How does a speech from the 70s, discussing how better "behaved" tubes are, have relevance today? Transistor technology has had 3 decades to grow into a more stable, mature platform for audio, and we understand a great deal more about the nature of sound and the equipment producing that sound.
Digging up an ancient speech which probably SPARKED the religious war in the first place is idiotic, in my opinion.
What's next? Will we dig up some argument from the 1880s about the superiority of DC-delivered electricity?
Actually, there is a firmware that can be flashed into a Samsung PC DVD-ROM drive to make it compatible with the Xbox - but that's merely a hack to make a drive with the same control board look and act like an Xbox drive.
Nobody has done a detailed disassembly and analysis of the DVD-ROM firmwares available - such a thing is not a simple task. Most firmware hacks are merely patches over data constants or simple patches to code, not real rewrites of code. Nothing is usuall reassembled or recompiled in hacked firmwares.
It is also likely that Microsoft specified DVD-ROM makers (Philips, Thomson and Samsung) to employ some form of encryption on the firmware as well, to elude hacker attempts to decipher the structure of Xbox DVDs.
Consider that there are only a handful of programmers who write embedded code for DVD controllers, and that most of them probably STILL haven't seen an Xbox, and it's like asking a class of 3rd graders to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's not impossible, per se, just close enough to it to render the goal impractical to attain.
Bunnie's book might go into better detail about this.
It was a good question though... I asked about the firmware when I first got into modding. It's been almost two years now for me, much of it spent creating an Xbox dashboard called "Media X Menu" (MXM) and the first game (homebrew) to run on CXBX - X-Marbles.
Xbox incorporates a non-standard DVD format that requires the DVD-ROM drive, at the firmware level, to handle reading the Xbox portion.
PCs only see an 11MB video that basically says "look, dumbass, this is an Xbox game so go stick it in your Xbox". (Maybe not in quite that harsh of language - I'm paraphrasing here)
You can't hook an Xbox Drive up to a PC, either... because the system won't recognize it as a valid DVD-ROM drive. Again, this is an issue with firmware (oddly enough, some standard DVD-ROM drives can be used on modded Xboxes to read backup discs).
This is why you have to use a modded Xbox to back up an Xbox game - the game material has to be read from the Xbox itself, then transferred to a PC.
This was intentional. It was meant to stymie hackers from simply reading the disc in a PC, or slapping an Xbox DVD-ROM drive into a PC and using that to read from.
The Xbox can handle games loaded from a DVD-R in UDF format, or even it's special Xbox DVD FAT format (burned as a "normal" disc image) - once it's modded. Why? Because it makes things easier for development. Developmnet Xboxes can be thought of as "half-modded" - developers can sign aps with a developer's key FOR THEIR XDK CONSOLES ONLY. Thus, they can test their releases with burned media (saving the expense of mastering a secure DVD and generating a signature).
So legitimate games cannot be used on a PC. Microsoft has locked themselves out of that market (albeit in the interest of copy protecting their software).
Consider people buying a PC on eBay advertising itself to be an 80GB or even 200GB drive, only to discover, within a few days, that all of your drives were getting corrupt.
Then opeining the case and discovering it's only a 30GB drive.
Bascially, this is a "good" method eBay scammers can use to inflate their PC specs to unsuspecting buyers.
You haven't? CXBX is an emulator for the Xbox. It's not perfect (well, it doesn't play many games yet - but does work with my own homebrew Xbox title, X-Marbles), but nothing prevents Microsoft from hiring Caustik, or someone as talented and creating a legal emulator for the system. If there's enough power, the DirectX layer can easily be re-written to support the ATI chipset.
FYI: There are actually two emulators out (the other emu's name eludes memory right now) - the "other" emu can actually bring Halo up.
All that from the part-time efforts of two enthusiasts who aren't even working together. Imagine that.
Typical of people who "just don't get it" - "Culture != Race" (Why do people miss these things?). There are plenty of engineers I know who are from Asia who have become "acclimatized" to Western Culture. They do quite well int he engineering fields, as brilliant as anyone else.
Knee-jerk reactions like your do not help define the issues or in any way help resolve the problems associated with them. Leaping up to call somebody a racist because you cannot define a logical, insightful rebuttal is purely asinine, IMO - but I'm sure there are a hdnaful who will goad you on.
