Not just "casual" gamers, but try this one on for size:
My uncle is in his mid-60s and maybe played Pong once when it came out. Never appealed to him and never played any video games since. The guy doesn't even really use anything electronic besides a digital watch and a CD player (though I did give him an iBook a year or so ago, he hardly knows how to use it).
He was over the other day and I pointed out my Wii (probably some commercial just played). I told him to stand up, put his arm out (I then strapped a remote to his wrist) and told him to hold it like a remote control. I said, "Do you know how to play tennis? What do you do when you play?"
'You hit a ball.'
"Right, by swinging a tennis racket, right? You know how to make that motion, right?"
Then I told him to watch only the right side of the TV screen and "swing the racket" when the ball gets near "that guy on the screen".
Within two serves, a man who I consider the least technically inclined person I know was returning serves and was playing tennis. Rather, he was playing a video game and was enjoying it.
If that kind of experience doesn't say something, then I don't know what does.
When I see the "as made famous by" versus "by XXXX", I assume that you mean that the band didn't write it, they only covered it. For example, "What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding" is not written "by" Elvis Costello, but he certainly is the one who made it famous.
Rock And Roll All Nite: written by Stanley and Simmons (two main writers of Kiss)
School's Out: written by Alice Cooper
Slow Ride: written by Dave Peverett (member of Foghat)
I remember reading something about Bill's childhood in one of his books or interviews. The example I can note was that his family was very competitive, even against each other. They would (say) have a race across the back yard (or pool, whatever). Whoever won was praised, whoever lost was chastised. May not explain his management style too much, but certainly speaks a bit about his drive for success.
Then hit that page again and read the part starting with "An interesting bit of trivia about Wozniak's Integer BASIC was that he never had an assembly language source file for it. He wrote it in machine language, assembling it by hand on paper".
Don't get me wrong, I've been a fan of Woz for the last 25+ years. However, the "by hand" part that Woz did with Integer BASIC (or "Game BASIC" as the article said) was a fairly common activity back in the early hobby days. Ever hear of punch cards or the term "computer time" when referring to someone who only has 30 minutes a week to use a computer? You did quite a bit of "by hand" compilation because access to a real physical computer to run your deck was scarce, and you maybe had one shot to see if your program worked.
In Woz's case, it was probably more driven by the fact that the Apple II essentially hadn't been released yet when he was writing Integer BASIC, so it was pretty much him and a few other programmers making software to sell the machine and that was it. I'd gather his line of thinking could have been A) create development tools B) write BASIC so he can create BRICKOUT. Probably chose 'B', but did 'A' long enough (SWEET16) to support 'B'.
I'd say the more impressive fact about Integer BASIC is that Woz, from what my memory recalls, had never written a programming language interpreter before. In comparison, Microsoft had a few go's at it before AppleSoft BASIC.
Of course Halo 3 and GTA 4 could very well kick start the HD console sales in the fall.
But how cool would it be to play GTA 4 on a Wii? When using a melee weapon and the Wii Remote... just think of the possibilities! It's like Zelda, but instead of a sword you're using the back of your hand:)
Actually, you could claim that Sega copied the concept of more than more than two buttons on a controller from the Atari 5200 which copied it from the ColecoVision which copied it from Intellivision...
OK, so I upload my 20MB PSD file and run a gaussian blur on it. Who's CPU is doing that? Unless it is ActiveX (Win32 only) or a Java plug-in (most likely not super efficient on raw CPU features), is it going to be hosted on their servers? Javascript won't handle it very well, I'd have to think.
Probably not going to be a huge deal, but those real-time previews of CPU intensive filters are nice on the machine local installation; only hope those make it to the online as well.
I've probably paid about $1.30 to Verizon over the last year in text fees from spam. I never followed up with it because I imagine spending 5-10 minutes on customer support arguing that I just got charged $0.10 and that it should be reversed. I'm sure I'd also spend 4 minutes of that trying to turn down a plan that includes texting (so I wouldn't have to worry about the once in a while messages.. feh).
