That may be justification alone for why the systems were underclocked at the factory. The clock in many games is based not on an actual clock but the speed of the processor... speed things up and you speed everything in the game up, and that's not very playable.
Err, you might be right about programmer's being relatively lazyish (/efficient) and relying on the processor speed for timing...but they could always easily slow down a game that was too fast, but not the opposite.
Actually...programers don't JUST use the processor speed, or else slowdown would never happen, there wouldn't be a "correct" pacing for a game, just a continuum...few objects -> fast game, some objects -> medium game, many objects -> slow game. Instead, a game has a 'desired' speed, and probably just burns cycles if it's done everything but it's not time to proceed. If there's too much happening, the gmae slows down, and no cycles are burned.
The underclocking was probably due to the tolerances of the manufacturing process at that point. At this lower clockrate, virtually every chip is usable, at this higher rate, more can't keep up.
Another way of looking static is to a, say, "index.cgi" within a subdirectory, and then only link to the subdirectory name. For example, a typical month's archive at my site kisrael.com has the URL like http://kisrael.com/arch/2004/03/ even though it's all dynaimcally generated. (I wasn't smart enough and/or didn't have enough access to my rented webserver to pull off that trick where that URL ends up going to, say, arch/index.cgi and/2004/03/ get interpreted as parameters, instead, I created a bunch of subdirs by hand, each containing a tiny "index.cgi" that perl includes the main program, which in turns inspects its URL to parse out the 2004 and 03 and show the right stuff. )
Yeah, they're really great with the homebrew community, they're helping me put my in development game JoustPong into actual hardware for release at PhillyClassic.
I've never heard nor seen USENET refered to as a "peer to peer" file sharing network.
Given a reasonably broad definition of "peer to peer", I'd say it's a reasonable description (if a politically loaded one at the moment) of how Usenet servers treat each other. It's a little more complicated, because each peer then serves many actual clients, and typically every server has a full copy of the content in question (i.e. it's not "on demand" as are most peer to peer systems seem to be). Still, the end result is something that's a lot closer to peer-to-peer than client-server.
Huh, looking at the screenshots, I realize I think System 7 really look the best to me. I'm mostly a Windows on the desktop guy, but when I was first introduced it to it was on System 7, and that's probably what I used at the School of the MFA. It captured the elegance of the early Mac but wasn't so starkly monochromatic. OS 8 still looks about the same, but then 9 starts to get into that "ooh look shiny metal crap" that was the prelude to the Fisher Price look that is so dominant these days.
Similarly, I think I'll always dial down Windows XP and whatever comes next to as close to Windows 95/98 in appearance as possible. The boring parts of an OS should look as boring and grey and consistent as possible, that way you can more easily tell what's boring and what might be interesting and new.
(This from a guy who invented gamebuttons, javascript games where the sole input and output is a single javascript button)
Probably right. Though only the cowboy and the fighter pilot interested me...it was both the technology look and the concept of seeing just a corner of a well-thought out universe. George's "incredibly shrinking universe" where apparently the entire galaxy is someone's cousin on Tatooine.
Maybe I'll always have blinders on forthe original trilogy, but I don't agree, despite having a read some very good sci-fi. Its camp space opera, but there is something so visceral about the rivets-and-grime style of technology that I just haven't seen anywhere else...there really are moments of genius in there, even if the story tends to be a bit trite.
Oddball (and small) max resolution (493 * 373), other artifacting issues, no preview or display screen, only like 8 pictures at 'high' resolution (16 at 320*240), no flash...
Still, it had some great qualities: tiny, durable, lightweight, battery lasted forever. It was the camera of choice for certain model rocket hobbyists I think. Not til Canon started making small cameras was there something smaller, and that's like a tiny little brick. (There are some interesting "novelty" microcameras out now though, and some even make tiny movies!)
It took some ok pictures...every gallery above the double line, though some of those were from its DC25 brother, which added a flash and viewscreen (no digital viewfinder though) and doubled the memory at the cost of size, weight, and battery life...overall less cool.
Oh, and it came with Kai's Power Goo, which was hella fun. (Too bad that software doesn't work w/ recent versions of Windows:-( )
It's funny that this article came on the same page: Russia Tests New Wonder Weapon "Short on details but long on hype, a Russian military chief claims the hypersonic prototype maneuvers so quickly that it renders all missile-defense systems 'useless.'"
