As mentioned, it has only 7 characters, so it wouldn't work.
Also, I was under the impression that the ~1 name abbreviation scheme is patented by Microsoft, as stupid as it is... (Though it's not really that difficult patent to step around of. Check out how DOSEMU reports long file names. I'll go to D:\TMP and see names like D:\TMP\ORBIT~3U and D:\TMP\GCONF~LP instead of/tmp/orbit-wwwwolf and/tmp/gconfd-wwwwolf...)
Assuming it's bought "assembled" How do they deliver it?
Reminds me of one picture in an aviation magazine when the Finnish Air Force got their F-18 Hornets. The Hornet was escorted by a couple of Saab Drakens. That was probably the only picture in the world where a hornet was bigger than a dragon...
s.SaveToFile("C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe",2);
What kind of slacker wrote this code, anyway? "C:\Program Files\" isn't in the same place for everyone, even in out-of-the-box Windows installs. For me, it seems to be "C:\Ohjelmatiedostot\" =)
This is probably the only kind of case I can thank Microsoft for the way they do localizations, but frankly, I like the Mac/*NIX way of doing localized file names (the real filesystem name is same everywhere, the file manager shows the appropriate translation if needed...)
I've heard there's a lot of stuff in the 'mechs that isn't simulated in the games...
For example, I'm pretty sure all Clan 'mechs have fridges. Where else would the noble warriors of Kerensky keep their vodka?
A few stories I read indicate 'mechs have speakers outside. There's nothing like marching in front of a rioting crowd with a Timberwolf, cranking up the volume and saying "Move along, nothing to see here" =)
Yeah, I sometimes still use it for stuff like word processing. I'm a firm believer in the fact that there hasn't been that many great strides in word processing technology since the early days. It saddens me when people these days buy gigahertz class computers for freaking word processing and web browsing. I mean, I can type text on C64. Several dozen kilobytes of plain unformatted text is actually quite a lot. Longer texts can be split into several files.
If I need to write one-shot D&D adventure module or something like that overnight, I don't need fancy formatting and stuff. I type it with my C64, print it with the crappy thermal matrix printer, and if I ever need to publish it, transfer it by cable to PC (or re-type it on PC) and format it there. (Actually I have one Classic D&D module that I did with this technique - original text in MiniOffice II, final formatting in OpenOffice.org. I hope to translate it to English soon, or something =)
However, the only real reason I use C64 for these tasks for is that in that place, I'd need to go downstairs for the PCs, and I'm very lazy. =)
We used cassette tapes, and we were glad to have 'em, too!
Hmmmm, I think I could just dream a thing far more sinister and evil than the C64 port of Street Fighter II... a tape drive version of GEOS. The original implementors of GEOS made it work pretty damn well on the slow disk drive, but it'd have been "interesting" to see how they would have handled it if the bosses had told them to make the thing support a tape drive... Click on geoPaint icon and see "Insert geoPaint tape side 1, rewind, and press play to load"... *shiver*
I do have a word processor that came on a tape though. Just not a GEOS version. (I backed it up on a floppy with TFC3 though, that way it loaded more than a bit faster... =)
The main reason there are cheats is that the game clients know too much. In ideal world, the game clients would be completely stupid and would only know what's necessary (for example, in FPSes, the client would only know of the players that are in the player's view).
However, implementing things in "dumb" way is not efficient or particularly lag-friendly, so clients have to know a lot of things. The more secure you make the client protocol, the slower and more unreliable the game becomes.
In particular, the clients know where each player are, and where they're apparently moving to.
Also, some clients aren't too efficient what comes to drawing the picture; the client tells graphics card to draw whatever objects are nearby, whether they're hidden behind other objects or not.
So, now there's two ways to exploit it: Either mess with the client by analyzing what the client knows (calculate optimal firing direction and moment by analyzing at the player positions, etc etc) or mess with the display drivers (make all polygons on the screen translucent, enabling people to see behind walls).
if (app.exename="NETSCAPE.EXE") system.sluggify();
Bah! Even at the pace Microsoft is releasing their patches, they can't possibly keep up with all these executable names. netscape.exe vs. mozilla.exe vs. phoenix.exe vs. MozillaFirebird.exe vs. firefox.exe vs....?