BTW: Can you tell me how recently the Taj Mahal was built? the Great Wall? Not recently, you say? Why is that?? Even today, many of the great buildings are being engineered in offices that are HIGHLY westernized. You can find these outfits in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan... but Mombai? Bangladore? The high tech there consists of P2 machines, sharing a cellphone and a 128k ISDN line supplying an office of 200 people with internet - they are stuck in a culture that is far different from the one that engineered and built some of the great marvels in Asia. In a "westernized" office, high tech would be a given, connectivity, communication, resources (more than just headcounts).
Westerners live in a culture where technology is taken for granted, but very much defines our thought processes. Technology isn't a hurtle here, an obsticle to overcome; it's a tool we've grown very accustomed to - ingrained in our very being, and because of that, solutions are intuited far more easily than those who barely have exposure.
Of course, there is also plenty about our peculiar relationship with technology that's bad too... but Western Culture, and it's high-tech influence, will always turn out superior engineers, be they white, black, Asian, or Elbonian. Race has NOTHING to do with it.
This is the common mistake many big companies make. Offshoring IP development in the form of engineering is bad on so many levels - I have yet to see effective software engineering done by an Asian "offshore" outfit.
I believe this has something to do with Western Culture.
At any rate, the best success I've seen is to turn over detailed designs for offshore coders to implement, but even that can be of questionable quality, unless strict supervision is applied.
Do I seem cynical? I've seen some great IP development flushed down the drain in the rush to "cheap" Indian companies who've bait-and-switched personnel and taken 3-to-4 times the resources and ultimately, MORE MONEY to complete a project, and the results were very poor.
At any rate, there is a big difference between a software engineer and a programmer, and it's more than simply a case of following a software development process. Creativity has been a hallmark of American and European engineering, going back centuries - and it's an integral part of a successful program that develops IP.
J1850, CAN... nothing special about that. Cars have had "internal LANs" for decades.
The interaction is certainly becoming more pervasive, though: Don't try removing your factory stereo in the upcoming models, as you car will not work correctly (No, Windows is NOT involved, either)
Linux was derived form Minix, hence the "li" sound to go with the "Mi" sound... but the end part was intentionally changed to "ux" meaning, clearly, that the idea was to distance the ending sound greatly (i and u being farther away then i and any other vowel), so the sound should be "ooks"
Gee whiz, they shot the thing in some shopping mall and I think the only spaceship shot was a launch plume (could have used stock footage of a Saturn V takeoff.)
Some might call it "intelligent sci-fi" - I call it cheap and boring. Give me a rousing Space Opera any day over the visual valium of Gattaca.
Way back... a plastics manufacturer had the only plant currently set up to produce the epoxy resin used in most plast ICs.
RAM prices tripled overnight.
No other chips raised in price, and the epoxy, still priced around US$5-US$6 a pound, had a 6 month stockpile sitting at the site. All of the RAM manufacturers also had 6 month stockpiles of the stuff.
Plants in the US and Japan could have bene brought online in months, and Sumitomo had their plant back online within 6 months.
RAM sellers suck. I don't know where the exact problem is, but it's treated as a commodity, and it's wrong.
Yeah, they are "pirate" DVDs, ripped form laserdisc, but you know what? I've got the boxed sets... both of them (Original flavor and Special Edition) on VHS, so fair use says I should be allowed to have it in another format (after all, I have a 'license' for lifetime personal use, right?).
Sadly, Lucas could have had my business several times over had he released a crappy Original Edition without the bells and whistles, followed by a Features packed edition, followed by a Special Edition... I'd buy them all.
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How does a speech from the 70s, discussing how better "behaved" tubes are, have relevance today? Transistor technology has had 3 decades to grow into a more stable, mature platform for audio, and we understand a great deal more about the nature of sound and the equipment producing that sound.
Digging up an ancient speech which probably SPARKED the religious war in the first place is idiotic, in my opinion.
What's next? Will we dig up some argument from the 1880s about the superiority of DC-delivered electricity?
So this probe is going to fire a bullet to collect a sample?
What happens when the probe is pushed back from the recoil?
LOL, WTF? IMO, IIRC, tho IANAL, this looks familiar!
Actually, there is a firmware that can be flashed into a Samsung PC DVD-ROM drive to make it compatible with the Xbox - but that's merely a hack to make a drive with the same control board look and act like an Xbox drive.
