"The Sacagawea dollar coin went the way of the Susan B because they kept printing singles."
IMO, the problem isn't that the bills are still printed but that the banks don't normally hand them out. You can go to any bank and get all the dollar coins, half-dollars and $2 bills you like (assuming you give them correct change, of course), but you won't get them if you don't ask for them.
US currency has something similar. There's a fluroescent strip woven into the paper that glows a different color under UV light for every denomination. They're also placed in different locations for different denominations.
There's also something involved with the watermark under UV light, but I can't remember the details.
"but it seems like most of the time it can be prevented on the retail level by people just using their heads."
The big time counterfeiters are the ones that are harder to catch. Good-looking counterfeits get used successfully more than bad-looking ones, which means the bad-looking ones are generally found close to home.
"Here I think you've found a real problem. People DON'T look at their money."
First off, people don't look at their money because of the image of reliability in the currency. Few people suspect they may be carrying conterfeit bills. When was the last time you saw a counterfeit bill?
Secondly, the whole point of changing the design like this (beyond the "better, safer" mantra the Fed is chanting) is to get people to actually look at the currency. Counterfeitting is easier to catch if the general population ask themselves "Is this bill real?" more often.
"Since no American is educated about their money, it could happen."
Articles like this in the major media outlet helps. Also I seem to recall cardboard signs in banks from the Secret Service detailing the security features of the bills (watermark, fluroescent strip, security threads, etc.)
"No, the old ones are not replaced, they are still valid money,"
If the old $20 is actually used, it ends up back in a bank somewhere, and banks routinely send old bills back to the Federal Reserve to destroy, who then replaces them with new bills. This is why you probably haven't seen an old $20 in years outside of a collection.
"All a counter fitter needs to do is come up with a bill chock full of security features and start spending it like there's no tomorrow."
After he gets his hands on currency-grade paper, that is. The graphics are the easy part, the inking method is a bit tricky, but the toughest part is probably getting your hands on some paper that feels and wears like the real thing.
"All they could charge him with was failure to pay, since he hadn't really counter fitted any money."
Urban myth if I ever heard one. If the piece of paper the counterfeiter tried to pass said that it was from the Federal Reserve and that it was legal tender from all debts, public and private, he'd be the textbook definition of a counterfeiter and would have had all sorts of fun with the Secret Service.
"Unlike other countries who routinely decommission monetary instruments (with a brief trade-in period), the United States refuses to do so. Why?"
We do, we just don't see a need to force the general population to conform to the new rules. As old $20's come back into the banks, they're sent back to the Federal Reserve where they are destroyed.
"Everyone all over the world knows if they stuff chests full of american currency inside their walls, it will still be good in the future."
That probably has more to do with the strength and reliability of the US dollar as a currency in general than with the printing practices of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in particular.
"Why do you think Saddam had so many dollars stashed?"
Perhaps because crude oil is bought and sold in the world market in prices in US dollars? That, and the Iraqi Dinar wasn't worth the paper it was printed on outside of his borders.
The US $2 bill, like the US $1 and $0.50 coins, are in a bit of a Catch-22.
The BEP printed up a series of $2 bills around 1995
The bills are distributed to banks to be inserted into circulation
But the banks generally don't hand out $2 unless they're specifically asked for
Nobody gets $2 bills from the bank
Nobody puts $2 bills into actual circulation
The banks are sitting on gobs and gobs of $2 bills
The banks never run out of $2 bills
The banks never ask the Federal Reserve to replenish their stock of $2 bills
The BEP doesn't print any new $2 bills
Despite their artificial rarity (they're "in circulation," just not really in circulation), US $2 bills aren't collector's items. They're worth $2.00. If you want some, go in to any bank and ask to change a larger bill. Just remember that, like with the $1 and $0.50 coins, you'll get reactions ranging from funny looks to outright anger* if you try to pay for anything with these.
*(I swear to God a former roommate of mine would go ballistic whenever I tried to repay a debt to him with dollar coins)
"They got into the market far later than all except Microsoft;"
You forget the generational cycles in the video game industry. To an extent, all bets are off when the next generation of console rolls out, which means (discounting the Dreamcast) Sony had the first-mover advantage.
"their hardware is far behind the XBox,"
Debatable. We're not exactly comparing a Genesis with an SNES.
