Re:Been there, done that
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The LEGO Desk
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· Score: 2
Actually, what the original poster was refering to was not a computer CASE made out of LEGO blocks, but, a computer made out of LEGO blocks.
The computer in question was a mechanical computer made of Tinker Toys. If it's indeed the one that I'm thinking of, it's a very task specific 'computer' that does one thing - play Tic Tac Toe. It's a pretty interersting contraption to look at - damned complex.
I would toss a link to the original/. article here, but, I can't find it anymore:-/
While I'm sure you'll be able to do this with Plex86, I know you can do it with VMWare - that's how I did some Y2K here at the offices. Works pretty well.
As a side note - VMWare looses time slowly but surely. It's kind of annoying, to tell you the truth!
Runs great. My configuration: Windows NT 4.0, SP5, 256 MB RAM, Dual PII / 400 machine.
However - be sure to read the docs, and install the VMWare video driver within the virualized machines, otherwise preformance SUCKS!
Typically at any give time, I have the following running: 1 copy of Windows 98, 2 copies of Windows NT, and one copy SUSE Linux running KDE. NT and Linux sessions take about 1 - 2 % CPU utilization when they are not actually doing anything important but running idle. 98, on the other hand, takes about 18 - 25% utilization off of one of the processors (it may be a dual processor machine, but 98 only gets to play with one of them - VMWare can't do anything to help that unfortunately.
The one downside at the moment with VMWare - no support for 3D acceleration. I really want them to fix this - while I use VMWare for testing my games and such (DirectDraw only - no 3D in these games) I'd love to be able to move completely to Linux for my base OS, and boot up a VMWare session to play UT and things like that (plus it would help for testing on the game that I've been working on that DO utilize 3D hardware!) A minor (?) setback is that it also doesn't support MIDI ouput - no big deal to me really, but, it's important to a couple of older games.
My two favorite features: running NT and Linux on the same box, and just switching back and forth, without really noticing and preformance degredation (*MOST* of the time - there are some things you can do that really do slow things down!), and the 'Suspend / Restore' button on the various OS's. If you actually need that 2% CPU power restored back to your 'real' OS, or the memory back, just hit the 'suspend' button, and close VMWare. Later, open it again, and hit resume - I've got your "Instant On" right here!!!
Which of course makes you wonder - why the hell did Apple have such a shit fit over some leaked pictures that weren't even that far ahead of thier anouncement anyway?!
I still have an Everex Mega-Cube setting in the house, which has fallen into disuse. Originally, it was a 486 with a very nasty proprietary motherboard in it, but, I did some case hacking and put a much higher end machine in it (ok, a P166 - back when a Pentium 166 was a sweet machine)
The Everex Mega-Cube is an almost perfect Borg Cube - and that's what we ended up dubbing it, not just for it's size and shape, but, because it also had a habit of ending up absorbing the drives, etc., from older machines that died.
The Mega-Cube is a dark grey, almost black. It's almost the size of my 21 inch monitor. The drive bays are covered by a cover that recesses a little bit and slides down into the case. Basically, when you have the drive bay cover closed, it's flush with the rest of the case, which form a giant black metal cube with one little lit display that show(ed) the state of the machine.
Time to resurrect the Borg Cube again, me thinks... it was just too damned awsome:-)
Dunno if this is just trollin', but, if so I'll bite with a real response here...
Actually, MAME is supported on quite a few different platforms already. Various platforms of Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc. It's there already - MAME is a voluntere effort, so if you need it for a different platform, compile it there. It should compile very nicely after a couple of system-dependant changes (MAME is written to be portable.)
As for the other machines - MAME is a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Apple II, C64, etc. arent arcade machines. HOWEVER - check out MESS which handles: Acorn Atom, AdventureVision, Amiga (NTSC), Amstrad CPC (464, 664, 6128), Apple I, Apple II (6 varieties), Atari 400, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari 800, Bally Astrocade, BEACA, Colour Genie 2000, Coco 3, Colecovision, Color Computer, Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Commodore 64gs, Commodore 65, Commodore 128, Commodore 2000, Commodore 3000, Commodore 4000, Commodore 8000, Commodore B Series, Commodore Max, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore Vic 20, CP400, CPS Changer, Dragon 32, Enterprise 128K, IBM PC/XT, Inves Spectrum 48K+, Jupiter Ace, Kaypro 2x, KC Compact, KC85/4, KIM-1, Laser (110, 200, 210, 310, 350, 500, 700, TX8000), Macintosh Plus, Memotech MTX512, MicroBee, MSX, Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Gameboy, Oric 1/Oric Atmos, PC Engine, PDP/1 (SpaceWar!), Philips P2090T/M, Sam Coupe, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive/Genesis, Spectrum Plus 2, Spectrum Plus 3, Spectrum Plus 4, TI99/4A Home Computer, Tandy 1000TX, Tandy MC-10, Timex Computer 2048, Timex Sinclair 2068, TK90x Color Computer, TRS-80 Model 1, Vectrex, VZ200/VZ300, ZX Spectrum 48K, ZX80/81. (I know: Information overload there...) If it resides in someone's closet now, there's a good chance it's emulated, or being worked on adding to the emulation now. MESS is pretty much as cool as MAME - just think of it as MAME for Consoles and Computers. Plus, it's somewhat portable, IIRC.
One of the things that always strikes me as interesting about things like this is the posiblities for abuse. No - I'm not talking about things like trading warez, porn, MP3, or whatever the hot semi-illegal commodity of the week is.
I'm more interested in the possible effects for companies that keep wanting to do things like map out the Internet (see article last week here on/. about the group maping the 'net for advertising purposes) but don't want to really tick off admins who's machines they are adding to thier map. Same goes for script kiddies looking for machines (using nothing more than ping to see who responds) but want to keep from possibly alerting the admin at some company they are maping out.
Just a thought - I could, of course, be completely wrong!
I live in Wichita, Ks (save your condonalces - I like this town, even after all my travels) which is 3 1/2 hours from KC. Funny thing is - I never heard any ads for it, or even any word of mouth type stuff about it. This report is the first I heard of it. Heck, if I knew ESR was going to be giving a speach, that would have been worth the price of admission just to meet one of the guys who have contributed so much to the changing ideas of software and intellectial property (IE - he's done more than just be an Open Source advocate).
I really hope they do this again. Hell, I know tons of people here who would have made the trek to KC for it - but no one advertized it here, and they must not have done much advertizing in KC either, or some friends there would have contacted me about it!
> IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.
Wrong.
Game engines
As you pointed out, he never said anything about the underlying technology not working under Open Source / GPL. In fact, the interview was with Jorrit, who founded Crystal Space 3D, which is becoming a very solid engine.:-)
But the games themselves... I don't really ever expect to see an explosion of Open Source games like we have seen in other areas. Sure, mods will always happen, especially for game companies that encourage that sort of development - QIII, UT, etc. It's game programming without all the hastles of game programing. There's a pre-established engine under you, game content already exists, and there's even a user base existing to release your mods to. Writing a game from scratch is a pretty hard deal, and requires a very specific focus to get the job done - unlike making a mod, in which someone on the team can easily say, oh, "Hey - lets add a grapling hook!" and can easily implement it on top of the already working stuff. But when you start from scratch, people are already saying "Hey, lets add a grappling hook!" 15 times a day, but, you haven't even gotten basic game content complete! That's not to say it can't be done - it would just be harder, IMHO, to keep your focus. There have been some good MUDs and some other games done this way successfully, but, I think they are the exception to the rule
As for artists:
And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....
