BSD operating systems have a history of being licensed under free software terms. Mac OS X is not free software; on the contrary, it's proprietary software that runs on proprietary hardware, and you don't know how much copy "protection" is in the hardware and software.
It takes a visionary company like Apple to wash and scrub an awful GUI like X away.
X is only a network-transparent graphics subsystem. The GUI is provided by X toolkits and clients such as GTK+ apps and Qt apps. (The Qt (not QT) logo looks too much like a hammer and sickle.) I agree that the GNOME people have a lot to learn from Apple, and vice versa.
Also, there's a tradeoff between supporting older machines and implementing an application with better features.
Make it like Mozilla, where you can compile out the "features" you don't want (also on windows) and get down to the one feature that matters: fast conforming browsing, leaving the bloat for those former AOLers who don't give a fig. Apps written in a modular fashion (where dead code can be removed in the install-linker) have only those features that you want. Who here still runs the standard Slack/RH/Debian "kernel with everything"?
once you get X going I'm up to more memory usage than in windows.
It takes a bit of trickery to extract useful information out of top. For example, if you look at the wrong column, multithreaded programs (e.g. Mozilla), programs that map files into memory, programs that use lots of shared libraries (e.g. GNOME applets), and programs that map peripheral address space (e.g. X server) appear to be using several times more memory than they are.
$1000 a year is all some people (namely, college students) are allowed to earn. Any money not earned through approved channels (Federal Work Study programs) is distributed thus: 50% taxes; 50% expected family contribution to tuition and fees at a private school.
�Other than Wonder Swan and GBA
on
Mario's Revenge?
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· Score: 1
There is only one handheld system that isn't a wonderswan and it's called the game boy advance.
But I am new to DVDs and I don't know what the significance of reading the second layer is. When would I encounter a problem due to this?
When 4.7 GB isn't enough space to hold MPEG-2 and AC3 data at the quality the studio wants to put its name on (for example, on longer or fast-action titles), there's an additional 3.something GB available in a second focus layer. It's almost like a side 2, except you don't have to get up and flip it (as you did with tapes).
Not to mention that it makes it A LOT easier to comment out a few lines of code - you surrond the lines to comment out with/* and */, and it works EVEN if there are comments (of the// type) inside the block. This is a thing that really makes me hate people who use/* */ as comment inside the code.
In languages with conditional preprocessing (such as C, assembly, and C++ but alas not Java), you're not supposed to comment out large blocks of code (more than about 2 lines); instead, condition them out with
vaguely related: damn I wish somebody would "back port" the "//" comment notation from C++ to C
It's already happened. It's in GNU C (the language that gcc compiles) and in C99 (for which there is no compiler, but gcc comes closest).
Here's another tip: Turn word wrap on in your editor and never have to deal with hardwrapping comments again. Just a/* (paragraphs of comments) */ with no hard returns except between paragraphs.
why I can never download Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon successfully.
The copyright gods look down on infringers. Simply wait 95 years, and you'll be able to download it for free from your local film preservation society.
Oh wait, you're a human. I keep forgetting that mortal humans don't live more than 85 years in most cases, which makes the copyright term quite pointless for implementing the "for limited Times" language of the U.S. Constitution.
If all we need is running games on linux, why don't we emulate consoles?
TuxNES, DGen, and SNES9x (both available from Zophar's Domain) are console emulators ported to GNU/Linux + X11. Those consoles are from back in the day when games were games and not merely interactive movies. Want shooters? Lifeforce for NES and Zero Wing for Genesis are still as fun as it was when it was first released (and still more fun than modern shooters such as Q3A/UT/Tribes). And yes, software is still being developed for NES.
No i mean running comsole games on as native x86 code.
You may have meant that (in the sense of xbox), but you said "gamecube" which is not x86 based in the slightest; it's actually built around a highly-customized PowerPC processor. Besides, how are you going to read GCN game media, which are not CD or DVD?
Most new emulators use a dynamic recompilation core anyway, to cache emulated instructions as native x86 code. (It's the same technique Pentium 4 implements in hardware.)
There is also Windows 2000, which runs all Windows programs better than anything else mentioned in this thread!
Assume that I (and perhaps other users connected to my system) want to run apps designed for working POSIX-compatible systems (not NT's bastardized "POSIX" subsystem) while I'm running Win32 apps. Assume further that I have already forked over three months' wages ($300) for Windows 2000. Apparent choices include
Run Linux on Windows 2000. This works through VMWare ($300; introductory offer has expired) or through Cygwin and has stability problems because the virtualizer is running on a kernel whose kernel-mode video drivers are one bit short of a proverbial byte. And there's still the virtualization overhead.
