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Parsec To Be Released As Open Source
Mark Bainter writes "The Parsec creators have announced today that they are going to release the Parsec project source code early next month. From the site: 'The source release will include platform support for Win32, MacOS X, and Linux, and contain both OpenGL and Glide rendering code. It will include almost everything that has been part of the earlier LAN-Test releases, as well as our new client/server code that is already far along in development. However, it is our hope that this release will be picked up by the Parsec community for further development, supported by members of the original Parsec Project. This release will be the last official release of the original Parsec Project. It had been our intention to achieve a full-featured release including Internet game play in 2002. However, we were always doing this in our spare time, and since it is taking us too long to reach our original goal, we do not want to keep the Parsec community waiting any longer and have thus decided that it is time to change Parsec's development model to an open source approach.'"
I don't think many people will know what this is but I know I will.
Well, here we go.
Nice knowing you all.
That's good. Things will go faster this way.
What's next? A Duke Nukem Forever release? I remember checking out this site back before I ever got the 3D acceleration working on FreeBSD. I'd always figured they were going the same route as Stars! Supernova Genesis. It's great to see that it's going to be Open Source as well. It'll be great to play something beyond the ancient LAN demo.
I read the internet for the articles.
Does anyone still use Voodoo cards? Do they work with win2k or XP?
today is spelling optional day.
There I go, getting all excited that the classic TI99/4a sideways scrolling shoot-em up is going to made open source. So I'd have a chance to see the workings of one the games that perverted my early development. Alas it's some fancy-schmancy 3D number. New fangled nonsense...
I've been watching this project with anticipation for years, but it's always been "almost ready". That, and the guys running it had what seemed an unnatural fear of open source. Their argument against in in the past was basically "we don't want outside help, so no open source". As if opening the source meant they had to accept changes. It was very strange.
So yeah. Yay! Maybe we'll see a finished game finally. It definately has the potential to be a kickass game.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
Parsec Goes Open Source!
January 28, 2003 -- We are currently preparing the entire code base of Parsec for a full source release in early May 2003, which will mark a major change in the structure of the Parsec Project.
The source release will include platform support for Win32, MacOS X, and Linux, and contain both OpenGL and Glide rendering code. It will include almost everything that has been part of the earlier LAN-Test releases, as well as our new client/server code that is already far along in development. However, it is our hope that this release will be picked up by the Parsec community for further development, supported by members of the original Parsec Project.
This release will be the last official release of the original Parsec Project. It had been our intention to achieve a full-featured release including Internet game play in 2002. However, we were always doing this in our spare time, and since it is taking us too long to reach our original goal, we do not want to keep the Parsec community waiting any longer and have thus decided that it is time to change Parsec's development model to an open source approach.
We intend the official Parsec webpage to become the central hub for playing Parsec and continuing Parsec development. We would like to dedicate the upcoming release to the Parsec community, and hope that Parsec will live on and prosper as an open community project. Enjoy!
The Parsec Project
Parsec is a fast-paced non-commercial network space-shooter that has been in development for several years. It started out in 1996 as a lab project at the Vienna University of Technology, but has transcended its original roots to become what we would like to refer to as commercial-quality freeware (CQF).
The major releases of Parsec up to now were several versions of the Parsec LAN-Test, which were intended to enable players to get a glimpse of the current state of Parsec's development. These releases support Win32, MacOS, MacOS X, and Linux platforms, and 3D hardware acceleration through OpenGL and Glide (for the old 3dfx boards).
The Parsec Project, a term we also use to refer to the people behind Parsec, is the team of game developers that has been working on Parsec since 1996. However, the impending change of Parsec's development model to an open source approach will be closing the original Parsec Project in early May 2003.
Beginning in May 2003, Parsec will be an open community project striving toward a Parsec release that also includes Internet game play. The members of the original Parsec Project would like to dedicate their work to the Parsec community, and hope that the open source version of Parsec will bring lots of fun to even more people around the globe!
The Parsec game engine should prove a nice basis to re-create the 8/16 bit classic elite in noughties style.
Then again maybe Christian will get around to releasing his dark-kind source sooner.
I mean really - how hard would it be to put a one line description about what the Parsec project is in the article body?
Parsec project: Fast-paced multiplayer cross-platform 3D Internet space combat
There... That didn't hurt too much, did it?
