"NES Homebrew Carts" got me this article about this device as the second result. A bit more looking found me information about the Devtendo. I presume that saleable games are produced in the same way they are on other systems: By taking an existing cart and resoldering a new ROM chip.
You'll note that the CuttleCart3 will be for the Intellivision. There used to be a cart called the "IntelliCart" that used a serial cable, but it's been unavailable for several years. There doesn't seem to be anyone releasing Intellivision homebrew carts despite the thriving homebrew community. So you'll need to find a used IntelliCart, or purchase a CC3 when it comes out.
Homebrew Odyssey^2 games can be purchased on PackRatVG's site here:
Note that O2 homebrews tend to be a lot better than many of the original games.
I don't know much about the NES homebrew scene, but I do know there are a lot of them. Look around and you'll probably be able to find carts for purchase.
I think you're confused. SCO (the current one) purchased the rights to Tarantella's Unix business. (Who's name I admit I fubared when I was typing it.) This purchase is the reason why the current SCO feels like it has rights to go on a sueing spree, and why the previous SCO's deal with Novell is now being argued with Caldera SCO.
So it's a bit more complex than, "That was the old SCO, and this is the new SCO." Caldera bought their way into becoming SCO.
2. Nintendo has NEVER sold below cost. They make a profit on each unit sold.
3. The reason why Microsoft had to sell the XBox at a loss was because they put PC Hardware into a game console. Which made it a lot more expensive than the Nintendo and Sony counterparts.
Ok, let's see here. The ELF format is part of the System V ABI specification. The System V specification was owned by USL, and is now custodianed by the OpenGroup. ELF was included because of the original licensing statement made by the TIS Committee:
The TIS Committee grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use the information disclosed in this Specification to make your software TIS-compliant; no other license, express or implied, is granted or intended hereby.
Who was this TIS Committee that dared give away SCO's property?! Why, SCO themselves. Err, actually, it was Absoft, Autodesk, Borland International Corporation, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Lahey, Lotus Corporation, MetaWare Corporation, Microtec Research, Microsoft Corporation, Novell Corporation, The Santa Cruz Operation, and WATCOM International Corporation. Considering the number of companies that ownership was split across, one has to wonder: Did SCO ask permission from their partners before filing suit over technology that they (nee, Taratala) only helped develop?
Darl is getting incredibly desperate, don't you think? Anything to keep from losing the company under his feet, I guess.
Agreed. My first thought was, "Who let Dvorak out of his cage?"
While the white plastic designs of the current Nintendos and Macs may make them seem like a good match from a marketing perspective, this fellow's suggestions on technology integration show a distinct lack of understanding of the Game Console market.
Game Consoles are very good at what they do. They play games, and they support the graphics and sound of those games. Generally speaking, they are capable of providing a gaming experience far in excess of anything a general-purpose computer could do at a similar price point. The reason for this is the use of customized graphics, sound, and CPU hardware. Engineers who look at the specs of most game consoles tend to think, "but this would perform horribly under condition XYZ, which most computers see on a regular basis!" And they would, if they were made into general purpose computers. But they're not. They are focused gaming hardware.
Now the Mac Mini is NOT a piece of focused gaming hardware. All of its internals are all wrong. Its graphics performance would be slow, its bus bandwidth is poor, and its CPU is on a distinct bus from the GPU. Not a very good gaming machine.
Of course, all of this discussion is academic. Nintendo won't sell, and no vector exists for a hostile takeover. So it's a virtual certainty that Nintendo will not be bought off, even if Apple wanted to purchase them.
Atari VCS: Atari, Spectravideo, and Perphial Visions Inc. all tried to create a keyboard for it. Only the Spectravideo keyboard made it to market. Only the Spectravision keyboard made it to market. It flopped.
Intellivision: Mattel promised from day 1 that the Intellivision would be able to be turned into a full computer by adding a special keyboard component. Unfortunately, the component proved too expensive to manufacture. When Mattel was finally forced to release the product due to an FTC fine, nearly every unit was returned as broken or defective. Mattel then shifted gears in a hurry and released the Entertainment Computer System, a quick hack produced by a secret project that was intended to get Mattel out of hot water. Predictably, it flopped in the market.
