Slashdot Mirror

You have to leave your lights on a lot in order to pay for them in only a month!

linky

A 60w incandescent bulb costs $17/year to operate at 6 hours/day @ $0.12/ Kwh (your electric rate).

A 60w led bulb costs $2.15/year to operate at 6 hours/day @ $0.12/ Kwh (your electric rate).

That's a $15/year savings when purchasing a $0.50 LED bulb (10pack) from Lowes/Costco.
BR> $15/12 = $1.20~ savings per month. You'd pay for it's savings in a month even if you only used the bulb 3 hours a day.

I wonder why people even went through the hassle of running homebrew on a Wii console instead of just using a TV as a PC monitor. True, many during the Wii's commercial era (2006 to 2012) had an SDTV, but back then, I used a $40 scan converter like one of these to turn a PC's VGA out into composite or S-Video.

Yes, I did, three years ago. And for a lot less than $200. Five terminations total (three bedrooms, living room, & basement rec room). 250' of 5e by Sewell for $40 (it's even cheaper now), connectors and wall jacks for another $30, and $10 for some cable fasteners and 1-gang boxes from the local hardware store. It helped a lot that my basement was unfinished at the time. Finally, a simple $50 dual-band wireless router w/ a 4-port switch, and I was done. $130 total, plus my own time. (Though, you do probably need to spend another $30 on tools, unless you borrow from a buddy / the workplace.)

USB-LPT adapters are essentially a one way data stream to the printer. driver software can use it just as it can use a generic one way data stream to the same printer on an Ethernet server.

Most method of bit banging on parallel port relies on being able to use hardware IRQ interrupts (which USB can't do). That's because they are really abusing how a parallel port works, and not just using it as a one way data stream. This is also true for software like Laplink or FastLynx that allow for incoming data over a parallel port. An LPT cable has 8 outbound data bits, but the incoming bits are really supposed to be status bits (out of paper, busy, etc) that are abused to allow incoming data.

Interestingly USB-LPT adapters require no 3rd party drivers on Windows, however unlike mass storage, somehow serial ports did not receive the same treatment, so you're stuck loading Prolific PL2303, HL340, or FTDI drivers (and hope that you don't have a fake FTDI device that the drivers brick the firmware, or a version of PL2303 that Prolific decided to remove support for your OS).

I was also interested to find my Haswell based system included a pin header for Serial and Parallel on the motherboard. I just needed a riser.

FastLynx is an interesting program to interface with old computers. You can interoperate from DOS through to Windows 10 on serial and parallel. It can send the application via serial to allow the remote DOS PC to be able to send and recieve over serial or parallel. Useful if you have broken / no floppy capability and need to exchange data with old machines.

Use old ms-dos era program called laplink, or other such programs. Limit to say 19200 or at best 38400, taking roughly 22-12 hours for worst-case file by file copy. dosbox on newer machine could be used.

-Use LPT port on machine, connect to cross over LPT cable on USB->LPT adapter, use laplink or other such program. dosbox or other on newmachine should do, use again laplink or other such software. May not be 100% compatible with all USB->LPT adapters.

I've yet to see a USB-LPT adapter that can be used for ANYTHING other than a printer. 2 way data over LPT plays some serious tricks, so this is a non-starter.

Instead of Laplink I use FastLynx:
https://sewelldirect.com/fastL...

It is compatible from DOS to Windows 8 64 bit (with USB-serial, or hardware LPT port)

Fastlynx:
https://sewelldirect.com/fastL...

Get a serial null modem cable. You can use a USB-serial converter on a modern PC if you want. USB-LPT converters will not work. They are only for printers. 2 way data transfer won't work at all. Sewell sells packages with Serial and LPT null modem cables with the software.

It can run anything from DOS to Windows 8 64 bit. There's a built in function to send the server program to a DOS machine over serial (using DOS MODE and CTTY commands), without using floppy or CD.

Run the server on the DOS machine, connect on a modern Windows machine, and you can copy the whole HDD over.

Sewell even has Windows versions of Interlnk. You can mount a 2GB FAT16 disk image on your modern PC, and have it show up as a drive on your antique machine.

We have electrochemistry kit that is chugging along on a PC running Dos 6.2 and Win 3.11.

Getting your data off requires a floppy disk as an intermediate step. I have no idea what we'll do if that machine ever craps out - it would be a shame to have to retire the potentiostat because the computers that it was designed to talk to have effectively ascended to godhood in the meantime.

