Inferno started as a fork of Plan 9. The basic concepts, semantics, and protocols were hashed out in Plan 9, and Inferno took it in a vaguely Java-like direction by introducing a new high-level language (Limbo), a bytecode-based runtime model, and the ability to run hosted on another OS or natively on MMU-less hardware.
The linuxdevices.com article mentions only one reseller (repeatedly), and GP2X has been available from US-based seller GP32z for months (and of course available to US residents from the usual Hong Kong sellers like Play-Asia and Lik-Sang) . This just looks like a thinly-veiled advertisement.
The Max Drive Pro has been coming Real Soon Now for something like five months, and Datel dropped any pretense of knowing the actual date and just changed it to "stock coming soon" (which it's said for a couple months).
Those games were better than the SNES (on a technical level)
That's subject to debate.
Granted TurboGraphix 16 used 2x8bit processors and a 16 bit graphics processor, so what does that make it, one and a half 16 bit?
Trying to measure whole systems in "bits" is an exercise in deception - even if you're not deliberately trying to lie to someone else, you're still fooling yourself. That being said, the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 has one 8-bit (data bus) CPU and one 16-bit (data bus) VDP. There's also the VCE (palette hardware), but that's only significant because it happens to be on a separate chip; if they could have, Hudson probably would have made it part of the VDP. Just pick your favorite interpretation of the numbers and come up with a justification; then you can feel secure in the knowledge that you've just used the same method as anyone else who ever decided "how many bits" a system "is".
CHR is short for "character" (i.e. graphic tiles). Unlike most systems, NES's graphics processor has a dedicated ROM bus available on the cartridge slot.
The SMS mapping hardware is not built into the system. The reason emulators don't have to support a bunch of them is that all of Sega's mapper chips used for the SMS have a consistent programming model, which means just emulating the 315-5235 gives you instant support for virtually all officially licensed SMS games.
That was because they didn't provide any operating system to speak of
No it wasn't. The vast majority of game consoles don't have an operating system beyond BIOS hardware support routines (and many don't even have a BIOS - they just grab the reset vector from the cartridge and go).
and coding for two CPUs is a bitch, especially in assembler
Developers were not forced to use the slave SH-2, nor did they have to use assembly language. Sega provided a semicustom GCC and libraries for C programming.
I mean, i think it a good move to charge this people more. It costs more, you have to pay more. If the ISP ever get too greedy there's something we call... COMPETITION!
Yeah, there's also something we call... NATURAL MONOPOLY! When was the last time you got to decide which of the many local cable providers you'd like to do business with?
"Navi" probably isn't Japanese, since there is no "v" sound in Japanese. I'd imagine that it's an abbreviation of "navigation" or "navigator" or something along those lines. If that's correct (I'm far from an expert on Japanese language and culture myself), "Bargain Navi" probably means something like "Bargain Finder".
In fact, it can be reproduced without using a compiler at all by using "type" to display a text file containing equivalent offending code. Said text file can be found here. Actually, on my XP box it caused a reboot rather than a bluescreen. Either way, that's a nasty bug.
Those categories don't really make much sense. You have "First person shooter", but no "third person shooter" (and no "climb into your spaceship and kill evil aliens shooter" either - shame on you:P). "First person race", but no "overhead race" (Super Sprint anyone? RC Pro Am? Or maybe, given the comparison, Rock And Roll Racing?). "Realtime strategy" but no "turn-based strategy", and so on. With such poor categories, I think it would be grossly inaccurate to say that 75% of video games ever written are based on one of those themes.
That blurb about "only 7 rock songs" is probably only quoted because it's memorable, not because it's particularly accurate, insightful, or interesting.
Are there any explanations of how to "really" do Linux from scratch, rather than relying on precompiled bits from an existing Linux system to bootstrap the new one? Don't get me wrong, I think LFS is a great resource, but I'm quite disappointed by the fact that its method not only requires precompiled bits from an existing Linux system, but relies on Linux being the build system.
This and other goofy statements come from the Sega Genesis port of a Toaplan shooter known as Zero Wing. More information can be found here, here and here.
This is true, particularly if you don't have the manual.
the UI plain out sucks.
If you were to actually support this statment, I might give it some thought. After getting used to the interface of Blender, I've found that it's rather usable. Although I haven't used other 3D modeling interfaces (and perhaps for that reason), I generally don't find myself wishing that anything about Blender's interface was different. However, if the interface "plain out sucks" as you claim, this shouldn't be happening, and I should be finding annoyances on a regular basis. That's simply not happening.
