If you look at the companies and facilities which have been centers of innovation over the years (Xerox PARC, 3M, IBM, etc.), you'll notice that most of those allow folks to work on something at least part of the time which has no present or foreseen future market value at all.
The idea is that something good *might* come from these apparently far-fetched projects.
This is also true for games and game-related concepts. If teams are expected to be profitable, essentially letting sales be the main determinant for their current actions, then most of the software that they will come up with will be little more than a derivative of existing stuff.
This is why we have game sequels ad Nauseum today.:-(
The so-called "OS/2 subsystem" was laughable as well. It only ran 16-bit text-mode programs, which excluded most applications. No GUI code (though an add-on may have been available), and nothing at all from 1992 or later that was written for 32-bit OS/2 kernels.
Heh. Nice way to arbitrarily exclude any system which doesn't meet your narrowly chosen set of criteria.:-)
I figure that a given platform that is at least somewhat relevant if I can still make my living writing software for it.
If not to you, than at least to me, my employer, and the hundreds of government and airline customers who depend on my code to function each and every day.:-)
Obviously when I wrote "developed after UNIX" I mean "the development process started after UNIX".
Not really related to my comment. Both OS2200/EXEC8 and MCP predate UNIX, and I was responding to your "By 1997 (one decade ago) there was no operating system in the world..." comment.
Clearly, that statement isn't true.
I'm exquisitely familiar[*] with The Univac/Sperry/Unisys 1100/2200 series. I'm familiar with MCP inly through the literature, admittedly. And I know why SX1100 was called "SUX 1100". By 1997 the writing was on the wall even for the Swift, and for some years now Exec and MCP have only been sold under emulation.
I've played with.. and written code... on both, and I've discovered that the impression one has of each environment is largely dependent on the toolset that one has worked with.
Some folks never see more of OS2200 than ED and basic ECL, but there's *so* much more to play with on a 2200 box, even if one stays in a vanilla DEMAND environment and doesn't get to play in nifty environments (IMO) like HVTIP+DPS.
Some folks (like me) have only played with WFL, COMS, and CANDE in an MCP environment, but I know from the words of others that MCP is also far nicer to use than that in more advanced shops. The little A-box shop I worked in only knew (and had) a minimal toolset.
The lowest common denominator is usually not a pretty sight regardless of platform.
The native 2200 CPU hardware might be emulated (I actually don't know that much about how the hardware end of the Clearpath Dorado stuff works, and as an applications programmer I admit I don't really care), but the code OS2200 environment is still the same from a programmer's perspective as it ever was. MAPPER is MAPPER, HVTIP is HVTIP, SSG and DOWN still drive the GEN process, and IPF is still a verbose POC and still sucks even in MODE SCREEN.
I suppose I could qualify that with "by 1997 there was no operating system that wasn't clearly a lame duck that..." but really, you're stretching here.
I disagree. The fact that two of the top five US airlines still depend on OS2200 to fly (UAL with UNIMATIC, and NWA with WorldFLight, Cardinal, MSG, etc.), and that almost all of the rest worldwide would have serious issues if the OS2200 support infrastructure on which they depend were to go under (including several systems maintained and operated by my own employer) made the OS2200 platform somewhat more than a lame duck, IMO.
Kill it, and you kill (or at least SERIOUSLY cripple) the airline industry. Worldwide.
It isn't mainstream, of course, but it really never was. That doesn't lessen its importance in the overall scheme of things, however, and "lame duck" is too strong a criticism regardless. Perhaps the EXEC has serious architechural weaknesses from a pure CompSci point of view, but that's not something I know about. I am but an egg in an EXEC context; I only use the platform to write applications code for my users and customers.
Insofar as MCP is concerned, I think you'd be surprised at the number and variety of shops out there who are still using MCP machines. I know of companies with only a very small IT department (sometimes less than 10 people in total) who still use a smaller A-series box, and who have no plans to move because it simply works.
[*] Read as "exquisitely painfully familiar".
Sounds like someone was stuck on the machine without the proper toolset.:-)
Solaris is a desolate wasteland without third-party shells, editors, and other utilities as well. That doesn't mean it can't be made livable. There's a *very good reason* that I maintain and enhance my own copies of VSH, CSHELL, and UEDIT at my current shop.:-)
By 1987 (two decades ago) the UNIX environment had been re-implemented dozens of times, both standalone and hosted on top of other operating systems. By 1997 (one decade ago) there was no operating system in the world that wasn't either UNIX-based, transitioning to UNIX, or shipping with a functional hosted UNIX environment... other than Windows.