It's certainly not the only piece of analytical kit that is tied to legacy hardware. We have a couple of FTIR machines that look like props from Fallout: New Vegas but work just fine and I'm pretty sure the EPR computer is running Win95.

I shudder at the thought of using a floppy. I like the software FastLynx Kind of like Interlink, but it can easily drag and drop files from DOS to a Win95/98/ME/NT4/2K/XP/Vista/7/8 (32 or 64 bit) using Serial or parallel null modem cables. Cheap $2 USB-serial adapter can be had on eBay. To get faster Parallel transfers requires a real LPT port on your modern PC, not a USB adapter. You can get the bundle from them that includes the software, and cables.

If you have a PC with a broken floppy drive, it can even send the software using MODE and CTTY commands.

It also comes for licenses of Windows versions of Interlnk and Intersvr. The way I had it set up, I created an up to 2GB FAT16 Truecrypt image on my modern "Server" PC (you can use some other image software as well). This gets mapped to a drive on the legacy client machine so now you have a massive disk drive expansion. When the drive is mapped, FastLynx has exclusive use of it, and you can't access files on the host OS it until you disconnect from the legacy PC. Alternatively you can map the drives on the DOS PC onto your modern PC.

I'd like to point out that my Dad had a 72" rear projection TV 15 years ago that didn't have an HDMI input.

That's still not the excuse. Last time I checked, Sewell Direct was selling VGA to composite converters for $30. Official component cables for seventh-generation consoles tended to cost that much. The real excuses are lack of a ready-made name-brand PC in a home-theater-friendly case and tradition.

The amount of time between [video game console generations] is short enough that an open platform can't develop.

Of course it can develop: just build a gaming PC in a home theater PC case, and preload it with a 10-foot launcher and a couple game stores (Steam, Impulse, and GOG), along with a button to exit to the standard desktop. Add VGA and HDMI outputs, and make a VGA to composite adapter available for people who still use a standard-definition TV. But whether it will develop is a separate question entirely. People appear to have some sort of mental set against connecting anything that looks like a PC to the living room TV.

Most LCDTVs today have a dedicated VGA port and and audio in that make the process neigh idiotic to accomplish.

I understand this. You understand this. Most people reading this comment understand this. In fact, for a while, I was using an HDTV as my primary computer monitor. But outside of geeks like us, almost nobody is willing to carry a PC tower into the living room and then carry it back to the computer desk once finished playing the game.

Most new video cards of moderate power have the ability to output through HDMI or s-video, either through adapter or dedicated port.

I am aware of this, and I own such an adapter. But these adapters are sold only online, not in stores, and most people don't know they exist.

Using your PC as a console today is far easier than it was just 5 years ago.

I know this. You know this. Yet after five years, HTPCs are still a rounding error compared to the console market.

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.

Gee, a PC like device that costs about as much as a basic function PC

But "a basic function PC" comes in a much bigger case and lacks any sort of SDTV-compatible output without an obscure VGA-to-TV scan converter.

Who wouldn't want to buy this and hook it up to their TV rather than use the cash for a real multi-media PC?

People who don't want a big, ugly, noisy tower in the living room. People who don't know how to build a small-form-factor PC from parts. People who have an SDTV and don't know that scan converters exist. People who have the mental set that PCs are for the desk and TVs are for the living room and never the twain shall meet. In other words, the majority. I've been told that statistically nobody sets up an HTPC.

What expense?

Buying and installing a compatible WLAN card in the decommissioned PC that will be used for XBMC, for one thing. Not everybody wants to drill holes in the wall to pull Cat-6, and not all landlords will allow it.

We all have a decommissioned PC that's plenty capable of running XBMC.

Slashdot users have one, but Slashdot users alone do not a market make. Relatives of Slashdot users may not have such a spare PC, nor do they know where to get the $30 PC-to-TV adapter. Or the PC's CPU might be so old that it can't decode 480p AVC video in real time, let alone 720p. Or the Windows license may have been transferred to a new PC, needing another $200 Windows license in order to view Netflix. (XBMC for Linux can't stream from Netflix because Moonlight doesn't support Windows Media DRM.)

What ongoing hassle?

Security updates to the Windows operating system on which XBMC runs, for one.

I'll grant you that setup can be a bit of a hassle

Which is another reason why it won't fly. People who grew up with a cable box or a VCR want simplicity comparable to a cable box or a VCR.

