Wizardry was the BEST! I played for days during college. A few of my buddies would get together, we'd each mentor a character and the game, and the hours would slip past.
I still have my Apple II diskettes somewhere, but no functional Apple II to play them on! Is there an emulated version of Wizardry (the ORIGINAL version, clunky graphics an all) available somewhere?
I first heard about this after the Falklands War back in 1982... when apparently the British pilots would buzz over the penguin flocks, just to see them fall on their backs.
With services such as Priceline and EBay, we've seen the ability for buyers and sellers to come to a private agreement about pricing.
Perhaps fixed prices are a thing of the past, a relic of the old ways of doing business. Fixed prices are certainly needed at old-style bricks-and-mortar retail establishments (so the customer can quickly view the price while examining an item) but really aren't required online, where the webserver software can issue a different pricetag for each viewer.
In the future Retail Online Hell, massive server databases will track our every choice, become aware of our every weakness, and know what "must-have" preferences each of us has.
The result: I'll be charged top dollar for things like DVDs, and offered astonishingly cheap prices for, say, scented candles.
Sure, CNN links to DeCSS. But, this is the WEB, folks, which (arguably) has more links than content. So, what if CNN linked to Slashdot? Slashdot has links to DeCSS. I'm sure that CNN links to other sites which link to DeCSS (and maybe through several levels of indirection).
By the transitive law of equality (does that apply on the net?), CNN has links to probably a dozen copies of DeCSS.
And every actor, living or dead, has a Kevin Bacon Number. But, I digress...
If link-crime is taken to hysterical limits, then you couldn't link ANYWHERE, for fear of inadvertently creating a link chain to something nasty or (de jure) illegal.
Well smack me silly and call me Gertrude! Sure, the Linksys is a minimal device. No logging, class C network, low performance. And I advise everyone to read the specs before buying.
Even so, it is great for what I'm doing. I used a standalone Linux machine as a firewall for two years or so, and it was great at the job. And, like I said before, just too noisy in the home environment. Since I do want to leave the duap-P3 system going (yep, distributed.net), the firewall is a necessity.
Don't buy the Linksys if it isn't what you need or want!
and it replaced a simple Linux machine that was running the usual ipchains/NAT software. Why use the LinkSys? Smaller, much less power consumption, no noise, very little heat. While a linux machine is a lot more powerful, the power simply isn't needed in this situation. The linksys allows port forwarding, supports DHCP, and a few more exotic features. The unit has gotten a lot of good reviews on epinions.com.
If you hang around on alt.os.multics, this topic comes up from time to time. As I recall, there was a posting way back in 1988 or so, from a fellow by the name of Bob Monk (sp?) at Mitre, who was doing an OS on the '386 with many of the memory-management features of Multics.
Heck, in 1986, I did a simple kernel on the 286 with memory rings, full segmentation, etc. It was pretty nifty: due to the segmentation, you could call "realloc()" and get back the same pointer, but it would point to a segment of the desired size.
But it is commonly thought that a "port" of Multics would be well-nigh impossible. The old Honeywell hardware was 36-bit and had lots of special hardware features. Check out Organick's book for the gory details.
At one point, I proposed (to the alt.os.multics group) writing a Multics hardware emulator in software, so that the old binaries could be run as-is. The idea left many of the graybeards shaking their heads, due to the complexity of the task. But if someone were to put together sufficient funding, there is no practical barrier to the implementation.
Of course, you'd have to get the IP rights to the original Honeywell object, source, and probably CPU schematics (ugh). But a modern Pentium megagigaherz could probably run a Multics emulator at a decent clip, even if it were written in Java.
I remember, several years ago, a posting on comp.sys.next.marketplace. It may have been Carmack. They were selling off their original NeXT hardware, which had been used to develop DOOM.
I still have my color NeXT machine, and it served many years of use. When I replaced it with a 200MHz Pentium Pro system (running RH4.1), the PPro machine was roughly 20x faster than the old NeXT machine.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
... and I can build my firewall/NAT system based upon this device. Has anybody figured out how to add a second Enet port? Since the device seems to have a custom bus, a PC104 adaptor would probably be the logical next step.
Well, imagine this: Say, one day, Yahoo goes "off the air" for three hours. The techs track it down to a router that had a flaky SIMM module. The flaky RAM module was put in by the manufacturer, who wanted to offer a low-cost product.
That won't happen with Cisco hardware, or Sun hardware, or Network Appliance hardware, or equipment from any similar high-quality manufacturer.
