them are show stoppers really. Just a pain when you walk 2500m to find you mission has spawned inside another spawn and it you can't target it. Or theres nothing there at all except a way-point on your map.

However, if it was my software it would be labelled version 0.9 and I'd say it wasn't ready. Early adopters beware, you'll be getting regular patches.

I'm running in 1280x1024 with a GForce ti4600 on dual 1ghz with 768Gb RAM

When I tried to run it on my Voodoo5 it said "Directx9 not installed" even though it was. I tried finding some more XP drivers for it but lost the will and switched it off.

My current character (that's the wiped one on the wall)

The player built houses & shops will really change this game as time goes on. Not enough time on the beta for a massive building plan, "player citites" are said to be the first post-launch big new feature. The characters all seem pretty individual because there's not the "the best armor for Trolls at level 15 is the Chainmail" feature.

There's plenty of entertainment

nah, there are two forms of "death"

Incapacitated - this is generally what happens to you, MOB takes you down and you fall over until your hits/action.mind points recover (typically about 60 secs but I've had 128 & 4)

Sometimes a MOB will come in and give you a death blow and it's back to town.

Even then you can insure your belongings so that you wake up in town with everything you've insured and the stuff you collected since insuring yourself will be on your corpse with your money.

There is a galactic bank (but you have to return to your bank's planet to get to your items [you can move banks]. Cash transactions are available at all banks.

As for the underpants - the reliance on fancy armor has been removed. You start with some clothes but I took them off for fun.

I look much like this atm. although last night I found a new hat but I don't have any good screenies of it.

I'm not very powerful atm. because we had to start again this week because Sony wiped the server ready for the start! [without warning just "Oh. we've wiped the servers, could you start again please". Nuff ppl were getting mardy in the forums but thats the life of a tester]

As well as that most of the MOBS are random spawn so if you come back tomorrow chances are they will be gone.

hehe twice now I've been trying to do a good post and different family members want my taxi services !

I've been beta for about a month

The game isn't finished but that doesn't stop it being fun. It's not a shoddy product but it doesn't shine like the first day I played EQ (admittedly in June 1999 which was about 3 months after launch).

The AI can be dumb with NPCs standing there clapping as you pummel their friends.

Here's me killing a very red MOB by getting it stuck behind a small rock

Having seen the changes from the last few (no doubt panic stricken) weeks I'm pretty confident this game will matrure into something pretty good. I don't think it raises the benchmark that much. Some of the grind has been removed but not all of it. Best thing is that you are not stuck with your initial choices (important on a one character per server game). You can surrender skills and try new ones and adjust your base stats.

And you you look for it there is certainly plenty of action with groups of up to twenty

Many people will like it on it's own merit but I'm sure for many people it will be a welcome stop-over on the way to EQ2.

I've been beta for about a month

The game isn't finished but that doesn't stop it being fun. It's not a shoddy product but it doesn't shine like the first day I played EQ (admittedly in June 1999 which was about 3 months after launch).

The AI can be dumb with NPCs standing there clapping as you pummel their friends.

Here's me killing a very red MOB by getting it stuck behind a small rock

Having seen the changes from the last few (no doubt panic stricken) weeks I'm pretty confident this game will matrure into something pretty good. I don't think it raises the benchmark that much. Some of the grind has been removed but not all of it. Best thing is that you are not stuck with your initial choices (important on a one character per server game). You can surrender skills and try new ones and adjust your base stats.

And you you look for it there is certainly plenty of action with groups of up to twenty

Many people will like it on it's own merit but I'm sure for many people it will be a welcome stop-over on the way to EQ2.

I've been beta for about a month

The game isn't finished but that doesn't stop it being fun. It's not a shoddy product but it doesn't shine like the first day I played EQ (admittedly in June 1999 which was about 3 months after launch).

The AI can be dumb with NPCs standing there clapping as you pummel their friends.

Here's me killing a very red MOB by getting it stuck behind a small rock

Having seen the changes from the last few (no doubt panic stricken) weeks I'm pretty confident this game will matrure into something pretty good. I don't think it raises the benchmark that much. Some of the grind has been removed but not all of it. Best thing is that you are not stuck with your initial choices (important on a one character per server game). You can surrender skills and try new ones and adjust your base stats.