Really? There's a new observation I've never really made myself. The few artists I've known both in the computer arena and real world actually liked to share thier artwork more than most of the programmers I've known. They wouldn't be fond of you modifying it, mind ya, but, they like everyone to look at it, play with it, etc. But, that is from a rather small sample set - a little under a dozen people.
Open Source games is one of the options that I've looked at too... and me personally, I still can't decide if it's really worth the headaches.
For example: How many Open Source'd games have produced much of anything? There's technology back-end products like SDL (cool) and Crystal Space (even cooler) that have done a damned cool job. But the games themselves? Eh. There's some good mods of current existing games out there, but, there's only a couple of games that have produced anything of real interest, IMHO.
The problem, as I see it, with producing a game that's completely Open Source where a whole community works on it is that there's a lack of cohesion when it comes to the vision and direction of the project. It's bad enough sometimes in a OS development or application development project like AllianceOS or LinuxPLC - but at least then there's a pretty direct idea of what needs to be done, and the discussion is on implementation. But with games, it's much more open terrirory...
And while I like the idea of the model where you release level packs, etc. to make money, I'm not so sure that's going to be a great idea for everyone involved. I might give it a go one of these days with a game or two, and see how well it works or doesn't work.
The thing I really do advocate is the Doom / Quake model of things. When it's all done and over with, release the game GPL'ed, and let the mod authors have a field day with it.
(Of course, this is all easy for me to say - I'm a small time game author, not a company with a lot on the line like Loki, iD, etc.)
Well, I liked Titan AE If you went in looking for a surprising movie, well, you will be disappointed. Personally, I LOVED the animation - especially the transition between CGI and traditional animation techniques within the movie. For those familiar with the old Space Ace and Dragons Lair games, well, you'll see more of it here. There's parts of the movie where you can definitely see those animation styles again
All in all, it's a good movie, IMHO. Of course, if you are looking for something new, don't expect it - of course, there are only 7 basic plots in the world anyway, and it's just how you decide to implement them. There was only one twist I found surprising (and felt like I should have seen it coming anyway, and felt a bit stupid that I didn't!) Take no heed of Jon on this one - make up your own mind based on people who have seen the movie, and aren't professional cynics... er... reviewers (IE - read all the/. posts;-) My fiancee and I both felt it was worth the money we spent on seeing it - lots of laughter, some suspense, and one 'wow' when the nature of the Titan was revealed finally revealed - and why Titan is the only hope for humanity.
Dispite Jon's comments, not every alien is a bad guy or hostile, not everything about the movie is horrid, the animation doesn't suck, and there actually is a reason why the aliens went after the humans - if you think about the implications of Titan's energy systems.
I'm not so sure that banner ads are as dead as people think, nor are the revenue streams that they create. Lemmie provide a couple of examples:
While not a banner, this is a good one: right now, I just bought 660,000 ad impressions from a game related newsletter with a subscriber base of 220,000 people (everyone gets to see the ad three times.) Normal banner advertizing doesn't really get my attention - but, this newsletter is for people who are seeking out reviews for games, and special deals on games. Instead of being a 'blanket advertizing' campaign where I just start spending money at random trying to generate sales, I picked an area where people are actually LOOKING for things like contest, reviews, special offers, etc - IE, where they are looking to spend money. Targeted advertizing actually has a much better success rate - something that I figure that more and more online-world services and sellers will finally take advantage of.
While websites focus on general areas of a topic (for instance,/. focuses on the geek crowd, or what CmdrTaco & C. want to post, take yer pick;-) advertizing based on that topic is still iffy. Just because someone is a geek, for instance, doesn't mean that they happen to be looking for a new Linux based server - which means any ads for new servers that reaches that particular person are pretty much a waste. In the articles themselves, however, it's much more focused. For instance, an article on MySQL & Perl would be a good place for someone to advertize a hosting service that allows MySQL, Perl, PHP 4,0, etc. You are more likely to reach your target audience. I look for more websites to start going that direction - allowing for very focused advertizing which allows for a MUCH better bang-for-the-buck.
More advanced profiling technologies, checking to see if they have already seen an ad (based on cookies), etc. will probably help the ad dollars thing. Keep in mind - while TV & radio commercials work sometimes, the same can be said about banner ads - they work sometimes. Content, how catchy the subject it, how well focused the ad is, etc. all makes a huge difference on the number of click-throughs you get.
Are ads annoying - damned straight. Some of them have been going way overboard anymore (Java and Shockwave based ads are really annoying). But does this really mean the end of ads online? I doubt it. We'll just start seeing ads that are reaching the right target group more often.
And personally - I really hope these revenue streams don't dry up. It would be a pitty for so many news sites that get so many hits to just die away.
(PS: When I released my last game, Boulder Panic! 2, I put a link at the bottom of my.sig. It wasn't advertizing for me - it was just showing off that I actually accomplished the task:-) BUT - do you have ANY idea how many people clicked on that link, and went and checked out my game?! 1% clickthrough may be right, but, even then, 1% somedays can really make a difference!!!
I managed to convince my day job to found an Open Source project. We do a lot of Industrial Controls stuff, and routinely spend $3200 per runtime, $7900 for development packages, and of course yearly support costs for our in-house development packages. Needless to say, that drives the cost of a job up quickly if you have 6 or 8 runtime stations and a development station that you are bidding for a customer. And yearly support costs have always been a sore point...
I wrote up a very descriptive paper on the current costs we pay -vs- the cost of developing a brand new Open Source MMI (Man - Machine Interface) system. The cost of development -vs- the potential savings on just two jobs made things quite worthwhile from the standpoint of sheer cost.
The real clincher was the fact that we controlled our destiny with an Open Source project. If we need new features, we aren't at the mercy of the developer. If we find a bug, we can squash it quickly (or at least we hope;-) and not have to wait until the next 'Service Release' of a product. It also gives our customers piece of mind because they aren't locked into a situation where they are at the mercy of a integrator (us) and a developer (the MMI manufacturer). (BTW: The company in question, Creek Electric Inc. has always been a supporter of the Open Source concept, BEFORE Open Source was a buzz word. When we develop a product for a customer, it has always been an un-written rule that they got a copy of the PLC program, and a copy of the MMI, and any other programing that goes on. There's nothing proprietary or hidden. I assumed that was an industry standard in Industrial Controls until recently I found a company who DIDN'T do it, and I had to fix some of thier work... *SIGH* Rant over...)
