[idsoftware.com] Welcome to id Software's Finger Service V1.5!
Name: John Carmack Email: johnc@idsoftware.com Description: Programmer Project: Quake 3 Arena Last Updated: 06/01/2000 02:51:45 (Central Standard Time) ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------- 6/1/00 ------ Well, this is going to be an interesting.plan update.
Most of this is not really public business, but if some things aren't stated explicitly, it will reflect unfairly on someone.
As many people have heard discussed, there was quite a desire to remake DOOM as our next project after Q3. Discussing it brought an almost palpable thrill to most of the employees, but Adrian had a strong enough dislike for the idea that it was shot down over and over again.
Design work on an alternate game has been going on in parallel with the mission pack development and my research work.
Several factors, including a general lack of enthusiasm for the proposed plan, the warmth that Wolfenstien was met with at E3, and excitement about what we can do with the latest rendering technology were making it seem more and more like we weren't going down the right path.
I discussed it with some of the other guys, and we decided that it was important enough to drag the company through an unpleasant fight over it.
An ultimatum was issued to Kevin and Adrian(who control >50% of the company): We are working on DOOM for the next project unless you fire us.
Obviously no fun for anyone involved, but the project direction was changed, new hires have been expedited, and the design work has begun.
It wasn't planned to announce this soon, but here it is: We are working on a new DOOM game, focusing on the single player game experience, and using brand new technology in almost every aspect of it. That is all we are prepared to say about the game for quite some time, so don't push for interviews. We will talk about it when things are actually built, to avoid giving misleading comments.
It went smoother than expected, but the other shoe dropped yesterday.
Kevin and Adrian fired Paul Steed in retaliation, over my opposition.
Paul has certainly done things in the past that could be grounds for dismissal, but this was retaliatory for him being among the "conspirators".
I happen to think Paul was damn good at his job, and that he was going to be one of the most valuable contributors to DOOM.
We need to hire two new modeler/animator/cinematic director types. If you have a significant commercial track record in all three areas, and consider yourself at the top of your field, send your resume to Kevin Cloud.
I think this is a little harsh, like throwing a kid into the river to learn to swim. Although they may learn to swim, their attitude towards you and swimming may not be as desirable.
I think the post about mindstorms is a good idea. Most children have a short attention span, C, C++, Java, etc is not something you can correctly grasp and understand in half an hour while the programming interface that comes on the Mindstorm CD is. Once they get bored of Mindstorms (a few days) you can talk to them and get a feeling for where they want to go from there. Most hardcore or mediocre programmers are going to say "Eww, the mindstorms graphical interface is horrid." while most programmers don't seem to want to admit or remember that they didnt know how to program in a split second. I started off using BASIC when I was 4 and moved onto Hypercard on the Mac when I was 6 or so followed by perl and C then Java. I imagine if my dad had thrown a C book at me I probably would have handed it back to him and loaded lunar lander back up..
Also, don't push too hard, if they don't want to be programmers, let that go. If you push too hard they may retaliate and view programming as something they never want to try again...
Does anyone know what newsgroups these images were posted to, I think I should inspect them to make sure they trully are penthouse images... It would really be a shame if penthouse simply mistaked these images for other images..
This is an amazing feat for the palm pilot platform. I've seen more critiscm than support and I think it deserves some amazing props.
James McCombe had to port a complicated and processor intense game to a small and limited platform. Even with the limitations (slower then expected refresh rate, difficulty of play with buttons) it's still fun (and nostalgic) to use. Remember, the pilot was meant to be a powerfull organizer, not a gaming platform (although sometimes I wonder).
Remember, this is the same guy that brought us Vexed for the palm, an extremely addicting and sometimes complicated game.
Good work, James, can't wait to see what else you come up with.
There has to be a great joke in there some where although I can't think of it. Slashdot is letting me down, usually there would be a "Score 3: Funny" somewhere!
I think you may be interested in checkout out mozillazine, an online "publication" about mozilla and its features. Dig through chromezone and you will find Back/Forward Context Buttons written with the extensible interface. I havent tried to use them but it proves how powerfull XUL and the interface to mozilla is.
