Oh, that's easy to get around. BigStoreSupply sells the tablet to BigStore under cost, so BigStore can sell it at a technical markup. BigStoreSupply is legally a different company, in a different state. BigStore can say 'See, here's our receipts, we bought it for $22.50 and sold it for $29!' because BigStoreSupply is technically not the same corporation as BigStore.
State: "Well, how much did BigStoreSupply pay for it?" BigStore: "Oh, I have no idea. You'd have to ask them." BigStoreSupply: "We're not in your jurisdiction, we don't have to tell you what we paid for our products."
Although with Wal-Mart, it's more likely 'Hi. you're going to sell us a crapload of tablets REALLY CHEAP so we can put them on special, or we won't carry your junk any more.' ''kay.'
That doesn't mean Wally normally gets the product that cheap. The supplier wouldn't be able to afford it. But most suppliers will take a loss on a product for Wal-Mart for Black Friday just for continued goodwill. It's also generally not a huge amount of whatever-it-is.
Probably because the updates add suck without adding any useful new features.
I finally moved from 10.6.8 to 10.10 and honestly the only thing that really feels like an 'improvement' is that I can disable transparency in the UI. There's a whole lot of new annoying crap to deal with, though.
The thing is, it's sunlight/UV that turned the cases yellow in the first place, and the Retr0brited stuff is turning back yellow far, far faster than the initial yellowing - and it's doing it even if the computer was stored in an opaque cardboard box.
Weirder, if the original yellowing was uneven - say, if there was a sticker on the case that blocked light, so that spot was less yellowed - Retr0brite would make the whole case the same non-yellow color.. and when it re-yellows, the 'less faded' marking is back!
(And as far as RTC batteries: Most Amigas sold didn't have battery-backed clocks. Some models did, but the 500 / 600 / 1200 didn't. You could get a cartridge that added one, but the battery in that crapping out would just ruin that cartridge.)
I'm not sure about where to get Amiga Populous legally, but you CAN buy an emulator: http://www.amigaforever.com/
Of course you could just download WinUAE by itself, but Amiga Forever includes licensed ROM and Workbench disk files for most versions of AmigaOS. It's also got a wizard for setup; handy if you're not used to fiddling with emulators. WinUAE has a lot of obscure, arcane, and weird settings. (Amigas had a lot of obscure, arcane, and weird hardware to emulate.)
If you just want the original Populous and don't much care that it's the Amiga version specifically, GOG.com has the PC port of the original game for $6.
The Playstation game was a later sequel, not a port of the original. Give the GOG version a shot.
Dunno about Android phones, but when I bought a brand-new spare battery for my Blackberry Q10 - which was about $30-ish - it came with a little charging adapter. In fact the charger encloses the battery completely and has a tiny short MicroUSB on it, so if I don't want to pull the battery from the Q10 and replace it, I can plug the charger into the phone and boost the battery.
They also sell the battery without the charger, but it was only a few dollars less.
I have no idea if it's what they're actually doing, but before the launch it was reported that it'd be rolling out in waves, so their download servers didn't get absolutely hammered.
When you get it depends on how early you reserved it, supposedly. If you don't want to wait, you can download the.iso and update that way.
You can still turn off automatic driver updates. It's one of the first things I did.
The control for it is in the Devices and Printers control panel, not Updates, which is fairly dumb, but that's the same place it was in Windows 7, so I guess it's at least consistent.
Account Info privacy setting is staying disabled. It hasn't turned it back on.
Windows Defender can't be disabled because it DISABLES ITSELF when you install another antivirus. The exact same way it worked in Windows 8.
You CAN disable automatic updates for drivers.
Actually, let me repeat that in all caps.
YOU CAN DISABLE AUTOMATIC UPDATES FOR DRIVERS.
The control just isn't under updates. It's actually in the same place it is in Windows 7 - open the Devices and Printers control panel, right-click the icon for your computer, select Device Installation Settings, choose 'No, let me choose what to do' and 'Never install driver software from Windows Update'.
Granted, this does mean it doesn't even offer you the updates, but if you don't want drivers from Windows Update, you don't have to get them.
You can turn off the ads in the start menu.