Anyways - development progresses as I have time to do it. "Why not release the source now?" you ask? Simple - I've never believed in the "Release Early, Release Often" theory. Instead, I believe in having a working model before releasing anything - it may not be robust, but, it should work and be useful. In my case, both the development tools and the runtime libraries should be working and useful. Again - "Why?" you ask? There's three stages to this: Vision, Internal Development, and Full Development. I've already been burned over an Open Source project that opened up too quickly. If you have an idea, the Vision stage, you need to set down, and document it to at least a degree. It's ok sometimes to program and document at once on smaller areas, but the big picture needs to be done. Have a complete goal in mind. Then move to the Internal Development stage. In this stage, get at least a working prototype done. While it's nice to announce a new Open Source project, people get disappointed (or worse) when the check closer, and notice theres no code, or there isn't anything to at least play with. have something for people to play with - it's the quickest way to get people's attention, provide them with a glimpse of your (or your team's) Vision and get them to contribute further to the development. Keep in mind - Internal Development doesn't mean it's completely closed - just that you normally invite the people you know who are interested in. Even the Vision stage can be that way too - get people who know, and are knowladgable about the subject. But, don't get too many. Design be committe doesn't work very well - I'm familiar with the concept all too well!!! Set a goal also for the Internal Development stage - decide ahead of time what point at which you are going to release inital version to the public. Finally, Full Development is the point where you show it off, and let others begin contributing to the project. Some people call this a Release, but, I prefer the term Full Development because it acknowladges the fact that development is what's really going to be going on:-) Have one person that s a head, who resolves any 'deadlocked' debates, and hold general responsibility for making the project continue on.
Some people will disagree with me, but, hey - I've been involved with it twice now, one of them being a complete failure, and the other one is still in development. This is my third project (Jaguar MMI), and I've learned enough from the other projects, and from other people's projects to know what's right and wrong part of the time;-)
As for resources - there's the normal stuff that everyone suggests: reading some of ESR's work, etc. My personal preference for who hosts the web pages, CVS, etc. is if you found the project, and you got the money, host it yourself. SourceForge (and anything like it) is a great service - but I really think that if you have the resources to do it, handle it yourself, and leave SourceForge for projects that can't afford it themselves (this way, there's one less project on there, which means there's just a little more room for more projects by people who can't afford it.
Ok, that's my... well, about $1.50, cause I can't call that $.02;-) Others can produce some flames about what they disagree with in this, but, unless they tell me the founded an Open Source project, and it did work out for them, well, I don't hold much stock in thier opinions (That's only 1/4th serious;-)
You are right in that it does seem to be an unfounded steriotype. I know pleanty of admins, programmers, etc. that either have no interesting in First Person Shooters or no interest in almost any games! Now, that doesn't nessisarily apply to me and most of my closest friends - we used to do the LAN-party thing quite often with Quake II, and then later Unreal Tournament.
There are quite a few steriotypes that are applied to geeks in general - can't get women (I'm engaged to a beautiful red head who's studying to become a Dr.), play games (hell, I've been spending too much time having fun writing games these days to actually play many other people's games! And I still really prefer a good strategy or thinking game to most FPS games), never see the sun (well, I am alergic to sunlight, so I suppose this one applies), etc. I know I don't fit the profile, and to tell you the truth - most of the geeks that I know don't fit the steriotype either. Strange how steriotypes work...
The most ironic thing is that for all his masturbatory posings on "freedom", the freedom to sell your own creation is evidently a right he would deprive others of.
I disagree with this thought. I had an email conversation with RMS once, and discovered he does still support the idea of commercial software. He would prefer that all software was GPL, or had a GPL equivalant, but he's at least realistic.
The discussion was somewhat eye-opening for me - I assume he was quite staunch anti-commercial software. After the conversation with him, I got to thinking about it, and realized that his stance on it shouldn't have been surprising as it was. If he had been opposed to EVERYTHING besides Open Source / Free Software, LGPL wouldn't exist. As it stands, the way that GPL & LGPL work, you can use EMACS to write a program, GCC to compile it, and dynamicly link it to libc - and sell it as a closed source, commercial item. If had wanted to be a real ass about it, LGPL wouldn't exist, and there would have been no viable route to take to produce a closed source program using an open source compiler.
The end of commerce != freedom? With that, I have to agree. RMS being bad for the Linux movement? That I'm not so sure about - I do have to conceed one of RMS's views: without GNU, Linux probably wouldn't exist. It was the GNU tool set that helped the development and acceptance of Linux (however, I'm still not going to refer to it at GNU/Linux;-) Is it really a stumbling block for Linux being accepted into the mainstream? I doubt it. Methinks your trying for flamebait here. Interesting flamebait, but flamebait none the less.
Re:Visual Basic does exist for Linux now....
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Gnutella VBS Worm
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· Score: 1
Damn... didn't get that link closed properly - sorry!
Visual Basic does exist for Linux now....
on
Gnutella VBS Worm
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· Score: 1
Michael Meeks & co. is doing the job right, however. GB is designed to be a lot more secure than VBA is currently. Personally, I'm dying to see this get completed - I can finally start moving the company way from MS based product to Gnome's Excel-alike. You'd be surprised how much use VBA gets in Excel, and a replacement that covers both Excel and the VBA scripting engine is going to go a long way to moving larger offices over to Free Software / Open Source equivalants.
For those who are really interested - this is VBA, not really VB. There is no Visual Basic IDE for Linux planed. At a later date it's supposed to do Gnome Basic -> C conversion.
And while many people here hate Visual Basic, I'm still a fan of it:-) I'm really happy to see the same thing for Linux coming!
UT and QA:3 are good games in my opinon - if you really like shooting your friends over and over for hours on end:-) I do - we host lan parties at my house from time to time, and it's a blast!
But the basic game? Doom / Doom 2 are better games. I don't know how many hours of gameplay I've put into those two, but, it probably amounts to much more than I put into QI, QII, Q3:A, Unreal, and UT together for each of them. Doom was truely adictive!
We don't know the whole situation here, but I'd surmise that a whole lot of Carmack's plan is targetted towards making the other's look bad, and making steed look like victim here, so he can find another job more easily. Don't overlook the fact that he says Steed has done things worthy of firing in the past, and now that Q3 and the mission packs are done, it's the logical time to let him go anyway, since you don't want to change staff in the middle of a project.
True, very true - however, reguardless if it's just JC blowing off steam, or trying to make is a snap for Paul Steed to got another job, it does reflect very poorly on the work situation at Id (ID, iD - whatever;-), especially for anyone who's seriously looking at working there.
I'd be happy to work at id, too bad they are only accepting people with talent.
True - and I resemble that;-) (See.sig for most current game - it definitely wouldn't get my hired at id!;-)
Actually, there are already quite a few versions of Doom with some updated technology in them. OpenGL implementations are a good example (though the first GLDoom didn't get finished, unluckly:-( ) There are hacks that add better handling of sectors for more advanced maps, hacks that add the look up / look down, all sorts of stuff.