Hmmm, I wonder if this would work under VICE? The GEOS fast-disk routines were very timing specific, so it might not. Maybe I'll give it a try.
VICE's drive emulation is pretty damn good. Since the site is slashdotted and I can't see a thing, I can't confirm that it works, but I'd guess so. I know that an AbaNd0nWaR3z version of GEOS 2.0 works beautifully in VICE, however. AND that it has an Y2K problem. =(
I borrowed GEOS 1.2 disks from school because no one was using it anyway. I still have it somewhere, and last I heard, no one even knows it's missing =)
Great operating system. The only reason why I liked Windows 3.0 more was because it was slightly faster (Thanks to disk turbo, strangely only slightly, when we compare a 1MHz C64 and 16MHz 386SX... my standards for speed were a bit different those days, slow disk drives teach patience =) and ran from hard disk.
Good that it's freely available now, without need of obscure abandonwarez sites. It sure is something every C64 needs!
Actually they're not exactly "fictitious", just exaggerated. The bards, passing this legendary tale around when they travelled from town to town, tended to exaggerate a bit. (They had to, because otherwise their record labels might sue them for breach of contract, or something.)
SCO's tale, of course, tells of a great fortress that could withstand the attack of a gigantic fire-breathing dragon. In reality, the fortress was actually a barely standing shack in a slum. The dragon was actually a teenager punk who aimed at the windows with a slingshot when he sped past on a skateboard, which apparently had a dragon pattern on it. Thank God he didn't manage to hit the window. Or even side of the wall, because the thing might have collapsed.
So now there's a button campaign! Back in the day, we had Netscape Now!, then there was a MSIE Now!, and then there was a loooong silence. Way too long. Way way WAY too long.
Party like it's 1996!
In case you still have that personal homepage thing gathering dust in some corner of the web, or a blog that you think no one reads but several people actually do - DO the button thing! RELIVE the nostalgy! HEAR the whining from standards-brandishing people (who, gritting their teeth, will admit Firefox supports W3C standards well, unlike that other browser)!
I'll try that page as soon as the mozilla site isn't completely slashdotted. I had to make my own stupid "Mozilla Now" button several months ago, glad Mozilla folks have finally done them themselves =)
When asked about his favorite browser for the PowerBook he uses aboard Great Fox, Fox McCloud only said "Hi-yah!!!" and jumped a couple of dozen meters on the air with a nice fire effect.
Fox McCloud rules. Mozilla Firebird rules. Therefore, Mozilla Firefox rules absolutely. =) I was already worried that Nintendo was going to take Firebird/Thunderbird/Icebird(?) and do something Pokemon-themed out of them (Moltres/Zapdos/Articuno), but now, they can focus on games that matter more. Thank God Nintendo hasn't trademarked the names of the moves or anything. Now excuse me, I need more coffee. =)
10% of the games we buy are worthwhile? Personally, I'm a Poor Student and I can afford the games I like. You see, no one's forcing me to buy anything. I'm getting like 90% worthwhile ratio =)
The problem isn't that the games cost a lot of money. I'll gladly pay 50-60 Euro for a single game - I can easily afford one game per month. Two, if I get budget titles, which is what I'm doing this month.
The real problem is that there's too many new games. If the game companies want to see me buying higher percentage of their titles, they need to make less games - and better. If they were committed, this piracy war could be won with a fourth of the present number of titles on the market.</apocalypse>
The rule on the Mac is the simplest one imaginable: point at the thing you want to manipulate. You learned that rule when you were about six months old
...and later I learned that I can either shout "I want the thingy, mom" or point at the thingy until someone gets that thing to me. Later, I learned how to pick it up myself, and the l33t hAx0rs even told how to use Fear and Influence to make other people to get the thingy to me, but I never got hang of it. =)
The point is, just because I could do the thing with the method I learned when I was a baby, it doesn't mean it's always the best way to do things. There should be alternative ways to do things, along with the simplest way to do it. Even "File - Rename".
(Apologies if there is such menu option - I've only used the Finnish edition. Apple, historically speaking, has had quite colorful history with translating their OS, not always agreeing to the translated terms the PC/Windows world uses - this isn't always a bad thing, because sometimes Windows translations suck as well. - To this day, Apple calls "File" menu "Arkisto" (lit. "Archive"), not "Tiedosto" (the estabilished translation). This is a great mystery.)