There you go again, expecting the twits who edit /. to actually act like responsible editors and writers, when we all know hell will freeze over, pigs will fly, and Dubya will go a month without sticking his foot in his mouth before that happens.
What is Voodoo, Glide, 3DFX?
Thesedays, most crappy onboard SIS/VIA motherboard chipset VGA can kick these. Sad but true.
watching bush on BBC news 24 right now
anyone else reminded of Hitler 1939?
scary :
This is why computer games will NEVER be open-source. How many fiascos, from the rubbish produced from the freeciv project to this (I mean, Glide, I ask you!) will it take before peopkle understand that to a great complex game will never be produced by an open source project...
Some people have hacked some XP drivers together, since there are no official XP drivers (how could there be, 3Dfx folded before XP's release).
But I believe there are official Windows 2000 drivers.
I used to have a TI computer that took cartridges. There was a parsec game for it. Does anyone know where I might find that game for the pc?
Thanks.
<high-level position here>
<name of stupid small company here>
if you want to know about parsecs, talk to han solo. he is the one who made the kessel run in under 8 (if i remember correctly) parsecs. this article should be devoted to him!
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
No, not the Enterprise.
word.
Why did they wait so much to release it as open source? I'm just wondering if their initial plan wasn't to change from Freeware to Commercial at some point. They've most likely realised that they won't be able to make money out of it, and decided to opensource it so it doesn't die (a site that wasn't updated for almost a year can be considered a near-death experience). Anyway, they did do a great job and I'm glad that the opensource gaming is enriched with a free-as-in-beer space shooter.
The Raven
http://www.cnn.com">CNN has more on this.
I thought a Parsec was a unit for measuring distance, not speed. That line has always bugged me. :)
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
...is those pesky .mp3 sound files will be replaced by remastered .ogg files. :-)
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
I thought a Parsec was a unit for measuring distance, not speed. That line has always bugged me. :)
You see, travelling faster than light speed is impossible. What you need to do is warp space somehow so you have less distance to travel. The Millenium Falcon, with its souped up engine, was able to warp space so much that the Kessel run was shortened to 12 parsecs. A lesser spacecraft might have to travel 40.
:wq
Is a rip off of the OpenGL logo, also some of their models look like it's from 3d-cafe. What's going on?! Are these nutcases legit?
I think it is distance, I think their talking about distance, as in the run usually takes much more then that, more dangerous if you go shorter distance or something..
but how does this compare to VegaStrike, which is already open sourced ( and written by a friend of mine , shameless plug )
It's a pity that two thousand years after Christ, the voices of myopic wackos like Parsec can still be heard, worse still that they're listened to, and worst of all that anyone believes them. Oddly enough, Parsec's ruses are as devoid of meaning as the squawk of an angry bluejay. Stranger still, if I didn't think Parsec would fund a vast web of shiftless slumlords, scary, fastidious boeotians, and nerdy rotters, I wouldn't say that it would have us believe that the best way to make a point is with foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric and letters filled primarily with exclamation points. That, of course, is nonsense, total nonsense. But Parsec is surrounded by unprincipled humorless-types who parrot the same nonsense, which is why we are at a crossroads. One road leads into the light of a bright, shining future in which obstinate flakes like Parsec are completely absent. The other road leads into the darkness of interdenominationalism. The question, therefore, is: Who's driving the bus? The only clear answer to emerge from the conflicting, contradictory stances that Parsec and its understrappers take is that pretending to be a victim is Parsec's sappy attempt to remake the world to suit its own unsavory needs. Parsec's threats are based on two fundamental errors. They assume that anyone who dares to invite all the people who have been harmed by Parsec to continue to express and assert their concerns in a constructive and productive fashion can expect to suffer hair loss and tooth decay as a result. And they promote the mistaken idea that 75 million years ago, a galactic tyrant named Xenu solved the overpopulation problem of his 76-planet federation by transporting the excess people to Earth, chaining them to volcanoes, and dropping H-bombs on them. Let me conclude by saying that we who want to review the basic issues at the root of the debate will not rest until we do.
--
kvetch, kvetch, kvetch
If I remember correctly, the Kessel run took a smuggler's ship dangerously close to a black hole. The closer you came to a staight line between point A and point B, the closer you got to the black hole. Less brave/foolhardy smugglers would take the long way around. When you get right down to it though, it's all about Lucas not knowing the difference between units of time and units of distance...
of course technically he isn't really the properly elected leader - thats why he's making war, to distract the people from the fact he is a loser.
can I apply to fight against the US in desert strike 2?