It's funny how we seem to spend a lot of time and resources on defenses that are either for the last war, or one that's unlikely to happen. We studiously take away anything vaguely sharp from people on airline flights (like anything but killing or knocking out all passengers will work again) when or inspection of incoming shipping is lacking, we spend big bucks on knocking missiles out of the sky, when any nuclear explosion that happens on US soil will have arrived literally Under the US Radar, since any remotely traceable missile launch will be met with overwhelming nuclear response...
Yeah, once you were off Euclid Ave it could be a bit confusing, especially if you weren't used to orienting yourself with the lake as North.
Lets see, Arabica (coffehouse) in Coventry...I think that was the one with the nickname "freakabica" (as opposed to the one near CWRU, which was "geekabica", and then the one in...I dunno, Shaker Hieghts, "chicabica", and then there was that coffeehouse that wasn't a proper Arabica somewhere...it was "wannabica")
Went to high school in Euclid. Not hard to find, 'cause it's nestled up to Cleveland. (yeah yeah, 'just follow the river that's on fire' har har)
So basically, this stuff doesn't affect the original source code or, for that matter, the final running binary code, just the intermediate bytecode, which is what actually gets shipped and then JIT compiled to binary? Huh.
I e-mailed him privately and asked him about the requirements for his "net-related" activities and a modem will not suffice, son. Have you even done any research here? Do you know how well the DC modem is supported under DC-Linux? DO YOU???
Like I said, coward, he mentioned it as more of an afterthought.
Bully for you for taking such a proactive interest. I bow to your superior giving of a damn.
If it wasn't for the semi-exclusitivity deal (or if history is a guide, serious cross-platform delay) with Sony and the next GTA, the PS2 would be the hell out of my house.
My take was always that the internet is a way to communicate *really* *quickly* with another location. So's telephone. So's fax.
What makes the Internet 'special' is that you can communicate with MANY people easily and cheaply directly in their homes. And with the web, those people get to do it at their convenience.
If you were going to buy a console for the primary purpose of mucking about with it, programmatically, which one would you get?
I think Dreamcast might be your best bet. Cheap, reasonably powerful 3D, 4 controllers, homebrew community, and you can (not 100% reliabely?) burn CDs for it.
and what matters in a console isn't the hardware, it's the software. For my money, the software isn't that hot either.
I have all 3 systems, started with the GC. Now that Xbox has GTA3 and GTA:VC for it, I have fewer reasons than ever to want to keep the PS2. There are some genres were the PS2 is the best, but it's notably so-so at some stuff I like, for instance splitscreen multiplayer. (Stupid multitap) I know some people really think it has a super terrific library, but I think in the end, all 3 systems end up having about the same # of "really great" games, and the "really great" gams on PS2 don't interest me as a gamer as much as the other 2 systems.
Because Spam quickly reached the point where its become very disruptive to a normal activity; that of reading email.
People won't be too happy w/ billboards on every surface, (though we're getting to that point) because they don't disrupt day to day life. (On the other hand, animated billboards w/ music and sound FX blaring might provoke a lot of protest...)
Yeah, I was thinking more about the aesthetics than the portability, but of the 3, it is definately the best to pop into a knapsack.
And the handle was a deliberate user-based design decision...they noticed that many people don't keep a system on the shelf, but bring it out towards them, so a handle made sense...not positioned so people will carry it like a lunch box, but just to make it easier to move. (Xbox dealt with the same kind of problem by going with superlong cords, since that giant system ain't going nowehere...)
I hate the griping that the console looks "toylike". I have all 3 consoles, (admittedly GC first, because of the games) and the GC is the only one that I like having out in the open. The Xbox is this hulking monstrosity with giant 80s-era fins, and the PS2 is just dull, as squared off as is PS2 logo...only its vertical stand woud make it interesting, and I heard that's not great for the alignment, so I don't do that.
Which is also why I love Super Smash Bros. Melee so much, despite the fact that I never really liked any other combat-type game (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc.).
The heritage of Nintendo is definately one of the main appeals of Smash Bros, but don't sell the game short: it has a really unique play mechanic that no other fighter really has, the whole knock the opponent up up and away, and that has some cool side benefits like making the layout of the levels much more important than in a typical 2D or even 3D fighter. Combined with the huge amount of weapons and surprisingly balanced yet amazing diverse characters, and it would be a great (if less compelling) game even w/o the known characters.
If you have a Dreamcast, you might also enjoy Powerstone 2, which is also 4 player mayhem, but more 3D feeling.
Slashdot Mirror
That was a pretty tremendous scene for what it was. I thought they could've called the movie "The Rack of Kirsten Dunst"
this page has quite a shot, though this is the one people usually think of, with the webslinger getting an upsidedown kiss.