You see, the high-quality vendors qualify every component that goes into the system: every fan, connector, SIMM, disk drive, power supply, and even the on/off switch.
They run these machines in special ovens, to test the overheating margins, in case a fan fails or the units are packed too tightly in the customer's rack or the air-conditioning fails. They check and recheck firmware revs, driver versions, and every software component as well.
The goal is a bulletproof system that will run for years. And that is what you want, if you are Yahoo or Ebay or Charles Schwab.
Customers are generally willing to pay the price for quality and reliability. Sure, the same disk drive may be available down at Fry's for one third the price. But if you buy it from Fry's, and it fails, the system vendor's guarantee doesn't apply. The disk drive that you bought at Fry's might have a different firmware level. Or maybe somebody returned that drive to Fry's and they repackaged it without noticing that the first buyer had bent one of the connector pins.
I buy a lot of my personal hardware from friends, or from discount shops. But for business? never... it just isn't worth the risk.
I hope this helps... a different set of values really do apply in these business-critical equipment purchases.
I'm really heartened to see that folks are willing to read about discoveries made in the past, learn from mistakes that have been committed before, and stand upon the shoulders of earlier generations, rather than standing in their footprints.
I was able to use Multics for four years in college, and that experience gave me more insight and wisdom than any four years spent with Unix, Windows, or MacOS.
(In the areas of system design, that is! The only graphics expertise I gained from Multics was how to do simple bitmap images using the lineprinter!)
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
I remember hearing about this type of technology a few years ago in relation to Netware. Seems like a sensible way to conserve disk space, and maybe more interesting in a networked environment.
This reminds me of the old saying... "Their interesting things are not innovative, and their innovative things are not interesting" (in reference to MSFT of course)
... or any other machine that just has a slot, rather than a tray that slides out?
And, I certainly realize that a "Linux rescue disc" probably won't work on a Mac... I'm just asking about the physical compatibility... flamers, cool yer jets...
Actually, I think it was a bunch of malfunctioning Apple III computers that were scrapped. I'll look around a bit, and if there is a good reference, it will get posted.
Most Unices have a program called "banner" that can create the text-strips. As for the image-to-text stuff, see the previous poster or check out the pbm utilities, at, umm... acme.com
Several years ago, I read that Colin Powell uses a high desk, and he stands while using it. I tried this arrangement by getting a lab table and putting reams of printer paper under the legs until the table height was approximately 1" below my elbows.
I found this to be a surprisingly comfortable setup, and recently had a custom desk built to my needs. I can stand and work for several hours at a time. For telephone calls, reading, or other non-computer activities, I move to a chair in my office.
The result: no back pain, great posture, and standing keeps my attention from wandering... so more productivity!
Actually, it would be great to review people's perceptions of the town of Celebration. How is it viewed by (a) its residents, (b) people who live in nearby towns (c) visitors from cities big and small.
Also, isn't there a small town on the Gulf Coast that was set up as a similar corporate planned community? Was it called Seaside? The town that was the setting for "The Truman Show" (which in itself is a fascinating social commentary).
Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly have printed a number of articles describing these and other planned communities. The concept goes back all the way to Levittown.
Good luck, Mr. Katz:: there is enough material here for dozens of essays, if not books.
Incidentally, I'm a resident of Berkeley, a community which is quite weird in its own way. Anti-corporate, unplanned, and commu-anarchic. An interesting contrast to Celebration et al.
Slashdot Mirror
Shouldn't Beowulf be in the top-10 of the millenium? If we can cluster together a few votes, maybe it could be a write-in candidate ...
Wizardry was the BEST! I played for days during college. A few of my buddies would get together, we'd each mentor a character and the game, and the hours would slip past.
I still have my Apple II diskettes somewhere, but no functional Apple II to play them on! Is there an emulated version of Wizardry (the ORIGINAL version, clunky graphics an all) available somewhere?
TILTOWAIT!
Well, there is the philosophical advantage of "putting your money where your mouth is" ...
:)
I did that by purchasing the Linux version of Quake3, after having purchased Doom/Doom2/Quake/Quake2 in Windows format as you suggest.
I felt "better" after buying Linux Q3 (in the snazzy sardine can). And that's why we spend money on non-essentials, eh? To feel good?
Seriously, though, it does make a statement. Whether or not anyone listens to the statement is another matter altogether.
I hate to say it ... this is a cheap shot ... but ...
the special effects in the SUN ads were better than the special effects in the mini-series!
