Do you know how much volatile RAM the Zodiac has? How much heap space?
As I pointed out a couple times, both models of the Zodiac have two SD slots, one a plain-old SD slot and one SDIO. Both can be used for SD flash RAM cards, and the SDIO slot can be used for adding wifi, a camera, etc etc.
Man, I really wished the Zodiac had a little camera, ala the Zire 71. If it did... I'd probably buy one, even without PalmOS 6! I have really wanted a little camera in my PDA for a while, for capturing those moments I hadn't anticipated. I am thinking of getting a Zaurus 71, but really want to wait until something running POS 6 comes along. And don't want to use a camera card- if I wanted that, I'd do it on my WinCE machine. But it's a pain, no thanks.
It's too bad that TapWave doesn't market the Zodiac more for PalmOS fanatics and PDA enthusiasts as a really nice PalmOS PDA that is also well equipped for playing games. Because that is what it is. Rather, it seems they are pushing the whole GBA killer angle. Almost no one in the market for a $80 handheld console is willing to add on $200 or $300 to go all out on a PDA. On the other hand, folks in the market for a $200-500 PDA would be willing to check out the Zodiac.
Some apps are set up to handle it. Partially, it depends on the IM protocol. But I've used plenty of networking apps- IRC is what I use most- where I have to go through the whole reconnection process if I ever have to leave the app and start another. Mind you, with some DAs/hacks you could get at some data- paste an address from your address book, stuff like that- but I am talking about totally leaving the program.
Heck, on the Tungsten C that I had for a while [1] I had to re-establish the wifi connection almost every time I switched from a network app to a non-net app and back to a net-app, whether or not it was the same or different. And yes, I told it *not* to drop the connection, and set a pretty big time out. It was very aggrivating.
[1] The Tungsten C was the first modern PalmOS device I had. I only owned it for a week. I went back to my Windows CE device for wifi and real work, and got a hold of a used Palm m130 for use as a PDA- as opposed to a computer+PDA, a "PMT" in Zaurus marketroidspeak. It is a good combo. Unless I could be running POS 6, I prefer having a less powerful PalmOS device. Because then I don't have to live with the tremendous frustration of constantly being held back by what POS 5.x and under lacks. The m130 does what it does very well; the Tungsten C, with more advanced features does not do what it does as well. This should change in POS 6, yes, and I can't wait to see what Palm gives us in that regard.
It's more so the other way around that it's being done. It already is doable on the PC, and is being ported to the Zaurus. Not mentioned in this post, but it seems to be borrowing a lot from GNUstep, which has been very slowly working toward this goal for what seems like 10 years.
Being "just a newer release of OpenStep" doesn't mean it is somehow suddenly easy to reimplement the whole API.
Actually it looks like the Zaurus thing is mostly a port of GNUstep, so it's not even entirely new stuff.
Ah, I am glad to hear that. I've seen the myStep project before, whilst browsing ZSI and such, and wondered why the hell they would start over again from scatch. Mostly though, I doubted the project would get far if they were doing that. Even if they're porting GNUstep, it seems that they won't get that far- Zaurus projects have a habit of not being finished.
OK, don't mean to be a tool (third pr0st!@) by submitting the only two readable posts so far, but...
Anyone heard about their plans to bring PalmOS 6 to the TapWave? Anyone know if there will be a software upgrade for the existing devices, or if not, a new device with the newer OS? Any rumors?
In my other post, I said that if I was going to be buying a PalmOS PDA, I would get one of these. I won't buy a PalmOS device until at least PalmOS 6- I need the functionality of something closer to a "real" OS. PalmOS 5 simply doesn't cut it for me, for reasons I've spouted off off on here a d dozen times. I use my PDA as a computer, and my primary computer is a PDA. I know I am in the minority on that one, but regardless I still expect to be able to maintain an IRC or IM connection if I need to go into my address book and grab a phone number.
Multitasking isn't neccesary on an overpriced electronic organizer. But it is on anything that claims to be a multimedia PDA. The Newton had it in 1993- why not the Palm in 2004?
Once I can buy a PalmOS 6 TapWave, I think I shall. PalmOS is a pretty decent piece of work, but just doesn't cut it for me.
I said it before- here and elsewhere- and I'll say it again. If I were in the market for a many functioned PalmOS PDA, I would get a TapWave Zodiac. And I can't say I would plan on buying more than a couple games, a few classics or puzzle games that I would play often.