What benefit? I hooked up my 28" CRT telly to my 600MHz PIII about 7 years ago

I see two benefits:

• You don't have to buy an obscure VGA-to-composite adapter, buy a video card and have Geek Squad install it, or buy a video card and find a geek family friend to install it. Your PC had a video card, but a lot of PCs don't. PCs with integrated graphics tend to come with only VGA, DVI, and/or HDMI, not SDTV outputs.
• In high definition, you can actually read text without straining your eyes. In 2004, a lot of sites were still on 750px wide layouts. Web layouts nowadays are closer to 960px wide to fit on 1024x600 or 1024x768 screens with a scrollbar, and it's tougher to get those to look good over the limited bandwidth of a 480i signal.

A friend of mine had a laptop from Dell with a modular slot that would accommodate a 3.5" floppy drive or a slot-load CD/DVD disc drive. The laptop package came with both and promised other accessories were available.

Aside from this, hdd, and ram; what else would you like to upgrade in your average laptop? I have seen Gigabit Ethernet via ExpressCard Slot, clunky video card solution and a few vendors sell USB 2.0 sound cards that beat laptop audio for performance.

These are certainly clunky solutions that probably wouldnt fit in your laptop's case, but they do exist.

TV outputs are rediculously common on modern PCs

That's not what I saw when I last looked at PCs in a Best Buy store. Virtually all had VGA; many also had DVI or HDMI. An HDTV can take all of those, but SDTVs can take only composite and S-Video. Most people who aren't geeks don't know a $40 cable to convert PC VGA video to SDTV exists.

DVI is just a standard TV output without the sound or DRM.

DVI is not a standard-definition TV output. It is a high-definition TV output, and a Consumer Electronics Association report states that one-third of U.S. households still have SDTV in the living room.

Anybody with a current video card probably has TV out

Most PCs are sold without video cards. Onboard video typically has either only VGA out or only VGA and DVI out. Most non-geeks aren't aware that DVI is the same thing as HDMI, that their TVs take VGA signals, and that adapters are available to turn a VGA signal into an SDTV signal. And they would prefer not to carry the family PC back and forth between the desk and TV and fumble with cables every time they want to watch a show.

Yeah, but most homes don't have their computer in the same room as the TV

I thought the whole point of a laptop was that it could be moved from room to room, and that the whole point of an ION nettop was that it could sit next to a TV without standing out.

and of those that do a lot don't have the required output/input on the computer/tv

I thought every HDTV worth anything had VGA and HDMI inputs. I'll grant that most people don't know about VGA to SDTV adapters, but as HDTVs replace worn-out SDTVs, they will become less necessary.

and of those that do most don't know that it's even possible

My Vizio 32" TV's box said "PC input". One doesn't even need to read the owner's manual.

and of those that know, most aren't sure how to set it up.

I want to help fix this, which is why I wrote this guide. Could you recommend improvements?

I think all TVs have VGA, DVI, HDMI inputs.

SDTVs don't have DVI or HDMI ports. I recommend this adapter cable from VGA to SDTV, but most people don't know it exists because it's not sold in stores. And even those console gamers who have an HDTV are likely into consoles precisely because there aren't a lot of games made for the PC with major-label production values that support multiple gamepads. Does this mean I need to develop those games myself?

you can get a $50 video card that can display on an HDTV

Will it also display on the SDTV that one already owns? Or does one have to buy a $400 HDTV or hope they happen to run into someone who knows about the $40 VGA to SDTV adapter available only through mail order? (I have a Sewell scan converter, and I recommend it for HTPC gaming, but it appears I'm the only person I know who has heard of it.)

Modern video cards already have TV out hardware; DVI -> HDMI adapters come in the box of nearly ever video card I've seen in the past 2 years.

The impression that I get from reading comments to other PC vs. console articles is that gamers tend to play games on secondary TVs, not the main living room TV, because someone's watching a show like American Idol on the main living room TV when they want to play. These secondary TVs are often $10 thrift store CRT SDTVs that don't take HDMI. However, they do take VGA through a $40 adapter cable that produces composite video and S-Video.

Can we get rid of [...] VGA

No. Affordable PC-to-SDTV adapters take VGA input, not HDMI input.

Hell, let's axe DVI in favor if HDMI while we're at it!

DVI and HDMI are the same thing. The differences are 1. the connector, and 2. displays with the HDMI connector are more likely to support the audio extension to the protocol.