Depending on what you mean by Doom with 'updated tech', just adding better graphics won't bring it up to par with Quake3 or Unreal Tournament. Doom uses 2D sprites, which only leaves 8 positions that the bad guys can be viewed from (on the up side - that's also the reason why you can have tons and tons of enemies on screen without major slowdowns!) Look up / Down is highly problematic (partialy because of the 2D sprite issue), the maps are "2.5 D" maps - while they have a height setting, areas cannot cross over each other, etc., etc., etc.
Doom is pretty old tech... Damn I love Doom still! Just upgrading the tech isn't quite enough, however, it would require a complete re-write, and everyone would end up bitching about some of the failings of Doom if they didn't. I do hope they do the next Doom correct - a nice scary atmosphere, tons of monsters, etc.
Meanwhile - go look at some of the current modified Doom engines out there:
Doom Legacy offers quite a few extended things from Doom, including 32 player multi-player games
DoomWorld is a good site for tracking down all the other Doom source ports and modifications, plus news of things like Doom for Daikatana (why?), Doom for QA3, etc.
One of the things that somewhat make me chuckle in John's.plan was telling the story of the next Doom game, Paul Steed getting fired (sheesh - iD's loss on that one!), and then... a job offer for two more possisions at iD Software. Yeeks - I'm not real sure after having just read that tale that it's that good of a job offer. Not many people really want to work at a place where you could be fired for no more reason than just pure spite of management being faced down by it's employees. Of course, well, it is that way with quite a few companys... *SIGH*
BASIC --- if you're talking about the standard BASIC with line numbers, no local variables, no subroutine parameters or return values, and, in fact, no official subroutines (as opposed to QBasic or something similar) --- is not one step up from LOGO. It's ten steps down from it.
Well, I didn't state it speciffically, but did sorta allude to the fact that it was MS's QuickBASIC.
Because calling subroutines is so ungodly awful, BASIC implementations invent new syntax for everything; beginners are fooled into believing that memorizing syntax is what programming is about. The kids who hate memorizing syntax get turned off by this; the kids who don't hate it miss the point that programming is about describing a task in detail, not learning how to use features of the libraries provided by your language vendor.
I don't disagree with ya here. However - intermediate programming in this particular case is about increasing the interest level of the child. Any language that you can quickly get results would do the job - 'specially graphical results that the kid can play with.
Scheme, Logo, Python, Tcl, and Smalltalk are at the other end of the spectrum. I think any of these is suitable for an introductory class in programming --- although admittedly I've never taught one.
Logo is a great 'starter' for kids with no computer language experience at all. However, it's got a bit of an screwed up syntax, IMHO, but worse, the kids normally feel that there is no where that they can advance to from there. SmallTalk - well, if Squeak had existed at that time (it didn't) I might have pushed to use it (it's a SmallTalk implementation that's very cool in the way that it's done. Don't have the URL off hand at the moment, but check it out sometime!) But, yep - there are pleanty of languages that could have been used as a starting place - I just happen to like Basic:-)
Between the ages of 17 and 22, I was a camp councelor / teacher at a computer came (think the kids that went there were nerds? Imagine what the means the teachers were;-) I taught the 'intermediate' level stuff - basicaly, one step up from LOGO, and one step down from Pascal (which was the advanced course.)
My trick was to show them some graphical stuff in basic (things like random lines, minor stuff like a really low-tech computer etch-a-sketch with they number pad where they could also change the numbers.
I would show what was possible, then, begin teaching them the command set nessisary to achieve that small goal (for instance, the random lines demo required teaching them to change the screen mode (this was back in QuickBASIC), the RND statement, line lables, and the goto statement, plus explaining how it worked.
After each time that I explained one of these programs, and showed how it worked, I let them have time to play with it, and teach them more commands to extend thier command set (for instance, teaching them what the circle command was, what all the parameters for the line command (box, fill so they could do filled rectangles), changing colors, etc. I wouldn't implement the new commands for them - I would just tell them what they were, and how they worked, and let them implement it themselves.
As the programs got more advanced, I tought flow control, formating the program correctly so that they could look at it later and understand it, variable types, etc., etc., etc. I rotated back and forth between programing new parts for them to play with, and letting them implement things themselves.
Granted - this was in a teacher-student environment with 20 some odd kids, and someone else helping me out. I'm not sure how well that would work in a one-on-one parent - child relationship. But, the pointer I have that would apply is this: make thier progress very visible. Let them see the results onscreen, so that they have something very visible and tangable to see. Set it up at first so that every minor change produces a change on screen for them to understand. You'd be surprised how excited they can get by very little graphical changes.
Oh, and one more thing - the kids were age range from 9 to 14 or so. That probably also has alot of bearing on how they react, and what works best for them.
I've got a Gateway MicroServer 100 at the office - and to date, I still can't tell you if it's a mistake or not.
For inital setup, it's pretty friggin' non-technical. There's a 2 line LCD screen on the back - put in the IP, and go. It's now online, and ready to be administered via a web browser. Set up your users, and your groups, and you are ready to go.
But, there's some downsides. Horsepower on it seems pretty good - the network at the office is a homogenous environment of Win9x, NT, 2000, and Linux clients and boxen. For a quick setup for a nontechnical person, it's perfect. However, if you want to get under the hood - that a bit uglier. For those who don't know, this is a "server appliance" so there's no local logins - no keyboard or screen for that, just a two line LCD screen that shows it's status at boot time.
Apache comes pre-configured, along with SAMBA, and a couple other goodies (email, etc.) However, nothing advanced like MySQL, etc. Telnet is disabled (not nessisarily a bad thing), and the box has a maintance mode that enables telnet for an hour. Otherwise, the only way to play with it is the web-based administration - which happens to be quite inadequate for my tastes. Setting up users is easy, but, it's not very robust, and sometimes the server gets paranoid for no reason - SAMBA will drop them, and won't let them back in with out tricking it.
It's got it's own system for getting updates from GW2k, but, I've yet to see a package of updates.
If you want a real server, this isn't it. If you want a quick to install system for small-time file sharing, with very little setup, this is it. It's great for sending out to a site with non-tech people in it. For me - well, I'm not so fond of it in many ways. Lack of power for administration, somewhat slow SAMBA responsiveness at times, sometimes it has user rights issues (oh, and SERIOUS problems with the user / group quota idea - it doesn't seem to take me seriously quite often), and it's designed to be a 'hands off' type of toy. All of those things together make it not so hot of a toy.
And as much as it will sound like flame bait - I still prefer my old diehard, no-reboots except hardware failure, dual PPro NT 4.0 server to this thing. Of course, I'd prefer a REALLY well configured Linux boxen to my NT server - and the Cobalt Qube2... er... Gateway MicroServer 100 doen't count at all.
(And for the record - the fact that the box is there is my own stinkin' fault. I wanted something that would be dead simple for someone else to admin while I was away on trips... I'm not sure what I SHOULD have choosen instead.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, what the original poster was refering to was not a computer CASE made out of LEGO blocks, but, a computer made out of LEGO blocks.
The computer in question was a mechanical computer made of Tinker Toys. If it's indeed the one that I'm thinking of, it's a very task specific 'computer' that does one thing - play Tic Tac Toe. It's a pretty interersting contraption to look at - damned complex.
