No, no...it's not what toast- means. He actually refers to games that really could only be played by sticking the disk in the drive and turn on the computer. They were not DOS readable at all. You could copy them most of the time with Copy2Pc or so. I still have some in my collection (on 3"1/2 disks), I never bothered to analyse them tough.
What you describe is true too tough. Later games that started to use lots of memory (mostly-pre-DOS extenders) needed so much memory that a clean DOS 3.3 and starting the game would do the trick. Of course you had to read the manual;-) You realise of course that it would not be possible for game vendors to actually include MS-DOS to make their games bootable: imagine the licensing problems.
A long time ago (198x?) such stuff existed. Well, it was actually bootable diskettes which had no (identifiable?) OS. Those diskettes were unreadable from DOS.
The games I had on such disks included Winter Games, Summer Games, J-Bird, and a few others but I don't recall the names. Of course it was in spacy CGA graphics with awesome buzzer-audio-systsem(tm) making funny noises.
I must be getting old:-) For games game-on-CD-and-don't-bother abstraction would be great, but as someone already pointed out it will be hard to provide compatibility for all hardware. Even worse, you may have upgraded to the fancy newest 3D card and the game you bought 3 months ago won't work anymore just because of that. It would really suck, don't you think?
Now, I guessed that all on my own, really.:-) It would have been more helpful if you could point me out to a site where a newbie like me can get help to install a lightweight Linux installation that is fully X-capable. (read: a replacement for Windows)
Loading Netscape was only that slow when not connected to the internet, so it could be some connection-timeout setting. Besides, I missed Eudora...
Would you be so kind and tell me how to do that? I have an old laptop (P120/32RAM) on which I tried to do exactly that. Linux needed about 900Meg of harddisk space (on a 1.3Gig that is insane) and X-Windows ran slooooow. (I admit, I used KDE) Just loading Netscape took 5 minutes. Because of painfully slow performance I had to switch back to Windows 95, which runs acceptably if well tweaked. Note that I'm pretty new to Linux and have no clue how to teak it.
Why would we need a *real* delete key? We have Windows for that: I mean, most lusers use a flavour of Windows anyway, which crashes at least heavily enough once a year to kill all your data. Mostly you have to reformat your drive, and don't have a backup handy anyway. So *once* a year you start from a clean slate...
<CONSIPRACY MODE=ON> This is just a trick to show that all criminals use Linux because their boxes don't crash and incriminating material never vanishes...thus Linux must be the evil tool of criminals and hackers (oops, I mean crackers). It must and shall be eradicated! </CONSIPRACY MODE=OFF>
:-)
Tough I'm not a specialist at all, I read an interesting article on it at Linuxgazette . Interesting technical information (datastructures etc...)
By the way, I got the link in a comment here at slashdot (some time ago).
Okay, you right: IBM was not always a good player. But I think that was way before the OS/2 area (I'm only into computing since '89, so I'm not authority on the topic), but then the domination of Wfw3xx was already prevalent. Linux was still unborn and for that matter OS/2 was the only good choice for personal i386 based PC. (Talking about desktop, not server) As far as I recall Vobis shipped OS/2, not because it was pushed by IBM (as you said, IBM cound't do such things anymore), but because it believed in it's superiority. Consumers complained and later on they shipped it with Wfw3xx anyway. But then, I see you agree with me on that it wasn't bad OS at all:-)
Actually I found your comparison with playskool toys pretty weird: I tought that playschool was childproof and that swallowing the toy would be the equivalent of a KernelPanic/BSOD/Bomb(Mac). Now, if you hold the comparison with Windows then it is more like giving a fork to the kid to play around with. I have yet to meet a normal user whose PC is still fully functional after 1 year of use (with Windows of course).
Now, even being a non-open-source-OS-by-big-bad-IBM, I still like OS/2...in it's time it had a chance, but medriocity won. Sadly.... My new hopes are in Linux, but it's not yet ready for the average desktop user.
While you are probably right *now*, there was a time that people ditched a perfectly good 32-bit OS for DOS with Windows for Workgroups 3.xx
Honestly: back in the time when a Pentium 133 was a hot-rod, I know that a German PC-vendor called Vobis sold their Highscreen series with OS/2 preinstalled. I'm really sure of it because a friend of mine bought one (Hi Krissyboy!). Believe it or not, but most people ditched it for the largely inferior DOS/Windows combination. I know, I'm probably a bit biased because I *liked* OS/2
You're trolling or confused...They are talking about the AOL chat client not the ISP (if you can call it that). The AOL chat client (AIM - that comes bundled with Netscape) works with any ISP.