Not even an ION nettop such as Acer Aspire Revo? The HDMI and VGA outputs work with any HDTV, and the VGA out also works with SDTVs through a $30 adapter cable.

For Retrogaming, nothing beats the XBOX. The xport-series of emulators feature an UI designed for joypad usage and nice previews and other Metadata. PC-based emus are mousedependent (MAME has some lousy joypad support hacked in for the ROM browser) and seldom feature previews and the like.

Also, the Vsync works perfect on the xbox. This means buttersmooth scrolling on those 8bit and 16bit titles, whereas PC based emus traditionally either had lots of tearing or stuttery (?) scrolling (this might be outdated, last time i tried PC based emus on TV is about the time when emus took of on the XBOX). This might sound like nothing, but is a very important aspect for retrogamers...

Not even an ION nettop such as Acer Aspire Revo? The HDMI and VGA outputs work with any HDTV, and the VGA out also works with SDTVs through a $30 adapter cable.

Not as nicely as the xport emulator series for the xbox, at least. Those emus were ported from PC and got an UI on the xbox that is strictly made for joypad usage, along with nice previews and other Metadata. PC based console-emulators are either completely mouse dependent or have lousy joypad support hacked in (like MAME).

Also, framerate/Vsync synching works perfectly on the xbox, which results in buttersmooth scrolling on 8-bit and 16 bit titles, where PC based emus always had problems (this might not be the case anymore, it has been a long time since i tried PC based emus on TV). This might sound silly, but is a very important aspect for retrogamers...

It still is the only gaming rig that allows me to use CDX to emulate any older console (ninento, sega genesis, etc) and Mame for arcade games of yesteryear.

How do you dump your NES, Sega Genesis, and Super NES carts to put them on your emulator rig? I know the Retrode works with Sega Genesis and Super NES carts, but it's fairly new, and it doesn't work with NES games.

No other machine has this ability.

Not even an ION nettop such as Acer Aspire Revo? The HDMI and VGA outputs work with any HDTV, and the VGA out also works with SDTVs through a $30 adapter cable.

i didn't really hear about any compelling features that couldn't be reproduced by a good A/V switch and a line in from my PC to the TV.

For one thing, SDTV output as a standard feature. A PC with a VGA, DVI, or HDMI output can connect to an HDTV, but half of households with a TV still have an SDTV in the living room. To connect a PC without a gaming video card to an SDTV, you need a scan converter to turn VGA into composite or S-Video.

Why can't you put your PC next to your TV?

I can, but I don't imagine that most of my audience would be willing to do so for two reasons:

• A family might not have a spare PC to dedicate to use with a TV, and it's a pain in the behind to haul it back and forth between the TV and the computer desk and keep plugging and unplugging cables. As for buying a second PC to keep by the TV, national brand PCs with NVIDIA graphics tend to cost significantly more than a game console.
• Sure, just about every HDTV can take the VGA and HDMI signals from a PC. But at the end of the last holiday season, 54 percent of US households with a TV still had only an SDTV, and these SDTVs won't likely be replaced until they fail. Unlike PCs, consoles have SDTV output as standard equipment without having to by an obscure $40 adapter cable. I could mention this adapter in a game's manual, but would that be enough?

The gaming one is BS ... we still have game systems even with computers that are pretty much the exact same thing.

Except computers aren't pretty much the same as consoles. For one thing, PCs tend to come with underpowered Intel graphics, no SDTV output (without an obscure adapter), and no HDMI output, so they're not often connected to TV-size monitors. (Yet.) Because the typical PC monitor isn't big enough for four players to fit around, there aren't a lot of major-label games that support four players holding USB gamepads. And because there aren't a lot of games designed for HTPCs, HTPC makers tend to spec their products for noninteractive video playback and not gaming. One way to solve this chicken and egg is for PC makers to switch from Intel graphics to NVIDIA graphics, as Apple did in a recent revision to its Wii-sized Mac mini.

Laptops will likely kill netbooks as battery life improves.... there will be a variety of sizes that's all.

The difference between a netbook and a laptop isn't as much a difference of hardware as one of software licensing. Microsoft provides deep discounts on copies of its non-free Windows operating system for use on ultra-low-cost PCs as long as hardware specs stay below a certain threshold.

My very first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2. It was basically a computer in a keyboard that I connected to the TV.

Presumably an SDTV, over RF or composite cable.

Now, decades later, I will soon be able to buy a computer built into a keyboard that will display on my TV.