I can't really see what the Parsec parser combinator library has to do with OpenGL and Internet game play.
------ ;)
What if they don't allow people to submit patches? What if they won't let you use the source to fork off your own project because they retain some rights to it? What good is seeing the source then?
Open source just means you can see thier code, and CQF doesn't really mean anything to me. Can someone point me to some info that may make the meaning of this announcement a little clearer to me?
Oh, I'm a Republican
I got a small schling
I like to bomb niggahs
and make a lot o' bling
I got a bunch o' friends
in high up places
They helps me get dem
government graces.
You think I'm smart
I just know who's who
I couldn't run a fruit stand
without the red white & blue
I'll drop some crap
about Jesus the Christ
You'll buy it all
and vote for me twice
'Fact, Jesus is comin'!
Real soon, now!
So we gotta prop up Israel
That ol' sacred cow
Don't need no history
Don't need no schoolin'
I got my ideology
To keep me a shootin'
Liberals! Faggots!
Commies and queers!
Socialist hippies
Full o' pussy tears
Facts? No! Don't need em here!
We're conservatives! We work on FEAR!
Don't like what we say?
Well FUCK YOU, bud!
We'll shove it down yer throat
and tell ya it's good!
Propaganda's m'friend
But I calls it "fact"
Even though I don't read
'Cept for Chick tracts
A: CmdrTaco's sea men.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I wonder if the poster has ever tried to read a book out loud.
Its a lot faster to transcribe a book from ocr pages than it is to read a book out loud into a machine.
I also type fast than I speak.
Just my thoughts.
No one will miss a few million iraqui. Hell all of the middle east and part of europe could fall off the map tomorrow and the only thing I would miss is the oil. Fuck iraq and fuck you. The ironic part is that hitler was a socialist and the democratic party is closer to socialism on the political scale.
You know you've been in the development cycle too long when you release a game in 2003 and the spec blurb talks about GLIDE support.
Spilled my nightly "have-it-so-i-can-hack-a-few-more-hours" cup of coffee from laughing so hard. Funny shit. :)
Yes, it works under Win2k. One of 3Dfx's last releases was a "decent" Win2k driver. But, on today's games, it doesn't always display things correctly. On XP, you can try and use the Win2k driver, but it is screwy and just plain sux. If you still have one of these cards (like me) you find that it still works best under Win98... I have never tried the "3rd party" drivers by various people that are available on the internet.
I had my Voodoo 5 in my Red Hat Linux box until lately, when I decided I wanted dual head and got a Matrox G450 cheap from eBay (not too bad, it works, but the drivers could use some refinement!).
Iraq forces war on the US!
MMMMnnnnn
while the rest of the world lives in poverty and starves - sweet!
Complaining about Slashdot's moderation system is a fine and legitimate thing to do -- but I'm honestly puzzled by the folks who spend a lot of time both griping about the site's moderation .. and posting offtopic comments :)
... the malice of a small handful of people means that Rob and the other coders spend a lot of time trying to make the moderation less "gameable" and more of a helpful, positive tool for making the discussion more enjoyable / useful / however-you-want-to-see-it. Mitigating the Beavis factor, in other words -- and Slashdot is the doorstep that a few delinquents use to leave their flaming paper bags. Constantly.
;)] sourly complaining about how badly it sucks to be wherever they are. My response was flippant, but I mean it with a smile, not trying to be a jerk. It's like the widely applicable punchline "Well stop doing that!"
:) [Brian: "There's no pleasing some people." Ex-Leper: "That's just what Jesus said!"]
If you have tweaks you think would make the moderation system better, or suggestions for better moderation systems altogether, why not suggest them on sourceforge, where the coders can act on them? Rob does read email, too, but the FAQ specifically addresses this
You've probably seen people in bars / clubs / stores / public parks [wherever
I'd like everyone who reads the site to be happy, but I can't enforce that
It's true that Slashdot has a history, that Rob's "site just got popular," etc, but the lengthy diary entry someone posted into this story's comments I think shows how these topics are anything but ignored. Constant tweaking is bound to constantly leave some people upset with any particular change, but the intent is to improve the system, and I certainly think the overall moderation system (loosely speaking -- including, say, the foes / friends aspects of it) has gotten a lot better.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Here's a link:
TI99 4A with a bunch of games INCLUDING Parsec! on eBay
There I go, getting all excited that the classic TI99/4a sideways scrolling shoot-em up is going to made open source. So I'd have a chance to see the workings of one the games that perverted my early development. Alas it's some fancy-schmancy 3D number. New fangled nonsense...