"Sega, who's technology was often cutting edge and who had a long history in the industry, is now defunct in the hardware market."
Sega's problems were never because of either hardware or software. Their main pitfall was marketing. In my opinion, if the Sega Saturn had been backwards-compatible, Sony would be the one out of the hardware business.
"Nintendo, the oldest of the current crop, has true market force only among young children,"
Never underestimate the spending power of young children in large numbers.
While the PS2 may be outselling the Xbox and GameCube, the GBA is outselling the PS2 hands down. Perhaps even the PS2 and Xbox combined. Why do you think Nintendo is so keen to push GBA link-up with the GameCube?
"relying on their classic intellectual property like Mario."
Um... yes, it is. Zelda is one of the reasons that Nintendo is still in the hardware business instead of going the way of Sega. It's the strength of a handful of games like Zelda that kept the N64 afloat. After all, you didn't see the original GTA or MGS on the N64, either.
And while his motives may be questionable, he does have a point: Sony's main customer base are a completely different breed of people than Nintendo's die-hard customer base. They tend to be the people with a teenager mentality that will pay $$$ just to see some blood, tits and ass. In other words, most of the games on Sony's platforms have gone Hollywood.
To hell with that, how durable with those optical discs be? If it's a handheld, that means people will take it (and the games) places, which means a higher chance of being shoved into one's pocket, over-stuffed backpack, etc.
"but as an XBox and original PSX console owner this is extremely cool for those times I want to play Twisted Metal 2 and my PSX is being flaky because the plastic piece containing the laser assembly has warped slightly giving me problems reading discs."
Solution: Buy a new PlayStation (probably about the same price as an Xbox mod chip) and learn to take better care of your consoles.
"The reason no one writes good emulators for Jaguar or Saturn is because those consoles failed miserably and not enough people care about them."
Hence the "the platforms in need of "preservation" comment by the original poster.
"Sure there's a bunch of good Japanese Saturn games, but who wants to play a game in a language you can't even understand? Not me."
Then go download the translation patch. It's how I played Seiken Densetsu 3.
"Dreamcasts are still very cheap and easy to find, and there's not going to be any improvement with the graphics for like 10-15 years, if ever."
640K should be enough for anybody!
"GBA emulation on Xbox will let you play games on your TV with a nice backlight, and bigger display. You still can't do this, unless you import the expensive Gameboy Player for Gamecube,."
First off, you can't wait until next month to get a domestic Game Boy Player? I mean, hell, the damned thing will be released in North America before an import model would reach you from Japan!
Secondly, it's $50. If $50 is too much for you, you're in the wrong damned hobby (and probably the wrong website). This isn't exactly the Sega 32-X we're talking about here. Hell, I payed around 50% more than that for my copy of Final Fantasy "III," and that was before the US dollar started slipping. Worst-case scenario, you also buy a $150 GameCube to connect it to, which brings your total to about the same price as an Xbox. And you won't have emulation bugs, either.
If your excuse for emulating the Game Boy Advance on an Xbox is "to get a bigger picture" or "to get a back-lit picture," you're either too damned stupid to get a GameCube instead, or your only true reason is to be able to play illegal ROMs. You should be honest with yourself.
"Even though it would be nice to respect the open source community, it's not really worth it to reinvent the wheel to port these things to the Xbox legally."
And what, praytell, it the ultimate goal the "effort" you speak of is striving for? If the goal is anything but "play illegal games," then I'd have to say that the ends do not justify the means.
"This stuff does have the potential to be very useful, and not all of the new kids in the emulation scene are in it for piracy."
If they're not in it for piracy, why did they pirate the Xbox SDK?
"Most of them probably buy many more games than your average video gamer."
I'd agree with you a few years ago (I wouldn't have dug up an old Master System if I hadn't been introduced to Phantasy Star through emulation), but today I'll have to disagree.
Consider this: After the release of the Game Boy Player, there will be no legitimate reason to use a Game Boy Advance emulator to play commercial games*. Even those interested in making their own games can just go buy a Flash Advance. And yet there's no sign of the GBA ROM scene disappearing come June.
*(Actually, I can think of one reason, but if the GB Player doesn't do anything with Super Game Boy code, as both the GBA and GBC have failed to, I'll still always have my actual Super Game Boy)
Rant on about PC cards all you want. I've seen several PSX games on the PS2 both with and without the texture smoothing enabled. The differences between the two are small enough that, unless you were looking for the differences, most non-audiophile people wouldn't notice.