Perhaps your TV is an HDTV and will work with one of the video outputs (VGA, HDMI) on the computer. But a lot of the U.S. market still uses SDTV, and in order to connect the VGA output to an SDTV, you need a special $40 cable that I don't think is included.

my wife's netbook runs circles around a Wii for couch surfing.

If you want to watch YouTube on the tube, and you're not ready to splurge on replacing your SDTV with an HDTV, it's easier to find a Wii in stores than a $40 netbook-to-SDTV adapter. And afterward, you can use the Wii to play video games with friends.

[HDMI is] the only reasonable choice of connector if you want to interface your laptop to a modern TV.

Every HDTV or monitor I've seen with HDMI or DVI in also has VGA in. In addition, VGA has the advantage that adapters to use a PC with a non-modern TV or a DVD recorder support it.

If one of the major game publishers (EA or Valve?) were to start selling Bluetooth-enabled motion sensor style controllers, and supporting them on multiple titles, we really could see PC gaming become superior to console gaming in all categories (except price, of course).

Here are some other things that would have to happen before PC gaming can cut the console makers out of the equation:

• Video game publishers start porting their local multiplayer games from consoles to PCs. Remember that not all shared-screen is split-screen: for example, see Super Smash Bros. series.
• PC game manuals start coming with instructions to connect a PC to a television set or other sufficiently large monitor. At minimum, they would have to explain VGA to VGA, DVI-D to HDMI, HDMI to HDMI, S-Video to composite, S-Video to S-Video, where to buy a VGA to S-Video adapter, and various audio connections.

For instance, even in <$100 category, most cards have analog or HDMI output.

A lot of PCs don't have a video card; instead, they have onboard video. One could buy a new PS2 for the price of such a video card.

If that still doesn't match the input on your TV, you probably need to get a better TV.

"I bought this TV four years ago, and it's already obsolete!?" A better TV costs as much as two consoles, which can output to the older TV.

Or an adapter to whatever video-in it has, that could also work.

I have one of these adapters (VGA to composite and S-Video), but I'd wager that most PC gamers in the United States don't know they exist because they are neither sold in U.S. retail chains nor advertised in the U.S. gaming media. Would it be the responsibility of a publisher of local multiplayer games for PC to promote these adapters?

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out.

My ASUS laptop didn't have an S-Video output. Neither did my cousin's Acer laptop or my boss's Dell desktop. What do these have in common? Intel GPUs, which show up in a lot of entry-level PCs. There is a fairly easy way to connect a PC's VGA out to a TV, but it involves a $40 adapter that is neither sold in stores nor advertised in the mainstream media.

You know what else Intel GPUs have in common? They're generally shitty for playing games.

I agree that most people probably don't have their PCs connected to the TV, but that's not because anything is preventing that.

Then what is preventing home theater PCs from becoming more popular?

Blackboxes (Tivo, Comcast DVR,etc...) are more Joe Shmuckatelli friendly, even if they are less featureful. MythTV (to use an example I am familiar with) is powerful, but setting it up is not for the faint of heart.

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller.

But there are plenty of multiplayer console games other than sport sims. What PC game would you recommend for fans of games like Mario Kart (4-player cartoon racing), Smash Bros. (4-player platform fighting), or the various 4-player minigame collections on Wii?

More importantly, how many Mario Kart/Smash Bros/Mini Game collections exist on the PC anyway?

I'd say that by now pretty much all PCs have an analog TV-out.

My ASUS laptop didn't have an S-Video output. Neither did my cousin's Acer laptop or my boss's Dell desktop. What do these have in common? Intel GPUs, which show up in a lot of entry-level PCs. There is a fairly easy way to connect a PC's VGA out to a TV, but it involves a $40 adapter that is neither sold in stores nor advertised in the mainstream media.

I agree that most people probably don't have their PCs connected to the TV, but that's not because anything is preventing that.

Then what is preventing home theater PCs from becoming more popular?

As for controllers, most fighting or sports games (basically, the only genres that aren't a huge pain to play with more people) support more than one controller.

But there are plenty of multiplayer console games other than sport sims. What PC game would you recommend for fans of games like Mario Kart (4-player cartoon racing), Smash Bros. (4-player platform fighting), or the various 4-player minigame collections on Wii?

If they don't that's just a design choice on the side of the developers, and not a limitation of the platform.

If a given design choice is a limitation of the vast majority of games on a platform, then it's a de facto limitation of the platform.