You can turn off sharing your wifi password with people. (Though it's still bad - if you give your password to someone, they might share it.)
The 'keylogger' in that imgur pic's toggle is ghosted not because you can't turn it off, but because that service is entirely disabled by some other setting the guy's made. Probably the one that turns off Cortana.
There's plenty to dislike about Windows 10 without making up crap. Me, I hate the lack of subfolders in the Start menu. (My gog.com games folder has about 25 entries for 'Manual.pdf' because the menu ignores the per-game subfolders. Augh.)
Lots of new games don't have a DX9 mode. And not all that many have a DX10; most go right to DX11. (DX11 does, however, have a mode that provides backwards compatibility to a point if you have a DX10 GPU.)
Quite a few new games also require a 64 bit OS, which makes supporting DX9 kind of pointless; there are very few people running Windows XP 64 bit.
Age of Mythology, Alien Isolation, ARMA 3, the recent Assassin's Creed games, the Battlefield series, Bioshock Infinite, the newer Call of Duty games, Crysis 3, Dark Souls II.. and I'm only up to D in Wikipedia's list of DX11 games, and there are plenty I didn't list because they're not 'big names'.
The Xbox One will also be getting an update to DirectX 12, which will probably drive a lot of use of it. After all, it's easier to port your XB1 games to Windows if you're using the same API on each.
DX11 is why I upgraded from XP to 7; not many games at the time supported it, but it was clear more were going to, and the ones that did looked a heck of a lot nicer. And often ran faster, as well.
The main reason the Intel-based Commodore/Amiga/whatevers never made it to market appears to be that the guy running the company died.
The Commodore name still has a lot of cachet outside the US. It's also not been 'gone' as long overseas; someone licensed the name for a line of TVs and consumer electronics, for instance.
I thought the 'VIC-20' MP3 player was clever, at least; it had 20 gigs of storage.
I've been keeping smartphones in my pocket since there have been smartphones and have never had a problem.
Of course, I also have a phone that's the size of a phone, not some dumbass mini-tablet that was made as thin as can be apparently just to make it more fragile and drive up replacement part sales.
So, an Amiga with the OS on a floppy with the write-protect tab enabled, and the applications on an Iomega Bernoulli 150 meg drive with the write-protect tab sticking out?
Oh wait, encryption. Well, I'm sure there's something on Aminet.
Those are all things I do miss from the Amiga, but here are the things I most miss:
The focus paradigm. Windows and Mac use 'click to focus, focus raises window to top'.
Xmouse is 'hover mouse over window to focus, click raises'.
Amiga did 'click focuses but does not raise window'. It combines the best of both - you can focus a window that's behind another one, and you don't have to worry about tapping the mouse (or trackpad!) and changing the focus because the pointer moved. You could also double-click to raise the window, and windows had a depth widget that would raise it to the front or push it to the back of the stack.
The other thing I miss are DataTypes. The easiest way to explain DataTypes is 'Video codecs, but for everything.' Install a PNG DataType and any program that works with images suddenly understands PNGs. There are text format DataTypes, sound format, video format, etc.
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Oh, that's easy to get around. BigStoreSupply sells the tablet to BigStore under cost, so BigStore can sell it at a technical markup. BigStoreSupply is legally a different company, in a different state. BigStore can say 'See, here's our receipts, we bought it for $22.50 and sold it for $29!' because BigStoreSupply is technically not the same corporation as BigStore.
State: "Well, how much did BigStoreSupply pay for it?" BigStore: "Oh, I have no idea. You'd have to ask them." BigStoreSupply: "We're not in your jurisdiction, we don't have to tell you what we paid for our products."
Although with Wal-Mart, it's more likely 'Hi. you're going to sell us a crapload of tablets REALLY CHEAP so we can put them on special, or we won't carry your junk any more.' ''kay.'
That doesn't mean Wally normally gets the product that cheap. The supplier wouldn't be able to afford it. But most suppliers will take a loss on a product for Wal-Mart for Black Friday just for continued goodwill. It's also generally not a huge amount of whatever-it-is.
The IBM T221 monitors had 'retina' resolutions and matte screens in 2001.