"And yes, SF64 uses bilinear filtering, SF doesn't (in fact, if I remember right, it doesn't use textures at all - just flat-shaded polygons)."
Are you trying to say that SF would look just as good as SF64 if it kept the old rendering resolution but inlcluded textures?
"Oh, and all games I've tried texture smoothing with work perfectly."
There have been several times in FF VIII where the textures got all screwy, to the point where text was unreadable. And I didn't have either texture smoothing or fast loading enabled. I had to go through a boss fight a second time just so I could see the dialog I missed.
And then there are the problems with FF V, but at least that's documented.
"Actually, it does. You can enable texture smoothing and faster disc reads for PSX games from one of the system menus."
I've tried both. Both offer little in the way of visual benefits and both tend to make PSX games more buggy on the PS2 than they would be otherwise (which, in my experience, is still fairly buggy).
Texture smoothing is an insignifigant benefit next to polygon rendering at higher resolutions. Generally speaking, higher resolution is all that really separates Star Fox from Star Fox 64.
When do top 40 stations not play commercials? All they do is alternate between commercials for used cars/breast enhancers/etc. and commercials for CDs.
On the flip side, PlayStation 2 game writers have to compete with $10 PSX games. This is why PSX "emulation" on a PS2 doesn't render at higher resolutions, etc.
Speaking of which, does anybody know of a PSX emulator that runs well on Linux for PS2?
Try to catch an episode of The Fairly Oddparents on Nickelodeon when you can. Grown men talking about how much they like wearing a dress, internet stalkers... and that's just from the episode where I got my sig.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Sacagawea dollar coin went the way of the Susan B because they kept printing singles."
IMO, the problem isn't that the bills are still printed but that the banks don't normally hand them out. You can go to any bank and get all the dollar coins, half-dollars and $2 bills you like (assuming you give them correct change, of course), but you won't get them if you don't ask for them.
US currency has something similar. There's a fluroescent strip woven into the paper that glows a different color under UV light for every denomination. They're also placed in different locations for different denominations.
There's also something involved with the watermark under UV light, but I can't remember the details.
"but it seems like most of the time it can be prevented on the retail level by people just using their heads."
The big time counterfeiters are the ones that are harder to catch. Good-looking counterfeits get used successfully more than bad-looking ones, which means the bad-looking ones are generally found close to home.
"Here I think you've found a real problem. People DON'T look at their money."
First off, people don't look at their money because of the image of reliability in the currency. Few people suspect they may be carrying conterfeit bills. When was the last time you saw a counterfeit bill?
Secondly, the whole point of changing the design like this (beyond the "better, safer" mantra the Fed is chanting) is to get people to actually look at the currency. Counterfeitting is easier to catch if the general population ask themselves "Is this bill real?" more often.
"Since no American is educated about their money, it could happen."
Articles like this in the major media outlet helps. Also I seem to recall cardboard signs in banks from the Secret Service detailing the security features of the bills (watermark, fluroescent strip, security threads, etc.)
"No, the old ones are not replaced, they are still valid money,"
If the old $20 is actually used, it ends up back in a bank somewhere, and banks routinely send old bills back to the Federal Reserve to destroy, who then replaces them with new bills. This is why you probably haven't seen an old $20 in years outside of a collection.
"All a counter fitter needs to do is come up with a bill chock full of security features and start spending it like there's no tomorrow."
After he gets his hands on currency-grade paper, that is. The graphics are the easy part, the inking method is a bit tricky, but the toughest part is probably getting your hands on some paper that feels and wears like the real thing.
"All they could charge him with was failure to pay, since he hadn't really counter fitted any money."
Urban myth if I ever heard one. If the piece of paper the counterfeiter tried to pass said that it was from the Federal Reserve and that it was legal tender from all debts, public and private, he'd be the textbook definition of a counterfeiter and would have had all sorts of fun with the Secret Service.
"Unlike other countries who routinely decommission monetary instruments (with a brief trade-in period), the United States refuses to do so. Why?"
We do, we just don't see a need to force the general population to conform to the new rules. As old $20's come back into the banks, they're sent back to the Federal Reserve where they are destroyed.