As far as I understood AOL is hated by the "real" internet users in the US too. But be warned, AOL is getting a huge userbase in Europe. I don't know how many ads I saw on TV for AOL in Germany.
To be slightly on topic: I still use ICQ 99b and I'm still happy with it. I still have the first number I registred for (7-digit) and I don't think that will change in a near future. Oh, I tried ICQ 2000alpha and I didn't like it at all!
And as for the AIM/ICQ wars. I prefer ICQ because I prefer the UIN/"any screenname" philosophy. My nick is unfortunately a bit overused, so no chance of getting it on AIM...thus I don't use AIM (I tried tough). I like to uniformize my nick over all services I use.
Besides; I think that Europeans will suffer more then the people in the US. I've noticed this from the very first moment when I read an American magazine; you guys have to re-new your subscriptions and such (every 1 - year) while we can sign up papers which state that the subscriptions will go on untill I tell them I don't want it anymore. And yes; this also exists in contract form.
Honestly, do you really think that that is worse ? As a European, I'm very glad that I don't have to re-subscribe for (say) my cellphone service. Less paperwork, and unless you keep an eye on the tarrifs they can't screw you. Remember that you are the one that has conrol over the endless contracts: you leave them if you don't like it anymore. (Sometimes you need to wait a certain amount of time, okay...but that was your choice when subscribing anyway) Besides, most companies that offer such "endless" subscriptions will send you information -in time- on pricing changes.
This "endless" contracts don't really apply to all products: I never saw a magazine use them. Mostly you have to re-new your subscription every year...for magazines. The endless contracts are typically for electricty, telephony, water and gas (not the kind to put in the car). I only know one contract that is endless and I even can't cancel, and that is called "taxes":-)
Besides, I hope that you know that in Europe "bundeling" of two different products is unlawful. (Sevices are a products too) They can offer you bargains (like the cellphone they give you for Guilder together with you subscription), but they have to sell you either separately if you ask so.
This is just about reading the fine print...nothing more nothing less
However, the resolution is to simply put all the men together in the same house and eventually watch the tombstones appear on the front lawn since the men in The Sims don't know how to take care of themselves.
Weird: I have rather nice running "family" of three sim-men in my neighborhood. They seem to get along quite well. Of course I don't know what they do when I leave my desk to fetch coffee;-)
Well, you could imagine a search-engine with preferences just like slashdot has. Create a user, dictate your own preferences (and eventually allow it to store a certain amount of past queries) This should works fairly good and you give the info you want to give, so privacy is in your own hands.
Besides you could create a different "search-account" for you p0rn needs, your work-needs for your music-needs...name it:-)
What is wrong with "organic"? The structures you can make with organic molecules seem to support a much greater complexty than any anorganic molecules. Of course IANAChemist, so I could be wrong.
Why not imagine organic machines? (Okay, I know some people already did) With the organic, more complex stuctures, it is perhaps possible to boost computing power way beyond anything imaginable with silicium chips. If we assume that intelligence is just a result of computations made by our brain, then our brain is just an organic-supercomputer. (Well, skip the "super" part for some people ^_^ )
I don't think that organic implies "mortal", so even an eventual artificial organic computer could be able to cross the vast distance between the stars and perpetuate human legacy. Yes I say "legacy" because neither the organic nor the silicium machines will be human, they would just be our evolutionary children.
No in the UK the shops are quite able to dupe consumers
Weird, I tought such stuff (regularisation in showing prices/advertisements) was regulated on European level. If it is, those UK shops are in big trouble when it comes to the attention of the European Union.
surprised how much is available
Oh well, I already saw a p0rn site on WAP...Too bad I don't recall how to get there. Just imagine leeching your p0rn for free at the airport cafetaria. *grin* Well, you'd surprise me if you were typing your/. posts right now on you WAP cellphone at the airport. I'd find that really funny;-)
generally most people don't and also don't even know that this is subsidised.
Well I don't know for the UK, but here there is alway a * besides the price which refers to the fine print which states "when taken with xyz subscription, otherwhise pricing is xxx". So people have no excuse *not* knowing.
