You didn't point out flaws, you made a blanket statement and claimed that any open source application must be "dicked around" with for hours before it's functional.
I have a computer illiterate grandmother using Mandrake 8 that would disagree with you. Well, actually she wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about with software coding and interfaces... but she thinks the mozilla lizard is cute.
Some examples for future reference-
Here's a flaw in closed source software:
IIS has had several security vulnerabilities in the recent past, and with no way to audit it, we'll never know where the next one will crop up until it's too late.
Here's a flaw in open source software:
Desktop environments like KDE and Gnome consume a tremendous amount more resources than simple window managers.
...and here is an unfounded statement that constitutes a troll:
jchristopher smells like ass.
You can get it in Japan. It's a GBA game that wasn't (I don't think) released in NA or EU.
Re:I can't imagine the point of doing this.
on
WonderSwan Advance
·
· Score: 1
Since it's smaller it probably actually fits in a front pant pocket without causing a painful crotch injury when sitting down, unlike the full-size GBA.:-P
He's quite correct, actually. It's just a GBA inside a wonderswan case with some rewiring.
If this is what threw you (not sure what the babelfish translation would look like, but I imagine it would be misleading):
"il a fallut retravailler l'intérieur pour la mise en place des 2 cartes mère"
He means that he had to rework the interior to make room for two motherboards, not cartridges.
In french, cartridge == cartrouche, not carte.
There's just one cartridge port, for gba cartridges, sort of sticking out the back. The wonderswan motherboard's only purpose is to handle the sound and buttons (then passing on the signals to the gba board behind it)
On a side note, it looks like it could be accidentally snapped off if a little too much pressure were applied horizontally across the top of the cartridge (like a slipping finger). That would suck.:-P
Human translation of the first few paragraphs
on
WonderSwan Advance
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The Wonderswan Advance is a unique machine made with two consoles; the WSC and the GBA.
It possesses two motherbards. One for connecting the controls of the original wonderswan, and the second as the heart of the unit running the games.
These 2 boards were soldered onto each other with about 40 solder points. Normally I would have soldered at least 50 points, but techncal problems prevented me from doing so.
The front face of the wonderswan, as you can see in the pictures, is blue-grey while the back face is transparent. You'll notice that a number of modifications were made to the unit to fit the motherboard of the GBA. The cartridge port as well as a number of components required me to enlarge the cartridge slot and make a number of holes to ensure that everything would fit properly. The final product isn't exactly of the best workmanship, though I must say that I didn't have the steadiest of hands while making it. I'm quite satisfied with the result, however; especially seeing as it's only a prototype.
Back on the front of the console, you'll notice in the photos that the power, start and sound buttons are missing. Why? It's simply because I had make room for the GBA's screen, which is much thicker than the wonderswan's original screen. I moved the start and sound buttons to the top left directional pad's Y1 and Y2 buttons, while attaching the GBA's L&R button to the remaining two between them. Playability suffers in some games like F-Zero due to the awkward position of the L&R buttons. The game remains playable nonetheless, and I can tell you it's pretty funny seeing F-Zero running on a wonderswan!
Concerning the plastic viewing window for the wonderswan's screen: I was afraid of losing a lot of the viewing area on the GBA's screen, but as it turns out, I didn't lose any from the sides and only lost three lines on the top and bottom.
As you know, there's a black border surrounding the screen on the GBA to counter the effect of shadows falling on the screen from along the edges of the screen cavity. The wonderswan doesn't have this. The problem with these shadows is that it becomes hard to tell where the screen ends... but unfortunately a black border wasn't put in the wonderswan to save on screen real-estate. I think I'll add a black border; I'll lose a few more pixels but the shadows will have less of an effect and it'll improve esthetics.
The unit only lasts a maximum of 7 hours, which is less than either of the original consoles, and that it uses two 1.5v AAA batteries.
The weight of the unit right now is about the same as a GBC. As I said above, the wonderswan advance is very compact, even though the cartridge sticks out the back 4-5mm.