What to do? My time is not worth that phone call, but I'm bothered by the fact that I am paying money to Verizon for something that I shouldn't be paying for. What is worse is that apparently Verizon is making out on both ends - they received thousands of dollars in damages? OK, add all the dimes that people like me paid for spam text messages. Yeah, nice deal for Verizon and THEY look like the victim!
Has anyone bothered with reversing the charges from a spam? I've never bothered before, but after reading this article I'll be sure to call customer support the next time it happens.
Along the same lines, HDTV actually can make your viewing experience worse when watching SD content. I can't tell you how annoying it is to watch SD content that comes over a digital cable box on a large HD screen. The compression artifacts (resulting in lower quality) are so obvious on HDTV.
I don't own an HDTV yet for this reason. Every time I've seen HDTVs displayed (stores, bars, etc) it looks GREAT on HDTV content, but switch to SD (most of the content my cable provider has, at least) and it looks like garbage. Old CRT SD sets blur this digital cable output nicely, but HDTV screens seem to show it like a scarlet letter.
I had a problem with RegisterFly a few years ago. Through some unknown problem on their end, the hosting of my domain was off-line for WEEKS with no real response from support staff. They repeatedly told me that they were upgrading my service (and why does a server upgrade take more than 1 day?). Later the excuse was that RegisterFly was purchased by another company and they were in transition.
Luckily, I had the domain registration with another company, so I was able after nearly a month of no service to switch hosting providers. I still have archived all the correspondence, but I basically flat out demanded my money back for such poor service to which they had some excuse or another. Another stroke of luck was that I paid via Pay Pal, so they never actually had my credit card information.
Through this whole ordeal, I searched the internet and found that I was one of MANY people who had been screwed in one way or another by that company. Since it has been a few years, I don't recall the exact forums that I read, but there are other posts in this discussion that echo some of those issues. My experience showed that this company was very unprofessional and didn't care about the customer at all.
I would have probably forgotten all about this company if it wasn't for the fact that somehow they think they still have me as a customer. All these years later, they still occasionally send me a letter telling me that I owe them money (note: I left before my pre-paid service was up and I never renewed) and that the message says "this is the last message you'll receive from us on the matter". Funny, I've probably received 30 over the last 2-3 years saying that.
Back in the late 80's, New Jersey set up "photo cops" on a few highways (rt. 80 comes to mind). Photo Cops were unmarked vans that were set up on the side of the highway that had radar guns and cameras peering out the back window. If you drove past the van exceeding the speed limit, the radar gun registered it and the camera took a picture of your car and who was driving. You'd get a letter in the mail several days later with the summons and a photo of the evidence (i.e. you in your car). Simply un-disputable.
Now add the story of a politician who was speeding down the road (who would usually get a free pass from a police officer if caught otherwise). Summons and picture gets sent home, however, the picture clearly shows that the politician was in the car with his mistress.
Though for this you can definitely argue that the reasons are
nostalgia
challenge of hacking 6502 and stella
Not sure how many people actually buy the cartridges that are produced (not saying there are zero sales; but I actually don't know), but there is absolutely serious geek credibility these days to someone who reads the specifications of 2600 architecture, learns these old technologies and limitations and then hacks out a half-way decent game.
I hacked enough 6502 code on the Apple II back in my day, but for someone to come out nowadays with all the abstractions and "programming comforts" of the last 25 years (read: framebuffers, for example) it is still impressive to get anything out of the 2600's 30 year old architecture since you really need to code "bare metal".
As much as I love the idea of booting a live CD for restoration or trying out a distro before installing, the parent is absolutely right on everything else.
Boot times? Ha!
Bookmarks? Forget it.
Downloads? Any viruses are only going to follow your thumb drive back to your regular Windows installation (that IS who the article is targetting, no?)
At the same time, if the computer doesn't have enough memory, the CD drive tends to thrash like crazy - and this is most likely the SLOWEST device on a PC today.
The only time I've ever suggested a live CD to someone is when their hard drive was toast and they wanted to try and recover whatever they could. Suggesting that for regular use? Gets tiresome quickly, and I'd be interested to know how long a CD drive can work at high speeds with that much seeking.
