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Whisperings from Indrema
Bill Kendrick writes "John Gildred, CEO of Indrema, participated in an Indrema IRC chat today and gave folks a much-needed update on the L600 console and the company's current state off affairs. Unfortunately, the Big Bad Recession is hitting them as well.
John says: "We have experienced our share of dry spells in this difficult economy lately. The situation has not improved. The reality is that we have one last chance to turn it around. There is a plan in motion to obtain interim funding, but [then] I will not have a conclusion until end of this month or early next month." After the update, we had a Q&A session and he mentioned the CPU is now spec'd at 750MHz, and will use a GeForce3. And if they do go belly up, they'll probably release a lot of their code as "LGPL or the like."
I've already got his update online at my Indrema
fan site."
I sure hope it wasn't on EFnet, otherwise everyone will have the incorrect idea that it will be filled with splits.
Did anybody really expect any other outcome? This was a very cool ideal, but I never thought it could work in today's market. That's probably more a testimate to the state of the industry rather than the validity of their plan, but true nonetheless. Too bad either way.
Better they leave the game early instead of going under after pushing a few thousand units through manufacturing. The Dreamcast, PS2, GameCube and XBox will have enough of a hard time keeping in there as it is. The Dreamcast console just proves this. And a company who has no estlablished roots to live off of like Microsoft, or who has never done a console already like Sony and Nintendo expects to survive?
The XBox will fill the need for a PC console, the GameCube will hold over the kiddies, and the PS2 will hold over everyone else while the Dreamcast fades away.
If you market it right it will succeed
Look at windows
http://Lenny.com
dynamics of the console market. no company who has successfully developed and marketed a console unit has made money off of the actual console - they make their cash from the software licensing agreements for games produced to run on their systems. Xbox for instance will lose money for microsoft - but - they will make that loss back (and more.. much more) through software licensing agreements. linux may be a superior operating system in terms of power, but admit it - linux is a useful tool to corporations ONLY so that you - the developer - has a way to develop code that they will steal from you. Linux is cool for servers, but get over the idea that a 'linux console' will ever work - especially when that $300 for a console box still means a loss for any company selling/distributing one. just my two cents.
I've been waiting for two holiday shopping seasons for a Linux-compatible DVD player and the Indrema looks like a great excuse for getting one. I am looking forward to all the other stuff it will do.
They ought to offer to GPL their software if they do *well*.
---JJJIII
I rang, you rang, we all rang for orangutang!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
From the article: ...the CPU is now spec'd at 750MHz, and will use a GeForce3...
:))
Gee, can anyone think of an upcoming console that has a 733MHz processor and a GeForce3? Bingo! The XBox. Yes, folks, I'm afraid its another MHz war... (and it could be a good one, because appearently they havent decided if they are going to go with AMD or Intel, but they do mention that they want a fast FSB, so it will probably be AMD
Mark Duell
That's too bad Indrema is having problems. Anyways, a short description of Indrema's console is available at HowStuffWorks.com, the most interesting section being Why Linux?. The open source/Linux community already has had it's fair share of failures (Mozilla, et. al.). Unfortuntly, if Indrema fails there is a slight possibility of the Real World(TM)(R)(C) ignoring free software in general for a few decades -- I personally hope they succeed.
It's not cool to use other peoples code... -
Does anyone else find it a little odd that a $600 graphics card will be put in a $300 console? Yeah, we know the L600 is gonna be sold for a loss that's made up with licensing fees, but what's to stop anyone from just yanking the GeForce3 outta the Indrema and making a nice profit on its sale?
Sure, 50% of slashdot will run out and get one, but in a year and a half there's gonna be the XBox, the Gamecube, and the PS2. That's it.... There's no way in hell this thing can survive. It can get games, since it's a pc with a tvout, but who's going to buy it, when they've got a pc and a ps2? Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea, and there's no way the XBox would make it without the juggernaut behind it.
This isn't a troll, but basically, I really think Indrema should give up.
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
The following questions are what need to be answered:
Are there any big-name software companies that are going to writing games for it? All their money is riding on the Xbox. Who is going to know about Indrema if/when it comes out besides theThough, There are real problems involved in this, and very legitimate reasons why they haven't been able to advertise (some of the investors apparently didn't want word getting out until things were ready, or something like that). It's a tough market, and indrema really had a very supportive following.