Odyssey 2: Magnavox actually integrated a keyboard into this console, but gave no thought to an OS, tape drive, or printer. There was a BASIC kit released for the European version, but otherwise this console's potential as a computer was sadly underutilized.
Coleco Adam: Coleco had the bright idea of creating a computer that could play Colecovision games. Consumers couldn't decide whether or not it was a game machine or a serious "home computer" system. Combined with its odd design (the power was routed through the printer) it flopped in the market.
Atari 5200: This actually WAS a computer packed into a game system case. Unsurprisingly, no peripheral components were produced to prevent competition with the Atari 400/800 systems.
Atari 7800: Again, a keyboard component was created, but never marketed. With Nintendo deciding NOT to ship the Famicom Floppy Disk Drive in America, Atari may have finally realized that trying to make a game console into a computer wasn't such a good idea.
PlayStation 2: Sony tries to make the PlayStation into a generic computer with a keyboard/mouse attachment, a harddrive, and a copy of Linux. Sony kills the product citing poor sales.
PlayStation 3: Sony tries to differentiate their console by claiming that "it's a computer". Welcome to the 1980s.
You're telling me that "The Fatman" George Sanger didn't cross you're mind?! Sacrilege! From his first work on Duncan's Thin Ice (an old Intellivision game) to his crowning achievement on Wing Commander, The Fatman singlehandedly made video game music important! I purchased a Sound Blaster just so I could hear the Wing Commander music that everyone was raving about. (I wasn't disappointed.) I know I'm not the only one.:)
Demonstably incorrect. Texas already has cameras in public, and already has legislation allowing for secret camera locations.
Are you talking about the cameras on the University of Texas premisis? Because I'm not aware of any cameras on the streets of Austin, Dallas, or Houston.
While the University matter caused quite a bit of stink, a court eventually ordered the University to publicize the locations and information about the cameras.
There's a subtle, but important, difference. Britain's cams look in while Texas's cams look out. If Texas tried to spy on its citizens the same way that Britain does (not that I'm saying that Brits necessarily mind the camera), the Texans would blow them away with 20 gauge shotguns.
His post captures the situation beautifully. There's simply no profit in challenging Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market.
If I were to point to a single factor as key to the demise of all the above handhelds, it would be that they tried to use technology far in excess of the battery technology, pricing models, and media formats that consumers would accept. Yet they almost have to make that tradeoff to compete.
If a new handheld device positions itself behind the technology curve (like the Gameboy does), it will only find itself to be a clone of the Gameboy. Which makes the consumer purchasing decision an easy one: Which one has more high-quality games? The Gameboy or the new Super Wonder Gizmo 3000 XP?
Given that the Gameboy has over a decade of history behind it while the Super Wonder Gizmo 3000 XP has about 10 minutes of history, the choice ends up being a no brainer. The Gameboy. Every time.
I mean come on, every desktop-oriented OS on the planet does/tries to do that, it's obvious. This sort of content-less marketting talk is usually spewed out by companies like Microsoft, so I'm always a bit disappointed to read it on open-source project pages.
Arguably, the difference is that FreeBSD is focused on just creating a good OS, while PC-BSD is designed to be a Desktop-oriented version of FreeBSD. It's a bit like the Darwin/OS X relationship. Darwin is the kernel, and is a complete operating system. OS X is Darwin bundled with various GUI frameworks out of the box.
Microsoft could do the same sort of division with Windows NT, but they've pretty much made it clear that they don't release OS cores. (Which is too bad, considering that I'd much rather use a command line to work with NT Servers.):-/
I wonder if Peter's design going to be used as-is, or if Taco will make a few tweaks to it first. For example, Alex's design incorporates quotes as separate, indented paragraphs. Slashdot not only lacks this capability today, but Taco himself pointed out that it is not feasible given how much the quotes and editor comments tend to be mixed. Perhaps he's changed his mind?