Problem is that it's impossible to make a good-looking icon using vector graphics. You absolutely have to use a bitmap.
Now, this is rubbish.
Take a look around. You would be surprised if you knew how much of "good-looking art" is done with vector graphics. Even small size drawings. Even near-photorealistic icons.
Most of the MacOS icons I've seen could be done with SVG and no one wouldn't notice the difference.
First of all, SVG isn't exactly a yesteryear's graphics standard - it's very modern. In technical terms, this means that it has That Alpha Channel Thing figured out. The only BIG complaint from artists against vector graphics that I've heard is "There's only mask, no alpha channel". Well, there is now!
Not earth-shattering, I know. Improves how things look, though.
Also, what comes to scaling, I bet some sort of SVG grouping could be used for receding detail. If you want to do receding detail in bitmap icons, it's tricky - always have to create multiple bitmaps. (Okay, in reality you have one Photoshop source file and you just toggle layers and flatten and save.... but still, multiple bitmaps...)
More likely, you've just come to the Mac with incorrect preconceptions, just like the whole right-clicky, vector-icon thing. You must unlearn what you have learned.
Bah. Actually, so far I have had very few problems with OSX; there's not really have been much reason to "unlearn" anything. Most of the stuff has been, like, two minute blank stare at screen and then "oh, that thing there." =)
I'm just saying that I had the illusion that MacOS was supposed to be unsurpassed in usability; It isn't. I suppose nothing is perfect. OSX is still pretty damn good though =)
Just this weekend I was still getting used to this weird operating system known as MacOSX: "How the heck do I rename a file?" Found out that clicking on the file name works. Yet, I far prefer GNOME's renaming idea: Renaming file is in the context menu, Edit menu and key F2 - and not selecting the file name extension is nice.
I also like the idea of using SVG for icons - scalable icons rule, and have done so for years in operating systems no one uses. I just wish the SVG themers could come up with even a single aesthetically pleasing and extensive collection of file icons. The button themes are good already.
Oh, and Emblems. Nautilus had these years ago. These things rule. OSX 10.3 got colored names. Not sure if Windows has innovated this feature yet.
Now that I finally have some very infrequent access to a Mac - the supposed bastion of good UI design - I've started getting a little bit annoyed that GNOME stuff and WindowMaker are actually better at times. Both are lightyears ahead of Microsoft, though =)
The discs spin clockwise. It's just that they're written from outside to inside. You can't burn GC-readable discs on any DVD burner, and consumer GCs probably won't read burned miniDVDs anyway.
This hack was done by convincing Phantasy Star Online to read arbitrary code and think it's a patch.
It's not about what's good/convenient for you, it's about what's convenient for them (i.e. makes them the most money)
Yeah, but the problem is, people aren't stupid. Or, alternatively, people are stupid and hence difficult to reason with. DRM crap may work beautifully in computer world, but even if DRM crap has very long and glorious history in console world as well, the manufacturers have been smart enough not to annoy the hell out of the consumers with trivial garbage that should "just work".
There have been pay-for-play console services. For some reasons, they haven't caught on. And these days, people don't want consumer electronics that vitally depend on the manufacturer. And Microsoft is smart enough not to repeat anyone else's mistakes.
Sure, Microsoft might think that fascist DRM is the way of the future, but they're smart enough to think first. In console world, the DRM has to be silent and invisible, and not annoy the users. A network dependancy for its own sake would kill the console and they know it.
Yes we have. As I understood it, Microsoft has pretty much let the Core Fonts out to the wild, much to the dismay of Monotype and other companies who created the fonts... The license allows free distribution in unmodified form.
But there's also Times, which is a standard PostScript font. A crappy bitmap version ships with X11. You can buy a PS version of the font from Adobe, I think. There's a magnificent free version, URW Times, which is pretty damn good. I guess nobody will notice the difference unless they look really hard - the typeface hasn't changed that much since 1930s or so, and you can always explain the slight rendering differences with "oh yeah, this Linux stuff is still beta, I won't get 100% accurate rendering anyway". In short, cheat. =)
Slashdot Mirror
As mentioned, it has only 7 characters, so it wouldn't work.