(He then goes on to tell how he did it, and why. The short of the why is that he loves the WSC hardware but not bandai's poor support of the system)
Keep in mind that you don't legally own any GPL'ed code unless you wrote it yourself. You merely have a license to use that code according to the set of rules and conditions set forth by the license.
The big deal is that you do not own the code and you don't have the right to do anything with it that's prohibited by the license; Such as using it in your own program (unless you then release that program under the GPL).
Code is intellectual property. Please do not confuse this with real property.:-P
Rome took hundreds of years to die, and did tremendous damage to other nations in the process.
It's more than the Americans you should be feeling sorry for.
RDRAM can't do 64bits per tick at 1200Mhz for the same reason DDR-SDRAM can't. The signal degrades before it can go much of anywhere. You have to either cut down the frequency or cut down the bus width. Cutting down the bus width requires that you use a protocol to communicate with the memory if you want it to work well with your modern system... and that means overhead, downright painful latency and a nightmarish implimenation.
What RDRAM can (and does) do is use multiple memory channels to access more modules at once and effectively provide higher bandwidth. This requires pairs (or quartets if they go quad-channel) of modules and is something DDR-SDRAM can also do. Check out Nvidia's high-end Nforce chipset (there are two) for an example of dual-channel DDR-SDRAM.
The "reflective" display technology in the LCD was supposed to enhance viewability by trapping more ambient light and reflecting it back to the player.
Too bad the plastic screen cover reflects it glaringly right into the player's eyes before it has a chance to illuminate the LCD.
The game designers probably fell for it hook line and sinker like the rest of us.:-P
It's not the dimness of the screen so much as the fact that even if you HAVE your own source of light, it's very difficult to use it.
That plastic guard will reflect most of it right back into your eyes in an oh-so-enjoyable glare.:p
It's the same screen with the same plastic screen cover whose only purpose is to thwart all attempts to extetnally light it... only wider.
The problem people are having stems from the fact that the GBA can display a lot richer colour.
It doesn't sound like a problem until you realize that with fewer colours you tend to have more contrast between them, so objects are easier to see & differentiate from the background.
I still didn't like the screen on the GBC, though it wasn't TOO bad playing those limited-colour games on it. They look and play the same on the GBA (though you can now play them widescreen if you like)... but GBA games can be painful. Games that use the brighter colours help, but that's not much of a solution.:(
It's not quite that bad, nor is it picture-perfect.
I'm more concerned with what this thing is doing to my eyes and wrists as I squint and tilt it at odd angles to play the games properly. I certainly wouldn't want to give one of these to any of the children in my family. They're doing enough damage to their eyes by sitting 2 inches from the TV as it is.
Nintendo had to give away free gloves the last time let a design flaw slip by the wayside. Somehow I doubt they can afford corrective eyewear for all the gameboy players.:-P
A backlight won't help in the GBA's case. The LCD screen has reflective faceting to improve the visual quality (not to be confused with the reflective plastic cover that actually makes frontlighting the unit unbearable due to glare).
Any light shone through the back will only succeed in "washing out" the colour due to the properties of the LCD.
Personally I would have preferred an organic electroluminescent display (OLED) to this darkened LCD nightmare. OLEDs produce their own light and are more energy efficient than LCDs, let alone LCDs with backlighting.
#1 reminds me of Tribes 2. You get a serial number with the game and it allows you to create your account. It's not to track any monthly fee (online play is free), but to attach an ID number and username to you for anti-piracy and accountability.
Your identity can be banned permanently from servers or deleted outright if you're enough of an ass.
Now, I realize that more than one person could be sifting through the queue at once and tossing out articles, and that what strikes the fancy of any one of those people could differ with the phases of the moon... but rejecting an article from the author only to post it when submitted by someone called EconomyGuy is certainly without rhyme or reason...
Slashdot Mirror
Don't hold your breath, because it will never be "complete".
There will always be something to fix or something to add, and that's the best part about it.
nice -19 xmms
You didn't point out flaws, you made a blanket statement and claimed that any open source application must be "dicked around" with for hours before it's functional.