For $400, you get a pretty nice PalmOS machine. A fast CPU, a big and nice screen, bluetooth, dual SDIO slots, and a heaping helping of RAM. For $300 you get all that, but with 32 MB instead of 128 MB of RAM- still a nice price for a nice machine. Similarily equipped Sony or PalmOne devices often cost more- and none of them have dual SD slots. Definately a handy thing to have, especially if you don't have both CF and SD.
I keep accidentally tearing morphs apart, can't get them back together, or they get "lost" somehow, and I can't get them back.
One can easily turn this off on a Morph, either through direct manipulation or programatically. I have written a lot of code in Squeak, mostly traditional "boring" applications, not fancy things involving fancy drag and drop or anything like that. You can't accidentally deconstruct my apps by holding the mouse down when you didn't mean to. I don't know of any apps where you can do this. Certainly, you can compose your own complex morph and tear it apart again, but if you're planning on using this morph as a tool, it would be worth the second of time it takes to tell it to not allow that.
Seriously, the frustration makes me want to cry sometimes. Mostly I just want to have a commandline for squeak that I can introspect, browse, and manipulate everything from if I want to, because I'm constantly getting lost in a GUI that seems designed to be as counfounding as possible.
I've done some work with Squeak from a commandline. That is, using the CommandShell for Squeak. Not as featurefilled as would be needed for it to be used as the primary development tool, but a lot of the basics are already in there. Write a couple of command plugins for CommandShell, and you could do it pretty easily. For instance, you could have an "edit" command invoked like so: "edit SomeMorph initialize" which would open up an editor- be it vi or emacs (via the xterm morph), or just the regular text editor in Squeak. Save and quit, and the change is there and made effective.
I certainly didn't grow up with Squeak, and didn't find it all that hard. I even had learned more traditional GUI toolkits- Java/Swing and Python/Tk- before learning Morphic. After being introduced to the flexibility in Squeak and Morphic, I find it hard to deal with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux, where I am confined and constrained. Some people like to be kept in a little box where they haven't control- that's fine. To each her own.
Squeak isn't perfect, but your objections haven't applied for years...
squeak is nice, but the interface is nothing short of horrendous. a limited set of fonts, all ugly as sin, and tiny widgets that require precise aim, combined with a focus model nothing short of schizophrenic -- some places it's click, other places it's hover.
Indeed, the default look of Squeak is pretty bad. But the issues you mention are fixable, and fixed pretty easily in SqueakMap. Anti-aliased true-type fonts, loaded from.ttf files. Or, another package will allow you to hook into the Windows font system directly, making any font you can use in Windows accessable in Squeak.
You can use IceWM themes in Squeak. Nothing special- just load the packages, tell it where your IceWM themes folder is, and load.
Widgets have gotten a lot better, now that people aren't using the MVC backwards compatibility ones. You could always make them bigger, in your own apps or the built-in ones- even for those old-school MVC widgets.
The focus model has become less schizophrenic, as you put it, a few years ago. You can switch between click to focus and focus follows mouse. Even so, with focus follows mouse, you still have to *click* on a window to switch to it, to raise it; but if you want the window to pop up when you have the mouse pointer within the window's area, that is easy as well. Not a built-in preference, but literally something you can add with one line of code. I've shown folks on the Squeak IRC channel how to do it a couple times (#squeak on irc.freenode.net), it makes a neat demo. With what other windowing system could you claim that?
Once you get past the "look i can drag widgets in and tweak their properties" playground, squeak leaves you absolutely aimless and adrift, with an absolute lack of any API documentation whatsoever on real applications.
As I said, documentation isn't great. It isn't as bad as you're saying; perhaps you were forced to use an old version 5 year back at GA Tech or something. I learned Smalltalk and Squeak quite easily years ago without one book or formal API reference. There are countless examples on how to do stuff, within the image and outside of it.
And frankly the squeak object browser is not all that hot -- I'll take the tree-based browser view that modern C++ and Java IDE's like eclipse provide over the dated and klunky listbox-based smalltalk browser any day.
Yeah, you must've been stuck with Squeak 2.6 at GA Tech. Probably mad that the prof made you use Squeak rather than C++ or Java for learning OOP, too.
There are tree-based browsers for any Smalltalk implementation, with the exception of GNU Smalltalk. There are object and class browsers that take it far beyond the standard class browser of Smalltalk-80 or the Eclipse IDE. These include the Whisker Browser, the Star Browser, the Refactoring Browser and others. I personally really like the Whisker Browser and use it about half of the time, with the old school browser the rest.