Actually to be honest: if I wanted to buy a new cellphone right now I just would buy such a present-pack with cellphone + rechargable card. It is silghtly a bit more expensive than a "subsidized" phone but you are not bound to the provider. Ditch the reload card, slip in the SIM of your current subscription => instant cheap phone.
WAP is a buzzword. It didn't have the appeal in the top-tech expensive part because nobody wanted it. Now they give it to the masses in the hope to make it popular anyway. It's a marketing move to make revenue on services. Have you actually ever *used* WAP? I did, I wasn't baffled and I still don't see the use. Most newer phones support WAP, even the lower-end ones.
I was talking technically, not economically: Technically nothing is against swapping phone. But let't look at it economically. Consider this:
Total cost of phone usage (based on my usage):
Cost of new phone (low-end): 250 euro
Cost of subscription: 0 euro
Cost of calls per month: 120 euro
--------------------------------------
Total cost of cellphone: 370 euro
Considering 1.5EUR = 1 GBP, we have *drumroll* 247 GBP
Now that is *exactly* the same as the subsidised one.:-) People tend to miscalculate and be blinded by "bargains" offered by cell-phone-providers.
That just depends on how you see subsidy. If you don't care about cheap phones (hey, my dad doens't, you got that idea no?) you pay the full price of the phone. The subsidy is not required, if you *want* it that was your choice. I think my dad payed 800euro for his cellphone because it was the model he wanted. I guess he payed just the real price, because as you say that kind of technology can't be used in the 50euro range.
Subsidy is just some kind of advertisement: people who normally would not buy a cellphone (because of the price) can buy one and *will* use phone and thus enabling profit for the service providers. Besides, did you notice that the subsidised phones *never* are the top-technology cellphones. Their real prices range from 250euro to 500euro...I saw some really nifty cellphones selling for over 1200euro and I'd happily let me "subsidize" one of those.
Hehe, what have you got against old-soap-box Motorola's?;-) My cell phone is a 5 year old Motorola (probably the kind you mean), and I don't mind charging the battery once a day.:-)
Honestly, the battery performance only started to dwindle after 2 years of use, I don't think that applies as "throw-away" since it fall into the lifespan of actual phones (24months) that the article mentions. With throw away I would more think of a cellphone on classic batteries (AA) and no SIM card, cheap plastic and a max amount of calltime. A usage time of a few weeks.
Yes I know those:-) They are quite popular with the kids. Read: very popular...in my sisters class there are only 3 from 26 that don't have one of these.
No, actually I meant the real tangible phones, made out of cheap plastic meant to be thrown away literally.. (Like the camera's someone mentioned)
I actually like having a "real" subscription. I don't know an equivalent exists in other countries but my "monthly fee" is 0.0$ (stated in the contract...really!), I only pay for my communications (a bit more expensive, okay) but for low debit users, like me, it is cheaper than the reload cards and more convienent too because it get debited directly from my account. The reload-cards have the disadvantage that you *have* to reload in order not to lose your phonenumber. When I was at university, I had one of those charge cards and in those they they were very limited (re-charge every 3 month required, no roaming, horrendous charges per minute).
Slashdot Mirror
You could copy them most of the time with Copy2Pc or so. I still have some in my collection (on 3"1/2 disks), I never bothered to analyse them tough.
What you describe is true too tough. Later games that started to use lots of memory (mostly-pre-DOS extenders) needed so much memory that a clean DOS 3.3 and starting the game would do the trick. Of course you had to read the manual ;-)
You realise of course that it would not be possible for game vendors to actually include MS-DOS to make their games bootable: imagine the licensing problems.
The games I had on such disks included Winter Games, Summer Games, J-Bird, and a few others but I don't recall the names. Of course it was in spacy CGA graphics with awesome buzzer-audio-systsem(tm) making funny noises.
I must be getting old :-)
For games game-on-CD-and-don't-bother abstraction would be great, but as someone already pointed out it will be hard to provide compatibility for all hardware.
Even worse, you may have upgraded to the fancy newest 3D card and the game you bought 3 months ago won't work anymore just because of that. It would really suck, don't you think?
Now that AC can learn a lot about informativeness from you :-) Thanks...