Run Windows 2000 on Linux. Again, VMWare costs $300. It also doesn't support DirectX, which is used by several multimedia apps.
Run Wine on Linux. Wine is a subsystem for x86-based Linux and BSD systems with an X server that implements the ECMA Win32 standard. There are about as many incompatibilities between Wine and Win32 apps as there are between ntoskrnl and VMWare. It's also a bit faster than VMWare because the apps are merely running on a different subsystem instead of a partial emulator.
Run Linux on my server and Windows 2000 on another box, which costs $1000 but adds the advantage of being able to run Direct3D apps.
For me, the killer app would be a Sony Playstation I emulator
bleem! is a PlayStation console emulator for Windows and Dreamcast.
If it can do that, I'll consider it over a PS2...
Compatible games look better on bleem! than on PS2.
Until the X-Box can do that,
The PC hardware used for PC bleem! is similar to the PC hardware used in Xbox. The Windows and Direct3D software that bleem! uses is similar to the Windows and Direct3D software that Xbox games use. Therefore, porting bleem! to Xbox should be a breeze.
Custom PIIIs with enhanced serial number system?
on
XBox Tidbits
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· Score: 2
see hte Xbox ships with a P3, any idea if they're still including the PSN number with that?
It'd be nice for copy control purposes. If too many copies of a game with the same serial number are being played online (such as in Internet multiplayer) on machines with different serial numbers, the game will randomly crash and throw up a PNG file of a BSOD. "Buy original unpirated software and it won't bluescreen on you."
This has been done on the original GB too (with quite bad results...) All of these methods require CPU power though, the GBA has sound hardware that can read directly from the cart.
Actually, it only requires CPU power on the NES because the sound DMA hardware is on the same die as the CPU. Write to memory locations $4010-$4013 to set up a sound DMA and $4015 to set it going, and it plays without any intervention from the 6502 until either the sound ends or is halted, stealing a 6502 cycle every so often to fetch a byte of compressed sound data. Here's some more information about NES's sample hardware.
In Europe, it's still in vigor (in several forms -- Aspirin, Aspirina, etc.), making it harder for the competition, which must bill themselves as acetylsalicylic acid....
Here's a map showing places where Bayer still owns the ASPIRIN® trademark.
--
If I were designing an operating system, I would set the Epoch as January 1, 1923. (Read More...)
most of the work (at least in AMOS) for manipulating the chipset had been done for you, an implemented as BASIC commands (like to scroll a graphics screen - you used the SCROLL command).
C is the same way. A decent 2D graphics library will have a function scroll_screen(x, y). The Basic version I remember (QBasic) was so limited that it didn't even support drawing primitives to offscreen bitmaps.
BASIC has the easiest learning curve (and if you already know BASIC, no learning curve).
Visual Basic != Blitz Basic. Lack of a recognized standard for the Basic language creates a tremendous learning curve from one dialect to another. For example, some dialects have line numbers; others don't. Some use gosub for function calls; others use call; others use fn; others have a more C-like syntax. Some Basic dialects have multiline if...then...else...endif; others only allow if condition then goto 12345.
I will never understand why BASIC is knocked so much nowadays
Mostly because people are under the impression that "20 goto 10" is still valid Basic. Exception handling under most dialects is a piece of; on error goto is a lousy kluge for a try/catch structure.
or some other engine, like Genesis
I always thought Genesis consoles were programmed in 68000 assembly.
There are several free, open-source [Basic] compilers for Linux
Will code written for one compile on another? I may try my hand at Basic again once I see one or both of these:
Standardization activity for the Basic language. Currently, the differences among dialects are so great that "programming in Basic" == "throwing portability out the window."
A frontend in the GNU Compiler Collection for Basic. Fast code needs a good optimizer; GCC's is one of the best.
Pingus. FreeCiv. Tetanus On Drugs. Scores of games at Allegro.cc. The whole NES, Game Boy, Genesis (INCLUDING Zero Wing), and SNES libraries (through emulators).
However, I feel sorry for the person whose first game programming attempts ever have to be in C.
I'd write essentially the guts of a simple driving game on it, download that and the sprite data at the start of the race, and then just send the relatively small amount of info indicating position and so on each frame.
Which means you'd still be decompressing the compressed data (in this case, sprite positions) on the GBA's puny 17 MHz processor. If you can make your rear-view scene simple enough to render in real-time on GBA, why not just release a GBA game instead?
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like C, they have standard compilers for C++, Pascal, COBOL
Do they have a compiler for object-oriented COBOL, i.e. ADD 1 TO COBOL ?