Even with more advanced tools, it is hard to dis the standard Class Browser in Squeak. It was a tool created in the late 1970s, and still kicked the asses of most tools for C++ and Java until Eclipse. Even something so simple as the default class browser can be a very powerful tool. Far more useful than a flat file.
But why would you want to run Linux on the Cube when it has no high-capacity storage (i.e., hard drive)?
Perhaps I shouldn't be the one to answer- I can't see any compelling reason for running Linux on the Gamecube, even considering my answer. *shrug*
There's no reason someone porting Linux to the GC, or someone interested in using the port, couldn't add a hard drive or a more regular media drive to the GC through one of the high-speed ports on the bottom of the GC.
For me, the only useful reason to have Linux running on the GC wouldn't even require a HD. That is, it might make a nice cheap cluster machine. A pretty fast 485 MHz PowerPC chip, fast bus, etc for only $99 new, possibly less in bulk. And small. You could buy 20 of these, use the optional official ethernet card (or something home brewed, fiber?) and have a zippy cluster that isn't all that big.
Even then, it doesn't seem that worthit. But whatever, I'm not the one doing the port.:)
The biggest reason you don't see these kind of books these days is because of the languages being used to teachcomputer science and even just plain programming. Even BASIC has evolved into something for grown ups, something people geting paid use to write apps- VisualBasic, REALBasic, and other similar tools.
Which isn't to say that old-school BASICs don't exist anymore, they do. They are plentiful and free. There is no reason that a kid today, or in 10 or 20 years from now couldn't pick up one of those books, start typing and have a good time learning. There are BASIC implementaitons natively for Mac OS, Windows or Linux that emulate classic BASICs like AppleSoft's or Microsoft's GWBASIC/BASICA. There is also the opton of emulating an Apple ][, Commodore, etc.
But perhaps you want something flashier, something more modern.
One system I'd reccomend is Squeak Smalltalk. Unfortunately, one of the things Squeak really lacks is documentation, especially in book-form. This has a lot to do with the way most folks learn Smalltalk (by doing, rather than reading) as well as aspects of the community and other factors. If you download Squeak (see here) and run it, there are a bunch of demos there to be played with, as well as some tutorials. They make for a great start for someone with a little (or even no) programming experience or formal computer science knowledge.
One of the neat features for Squeak (that you get when you download the version with all the libraries) is an implementation of Alice, which is a scriptable 3D environment for world-building and games. A lot of fun to move that bunny around, especially if you're a kid who likes to see a direct correlation between what you type and what goes on on the screen.
In addition to this, Squeak also comes with a scripting environment called eToys. It
For an example of how to use the Squeak eToys scripting system to make a more traditional application, see this Rolodex tutorial. or, for something a little more fun, check this out. introducing yourself to Squeak makes for a great starting point for experienced folks and newbies alike. Of course, there is also tutle graphics, which even I've used in more "grown up" applications, for modelling dynamic system.
Best yet- Squeak is totally Free. It is free down to its core, the system being open in a way that C, C++ and Java have no analogous structure. Smalltalk has been open since the beginning in almost every way you can think of. Even commercial implemtations, you still have the power to see pretty much all of the source, and changing if you so desire. In addition to being open source and free, Squeak Smalltalk runs on more than 20 platforms, including Linux, Mac OS X & Classic, Windows and pretty much every Unix one could imagine. Unlike what people sometimes experience with Java, it truly is write-once, run-everywhere, with your entire app being encapsulated in just two files- the virtual machine and the image. Even if your target platform doesn't have a VM installed already, it's just a matter having it zipped up in your installer or archive- just one extra file, often less than even a MB.
I meant to say a little, but that is a lot to chew in one mouthful!
compilers may improve in generating more efficient binary code from eiffel. computers may get faster, making that hello world file take less than minutes on end.
but the one thing that really won't change is the language. it still takes 20 lines to make a hello world in Eiffel.
Except, before you'd recieve more comments about this watch, you'd have to annoying and bore everyone you meet with a story about your watch. Otherwise, most folks would just see a watch, albeit a nice one.
"Hi! Nice to meet you. Oh, just, uh, FYI- I am an intelligent, interesting and balanced human being because I have a watch model that has been worn by astronauts. Let me tell you all about it!"
Neat watch, sure. But I try to impress folks by being an interesting and engaging person rather than by fancy watches. But then again, I don't own a wrist chronograph.
uh... but a game and watch unit doesn't go on your wrist. if you're carrying around one of those all the time to use as a clock (heh) you may as well carry around a real PDA. Like a Zire 71, which the Asker is already doing.