And you you look for it there is certainly plenty of action with groups of up to twenty

Many people will like it on it's own merit but I'm sure for many people it will be a welcome stop-over on the way to EQ2.

You want to have a personalised skin so you pick a Marvel Comic Character, that's so lame!

I think Josh said it best [about making fps mods] :
-----------------
Step Two: Pick a Hot Property

You have to base your mod on something, and nothing works better than somebody else's copyrighted property. Heck, George Lucas isn't going to mind if you steal his beloved characters for personal use. Neither is old Tolkien, who is probably burning in hell for writing such blasphemous nonsense. Here are a couple suggestions for possible mod material:

Star Wars
X-Men
Harry Potter
The Matrix
Lord of the Rings
Dragonball Z
Denver the Last Dinosaur
-----------------

My money is also proximal to my mouth

It's not the language neutrality that's required it's the interfaces that need opening.

TK & Plan9 get this right by using character and not binary interfaces [Unicode in Plan9s case].

In Plan 9's once you've written a program and exposed it in the Plan 9 way you don't even need libraries & whatnot.

take a look at my IRC bot written in shell script

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/chugly.rc

making a network connection, pah, who needs a socket library

echo 'connect slashdot.org!80' > /net/tcp/$n/ctl

Writing a user level file system to implement such things is a bit more complicated but again, once written *any* program can utilise them with the simple commands we all know and love : echo cat grep ls awk etc. etc.

Here's one I wrote to do google searches

Now every program on my system can do a google search using simple file operations. Even programs compiled *before* I wrote mine, such as awk.

It's not the language neutrality that's required it's the interfaces that need opening.

TK & Plan9 get this right by using character and not binary interfaces [Unicode in Plan9s case].

In Plan 9's once you've written a program and exposed it in the Plan 9 way you don't even need libraries & whatnot.

take a look at my IRC bot written in shell script

http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/chugly.rc

making a network connection, pah, who needs a socket library

echo 'connect slashdot.org!80' > /net/tcp/$n/ctl

Writing a user level file system to implement such things is a bit more complicated but again, once written *any* program can utilise them with the simple commands we all know and love : echo cat grep ls awk etc. etc.

Here's one I wrote to do google searches

Now every program on my system can do a google search using simple file operations. Even programs compiled *before* I wrote mine, such as awk.

not easy to summarise

try reading the papers

user level file systems :
Instead of having one protocol for interrogating the disks, one for the network etc. plan9 uses the 9p protocol. In this way the physical devices are abstracted and one can use a single set of tools to inspect them. It taes the concept of Everything is a file to it's logical conclusion.
Want to know where the mouse is : cat /dev/mouse

Get slashdot homepage using the shell :

conn = `{cat /net/tcp/clone} # ( `{} is like bash's `` )

<[4] $conn { # keeps it open
echo 'connect slashdot.org!80' > /net/tcp/$conn/ctl
echo 'GET http://slashdot.org/ HTTP/1.0' > /net/tcp/$conn/data
cat /net/tcp/$conn/data
}

I wrote an irc bot as an exercise in rc. It dangerously executes given commands and returns the results

There are also other great technologies.
Incremental backups are built in.
Acme is an interactive editor that does all sorts of interesting things.

The plumber - forget file associations. The plumber uses regular expressions and executes whatever commands you would like it to for a set of given strings. So if you see http://slashdot.org in ANY piece of on-screen text, right click and select plumb and it will open it. [hehe not it plan9's web browser - that is one area seriously lacking.

The really sad part is that Lucent's financial troubles means that people have been shed from Bell-Labs. No-one is being paid to maintain plan9 any more. The heroes remaining and some outside [Rob Pike, Russ Cox, Dave Pressotto, C H Forsyth, et. al.] are doing it in their own time. And doing a great job.

I could go on but I need to leave the house. [that always seems to be the case when plan9 gets mentioned here!]

because when I go to the shops I want them to have the things I want to buy.

I want to be stereotyped, I want to be classified.

card for ya

If only they would listen to my preferences the world would be a better place 8)

I can't get my summary past the lameness filter

but it's not that kind of errors