The only BSD that matters now is MacOSX
BSD operating systems have a history of being licensed under free software terms. Mac OS X is not free software; on the contrary, it's proprietary software that runs on proprietary hardware, and you don't know how much copy "protection" is in the hardware and software.
It takes a visionary company like Apple to wash and scrub an awful GUI like X away.
X is only a network-transparent graphics subsystem. The GUI is provided by X toolkits and clients such as GTK+ apps and Qt apps. (The Qt (not QT) logo looks too much like a hammer and sickle.) I agree that the GNOME people have a lot to learn from Apple, and vice versa.
essentially they seem to be charging large amounts of money for the same software compiled with different defines set enabling certain things.
They charge more for the advanced features because
Also, there's a tradeoff between supporting older machines and implementing an application with better features.
Make it like Mozilla, where you can compile out the "features" you don't want (also on windows) and get down to the one feature that matters: fast conforming browsing, leaving the bloat for those former AOLers who don't give a fig. Apps written in a modular fashion (where dead code can be removed in the install-linker) have only those features that you want. Who here still runs the standard Slack/RH/Debian "kernel with everything"?
once you get X going I'm up to more memory usage than in windows.
It takes a bit of trickery to extract useful information out of top. For example, if you look at the wrong column, multithreaded programs (e.g. Mozilla), programs that map files into memory, programs that use lots of shared libraries (e.g. GNOME applets), and programs that map peripheral address space (e.g. X server) appear to be using several times more memory than they are.
My biggest gripe tho is the 2GB they talk about needed
The win32 console application UPX compresses Windows applications and libraries to 50% of their original size or smaller.
Get a job with better pay
$1000 a year is all some people (namely, college students) are allowed to earn. Any money not earned through approved channels (Federal Work Study programs) is distributed thus: 50% taxes; 50% expected family contribution to tuition and fees at a private school.
There is only one handheld system that isn't a wonderswan and it's called the game boy advance.
What about the Neo-Geo Pocket Color? Or Palm devices?
But I am new to DVDs and I don't know what the significance of reading the second layer is. When would I encounter a problem due to this?
When 4.7 GB isn't enough space to hold MPEG-2 and AC3 data at the quality the studio wants to put its name on (for example, on longer or fast-action titles), there's an additional 3.something GB available in a second focus layer. It's almost like a side 2, except you don't have to get up and flip it (as you did with tapes).
Not to mention that it makes it A LOT easier to comment out a few lines of code - you surrond the lines to comment out with /* and */, and it works EVEN if there are comments (of the // type) inside the block. This is a thing that really makes me hate people who use /* */ as comment inside the code.
In languages with conditional preprocessing (such as C, assembly, and C++ but alas not Java), you're not supposed to comment out large blocks of code (more than about 2 lines); instead, condition them out with
vaguely related: damn I wish somebody would "back port" the "//" comment notation from C++ to C
It's already happened. It's in GNU C (the language that gcc compiles) and in C99 (for which there is no compiler, but gcc comes closest).
Here's another tip: Turn word wrap on in your editor and never have to deal with hardwrapping comments again. Just a /* (paragraphs of comments) */ with no hard returns except between paragraphs.
why I can never download Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon successfully.
The copyright gods look down on infringers. Simply wait 95 years, and you'll be able to download it for free from your local film preservation society.
Oh wait, you're a human. I keep forgetting that mortal humans don't live more than 85 years in most cases, which makes the copyright term quite pointless for implementing the "for limited Times" language of the U.S. Constitution.
If all we need is running games on linux, why don't we emulate consoles?
TuxNES, DGen, and SNES9x (both available from Zophar's Domain) are console emulators ported to GNU/Linux + X11. Those consoles are from back in the day when games were games and not merely interactive movies. Want shooters? Lifeforce for NES and Zero Wing for Genesis are still as fun as it was when it was first released (and still more fun than modern shooters such as Q3A/UT/Tribes). And yes, software is still being developed for NES.
No i mean running comsole games on as native x86 code.
You may have meant that (in the sense of xbox), but you said "gamecube" which is not x86 based in the slightest; it's actually built around a highly-customized PowerPC processor. Besides, how are you going to read GCN game media, which are not CD or DVD?
Most new emulators use a dynamic recompilation core anyway, to cache emulated instructions as native x86 code. (It's the same technique Pentium 4 implements in hardware.)
Actually, I kinda wish somebody would implement something like DirectX for Linux
Have you ever tried coding in SDL? It's a cross-platform 2D game library with graphics, input, and sound support.
What about Allegro? It's another cross-platform 2D game library, used by scores of free games such as Tetanus On Drugs. It also has a 3D addon that uses your platform's existing OpenGL support.
There is also Windows 2000, which runs all Windows programs better than anything else mentioned in this thread!