I would toss a link to the original /. article here, but, I can't find it anymore :-/
While I'm sure you'll be able to do this with Plex86, I know you can do it with VMWare - that's how I did some Y2K here at the offices. Works pretty well.
As a side note - VMWare looses time slowly but surely. It's kind of annoying, to tell you the truth!
Runs great. My configuration: Windows NT 4.0, SP5, 256 MB RAM, Dual PII / 400 machine.
However - be sure to read the docs, and install the VMWare video driver within the virualized machines, otherwise preformance SUCKS!
Typically at any give time, I have the following running: 1 copy of Windows 98, 2 copies of Windows NT, and one copy SUSE Linux running KDE. NT and Linux sessions take about 1 - 2 % CPU utilization when they are not actually doing anything important but running idle. 98, on the other hand, takes about 18 - 25% utilization off of one of the processors (it may be a dual processor machine, but 98 only gets to play with one of them - VMWare can't do anything to help that unfortunately.
The one downside at the moment with VMWare - no support for 3D acceleration. I really want them to fix this - while I use VMWare for testing my games and such (DirectDraw only - no 3D in these games) I'd love to be able to move completely to Linux for my base OS, and boot up a VMWare session to play UT and things like that (plus it would help for testing on the game that I've been working on that DO utilize 3D hardware!) A minor (?) setback is that it also doesn't support MIDI ouput - no big deal to me really, but, it's important to a couple of older games.
My two favorite features: running NT and Linux on the same box, and just switching back and forth, without really noticing and preformance degredation (*MOST* of the time - there are some things you can do that really do slow things down!), and the 'Suspend / Restore' button on the various OS's. If you actually need that 2% CPU power restored back to your 'real' OS, or the memory back, just hit the 'suspend' button, and close VMWare. Later, open it again, and hit resume - I've got your "Instant On" right here!!!
Well, someone is doing live updates from the keynote speach - and the Cube lives! PowerMac G4, from the page:
10:38 One more thing! (PowerMac G4 Cube)
- 1.5 GB of RAM
- 40 GB of Hard Drive Space
- Modem, Ethernet, Firewire, USB
- 8" Cube
- No Fan
- DVD Slot Load Drive on the top
- Handle on the bottom to lift out the entire machine from the enclosure
- 450 MHz G4; 64MB of RAM; 20 GB; Firewire; DVD-ROM; iMovie; $1799
- 500 MHz G4; 128mb of RAM; 30GB; Firewire; DVD-ROM; iMovie; $2299
Which of course makes you wonder - why the hell did Apple have such a shit fit over some leaked pictures that weren't even that far ahead of thier anouncement anyway?!
I still have an Everex Mega-Cube setting in the house, which has fallen into disuse. Originally, it was a 486 with a very nasty proprietary motherboard in it, but, I did some case hacking and put a much higher end machine in it (ok, a P166 - back when a Pentium 166 was a sweet machine)
The Everex Mega-Cube is an almost perfect Borg Cube - and that's what we ended up dubbing it, not just for it's size and shape, but, because it also had a habit of ending up absorbing the drives, etc., from older machines that died.
The Mega-Cube is a dark grey, almost black. It's almost the size of my 21 inch monitor. The drive bays are covered by a cover that recesses a little bit and slides down into the case. Basically, when you have the drive bay cover closed, it's flush with the rest of the case, which form a giant black metal cube with one little lit display that show(ed) the state of the machine.
Time to resurrect the Borg Cube again, me thinks... it was just too damned awsome :-)
Dunno if this is just trollin', but, if so I'll bite with a real response here...
Actually, MAME is supported on quite a few different platforms already. Various platforms of Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc. It's there already - MAME is a voluntere effort, so if you need it for a different platform, compile it there. It should compile very nicely after a couple of system-dependant changes (MAME is written to be portable.)
As for the other machines - MAME is a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Apple II, C64, etc. arent arcade machines. HOWEVER - check out MESS which handles: Acorn Atom, AdventureVision, Amiga (NTSC), Amstrad CPC (464, 664, 6128), Apple I, Apple II (6 varieties), Atari 400, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari 800, Bally Astrocade, BEACA, Colour Genie 2000, Coco 3, Colecovision, Color Computer, Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Commodore 64gs, Commodore 65, Commodore 128, Commodore 2000, Commodore 3000, Commodore 4000, Commodore 8000, Commodore B Series, Commodore Max, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore Vic 20, CP400, CPS Changer, Dragon 32, Enterprise 128K, IBM PC/XT, Inves Spectrum 48K+, Jupiter Ace, Kaypro 2x, KC Compact, KC85/4, KIM-1, Laser (110, 200, 210, 310, 350, 500, 700, TX8000), Macintosh Plus, Memotech MTX512, MicroBee, MSX, Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Gameboy, Oric 1/Oric Atmos, PC Engine, PDP/1 (SpaceWar!), Philips P2090T/M, Sam Coupe, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive/Genesis, Spectrum Plus 2, Spectrum Plus 3, Spectrum Plus 4, TI99/4A Home Computer, Tandy 1000TX, Tandy MC-10, Timex Computer 2048, Timex Sinclair 2068, TK90x Color Computer, TRS-80 Model 1, Vectrex, VZ200/VZ300, ZX Spectrum 48K, ZX80/81. (I know: Information overload there...) If it resides in someone's closet now, there's a good chance it's emulated, or being worked on adding to the emulation now. MESS is pretty much as cool as MAME - just think of it as MAME for Consoles and Computers. Plus, it's somewhat portable, IIRC.
One of the things that always strikes me as interesting about things like this is the posiblities for abuse. No - I'm not talking about things like trading warez, porn, MP3, or whatever the hot semi-illegal commodity of the week is.
I'm more interested in the possible effects for companies that keep wanting to do things like map out the Internet (see article last week here on /. about the group maping the 'net for advertising purposes) but don't want to really tick off admins who's machines they are adding to thier map. Same goes for script kiddies looking for machines (using nothing more than ping to see who responds) but want to keep from possibly alerting the admin at some company they are maping out.
Just a thought - I could, of course, be completely wrong!
I live in Wichita, Ks (save your condonalces - I like this town, even after all my travels) which is 3 1/2 hours from KC. Funny thing is - I never heard any ads for it, or even any word of mouth type stuff about it. This report is the first I heard of it. Heck, if I knew ESR was going to be giving a speach, that would have been worth the price of admission just to meet one of the guys who have contributed so much to the changing ideas of software and intellectial property (IE - he's done more than just be an Open Source advocate).
I really hope they do this again. Hell, I know tons of people here who would have made the trek to KC for it - but no one advertized it here, and they must not have done much advertizing in KC either, or some friends there would have contacted me about it!
> IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.
Wrong.