I have a computer illiterate grandmother using Mandrake 8 that would disagree with you. Well, actually she wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about with software coding and interfaces... but she thinks the mozilla lizard is cute.
Some examples for future reference-
Here's a flaw in closed source software:
IIS has had several security vulnerabilities in the recent past, and with no way to audit it, we'll never know where the next one will crop up until it's too late.
Here's a flaw in open source software:
Desktop environments like KDE and Gnome consume a tremendous amount more resources than simple window managers.
...and here is an unfounded statement that constitutes a troll:
jchristopher smells like ass.
Well, at least that explains why they can never hit what they're aiming at.
You can get it in Japan. It's a GBA game that wasn't (I don't think) released in NA or EU.
Since it's smaller it probably actually fits in a front pant pocket without causing a painful crotch injury when sitting down, unlike the full-size GBA. :-P
He's quite correct, actually. It's just a GBA inside a wonderswan case with some rewiring.
:-P
If this is what threw you (not sure what the babelfish translation would look like, but I imagine it would be misleading):
"il a fallut retravailler l'intérieur pour la mise en place des 2 cartes mère"
He means that he had to rework the interior to make room for two motherboards, not cartridges.
In french, cartridge == cartrouche, not carte.
There's just one cartridge port, for gba cartridges, sort of sticking out the back. The wonderswan motherboard's only purpose is to handle the sound and buttons (then passing on the signals to the gba board behind it)
On a side note, it looks like it could be accidentally snapped off if a little too much pressure were applied horizontally across the top of the cartridge (like a slipping finger). That would suck.
The Wonderswan Advance is a unique machine made with two consoles; the WSC and the GBA.
It possesses two motherbards. One for connecting the controls of the original wonderswan, and the second as the heart of the unit running the games.
These 2 boards were soldered onto each other with about 40 solder points. Normally I would have soldered at least 50 points, but techncal problems prevented me from doing so.
The front face of the wonderswan, as you can see in the pictures, is blue-grey while the back face is transparent. You'll notice that a number of modifications were made to the unit to fit the motherboard of the GBA. The cartridge port as well as a number of components required me to enlarge the cartridge slot and make a number of holes to ensure that everything would fit properly. The final product isn't exactly of the best workmanship, though I must say that I didn't have the steadiest of hands while making it. I'm quite satisfied with the result, however; especially seeing as it's only a prototype.
Back on the front of the console, you'll notice in the photos that the power, start and sound buttons are missing. Why? It's simply because I had make room for the GBA's screen, which is much thicker than the wonderswan's original screen. I moved the start and sound buttons to the top left directional pad's Y1 and Y2 buttons, while attaching the GBA's L&R button to the remaining two between them. Playability suffers in some games like F-Zero due to the awkward position of the L&R buttons. The game remains playable nonetheless, and I can tell you it's pretty funny seeing F-Zero running on a wonderswan!
Concerning the plastic viewing window for the wonderswan's screen: I was afraid of losing a lot of the viewing area on the GBA's screen, but as it turns out, I didn't lose any from the sides and only lost three lines on the top and bottom.
As you know, there's a black border surrounding the screen on the GBA to counter the effect of shadows falling on the screen from along the edges of the screen cavity. The wonderswan doesn't have this. The problem with these shadows is that it becomes hard to tell where the screen ends... but unfortunately a black border wasn't put in the wonderswan to save on screen real-estate. I think I'll add a black border; I'll lose a few more pixels but the shadows will have less of an effect and it'll improve esthetics.
The unit only lasts a maximum of 7 hours, which is less than either of the original consoles, and that it uses two 1.5v AAA batteries.
The weight of the unit right now is about the same as a GBC. As I said above, the wonderswan advance is very compact, even though the cartridge sticks out the back 4-5mm.
(He then goes on to tell how he did it, and why. The short of the why is that he loves the WSC hardware but not bandai's poor support of the system)
Keep in mind that you don't legally own any GPL'ed code unless you wrote it yourself. You merely have a license to use that code according to the set of rules and conditions set forth by the license.