Personally, I'm a bit sad that Jason Porritt's design didn't end up in one of the top slots. (His design was the one who's mockup had the "infinite paragraphs" bug in Opera.) I personally thought his design was extremely good looking, readable, a huge step forward, and yet recognizable as "Slashdot".
Anyway, congrats to Mr. Bendiken. You're now more famous than you can possibly imagine. Don't spend it all in one place, okay?;-)
Microsoft Word files were designed as OLE2 file systems that allow for existing objects to be relinked in different parts of the file. So there's no need to "push the objects over" any more than your file system "pushes the files over".
In an effort to curb the misuse of my technological terms by the industry, I am now trademarking Web 3.0, Web 4.0, Web 5.0, Web 6.0, Web 7.0, Web 8.0, Web 9.0, Web 1337.0, Web 69.0 and Web Pi.
Just in case anyone is seriously thinking of doing this, be aware that Trademark protection is only afforded when you use the term. If you don't use the term, your trademark will fall through in any court case.
I'm not a lawyer, but setting up a website with joke articles about Web 3.0 - Web Pi should allow you to register the term. Whether or not it will be enforcable is a matter you'll need to ask a lawyer. Thankfully, the EFF and/or PJ would probably be willing to listen to your plan, perhaps even provide legal advice. (Maybe. I don't speak for them, so take this with a grain of salt.)
Indeed I have. The format itself is far more structured than the DOC file format. What makes PDFs ugly are two things:
1. The fact that text and binary are mixed. This kind of screws up many parsers which should be treating it as binary.
2. The fact that so many programs produce corrupted PDF files. The spec is very clear on things like garbage after the end-of-file token. However, many programs (*cough*Quark*cough*) blow an entire buffer of garbage into that area. Of course, Acrobat happily corrects these errors, so no one ever fixes their damn programs.
As for the Word DOC format, the reason why you like it so much is because of the API. If you actually have to write a parser (which involves reimplementing COM and OLE), it quickly becomes apparent that the DOC format has a lot of hidden nasties as well.
I've noticed that Word will stream open a large DOC file, so that you can start to work on it before it's been entirely loaded -- similar to a web page.
DOC files don't so much as stream as open for Random Access. They're structured in such a way that the information is stored as an object heirarchy scattered across the file. This makes saving faster because only the changes are saved to the file. It also make opening faster, because Office only needs to pull up the information that's on the screen at the moment. (Even if it's at the end of the document.) PDFs work in a similar, but more structured, fashion.
The unfortunate fact about ODF is that it requires a complete decoding of the file when loading, and a complete reencoding of the file when saving. However, I don't see any reason why Microsoft can't just add ODF support and make it an optional format. Computers are fast these days, and it should be up to the user to decide whether he needs the performance provided by the MS DOC *cough* "standard".
Or in other words, Microsoft is grasping at straws, trying to find a reason why they shouldn't support opening and saving of ODF files. I feel so sorry for them. (Not.)
The proper name is "Atari Video Computer System". VCS was just a shortening. The name was only changed to 2600 when the more powerful 5200 was released.
5200
The proper name was Atari 5200 SuperSystem. Granted, without the 2600 "VCS", the name wouldn't have meant much.
7800
7800 ProSystem
Intellivision
The name stood for "Intelligent Television". Which actually conveys a lot. Especially to the 80's generation who were used to everything having "-Tron" appended to it.
You forgot "Nintendo Entertainment System", which also means quite a lot.
The rest of the names were pretty abstract without knowing a thing or two about video games.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
"NES Homebrew Carts" got me this article about this device as the second result. A bit more looking found me information about the Devtendo. I presume that saleable games are produced in the same way they are on other systems: By taking an existing cart and resoldering a new ROM chip.
Can the average person just go online and buy rewritable cards for the Atari 2600, NES, 8-bit Game Boy, Sega Master System, and Sega Genesis?