They had some down sides - they needed quad-DVI connections, couldn't manage a 60 HZ refresh, and they were $8400. But they were matte and 204ppi.
Probably because the updates add suck without adding any useful new features.
I finally moved from 10.6.8 to 10.10 and honestly the only thing that really feels like an 'improvement' is that I can disable transparency in the UI. There's a whole lot of new annoying crap to deal with, though.
Final Fantasy XIV is the #2 subscription-based MMO.
It's behind World of Warcraft, of course, but has more paying subs than EVE.
Not continuing to run it would be pretty stupid.
I was shocked that FF7 didn't have voice acting to begin with.
My first JRPGs were Lunar 1 and 2 on the Sega CD, so I thought voice acting and full-animated-with-speech cutscenes were something JRPGs just *had*.
At least if they were on CD instead of cartridge.
It's not really any easier to cram an ATX motherboard into an AT case than an Amiga 2000 case.
Either way, you have to hacksaw a big hole in the back and fabricate mounts.
Yes, they must lock out all the competitors making Amiga 1200 accelerator cards!
Like... uh.... hm. Hang on, I'll think of someone eventually.
The thing is, it's sunlight/UV that turned the cases yellow in the first place, and the Retr0brited stuff is turning back yellow far, far faster than the initial yellowing - and it's doing it even if the computer was stored in an opaque cardboard box.
Weirder, if the original yellowing was uneven - say, if there was a sticker on the case that blocked light, so that spot was less yellowed - Retr0brite would make the whole case the same non-yellow color.. and when it re-yellows, the 'less faded' marking is back!
(And as far as RTC batteries: Most Amigas sold didn't have battery-backed clocks. Some models did, but the 500 / 600 / 1200 didn't. You could get a cartridge that added one, but the battery in that crapping out would just ruin that cartridge.)
I'm not sure about where to get Amiga Populous legally, but you CAN buy an emulator: http://www.amigaforever.com/
Of course you could just download WinUAE by itself, but Amiga Forever includes licensed ROM and Workbench disk files for most versions of AmigaOS. It's also got a wizard for setup; handy if you're not used to fiddling with emulators. WinUAE has a lot of obscure, arcane, and weird settings. (Amigas had a lot of obscure, arcane, and weird hardware to emulate.)
If you just want the original Populous and don't much care that it's the Amiga version specifically, GOG.com has the PC port of the original game for $6.
The Playstation game was a later sequel, not a port of the original. Give the GOG version a shot.
I'd kind of like an ATX-compatible clone of an Amiga 2000 case. Or an Amiga 4000 Tower.
I have a Sam440ep-flex board that I'd love to put into something that looks more Amiga-ish than the generic black case it's in now.
And putting a gaming-grade PC in one would have amusement potential as well.
Some forms of dyslexia cause a real problem with PINs.
Dunno about Android phones, but when I bought a brand-new spare battery for my Blackberry Q10 - which was about $30-ish - it came with a little charging adapter. In fact the charger encloses the battery completely and has a tiny short MicroUSB on it, so if I don't want to pull the battery from the Q10 and replace it, I can plug the charger into the phone and boost the battery.
They also sell the battery without the charger, but it was only a few dollars less.
I have no idea if it's what they're actually doing, but before the launch it was reported that it'd be rolling out in waves, so their download servers didn't get absolutely hammered.
When you get it depends on how early you reserved it, supposedly. If you don't want to wait, you can download the .iso and update that way.
You can still turn off automatic driver updates. It's one of the first things I did.
The control for it is in the Devices and Printers control panel, not Updates, which is fairly dumb, but that's the same place it was in Windows 7, so I guess it's at least consistent.
Okay look, a lot of this is bullshit.
Account Info privacy setting is staying disabled. It hasn't turned it back on.
Windows Defender can't be disabled because it DISABLES ITSELF when you install another antivirus. The exact same way it worked in Windows 8.
You CAN disable automatic updates for drivers.
Actually, let me repeat that in all caps.
YOU CAN DISABLE AUTOMATIC UPDATES FOR DRIVERS.