A lot of people seem to forget that a web browser is alot more than just as document renderer. The interface and shell around the rendered (raptor in mozilla i believe) is also very important. While IEeeeee can do this now in windows its still not as easy to do as it will be in mozilla. When you look at what encompases mozilla and how amazing it really is it becomes a very cool piece of software. Even if you don't understand C/C++ take a look around the source code tree, most of the code is very clean, very well documented and very organized, that in itself is impressive for such a large project. I for one will encourage all my non-geek friends to install netscape 6/mozilla when it comes out.
Ethernet can be just as easy to use as Firewire or any plug and play system. DHCP rocks for allocating IP's if you want to avoid setup hassles. DHCP can easily be set up to hand out an IP address to a specific hardware ethernet address. Firewire was not meant to replace ethernet as a networking system, its meant to be a perhiprial connection system (and a kick ass one at that). Any networking system still has to identify each system uniquely. I don't think many people are going to be connecting they're company webserver to the net via firewire anytime soon.
Not to make a joke out of any of this and not to make fun of you but..
"Get on a bike or bus instead..."
I'd really love to see someone that's drunk try to ride a bike. I'm sure it would provide for hours of entertainment which, in the end, may prove to b e just as dangerous as driving a car while drunk and surely more painfull to ones ego..
It's cute, but much too expensive and it doesn't appear to be very functionally elegant (no ff/rw, small screen). With something this small I'm wondering why other players can't be as small.
I have a Handspring Visor that I use on a daily basis and bought specifically because of the expansion module (and lower price). I'm hoping that someone will come out with a springboard module that doesn't extend beyond the edge of the Visor's case. The MiniJam from Innogear just seems to bulky and the small size of the Music Clip from Sony proves it. Remove the screen and usb connector (I'm guessing you can load songs into the modules via the springboard connector through the Visor at a decent rate) from the Music Clip and the circuitry must be quite small. The only issues would then be the buttons, headphone jack (put them on the top edge of the springboard) and battery life (use a rechargable battery pack in the module and dc power connector on the top or just use the visor batteries). One of the reasons PDA's are cool is because they're small and I'd like to keep mine that way.
A few of my friends and I have been wondering how to compile mozilla and get the icons at the top, the mail client, the right-click menu, etc. When compiling mozilla we can only seem to get a base, skeleton browser which isnt something we want to use on a daily basis...
I'm sure a few people are wonedring this besides me...
I use a Compaq Armada 1750 (PII 366) which works ok with linux. The text install of redhat 6 worked flawlessly and the X server was only a matter of going into a vga text mode at boot (vga=791). The only complaints are that the sound system seems to be permanently in 3D mode which distorts some music enough that I can't listen to it and as the article mentioned a winmodem. To get around the win-modem I just use a PCMCIA modem.
Oh yes they would. Most of the current population that is buying their first computer is looking for something extremely cheap. There are people buying $199 PC's around here that have to sign up for 3 years of MSN. I would never buy a PC with that stuff on it, I'll get a Sun first (as long as sun doesnt do this too).
Yea, we know, FreeBSD is the answer to everything. I've been told this many times before. It seems that freebsd users simply want people to not use linux. I've used FreeBSD, and I chose to stay with linux for whatever reason, lets just say its because "linux" has less characters so that I dont start a war.I dont go around saying "FreeBSD sucks, use Linux" and I rarely hear Linux users doing so, why can't FreeBSD users stop nagging us? Some people use Macs, some people use Windows, everyone has a personality, everyone is different and has different tastes. Why cant we just accept that and stop bitching at everyone.
I tried to edit my prefs to display altavista, jennycam, polls, and freshmeat, hit submit and got: You're browser didn't save a cookie properly. This could mean you are behind a filter that eliminates them, you are using a browser that doesn't support them, or you rejected it.
Im using netscape 4.5, not behind a firewall or filter (other than digex's broken web-cache).
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, but you can't select QUIT when you want to go to bed and you generally can't start a new "game" when you get shot..
Sometimes the real world is too real..
Geoff
[idsoftware.com]
- ------------------------------- .plan update.
Welcome to id Software's Finger Service V1.5!