This is not entirely true. While the core hardware most likely remains identical, the GD/CD reader units are sourced from multiple manufacturers. The one in my DC is a Samsung i think. IIRC, the first were Yamaha.
nobody with any self-respect watches the same TV show as middle schoolers.
That's funny, I'd say that nobody with any self-respect determines what is or isn't a "lame" TV show by examining the viewing habits of middle schoolers (or CEOs, or single mothers, or anime characters for that matter). Refusing to do something because it's popular is just as weak a show of character and individuality as doing something because it's popular. Why do you think that companies sell "N*Suck" t-shirts?
What is a patent but a contract with an entire nation?
The problem is that it's not that simple. If a patent is a contract with the government, then the holder of the patent potentially has the power to sit at both sides of the table, so to speak. They get the benefits offered by the agreement, but they can also influence the government to remove or tone down undesirable elements, such as the requirement that the contract expires within X years.
This isn't strictly true. The game is not gone, but the volatile RAM of the decryption chip is. Capcom is capable of restoring such a "dead" board by replacing the battery and uploading the code into the chip again. I've heard that this costs 75-90 USD or so.
That's right folks. THQ set aside a button on the controls whose sole purpose is to make Ash taunt his enemies.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to video games. I've seen THQ's game history, and I'll just bet that Evil Dead: Hail To The King developer Heavy Iron is responsible for most of the design decisions in the game. People who don't understand that the publisher and developer are often completely separate companies shouldn't be doing game reviews (or at least not ones that get posted as articles on prominent websites).
I can only assume that the game you're talking about is Namco's Time Crisis. In fact, Time Crisis (as well as Time Crisis 2 and pseudo-sequel Crisis Zone) do require a control in addition to the gun. One of the innovative concepts in the series is the ability to hide (but don't hide too long, you've got a time limit as the title suggests), which is controlled by a pedal in the arcade versions, although I'm not sure how this is done with the Namco GunCon controller on the PSX, but it's worth noting that the game does actually have a control in addition to the standard "point and shoot" interface.
Slashdot Mirror
Inferno started as a fork of Plan 9. The basic concepts, semantics, and protocols were hashed out in Plan 9, and Inferno took it in a vaguely Java-like direction by introducing a new high-level language (Limbo), a bytecode-based runtime model, and the ability to run hosted on another OS or natively on MMU-less hardware.
The linuxdevices.com article mentions only one reseller (repeatedly), and GP2X has been available from US-based seller GP32z for months (and of course available to US residents from the usual Hong Kong sellers like Play-Asia and Lik-Sang) . This just looks like a thinly-veiled advertisement.
Time to make it thirteen, I guess.
The Max Drive Pro has been coming Real Soon Now for something like five months, and Datel dropped any pretense of knowing the actual date and just changed it to "stock coming soon" (which it's said for a couple months).
An R-Type sticker would be a nice change of pace, actually.
Yes, that's the one. The original game seems to be most readily available used for Super NES and Genesis.
That's subject to debate.
Trying to measure whole systems in "bits" is an exercise in deception - even if you're not deliberately trying to lie to someone else, you're still fooling yourself. That being said, the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 has one 8-bit (data bus) CPU and one 16-bit (data bus) VDP. There's also the VCE (palette hardware), but that's only significant because it happens to be on a separate chip; if they could have, Hudson probably would have made it part of the VDP. Just pick your favorite interpretation of the numbers and come up with a justification; then you can feel secure in the knowledge that you've just used the same method as anyone else who ever decided "how many bits" a system "is".
CHR is short for "character" (i.e. graphic tiles). Unlike most systems, NES's graphics processor has a dedicated ROM bus available on the cartridge slot.
The SMS mapping hardware is not built into the system. The reason emulators don't have to support a bunch of them is that all of Sega's mapper chips used for the SMS have a consistent programming model, which means just emulating the 315-5235 gives you instant support for virtually all officially licensed SMS games.
No it wasn't. The vast majority of game consoles don't have an operating system beyond BIOS hardware support routines (and many don't even have a BIOS - they just grab the reset vector from the cartridge and go).
Developers were not forced to use the slave SH-2, nor did they have to use assembly language. Sega provided a semicustom GCC and libraries for C programming.