Game engines
As you pointed out, he never said anything about the underlying technology not working under Open Source / GPL. In fact, the interview was with Jorrit, who founded Crystal Space 3D, which is becoming a very solid engine. :-)
But the games themselves... I don't really ever expect to see an explosion of Open Source games like we have seen in other areas. Sure, mods will always happen, especially for game companies that encourage that sort of development - QIII, UT, etc. It's game programming without all the hastles of game programing. There's a pre-established engine under you, game content already exists, and there's even a user base existing to release your mods to. Writing a game from scratch is a pretty hard deal, and requires a very specific focus to get the job done - unlike making a mod, in which someone on the team can easily say, oh, "Hey - lets add a grapling hook!" and can easily implement it on top of the already working stuff. But when you start from scratch, people are already saying "Hey, lets add a grappling hook!" 15 times a day, but, you haven't even gotten basic game content complete! That's not to say it can't be done - it would just be harder, IMHO, to keep your focus. There have been some good MUDs and some other games done this way successfully, but, I think they are the exception to the rule
As for artists:
And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....
Really? There's a new observation I've never really made myself. The few artists I've known both in the computer arena and real world actually liked to share thier artwork more than most of the programmers I've known. They wouldn't be fond of you modifying it, mind ya, but, they like everyone to look at it, play with it, etc. But, that is from a rather small sample set - a little under a dozen people.
Open Source games is one of the options that I've looked at too... and me personally, I still can't decide if it's really worth the headaches.
For example: How many Open Source'd games have produced much of anything? There's technology back-end products like SDL (cool) and Crystal Space (even cooler) that have done a damned cool job. But the games themselves? Eh. There's some good mods of current existing games out there, but, there's only a couple of games that have produced anything of real interest, IMHO.
The problem, as I see it, with producing a game that's completely Open Source where a whole community works on it is that there's a lack of cohesion when it comes to the vision and direction of the project. It's bad enough sometimes in a OS development or application development project like AllianceOS or LinuxPLC - but at least then there's a pretty direct idea of what needs to be done, and the discussion is on implementation. But with games, it's much more open terrirory...
And while I like the idea of the model where you release level packs, etc. to make money, I'm not so sure that's going to be a great idea for everyone involved. I might give it a go one of these days with a game or two, and see how well it works or doesn't work.
The thing I really do advocate is the Doom / Quake model of things. When it's all done and over with, release the game GPL'ed, and let the mod authors have a field day with it.
(Of course, this is all easy for me to say - I'm a small time game author, not a company with a lot on the line like Loki, iD, etc.)
Well, I liked Titan AE If you went in looking for a surprising movie, well, you will be disappointed. Personally, I LOVED the animation - especially the transition between CGI and traditional animation techniques within the movie. For those familiar with the old Space Ace and Dragons Lair games, well, you'll see more of it here. There's parts of the movie where you can definitely see those animation styles again
All in all, it's a good movie, IMHO. Of course, if you are looking for something new, don't expect it - of course, there are only 7 basic plots in the world anyway, and it's just how you decide to implement them. There was only one twist I found surprising (and felt like I should have seen it coming anyway, and felt a bit stupid that I didn't!) Take no heed of Jon on this one - make up your own mind based on people who have seen the movie, and aren't professional cynics... er... reviewers (IE - read all the /. posts ;-) My fiancee and I both felt it was worth the money we spent on seeing it - lots of laughter, some suspense, and one 'wow' when the nature of the Titan was revealed finally revealed - and why Titan is the only hope for humanity.
Dispite Jon's comments, not every alien is a bad guy or hostile, not everything about the movie is horrid, the animation doesn't suck, and there actually is a reason why the aliens went after the humans - if you think about the implications of Titan's energy systems.
I'm not so sure that banner ads are as dead as people think, nor are the revenue streams that they create. Lemmie provide a couple of examples:
While not a banner, this is a good one: right now, I just bought 660,000 ad impressions from a game related newsletter with a subscriber base of 220,000 people (everyone gets to see the ad three times.) Normal banner advertizing doesn't really get my attention - but, this newsletter is for people who are seeking out reviews for games, and special deals on games. Instead of being a 'blanket advertizing' campaign where I just start spending money at random trying to generate sales, I picked an area where people are actually LOOKING for things like contest, reviews, special offers, etc - IE, where they are looking to spend money. Targeted advertizing actually has a much better success rate - something that I figure that more and more online-world services and sellers will finally take advantage of.
While websites focus on general areas of a topic (for instance, /. focuses on the geek crowd, or what CmdrTaco & C. want to post, take yer pick ;-) advertizing based on that topic is still iffy. Just because someone is a geek, for instance, doesn't mean that they happen to be looking for a new Linux based server - which means any ads for new servers that reaches that particular person are pretty much a waste. In the articles themselves, however, it's much more focused. For instance, an article on MySQL & Perl would be a good place for someone to advertize a hosting service that allows MySQL, Perl, PHP 4,0, etc. You are more likely to reach your target audience. I look for more websites to start going that direction - allowing for very focused advertizing which allows for a MUCH better bang-for-the-buck.
More advanced profiling technologies, checking to see if they have already seen an ad (based on cookies), etc. will probably help the ad dollars thing. Keep in mind - while TV & radio commercials work sometimes, the same can be said about banner ads - they work sometimes. Content, how catchy the subject it, how well focused the ad is, etc. all makes a huge difference on the number of click-throughs you get.
Are ads annoying - damned straight. Some of them have been going way overboard anymore (Java and Shockwave based ads are really annoying). But does this really mean the end of ads online? I doubt it. We'll just start seeing ads that are reaching the right target group more often.
And personally - I really hope these revenue streams don't dry up. It would be a pitty for so many news sites that get so many hits to just die away.
(PS: When I released my last game, Boulder Panic! 2, I put a link at the bottom of my .sig. It wasn't advertizing for me - it was just showing off that I actually accomplished the task :-) BUT - do you have ANY idea how many people clicked on that link, and went and checked out my game?! 1% clickthrough may be right, but, even then, 1% somedays can really make a difference!!!
I managed to convince my day job to found an Open Source project. We do a lot of Industrial Controls stuff, and routinely spend $3200 per runtime, $7900 for development packages, and of course yearly support costs for our in-house development packages. Needless to say, that drives the cost of a job up quickly if you have 6 or 8 runtime stations and a development station that you are bidding for a customer. And yearly support costs have always been a sore point...
I wrote up a very descriptive paper on the current costs we pay -vs- the cost of developing a brand new Open Source MMI (Man - Machine Interface) system. The cost of development -vs- the potential savings on just two jobs made things quite worthwhile from the standpoint of sheer cost.
The real clincher was the fact that we controlled our destiny with an Open Source project. If we need new features, we aren't at the mercy of the developer. If we find a bug, we can squash it quickly (or at least we hope ;-) and not have to wait until the next 'Service Release' of a product. It also gives our customers piece of mind because they aren't locked into a situation where they are at the mercy of a integrator (us) and a developer (the MMI manufacturer). (BTW: The company in question, Creek Electric Inc. has always been a supporter of the Open Source concept, BEFORE Open Source was a buzz word. When we develop a product for a customer, it has always been an un-written rule that they got a copy of the PLC program, and a copy of the MMI, and any other programing that goes on. There's nothing proprietary or hidden. I assumed that was an industry standard in Industrial Controls until recently I found a company who DIDN'T do it, and I had to fix some of thier work... *SIGH* Rant over...)