I first heard about this after the Falklands War back in 1982 ... when apparently the British pilots would buzz over the penguin flocks, just to see them fall on their backs.
...
So the story is at least 18 years old
After using the installer, here's what happens when I run it ...
/usr/local/netscape/netscape
/usr/local/netscape/mozilla-bin
a l/netscape:.:/user/chesnutt/redshift/lib /i686:/usr/local/jdk/lib/i686/green_threads
o ol
e /Cool
[shell}>
/usr/local/netscape/run-mozilla.sh
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/local/netscape
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/netscape/Cool:/usr/loc
LIBPATH=/usr/local/netscape:/usr/local/netscape/C
SHLIB_PATH=/usr/local/netscape:/usr/local/netscap
XPCS_HOME=/usr/local/netscape/Cool
MOZ_PROGRAM=/usr/local/netscape/mozilla-bin
MOZ_TOOLKIT=
moz_debug=0
moz_debugger=
/usr/local/netscape/run-mozilla.sh: line 29: 29551 Segmentation fault $prog ${1+"$@"}
Ooops! And, I don't have time to debug this... back to Netscape 4.72 for me!
With services such as Priceline and EBay, we've seen the ability for buyers and sellers to come to a private agreement about pricing.
Perhaps fixed prices are a thing of the past, a relic of the old ways of doing business. Fixed prices are certainly needed at old-style bricks-and-mortar retail establishments (so the customer can quickly view the price while examining an item) but really aren't required online, where the webserver software can issue a different pricetag for each viewer.
In the future Retail Online Hell, massive server databases will track our every choice, become aware of our every weakness, and know what "must-have" preferences each of us has.
The result: I'll be charged top dollar for things like DVDs, and offered astonishingly cheap prices for, say, scented candles.
Sure, CNN links to DeCSS. But, this is the WEB, folks, which (arguably) has more links than content. So, what if CNN linked to Slashdot? Slashdot has links to DeCSS. I'm sure that CNN links to other sites which link to DeCSS (and maybe through several levels of indirection).
...
By the transitive law of equality (does that apply on the net?), CNN has links to probably a dozen copies of DeCSS.
And every actor, living or dead, has a Kevin Bacon Number. But, I digress
If link-crime is taken to hysterical limits, then you couldn't link ANYWHERE, for fear of inadvertently creating a link chain to something nasty or (de jure) illegal.
Well smack me silly and call me Gertrude! Sure, the Linksys is a minimal device. No logging, class C network, low performance. And I advise everyone to read the specs before buying.
Even so, it is great for what I'm doing. I used a standalone Linux machine as a firewall for two years or so, and it was great at the job. And, like I said before, just too noisy in the home environment. Since I do want to leave the duap-P3 system going (yep, distributed.net), the firewall is a necessity.
Don't buy the Linksys if it isn't what you need or want!
Over the weekend, I installed a firewall made by LinkSys:
d =20&grid=5
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?pri
and it replaced a simple Linux machine that was running the usual ipchains/NAT software. Why use the LinkSys? Smaller, much less power consumption, no noise, very little heat. While a linux machine is a lot more powerful, the power simply isn't needed in this situation. The linksys allows port forwarding, supports DHCP, and a few more exotic features. The unit has gotten a lot of good reviews on epinions.com.
what a waste of electrons & pixels ... and statistically speaking, a risky assertion.
If you hang around on alt.os.multics, this topic comes up from time to time. As I recall, there was a posting way back in 1988 or so, from a fellow by the name of Bob Monk (sp?) at Mitre, who was doing an OS on the '386 with many of the memory-management features of Multics.
Heck, in 1986, I did a simple kernel on the 286 with memory rings, full segmentation, etc. It was pretty nifty: due to the segmentation, you could call "realloc()" and get back the same pointer, but it would point to a segment of the desired size.
But it is commonly thought that a "port" of Multics would be well-nigh impossible. The old Honeywell hardware was 36-bit and had lots of special hardware features. Check out Organick's book for the gory details.
At one point, I proposed (to the alt.os.multics group) writing a Multics hardware emulator in software, so that the old binaries could be run as-is. The idea left many of the graybeards shaking their heads, due to the complexity of the task. But if someone were to put together sufficient funding, there is no practical barrier to the implementation.
Of course, you'd have to get the IP rights to the original Honeywell object, source, and probably CPU schematics (ugh). But a modern Pentium megagigaherz could probably run a Multics emulator at a decent clip, even if it were written in Java.
And then, I could use "ted" again.