Both Unisys MCP and OS2200 were being developed in 1997 (and are still being developed and sold), but neither one has a UNIX subsystem that I'm aware of (OS1100 had SX1100 at one point in time, but that has been dead for 20 years), and neither one is particularly UNIX-like (MCP is a very old Burroughs OS, and OS2200 is effectively EXEC8 with additions).
No. Not really. TurboPascal for DOS might've been lean, and Java IDEa like BlueJ are lean, but Netbeans is large and slow if you run it on older hardware. It'll still work, but not quickly.
I think some folks are forgetting that not everyone is doing development on 3GHz desktops...:-)
I learned to use my ears as much as my eyes when going through the single-player levels, and there were certain creature sounds on Doom that would just send shivers up my spine whenever I heard them.
Not only that, but anyone who ever used PC/GEOS knows that it was a lightweight multithreade and preemptively multitasking OS even in its 1.x incarnations.
Long in the tooth? PC/GEOS was a LOT more sophisticated both in terms of process/memory management and in terms of object orientation than *any* of the PalmOS releases!
A modern OS should come bundled with whatever browser the seller of a given machine wants to install or uninstall.
That includes Firefox, Opera, MSIE, or whatever else the OEM desires. The choice should be with the OEM.
The problem many of us have with Windows preinstalled on machines is the fact that IE is always present in those cases and the other browsers are never present. That creates a tremendous bias amongst nontechnical users towards MSIE and the way it behaves.
TA was seriously rigged in favour of an AI on resource-rich maps. Even without much intelligence, the ability to concurrently control large numbers of construction bots gave it a huge advantage. The game was seriously in need of better support for delegation (i.e. tell a construction bot to establish a forward base somewhere, and build other construction vehicles to help it).
Effective player use of command queueing can help with that to some extent -- I regularly have between a half-dozen and several dozen tasks in the order queue for each for my construction units, mainly sending them out to construct turret/structure patterns and dragons teeth barriers, and I'll often set one or more other construction units (usually level 1 units helping a level 2) to speed up construction for the directing unit. You can keep several dozen construction units constantly busy for a half-hour that way... no problem.:-)
You can queue up darn near ANY type and/or combination of orders with the SHIFT key in TA. Other game makers need to learn how to emulate that type of interface, IMO.
I have a Motorola V557 phone, and the 770 networks with it just fine via Bluetooth. Not as fast as WiFi by a mile, but it'll work anywhere I can get a cell connection.
That's a working Firefox, Links, *and* Opera in my pocket. I think that's frigging awesome!:-)
Right now it takes too much fiddling to make it work really well.
I installed Gaim on my wife's 770 (which came bundled with OS2006), and she's been off and running with the thing for the past three months. She doesn't even know or care how to install software on it, but it works well for her. Chatting with a stylus isn't as nice as with a keyboard, but it beats the heck out of having no IM access at all in many situations.
Me, I fiddled more.:-) I think it's fun running Firefox on my Warp 4 box via VNC from my web tablet while sitting in my living room.:-)
People don't want to fiddle with a product. They want it to just work.
These tablets don't need that much fiddling to be useful. My wife is happy with the bundled Opera browser in hers. I've installed a few more out of curiousity (Minimo 0.2, MicroB, and Links 1.x), but still use Opera for most stuff as well. It isn't bad, and it's lightweight.
They aren't PDAs or phones. They're web tablets!! The main intended use is as an extension to an existing LAN, or as a browsing/mail/music/photo box that can piggyback off free WiFi or a Bluetooth phone.
Don't try to force a triangular peg into a square hole.:-)
Now that it has a keyboard, you can do a lot with it that you couldn't do with the older versions.
I dunno... I can still use Midnight Commander and Links in an xterm on my 770. Just gotta use the stylus keypad is all. And doom works fine (if a bit differently) with the stylus, too.:-)
Hee! Serves me right for being condescending myself in the previous posting.:-)
I meant:
"Memorizable" does, at least in the more literate parts of the world.
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot... I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot... I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot... I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot... I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot... I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
"Memorable" refers to something that is worth remembering or easily remembered, but it has nothing to do with the act of memorization as such. Thus, it doesn't provide a precise solution to the problem.