"Everyone all over the world knows if they stuff chests full of american currency inside their walls, it will still be good in the future."
That probably has more to do with the strength and reliability of the US dollar as a currency in general than with the printing practices of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in particular.
"Why do you think Saddam had so many dollars stashed?"
Perhaps because crude oil is bought and sold in the world market in prices in US dollars? That, and the Iraqi Dinar wasn't worth the paper it was printed on outside of his borders.
- The BEP printed up a series of $2 bills around 1995
- The bills are distributed to banks to be inserted into circulation
- But the banks generally don't hand out $2 unless they're specifically asked for
- Nobody gets $2 bills from the bank
- Nobody puts $2 bills into actual circulation
- The banks are sitting on gobs and gobs of $2 bills
- The banks never run out of $2 bills
- The banks never ask the Federal Reserve to replenish their stock of $2 bills
- The BEP doesn't print any new $2 bills
Despite their artificial rarity (they're "in circulation," just not really in circulation), US $2 bills aren't collector's items. They're worth $2.00. If you want some, go in to any bank and ask to change a larger bill. Just remember that, like with the $1 and $0.50 coins, you'll get reactions ranging from funny looks to outright anger* if you try to pay for anything with these.*(I swear to God a former roommate of mine would go ballistic whenever I tried to repay a debt to him with dollar coins)
But then the son of Herbert went and buggered the whole thing up.
"I bet in blisstopia they have tons of great insites about the Matrix."
They probably get all the best proof-readers as well.
"up to whatever the granularity of the dye is?"
They won't, because who will get the "Piracy Tax?" Are you going to steal songs from the RIAA or steal movies from the MPAA?
Actually, knowing them, they'll compromise and charge double the tax just to make sure you've been good and punished for your crimes.
"How did Sony with with the PS2?"
Discounting Sega, they were first to market.
"They got into the market far later than all except Microsoft;"
You forget the generational cycles in the video game industry. To an extent, all bets are off when the next generation of console rolls out, which means (discounting the Dreamcast) Sony had the first-mover advantage.
"their hardware is far behind the XBox,"
Debatable. We're not exactly comparing a Genesis with an SNES.
"Sega, who's technology was often cutting edge and who had a long history in the industry, is now defunct in the hardware market."
Sega's problems were never because of either hardware or software. Their main pitfall was marketing. In my opinion, if the Sega Saturn had been backwards-compatible, Sony would be the one out of the hardware business.
"Nintendo, the oldest of the current crop, has true market force only among young children,"
Never underestimate the spending power of young children in large numbers.
While the PS2 may be outselling the Xbox and GameCube, the GBA is outselling the PS2 hands down. Perhaps even the PS2 and Xbox combined. Why do you think Nintendo is so keen to push GBA link-up with the GameCube?
"relying on their classic intellectual property like Mario."
You seem to believe that's a liability.
"Zelda isn't _that_ good."
Um... yes, it is. Zelda is one of the reasons that Nintendo is still in the hardware business instead of going the way of Sega. It's the strength of a handful of games like Zelda that kept the N64 afloat. After all, you didn't see the original GTA or MGS on the N64, either.
And while his motives may be questionable, he does have a point: Sony's main customer base are a completely different breed of people than Nintendo's die-hard customer base. They tend to be the people with a teenager mentality that will pay $$$ just to see some blood, tits and ass. In other words, most of the games on Sony's platforms have gone Hollywood.
To hell with that, how durable with those optical discs be? If it's a handheld, that means people will take it (and the games) places, which means a higher chance of being shoved into one's pocket, over-stuffed backpack, etc.
"Yes, I'd be happy to explain that."
Says the anonymous coward...
Do you want to be in charge of explaining to the PSU student body why they can't get anybody to play any concerts?
"but as an XBox and original PSX console owner this is extremely cool for those times I want to play Twisted Metal 2 and my PSX is being flaky because the plastic piece containing the laser assembly has warped slightly giving me problems reading discs."
Solution: Buy a new PlayStation (probably about the same price as an Xbox mod chip) and learn to take better care of your consoles.
Next!
"The reason no one writes good emulators for Jaguar or Saturn is because those consoles failed miserably and not enough people care about them."
Hence the "the platforms in need of "preservation" comment by the original poster.
"Sure there's a bunch of good Japanese Saturn games, but who wants to play a game in a language you can't even understand? Not me."