Let's hope for the best, eh? *crosses fingers*
get 0wned. irc.w30wnzj00.com
Indrema's only chance of survival is if they make a showing, a STRONG showing at this years E3 Expo. And as of now, Indrema is NOT listed as an exhibit at E3. Hm...not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.
/.'er, and most of them have almost no knowledge of the system at all.
Why aren't they there? Who the hell knows? Its only the biggest gaming expo in the country with tens of thousands of members of the press reporting on the biggest and best things to come in the next 12 months of console gaming. Its only the expo where Bill Gates is going to have his chance to "sell" his machine to the public, and for Nintendo to try and regain people who were displeased with the N64.
At last years E3, I had the luck of watching Konami show their Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer, and almost a year later, people are STILL asking to borrow my promo dvd that its on. E3 can make that much of an impression on gamers, and Indrema is ignoring it.
I want this console to survive, TRUST me, I do. But there's no way it can unless it gets some press. And if its not mentioned in any gaming mags, barely any websites, and almost none of the print/tv media, where are these people even going to HEAR about it? Unfortunately, your average gamer isn't a
If anyone working on the Indrema is reading this...REGISTER for E3! What have you got to lose? You'll only be showing your hardware off to a good 30,000-40,000 software developers, investors, and members of the press, who are people with video cameras just itching to upload the coolest videos they shot that day.
Indrema's only real hope, IMO, is to position itself not as yet another console, but as a cool TV-capable programmable device for hobbyist programmers and the tech savvy. (TiVO-ish functionality, which they seem to be doing to some degree, is good as well). While there is hobbyist development (both via pure reverse engineering and illegally obtaining developer software) for other consoles, having one where it is fully encouraged would be pretty cool. With such a system, there's sure to be ports of cool emulators and small but perhaps creative indie games.
In short, Indrema should position itself more as Yaroze and less as Playstaton. Of course, this may be a losing battle too, as it would require selling the hardware for a profit most likely (since there won't be many distribution royalties to be had)... But at least they would have some glimmer of hope. A pure console play is doomed, whether the thing runs linux or not (hint: 99.99% of console buyers don't know anything about linux other than the human interest stories they read on some tech news sites).
A company falls for the Linux hype and is now about to fall off the face of the Earth. Where have I heard this before? Oh, *I* remember: VA Linux stock hit a new low today.
Linux - "Where do you want to cash your unemployment check today?"
Much of a console's marketing power is dependenant on the games that are expected to be available for it. What Indrema game can't you wait to play? I certainly haven't heard of any that have piqued my interest.. in fact I haven't heard of any, period.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Indrema is a noble effort and I respect everyone involved in the project and the company. That is why perhaps it might actually be best if this company were to die now before the people involved wasted more of their money and lives on a product and an idea that will never last more than a month in the highly competitive marketplace. Let's face it, the Indrema is basically X-Box minus Microsoft's marketing machine. And the X-Box is basically a PC.
---
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
They're out of Illinios...a quick glance at their fax number being a 309 area code pretty much narrows it down.
I mean, wouldn't it have been smarter to wait until the Linux-based PC had taken off as a gaming platform? There's a ton of promise, on the development side with the SDL and the DirectX work that Wine's doing, as well as considering the games that have already been or are being ported (see linuxgames), but at this point, Linux as a gaming OS really is empty hype. Especially considering how video game consoles are usually sold with less of a profit margin than the games, how can they expect to do this without the games already there, ready to go?
Or am I missing something obvious here? Were there a whole slew of titles that they were ready to port?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Come on, this one had SCAM written all over it.
Set up a nice web-page, announce a product, get as many investors as you can, fly all your friends to Paris for lunch and then call it quits when the money runs out.
Bill's exact words included:
...The reality is that we have one last chance to turn it around....
Bill did **not** say they are finished. Yes the odds are against them, but from the comments I've seen, it seems like nobody really *wants* them to succeed.
Heck, I am so sick of Monopolysoft, I'd pony up $500 to pre-order one today.
Obviously there are going to be a lot of comments about the Xbox vs. the L600. Especially on Slashdot (Linux vs. M$...round 56,790). However, if I remember correctly, the Xbox isn't as upgradable as the L600. Supposedly, you can actually change the CPU with the push of a button, etc. Also, and this may be flamebait, but at least the L600 won't crash in mid game. Additionally, either way this turns out, Linux wins. The Open Source community gains some game software for Linux and receives a new and usable GUI (as I am told the L600 will have). Again, either way, Linux wins.
I was serious !