One of the things that has been putting me off from trying Boot Camp is that I have to re-purchase Windows XP to get it with SP2 on the disc (the machine I used this copy on has been decomissioned for now and I haven't built a replacement). I'm wondering if doing this would produce a disc that would work with Boot Camp or Parallels?
I was a few blocks from Union Square in New York City (15th and 3rd, I think) this past summer and saw a Volkswagen Beetle with a multi-directional camera strapped to its roof driving down the street. I don't remember seeing a logo on the door or anything, but I would imagine it was Google for two reasons:
Google Earth has the 3 dimensional buildings for NYC but no textures for the polygons. Natural 2nd step would be to gather data for that, and Google usually is pretty quiet about things until they release them.
If it was Microsoft, why didn't they have a logo on the bug and why isn't it in this preview? (the preview is only Seattle and San Francisco).
I thought King's Quest 2 was only 4-colour CGA. Did Sierra make a redux?
I think the deal is that Kings Quest was created on request by IBM to help sell the improved graphics they were introducing with the PCjr. The PCjr had 16 color graphics which was later cloned by the Tandy 1000. This is why you see older games referring to either Tandy 1000 or PCjr graphics for some higher modes.
Of course, Sierra created an engine that could sterilize the colors down to CGA levels so that the rest of the PC community could play the game.
Only thing I can think of is that they'll bundle Virtual PC with a cheaper copy of Windows than the other players.
If I remember correctly, the standard Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is about $399 and the "professional" version is $499. Only difference? It includes Virtual PC with a copy of Windows XP Home. Now, how much is Virtual PC by itself, and how much do they charge for off-the-shelf copies?
Today: AMD has integrated memory controllers to get good memory performance.
Tomorrow: AMD has integrated video controllers to get good 3D performance.
OK, so not very close to reality considering what would be involved. AMD bought into ATI because it wants to focus on CPUs, not chipsets.
However, it does make for an interesting point of interest: the three primary components of PC architecture today are the CPU, GPU and chipset that bind the two together. AMD had two parts of the equation, and ATI has two parts as well, though one of these parts overlap. Now AMD is one company that has end-to-end solutions? There's got to be something interesting coming out of that marriage.
Well, the Amiga bridgeboards didn't share the main system memory, they were essentially PCs on a card. They did have communication between the Amiga OS and PC that allowed for sharing of resources (typical example is LPT1 could be mapped to the Amiga's parallel port), but there wasn't much beyond that and the Janus extensions for disk I/O.
There was a 3rd party program at one point, AmigaEMS, that allowed for you to use Amiga memory via EMS. However, since EMS was a 64KB paged protocol, you weren't going to get blazing speed out of the thing.
I believe the parent was referring to the idea that he has no idea if his x86-based machine will work with SkyOS. Not all x86 machines are created equal; before the operating system has a chance to abstract away everything into a single API, it has to know the differences between the GPUs, sound cards, network interfaces, IDE interfaces, SCSI interfaces, etc. That is why you have to install drivers for everything you plug into your computer.
If you want an idea of why the parent's question is valid, download a Linux kernel source and look at all the subdirectories for drivers. It isn't trivial to make an operating system that appears to work on anything you throw at it!
Re:Restrike while the iron is still warm?
on
Futurama Returns
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
...but see I remember watching the old episodes of Ren and Stimpy and thinking, "why did I like this? This is horrible." Especially those two minute ultra-grotesque stills.
It's not because the writers got worse. It's 'cause you got better. Or at least, I did. I can't stand the old Ren and Stimpy episodes now.
I bought seasons 1-3½ on DVD which contains the original John K. episodes and the obvious downfall episodes after he was fired and Nickelodeon took over. All I can say is that the original first season still cracks me up, but everything afterwards is a sharp downwarn decline.
The interesting thing is to watch the episodes with the audio commentary by John K. Suprisingly, he does commentary on episodes after his departure, and he really gives a lot of insight to help understand why anything after season 1 simply was garbage. To hit a specific comment of yours, "two minute ultra-grotesque stills": it was something new and unique to R&S. In the early episodes, you can see how those scenes helped build storyline, express context or otherwise simply drive a concept home. However, most people took these scenes at face value and just thought, "ooh! he's got a booger!" or something like that. Yeah, it is accessible at that level. Unfortunately, this is the level that the post-Spümcø felt they needed to continue and exaggerate. To put it in John K's words when seeing a gross close up of Stimpy in a season 2 commentary, "ugly for the sake of being ugly". In other words, no purpose to the scene like there would have been in season 1 episodes.