Also, I was under the impression that the ~1 name abbreviation scheme is patented by Microsoft, as stupid as it is... (Though it's not really that difficult patent to step around of. Check out how DOSEMU reports long file names. I'll go to D:\TMP and see names like D:\TMP\ORBIT~3U and D:\TMP\GCONF~LP instead of /tmp/orbit-wwwwolf and /tmp/gconfd-wwwwolf...)
Right, we trade scratched prints to squealing and chirping sound and smudged, blocky, pixelated video...
One of the most important laws of technology is that It's Never Perfect. =)
Reminds me of one picture in an aviation magazine when the Finnish Air Force got their F-18 Hornets. The Hornet was escorted by a couple of Saab Drakens. That was probably the only picture in the world where a hornet was bigger than a dragon...
What kind of slacker wrote this code, anyway? "C:\Program Files\" isn't in the same place for everyone, even in out-of-the-box Windows installs. For me, it seems to be "C:\Ohjelmatiedostot\" =)
This is probably the only kind of case I can thank Microsoft for the way they do localizations, but frankly, I like the Mac/*NIX way of doing localized file names (the real filesystem name is same everywhere, the file manager shows the appropriate translation if needed...)
I've heard there's a lot of stuff in the 'mechs that isn't simulated in the games...
For example, I'm pretty sure all Clan 'mechs have fridges. Where else would the noble warriors of Kerensky keep their vodka?
A few stories I read indicate 'mechs have speakers outside. There's nothing like marching in front of a rioting crowd with a Timberwolf, cranking up the volume and saying "Move along, nothing to see here" =)
No way, there's no end to DC elitism. Those specs were there a few years ago. Nowadays it's probably an OC-3 and a petabyte RAID. =)
Plus it has a silly name. Whoever advertised Indirect Connect? =)
Yeah, I sometimes still use it for stuff like word processing. I'm a firm believer in the fact that there hasn't been that many great strides in word processing technology since the early days. It saddens me when people these days buy gigahertz class computers for freaking word processing and web browsing. I mean, I can type text on C64. Several dozen kilobytes of plain unformatted text is actually quite a lot. Longer texts can be split into several files.
If I need to write one-shot D&D adventure module or something like that overnight, I don't need fancy formatting and stuff. I type it with my C64, print it with the crappy thermal matrix printer, and if I ever need to publish it, transfer it by cable to PC (or re-type it on PC) and format it there. (Actually I have one Classic D&D module that I did with this technique - original text in MiniOffice II, final formatting in OpenOffice.org. I hope to translate it to English soon, or something =)
However, the only real reason I use C64 for these tasks for is that in that place, I'd need to go downstairs for the PCs, and I'm very lazy. =)
Hmmmm, I think I could just dream a thing far more sinister and evil than the C64 port of Street Fighter II... a tape drive version of GEOS. The original implementors of GEOS made it work pretty damn well on the slow disk drive, but it'd have been "interesting" to see how they would have handled it if the bosses had told them to make the thing support a tape drive... Click on geoPaint icon and see "Insert geoPaint tape side 1, rewind, and press play to load"... *shiver*
I do have a word processor that came on a tape though. Just not a GEOS version. (I backed it up on a floppy with TFC3 though, that way it loaded more than a bit faster... =)
The main reason there are cheats is that the game clients know too much. In ideal world, the game clients would be completely stupid and would only know what's necessary (for example, in FPSes, the client would only know of the players that are in the player's view).
However, implementing things in "dumb" way is not efficient or particularly lag-friendly, so clients have to know a lot of things. The more secure you make the client protocol, the slower and more unreliable the game becomes.
In particular, the clients know where each player are, and where they're apparently moving to.
Also, some clients aren't too efficient what comes to drawing the picture; the client tells graphics card to draw whatever objects are nearby, whether they're hidden behind other objects or not.
So, now there's two ways to exploit it: Either mess with the client by analyzing what the client knows (calculate optimal firing direction and moment by analyzing at the player positions, etc etc) or mess with the display drivers (make all polygons on the screen translucent, enabling people to see behind walls).
That's some of the basics. =)
Bah! Even at the pace Microsoft is releasing their patches, they can't possibly keep up with all these executable names. netscape.exe vs. mozilla.exe vs. phoenix.exe vs. MozillaFirebird.exe vs. firefox.exe vs....?