Do I have to give examples of how a crappy product like windows
only succeeded because of marketing?
I figured everyone knows that M$'s products are marketing success's
not tech success's
http://Lenny.com
If they want the mass public to take notice they are gonna have to market this thing as something that has never been seen before.
It would be a shame if Indrema were to fail in their dream of creating a Linux based console, however if it fails it would be nice if both the detailed hardware specifications as well as the code were open sourced. This would leave it open for another well funded company to come in and pick up where they left off.
But most of us here can see that there isn't much chance for Indrema. The OS may be free, but hey, it will be free for the XBox as well as far as Microsoft is concerned (until M$ are finally split up (if ever...) and hardware goes the other way from the software). Games developers are backing the dead certs now:
- XBox (except Japanese market)
- Gamecube
- PS2 (looks like it could come in 3rd at this rate)
There is not a market for more than 2 consoles, never mind 3. Indrema reminds me of the old 3D0 - a good machine in its time (94/95) but a combination of PSX, N64 and Saturn killed it off early.
Also I have doubts about the GeForce being used. What would be good is an updated Kyro II with T&L, and running at 250MHz. It wouldn't cost as much to use, its efficiency is surely something that Linux afficionados would love, and with a few small updates to make it more powerful (shouldn't be too hard to do) it would make a good choice. It might even be easy to get Dreamcast games ported as well, as the graphics chipset has is derived from that used in the Dreamcast. That would give it some real backing.
The Indrema has to launch soon though, in less than 6 months, otherwise it is too late. $300 for Gamecube or Indrema. I know what I would choose.
Indrema is a very interesting project, and I sincerely hope that it's successful, but I fear that it just doesn't have what it takes to cut it.
Strong developer support is one of the key components of success (ie: support from big names... Nintendo's N64 didn't enjoy the success that it might have because Nintendo lost Square as a developer prior to the release of the console). I haven't followed Indrema too closely, but a quick visit to their web site didn't reveal anything about 3rd party developer support (though there's a really good chance that I just missed it). Games for the mainstream consoles (Dreamcast, PS2, GAME CUBE, etc) are always extensively hyped.
Consumers don't necessarily want all the sweet goodies that Indrema promises... game player/mp3 player/web browser/tivo thingy... I once read an article regarding the PS2's DVD support, and the author suggested that Sony's combination of home entertainment devices might confuse consumers (I regret that I can't provide a link to the relevant site... it was a few months ago that I read it).
The only really positive thing that I can think of that works in Indrema's favour is that the console market would have been awefully crowded if Sega hadn't dropped the Dreamcast... with Nintendo and Microsoft introducing their new machines later this year, I fear that it's going to be an uphill fight for Indrema.
Well, considering this will probably not get read, here goes... ;)
:)
:) But that's what all successful ideas look like at first. :) Good luck to you John and Indrema, and I hope you guys can figure something out!
I think that Indrema are kinda going about this the wrong way. I mean, if they're not going to make money off the console (indeed, they're probably going to sell it at a loss like everyone and the market are saying), and if the games are pretty much there in terms of being able to run on the hardware, then maybe the very thing that they are working on (the console "software") is what they should be looking at selling. I mean, if they target the console software for a machine base that most people have, say a P2 400+ with a reasonable support for a wack of 3D video cards, I think they would have a GREAT system.
Then all they would be selling would be the console software, and HECK, they COULD give it away free! Why?? Well, remember those licensing fees? Well, I'm SURE gaming companies would love to write games for a solid computer-based console that only reqiures the user to boot a CDROM, then switch to the game CD and boom, the user is off.. or even include the console OS on the gaming system. All the while you'll get games that run reliably, Indrema can do what they do well, which is support the existing hardware out there, and they'll make their money off the game industry, stealling the XBox's marketshare.
Pipe-dream? Maybe.
Cheers,
Chris
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
So, the notion of a tiny company without game development experience targeting a console at folks who historically haven't paid for much software seems pretty silly. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it looks like they should pack up shop now.
Since games on Linux rock so hard, lets just go and create a linux based console!!!!!!!!!
WTF are these guys on?
They need to get real. Games on linux just plain bite ass. I'd rather play the game when it is new, than when it is 2 years old, on linux.
Windows kicks the shiznit out of linux when it comes to games. If you even think it doesn't, you're just another hopeless linux jingoist.
________________________________
________________________________
"I'm the King of the Trolls!"