The control just isn't under updates. It's actually in the same place it is in Windows 7 - open the Devices and Printers control panel, right-click the icon for your computer, select Device Installation Settings, choose 'No, let me choose what to do' and 'Never install driver software from Windows Update'.
Granted, this does mean it doesn't even offer you the updates, but if you don't want drivers from Windows Update, you don't have to get them.
You can turn off the ads in the start menu.
You can turn off sharing your wifi password with people. (Though it's still bad - if you give your password to someone, they might share it.)
The 'keylogger' in that imgur pic's toggle is ghosted not because you can't turn it off, but because that service is entirely disabled by some other setting the guy's made. Probably the one that turns off Cortana.
There's plenty to dislike about Windows 10 without making up crap. Me, I hate the lack of subfolders in the Start menu. (My gog.com games folder has about 25 entries for 'Manual.pdf' because the menu ignores the per-game subfolders. Augh.)
All computers suck.
They all suck in different ways, however, and the trick is to find the one whose suckiness annoys you the least.
Lots of new games don't have a DX9 mode. And not all that many have a DX10; most go right to DX11. (DX11 does, however, have a mode that provides backwards compatibility to a point if you have a DX10 GPU.)
Quite a few new games also require a 64 bit OS, which makes supporting DX9 kind of pointless; there are very few people running Windows XP 64 bit.
Age of Mythology, Alien Isolation, ARMA 3, the recent Assassin's Creed games, the Battlefield series, Bioshock Infinite, the newer Call of Duty games, Crysis 3, Dark Souls II.. and I'm only up to D in Wikipedia's list of DX11 games, and there are plenty I didn't list because they're not 'big names'.
The Xbox One will also be getting an update to DirectX 12, which will probably drive a lot of use of it. After all, it's easier to port your XB1 games to Windows if you're using the same API on each.
DX11 is why I upgraded from XP to 7; not many games at the time supported it, but it was clear more were going to, and the ones that did looked a heck of a lot nicer. And often ran faster, as well.
DirectX 12. Windows 7 won't have it. And as someone who plays a lot of PC games, DirectX versions matter. A lot.
The main reason the Intel-based Commodore/Amiga/whatevers never made it to market appears to be that the guy running the company died.
The Commodore name still has a lot of cachet outside the US. It's also not been 'gone' as long overseas; someone licensed the name for a line of TVs and consumer electronics, for instance.
I thought the 'VIC-20' MP3 player was clever, at least; it had 20 gigs of storage.
I've been keeping smartphones in my pocket since there have been smartphones and have never had a problem.
Of course, I also have a phone that's the size of a phone, not some dumbass mini-tablet that was made as thin as can be apparently just to make it more fragile and drive up replacement part sales.
Why? Because with Flash video I just get a big blank box I can click to play it, and shit never autoplays.
Autoplaying video needs to die.
I updated my Mac mini from Snow Leopard to Yosemite.
So far as I can tell, the only thing better about Yosemite is that you can turn off the transparency effects.
That's it. If it wasn't for software that needed 10.7 or newer to run, I'd fuck right off back to 10.6.8.
So, an Amiga with the OS on a floppy with the write-protect tab enabled, and the applications on an Iomega Bernoulli 150 meg drive with the write-protect tab sticking out?
Oh wait, encryption. Well, I'm sure there's something on Aminet.
Those are all things I do miss from the Amiga, but here are the things I most miss:
The focus paradigm. Windows and Mac use 'click to focus, focus raises window to top'.
Xmouse is 'hover mouse over window to focus, click raises'.
Amiga did 'click focuses but does not raise window'. It combines the best of both - you can focus a window that's behind another one, and you don't have to worry about tapping the mouse (or trackpad!) and changing the focus because the pointer moved. You could also double-click to raise the window, and windows had a depth widget that would raise it to the front or push it to the back of the stack.
The other thing I miss are DataTypes. The easiest way to explain DataTypes is 'Video codecs, but for everything.' Install a PNG DataType and any program that works with images suddenly understands PNGs. There are text format DataTypes, sound format, video format, etc.
FF14 doesn't require Steam. It's on Steam, and you can get it there, but if you buy it anywhere else Steam isn't used at all.
And yes, they halted sales through the Square-Enix webstore and other retailers as well.