Assume that I (and perhaps other users connected to my system) want to run apps designed for working POSIX-compatible systems (not NT's bastardized "POSIX" subsystem) while I'm running Win32 apps. Assume further that I have already forked over three months' wages ($300) for Windows 2000. Apparent choices include
For me, the killer app would be a Sony Playstation I emulator
bleem! is a PlayStation console emulator for Windows and Dreamcast.
If it can do that, I'll consider it over a PS2...
Compatible games look better on bleem! than on PS2.
Until the X-Box can do that,
The PC hardware used for PC bleem! is similar to the PC hardware used in Xbox. The Windows and Direct3D software that bleem! uses is similar to the Windows and Direct3D software that Xbox games use. Therefore, porting bleem! to Xbox should be a breeze.
see hte Xbox ships with a P3, any idea if they're still including the PSN number with that?
It'd be nice for copy control purposes. If too many copies of a game with the same serial number are being played online (such as in Internet multiplayer) on machines with different serial numbers, the game will randomly crash and throw up a PNG file of a BSOD. "Buy original unpirated software and it won't bluescreen on you."
OSX allows me to very openly work in a heterogenious environment as Windows and the old MacOS seem to do the exact opposite
On Windows, there's Red Hat Cygwin, a Win32 version of GNU userland. On Classic Mac OS, there's MPW.
But if you do want to attempt this, please make an easy-to-use and easy-to-install Windows client
MSN Messenger.
easy to create new accounts
Just sign up for a Passport at hotmail.com and you have an MSN Messenger account.
little to no setup required [intelligent defaults], etc.) or else you'll never get a big enough userbase to make it useful...
Jabber's MSN transport still works. Isn't MSN almost beating AIM now in user base?
This has been done on the original GB too (with quite bad results...) All of these methods require CPU power though, the GBA has sound hardware that can read directly from the cart.
Actually, it only requires CPU power on the NES because the sound DMA hardware is on the same die as the CPU. Write to memory locations $4010-$4013 to set up a sound DMA and $4015 to set it going, and it plays without any intervention from the 6502 until either the sound ends or is halted, stealing a 6502 cycle every so often to fetch a byte of compressed sound data. Here's some more information about NES's sample hardware.
Bayer tried to protect its trademark on "aspirin" too late in the U.S.
Not exactly. Bayer used to own trademarks on ASPIRIN® and HEROIN® but lost them in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
In Europe, it's still in vigor (in several forms -- Aspirin, Aspirina, etc.), making it harder for the competition, which must bill themselves as acetylsalicylic acid....
Here's a map showing places where Bayer still owns the ASPIRIN® trademark.
--If I were designing an operating system, I would set the Epoch as January 1, 1923. (Read More...)
most of the work (at least in AMOS) for manipulating the chipset had been done for you, an implemented as BASIC commands (like to scroll a graphics screen - you used the SCROLL command).
C is the same way. A decent 2D graphics library will have a function scroll_screen(x, y). The Basic version I remember (QBasic) was so limited that it didn't even support drawing primitives to offscreen bitmaps.
BASIC has the easiest learning curve (and if you already know BASIC, no learning curve).
Visual Basic != Blitz Basic. Lack of a recognized standard for the Basic language creates a tremendous learning curve from one dialect to another. For example, some dialects have line numbers; others don't. Some use gosub for function calls; others use call; others use fn; others have a more C-like syntax. Some Basic dialects have multiline if...then...else...endif; others only allow if condition then goto 12345.
I will never understand why BASIC is knocked so much nowadays
Mostly because people are under the impression that "20 goto 10" is still valid Basic. Exception handling under most dialects is a piece of; on error goto is a lousy kluge for a try/catch structure.
or some other engine, like Genesis
I always thought Genesis consoles were programmed in 68000 assembly.
There are several free, open-source [Basic] compilers for Linux
Will code written for one compile on another? I may try my hand at Basic again once I see one or both of these:
Yeah. Tux Racer. Smiletris. Kickin', man!
Pingus. FreeCiv. Tetanus On Drugs. Scores of games at Allegro.cc. The whole NES, Game Boy, Genesis (INCLUDING Zero Wing), and SNES libraries (through emulators).
However, I feel sorry for the person whose first game programming attempts ever have to be in C.
And Basic is better how?
I'd write essentially the guts of a simple driving game on it, download that and the sprite data at the start of the race, and then just send the relatively small amount of info indicating position and so on each frame.
Which means you'd still be decompressing the compressed data (in this case, sprite positions) on the GBA's puny 17 MHz processor. If you can make your rear-view scene simple enough to render in real-time on GBA, why not just release a GBA game instead?