I don't think your computer is even in the same category as what the article is about. You're talking about a perfectly useable machine that I would be glad to find in a dumpster (as a matter of fact, I already found better computers in the dumpster)
These people are talking PDP machines, Crays, and more in the home segment Commodore 64, Apple Lisa, Sinclair QL, Sinclair ZX, etc... Perhaps even stuff like the SparcClasic or an Octane. Perhaps the original XT is of insterest to them or even an MCA PS/2....
I used to have a few old computers (namely a SparcClassic, a Sinclair QL and an IBM PS/2 Model 50). I all gave them away to a teacher that wanted to start a computer museum. Why? Because, they take place in my basement.... I would have loved to use them, but I'm married and have other priorities.
Funny, I actually found those "Explicit Lyrics" CDs ridiculous. Mainly because those very songs would play on the radio anyway, with a slightly different wording (actually, not even that on this side of the pond). Never saw it as a badge of honour. I always saw it as a label for over-protective parents.
Thanks for setting that straight. I should have known that marketing was somewhere behind the scenes.
I do realize that, and I mentioned that in my own post. Thing is, you forget the appeal. I don't think an eight year old will be appealed by gore-infested games. They'll naturally choose the milder things. We played them and liked them, but point is: would we have if they were gory. My guess is not...
It works both ways... Would we have played Double Dragon if at every kick blood would have sprayed over the whole screen? I don't think I would, at least not at a below-ten age.
nd playing recent GTA-style games that glamorise killing civilians in a realistic setting.
Glamourize? Did you even play GTA? You can go around and kill every soul in the street, but it isn't required. If you do, you also will pay for the consequences.... As a matter of fact, in the missions you usually get to deal with the scum of the world. Heck, you're scum yourself!
You do not have to kill a single innocent soul in whole Liberty City. Heck, as a matter of fact you can go play a taxi driver, or put out fires, or even rescue people with an ambulance. Heck, I remember someone posting on slashdot that his young daughter loved playing GTA3... as a taxi driver.
Nothing is mandatory in GTA, everything is voluntary.
I don't know what I'd do, but I do know what my parents did... both non-gamers, but my dad was (and is) quite proficient with computers. Our advantage was that the computer came "late in the game", so I was about 12, my brother 14 and my little sister was 8.
Computers were expensive and we had to share one computer. My dad or mother didn't say "one hour", no, they said it had to be fairly distributed. The system introduced was simple and self-regulating: write down what you were playing and at what hour you started and stopped. Your siblings could come in at any time and say "hey, you already played an hour... it's my turn". That meant, finish level and/or save and let your sibling have a go. Whining brought you nowhere, because mom or dad would invariably take the side of the person that had played least.
No things regulated "playing time" quite fairly and the net result was that we played each about 1 hour to 1.5 hours a day. Pretty much what the article stated.
Now as for violence and/or sex in videogames. My parents never forbade any games. We had the full programme Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc... Blood and gore were not a problem. (Heck, later we loved to play a game called "Blood"... Good times!) In the early days we mostly played Sierra games (a dying breed... alas...) and it helped us (okay, perhaps just me) learn English. I sat there for hours with my dutch-english dictionary. Fun times... We also had stuff like Strip poker and our good old Leisure Suit Larry.
The only thing I remember is that my dad forbade Syndicate... Or better said, we had to play it with headphones. He abhorred the sound of the people burning when using the flamethrower.
The main problem is not the nature of the game. Wolfenstein let us kill humans after all. Except, they didn't look much like humans then, did they? A current game with current graphics is way closer to reality than whatever we had.
On the other hand, I think kids tend to be self-regulating in what they want to do. Younger kids simply won't be interested in shooting people/aliens. They will probably go for the more colourful games. I see this when my fathers in laws kids from his second wife are here. They never ask to put stuff like GTA3, even if I let them choose from my PlayStation2 library. It's always stuff like Kya, eyeToy Groove or Sonic Heroes.
Teenagers will probably love stuff like GTA3, Halo, whatever... but there all bets are off. You cannot control them. They already watch violent movies, they play the games you don't want them to play at friends. In the teenage years, parents have to let loose slowly but surely. Something I also learnt from my parents. (Note that when we got a computer, we were pretty much teenagers)
I know you can tell by now that I think my parents did a great job.... I plan to inspire me as much as possible from what I learnt from then.