I had to switch to ATI Radeon 4870 so I could watch videos fullscreen on my 20" 1996 CRT TV.

How much did that cost you? I switched to a $40 scan converter when I wanted to watch YouTube on an SDTV.

Every PC is a potential "homebrew / modchipped console". All it needs is a Monitor, VGA cable to an HDTV or a $40 adapter to an SDTV.

FTFY

There is still the PC, with no such restrictions

PCs lack lockout-chip restrictions, but in practice, they do have a screen size restriction. There are three kinds of monitors used to play video games: HDTVs, SDTVs, and small PC monitors.

HDTVs: These can display signals from a PC's VGA or DVI port, but not all of a publisher's audience has one yet. A study found that two-thirds of living rooms still had CRT SDTVs.

SDTVs: Unlike video game consoles, the PC platform does not have SDTV output as a standard feature. There is a PC-to-TV adapter, but it's sold separately, not sold in stores, and not advertised on TV, so few if any of a video game publisher's customers even know it exists.

Small PC monitors: These can display signals from a PC's VGA or DVI port, but you can't comfortably fit four people around a typical 19" widescreen. This has caused PC game developers to concentrate on genres that would not benefit from TV output, such as first-person shooters and real-time strategy, and keep genres that would benefit from TV output, such as fighting and party games, as console or multi-console exclusives.

I'd love to develop a social multiplayer game for PC, but until HDTVs become more widespread, I fear that there won't be an audience.

Unless they want their release restricted to homebrew / modchipped consoles, there would be no difference.

Every PC running Windows is a potential "homebrew / modchipped console". All it needs is a VGA cable to an HDTV or a $40 adapter to an SDTV.

Or the end user might have only an SDTV.

...which works just as great for PC's as it does for consoles if your PC has a S-Video port.

I've seen more PCs without an S-Video port than with one. On the other hand, every game console I've owned has come with a composite cable and had an S-Video cable available. Most people don't know about the $40 adapter to turn VGA into S-Video because brick-and-mortar stores tend not to carry it.

The real victory for indie developers will be to release games on platforms that don't discriminate, like the computer for instance.

Say I design a video game for multiple players that is not FPS or RTS. It's designed such that there is no disadvantage for a player if other players can see his view of the playfield. One way to do this is to place the view far enough out that the entire relevant portion of the arena is visible, like in Final Fight or Bomberman or Smash Bros. or ball sport sims. Another way is to make the players cooperate against the game, like in Rock Band or the "Grand Prix" mode of Mario Kart. So the most efficient way to do this is to have four players sitting on a sofa, holding gamepads, and looking at one big monitor.

In theory, the PC can implement such a design. Input would be through USB gamepads connected to the PC through a USB hub like the one that comes with the Rock Band set. On the output side, HDTVs can display VGA or DVI signals from a PC, and a $40 adapter converts VGA signals into composite or S-Video for an SDTV. Examples of such games include the Serious Sam series and the Lego $MOVIE series. But in practice, SDTV rules two-thirds of U.S. living rooms (source), and most people don't know that these adapters exist because major chains such as Walmart* and Best Buy don't carry them. So what would be a good way to market a console-style multiplayer game for the PC?

And no, not everyone has an HTPC, PS3, or anything that can play files from a USB key.

Why doesn't everyone who has an HDTV have an HTPC? HDTVs can use the RGB video and analog stereo audio that any old PC outputs. Or are you talking about SDTVs, which need a converter like this one to display PC video?

near impossible for me to acquire a Neo Geo developer's license and kit.

Why bother, when you can get all of the tools for Windows game development for free, not to mention that Linux has a long history of free tools.

For one thing, most machines that run Windows or untivoized Linux are connected to a tiny monitor. It's hard to fit two people holding gamepads around a 17" monitor, let alone four. Most TVs are still SDTVs, and most people tend not know that PC-to-SDTV adapters exist. Even owners of HDTV sets don't immediately recognize that the D-sub input on the back of a TV is for connecting a PC, or they don't have a spare PC to put in the same room as the TV.

For another, games that run on one person's PC might fail to run on someone else's PC. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Windows doesn't have a "lot check" procedure to verify that your app isn't relying on undocumented behaviors of the platform.

Anyone can write an application, and put the compiled binary up on their website, and "self-publish".

Not without a jailbreak, if your game's genre is one best displayed on the living room TV. As of 2009, video gaming on home theater PCs is still commercially insignificant, in part because most of indie game developers' potential customers aren't aware that PCs can be connected to TVs.