Of course, this is a cartoon we're talking about, so it wasn't trying to save the world or teach you to eat your vegetables or anything; it was meant to be stupid humor for you to laugh at. All I'm trying to say is that this really was a groundbreaking show in cartoons and the first season was really something special in its own way. Unfortunately, that "magic" (if you will) was completely mis-interpreted and lost in subsequent episodes once John K. no longer oversaw production.
Interestingly, in the CD32 game console Commodore did make, they had a CD-ROM drive along with an extra custom chip (can't remember its name or purpose, but it was "exclusive" to the CD32, and made cross-platform Amiga/CD32 titles that used it unlikely). The rest of the system, though, was basically an A1200 inside (just like the CDTV was an A500 on the inside)...
The custom chip was called the Akiko, which was responsible for two things:
Handling the data coming in from the CD drive and also assuming functions of the CIA chips of other Amigas.
Performing "chunky to planar" conversions for the graphics.
That second item is what could have possibly saved the Amiga in the 3D realm, since it brought the graphics API on par with what people were doing in the VGA world. With planar, for each pixel you had to modify multiple bit planes, where chunky was one modification. Assuming a 256 color screen, you would have to do 8 writes to set one pixel in planar, whereas in chunky you would write one byte. This is why 3D graphics crawled on the Amiga.
I don't know how fast the Akiko chip did this conversion, but having a hardware based solution not only set a standard in the API (think future abstraction where bit planes could be removed in some modes), but also would be faster than software. Unfortunately, this chip only existed in the CD32.
It's nice to see that the site is getting a face lift. Now that this is the 3rd (?) real change to the look and feel, I wonder if CmdrTaco would put up a few pages to show what the site has gone through over the years in regards to its look?
It has been quite a while, but I vaugely remember the "torn page" look of the original Slashdot, or at least the first few months that I was visiting it anyway (fall 1997 give-or-take).
Slashdot Mirror
My uncle is in his mid-60s and maybe played Pong once when it came out. Never appealed to him and never played any video games since. The guy doesn't even really use anything electronic besides a digital watch and a CD player (though I did give him an iBook a year or so ago, he hardly knows how to use it).
He was over the other day and I pointed out my Wii (probably some commercial just played). I told him to stand up, put his arm out (I then strapped a remote to his wrist) and told him to hold it like a remote control. I said, "Do you know how to play tennis? What do you do when you play?"
'You hit a ball.'
"Right, by swinging a tennis racket, right? You know how to make that motion, right?"
Then I told him to watch only the right side of the TV screen and "swing the racket" when the ball gets near "that guy on the screen".
Within two serves, a man who I consider the least technically inclined person I know was returning serves and was playing tennis. Rather, he was playing a video game and was enjoying it.
If that kind of experience doesn't say something, then I don't know what does.
OK, I'm done ranting now >grin<
I remember reading something about Bill's childhood in one of his books or interviews. The example I can note was that his family was very competitive, even against each other. They would (say) have a race across the back yard (or pool, whatever). Whoever won was praised, whoever lost was chastised. May not explain his management style too much, but certainly speaks a bit about his drive for success.
Don't get me wrong, I've been a fan of Woz for the last 25+ years. However, the "by hand" part that Woz did with Integer BASIC (or "Game BASIC" as the article said) was a fairly common activity back in the early hobby days. Ever hear of punch cards or the term "computer time" when referring to someone who only has 30 minutes a week to use a computer? You did quite a bit of "by hand" compilation because access to a real physical computer to run your deck was scarce, and you maybe had one shot to see if your program worked.
In Woz's case, it was probably more driven by the fact that the Apple II essentially hadn't been released yet when he was writing Integer BASIC, so it was pretty much him and a few other programmers making software to sell the machine and that was it. I'd gather his line of thinking could have been A) create development tools B) write BASIC so he can create BRICKOUT. Probably chose 'B', but did 'A' long enough (SWEET16) to support 'B'.
