My friends and I only played it "multiplayer" on the C64--one person manning the joystick, the other firing the bullets and grenades. We'd switch places after every capture/death. We never found the plans and escaped, but it sure was a lot of fun yelling at him when he wasted all 10 bullets by pushing the button prematurely or I wasn't aiming in the right direction when a grenade was tossed...
I know that for almost everyone else (women, kids, old people, non-nerds) the web is a billion things. But for me (and I suspect for many of my fellow male, older nerds), the internet is defined as a source of knowledge, far beyond being a music/movies/sex/friends/whatever provider.
And it's all because of a similar experience to you the first time I sat down at a computer in college and tried the World Wide Web for the first time.
As a C64 kid the only thing I was jealous of the rich kids and their Apple IIs was the disk drives. Quiet, reliable and fast. Woz really was a helluva engineer.
Laptop with a dead display would be great for a MAME machine. Get an old arcade cabinet (or build your own), hook a monitor to the VGA out, and throw the laptop in the back--clean and easy with no heat problems.
I was a safe Windows user. Unfortunately the wife was not, and because of a few mistaken mouse clicks on her part Winantivirus was installed on my computer.
It's tenacious grip on my XP install forced me to look for an alternative. Linux was installed over XP, and for three years now I've had the pleasure of laughing at articles just like this one.
Thanks Winantivirus!
Well this explains why Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that Ubuntu is coming out with a version for UMPCs. Dell needs a linux distro to compete on the low end against Asus and the rest.
As much as it pains me to admit it, Windows 95 was a big moment in PC history. The death (slowly) of DOS, plug and play, functional networking, Direct X, gateway to 32-bit computing--all were huge at the time. Yes, OS/2 was as good or better, yes, Mac OS was still better in 1995, and yes, BeOS was soon to show everyone up. But for the needs of the many (and the needs of a world who would soon crave the Internet and 3D gaming) Windows 95 was huge: warts, blue screens and all.
Until recently I lived my entire life in Eastern Washington, in the shadows of massive dams along the Columbia River, owned by the government and run by local Public Utility Districts (PUD's). Yes, power is cheap and plentiful here.
Cheap and plentiful enough that both Yahoo and Microsoft have built similar structures in Quincy Washington (find a map of the state and look dead center---you'll find it). Quincy is in the heart of Grant County which grows more potatos per capita then any state in the union. Plus, the Grant County PUD built a fiber optic network years ago in a bid to usher in technological advancement & progress.
So you have a sleepy farm town like Quincy being transformed--what was once potato farms are now server farms. Interesting to see the march of progress: it is truly a new century.
How can they open source OS/2 when a large percentage of the code is still under Microsoft's copyright? I'm sure Microsoft would have NO problem with this--seeing as they are all open source friendly and all. No issues using their own code to dethrone Windows, naturally.
Civilization with Advanced Civilization: unfortunately both are out of print so expensive on Ebay, but with six players you could easily spend 10-12 hours on it. Worth every moment while playing it and worth every penny to buy it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(board_game)
Now there's an 18 player modded Civilization: should take a whole week to complete! http://www.civproject.net/
Why would this be a 21st century phenomenon? In my ancient opinion games today are easier and more linear then yesterday's finest (and it didn't get us anywhere, did it?).
Try to have a kid today figure out one of Infocom's or Sierra's best adventure games from the 80's...they neither have the patience nor the attention span for it.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me. I had two Hitachi hard drives fail in my one-year-old Dell E1505. One came brand new with the computer, and one as the refurbished replacement under warranty. Both made a very steady "clicking" sound every 30-60 seconds right up until they failed. Also when I powered down the system the hard drive would make a very loud click sound upon shutoff.
I read a thread on Ubuntu's forums that the clicking sound at shutoff was due to a flaw in 6.10 and 7.04 and that 7.10 would fix the problem. So when I received my Fujitsu refurb drive from Dell I decided not to install Ubuntu until 7.10 came out.
Right after 7.10 came out the newsgroups started referring to the problem listed above. I ran the check to see what my cycle numbers were on this new hard drive--less then 3000 cycles with a usage of over two months.
I completely believe that the Hitachi drives are too agressive with their settings and that the Fujitsu drive does not have the same problem.
Funny...when I think of German board gaming I think of them being "short" games to play. When my friends get together to play a long game we often play a Gamemaster game that typically takes 4-6 hours (Axis & Allies, Shogun...Fortress America is the game of choice, naturally). If we really plan on taking the whole night we'll play some Twilight Imperium. And god help us if Advanced Civilization is taken out of the game closet...
Compared to these games, German classics like Settlers of Catan, Web of Power or Tigris & Euphrates can be played multiple times in the same time span.
Slashdot Mirror
The VX Nano is the one mouse I wish Logitech would bring back. Loved the feel of the wheel and the general shape overall.
My friends and I only played it "multiplayer" on the C64--one person manning the joystick, the other firing the bullets and grenades. We'd switch places after every capture/death. We never found the plans and escaped, but it sure was a lot of fun yelling at him when he wasted all 10 bullets by pushing the button prematurely or I wasn't aiming in the right direction when a grenade was tossed...