What's curious is that in the indie music world, "indie" just tends to mean independent of the "major" record labels (There are four, right? I'm not a big music person).

Even the smaller record labels tend to be distributed by the big labels in North America.

The problem is that there is no direct analogy to the "Big Four" in gaming.

There's a Big Three of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Without their digital signature, your game is confined to the desk.

Even though I have 4 controllers for the damn thing, I actually haven't had enough people over or dragged it to a Halo LAN in forever now, mostly due to Xbox Live and the logistics respectively.

I guess my perspective must be tainted by the fact that I provide the video games at an annual family party, which is held somewhere without cable or DSL access, and I'm not ready to pay $720 a year for MiFi service. Over the past near-decade, Super Smash Bros. series has got the most play time.

if I could get it hooked up to my TV that would be an added bonus.

If your PC has a DVI-D or DVI-I out, most HDTVs have an HDMI in. If your PC has a VGA or DVI-I out, most HDTVs have a VGA in, and you can use a $40 adapter to convert VGA signals into composite and S-Video signals for an SDTV.

Why don't they allow homebrew then? They let people install Linux on their PS3.

Because Linux for PLAYSTATION 3 has no access to the NVIDIA RSX GPU apart from a dumb frame buffer, it is less powerful than a PC for 3D games. The big draws of a PS3 over a PC are 1. you get to use most of the Cell CPU's DSP cores (except for one that the hypervisor reserves), and 2. the PS3 can display on an older, pre-HD television without needing a $40 box to convert VGA to S-Video. So it's better than a PC for high-performance computing, but the PC is better for homebrew gaming.

I'm guessing that Sony put Linux on the PS3 because Sony wanted to train developers to write the firmware for other products using a Cell CPU. A PSP, on the other hand, has a fairly traditional architecture. In addition, the PS3 had pressure from another platform: if you can homebrew on a PC running Windows (using tools such as MinGW or Python), you're more likely to buy games for the PC. I haven't seen a lot of PDAs with 3D graphics or traditional gaming controls yet.

Someone should tell them that, since Steam appeared there is no used games market.

Steam is for PCs running Windows. Most PC gamers don't think to connect their PC to their TV, despite the VGA input on the majority of HDTVs and the existence of affordable VGA-to-SDTV converters. Therefore, video game genres designed for same-room multiplayer on a large monitor, like Bomberman series or Super Smash Bros. series, tend to be underrepresented on Steam just as they are in the rest of the PC game market. Not everything is a first-person shooter.

Hell, come to think of it, now Steam's here, very soon there won't be such things as publishers!

Publishers exist to separate the wheat from the chaff. Otherwise, you'd have the situation like on Apple's app store, where you don't know which of the 25,000 apps are worthwhile.

I'm so sick of going to garage sales and seeing good equipment, such as printers and scanners, that won't connect to any computer that I own.

What do you mean? Serial Adapter Parallel Adapter

I have a drawer full of PS/2 keyboards.

Only my Mac machines don't work with these, and as far as I know, Macs never used them. Even new "USB" keyboards typically come with a little PS2 adapter. Even if they don't, you can get a little converter - just like with the parallel and serial ports.

There's no reason to saddle new machines with old, slow ports when the new, faster ports can accept adapters.

because we are just starting to come to the true PC / Console wars. You'll see just this happening as penetration of HD becomes deeper. Right now HD penetration is like 30%

I've heard 34%, but that's about right. But even for the other two-thirds, I don't see a problem with using a $40 adapter to convert VGA signals from a PC into S-Video or composite signals for an SDTV. In fact, such a converter is built into several aftermarket video cards using an NVIDIA or ATI chipset. Granted, SDTV out blurs small text, but apps with big enough text (such as StepMania, DOSBox, ScummVM, Midway Arcade Treasures, and various Flash games blown up to the full screen) look as good as their console counterparts. I just wonder why there aren't more PC-native games designed for use with an SDTV output.

I'd rather see HDMI output. Then it's digital, and not only would also be compatible with consumer electronics like HDTVs

I haven't seen a single TV that has HDMI in and no VGA in. But I've seen a lot of TVs with VGA in and no HDMI in, such as any SDTV with a scan converter connected to its S-Video or composite input. And then you have connectors like DVI-I and Apple's mini-DVI that carry both VGA-compatible and HDMI-compatible signals.