That may be justification alone for why the systems were underclocked at the factory. The clock in many games is based not on an actual clock but the speed of the processor... speed things up and you speed everything in the game up, and that's not very playable.
Err, you might be right about programmer's being relatively lazyish (/efficient) and relying on the processor speed for timing...but they could always easily slow down a game that was too fast, but not the opposite.
Actually...programers don't JUST use the processor speed, or else slowdown would never happen, there wouldn't be a "correct" pacing for a game, just a continuum...few objects -> fast game, some objects -> medium game, many objects -> slow game. Instead, a game has a 'desired' speed, and probably just burns cycles if it's done everything but it's not time to proceed. If there's too much happening, the gmae slows down, and no cycles are burned.
The underclocking was probably due to the tolerances of the manufacturing process at that point. At this lower clockrate, virtually every chip is usable, at this higher rate, more can't keep up.
Another way of looking static is to a, say, "index.cgi" within a subdirectory, and then only link to the subdirectory name. For example, a typical month's archive at my site kisrael.com has the URL like http://kisrael.com/arch/2004/03/ even though it's all dynaimcally generated. (I wasn't smart enough and/or didn't have enough access to my rented webserver to pull off that trick where that URL ends up going to, say, arch/index.cgi and
Yeah, they're really great with the homebrew community, they're helping me put my in development game JoustPong into actual hardware for release at PhillyClassic.
I've never heard nor seen USENET refered to as a "peer to peer" file sharing network.
Given a reasonably broad definition of "peer to peer", I'd say it's a reasonable description (if a politically loaded one at the moment) of how Usenet servers treat each other. It's a little more complicated, because each peer then serves many actual clients, and typically every server has a full copy of the content in question (i.e. it's not "on demand" as are most peer to peer systems seem to be). Still, the end result is something that's a lot closer to peer-to-peer than client-server.
Huh, looking at the screenshots, I realize I think System 7 really look the best to me. I'm mostly a Windows on the desktop guy, but when I was first introduced it to it was on System 7, and that's probably what I used at the School of the MFA. It captured the elegance of the early Mac but wasn't so starkly monochromatic. OS 8 still looks about the same, but then 9 starts to get into that "ooh look shiny metal crap" that was the prelude to the Fisher Price look that is so dominant these days.
Similarly, I think I'll always dial down Windows XP and whatever comes next to as close to Windows 95/98 in appearance as possible. The boring parts of an OS should look as boring and grey and consistent as possible, that way you can more easily tell what's boring and what might be interesting and new.
(This from a guy who invented gamebuttons, javascript games where the sole input and output is a single javascript button)
Probably right. Though only the cowboy and the fighter pilot interested me...it was both the technology look and the concept of seeing just a corner of a well-thought out universe. George's "incredibly shrinking universe" where apparently the entire galaxy is someone's cousin on Tatooine.
Maybe I'll always have blinders on forthe original trilogy, but I don't agree, despite having a read some very good sci-fi. Its camp space opera, but there is something so visceral about the rivets-and-grime style of technology that I just haven't seen anywhere else...there really are moments of genius in there, even if the story tends to be a bit trite.
The Kodak DC20 was my first digital camera.
:-( )
Oddball (and small) max resolution (493 * 373), other artifacting issues, no preview or display screen, only like 8 pictures at 'high' resolution (16 at 320*240), no flash...
Still, it had some great qualities: tiny, durable, lightweight, battery lasted forever. It was the camera of choice for certain model rocket hobbyists I think. Not til Canon started making small cameras was there something smaller, and that's like a tiny little brick. (There are some interesting "novelty" microcameras out now though, and some even make tiny movies!)
It took some ok pictures...every gallery above the double line, though some of those were from its DC25 brother, which added a flash and viewscreen (no digital viewfinder though) and doubled the memory at the cost of size, weight, and battery life...overall less cool.
Oh, and it came with Kai's Power Goo, which was hella fun. (Too bad that software doesn't work w/ recent versions of Windows
It's funny that this article came on the same page: Russia Tests New Wonder Weapon "Short on details but long on hype, a Russian military chief claims the hypersonic prototype maneuvers so quickly that it renders all missile-defense systems 'useless.'"
It's funny how we seem to spend a lot of time and resources on defenses that are either for the last war, or one that's unlikely to happen. We studiously take away anything vaguely sharp from people on airline flights (like anything but killing or knocking out all passengers will work again) when or inspection of incoming shipping is lacking, we spend big bucks on knocking missiles out of the sky, when any nuclear explosion that happens on US soil will have arrived literally Under the US Radar, since any remotely traceable missile launch will be met with overwhelming nuclear response...