"Memorable" does, at least in the more literate parts of the world.
I hate language snobs, especially when they don't have a clue about the language they presume to know...
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I'b be willing to bet that less than 54% of the total computer user base uses Wifi at all.
If you look at the companies and facilities which have been centers of innovation over the years (Xerox PARC, 3M, IBM, etc.), you'll notice that most of those allow folks to work on something at least part of the time which has no present or foreseen future market value at all.
:-(
The idea is that something good *might* come from these apparently far-fetched projects.
This is also true for games and game-related concepts. If teams are expected to be profitable, essentially letting sales be the main determinant for their current actions, then most of the software that they will come up with will be little more than a derivative of existing stuff.
This is why we have game sequels ad Nauseum today.
I think they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Oops...
:-)
:-)
was (actually were) released by Vivendi Universal. w00t!
I love tribes. Stormbots rule!
...are all available (legally) for free online. EA released C&C as part of its 13th anniversary, and Tribes and its sequel Tribes 2 was released
For many IT folks, especially some of the better ones, the "peon work" is the whole point of being involved in IT.
I want to do design work and direct projects during my career endgame, not play politics.
The so-called "OS/2 subsystem" was laughable as well. It only ran 16-bit text-mode programs, which excluded most applications. No GUI code (though an add-on may have been available), and nothing at all from 1992 or later that was written for 32-bit OS/2 kernels.
Heh. Nice way to arbitrarily exclude any system which doesn't meet your narrowly chosen set of criteria. :-)
:-)
I figure that a given platform that is at least somewhat relevant if I can still make my living writing software for it.
If not to you, than at least to me, my employer, and the hundreds of government and airline customers who depend on my code to function each and every day.
Uh... No, it isn't...
Now, there *is* a variant of Netbeans called the "BlueJ Edition", but that is not the same thing as vanilla BlueJ.
At all. Believe me.
I do better than that. I don't use it at all. :-)
Not really related to my comment. Both OS2200/EXEC8 and MCP predate UNIX, and I was responding to your "By 1997 (one decade ago) there was no operating system in the world..." comment.
Clearly, that statement isn't true.
I've played with .. and written code ... on both, and I've discovered that the impression one has of each environment is largely dependent on the toolset that one has worked with.
Some folks never see more of OS2200 than ED and basic ECL, but there's *so* much more to play with on a 2200 box, even if one stays in a vanilla DEMAND environment and doesn't get to play in nifty environments (IMO) like HVTIP+DPS.
Some folks (like me) have only played with WFL, COMS, and CANDE in an MCP environment, but I know from the words of others that MCP is also far nicer to use than that in more advanced shops. The little A-box shop I worked in only knew (and had) a minimal toolset.
The lowest common denominator is usually not a pretty sight regardless of platform.
The native 2200 CPU hardware might be emulated (I actually don't know that much about how the hardware end of the Clearpath Dorado stuff works, and as an applications programmer I admit I don't really care), but the code OS2200 environment is still the same from a programmer's perspective as it ever was. MAPPER is MAPPER, HVTIP is HVTIP, SSG and DOWN still drive the GEN process, and IPF is still a verbose POC and still sucks even in MODE SCREEN.
I disagree. The fact that two of the top five US airlines still depend on OS2200 to fly (UAL with UNIMATIC, and NWA with WorldFLight, Cardinal, MSG, etc.), and that almost all of the rest worldwide would have serious issues if the OS2200 support infrastructure on which they depend were to go under (including several systems maintained and operated by my own employer) made the OS2200 platform somewhat more than a lame duck, IMO.
Kill it, and you kill (or at least SERIOUSLY cripple) the airline industry. Worldwide.
It isn't mainstream, of course, but it really never was. That doesn't lessen its importance in the overall scheme of things, however, and "lame duck" is too strong a criticism regardless. Perhaps the EXEC has serious architechural weaknesses from a pure CompSci point of view, but that's not something I know about. I am but an egg in an EXEC context; I only use the platform to write applications code for my users and customers.
Insofar as MCP is concerned, I think you'd be surprised at the number and variety of shops out there who are still using MCP machines. I know of companies with only a very small IT department (sometimes less than 10 people in total) who still use a smaller A-series box, and who have no plans to move because it simply works.