I don't know about being "major" collectors items- you can buy one on eBay for $20-40. Cool toys, to be sure- especially with really good games like Fire or Cement.
Exactly! I am considering getting a watch like this myself. I plan on hacking- stuff on the machine running at home, rather than the watch. Various services- IM, stocks, news, weather etc etc will be available on a recieve-only basis. But with the ability to send IMs to your watch, I'll have my linux machine at home spitting out messages via MSN for everything- emails with a certain topic, other alerts. mmm, a lot of fun to be had!
Hollywood forgot what it was like to make new movies. These days, they prefer to do remakes or sequels to movies made long, long ago. I imagine there are interesting and original scripts out there that would make good movies, but Hollywood ain't using them.
They are in the business of making money, not providing good movies. There was a time when those two overlapped more, and perhaps could still today- but Hollywood doesn't seem to think so. They'd rather try to beat every dead horse they can find, capitalizing on nostalgia.
how do these work? are they just infrared sensors?
I for one would love to have the ability- preferably by a monacle, though glasses would look more normal- to see infrared. you can learn a lot from a person's IR "aura." the claim here is dorky enough is that it may be cheap enough for me...
I watched most of the first season. It wasn't great, but it was OK- we figured that for a first season it wasn't bad, maybe even a little above average. But now, in the third season (?), they have gone downhill rather than improved.
From what I've read, the folks behind Ent are trying for a Babylon 5-like continuous story arc. Not traditional Trek turf. Let B5 do what B5 does well- Trek should go back to being Trek. I highly doubt Enterprise's writers have the next few years of story thought out, something needed for a continous story arc. To me, it seems like they're making up as they go along, trying to keep a thread going, but only knowing what will happen a couple episodes into the future.
Meeeh, big deal. Go buy one. You could probably go pick up a used in good condition or a refurb for $50, as much as a lot of GC/PS2/Xbox games. You know you want to!
Thanks for the idea. On your reccomendation, I downloaded Soulseek and tried to find some stuff. Sure enough, the selection was a ton better than I've ever seen on LimeWIre/Gnutella. But, I wasn't able to download anything, it just sat there waiting and waiting, but never starting the download. That could be my firewall- have any clue off hand what port I would need to forward? Otherwise, I just assume it's the general p2p syndrome.:)
mmmm MODs! my first mp2 may have been in 1995, but I was making and listening to MOD files for quite a while as well. More fun than MP3s. It's great to be able to do a remix of an artist you like without having to beg for source tapes and samples- because in a MOD file, they are already there!:)
I used FastTracker ][ for my own music, mostly. Until the year 2000 when my stinking Maxtor drive died, killing all of my music.
I never got Audiogalaxy working with Linux (as was supposed to be possible), but in the days before Audiogalaxy there was Napster. Now that was a treat. I don't think I've ever found a music downloading system anywhere near the original Napster, in the earlier days. Before colleges and ISPs started to cap of Napster traffic.
Back then, I could actually find music I liked. On systems like LimeWire today, there is just shit, though if you liked Top 40 stuff, you'd probably be happy. But even then, it's damn near impossible to get the whole album, and you're usually stuck with one and a half songs. And usually it took a lot of work to get even to that point.
With OG napster, I'd find some other user with a like for industrial music or david bowie. Select the full albums, and download. I often got 100 KB/sec, though plenty of times I hit 200-300 KB/sec, but rarely was I stuck with songs that only were provided by slowfolks, 50 KB/sec.
anyone else here start their electronic music collection before mp3s, rather with mp2 files?
The first mp2 I downloaded was a remix of David Bowie's "Heart's Fifthy Lesson" from the truly incredible "1. Outside" album. I don't know anyone else whose first downloaded song was an mp2, but I'm sure there are some of you out there. I believe the year was 1996.
David Bowie, unlike most artists, is very forward thinking. One could write a long essay about this, but even back then he saw the value, the way it could change the music industry. These mp2s were legit, legal downloads, offered on his website.
But if you're going to be a stickler, the first mp3 file I downloaded was a Wumpscut album. Dont' remember which one. But unlike the mp2, which was bigger in size and lower in soudn quality, I couldn't play it on the 486sx/25 that was the family computer.:)
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Do you know how much volatile RAM the Zodiac has? How much heap space?