...is to go after the NC market.
look, they have almost no chance at all in the console market...they are competing with MS, and MS has the desktop and a huge warchest.
i'd go poke for an alliance with IBM, Sun or possibly a big contract with the US gov't or some large school districts...even Brasil or France.
push, push push the truth -- that "going microsoft" binds a company to an endless, horrific upgrade path, not to mention the massive licensing fees, etc. None with Indrema.
you've got to demo a turnkey mid-size office system -- running nfs or samba, staroffice, a few legacy windows machines. pound home ease of use, reliablilty, no license fees, low cost in the door.
but i have to say...no NC company has survived, and no console can compete in this market.
bye - bye indrema. i would have loved to see you make it, but there is just no way.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well, it isn't really a console, but Nokia is doing some pretty neat stuff with their Media Terminal which is based on Linux/Mozilla... http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/mediaterminal.html
Playing Quake 3 with the remote was kind of wierd though :)
Win, lose or draw, I will buy one just to help offset their costs. I am glad to see their attitude towards the opensouce community, and will reward it by opening my wallet.
Gamecube will most likely cost $200 on it's release date (if not less). Nintendo is pushing it as a pure game machine. No set top box plans. It also has some nice combatibily with the recently released Game Boy Advanced (which is sure to be a success). Nintendo's got enough legacy games to ensure at least a number two spot in the market.
As for your prediction of Xbox pushing PS2 out of the market, I'm afraid I disagree. Sony's already capturing a large portion of the market. Just because you don't see PS2s on the shelves doesn't mean nobody has one. The games for the PS2 are also getting better and better. I don't think anybody knows for sure how much untapped power is in this box. You just can't measure it in Mhz and RAM. Read this Ars Technica article for more info.
PS2 also has plenty of legacy games of it's own. Metal Gear Solid2, Gran Turismo 3, and Final Fantasy X are enough reason to own the system. What does Xbox have? I just don't think Microsoft understands this market enough to do well in it. You can't just throw money at it.
As for Indrema, it's hard to say. It could go the way of 3DO. But 3DO went down due it's intial $700 price tag. Indrema could take up a nich as hobbist game development machine. I just haven't seen anything annouced yet for games.
As always, the quality of the games tells the story. Not the hardware.
I personally own a PS2 and I'll be in line for a Gamecube and GameBoy Advance. I'll be watching Indrema closely. As for Xbox, I already own a PC. I don't see the need for another.
--
InstantCool
Indrema was bound for disaster from the start. They never had enough funding or connections with developers to go anywhere. Their only saving grace was that plent of VC suckers were willing to throw money at a Linux company.
If Indrema had wanted to do this right, they would have needed backing from someone with oodles of money from day one. They also would have needed to chase down japanese game developers like crazy, because a console will go nowhere without them.
Indrema was just another product of the dotcom mess. It would have been great to see them succeed, but we all knew it was just a pipe dream.
Going against the giants Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, did anybody really think that they have a real chance? I'm not a console gamer but I would've loved to see them excel. The same result would probably still occurred(considering that they don't get the funding) even if the economy didn't go belly up. Microsoft would've just lowered their prices of the X-Box when they release it, like John D. Rockefellar did with his gas station prices in a two gas station town, until the competitions gone(so he could jack up the prices to the profit maximizing point.) History would've just repeated itself again.
You stupid bastard, you don't have no arms left. It's just a flesh wound.
Playstation 2 is similar, IMO. Sony only has one game that I'm interested in for Playstation 2 and that's Metal Gear Solid 2. SSX is pretty cool, but its not enough to warrant purchasing the system. But it is a DVD player too, you might say. I already have 2 of them, one on my computer and a home console version. Besides, there's no remote in that USD$300 price tag. No memory card either. So I'd have to shell out about $400 for a decent starter system. Way too much for me!
I really like my Sega Dreamcast, because Sega has the balls to release some new games. Not Madden Football X, Cool Borders whatever, Tekken gameplayhasntchange Tag, or whatever other sequels. Granted Sega has their share of sequels, but they have some of the most original games of the last several years. Samba De Amigo, Virtua Tennis, Jet Grind Radio, etc.
OK...enough ranting...
Amigori
----------------- I'm looking forward to Gameboy Advance. How about you?
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
It seems like we're all trying to find "the problem with..." this box and business plan. If there is a fault, it looks like it might be the ease with which users (by that I mean mostly slashdot readers) can convert it into a desktop PC.