:-P
The big deal is that you do not own the code and you don't have the right to do anything with it that's prohibited by the license; Such as using it in your own program (unless you then release that program under the GPL).
Code is intellectual property. Please do not confuse this with real property.
Rome took hundreds of years to die, and did tremendous damage to other nations in the process.
It's more than the Americans you should be feeling sorry for.
RDRAM can't do 64bits per tick at 1200Mhz for the same reason DDR-SDRAM can't. The signal degrades before it can go much of anywhere. You have to either cut down the frequency or cut down the bus width. Cutting down the bus width requires that you use a protocol to communicate with the memory if you want it to work well with your modern system... and that means overhead, downright painful latency and a nightmarish implimenation.
What RDRAM can (and does) do is use multiple memory channels to access more modules at once and effectively provide higher bandwidth. This requires pairs (or quartets if they go quad-channel) of modules and is something DDR-SDRAM can also do. Check out Nvidia's high-end Nforce chipset (there are two) for an example of dual-channel DDR-SDRAM.
The "reflective" display technology in the LCD was supposed to enhance viewability by trapping more ambient light and reflecting it back to the player.
:-P
Too bad the plastic screen cover reflects it glaringly right into the player's eyes before it has a chance to illuminate the LCD.
The game designers probably fell for it hook line and sinker like the rest of us.
It's not the dimness of the screen so much as the fact that even if you HAVE your own source of light, it's very difficult to use it. :p
That plastic guard will reflect most of it right back into your eyes in an oh-so-enjoyable glare.
It's the same screen with the same plastic screen cover whose only purpose is to thwart all attempts to extetnally light it... only wider.
:(
The problem people are having stems from the fact that the GBA can display a lot richer colour.
It doesn't sound like a problem until you realize that with fewer colours you tend to have more contrast between them, so objects are easier to see & differentiate from the background.
I still didn't like the screen on the GBC, though it wasn't TOO bad playing those limited-colour games on it. They look and play the same on the GBA (though you can now play them widescreen if you like)... but GBA games can be painful. Games that use the brighter colours help, but that's not much of a solution.
It's not quite that bad, nor is it picture-perfect.
:-P
I'm more concerned with what this thing is doing to my eyes and wrists as I squint and tilt it at odd angles to play the games properly. I certainly wouldn't want to give one of these to any of the children in my family. They're doing enough damage to their eyes by sitting 2 inches from the TV as it is.
Nintendo had to give away free gloves the last time let a design flaw slip by the wayside. Somehow I doubt they can afford corrective eyewear for all the gameboy players.
I just linked to the first one I could find. They've been in displays (especially on stereos) for quite some time now. :)
A backlight won't help in the GBA's case. The LCD screen has reflective faceting to improve the visual quality (not to be confused with the reflective plastic cover that actually makes frontlighting the unit unbearable due to glare).
Any light shone through the back will only succeed in "washing out" the colour due to the properties of the LCD. Personally I would have preferred an organic electroluminescent display (OLED) to this darkened LCD nightmare. OLEDs produce their own light and are more energy efficient than LCDs, let alone LCDs with backlighting.
#1 reminds me of Tribes 2. You get a serial number with the game and it allows you to create your account. It's not to track any monthly fee (online play is free), but to attach an ID number and username to you for anti-piracy and accountability.
Your identity can be banned permanently from servers or deleted outright if you're enough of an ass.
If I had mod points I'd give you one for that metaphor. =)
Nothing. :)
Try to act surprised.
Now, I realize that more than one person could be sifting through the queue at once and tossing out articles, and that what strikes the fancy of any one of those people could differ with the phases of the moon... but rejecting an article from the author only to post it when submitted by someone called EconomyGuy is certainly without rhyme or reason...
You have to admit it's pretty funny though. =)
He got Canada too, so I'm guessing he's trying to cover the entire 1- country code.
Except for the small snag that OS X and its apple-created software is not open source...
Yes, rotate clockwise/counterclockwise. :)
Also keep in mind that much of that source code isn't used, like code for different architectures.