As I pointed out a couple times, both models of the Zodiac have two SD slots, one a plain-old SD slot and one SDIO. Both can be used for SD flash RAM cards, and the SDIO slot can be used for adding wifi, a camera, etc etc.
Man, I really wished the Zodiac had a little camera, ala the Zire 71. If it did... I'd probably buy one, even without PalmOS 6! I have really wanted a little camera in my PDA for a while, for capturing those moments I hadn't anticipated. I am thinking of getting a Zaurus 71, but really want to wait until something running POS 6 comes along. And don't want to use a camera card- if I wanted that, I'd do it on my WinCE machine. But it's a pain, no thanks.
It's too bad that TapWave doesn't market the Zodiac more for PalmOS fanatics and PDA enthusiasts as a really nice PalmOS PDA that is also well equipped for playing games. Because that is what it is. Rather, it seems they are pushing the whole GBA killer angle. Almost no one in the market for a $80 handheld console is willing to add on $200 or $300 to go all out on a PDA. On the other hand, folks in the market for a $200-500 PDA would be willing to check out the Zodiac.
Some apps are set up to handle it. Partially, it depends on the IM protocol. But I've used plenty of networking apps- IRC is what I use most- where I have to go through the whole reconnection process if I ever have to leave the app and start another. Mind you, with some DAs/hacks you could get at some data- paste an address from your address book, stuff like that- but I am talking about totally leaving the program.
Heck, on the Tungsten C that I had for a while [1] I had to re-establish the wifi connection almost every time I switched from a network app to a non-net app and back to a net-app, whether or not it was the same or different. And yes, I told it *not* to drop the connection, and set a pretty big time out. It was very aggrivating.
[1] The Tungsten C was the first modern PalmOS device I had. I only owned it for a week. I went back to my Windows CE device for wifi and real work, and got a hold of a used Palm m130 for use as a PDA- as opposed to a computer+PDA, a "PMT" in Zaurus marketroidspeak. It is a good combo. Unless I could be running POS 6, I prefer having a less powerful PalmOS device. Because then I don't have to live with the tremendous frustration of constantly being held back by what POS 5.x and under lacks. The m130 does what it does very well; the Tungsten C, with more advanced features does not do what it does as well. This should change in POS 6, yes, and I can't wait to see what Palm gives us in that regard.
It's more so the other way around that it's being done. It already is doable on the PC, and is being ported to the Zaurus. Not mentioned in this post, but it seems to be borrowing a lot from GNUstep, which has been very slowly working toward this goal for what seems like 10 years.
Being "just a newer release of OpenStep" doesn't mean it is somehow suddenly easy to reimplement the whole API.
Actually it looks like the Zaurus thing is mostly a port of GNUstep, so it's not even entirely new stuff.
Ah, I am glad to hear that. I've seen the myStep project before, whilst browsing ZSI and such, and wondered why the hell they would start over again from scatch. Mostly though, I doubted the project would get far if they were doing that. Even if they're porting GNUstep, it seems that they won't get that far- Zaurus projects have a habit of not being finished.
OK, don't mean to be a tool (third pr0st!@) by submitting the only two readable posts so far, but ...
Anyone heard about their plans to bring PalmOS 6 to the TapWave? Anyone know if there will be a software upgrade for the existing devices, or if not, a new device with the newer OS? Any rumors?
In my other post, I said that if I was going to be buying a PalmOS PDA, I would get one of these. I won't buy a PalmOS device until at least PalmOS 6- I need the functionality of something closer to a "real" OS. PalmOS 5 simply doesn't cut it for me, for reasons I've spouted off off on here a d dozen times. I use my PDA as a computer, and my primary computer is a PDA. I know I am in the minority on that one, but regardless I still expect to be able to maintain an IRC or IM connection if I need to go into my address book and grab a phone number.
Multitasking isn't neccesary on an overpriced electronic organizer. But it is on anything that claims to be a multimedia PDA. The Newton had it in 1993- why not the Palm in 2004?
Once I can buy a PalmOS 6 TapWave, I think I shall. PalmOS is a pretty decent piece of work, but just doesn't cut it for me.
I said it before- here and elsewhere- and I'll say it again. If I were in the market for a many functioned PalmOS PDA, I would get a TapWave Zodiac. And I can't say I would plan on buying more than a couple games, a few classics or puzzle games that I would play often.
For $400, you get a pretty nice PalmOS machine. A fast CPU, a big and nice screen, bluetooth, dual SDIO slots, and a heaping helping of RAM. For $300 you get all that, but with 32 MB instead of 128 MB of RAM- still a nice price for a nice machine. Similarily equipped Sony or PalmOne devices often cost more- and none of them have dual SD slots. Definately a handy thing to have, especially if you don't have both CF and SD.