You can purchase 2600 and 5200 homebrews here:
http://www.atariage.com/store/
A 7800/2600 "CuttleCart" (which allows you to play games from a MMC card) can be purchased here:
http://www.schells.com/cc2.shtml
You'll note that the CuttleCart3 will be for the Intellivision. There used to be a cart called the "IntelliCart" that used a serial cable, but it's been unavailable for several years. There doesn't seem to be anyone releasing Intellivision homebrew carts despite the thriving homebrew community. So you'll need to find a used IntelliCart, or purchase a CC3 when it comes out.
Homebrew Odyssey^2 games can be purchased on PackRatVG's site here:
http://www.packratvg.com/o2hbrews.html
Even more O2 homebrews, along with Colecovision and Vectrex homebrews can be found here:
http://www.classicgamecreations.com/
Note that O2 homebrews tend to be a lot better than many of the original games.
I don't know much about the NES homebrew scene, but I do know there are a lot of them. Look around and you'll probably be able to find carts for purchase.
You should contact IBM's legal team. Even just a written statement may be helpful in nailing SCO on their illegal behavior.
I think you're confused. SCO (the current one) purchased the rights to Tarantella's Unix business. (Who's name I admit I fubared when I was typing it.) This purchase is the reason why the current SCO feels like it has rights to go on a sueing spree, and why the previous SCO's deal with Novell is now being argued with Caldera SCO.
So it's a bit more complex than, "That was the old SCO, and this is the new SCO." Caldera bought their way into becoming SCO.
1. That's an urban legend.
2. Nintendo has NEVER sold below cost. They make a profit on each unit sold.
3. The reason why Microsoft had to sell the XBox at a loss was because they put PC Hardware into a game console. Which made it a lot more expensive than the Nintendo and Sony counterparts.
Who was this TIS Committee that dared give away SCO's property?! Why, SCO themselves. Err, actually, it was Absoft, Autodesk, Borland International
Corporation, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Lahey, Lotus Corporation, MetaWare
Corporation, Microtec Research, Microsoft Corporation, Novell Corporation, The Santa Cruz
Operation, and WATCOM International Corporation. Considering the number of companies that ownership was split across, one has to wonder: Did SCO ask permission from their partners before filing suit over technology that they (nee, Taratala) only helped develop?
Darl is getting incredibly desperate, don't you think? Anything to keep from losing the company under his feet, I guess.
All your speculations are wrong. Everyone knows that Apple will be buying off Starbuck's automobile division.
Article is speculation of the stupidist sort.
Agreed. My first thought was, "Who let Dvorak out of his cage?"
While the white plastic designs of the current Nintendos and Macs may make them seem like a good match from a marketing perspective, this fellow's suggestions on technology integration show a distinct lack of understanding of the Game Console market.
Game Consoles are very good at what they do. They play games, and they support the graphics and sound of those games. Generally speaking, they are capable of providing a gaming experience far in excess of anything a general-purpose computer could do at a similar price point. The reason for this is the use of customized graphics, sound, and CPU hardware. Engineers who look at the specs of most game consoles tend to think, "but this would perform horribly under condition XYZ, which most computers see on a regular basis!" And they would, if they were made into general purpose computers. But they're not. They are focused gaming hardware.
Now the Mac Mini is NOT a piece of focused gaming hardware. All of its internals are all wrong. Its graphics performance would be slow, its bus bandwidth is poor, and its CPU is on a distinct bus from the GPU. Not a very good gaming machine.
Of course, all of this discussion is academic. Nintendo won't sell, and no vector exists for a hostile takeover. So it's a virtual certainty that Nintendo will not be bought off, even if Apple wanted to purchase them.
Atari VCS: Atari, Spectravideo, and Perphial Visions Inc. all tried to create a keyboard for it. Only the Spectravideo keyboard made it to market. Only the Spectravision keyboard made it to market. It flopped.
Intellivision: Mattel promised from day 1 that the Intellivision would be able to be turned into a full computer by adding a special keyboard component. Unfortunately, the component proved too expensive to manufacture. When Mattel was finally forced to release the product due to an FTC fine, nearly every unit was returned as broken or defective. Mattel then shifted gears in a hurry and released the Entertainment Computer System, a quick hack produced by a secret project that was intended to get Mattel out of hot water. Predictably, it flopped in the market.