The FUD from Washington is really starting to mess with people and mess with lives. It is a self fullfilling prophecy that is starting to take people down.
I see no reason for this lack of confidence except politics, and people pulling a PR Caper for their own greedy ends.
It will be a real shame if places like Indrema cannot make a go of it, because of the fear factor in the money folks.
Time to start sending snail mail, and fixing blame where it belongs.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If you have to try so hard to advocate a given platform, then is it really worth it? I was in this position a few years back when I was trying to develop for the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar was a neat little box, arguably one of the first 'next generation' machines, but it just wasn't destined to succeed. We tried for a while to participate in the Jaguar advocate crowds before realizing that spending so much time supporting a given platform instead of working on our own game was just silly.
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
Intriguing or what?
I personally have seen a couple presentations on the X-Box (directly from the X-Box team) and it most assuredly is based on a stripped down Win2k kernel. The SDK boxes first boot into Windows and then switch over to the game. While it is quite likely that you can make an X-Box boot in to Linux that's not what MS is using for the games. They aren't stupid. Did you think they would be willing to take the PR hit from not running their own OS on the machine.
Still, this guy seem pretty insistent that the thing's based solidly on linux technology. It's basically down to whtere you're going to go with common sense or believe the conspiracy theory.... I'm highly skeptical but it's still an interesting thought.
Well, I think the Indrema is a great idea. The problem is, the way they're setting up the marketing of the console and the distribution model isn't really going to work. What needs to be setup is a distribution model similar to what Sega did way-back-when, when they had the Sega Channel where you could download games through cable (although they wouldn't use the same distribution method for the indrema of course), and played them until another set of games could be downloaded. What Indrema needs to do is position the L600 as THE digital content endpoint, so that you go online, check out the games you want, possibly setup via a monthly fee or pay-per-game/play method. Also the console could be setup to download new games while you're away and let you play and/or preview them. If the console is going to have a hard-drive why not use it to it's full potential? Just my two cents.
Actually, they WERE out of Illinois. They moved to the bay area. I believe Keri from CollabNet said that they're HQ'd in Oakland right now.
If gas stations were exclusive to the car companies (like games are to consoles), this would be true. If 98% of the gas stations across the country only served owners of Hondas, Toyotas, or Fords, you would probably buy one of those three brands.
I've always intended to buy an Indrema when it comes out, and to support it in other ways.
However, I would NOT have designed it the way it was designed, because it's vastly too expensive that way through not leveraging existing designs and existing products. As Indrema say, they'd have to sell it for $500 to survive, and that's a silly business model if you ask me. But your hardware doesn't have have to be expensive to be powerful. Here's how I would have done it, riding on the back of the PC industry.
I would have defined a supported motherboard architecture based on an existing PC motherboard style, one that is already in production by several manufacturers.
I would have designed a "GPU slot specification" as no more than a raiser board plugging into the AGP connector to allow a plug-in AGP card to be oriented horizontally and to provide sockets for optional graphics-assist hardware. Ditto for a "PCI slot specification" raiser board.
I would have defined the "Indrema Hardware Specification" as a restriction on what can be plugged into the above, because a console must be free of the bugbear of PC games development, ie. the huge variation in PC hardware. Ditto for the "Indrema Software Specification" -- ie. only one specific Linux distribution should be supported by the games spec, and outside that you're on your own. (Actually, Indrema's current software spec seems quite good as it stands.)
I'd have made 1U and 2U enclosures (rack flaps extra) to hold the above in both diskless and disked versions respectively, and it's virtually ready for launch! Design and manufacturing costs would be vastly less than at present, and in effect most of the console hardware would be manufactured for them at a very low cost as a side-effect of the PC industry.
Needless to say, PC advocates would love a box like the above, in effect a thin PC for the hifi rack with the attributes of a games console but an open architecture. What the X-box should be but apparently won't be. Sigh.
If there are any venture capitalists listening, talk to John Gildred, and suggest the above approach. The risk would be much less than for bespoke hardware, and you could always sell the hardware off as very nice PCs in parallel with the gaming business.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I work for a fairly large company. One of the people I work with is such a large MS nut...that he even wrote part of NT 4.0. (not that that is something to be proud of ;-)) Anyway, he is a big fan of Indrema. Why? Because he believes it provides for the ultimate flexibility. Its not an Open Source issue for myself and others like him. Its the fact that this represents real flexibility in a sort of appliance that plays games.