Yeah, there's also something we call ... NATURAL MONOPOLY! When was the last time you got to decide which of the many local cable providers you'd like to do business with?
"Navi" probably isn't Japanese, since there is no "v" sound in Japanese. I'd imagine that it's an abbreviation of "navigation" or "navigator" or something along those lines. If that's correct (I'm far from an expert on Japanese language and culture myself), "Bargain Navi" probably means something like "Bargain Finder".
In fact, it can be reproduced without using a compiler at all by using "type" to display a text file containing equivalent offending code. Said text file can be found here. Actually, on my XP box it caused a reboot rather than a bluescreen. Either way, that's a nasty bug.
Those categories don't really make much sense. You have "First person shooter", but no "third person shooter" (and no "climb into your spaceship and kill evil aliens shooter" either - shame on you :P). "First person race", but no "overhead race" (Super Sprint anyone? RC Pro Am? Or maybe, given the comparison, Rock And Roll Racing?). "Realtime strategy" but no "turn-based strategy", and so on. With such poor categories, I think it would be grossly inaccurate to say that 75% of video games ever written are based on one of those themes.
That blurb about "only 7 rock songs" is probably only quoted because it's memorable, not because it's particularly accurate, insightful, or interesting.
Are there any explanations of how to "really" do Linux from scratch, rather than relying on precompiled bits from an existing Linux system to bootstrap the new one? Don't get me wrong, I think LFS is a great resource, but I'm quite disappointed by the fact that its method not only requires precompiled bits from an existing Linux system, but relies on Linux being the build system.
This and other goofy statements come from the Sega Genesis port of a Toaplan shooter known as Zero Wing. More information can be found here, here and here.
Yep, now when will we see some news from the somebody-set-us-up-the-bomb dept.?
This is true, particularly if you don't have the manual.
If you were to actually support this statment, I might give it some thought. After getting used to the interface of Blender, I've found that it's rather usable. Although I haven't used other 3D modeling interfaces (and perhaps for that reason), I generally don't find myself wishing that anything about Blender's interface was different. However, if the interface "plain out sucks" as you claim, this shouldn't be happening, and I should be finding annoyances on a regular basis. That's simply not happening.
This is not entirely true. While the core hardware most likely remains identical, the GD/CD reader units are sourced from multiple manufacturers. The one in my DC is a Samsung i think. IIRC, the first were Yamaha.
It wasn't that there were no rules, but that any rule immediately becomes effective if declared. This led to things like:
Calvin: You just stepped into a vortex spot, you have to spin around until you fall down!
Hobbes: Sorry, but this vortex spot is in the boomerang zone, so it returns to whoever called it.
Also, there are points in Calvinball ("Okay, the score is oggy to boogy." "I already had oogy!"), but that's probably not the point.
nobody with any self-respect watches the same TV show as middle schoolers.
That's funny, I'd say that nobody with any self-respect determines what is or isn't a "lame" TV show by examining the viewing habits of middle schoolers (or CEOs, or single mothers, or anime characters for that matter). Refusing to do something because it's popular is just as weak a show of character and individuality as doing something because it's popular. Why do you think that companies sell "N*Suck" t-shirts?
The problem is that it's not that simple. If a patent is a contract with the government, then the holder of the patent potentially has the power to sit at both sides of the table, so to speak. They get the benefits offered by the agreement, but they can also influence the government to remove or tone down undesirable elements, such as the requirement that the contract expires within X years.
This isn't strictly true. The game is not gone, but the volatile RAM of the decryption chip is. Capcom is capable of restoring such a "dead" board by replacing the battery and uploading the code into the chip again. I've heard that this costs 75-90 USD or so.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to video games. I've seen THQ's game history, and I'll just bet that Evil Dead: Hail To The King developer Heavy Iron is responsible for most of the design decisions in the game. People who don't understand that the publisher and developer are often completely separate companies shouldn't be doing game reviews (or at least not ones that get posted as articles on prominent websites).
I can only assume that the game you're talking about is Namco's Time Crisis. In fact, Time Crisis (as well as Time Crisis 2 and pseudo-sequel Crisis Zone) do require a control in addition to the gun. One of the innovative concepts in the series is the ability to hide (but don't hide too long, you've got a time limit as the title suggests), which is controlled by a pedal in the arcade versions, although I'm not sure how this is done with the Namco GunCon controller on the PSX, but it's worth noting that the game does actually have a control in addition to the standard "point and shoot" interface.