Anyways - development progresses as I have time to do it. "Why not release the source now?" you ask? Simple - I've never believed in the "Release Early, Release Often" theory. Instead, I believe in having a working model before releasing anything - it may not be robust, but, it should work and be useful. In my case, both the development tools and the runtime libraries should be working and useful. Again - "Why?" you ask? There's three stages to this: Vision, Internal Development, and Full Development. I've already been burned over an Open Source project that opened up too quickly. If you have an idea, the Vision stage, you need to set down, and document it to at least a degree. It's ok sometimes to program and document at once on smaller areas, but the big picture needs to be done. Have a complete goal in mind. Then move to the Internal Development stage. In this stage, get at least a working prototype done. While it's nice to announce a new Open Source project, people get disappointed (or worse) when the check closer, and notice theres no code, or there isn't anything to at least play with. have something for people to play with - it's the quickest way to get people's attention, provide them with a glimpse of your (or your team's) Vision and get them to contribute further to the development. Keep in mind - Internal Development doesn't mean it's completely closed - just that you normally invite the people you know who are interested in. Even the Vision stage can be that way too - get people who know, and are knowladgable about the subject. But, don't get too many. Design be committe doesn't work very well - I'm familiar with the concept all too well!!! Set a goal also for the Internal Development stage - decide ahead of time what point at which you are going to release inital version to the public. Finally, Full Development is the point where you show it off, and let others begin contributing to the project. Some people call this a Release, but, I prefer the term Full Development because it acknowladges the fact that development is what's really going to be going on :-) Have one person that s a head, who resolves any 'deadlocked' debates, and hold general responsibility for making the project continue on.
Some people will disagree with me, but, hey - I've been involved with it twice now, one of them being a complete failure, and the other one is still in development. This is my third project (Jaguar MMI), and I've learned enough from the other projects, and from other people's projects to know what's right and wrong part of the time ;-)
As for resources - there's the normal stuff that everyone suggests: reading some of ESR's work, etc. My personal preference for who hosts the web pages, CVS, etc. is if you found the project, and you got the money, host it yourself. SourceForge (and anything like it) is a great service - but I really think that if you have the resources to do it, handle it yourself, and leave SourceForge for projects that can't afford it themselves (this way, there's one less project on there, which means there's just a little more room for more projects by people who can't afford it.
Ok, that's my... well, about $1.50, cause I can't call that $.02 ;-) Others can produce some flames about what they disagree with in this, but, unless they tell me the founded an Open Source project, and it did work out for them, well, I don't hold much stock in thier opinions (That's only 1/4th serious ;-)
You are right in that it does seem to be an unfounded steriotype. I know pleanty of admins, programmers, etc. that either have no interesting in First Person Shooters or no interest in almost any games! Now, that doesn't nessisarily apply to me and most of my closest friends - we used to do the LAN-party thing quite often with Quake II, and then later Unreal Tournament.
There are quite a few steriotypes that are applied to geeks in general - can't get women (I'm engaged to a beautiful red head who's studying to become a Dr.), play games (hell, I've been spending too much time having fun writing games these days to actually play many other people's games! And I still really prefer a good strategy or thinking game to most FPS games), never see the sun (well, I am alergic to sunlight, so I suppose this one applies), etc. I know I don't fit the profile, and to tell you the truth - most of the geeks that I know don't fit the steriotype either. Strange how steriotypes work...
The most ironic thing is that for all his masturbatory posings on "freedom", the freedom to sell your own creation is evidently a right he would deprive others of.
I disagree with this thought. I had an email conversation with RMS once, and discovered he does still support the idea of commercial software. He would prefer that all software was GPL, or had a GPL equivalant, but he's at least realistic.
The discussion was somewhat eye-opening for me - I assume he was quite staunch anti-commercial software. After the conversation with him, I got to thinking about it, and realized that his stance on it shouldn't have been surprising as it was. If he had been opposed to EVERYTHING besides Open Source / Free Software, LGPL wouldn't exist. As it stands, the way that GPL & LGPL work, you can use EMACS to write a program, GCC to compile it, and dynamicly link it to libc - and sell it as a closed source, commercial item. If had wanted to be a real ass about it, LGPL wouldn't exist, and there would have been no viable route to take to produce a closed source program using an open source compiler.
The end of commerce != freedom? With that, I have to agree. RMS being bad for the Linux movement? That I'm not so sure about - I do have to conceed one of RMS's views: without GNU, Linux probably wouldn't exist. It was the GNU tool set that helped the development and acceptance of Linux (however, I'm still not going to refer to it at GNU/Linux ;-) Is it really a stumbling block for Linux being accepted into the mainstream? I doubt it. Methinks your trying for flamebait here. Interesting flamebait, but flamebait none the less.
Damn... didn't get that link closed properly - sorry!
It's already somewhat available. Check out , which is basically Visual Basic for Applications on Gnome (and if it gets done for the Gnome environment, it will get ported around.)
Michael Meeks & co. is doing the job right, however. GB is designed to be a lot more secure than VBA is currently. Personally, I'm dying to see this get completed - I can finally start moving the company way from MS based product to Gnome's Excel-alike. You'd be surprised how much use VBA gets in Excel, and a replacement that covers both Excel and the VBA scripting engine is going to go a long way to moving larger offices over to Free Software / Open Source equivalants.
For those who are really interested - this is VBA, not really VB. There is no Visual Basic IDE for Linux planed. At a later date it's supposed to do Gnome Basic -> C conversion.
And while many people here hate Visual Basic, I'm still a fan of it :-) I'm really happy to see the same thing for Linux coming!
UT and QA:3 are good games in my opinon - if you really like shooting your friends over and over for hours on end :-) I do - we host lan parties at my house from time to time, and it's a blast!
But the basic game? Doom / Doom 2 are better games. I don't know how many hours of gameplay I've put into those two, but, it probably amounts to much more than I put into QI, QII, Q3:A, Unreal, and UT together for each of them. Doom was truely adictive!
We don't know the whole situation here, but I'd surmise that a whole lot of Carmack's plan is targetted towards making the other's look bad, and making steed look like victim here, so he can find another job more easily. Don't overlook the fact that he says Steed has done things worthy of firing in the past, and now that Q3 and the mission packs are done, it's the logical time to let him go anyway, since you don't want to change staff in the middle of a project.
True, very true - however, reguardless if it's just JC blowing off steam, or trying to make is a snap for Paul Steed to got another job, it does reflect very poorly on the work situation at Id (ID, iD - whatever ;-), especially for anyone who's seriously looking at working there.
I'd be happy to work at id, too bad they are only accepting people with talent.
True - and I resemble that ;-) (See .sig for most current game - it definitely wouldn't get my hired at id! ;-)
Actually, there are already quite a few versions of Doom with some updated technology in them. OpenGL implementations are a good example (though the first GLDoom didn't get finished, unluckly :-( ) There are hacks that add better handling of sectors for more advanced maps, hacks that add the look up / look down, all sorts of stuff.