Yeah, I know... I also use Linux:-D Thing is, it annoys me when people think they need to use drivers when usually they need just a few kilobytes on the CD that comes with the device. True, on Linux you need nothing... but if it's not supported you're out of luck. (Of course, many devices are supported)
As for DVDs: simply use VLC on Windows too and you'll never see those scumbags treat you like a pirate again;-)
I just tried the other available keys (as said, I never use them):
"House" button: starts Firefox
"Envelope" button: starts Thunderbird
"back", "stop", "play" and "forward": They did nothing, until I had the bright idea to start iTunes. They do exactly what you would expect them to do there.
I can guarantee you: this machine has been reinstalled from scratch by me. It has never seen a keyboard manufacturer CD and yet the keys work. Windows thus supports those out of the box. I must assume that they are well documented and standardized and that there is not really a reason that Linux (okay, X.org) can't support them.
My Linux workstation has an IBM Model M... No fancy schmancy keys there;-) So, I really wouldn't know.
I abhor to install unnecessary drivers on Windows. The machine I type this on has Win XP Pro on it and no (non-Windows) keyboard drivers whatsoever. While I never use it, I know that the volume up/volume down/mute buttons all work. It's built-in to Windows. No drivers required. I should see what the other keys do... Never tried those. I know the sleep button works too, and that is very annoying because it is too close to Escape.
As a general rule one can say that mice, keyboards do not need drivers at all. Stuff like printers and scanners do need drivers, but all the other crap bundled is not install-worthy. Just extract the driver from the CDs and be good.
Yes, it is good... Except for me the Debian newbie. I chose Debian Etch because I didn't want to run Unstable but Stable seemed too old. Testing ran fine, but what do I do now? Do I have to do anything special to stay on Debian Etch, I mean 4.0? Or is such a thing not possible.
I have a PSP and a PS2, and indeed I use the PSP more at home than anywhere else? Why, because dear wife can watch TV while I play PSP while we're sitting/lying on the same couch. As for the lack of good PSP games, well, there is certainly not as much choice as for the PS2. I did however love the fact that Sid Meiers Pirates came out. Brings back old memories and is still as addictive as back in the day.
Other good games I have are: Liberty City Stories, LocoRoco, Popolocrois. The last one is kind of a very childish RPG, but I happen to like that. I've also got two racing games (some F1 thing and Ridge Racer that both came with the PSP), but the problem with those is that one has to invest way too much time to unlock anything interesting. Same reason why I never finished Gran Tourismo 3 on the PS2;-) Too much work, not enough reward.
Teenager? No, I'm 30.... unless you still count that as a teenager of course;-)
I have... on different machines, including stock OEM machines. When inserting a mass storage device like an USB stick or a card reader it would bluescreen. (XP, never ran Vista) Actually, in the case of the OEM machines nobody knew what happened, until I actually unchecked that famous "reboot on BSOD" checkbox.
I still don't know what causes it. It doesn't happen always, but only sometimes. Personally, I like to think that the USB hardware is out of spec or so... and that Windows XP is not really at fault even though I use the stock USB drivers.
Because of a mislabeling in advertisement. The console itself was 250€, but according to the advertisement it came with three free games that were still sold 50€ a pop. By now those games are cheaper... Of course, that advertisement was gone next time I passed by that store;-)
Actually, the pins of the connector were bent beyond hope. I think someone tried to force it in a wrong slot. I don't know for sure of course. Repairing the keyboard would have implied that I'd have to find a PS/2 connector somehere and replace the broken one. I wouldn't know where to get a new PS/2 connector.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think your computer is even in the same category as what the article is about. You're talking about a perfectly useable machine that I would be glad to find in a dumpster (as a matter of fact, I already found better computers in the dumpster)
These people are talking PDP machines, Crays, and more in the home segment Commodore 64, Apple Lisa, Sinclair QL, Sinclair ZX, etc... Perhaps even stuff like the SparcClasic or an Octane. Perhaps the original XT is of insterest to them or even an MCA PS/2....
I used to have a few old computers (namely a SparcClassic, a Sinclair QL and an IBM PS/2 Model 50). I all gave them away to a teacher that wanted to start a computer museum. Why? Because, they take place in my basement.... I would have loved to use them, but I'm married and have other priorities.