Yeah, once you were off Euclid Ave it could be a bit confusing, especially if you weren't used to orienting yourself with the lake as North.
Lets see, Arabica (coffehouse) in Coventry...I think that was the one with the nickname "freakabica" (as opposed to the one near CWRU, which was "geekabica", and then the one in...I dunno, Shaker Hieghts, "chicabica", and then there was that coffeehouse that wasn't a proper Arabica somewhere...it was "wannabica")
Went to high school in Euclid. Not hard to find, 'cause it's nestled up to Cleveland. (yeah yeah, 'just follow the river that's on fire' har har)
So basically, this stuff doesn't affect the original source code or, for that matter, the final running binary code, just the intermediate bytecode, which is what actually gets shipped and then JIT compiled to binary? Huh.
I e-mailed him privately and asked him about the requirements for his "net-related" activities and a modem will not suffice, son.
Have you even done any research here? Do you know how well the DC modem is supported under DC-Linux? DO YOU???
Like I said, coward, he mentioned it as more of an afterthought.
Bully for you for taking such a proactive interest. I bow to your superior giving of a damn.
If it wasn't for the semi-exclusitivity deal (or if history is a guide, serious cross-platform delay) with Sony and the next GTA, the PS2 would be the hell out of my house.
(Everything but F-Zero GX was mentioned in the first post in this thread)
My take was always that the internet is a way to communicate *really* *quickly* with another location.
So's telephone. So's fax.
What makes the Internet 'special' is that you can communicate with MANY people easily and cheaply directly in their homes. And with the web, those people get to do it at their convenience.
*shrug* It was kind of an after thought as he mentioned it, and the DC has a built-in modem. "net-related-things" != broadband required.
If you were going to buy a console for the primary purpose of mucking about with it, programmatically, which one would you get?
I think Dreamcast might be your best bet. Cheap, reasonably powerful 3D, 4 controllers, homebrew community, and you can (not 100% reliabely?) burn CDs for it.
and what matters in a console isn't the hardware, it's the software.
For my money, the software isn't that hot either.
I have all 3 systems, started with the GC. Now that Xbox has GTA3 and GTA:VC for it, I have fewer reasons than ever to want to keep the PS2. There are some genres were the PS2 is the best, but it's notably so-so at some stuff I like, for instance splitscreen multiplayer. (Stupid multitap) I know some people really think it has a super terrific library, but I think in the end, all 3 systems end up having about the same # of "really great" games, and the "really great" gams on PS2 don't interest me as a gamer as much as the other 2 systems.
You thin that'll actually be "fun", or maybe more like satisfaction?
Because Spam quickly reached the point where its become very disruptive to a normal activity; that of reading email.
People won't be too happy w/ billboards on every surface, (though we're getting to that point) because they don't disrupt day to day life. (On the other hand, animated billboards w/ music and sound FX blaring might provoke a lot of protest...)
Yeah, I was thinking more about the aesthetics than the portability, but of the 3, it is definately the best to pop into a knapsack.
And the handle was a deliberate user-based design decision...they noticed that many people don't keep a system on the shelf, but bring it out towards them, so a handle made sense...not positioned so people will carry it like a lunch box, but just to make it easier to move. (Xbox dealt with the same kind of problem by going with superlong cords, since that giant system ain't going nowehere...)
I hate the griping that the console looks "toylike". I have all 3 consoles, (admittedly GC first, because of the games) and the GC is the only one that I like having out in the open. The Xbox is this hulking monstrosity with giant 80s-era fins, and the PS2 is just dull, as squared off as is PS2 logo...only its vertical stand woud make it interesting, and I heard that's not great for the alignment, so I don't do that.
I can't BELIEVE you BOTH forgot:
*Smash Brothers
*Rogue Squadron (not so much its sequel)
*Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2
2 of those are even big third party titles. And the first two are really what sold me the system, though I'm a bit of a Nintendo fanboy.
Which is also why I love Super Smash Bros. Melee so much, despite the fact that I never really liked any other combat-type game (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc.).
The heritage of Nintendo is definately one of the main appeals of Smash Bros, but don't sell the game short: it has a really unique play mechanic that no other fighter really has, the whole knock the opponent up up and away, and that has some cool side benefits like making the layout of the levels much more important than in a typical 2D or even 3D fighter. Combined with the huge amount of weapons and surprisingly balanced yet amazing diverse characters, and it would be a great (if less compelling) game even w/o the known characters.
If you have a Dreamcast, you might also enjoy Powerstone 2, which is also 4 player mayhem, but more 3D feeling.