Damn, and I was thinking about getting into the Wayback Machine to wax poetic about the TI99/4A. Its supple black keys, some with double, triple, and counting shift, quadruple usage. Oh, yes. So sleek, 3/4 the size of a normal keyboard, but, oh, my typing has never been as fast as on the 99. And you can't beat the brushed metal/shiny black plastic combo, the bigger than a microwave oven expansion box... oooh, baby! Just let me hear the speech synthesized (separate module) female voice from Parsec and I'm going to have a very special moment! Why the hell did I ever put it in the attic? I'll be back....
seanw:
...
Sorry, I was in a bit of a foul mood (well, at least sarcastic) when I posted the "yet here you are" responses. If you want to read a longer version, I just wrote another (perhaps boring) comment
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Been waiting a looong time for this to happen. Parsec is a great game, but sat on the site almost static and practically forever. This and a rush of new, eager blood should see it blossom like never before!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Soon my hard drive will be chock full of source code from half done games! As soon as I am up to speed on the state of the art of gaming 5 years ago, I plan to finish these suckers!
Or play nethack. I still have never ascended.
Europe will not have peace until the Jewish question has been disposed of. The world has sufficient capacity for settlement, but we must finally break away from the notion that a certain percentage of the Jewish people are intended, by our dear God, to be the parasitic beneficiary of the body, and of the productive work, of other peoples.
/ hi tler-19390130.ram
Jewry must adapt itself to respectable constructive work, as other peoples do, or it will sooner or later succumb to a crisis of unimaginable proportions.
If the international finance-Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!
http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude
...acceptable...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The world would be better if Hitler was allowed to wipe out the Jews. None of them have put anything significant into the world. They sit about leeching off the world economy, counting money and declaring each day a religious holiday.
If there were no jews, there would be no Israel, and if there was no Israel, there would be no Israel-Palestine bullshit, which gives nothing to the world, except maybe something for the media to report on on a slow news day.
Not that the fucking arabs in Palestine are free from blame, the Palestinian leadership have their head up their camels butts, and the whole argument is ALL THEIR FUCKING FAULT. But that doesn't change the fact if the jews didn't exist there would be no war.
All in all, if the jews were wiped out, the world would be a much, much better place.
And no, I am not a Nazi; Hitler was a fucking prick.
Fuck Israel, fuck Palestine, fuck Hitler, and fuck you!
FUCK EVERYTHING!
An unusual twist on the Nigerian 419 email scam has surfaced. So if you receive one of the following in your inbox, on no account take it seriously.
IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED:
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
DEAR SIR / MADAM,
I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.
I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.
IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.
MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST.
THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND JAPANESE PARTNERS.
BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.
MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM FROM POWER.
UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 - $200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.
WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE ALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER.
I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.
I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.
I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS BELOW.
SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,
GEORGE WALKER BUSH
Switchboard: 202.456.1414 Comments: 202.456.1111 Fax: 202.456.2461 Email:
president@whitehouse.gov --
Quit Slashdot Today!
Well! It aint!
It is called a representative republic.
There is a 1) Electorial Vote, and a 2) Popular Vote.
The People, or the States, initialy vote for the placment of "electors" and upon the election the electorials vote for the leaders. The electoral vote is representative of The People, or the States respectivly. The Popular vote is not official and neither does it Elect(orial) those running for a United States government positition. The Popular Vote is recorded to provide a parallelism in scope of where the Electoral *should* be close to representing the Popular Vote. However, many people disagree with this method: it is called a representative republic; it was first installed as a republic but now people ELECT others to REPRESENT their foreign and government policy.
I don't insult people naturally, but you should understand that it has been a representative republic ever since the unlawful ratification of the 14th Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Colorado is the only Territory that recognizes the unlawful ratification of the 14th ammendment and the Colorado's State government's records ratified and implemented the Constitution of the United States of America only upto 1867. Technicaly, by the construction of the Constitution, there is no such thing as a Citizen of the United States until 14th Ammendment and the 14th Ammendment states that the Constitution is a revocable privilege. Before the 14th Ammendment, the Constitution enumerates unalienable rights. The 14th Ammendment is a way to ussurp the sovereignty of the states (people) and selectivly violate rights because that is the only fact it provides: revocable freedoms.