I keep accidentally tearing morphs apart, can't get them back together, or they get "lost" somehow, and I can't get them back.
One can easily turn this off on a Morph, either through direct manipulation or programatically. I have written a lot of code in Squeak, mostly traditional "boring" applications, not fancy things involving fancy drag and drop or anything like that. You can't accidentally deconstruct my apps by holding the mouse down when you didn't mean to. I don't know of any apps where you can do this. Certainly, you can compose your own complex morph and tear it apart again, but if you're planning on using this morph as a tool, it would be worth the second of time it takes to tell it to not allow that.
Seriously, the frustration makes me want to cry sometimes. Mostly I just want to have a commandline for squeak that I can introspect, browse, and manipulate everything from if I want to, because I'm constantly getting lost in a GUI that seems designed to be as counfounding as possible.
I've done some work with Squeak from a commandline. That is, using the CommandShell for Squeak. Not as featurefilled as would be needed for it to be used as the primary development tool, but a lot of the basics are already in there. Write a couple of command plugins for CommandShell, and you could do it pretty easily. For instance, you could have an "edit" command invoked like so: "edit SomeMorph initialize" which would open up an editor- be it vi or emacs (via the xterm morph), or just the regular text editor in Squeak. Save and quit, and the change is there and made effective.
I certainly didn't grow up with Squeak, and didn't find it all that hard. I even had learned more traditional GUI toolkits- Java/Swing and Python/Tk- before learning Morphic. After being introduced to the flexibility in Squeak and Morphic, I find it hard to deal with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux, where I am confined and constrained. Some people like to be kept in a little box where they haven't control- that's fine. To each her own.
Squeak isn't perfect, but your objections haven't applied for years...
squeak is nice, but the interface is nothing short of horrendous. a limited set of fonts, all ugly as sin, and tiny widgets that require precise aim, combined with a focus model nothing short of schizophrenic -- some places it's click, other places it's hover.
.ttf files. Or, another package will allow you to hook into the Windows font system directly, making any font you can use in Windows accessable in Squeak.
Indeed, the default look of Squeak is pretty bad. But the issues you mention are fixable, and fixed pretty easily in SqueakMap. Anti-aliased true-type fonts, loaded from
You can use IceWM themes in Squeak. Nothing special- just load the packages, tell it where your IceWM themes folder is, and load.
Widgets have gotten a lot better, now that people aren't using the MVC backwards compatibility ones. You could always make them bigger, in your own apps or the built-in ones- even for those old-school MVC widgets.
The focus model has become less schizophrenic, as you put it, a few years ago. You can switch between click to focus and focus follows mouse. Even so, with focus follows mouse, you still have to *click* on a window to switch to it, to raise it; but if you want the window to pop up when you have the mouse pointer within the window's area, that is easy as well. Not a built-in preference, but literally something you can add with one line of code. I've shown folks on the Squeak IRC channel how to do it a couple times (#squeak on irc.freenode.net), it makes a neat demo. With what other windowing system could you claim that?
Once you get past the "look i can drag widgets in and tweak their properties" playground, squeak leaves you absolutely aimless and adrift, with an absolute lack of any API documentation whatsoever on real applications.
As I said, documentation isn't great. It isn't as bad as you're saying; perhaps you were forced to use an old version 5 year back at GA Tech or something. I learned Smalltalk and Squeak quite easily years ago without one book or formal API reference. There are countless examples on how to do stuff, within the image and outside of it.
And frankly the squeak object browser is not all that hot -- I'll take the tree-based browser view that modern C++ and Java IDE's like eclipse provide over the dated and klunky listbox-based smalltalk browser any day.
Yeah, you must've been stuck with Squeak 2.6 at GA Tech. Probably mad that the prof made you use Squeak rather than C++ or Java for learning OOP, too.
There are tree-based browsers for any Smalltalk implementation, with the exception of GNU Smalltalk. There are object and class browsers that take it far beyond the standard class browser of Smalltalk-80 or the Eclipse IDE. These include the Whisker Browser, the Star Browser, the Refactoring Browser and others. I personally really like the Whisker Browser and use it about half of the time, with the old school browser the rest.
Even with more advanced tools, it is hard to dis the standard Class Browser in Squeak. It was a tool created in the late 1970s, and still kicked the asses of most tools for C++ and Java until Eclipse. Even something so simple as the default class browser can be a very powerful tool. Far more useful than a flat file.