I'd say the more impressive fact about Integer BASIC is that Woz, from what my memory recalls, had never written a programming language interpreter before. In comparison, Microsoft had a few go's at it before AppleSoft BASIC.
But how cool would it be to play GTA 4 on a Wii? When using a melee weapon and the Wii Remote ... just think of the possibilities! It's like Zelda, but instead of a sword you're using the back of your hand :)
<ducks>
Probably not going to be a huge deal, but those real-time previews of CPU intensive filters are nice on the machine local installation; only hope those make it to the online as well.
What to do? My time is not worth that phone call, but I'm bothered by the fact that I am paying money to Verizon for something that I shouldn't be paying for. What is worse is that apparently Verizon is making out on both ends - they received thousands of dollars in damages? OK, add all the dimes that people like me paid for spam text messages. Yeah, nice deal for Verizon and THEY look like the victim!
Has anyone bothered with reversing the charges from a spam? I've never bothered before, but after reading this article I'll be sure to call customer support the next time it happens.
I don't own an HDTV yet for this reason. Every time I've seen HDTVs displayed (stores, bars, etc) it looks GREAT on HDTV content, but switch to SD (most of the content my cable provider has, at least) and it looks like garbage. Old CRT SD sets blur this digital cable output nicely, but HDTV screens seem to show it like a scarlet letter.
(ok, I'll stop bitching now :)
Luckily, I had the domain registration with another company, so I was able after nearly a month of no service to switch hosting providers. I still have archived all the correspondence, but I basically flat out demanded my money back for such poor service to which they had some excuse or another. Another stroke of luck was that I paid via Pay Pal, so they never actually had my credit card information.
Through this whole ordeal, I searched the internet and found that I was one of MANY people who had been screwed in one way or another by that company. Since it has been a few years, I don't recall the exact forums that I read, but there are other posts in this discussion that echo some of those issues. My experience showed that this company was very unprofessional and didn't care about the customer at all.
I would have probably forgotten all about this company if it wasn't for the fact that somehow they think they still have me as a customer. All these years later, they still occasionally send me a letter telling me that I owe them money (note: I left before my pre-paid service was up and I never renewed) and that the message says "this is the last message you'll receive from us on the matter". Funny, I've probably received 30 over the last 2-3 years saying that.
Back in the late 80's, New Jersey set up "photo cops" on a few highways (rt. 80 comes to mind). Photo Cops were unmarked vans that were set up on the side of the highway that had radar guns and cameras peering out the back window. If you drove past the van exceeding the speed limit, the radar gun registered it and the camera took a picture of your car and who was driving. You'd get a letter in the mail several days later with the summons and a photo of the evidence (i.e. you in your car). Simply un-disputable.
Now add the story of a politician who was speeding down the road (who would usually get a free pass from a police officer if caught otherwise). Summons and picture gets sent home, however, the picture clearly shows that the politician was in the car with his mistress.
Yeah. Those things didn't last very long.
Now change the story to .xxx domain....
Not sure how many people actually buy the cartridges that are produced (not saying there are zero sales; but I actually don't know), but there is absolutely serious geek credibility these days to someone who reads the specifications of 2600 architecture, learns these old technologies and limitations and then hacks out a half-way decent game.
I hacked enough 6502 code on the Apple II back in my day, but for someone to come out nowadays with all the abstractions and "programming comforts" of the last 25 years (read: framebuffers, for example) it is still impressive to get anything out of the 2600's 30 year old architecture since you really need to code "bare metal".
Gary?
- Boot times? Ha!
- Bookmarks? Forget it.
- Downloads? Any viruses are only going to follow your thumb drive back to your regular Windows installation (that IS who the article is targetting, no?)
At the same time, if the computer doesn't have enough memory, the CD drive tends to thrash like crazy - and this is most likely the SLOWEST device on a PC today.The only time I've ever suggested a live CD to someone is when their hard drive was toast and they wanted to try and recover whatever they could. Suggesting that for regular use? Gets tiresome quickly, and I'd be interested to know how long a CD drive can work at high speeds with that much seeking.