If you accepted the Constitution of 1867, you are technically a sovereign and your rights are unalienable. If you accepted a Constitution after 1867, then your rights are able to be abridged.
Kudos, 14th Ammendment slaves.
Does noone else find this game to be terribly similar to Terminus? You know, Terminus, the persistent universe online space combat/trading game available for Win, Mac, and Linux?
I remember lots of Linux folks drooling over it and babbling about how they'd all buy it as soon as it shipped, because it would have Linux binaries on the CD.
Nobody did, of course. That's probably why nobody remembers the game.
We are going to do a full source release in early May 2003 NOT next month as stated in the article.
This is mainly due to some preperation work.
I don't get where the line is that something becomes "open source". BSD obviously is open. GPL, okay I understand copyleft. I also understand one liscense I saw where the stuff could not be used for kiddie porn-like exploitation.
But talk about viral, if someone starts hacking with it and develops their own "commercial quality" game, he is doomed to the same problem that the authors had, which is that because he can't sell it, he cannot possibly afford to compete with commercial games!
This seems to be a case of people attempting to foist misguided moral choices on other people whom they somehow still hope (many mysterious cheap hands) will acheive their dream for them.
Not that I personally want to use their code, it's just confusing that there are so many "open source" liscenses out there. Hate to say it, but I'd much rather see something like Helixcode, maybe if it is commercial then a royalty can be paid the authors. And where does the line between free and commercial get drawn?
I'm sorry, it sounds like lots of fun and one day maybe I'll try playing it. But I don't get the reasoning behind releasing something to the community while maintaining restrictions on it. We all grow up, I guess these guys did. Grownups often like to get paid for their time, or at least have the illusion of free will. I think this could attract more talented programmers and game people if it didn't have the noncommercial requirement.
Someone who gets the source to this will have to tell us if shift-8-3-8 works to activte test mode.
How much effort would it have been to insert the words "first-person shooter" (or IP server collection, or DNS tools, or BSD filesystem utilities, or... )
sigh.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Anyone else tired of the "battleship model" of space combat, with heavily armed and armoured ships duking it out, taking multiple hits before finally succumbing to accumulated damage?
I figure space combat will be more similar to submarine combat. Space is huge, the ships will be fragile, weapons will pack a massive punch. These factors will force ships to rely on sensors, hiding and avoidance to achieve their aims.
I imagine that we will have ships hiding in asteriod belts, on moons and near planets, patiently waiting for their prey, unleashing a barrage of missiles and then try to disappear again while the target is busy applying countermeasures to the incoming missile swarm.
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I thought "finally! There is OS X support for the
PARSEC compiler"
A game?!?! DAMN!!!
Since one year the crisis of
Now there is not much left of the glory of earlier days. Today's occasional trolls can not catch up to the glorious trolls of the past. What remains are honourable memories.
So it is time to mention some of the great heroes of the past to give them the merits they deserve. Of course, i have forgotten many, so please post any names that you consider worth to be named.
Egg Troll
Trollaxor
Klerck
* Spork
Turd Report
Fecal Troll Matter
Weather Troll
Grammar Nazi
WIPO Troll
Most of the code had comments like: // this next part is really stupid /* read_buffer_thingie
;)
I wrote this while stoned, so code review anyone?
BTW, anyone see "Gilligan's Island" yesterday?
Da bom!!! */
It just took em a while to make it 'publishable'
My other
Moderation isn't perfect, but so what? We're asking about the ridiculous number of duplicates and spelling/grammar errors. Just address a few simple things:
1. Watch out for duplicates. Good lord, man-- if this is just somebody's "Personal Site That Got Popular" then either the owner isn't reading his "Personal Site" and has severe amnesia, or this isn't really a personal site and there's actually a shitload of people posting things who aren't paying attention when they do so. Do you guys read the site at all, or is it just drudgework for you? Pretty sad that you guys can work at one of the busiest and most interesting places on the web, and still have so little love for your work.
2. Run a spellchecker, and hire someone with an English degree to proofread. Heck, that person will have so little to do (proofing 10-20 paragraphs a day) that you could probably use their spare time to help keep you from posting duplicates. Not to mention you could ask said non-technical person things like "Does this blurb make sense with despite lacking a description of what Parsec is?"