Nobody has done a detailed disassembly and analysis of the DVD-ROM firmwares available - such a thing is not a simple task. Most firmware hacks are merely patches over data constants or simple patches to code, not real rewrites of code. Nothing is usuall reassembled or recompiled in hacked firmwares.
It is also likely that Microsoft specified DVD-ROM makers (Philips, Thomson and Samsung) to employ some form of encryption on the firmware as well, to elude hacker attempts to decipher the structure of Xbox DVDs.
Consider that there are only a handful of programmers who write embedded code for DVD controllers, and that most of them probably STILL haven't seen an Xbox, and it's like asking a class of 3rd graders to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's not impossible, per se, just close enough to it to render the goal impractical to attain.
Bunnie's book might go into better detail about this.
It was a good question though... I asked about the firmware when I first got into modding. It's been almost two years now for me, much of it spent creating an Xbox dashboard called "Media X Menu" (MXM) and the first game (homebrew) to run on CXBX - X-Marbles.
Xbox incorporates a non-standard DVD format that requires the DVD-ROM drive, at the firmware level, to handle reading the Xbox portion.
PCs only see an 11MB video that basically says "look, dumbass, this is an Xbox game so go stick it in your Xbox". (Maybe not in quite that harsh of language - I'm paraphrasing here)
You can't hook an Xbox Drive up to a PC, either... because the system won't recognize it as a valid DVD-ROM drive. Again, this is an issue with firmware (oddly enough, some standard DVD-ROM drives can be used on modded Xboxes to read backup discs).
This is why you have to use a modded Xbox to back up an Xbox game - the game material has to be read from the Xbox itself, then transferred to a PC.
This was intentional. It was meant to stymie hackers from simply reading the disc in a PC, or slapping an Xbox DVD-ROM drive into a PC and using that to read from.
The Xbox can handle games loaded from a DVD-R in UDF format, or even it's special Xbox DVD FAT format (burned as a "normal" disc image) - once it's modded. Why? Because it makes things easier for development. Developmnet Xboxes can be thought of as "half-modded" - developers can sign aps with a developer's key FOR THEIR XDK CONSOLES ONLY. Thus, they can test their releases with burned media (saving the expense of mastering a secure DVD and generating a signature).
So legitimate games cannot be used on a PC. Microsoft has locked themselves out of that market (albeit in the interest of copy protecting their software).
Think of it... you can all dress up as your favorite characters and create new audience routines to go with the movie!
Erm, just leave out the literal nailing of somebody to a cross.
I thought this was about Beowolf clusters in NASCAR. :o
Consider people buying a PC on eBay advertising itself to be an 80GB or even 200GB drive, only to discover, within a few days, that all of your drives were getting corrupt.
Then opeining the case and discovering it's only a 30GB drive.
Bascially, this is a "good" method eBay scammers can use to inflate their PC specs to unsuspecting buyers.
That might be why she didn't believe me.
...Yeah, I told my wife I meant to type SpiritRover.org - Doh!
You haven't? CXBX is an emulator for the Xbox. It's not perfect (well, it doesn't play many games yet - but does work with my own homebrew Xbox title, X-Marbles), but nothing prevents Microsoft from hiring Caustik, or someone as talented and creating a legal emulator for the system. If there's enough power, the DirectX layer can easily be re-written to support the ATI chipset.
FYI: There are actually two emulators out (the other emu's name eludes memory right now) - the "other" emu can actually bring Halo up.
All that from the part-time efforts of two enthusiasts who aren't even working together. Imagine that.
:::sigh:::
Typical of people who "just don't get it" - "Culture != Race" (Why do people miss these things?). There are plenty of engineers I know who are from Asia who have become "acclimatized" to Western Culture. They do quite well int he engineering fields, as brilliant as anyone else.
Knee-jerk reactions like your do not help define the issues or in any way help resolve the problems associated with them. Leaping up to call somebody a racist because you cannot define a logical, insightful rebuttal is purely asinine, IMO - but I'm sure there are a hdnaful who will goad you on.
BTW: Can you tell me how recently the Taj Mahal was built? the Great Wall? Not recently, you say? Why is that?? Even today, many of the great buildings are being engineered in offices that are HIGHLY westernized. You can find these outfits in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan... but Mombai? Bangladore? The high tech there consists of P2 machines, sharing a cellphone and a 128k ISDN line supplying an office of 200 people with internet - they are stuck in a culture that is far different from the one that engineered and built some of the great marvels in Asia. In a "westernized" office, high tech would be a given, connectivity, communication, resources (more than just headcounts).