Then go download the translation patch. It's how I played Seiken Densetsu 3.
"Dreamcasts are still very cheap and easy to find, and there's not going to be any improvement with the graphics for like 10-15 years, if ever."
640K should be enough for anybody!
"GBA emulation on Xbox will let you play games on your TV with a nice backlight, and bigger display. You still can't do this, unless you import the expensive Gameboy Player for Gamecube,."
First off, you can't wait until next month to get a domestic Game Boy Player? I mean, hell, the damned thing will be released in North America before an import model would reach you from Japan!
Secondly, it's $50. If $50 is too much for you, you're in the wrong damned hobby (and probably the wrong website). This isn't exactly the Sega 32-X we're talking about here. Hell, I payed around 50% more than that for my copy of Final Fantasy "III," and that was before the US dollar started slipping. Worst-case scenario, you also buy a $150 GameCube to connect it to, which brings your total to about the same price as an Xbox. And you won't have emulation bugs, either.
If your excuse for emulating the Game Boy Advance on an Xbox is "to get a bigger picture" or "to get a back-lit picture," you're either too damned stupid to get a GameCube instead, or your only true reason is to be able to play illegal ROMs. You should be honest with yourself.
"Even though it would be nice to respect the open source community, it's not really worth it to reinvent the wheel to port these things to the Xbox legally."
And what, praytell, it the ultimate goal the "effort" you speak of is striving for? If the goal is anything but "play illegal games," then I'd have to say that the ends do not justify the means.
"This stuff does have the potential to be very useful, and not all of the new kids in the emulation scene are in it for piracy."
If they're not in it for piracy, why did they pirate the Xbox SDK?
"Most of them probably buy many more games than your average video gamer."
I'd agree with you a few years ago (I wouldn't have dug up an old Master System if I hadn't been introduced to Phantasy Star through emulation), but today I'll have to disagree.
Consider this: After the release of the Game Boy Player, there will be no legitimate reason to use a Game Boy Advance emulator to play commercial games*. Even those interested in making their own games can just go buy a Flash Advance. And yet there's no sign of the GBA ROM scene disappearing come June.
*(Actually, I can think of one reason, but if the GB Player doesn't do anything with Super Game Boy code, as both the GBA and GBC have failed to, I'll still always have my actual Super Game Boy)
Because they may actually look better on an Xbox and because I have enough things plugged into the back of my television already.
Rant on about PC cards all you want. I've seen several PSX games on the PS2 both with and without the texture smoothing enabled. The differences between the two are small enough that, unless you were looking for the differences, most non-audiophile people wouldn't notice.
"And yes, SF64 uses bilinear filtering, SF doesn't (in fact, if I remember right, it doesn't use textures at all - just flat-shaded polygons)."
Are you trying to say that SF would look just as good as SF64 if it kept the old rendering resolution but inlcluded textures?
"Oh, and all games I've tried texture smoothing with work perfectly."
There have been several times in FF VIII where the textures got all screwy, to the point where text was unreadable. And I didn't have either texture smoothing or fast loading enabled. I had to go through a boss fight a second time just so I could see the dialog I missed.
And then there are the problems with FF V, but at least that's documented.
"Actually, it does. You can enable texture smoothing and faster disc reads for PSX games from one of the system menus."
I've tried both. Both offer little in the way of visual benefits and both tend to make PSX games more buggy on the PS2 than they would be otherwise (which, in my experience, is still fairly buggy).
Texture smoothing is an insignifigant benefit next to polygon rendering at higher resolutions. Generally speaking, higher resolution is all that really separates Star Fox from Star Fox 64.
When do top 40 stations not play commercials? All they do is alternate between commercials for used cars/breast enhancers/etc. and commercials for CDs.
On the flip side, PlayStation 2 game writers have to compete with $10 PSX games. This is why PSX "emulation" on a PS2 doesn't render at higher resolutions, etc.
Speaking of which, does anybody know of a PSX emulator that runs well on Linux for PS2?
"Cartoons are too PC these days."
Try to catch an episode of The Fairly Oddparents on Nickelodeon when you can. Grown men talking about how much they like wearing a dress, internet stalkers... and that's just from the episode where I got my sig.
"FF8 has best gameplay, no random encounters after getting Enc None (very early), no levelling up needed."
One word for you: Draw.