Once Truecrypt is installed on a machine (by Administrator) every Limited User can use it without problems. I have it set up that way at home.
Running Truecrypt requires a driver and inserting that in the operating system requires Admin, once it's there, using it is allowed by everyone
Yeah, but most owners of laptops are worth nothing without their daily dose of Espresso ;-)
Mod parent +5, insightful... Best explanation I read in ages!
My brother in law has one, and my wife (a pure non-gamers) gave me the "Ok" to buy one because she loved it.
I haven't seen many for sale though....
If my PS2 were dying, I'd probably buy a new PS2 instead of a PS3.
Funny, I actually found those "Explicit Lyrics" CDs ridiculous. Mainly because those very songs would play on the radio anyway, with a slightly different wording (actually, not even that on this side of the pond). Never saw it as a badge of honour. I always saw it as a label for over-protective parents.
Thanks for setting that straight. I should have known that marketing was somewhere behind the scenes.
You completely forgot that the "innocent childhood" concept is a relatively new idea. Look at most cultures: kids are taken into adulthood at 12!
I do realize that, and I mentioned that in my own post. Thing is, you forget the appeal. I don't think an eight year old will be appealed by gore-infested games. They'll naturally choose the milder things. We played them and liked them, but point is: would we have if they were gory. My guess is not...
It works both ways... Would we have played Double Dragon if at every kick blood would have sprayed over the whole screen? I don't think I would, at least not at a below-ten age.
nd playing recent GTA-style games that glamorise killing civilians in a realistic setting.
Glamourize? Did you even play GTA? You can go around and kill every soul in the street, but it isn't required. If you do, you also will pay for the consequences.... As a matter of fact, in the missions you usually get to deal with the scum of the world. Heck, you're scum yourself!
You do not have to kill a single innocent soul in whole Liberty City. Heck, as a matter of fact you can go play a taxi driver, or put out fires, or even rescue people with an ambulance. Heck, I remember someone posting on slashdot that his young daughter loved playing GTA3... as a taxi driver.
Nothing is mandatory in GTA, everything is voluntary.
In that case, the message is simple: Raise your children well....
Easy to say, of course... Difficult to put into practice.
I don't know what I'd do, but I do know what my parents did... both non-gamers, but my dad was (and is) quite proficient with computers. Our advantage was that the computer came "late in the game", so I was about 12, my brother 14 and my little sister was 8.
Computers were expensive and we had to share one computer. My dad or mother didn't say "one hour", no, they said it had to be fairly distributed. The system introduced was simple and self-regulating: write down what you were playing and at what hour you started and stopped. Your siblings could come in at any time and say "hey, you already played an hour... it's my turn". That meant, finish level and/or save and let your sibling have a go. Whining brought you nowhere, because mom or dad would invariably take the side of the person that had played least.
No things regulated "playing time" quite fairly and the net result was that we played each about 1 hour to 1.5 hours a day. Pretty much what the article stated.
Now as for violence and/or sex in videogames. My parents never forbade any games. We had the full programme Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc... Blood and gore were not a problem. (Heck, later we loved to play a game called "Blood"... Good times!) In the early days we mostly played Sierra games (a dying breed... alas...) and it helped us (okay, perhaps just me) learn English. I sat there for hours with my dutch-english dictionary. Fun times... We also had stuff like Strip poker and our good old Leisure Suit Larry.
The only thing I remember is that my dad forbade Syndicate... Or better said, we had to play it with headphones. He abhorred the sound of the people burning when using the flamethrower.
The main problem is not the nature of the game. Wolfenstein let us kill humans after all. Except, they didn't look much like humans then, did they? A current game with current graphics is way closer to reality than whatever we had.
On the other hand, I think kids tend to be self-regulating in what they want to do. Younger kids simply won't be interested in shooting people/aliens. They will probably go for the more colourful games. I see this when my fathers in laws kids from his second wife are here. They never ask to put stuff like GTA3, even if I let them choose from my PlayStation2 library. It's always stuff like Kya, eyeToy Groove or Sonic Heroes.
Teenagers will probably love stuff like GTA3, Halo, whatever... but there all bets are off. You cannot control them. They already watch violent movies, they play the games you don't want them to play at friends. In the teenage years, parents have to let loose slowly but surely. Something I also learnt from my parents. (Note that when we got a computer, we were pretty much teenagers)
I know you can tell by now that I think my parents did a great job.... I plan to inspire me as much as possible from what I learnt from then.