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
Last Updated: 06/01/2000 02:51:45 (Central Standard Time)
-----------------------------------------------
6/1/00
------
Well, this is going to be an interesting
Most of this is not really public business, but if some things aren't stated explicitly, it will reflect unfairly on someone.
As many people have heard discussed, there was quite a desire to remake DOOM as our next project after Q3. Discussing it brought an almost palpable thrill to most of the employees, but Adrian had a strong enough dislike for the idea that it was shot down over and over again.
Design work on an alternate game has been going on in parallel with the mission pack development and my research work.
Several factors, including a general lack of enthusiasm for the proposed plan, the warmth that Wolfenstien was met with at E3, and excitement about what we can do with the latest rendering technology were making it seem more and more like we weren't going down the right path.
I discussed it with some of the other guys, and we decided that it was important enough to drag the company through an unpleasant fight over it.
An ultimatum was issued to Kevin and Adrian(who control >50% of the company): We are working on DOOM for the next project unless you fire us.
Obviously no fun for anyone involved, but the project direction was changed, new hires have been expedited, and the design work has begun.
It wasn't planned to announce this soon, but here it is: We are working on a new DOOM game, focusing on the single player game experience, and using brand new technology in almost every aspect of it. That is all we are prepared to say about the game for quite some time, so don't push for interviews. We will talk about it when things are actually built, to avoid giving misleading comments.
It went smoother than expected, but the other shoe dropped yesterday.
Kevin and Adrian fired Paul Steed in retaliation, over my opposition.
Paul has certainly done things in the past that could be grounds for dismissal, but this was retaliatory for him being among the "conspirators".
I happen to think Paul was damn good at his job, and that he was going to be one of the most valuable contributors to DOOM.
We need to hire two new modeler/animator/cinematic director types. If you have a significant commercial track record in all three areas, and consider yourself at the top of your field, send your resume to Kevin Cloud.
I think this is a little harsh, like throwing a kid into the river to learn to swim. Although they may learn to swim, their attitude towards you and swimming may not be as desirable.
I think the post about mindstorms is a good idea. Most children have a short attention span, C, C++, Java, etc is not something you can correctly grasp and understand in half an hour while the programming interface that comes on the Mindstorm CD is. Once they get bored of Mindstorms (a few days) you can talk to them and get a feeling for where they want to go from there. Most hardcore or mediocre programmers are going to say "Eww, the mindstorms graphical interface is horrid." while most programmers don't seem to want to admit or remember that they didnt know how to program in a split second. I started off using BASIC when I was 4 and moved onto Hypercard on the Mac when I was 6 or so followed by perl and C then Java. I imagine if my dad had thrown a C book at me I probably would have handed it back to him and loaded lunar lander back up..
Also, don't push too hard, if they don't want to be programmers, let that go. If you push too hard they may retaliate and view programming as something they never want to try again...
Good Luck,
Geoff
Wow, a free app that adds a shortcut to a porn site on my desktop and generiously tells all my friends coworkers. Thats not a bug!
Geoff
Does anyone know what newsgroups these images were posted to, I think I should inspect them to make sure they trully are penthouse images... It would really be a shame if penthouse simply mistaked these images for other images..
Geoff
>Have you tested the setup under a variety of loads?
Uhm, they installed a BSD box as a firewall to filter out unwanted and off packets. Read the article from yesterday.
This is an amazing feat for the palm pilot platform. I've seen more critiscm than support and I think it deserves some amazing props.
James McCombe had to port a complicated and processor intense game to a small and limited platform. Even with the limitations (slower then expected refresh rate, difficulty of play with buttons) it's still fun (and nostalgic) to use. Remember, the pilot was meant to be a powerfull organizer, not a gaming platform (although sometimes I wonder).
Remember, this is the same guy that brought us Vexed for the palm, an extremely addicting and sometimes complicated game.
Good work, James, can't wait to see what else you come up with.
Intergalactic gas?
There has to be a great joke in there some where although I can't think of it. Slashdot is letting me down, usually there would be a "Score 3: Funny" somewhere!