Odyssey 2: Magnavox actually integrated a keyboard into this console, but gave no thought to an OS, tape drive, or printer. There was a BASIC kit released for the European version, but otherwise this console's potential as a computer was sadly underutilized.
Coleco Adam: Coleco had the bright idea of creating a computer that could play Colecovision games. Consumers couldn't decide whether or not it was a game machine or a serious "home computer" system. Combined with its odd design (the power was routed through the printer) it flopped in the market.
Atari 5200: This actually WAS a computer packed into a game system case. Unsurprisingly, no peripheral components were produced to prevent competition with the Atari 400/800 systems.
Atari 7800: Again, a keyboard component was created, but never marketed. With Nintendo deciding NOT to ship the Famicom Floppy Disk Drive in America, Atari may have finally realized that trying to make a game console into a computer wasn't such a good idea.
PlayStation 2: Sony tries to make the PlayStation into a generic computer with a keyboard/mouse attachment, a harddrive, and a copy of Linux. Sony kills the product citing poor sales.
PlayStation 3: Sony tries to differentiate their console by claiming that "it's a computer". Welcome to the 1980s.
You're telling me that "The Fatman" George Sanger didn't cross you're mind?! Sacrilege! From his first work on Duncan's Thin Ice (an old Intellivision game) to his crowning achievement on Wing Commander, The Fatman singlehandedly made video game music important! I purchased a Sound Blaster just so I could hear the Wing Commander music that everyone was raving about. (I wasn't disappointed.) I know I'm not the only one. :)
Demonstably incorrect. Texas already has cameras in public, and already has legislation allowing for secret camera locations.
Are you talking about the cameras on the University of Texas premisis? Because I'm not aware of any cameras on the streets of Austin, Dallas, or Houston.
While the University matter caused quite a bit of stink, a court eventually ordered the University to publicize the locations and information about the cameras.
Hey, it's working for Britain, right?
There's a subtle, but important, difference. Britain's cams look in while Texas's cams look out. If Texas tried to spy on its citizens the same way that Britain does (not that I'm saying that Brits necessarily mind the camera), the Texans would blow them away with 20 gauge shotguns.
Mod parent up.
His post captures the situation beautifully. There's simply no profit in challenging Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market.
If I were to point to a single factor as key to the demise of all the above handhelds, it would be that they tried to use technology far in excess of the battery technology, pricing models, and media formats that consumers would accept. Yet they almost have to make that tradeoff to compete.
If a new handheld device positions itself behind the technology curve (like the Gameboy does), it will only find itself to be a clone of the Gameboy. Which makes the consumer purchasing decision an easy one: Which one has more high-quality games? The Gameboy or the new Super Wonder Gizmo 3000 XP?
Given that the Gameboy has over a decade of history behind it while the Super Wonder Gizmo 3000 XP has about 10 minutes of history, the choice ends up being a no brainer. The Gameboy. Every time.
Free (as in soda pop)
'Nuff said.
Whenever a free microkernel design comes remotely close to the mindshare of Linux, there may be a basis for discussion.
QNX
'Nuff said.
I mean come on, every desktop-oriented OS on the planet does/tries to do that, it's obvious. This sort of content-less marketting talk is usually spewed out by companies like Microsoft, so I'm always a bit disappointed to read it on open-source project pages.
:-/
Arguably, the difference is that FreeBSD is focused on just creating a good OS, while PC-BSD is designed to be a Desktop-oriented version of FreeBSD. It's a bit like the Darwin/OS X relationship. Darwin is the kernel, and is a complete operating system. OS X is Darwin bundled with various GUI frameworks out of the box.
Microsoft could do the same sort of division with Windows NT, but they've pretty much made it clear that they don't release OS cores. (Which is too bad, considering that I'd much rather use a command line to work with NT Servers.)
s/Peter/Alex/g
Sorry, brain fart there.