I love this site, and moderation isn't bad, but it has really started to feel like you folks just don't care anymore. At all. Nonetheless, I'll be here until it shuts down, or every story is duplicate of the previous. So you have no incentive to change anything, because there isn't another site quite like this one for people to bail out to-- but a tiny amount of effort could make this place even better. Heck, even an acknowledgement as to why this stuff isn't being addressed would be a big start.
Or, maybe, you could hire a random complaining slashdotter part-time to assist. There's probably thousands of readers who, if you got 'em a text pager and sent them the article blurbs before you posted them, could tell you in 30 seconds whether it was a dupe and point out the worst of the typos.
I make grammar errors, too. But I'm just a poster-- not an Editor on a site serving millions of pages per day. If I had your job, I would have already hired someone to check my work.
I was first introduced to this game by a colleague about a year ago, and promptly forgot about it even though I had found it a very interesting idea. After reading the news post today on Slashdot, I'm very eager and excited to see a public release for this.
I do hope that this game will stand a good chance at making an incredibly popular open source game. I know of a -lot- of people who would be interested in playing this, and from the look of the screenshots, ParSec appears to be commercial quality work.
Good job guys, and thanks for doing the right thing and making it Open Source!
A parsec is 3.26 light years IIRC, so even 12 parsecs at light speed still would take almost 40 years, wouldn't it?
ahhh, the wasted hours...i taught myself assembly on the 4a, using john dow's ed/assembler(written in basic, of course...is john still around?:-)
then there was clint pulley's smallC (clint, r u still there?-) but of course ya had 2 have the minimem module...
You know, some of those old TI tapes make good techno music...
Funny you should mention nethack. That illustrates an interesting point - good games don't necessarily involve 3D graphics and accelerators. You can always add a GUI mode later - a good engine like nethack can live forever.
So what you're saying is that the Millenium Falcon only had to travel the equivalent of 12 parsecs of real space. Assuming it could achieve near-light speed, that means the Kessel run would have taken about 39 years (12 parsecs * 3.26 light years/parsec). Good thing they didn't have to travel the full distance!
Which ship made the Kessel run in 12 parsecs
You know the really sad thing is this was moderated as "Funny", because everyone knows the answer.
- Vincit qui patitur.
(nt)
Nethack only lives on because it has become part of the nerd mythos. It really is a gawdawful game. The gameplay is just "Dungeons and Dragons" rehashed for the umpteenth time. The commands make emacs look easy-to-use, and the plot, well, I mentioned rehashing D&D once already, so no need to do it again here. (a lesson Nethack should take to heart!)
I thought a Parsec was a unit for measuring distance, not speed. That line has always bugged me. :)
Me too. I saw a TV interview with George Lucas where someone asked him about it, and his (lame) explanation was that the "Kessel run" involves picking up cargo from several other freighters *while all the ships are moving*. So, the faster the Millenium Falcon can catch up to the next freighter to make a pickup, the less distance is required to make the run. It makes as much sense as any other explanation (other than "It sounded cool, so we put it in the script")
0 1 - just my two bits
Nice to mention that in the post guys....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Heh... yes indeed. Not to scare you, but I had actually contemplated using Crystal Space (or similar) to make a 3D "first-person" nethack. *gasp* *shudder* No, not a shooter... the actual nethack game with giant spinning 3D-rendered ASCII symbols in space that you'd move through.
Yes, it is insane, but it sure would be funny!
That was my favorite game on the TI99/4A, along with Alpine. On Parsec I remember getting up to level 5 or 6, but what I want to know is, what happened after that?
"Amazing" was a great game! I can't beleive I forgot about it. The high-pitched shriek of the mouse being eaten was hilarious.
> What was up with those refuling stops? You had to press a key (I can't remember which one) to slow the up/down speed, otherwise you'd tap on the joystick and slam into the ceiling. There were three speeds as I recall.
If you set c=1, which is often done in particle physics calculations for convenience, then times do indeed come out in units of length (i.e. cm). Maybe Han was a physics major before dropping out and becoming a smuggler? :-)
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
No, that's not what "open source" means. Read the first sentence of the introduction to the definition of the Open Source Definition. This is ironic considering so many people come away with precisely the same conclusion you did and the Open Source movement was made in part to offer something believed to be clearer than the concept of software freedom (the "Free" in Free Software). You can see the results of other misconceptions about "Open Source" too.
Digital Citizen
Or maybe Han was just talking through his hat.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things