=)
VICE's drive emulation is pretty damn good. Since the site is slashdotted and I can't see a thing, I can't confirm that it works, but I'd guess so. I know that an AbaNd0nWaR3z version of GEOS 2.0 works beautifully in VICE, however. AND that it has an Y2K problem. =(
Speaking of AOL - since the GEOS site in the article is slashdotted, I wonder if it comes with the Quantum Link software? I hope not =)
Punched? PUNCHED? You had hole-puncher for that? Rich kids' toys...
I always use scissors and I have never, ever screwed it up, despite of the rumors that it's dangerous to do that with scissors...
I borrowed GEOS 1.2 disks from school because no one was using it anyway. I still have it somewhere, and last I heard, no one even knows it's missing =)
Great operating system. The only reason why I liked Windows 3.0 more was because it was slightly faster (Thanks to disk turbo, strangely only slightly, when we compare a 1MHz C64 and 16MHz 386SX... my standards for speed were a bit different those days, slow disk drives teach patience =) and ran from hard disk.
Good that it's freely available now, without need of obscure abandonwarez sites. It sure is something every C64 needs!
Actually they're not exactly "fictitious", just exaggerated. The bards, passing this legendary tale around when they travelled from town to town, tended to exaggerate a bit. (They had to, because otherwise their record labels might sue them for breach of contract, or something.)
SCO's tale, of course, tells of a great fortress that could withstand the attack of a gigantic fire-breathing dragon. In reality, the fortress was actually a barely standing shack in a slum. The dragon was actually a teenager punk who aimed at the windows with a slingshot when he sped past on a skateboard, which apparently had a dragon pattern on it. Thank God he didn't manage to hit the window. Or even side of the wall, because the thing might have collapsed.
So now there's a button campaign! Back in the day, we had Netscape Now!, then there was a MSIE Now!, and then there was a loooong silence. Way too long. Way way WAY too long.
Party like it's 1996!
In case you still have that personal homepage thing gathering dust in some corner of the web, or a blog that you think no one reads but several people actually do - DO the button thing! RELIVE the nostalgy! HEAR the whining from standards-brandishing people (who, gritting their teeth, will admit Firefox supports W3C standards well, unlike that other browser)!
I'll try that page as soon as the mozilla site isn't completely slashdotted. I had to make my own stupid "Mozilla Now" button several months ago, glad Mozilla folks have finally done them themselves =)
When asked about his favorite browser for the PowerBook he uses aboard Great Fox, Fox McCloud only said "Hi-yah!!!" and jumped a couple of dozen meters on the air with a nice fire effect.
Fox McCloud rules. Mozilla Firebird rules. Therefore, Mozilla Firefox rules absolutely. =) I was already worried that Nintendo was going to take Firebird/Thunderbird/Icebird(?) and do something Pokemon-themed out of them (Moltres/Zapdos/Articuno), but now, they can focus on games that matter more. Thank God Nintendo hasn't trademarked the names of the moves or anything. Now excuse me, I need more coffee. =)
10% of the games we buy are worthwhile? Personally, I'm a Poor Student and I can afford the games I like. You see, no one's forcing me to buy anything. I'm getting like 90% worthwhile ratio =)
The problem isn't that the games cost a lot of money. I'll gladly pay 50-60 Euro for a single game - I can easily afford one game per month. Two, if I get budget titles, which is what I'm doing this month.
The real problem is that there's too many new games. If the game companies want to see me buying higher percentage of their titles, they need to make less games - and better. If they were committed, this piracy war could be won with a fourth of the present number of titles on the market.</apocalypse>
...and later I learned that I can either shout "I want the thingy, mom" or point at the thingy until someone gets that thing to me. Later, I learned how to pick it up myself, and the l33t hAx0rs even told how to use Fear and Influence to make other people to get the thingy to me, but I never got hang of it. =)
The point is, just because I could do the thing with the method I learned when I was a baby, it doesn't mean it's always the best way to do things. There should be alternative ways to do things, along with the simplest way to do it. Even "File - Rename".