I wonder if Peter's design going to be used as-is, or if Taco will make a few tweaks to it first. For example, Alex's design incorporates quotes as separate, indented paragraphs. Slashdot not only lacks this capability today, but Taco himself pointed out that it is not feasible given how much the quotes and editor comments tend to be mixed. Perhaps he's changed his mind?
;-)
Personally, I'm a bit sad that Jason Porritt's design didn't end up in one of the top slots. (His design was the one who's mockup had the "infinite paragraphs" bug in Opera.) I personally thought his design was extremely good looking, readable, a huge step forward, and yet recognizable as "Slashdot".
Anyway, congrats to Mr. Bendiken. You're now more famous than you can possibly imagine. Don't spend it all in one place, okay?
Of course, that's the "new and improved" method of doing it. IIRC, we used to type "make world" to just build everything.
(In case you too want to "Remake your world", the instructions can be found on this page.)
You don't know what you're talking about.
Microsoft Word files were designed as OLE2 file systems that allow for existing objects to be relinked in different parts of the file. So there's no need to "push the objects over" any more than your file system "pushes the files over".
In an effort to curb the misuse of my technological terms by the industry, I am now trademarking Web 3.0, Web 4.0, Web 5.0, Web 6.0, Web 7.0, Web 8.0, Web 9.0, Web 1337.0, Web 69.0 and Web Pi.
Just in case anyone is seriously thinking of doing this, be aware that Trademark protection is only afforded when you use the term. If you don't use the term, your trademark will fall through in any court case.
I'm not a lawyer, but setting up a website with joke articles about Web 3.0 - Web Pi should allow you to register the term. Whether or not it will be enforcable is a matter you'll need to ask a lawyer. Thankfully, the EFF and/or PJ would probably be willing to listen to your plan, perhaps even provide legal advice. (Maybe. I don't speak for them, so take this with a grain of salt.)
Have you ever tried writing a PDF parser?
Indeed I have. The format itself is far more structured than the DOC file format. What makes PDFs ugly are two things:
1. The fact that text and binary are mixed. This kind of screws up many parsers which should be treating it as binary.
2. The fact that so many programs produce corrupted PDF files. The spec is very clear on things like garbage after the end-of-file token. However, many programs (*cough*Quark*cough*) blow an entire buffer of garbage into that area. Of course, Acrobat happily corrects these errors, so no one ever fixes their damn programs.
As for the Word DOC format, the reason why you like it so much is because of the API. If you actually have to write a parser (which involves reimplementing COM and OLE), it quickly becomes apparent that the DOC format has a lot of hidden nasties as well.
I'm happy to be of service. Glad to see you're back from the moon. ;-)
I've noticed that Word will stream open a large DOC file, so that you can start to work on it before it's been entirely loaded -- similar to a web page.
DOC files don't so much as stream as open for Random Access. They're structured in such a way that the information is stored as an object heirarchy scattered across the file. This makes saving faster because only the changes are saved to the file. It also make opening faster, because Office only needs to pull up the information that's on the screen at the moment. (Even if it's at the end of the document.) PDFs work in a similar, but more structured, fashion.
The unfortunate fact about ODF is that it requires a complete decoding of the file when loading, and a complete reencoding of the file when saving. However, I don't see any reason why Microsoft can't just add ODF support and make it an optional format. Computers are fast these days, and it should be up to the user to decide whether he needs the performance provided by the MS DOC *cough* "standard".
Or in other words, Microsoft is grasping at straws, trying to find a reason why they shouldn't support opening and saving of ODF files. I feel so sorry for them. (Not.)
VCS/2600
:-)
The proper name is "Atari Video Computer System". VCS was just a shortening. The name was only changed to 2600 when the more powerful 5200 was released.
5200
The proper name was Atari 5200 SuperSystem. Granted, without the 2600 "VCS", the name wouldn't have meant much.
7800
7800 ProSystem
Intellivision
The name stood for "Intelligent Television". Which actually conveys a lot. Especially to the 80's generation who were used to everything having "-Tron" appended to it.
You forgot "Nintendo Entertainment System", which also means quite a lot.
The rest of the names were pretty abstract without knowing a thing or two about video games.