Now, I guessed that all on my own, really. :-)
It would have been more helpful if you could point me out to a site where a newbie like me can get help to install a lightweight Linux installation that is fully X-capable. (read: a replacement for Windows)
Loading Netscape was only that slow when not connected to the internet, so it could be some connection-timeout setting. Besides, I missed Eudora...
Would you be so kind and tell me how to do that? I have an old laptop (P120/32RAM) on which I tried to do exactly that.
Linux needed about 900Meg of harddisk space (on a 1.3Gig that is insane) and X-Windows ran slooooow. (I admit, I used KDE) Just loading Netscape took 5 minutes.
Because of painfully slow performance I had to switch back to Windows 95, which runs acceptably if well tweaked.
Note that I'm pretty new to Linux and have no clue how to teak it.
$finger phone
Login name: phone In real life: ???
<CONSIPRACY MODE=ON>
:-)
This is just a trick to show that all criminals use Linux because their boxes don't crash and incriminating material never vanishes...thus Linux must be the evil tool of criminals and hackers (oops, I mean crackers). It must and shall be eradicated!
</CONSIPRACY MODE=OFF>
Well, they are not yet electronic...but I guess if you can handle the pneumatic version of Chick(tm) it surely is something for you :-)
Tough I'm not a specialist at all, I read an interesting article on it at Linuxgazette . Interesting technical information (datastructures etc...)
By the way, I got the link in a comment here at slashdot (some time ago).
Actually I found your comparison with playskool toys pretty weird: I tought that playschool was childproof and that swallowing the toy would be the equivalent of a KernelPanic/BSOD/Bomb(Mac). Now, if you hold the comparison with Windows then it is more like giving a fork to the kid to play around with. I have yet to meet a normal user whose PC is still fully functional after 1 year of use (with Windows of course).
Now, even being a non-open-source-OS-by-big-bad-IBM, I still like OS/2...in it's time it had a chance, but medriocity won. Sadly.... My new hopes are in Linux, but it's not yet ready for the average desktop user.
While you are probably right *now*, there was a time that people ditched a perfectly good 32-bit OS for DOS with Windows for Workgroups 3.xx
Honestly: back in the time when a Pentium 133 was a hot-rod, I know that a German PC-vendor called Vobis sold their Highscreen series with OS/2 preinstalled. I'm really sure of it because a friend of mine bought one (Hi Krissyboy!).
Believe it or not, but most people ditched it for the largely inferior DOS/Windows combination. I know, I'm probably a bit biased because I *liked* OS/2
As far as I understood AOL is hated by the "real" internet users in the US too. But be warned, AOL is getting a huge userbase in Europe. I don't know how many ads I saw on TV for AOL in Germany.
To be slightly on topic: I still use ICQ 99b and I'm still happy with it. I still have the first number I registred for (7-digit) and I don't think that will change in a near future. Oh, I tried ICQ 2000alpha and I didn't like it at all!
And as for the AIM/ICQ wars. I prefer ICQ because I prefer the UIN/"any screenname" philosophy. My nick is unfortunately a bit overused, so no chance of getting it on AIM...thus I don't use AIM (I tried tough). I like to uniformize my nick over all services I use.
I exactly tought the same, it's not even 50 miles (more like 50km)...except that I don't own a GPS device :-( So, no way to play :-(
Honestly, do you really think that that is worse ? As a European, I'm very glad that I don't have to re-subscribe for (say) my cellphone service. Less paperwork, and unless you keep an eye on the tarrifs they can't screw you. Remember that you are the one that has conrol over the endless contracts: you leave them if you don't like it anymore. (Sometimes you need to wait a certain amount of time, okay...but that was your choice when subscribing anyway) Besides, most companies that offer such "endless" subscriptions will send you information -in time- on pricing changes.
This "endless" contracts don't really apply to all products: I never saw a magazine use them. Mostly you have to re-new your subscription every year...for magazines. The endless contracts are typically for electricty, telephony, water and gas (not the kind to put in the car). I only know one contract that is endless and I even can't cancel, and that is called "taxes" :-)
Besides, I hope that you know that in Europe "bundeling" of two different products is unlawful. (Sevices are a products too) They can offer you bargains (like the cellphone they give you for Guilder together with you subscription), but they have to sell you either separately if you ask so.