But why would you want to run Linux on the Cube when it has no high-capacity storage (i.e., hard drive)?
:)
Perhaps I shouldn't be the one to answer- I can't see any compelling reason for running Linux on the Gamecube, even considering my answer. *shrug*
There's no reason someone porting Linux to the GC, or someone interested in using the port, couldn't add a hard drive or a more regular media drive to the GC through one of the high-speed ports on the bottom of the GC.
For me, the only useful reason to have Linux running on the GC wouldn't even require a HD. That is, it might make a nice cheap cluster machine. A pretty fast 485 MHz PowerPC chip, fast bus, etc for only $99 new, possibly less in bulk. And small. You could buy 20 of these, use the optional official ethernet card (or something home brewed, fiber?) and have a zippy cluster that isn't all that big.
Even then, it doesn't seem that worthit. But whatever, I'm not the one doing the port.
The biggest reason you don't see these kind of books these days is because of the languages being used to teachcomputer science and even just plain programming. Even BASIC has evolved into something for grown ups, something people geting paid use to write apps- VisualBasic, REALBasic, and other similar tools.
Which isn't to say that old-school BASICs don't exist anymore, they do. They are plentiful and free. There is no reason that a kid today, or in 10 or 20 years from now couldn't pick up one of those books, start typing and have a good time learning. There are BASIC implementaitons natively for Mac OS, Windows or Linux that emulate classic BASICs like AppleSoft's or Microsoft's GWBASIC/BASICA. There is also the opton of emulating an Apple ][, Commodore, etc.
But perhaps you want something flashier, something more modern.
One system I'd reccomend is Squeak Smalltalk. Unfortunately, one of the things Squeak really lacks is documentation, especially in book-form. This has a lot to do with the way most folks learn Smalltalk (by doing, rather than reading) as well as aspects of the community and other factors. If you download Squeak (see here) and run it, there are a bunch of demos there to be played with, as well as some tutorials. They make for a great start for someone with a little (or even no) programming experience or formal computer science knowledge.
One of the neat features for Squeak (that you get when you download the version with all the libraries) is an implementation of Alice, which is a scriptable 3D environment for world-building and games. A lot of fun to move that bunny around, especially if you're a kid who likes to see a direct correlation between what you type and what goes on on the screen.
In addition to this, Squeak also comes with a scripting environment called eToys. It
For an example of how to use the Squeak eToys scripting system to make a more traditional application, see this Rolodex tutorial. or, for something a little more fun, check this out. introducing yourself to Squeak makes for a great starting point for experienced folks and newbies alike. Of course, there is also tutle graphics, which even I've used in more "grown up" applications, for modelling dynamic system.
Best yet- Squeak is totally Free. It is free down to its core, the system being open in a way that C, C++ and Java have no analogous structure. Smalltalk has been open since the beginning in almost every way you can think of. Even commercial implemtations, you still have the power to see pretty much all of the source, and changing if you so desire. In addition to being open source and free, Squeak Smalltalk runs on more than 20 platforms, including Linux, Mac OS X & Classic, Windows and pretty much every Unix one could imagine. Unlike what people sometimes experience with Java, it truly is write-once, run-everywhere, with your entire app being encapsulated in just two files- the virtual machine and the image. Even if your target platform doesn't have a VM installed already, it's just a matter having it zipped up in your installer or archive- just one extra file, often less than even a MB.
I meant to say a little, but that is a lot to chew in one mouthful!
compilers may improve in generating more efficient binary code from eiffel. computers may get faster, making that hello world file take less than minutes on end.
but the one thing that really won't change is the language. it still takes 20 lines to make a hello world in Eiffel.
Except, before you'd recieve more comments about this watch, you'd have to annoying and bore everyone you meet with a story about your watch. Otherwise, most folks would just see a watch, albeit a nice one.
"Hi! Nice to meet you. Oh, just, uh, FYI- I am an intelligent, interesting and balanced human being because I have a watch model that has been worn by astronauts. Let me tell you all about it!"
Neat watch, sure. But I try to impress folks by being an interesting and engaging person rather than by fancy watches. But then again, I don't own a wrist chronograph.
uh... but a game and watch unit doesn't go on your wrist. if you're carrying around one of those all the time to use as a clock (heh) you may as well carry around a real PDA. Like a Zire 71, which the Asker is already doing.