(Apologies if there is such menu option - I've only used the Finnish edition. Apple, historically speaking, has had quite colorful history with translating their OS, not always agreeing to the translated terms the PC/Windows world uses - this isn't always a bad thing, because sometimes Windows translations suck as well. - To this day, Apple calls "File" menu "Arkisto" (lit. "Archive"), not "Tiedosto" (the estabilished translation). This is a great mystery.)
Now, this is rubbish.
Take a look around. You would be surprised if you knew how much of "good-looking art" is done with vector graphics. Even small size drawings. Even near-photorealistic icons.
Most of the MacOS icons I've seen could be done with SVG and no one wouldn't notice the difference.
First of all, SVG isn't exactly a yesteryear's graphics standard - it's very modern. In technical terms, this means that it has That Alpha Channel Thing figured out. The only BIG complaint from artists against vector graphics that I've heard is "There's only mask, no alpha channel". Well, there is now!
Not earth-shattering, I know. Improves how things look, though.
Also, what comes to scaling, I bet some sort of SVG grouping could be used for receding detail. If you want to do receding detail in bitmap icons, it's tricky - always have to create multiple bitmaps. (Okay, in reality you have one Photoshop source file and you just toggle layers and flatten and save.... but still, multiple bitmaps...)
Bah. Actually, so far I have had very few problems with OSX; there's not really have been much reason to "unlearn" anything. Most of the stuff has been, like, two minute blank stare at screen and then "oh, that thing there." =)
I'm just saying that I had the illusion that MacOS was supposed to be unsurpassed in usability; It isn't. I suppose nothing is perfect. OSX is still pretty damn good though =)
Just this weekend I was still getting used to this weird operating system known as MacOSX: "How the heck do I rename a file?" Found out that clicking on the file name works. Yet, I far prefer GNOME's renaming idea: Renaming file is in the context menu, Edit menu and key F2 - and not selecting the file name extension is nice.
I also like the idea of using SVG for icons - scalable icons rule, and have done so for years in operating systems no one uses. I just wish the SVG themers could come up with even a single aesthetically pleasing and extensive collection of file icons. The button themes are good already.
Oh, and Emblems. Nautilus had these years ago. These things rule. OSX 10.3 got colored names. Not sure if Windows has innovated this feature yet.
Now that I finally have some very infrequent access to a Mac - the supposed bastion of good UI design - I've started getting a little bit annoyed that GNOME stuff and WindowMaker are actually better at times. Both are lightyears ahead of Microsoft, though =)
The discs spin clockwise. It's just that they're written from outside to inside. You can't burn GC-readable discs on any DVD burner, and consumer GCs probably won't read burned miniDVDs anyway.
This hack was done by convincing Phantasy Star Online to read arbitrary code and think it's a patch.
Yeah, it looks like a Commodore monitor. Noted it last time. Good taste, it seems =)
I've personally only tried a GameCube on a 1802 monitor, though...
And whatever you do, don't show people that you have an UPS on a game console... =)
Yeah, but the problem is, people aren't stupid. Or, alternatively, people are stupid and hence difficult to reason with. DRM crap may work beautifully in computer world, but even if DRM crap has very long and glorious history in console world as well, the manufacturers have been smart enough not to annoy the hell out of the consumers with trivial garbage that should "just work".
There have been pay-for-play console services. For some reasons, they haven't caught on. And these days, people don't want consumer electronics that vitally depend on the manufacturer. And Microsoft is smart enough not to repeat anyone else's mistakes.
Sure, Microsoft might think that fascist DRM is the way of the future, but they're smart enough to think first. In console world, the DRM has to be silent and invisible, and not annoy the users. A network dependancy for its own sake would kill the console and they know it.
Yes we have. As I understood it, Microsoft has pretty much let the Core Fonts out to the wild, much to the dismay of Monotype and other companies who created the fonts... The license allows free distribution in unmodified form.
But there's also Times, which is a standard PostScript font. A crappy bitmap version ships with X11. You can buy a PS version of the font from Adobe, I think. There's a magnificent free version, URW Times, which is pretty damn good. I guess nobody will notice the difference unless they look really hard - the typeface hasn't changed that much since 1930s or so, and you can always explain the slight rendering differences with "oh yeah, this Linux stuff is still beta, I won't get 100% accurate rendering anyway". In short, cheat. =)