This is just about reading the fine print...nothing more nothing less
Weird: I have rather nice running "family" of three sim-men in my neighborhood. They seem to get along quite well. Of course I don't know what they do when I leave my desk to fetch coffee ;-)
Well, you could imagine a search-engine with preferences just like slashdot has. Create a user, dictate your own preferences (and eventually allow it to store a certain amount of past queries) This should works fairly good and you give the info you want to give, so privacy is in your own hands. :-)
Besides you could create a different "search-account" for you p0rn needs, your work-needs for your music-needs...name it
Sol.exe is very binary....or do you have the source? ;-)
What is wrong with "organic"? The structures you can make with organic molecules seem to support a much greater complexty than any anorganic molecules. Of course IANAChemist, so I could be wrong.
Why not imagine organic machines? (Okay, I know some people already did) With the organic, more complex stuctures, it is perhaps possible to boost computing power way beyond anything imaginable with silicium chips. If we assume that intelligence is just a result of computations made by our brain, then our brain is just an organic-supercomputer. (Well, skip the "super" part for some people ^_^ )
I don't think that organic implies "mortal", so even an eventual artificial organic computer could be able to cross the vast distance between the stars and perpetuate human legacy. Yes I say "legacy" because neither the organic nor the silicium machines will be human, they would just be our evolutionary children.
Weird, I tought such stuff (regularisation in showing prices/advertisements) was regulated on European level. If it is, those UK shops are in big trouble when it comes to the attention of the European Union.
surprised how much is available
Oh well, I already saw a p0rn site on WAP...Too bad I don't recall how to get there. Just imagine leeching your p0rn for free at the airport cafetaria. *grin* /. posts right now on you WAP cellphone at the airport. I'd find that really funny ;-)
Well, you'd surprise me if you were typing your
Thanks! This just proves I spend too much time here :-)
Well I don't know for the UK, but here there is alway a * besides the price which refers to the fine print which states "when taken with xyz subscription, otherwhise pricing is xxx". So people have no excuse *not* knowing.
Actually to be honest: if I wanted to buy a new cellphone right now I just would buy such a present-pack with cellphone + rechargable card. It is silghtly a bit more expensive than a "subsidized" phone but you are not bound to the provider. Ditch the reload card, slip in the SIM of your current subscription => instant cheap phone.
WAP is a buzzword. It didn't have the appeal in the top-tech expensive part because nobody wanted it. Now they give it to the masses in the hope to make it popular anyway. It's a marketing move to make revenue on services. Have you actually ever *used* WAP? I did, I wasn't baffled and I still don't see the use. Most newer phones support WAP, even the lower-end ones.
Total cost of phone usage (based on my usage):
Cost of new phone (low-end): 250 euro
Cost of subscription: 0 euro
Cost of calls per month: 120 euro
--------------------------------------
Total cost of cellphone: 370 euro
Considering 1.5EUR = 1 GBP, we have *drumroll* 247 GBP :-) People tend to miscalculate and be blinded by "bargains" offered by cell-phone-providers.
Now that is *exactly* the same as the subsidised one.
Subsidy is just some kind of advertisement: people who normally would not buy a cellphone (because of the price) can buy one and *will* use phone and thus enabling profit for the service providers. Besides, did you notice that the subsidised phones *never* are the top-technology cellphones. Their real prices range from 250euro to 500euro...I saw some really nifty cellphones selling for over 1200euro and I'd happily let me "subsidize" one of those.
Oh, besides: not everyone got FAX either :-)
Honestly, the battery performance only started to dwindle after 2 years of use, I don't think that applies as "throw-away" since it fall into the lifespan of actual phones (24months) that the article mentions. With throw away I would more think of a cellphone on classic batteries (AA) and no SIM card, cheap plastic and a max amount of calltime. A usage time of a few weeks.
No, actually I meant the real tangible phones, made out of cheap plastic meant to be thrown away literally.. (Like the camera's someone mentioned)
I actually like having a "real" subscription. I don't know an equivalent exists in other countries but my "monthly fee" is 0.0$ (stated in the contract...really!), I only pay for my communications (a bit more expensive, okay) but for low debit users, like me, it is cheaper than the reload cards and more convienent too because it get debited directly from my account.
The reload-cards have the disadvantage that you *have* to reload in order not to lose your phonenumber.
When I was at university, I had one of those charge cards and in those they they were very limited (re-charge every 3 month required, no roaming, horrendous charges per minute).