Westerners live in a culture where technology is taken for granted, but very much defines our thought processes. Technology isn't a hurtle here, an obsticle to overcome; it's a tool we've grown very accustomed to - ingrained in our very being, and because of that, solutions are intuited far more easily than those who barely have exposure.
Of course, there is also plenty about our peculiar relationship with technology that's bad too... but Western Culture, and it's high-tech influence, will always turn out superior engineers, be they white, black, Asian, or Elbonian. Race has NOTHING to do with it.
This is the common mistake many big companies make. Offshoring IP development in the form of engineering is bad on so many levels - I have yet to see effective software engineering done by an Asian "offshore" outfit.
I believe this has something to do with Western Culture.
At any rate, the best success I've seen is to turn over detailed designs for offshore coders to implement, but even that can be of questionable quality, unless strict supervision is applied.
Do I seem cynical? I've seen some great IP development flushed down the drain in the rush to "cheap" Indian companies who've bait-and-switched personnel and taken 3-to-4 times the resources and ultimately, MORE MONEY to complete a project, and the results were very poor.
At any rate, there is a big difference between a software engineer and a programmer, and it's more than simply a case of following a software development process. Creativity has been a hallmark of American and European engineering, going back centuries - and it's an integral part of a successful program that develops IP.
J1850, CAN... nothing special about that. Cars have had "internal LANs" for decades.
The interaction is certainly becoming more pervasive, though: Don't try removing your factory stereo in the upcoming models, as you car will not work correctly (No, Windows is NOT involved, either)
Now the NCC-1701D whoulc have been the one to test, after all, we know it actually made planetfall.
Did they use containment forcefields in the test?
How did the plasma conduits hold up to the stress?
(Questions Geeks REALLY want to know!)
Bah... probably still tied to an ATI Rage video card, though...
Actually, it's pronounced li-nooks.
Linux was derived form Minix, hence the "li" sound to go with the "Mi" sound... but the end part was intentionally changed to "ux" meaning, clearly, that the idea was to distance the ending sound greatly (i and u being farther away then i and any other vowel), so the sound should be "ooks"
Li-nooks.
...they'll just forgive $1.1 billion in pirated software currently being used in California.
Of course, that doesn't even cover Silicon Valley - but it's a start!
Gee whiz, they shot the thing in some shopping mall and I think the only spaceship shot was a launch plume (could have used stock footage of a Saturn V takeoff.)
Some might call it "intelligent sci-fi" - I call it cheap and boring. Give me a rousing Space Opera any day over the visual valium of Gattaca.
...dig the hot chick's voice on bootup!
The Xbox crowd recently held one of these sorts of efforts... to get a successful N64 emulator ported and working well on the Xbox.
It's working quite well, too... in the first pass, only one entry made it, but it looks like it will handle 32MB games by the deadline.
BTW: The booty on that one was something like $2500.
Yeah yeah... I screwed up the post. I meant to mention the explosion. Fingers went faster than my brain.
I had published a long rant about this when it happened.
Way back... a plastics manufacturer had the only plant currently set up to produce the epoxy resin used in most plast ICs.
RAM prices tripled overnight.
No other chips raised in price, and the epoxy, still priced around US$5-US$6 a pound, had a 6 month stockpile sitting at the site. All of the RAM manufacturers also had 6 month stockpiles of the stuff.
Plants in the US and Japan could have bene brought online in months, and Sumitomo had their plant back online within 6 months.
RAM sellers suck. I don't know where the exact problem is, but it's treated as a commodity, and it's wrong.
You know, the one with the option of cutting out Jar Jar and all the kiddie stuff!
Yeah, they are "pirate" DVDs, ripped form laserdisc, but you know what? I've got the boxed sets... both of them (Original flavor and Special Edition) on VHS, so fair use says I should be allowed to have it in another format (after all, I have a 'license' for lifetime personal use, right?).
Sadly, Lucas could have had my business several times over had he released a crappy Original Edition without the bells and whistles, followed by a Features packed edition, followed by a Special Edition... I'd buy them all.
I just don't feel like waiting until 2006!!