Depending on what you mean by Doom with 'updated tech', just adding better graphics won't bring it up to par with Quake3 or Unreal Tournament. Doom uses 2D sprites, which only leaves 8 positions that the bad guys can be viewed from (on the up side - that's also the reason why you can have tons and tons of enemies on screen without major slowdowns!) Look up / Down is highly problematic (partialy because of the 2D sprite issue), the maps are "2.5 D" maps - while they have a height setting, areas cannot cross over each other, etc., etc., etc.
Doom is pretty old tech... Damn I love Doom still! Just upgrading the tech isn't quite enough, however, it would require a complete re-write, and everyone would end up bitching about some of the failings of Doom if they didn't. I do hope they do the next Doom correct - a nice scary atmosphere, tons of monsters, etc.
Meanwhile - go look at some of the current modified Doom engines out there:
Doom Legacy offers quite a few extended things from Doom, including 32 player multi-player games
DoomWorld is a good site for tracking down all the other Doom source ports and modifications, plus news of things like Doom for Daikatana (why?), Doom for QA3, etc.
One of the things that somewhat make me chuckle in John's .plan was telling the story of the next Doom game, Paul Steed getting fired (sheesh - iD's loss on that one!), and then... a job offer for two more possisions at iD Software. Yeeks - I'm not real sure after having just read that tale that it's that good of a job offer. Not many people really want to work at a place where you could be fired for no more reason than just pure spite of management being faced down by it's employees. Of course, well, it is that way with quite a few companys... *SIGH*
BASIC --- if you're talking about the standard BASIC with line numbers, no local variables, no subroutine parameters or return values, and, in fact, no official subroutines (as opposed to QBasic or something similar) --- is not one step up from LOGO. It's ten steps down from it.
Well, I didn't state it speciffically, but did sorta allude to the fact that it was MS's QuickBASIC.
Because calling subroutines is so ungodly awful, BASIC implementations invent new syntax for everything; beginners are fooled into believing that memorizing syntax is what programming is about. The kids who hate memorizing syntax get turned off by this; the kids who don't hate it miss the point that programming is about describing a task in detail, not learning how to use features of the libraries provided by your language vendor.
I don't disagree with ya here. However - intermediate programming in this particular case is about increasing the interest level of the child. Any language that you can quickly get results would do the job - 'specially graphical results that the kid can play with.
Scheme, Logo, Python, Tcl, and Smalltalk are at the other end of the spectrum. I think any of these is suitable for an introductory class in programming --- although admittedly I've never taught one.
Logo is a great 'starter' for kids with no computer language experience at all. However, it's got a bit of an screwed up syntax, IMHO, but worse, the kids normally feel that there is no where that they can advance to from there. SmallTalk - well, if Squeak had existed at that time (it didn't) I might have pushed to use it (it's a SmallTalk implementation that's very cool in the way that it's done. Don't have the URL off hand at the moment, but check it out sometime!) But, yep - there are pleanty of languages that could have been used as a starting place - I just happen to like Basic :-)
Between the ages of 17 and 22, I was a camp councelor / teacher at a computer came (think the kids that went there were nerds? Imagine what the means the teachers were ;-) I taught the 'intermediate' level stuff - basicaly, one step up from LOGO, and one step down from Pascal (which was the advanced course.)
My trick was to show them some graphical stuff in basic (things like random lines, minor stuff like a really low-tech computer etch-a-sketch with they number pad where they could also change the numbers.
I would show what was possible, then, begin teaching them the command set nessisary to achieve that small goal (for instance, the random lines demo required teaching them to change the screen mode (this was back in QuickBASIC), the RND statement, line lables, and the goto statement, plus explaining how it worked.
After each time that I explained one of these programs, and showed how it worked, I let them have time to play with it, and teach them more commands to extend thier command set (for instance, teaching them what the circle command was, what all the parameters for the line command (box, fill so they could do filled rectangles), changing colors, etc. I wouldn't implement the new commands for them - I would just tell them what they were, and how they worked, and let them implement it themselves.
As the programs got more advanced, I tought flow control, formating the program correctly so that they could look at it later and understand it, variable types, etc., etc., etc. I rotated back and forth between programing new parts for them to play with, and letting them implement things themselves.
Granted - this was in a teacher-student environment with 20 some odd kids, and someone else helping me out. I'm not sure how well that would work in a one-on-one parent - child relationship. But, the pointer I have that would apply is this: make thier progress very visible. Let them see the results onscreen, so that they have something very visible and tangable to see. Set it up at first so that every minor change produces a change on screen for them to understand. You'd be surprised how excited they can get by very little graphical changes.
Oh, and one more thing - the kids were age range from 9 to 14 or so. That probably also has alot of bearing on how they react, and what works best for them.
Don't you mean heterogenous? If it were homogeneous, you'd be running only one type of client.
Uh - read what I mean on that one, not what I say ;-) Yep - that's what I meant, was just a little tired when I did it! :-/
I've got a Gateway MicroServer 100 at the office - and to date, I still can't tell you if it's a mistake or not.
For inital setup, it's pretty friggin' non-technical. There's a 2 line LCD screen on the back - put in the IP, and go. It's now online, and ready to be administered via a web browser. Set up your users, and your groups, and you are ready to go.
But, there's some downsides. Horsepower on it seems pretty good - the network at the office is a homogenous environment of Win9x, NT, 2000, and Linux clients and boxen. For a quick setup for a nontechnical person, it's perfect. However, if you want to get under the hood - that a bit uglier. For those who don't know, this is a "server appliance" so there's no local logins - no keyboard or screen for that, just a two line LCD screen that shows it's status at boot time.
Apache comes pre-configured, along with SAMBA, and a couple other goodies (email, etc.) However, nothing advanced like MySQL, etc. Telnet is disabled (not nessisarily a bad thing), and the box has a maintance mode that enables telnet for an hour. Otherwise, the only way to play with it is the web-based administration - which happens to be quite inadequate for my tastes. Setting up users is easy, but, it's not very robust, and sometimes the server gets paranoid for no reason - SAMBA will drop them, and won't let them back in with out tricking it.
It's got it's own system for getting updates from GW2k, but, I've yet to see a package of updates.
If you want a real server, this isn't it. If you want a quick to install system for small-time file sharing, with very little setup, this is it. It's great for sending out to a site with non-tech people in it. For me - well, I'm not so fond of it in many ways. Lack of power for administration, somewhat slow SAMBA responsiveness at times, sometimes it has user rights issues (oh, and SERIOUS problems with the user / group quota idea - it doesn't seem to take me seriously quite often), and it's designed to be a 'hands off' type of toy. All of those things together make it not so hot of a toy.
And as much as it will sound like flame bait - I still prefer my old diehard, no-reboots except hardware failure, dual PPro NT 4.0 server to this thing. Of course, I'd prefer a REALLY well configured Linux boxen to my NT server - and the Cobalt Qube2... er... Gateway MicroServer 100 doen't count at all.
(And for the record - the fact that the box is there is my own stinkin' fault. I wanted something that would be dead simple for someone else to admin while I was away on trips... I'm not sure what I SHOULD have choosen instead.)