Anyway...I and many others I know will buy one...just give me the chance Indrema!
But there's a funny side effect of open source in these efforts; let'em die, get the code. Reverse vendorlock.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Listen to the sounds...of silence.
Vaporware.
It's a shame too.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Yeah. Tux Racer. Smiletris. Kickin', man!
Pingus. FreeCiv. Tetanus On Drugs. Scores of games at Allegro.cc. The whole NES, Game Boy, Genesis (INCLUDING Zero Wing), and SNES libraries (through emulators).
However, I feel sorry for the person whose first game programming attempts ever have to be in C.
And Basic is better how?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The thing I liked most about the PS2 was the fact that it came with a DVD player as well for a relatively low price. Lots of people agree with me in this respect. Indrema is even better because in addition to games and DVDs it supports TIVOish personal TV as well, a technology which has become very interesting, is expandable in many respect including hard drive capacity (which would allow more recording than Tivo), and also can act as an internet computer. So I would expect that with some advertising it should do very well - it's four peripherals (and then some) in one. Yay, less cables to worry about.
But it does raise the question - Tivo and RePlay use proprietary subscription servers to coordinate television listings and automatic recording. Will Indrema support this feature? If so, will that require a subscription or be free? Will third parties be able to operate their own listing services?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I've been on the Indrema mailing lists and been bitching and griping for eons about the lack of pub, the lack of code/info releases, etc. I've given up on Indrema and am pretty sure they're gonna fail (though I'd love to be proven wrong), but started thinking about what I'd like to see in an Open console.
First off, a Risc processor. The x86 architecture is okay, but littered with tons of instructions that are rarely - if ever - used in modern applications.
Secondly, a radically different approach. I've been experimenting with rules-based approaches to 3D animation and speech synthesis; I'd like to see a system built with a graphics accelerator, a logic processor and a sound/IO processor+DSP. Rather than providing an OS, build a BIOS-like firmware that exposes all the hardware's functionality and allow developers to create their own micro(micro!)kernels. Provide copious application and "OS" example code to instruct developers how to program for the device.
I realize that this involves more investment than using generic, off-the-shelf PC parts, but it also opens up many, many new possibilities including real time speech synthesis, facial animation and dynamic physics-based skeletal animation, to name a few.
I'm probably off-topic, but I just thought to let this out.
most of the work (at least in AMOS) for manipulating the chipset had been done for you, an implemented as BASIC commands (like to scroll a graphics screen - you used the SCROLL command).
C is the same way. A decent 2D graphics library will have a function scroll_screen(x, y). The Basic version I remember (QBasic) was so limited that it didn't even support drawing primitives to offscreen bitmaps.
BASIC has the easiest learning curve (and if you already know BASIC, no learning curve).
Visual Basic != Blitz Basic. Lack of a recognized standard for the Basic language creates a tremendous learning curve from one dialect to another. For example, some dialects have line numbers; others don't. Some use gosub for function calls; others use call; others use fn; others have a more C-like syntax. Some Basic dialects have multiline if...then...else...endif; others only allow if condition then goto 12345.
I will never understand why BASIC is knocked so much nowadays
Mostly because people are under the impression that "20 goto 10" is still valid Basic. Exception handling under most dialects is a piece of; on error goto is a lousy kluge for a try/catch structure.
or some other engine, like Genesis
I always thought Genesis consoles were programmed in 68000 assembly.
There are several free, open-source [Basic] compilers for Linux
Will code written for one compile on another? I may try my hand at Basic again once I see one or both of these:
Will I retire or break 10K?
Indrema is most definitely located in Oakland. Some members that I'd talked to are located on the East Cost (I didn't think the Mid-west, tho), IIRC. However, their main complex is in Oakland.
/me shrugs You're probably right :o)
I don't know why they wanted to go with linux unless they were looking to go cheap and if that is the case, I would put a 266 mhz cpu with a cheap video card and throw it onto the market and give all sorts of incentives for people to hack it. Make it a internet appliance as well as a game console. Make it fun and make it in mass production! Make it between 50 and 75 dollars so that people buy it because they think "why not" and use hardware that is so cheap that they barely lose money on the sales of the damn thing. The idea of these new and expensive consoles seem stupid. Pay 300 - 400 dollars on a game console? No thanks! Game consoles don't have to be state of the art in hardware - they just have to have cool games and stuff. It is the only way this thing has a chance.
I miss the Karma Whores.