Sounds like someone was stuck on the machine without the proper toolset. :-)
Solaris is a desolate wasteland without third-party shells, editors, and other utilities as well. That doesn't mean it can't be made livable. There's a *very good reason* that I maintain and enhance my own copies of VSH, CSHELL, and UEDIT at my current shop. :-)
Both Unisys MCP and OS2200 were being developed in 1997 (and are still being developed and sold), but neither one has a UNIX subsystem that I'm aware of (OS1100 had SX1100 at one point in time, but that has been dead for 20 years), and neither one is particularly UNIX-like (MCP is a very old Burroughs OS, and OS2200 is effectively EXEC8 with additions).
Speaking as an OS/2 user ... I wouldn't use it. :-(
No. Not really. TurboPascal for DOS might've been lean, and Java IDEa like BlueJ are lean, but Netbeans is large and slow if you run it on older hardware. It'll still work, but not quickly.
:-)
I think some folks are forgetting that not everyone is doing development on 3GHz desktops...
There is only ONE popular OS. Windows. That's the problem... All other OSes have less than 10% of the market, so they're niche players at best.
I learned to use my ears as much as my eyes when going through the single-player levels, and there were certain creature sounds on Doom that would just send shivers up my spine whenever I heard them.
:-) :-)
Some of them still do.
Not only that, but anyone who ever used PC/GEOS knows that it was a lightweight multithreade and preemptively multitasking OS even in its 1.x incarnations.
Long in the tooth? PC/GEOS was a LOT more sophisticated both in terms of process/memory management and in terms of object orientation than *any* of the PalmOS releases!
A modern OS should come bundled with whatever browser the seller of a given machine wants to install or uninstall.
That includes Firefox, Opera, MSIE, or whatever else the OEM desires. The choice should be with the OEM.
The problem many of us have with Windows preinstalled on machines is the fact that IE is always present in those cases and the other browsers are never present. That creates a tremendous bias amongst nontechnical users towards MSIE and the way it behaves.
Effective player use of command queueing can help with that to some extent -- I regularly have between a half-dozen and several dozen tasks in the order queue for each for my construction units, mainly sending them out to construct turret/structure patterns and dragons teeth barriers, and I'll often set one or more other construction units (usually level 1 units helping a level 2) to speed up construction for the directing unit. You can keep several dozen construction units constantly busy for a half-hour that way ... no problem. :-)
You can queue up darn near ANY type and/or combination of orders with the SHIFT key in TA. Other game makers need to learn how to emulate that type of interface, IMO.
I have a Motorola V557 phone, and the 770 networks with it just fine via Bluetooth. Not as fast as WiFi by a mile, but it'll work anywhere I can get a cell connection.
:-)
That's a working Firefox, Links, *and* Opera in my pocket. I think that's frigging awesome!
I installed Gaim on my wife's 770 (which came bundled with OS2006), and she's been off and running with the thing for the past three months. She doesn't even know or care how to install software on it, but it works well for her. Chatting with a stylus isn't as nice as with a keyboard, but it beats the heck out of having no IM access at all in many situations.
Me, I fiddled more. :-) I think it's fun running Firefox on my Warp 4 box via VNC from my web tablet while sitting in my living room. :-)
These tablets don't need that much fiddling to be useful. My wife is happy with the bundled Opera browser in hers. I've installed a few more out of curiousity (Minimo 0.2, MicroB, and Links 1.x), but still use Opera for most stuff as well. It isn't bad, and it's lightweight.
They aren't PDAs or phones. They're web tablets!! The main intended use is as an extension to an existing LAN, or as a browsing/mail/music/photo box that can piggyback off free WiFi or a Bluetooth phone.
:-)
Don't try to force a triangular peg into a square hole.
I dunno... I can still use Midnight Commander and Links in an xterm on my 770. Just gotta use the stylus keypad is all. And doom works fine (if a bit differently) with the stylus, too. :-)
Networking on the 770 is quite fast, at least when I'm using it with my Linksys WAP.
Yeah, I know. Some folks just don't have a sense of humor. :-(
Hee! Serves me right for being condescending myself in the previous posting. :-)
I meant:
"Memorizable" does, at least in the more literate parts of the world.
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
I will hit preview before I post again on Slashdot...
It seems both M-W and AH agree with me.
"Memorable" refers to something that is worth remembering or easily remembered, but it has nothing to do with the act of memorization as such. Thus, it doesn't provide a precise solution to the problem.
"Memorable" does, at least in the more literate parts of the world.
I hate language snobs, especially when they don't have a clue about the language they presume to know...