Yeah, I know... I also use Linux :-D Thing is, it annoys me when people think they need to use drivers when usually they need just a few kilobytes on the CD that comes with the device. True, on Linux you need nothing... but if it's not supported you're out of luck. (Of course, many devices are supported)
As for DVDs: simply use VLC on Windows too and you'll never see those scumbags treat you like a pirate again ;-)
Thanks a lot... This helps! :-D
- "House" button: starts Firefox
- "Envelope" button: starts Thunderbird
- "back", "stop", "play" and "forward": They did nothing, until I had the bright idea to start iTunes. They do exactly what you would expect them to do there.
I can guarantee you: this machine has been reinstalled from scratch by me. It has never seen a keyboard manufacturer CD and yet the keys work. Windows thus supports those out of the box. I must assume that they are well documented and standardized and that there is not really a reason that Linux (okay, X.org) can't support them.My Linux workstation has an IBM Model M... No fancy schmancy keys there ;-) So, I really wouldn't know.
I abhor to install unnecessary drivers on Windows. The machine I type this on has Win XP Pro on it and no (non-Windows) keyboard drivers whatsoever. While I never use it, I know that the volume up/volume down/mute buttons all work. It's built-in to Windows. No drivers required. I should see what the other keys do... Never tried those. I know the sleep button works too, and that is very annoying because it is too close to Escape.
As a general rule one can say that mice, keyboards do not need drivers at all. Stuff like printers and scanners do need drivers, but all the other crap bundled is not install-worthy. Just extract the driver from the CDs and be good.
Yes, it is good... Except for me the Debian newbie. I chose Debian Etch because I didn't want to run Unstable but Stable seemed too old. Testing ran fine, but what do I do now? Do I have to do anything special to stay on Debian Etch, I mean 4.0? Or is such a thing not possible.
I have a PSP and a PS2, and indeed I use the PSP more at home than anywhere else? Why, because dear wife can watch TV while I play PSP while we're sitting/lying on the same couch. As for the lack of good PSP games, well, there is certainly not as much choice as for the PS2. I did however love the fact that Sid Meiers Pirates came out. Brings back old memories and is still as addictive as back in the day.
Other good games I have are: Liberty City Stories, LocoRoco, Popolocrois. The last one is kind of a very childish RPG, but I happen to like that. I've also got two racing games (some F1 thing and Ridge Racer that both came with the PSP), but the problem with those is that one has to invest way too much time to unlock anything interesting. Same reason why I never finished Gran Tourismo 3 on the PS2 ;-) Too much work, not enough reward.
Teenager? No, I'm 30.... unless you still count that as a teenager of course ;-)
I had a Sega Game Gear. It was smaller than your Lynx, but huge in comparison to the monochrome Game Boy. It also ate batteries for breakfast.
That said, I still have it with all games in a shoebox. I should try it with those LiIon AA cells that I have for my digital camera.
I have... on different machines, including stock OEM machines. When inserting a mass storage device like an USB stick or a card reader it would bluescreen. (XP, never ran Vista) Actually, in the case of the OEM machines nobody knew what happened, until I actually unchecked that famous "reboot on BSOD" checkbox.
I still don't know what causes it. It doesn't happen always, but only sometimes. Personally, I like to think that the USB hardware is out of spec or so... and that Windows XP is not really at fault even though I use the stock USB drivers.
The attic.... A very underestimated nerd dwelling place. I spent most of my University years in one ;-)
2 weeks? To Mars? I think you've got your scales a bit wrong.
Because of a mislabeling in advertisement. The console itself was 250€, but according to the advertisement it came with three free games that were still sold 50€ a pop. By now those games are cheaper... Of course, that advertisement was gone next time I passed by that store ;-)
Damnit... Wish I thought of that when at the recycling centre... Alas, that keyboard is probably now at the enternal typing fields.
Actually, the pins of the connector were bent beyond hope. I think someone tried to force it in a wrong slot. I don't know for sure of course. Repairing the keyboard would have implied that I'd have to find a PS/2 connector somehere and replace the broken one. I wouldn't know where to get a new PS/2 connector.