I know that for almost everyone else (women, kids, old people, non-nerds) the web is a billion things. But for me (and I suspect for many of my fellow male, older nerds), the internet is defined as a source of knowledge, far beyond being a music/movies/sex/friends/whatever provider. And it's all because of a similar experience to you the first time I sat down at a computer in college and tried the World Wide Web for the first time.
That causes Southern states to be fatter than the Northern states? Hmm.
As a C64 kid the only thing I was jealous of the rich kids and their Apple IIs was the disk drives. Quiet, reliable and fast. Woz really was a helluva engineer.
Space Taxi, Castle Wolfenstein, Castles of Dr. Creep, Wizball, Raid on Bungeling Bay...and of course, Maniac Mansion.
Laptop with a dead display would be great for a MAME machine. Get an old arcade cabinet (or build your own), hook a monitor to the VGA out, and throw the laptop in the back--clean and easy with no heat problems.
I was a safe Windows user. Unfortunately the wife was not, and because of a few mistaken mouse clicks on her part Winantivirus was installed on my computer. It's tenacious grip on my XP install forced me to look for an alternative. Linux was installed over XP, and for three years now I've had the pleasure of laughing at articles just like this one. Thanks Winantivirus!
Puppy linux. Running it right now on my eeepc 2g surf--800 Celeron with 512 MB. Works great!
Well this explains why Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that Ubuntu is coming out with a version for UMPCs. Dell needs a linux distro to compete on the low end against Asus and the rest.
Bah...I'd take Christian "The Nigerian Nightmare" Okoye over Thomas anyday...
As much as it pains me to admit it, Windows 95 was a big moment in PC history. The death (slowly) of DOS, plug and play, functional networking, Direct X, gateway to 32-bit computing--all were huge at the time. Yes, OS/2 was as good or better, yes, Mac OS was still better in 1995, and yes, BeOS was soon to show everyone up. But for the needs of the many (and the needs of a world who would soon crave the Internet and 3D gaming) Windows 95 was huge: warts, blue screens and all.
Until recently I lived my entire life in Eastern Washington, in the shadows of massive dams along the Columbia River, owned by the government and run by local Public Utility Districts (PUD's). Yes, power is cheap and plentiful here.
Cheap and plentiful enough that both Yahoo and Microsoft have built similar structures in Quincy Washington (find a map of the state and look dead center---you'll find it). Quincy is in the heart of Grant County which grows more potatos per capita then any state in the union. Plus, the Grant County PUD built a fiber optic network years ago in a bid to usher in technological advancement & progress.
So you have a sleepy farm town like Quincy being transformed--what was once potato farms are now server farms. Interesting to see the march of progress: it is truly a new century.
How can they open source OS/2 when a large percentage of the code is still under Microsoft's copyright? I'm sure Microsoft would have NO problem with this--seeing as they are all open source friendly and all. No issues using their own code to dethrone Windows, naturally.
No news here people. Only common sense needed.
Anyone else find it ironic/funny that a program that simulates a green screen terminal display is only available for Mac?
A few options come to mind:
Twilight Imperium with the optional rules: good for 8-10 hours or so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Imperium
Civilization with Advanced Civilization: unfortunately both are out of print so expensive on Ebay, but with six players you could easily spend 10-12 hours on it. Worth every moment while playing it and worth every penny to buy it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(board_game)
Now there's an 18 player modded Civilization: should take a whole week to complete!
http://www.civproject.net/
Why would this be a 21st century phenomenon? In my ancient opinion games today are easier and more linear then yesterday's finest (and it didn't get us anywhere, did it?).
Try to have a kid today figure out one of Infocom's or Sierra's best adventure games from the 80's...they neither have the patience nor the attention span for it.
A kid today trying to play twelve hours of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended? No chance for the future.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me. I had two Hitachi hard drives fail in my one-year-old Dell E1505. One came brand new with the computer, and one as the refurbished replacement under warranty. Both made a very steady "clicking" sound every 30-60 seconds right up until they failed. Also when I powered down the system the hard drive would make a very loud click sound upon shutoff. I read a thread on Ubuntu's forums that the clicking sound at shutoff was due to a flaw in 6.10 and 7.04 and that 7.10 would fix the problem. So when I received my Fujitsu refurb drive from Dell I decided not to install Ubuntu until 7.10 came out. Right after 7.10 came out the newsgroups started referring to the problem listed above. I ran the check to see what my cycle numbers were on this new hard drive--less then 3000 cycles with a usage of over two months. I completely believe that the Hitachi drives are too agressive with their settings and that the Fujitsu drive does not have the same problem.
Funny...when I think of German board gaming I think of them being "short" games to play. When my friends get together to play a long game we often play a Gamemaster game that typically takes 4-6 hours (Axis & Allies, Shogun...Fortress America is the game of choice, naturally). If we really plan on taking the whole night we'll play some Twilight Imperium. And god help us if Advanced Civilization is taken out of the game closet... Compared to these games, German classics like Settlers of Catan, Web of Power or Tigris & Euphrates can be played multiple times in the same time span.