I don't know about being "major" collectors items- you can buy one on eBay for $20-40. Cool toys, to be sure- especially with really good games like Fire or Cement.
Exactly! I am considering getting a watch like this myself. I plan on hacking- stuff on the machine running at home, rather than the watch. Various services- IM, stocks, news, weather etc etc will be available on a recieve-only basis. But with the ability to send IMs to your watch, I'll have my linux machine at home spitting out messages via MSN for everything- emails with a certain topic, other alerts. mmm, a lot of fun to be had!
Hollywood forgot what it was like to make new movies. These days, they prefer to do remakes or sequels to movies made long, long ago. I imagine there are interesting and original scripts out there that would make good movies, but Hollywood ain't using them.
They are in the business of making money, not providing good movies. There was a time when those two overlapped more, and perhaps could still today- but Hollywood doesn't seem to think so. They'd rather try to beat every dead horse they can find, capitalizing on nostalgia.
Call me whacky, but I think that sounds pretty fun, actually. I'd be fine with Mr. Bombadizzilly telling us stories of earlier times...
how do these work? are they just infrared sensors?
I for one would love to have the ability- preferably by a monacle, though glasses would look more normal- to see infrared. you can learn a lot from a person's IR "aura." the claim here is dorky enough is that it may be cheap enough for me...
I watched most of the first season. It wasn't great, but it was OK- we figured that for a first season it wasn't bad, maybe even a little above average. But now, in the third season (?), they have gone downhill rather than improved.
From what I've read, the folks behind Ent are trying for a Babylon 5-like continuous story arc. Not traditional Trek turf. Let B5 do what B5 does well- Trek should go back to being Trek. I highly doubt Enterprise's writers have the next few years of story thought out, something needed for a continous story arc. To me, it seems like they're making up as they go along, trying to keep a thread going, but only knowing what will happen a couple episodes into the future.
"human communication: doing the work so I don't have to." thanks! Sure, I could've RTFM'd, but ... well, there is no good excuse. thanks!
And it's only out for GameCube! (sobs)
Meeeh, big deal. Go buy one. You could probably go pick up a used in good condition or a refurb for $50, as much as a lot of GC/PS2/Xbox games. You know you want to!
Thanks for the idea. On your reccomendation, I downloaded Soulseek and tried to find some stuff. Sure enough, the selection was a ton better than I've ever seen on LimeWIre/Gnutella. But, I wasn't able to download anything, it just sat there waiting and waiting, but never starting the download. That could be my firewall- have any clue off hand what port I would need to forward? Otherwise, I just assume it's the general p2p syndrome. :)
mmmm MODs! my first mp2 may have been in 1995, but I was making and listening to MOD files for quite a while as well. More fun than MP3s. It's great to be able to do a remix of an artist you like without having to beg for source tapes and samples- because in a MOD file, they are already there! :)
I used FastTracker ][ for my own music, mostly. Until the year 2000 when my stinking Maxtor drive died, killing all of my music.
I never got Audiogalaxy working with Linux (as was supposed to be possible), but in the days before Audiogalaxy there was Napster. Now that was a treat. I don't think I've ever found a music downloading system anywhere near the original Napster, in the earlier days. Before colleges and ISPs started to cap of Napster traffic.
Back then, I could actually find music I liked. On systems like LimeWire today, there is just shit, though if you liked Top 40 stuff, you'd probably be happy. But even then, it's damn near impossible to get the whole album, and you're usually stuck with one and a half songs. And usually it took a lot of work to get even to that point.
With OG napster, I'd find some other user with a like for industrial music or david bowie. Select the full albums, and download. I often got 100 KB/sec, though plenty of times I hit 200-300 KB/sec, but rarely was I stuck with songs that only were provided by slowfolks, 50 KB/sec.
hear it here.
anyone else here start their electronic music collection before mp3s, rather with mp2 files?
:)
The first mp2 I downloaded was a remix of David Bowie's "Heart's Fifthy Lesson" from the truly incredible "1. Outside" album. I don't know anyone else whose first downloaded song was an mp2, but I'm sure there are some of you out there. I believe the year was 1996.
David Bowie, unlike most artists, is very forward thinking. One could write a long essay about this, but even back then he saw the value, the way it could change the music industry. These mp2s were legit, legal downloads, offered on his website.
But if you're going to be a stickler, the first mp3 file I downloaded was a Wumpscut album. Dont' remember which one. But unlike the mp2, which was bigger in size and lower in soudn quality, I couldn't play it on the 486sx/25 that was the family computer.