Geoff
A lot of people seem to forget that a web browser is alot more than just as document renderer. The interface and shell around the rendered (raptor in mozilla i believe) is also very important. While IEeeeee can do this now in windows its still not as easy to do as it will be in mozilla. When you look at what encompases mozilla and how amazing it really is it becomes a very cool piece of software. Even if you don't understand C/C++ take a look around the source code tree, most of the code is very clean, very well documented and very organized, that in itself is impressive for such a large project. I for one will encourage all my non-geek friends to install netscape 6/mozilla when it comes out.
Geoffeg
There are some things that I miss and I'm sure other users will miss too...
* URL auto-completion
* URL history dropdown
* Keyboard Navigation
I'm just wondering if these features will ever appear in mozilla, people have gotten used to them in IE and Netscape. Any mozilla coders out there?
Just write a perl script to do it automagically.
Ethernet can be just as easy to use as Firewire or any plug and play system. DHCP rocks for allocating IP's if you want to avoid setup hassles. DHCP can easily be set up to hand out an IP address to a specific hardware ethernet address. Firewire was not meant to replace ethernet as a networking system, its meant to be a perhiprial connection system (and a kick ass one at that). Any networking system still has to identify each system uniquely. I don't think many people are going to be connecting they're company webserver to the net via firewire anytime soon.
Not to make a joke out of any of this and not to make fun of you but..
"Get on a bike or bus instead..."
I'd really love to see someone that's drunk try to ride a bike. I'm sure it would provide for hours of entertainment which, in the end, may prove to b e just as dangerous as driving a car while drunk and surely more painfull to ones ego..
Geoff
Six words: "My god, its full of stars."
I have a Handspring Visor that I use on a daily basis and bought specifically because of the expansion module (and lower price). I'm hoping that someone will come out with a springboard module that doesn't extend beyond the edge of the Visor's case. The MiniJam from Innogear just seems to bulky and the small size of the Music Clip from Sony proves it. Remove the screen and usb connector (I'm guessing you can load songs into the modules via the springboard connector through the Visor at a decent rate) from the Music Clip and the circuitry must be quite small. The only issues would then be the buttons, headphone jack (put them on the top edge of the springboard) and battery life (use a rechargable battery pack in the module and dc power connector on the top or just use the visor batteries). One of the reasons PDA's are cool is because they're small and I'd like to keep mine that way.
A few of my friends and I have been wondering how to compile mozilla and get the icons at the top, the mail client, the right-click menu, etc. When compiling mozilla we can only seem to get a base, skeleton browser which isnt something we want to use on a daily basis...
I'm sure a few people are wonedring this besides me...
Geoff
I use a Compaq Armada 1750 (PII 366) which works ok with linux. The text install of redhat 6 worked flawlessly and the X server was only a matter of going into a vga text mode at boot (vga=791). The only complaints are that the sound system seems to be permanently in 3D mode which distorts some music enough that I can't listen to it and as the article mentioned a winmodem. To get around the win-modem I just use a PCMCIA modem.
Rewrite/write a patch for whois to do line wrapping correctly. I dislike \n's in things, especially things like that..
Geoff
Oh yes they would. Most of the current population that is buying their first computer is looking for something extremely cheap. There are people buying $199 PC's around here that have to sign up for 3 years of MSN. I would never buy a PC with that stuff on it, I'll get a Sun first (as long as sun doesnt do this too).
They're using linux as the OS for this thing but I thought linux's USB support wasn't anywhere near complete. If not, how are they doing it?
Yea, we know, FreeBSD is the answer to everything. I've been told this many times before. It seems that freebsd users simply want people to not use linux. I've used FreeBSD, and I chose to stay with linux for whatever reason, lets just say its because "linux" has less characters so that I dont start a war.I dont go around saying "FreeBSD sucks, use Linux" and I rarely hear Linux users doing so, why can't FreeBSD users stop nagging us? Some people use Macs, some people use Windows, everyone has a personality, everyone is different and has different tastes. Why cant we just accept that and stop bitching at everyone.
I tried to edit my prefs to display altavista, jennycam, polls, and freshmeat, hit submit and got:
You're browser didn't save a cookie properly. This could mean you are behind a filter that eliminates them, you are using a browser that doesn't support them, or you rejected it.
Im using netscape 4.5, not behind a firewall or filter (other than digex's broken web-cache).