I remember, several years ago, a posting on comp.sys.next.marketplace. It may have been Carmack. They were selling off their original NeXT hardware, which had been used to develop DOOM.
I still have my color NeXT machine, and it served many years of use. When I replaced it with a 200MHz Pentium Pro system (running RH4.1), the PPro machine was roughly 20x faster than the old NeXT machine.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89
... and I can build my firewall/NAT system based upon this device. Has anybody figured out how to add a second Enet port? Since the device seems to have a custom bus, a PC104 adaptor would probably be the logical next step.
Well, imagine this: Say, one day, Yahoo goes "off the air" for three hours. The techs track it down to a router that had a flaky SIMM module. The flaky RAM module was put in by the manufacturer, who wanted to offer a low-cost product.
... it just isn't worth the risk.
... a different set of values really do apply in these business-critical equipment purchases.
That won't happen with Cisco hardware, or Sun hardware, or Network Appliance hardware, or equipment from any similar high-quality manufacturer.
You see, the high-quality vendors qualify every component that goes into the system: every fan, connector, SIMM, disk drive, power supply, and even the on/off switch.
They run these machines in special ovens, to test the overheating margins, in case a fan fails or the units are packed too tightly in the customer's rack or the air-conditioning fails. They check and recheck firmware revs, driver versions, and every software component as well.
The goal is a bulletproof system that will run for years. And that is what you want, if you are Yahoo or Ebay or Charles Schwab.
Customers are generally willing to pay the price for quality and reliability. Sure, the same disk drive may be available down at Fry's for one third the price. But if you buy it from Fry's, and it fails, the system vendor's guarantee doesn't apply. The disk drive that you bought at Fry's might have a different firmware level. Or maybe somebody returned that drive to Fry's and they repackaged it without noticing that the first buyer had bent one of the connector pins.
I buy a lot of my personal hardware from friends, or from discount shops. But for business? never
I hope this helps
I'm really heartened to see that folks are willing to read about discoveries made in the past, learn from mistakes that have been committed before, and stand upon the shoulders of earlier generations, rather than standing in their footprints.
I was able to use Multics for four years in college, and that experience gave me more insight and wisdom than any four years spent with Unix, Windows, or MacOS.
(In the areas of system design, that is! The only graphics expertise I gained from Multics was how to do simple bitmap images using the lineprinter!)
An unapologetic former Multician,
Stan Chesnutt
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
I remember hearing about this type of technology a few years ago in relation to Netware. Seems like a sensible way to conserve disk space, and maybe more interesting in a networked environment.
... "Their interesting things are not innovative, and their innovative things are not interesting" (in reference to MSFT of course)
This reminds me of the old saying
... or any other machine that just has a slot, rather than a tray that slides out?
... I'm just asking about the physical compatibility ... flamers, cool yer jets ...
And, I certainly realize that a "Linux rescue disc" probably won't work on a Mac
Get "Java Servlet Programming" .. O'Reilly, written by Jason Hunter and William Crawford. Let me know what you think ...
Actually, I think it was a bunch of malfunctioning Apple III computers that were scrapped. I'll look around a bit, and if there is a good reference, it will get posted.
Most Unices have a program called "banner" that can create the text-strips. As for the image-to-text stuff, see the previous poster or check out the pbm utilities, at, umm ... acme.com
Several years ago, I read that Colin Powell uses a high desk, and he stands while using it. I tried this arrangement by getting a lab table and putting reams of printer paper under the legs until the table height was approximately 1" below my elbows.
... so more productivity!
I found this to be a surprisingly comfortable setup, and recently had a custom desk built to my needs. I can stand and work for several hours at a time. For telephone calls, reading, or other non-computer activities, I move to a chair in my office.
The result: no back pain, great posture, and standing keeps my attention from wandering
Actually, it would be great to review people's perceptions of the town of Celebration. How is it viewed by (a) its residents, (b) people who live in nearby towns (c) visitors from cities big and small.
:: there is enough material here for dozens of essays, if not books.
Also, isn't there a small town on the Gulf Coast that was set up as a similar corporate planned community? Was it called Seaside? The town that was the setting for "The Truman Show" (which in itself is a fascinating social commentary).
Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly have printed a number of articles describing these and other planned communities. The concept goes back all the way to Levittown.
Good luck, Mr. Katz
Incidentally, I'm a resident of Berkeley, a community which is quite weird in its own way. Anti-corporate, unplanned, and commu-anarchic. An interesting contrast to Celebration et al.