One of the things that has been putting me off from trying Boot Camp is that I have to re-purchase Windows XP to get it with SP2 on the disc (the machine I used this copy on has been decomissioned for now and I haven't built a replacement). I'm wondering if doing this would produce a disc that would work with Boot Camp or Parallels?
Either way, this will be cool when it's done.
John Draper (aka Captain Crunch of hacker fame) wrote EasyWriter while in prison.
I think the deal is that Kings Quest was created on request by IBM to help sell the improved graphics they were introducing with the PCjr. The PCjr had 16 color graphics which was later cloned by the Tandy 1000. This is why you see older games referring to either Tandy 1000 or PCjr graphics for some higher modes.
Of course, Sierra created an engine that could sterilize the colors down to CGA levels so that the rest of the PC community could play the game.
If I remember correctly, the standard Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is about $399 and the "professional" version is $499. Only difference? It includes Virtual PC with a copy of Windows XP Home. Now, how much is Virtual PC by itself, and how much do they charge for off-the-shelf copies?
OK, so not very close to reality considering what would be involved. AMD bought into ATI because it wants to focus on CPUs, not chipsets.
However, it does make for an interesting point of interest: the three primary components of PC architecture today are the CPU, GPU and chipset that bind the two together. AMD had two parts of the equation, and ATI has two parts as well, though one of these parts overlap. Now AMD is one company that has end-to-end solutions? There's got to be something interesting coming out of that marriage.
There was a 3rd party program at one point, AmigaEMS, that allowed for you to use Amiga memory via EMS. However, since EMS was a 64KB paged protocol, you weren't going to get blazing speed out of the thing.
If you want an idea of why the parent's question is valid, download a Linux kernel source and look at all the subdirectories for drivers. It isn't trivial to make an operating system that appears to work on anything you throw at it!
I bought seasons 1-3½ on DVD which contains the original John K. episodes and the obvious downfall episodes after he was fired and Nickelodeon took over. All I can say is that the original first season still cracks me up, but everything afterwards is a sharp downwarn decline.
The interesting thing is to watch the episodes with the audio commentary by John K. Suprisingly, he does commentary on episodes after his departure, and he really gives a lot of insight to help understand why anything after season 1 simply was garbage. To hit a specific comment of yours, "two minute ultra-grotesque stills": it was something new and unique to R&S. In the early episodes, you can see how those scenes helped build storyline, express context or otherwise simply drive a concept home. However, most people took these scenes at face value and just thought, "ooh! he's got a booger!" or something like that. Yeah, it is accessible at that level. Unfortunately, this is the level that the post-Spümcø felt they needed to continue and exaggerate. To put it in John K's words when seeing a gross close up of Stimpy in a season 2 commentary, "ugly for the sake of being ugly". In other words, no purpose to the scene like there would have been in season 1 episodes.
Of course, this is a cartoon we're talking about, so it wasn't trying to save the world or teach you to eat your vegetables or anything; it was meant to be stupid humor for you to laugh at. All I'm trying to say is that this really was a groundbreaking show in cartoons and the first season was really something special in its own way. Unfortunately, that "magic" (if you will) was completely mis-interpreted and lost in subsequent episodes once John K. no longer oversaw production.
The custom chip was called the Akiko, which was responsible for two things:
- Handling the data coming in from the CD drive and also assuming functions of the CIA chips of other Amigas.
- Performing "chunky to planar" conversions for the graphics.
That second item is what could have possibly saved the Amiga in the 3D realm, since it brought the graphics API on par with what people were doing in the VGA world. With planar, for each pixel you had to modify multiple bit planes, where chunky was one modification. Assuming a 256 color screen, you would have to do 8 writes to set one pixel in planar, whereas in chunky you would write one byte. This is why 3D graphics crawled on the Amiga.I don't know how fast the Akiko chip did this conversion, but having a hardware based solution not only set a standard in the API (think future abstraction where bit planes could be removed in some modes), but also would be faster than software. Unfortunately, this chip only existed in the CD32.
It has been quite a while, but I vaugely remember the "torn page" look of the original Slashdot, or at least the first few months that I was visiting it anyway (fall 1997 give-or-take).