to being both, the first and last videogame magazine web site on the internet.;p
Now, if I could only get a new group of writers to do reviews and articles! Sigh... for nothing more than a job reference... geee, what happened to the days when a job reference held inherent value in and of itself?
No, I don't use OS/2 Server, I use OS/2 Client versions.
My clients want a machine that will do 1 or more of the following:
1) Web server (intranets or internet with small->moderate loads)
2) Firewall/Proxy
3) E-mail services
I keep an extensive personal library of current and past releases of numerous OS/2 titles (both free and "for limited use"/freeware). Products which allow me to set up a customer for nothing but the cost of a Warp 4 Client box and my time (and at times registrations when needed for shareware such as InetMail/InJoy). Anything else that is needed, I may write custom in REXX or JAVA, and on rare instances use IBM's Visual C/C++ or Borland C++.
Case in point...
A company I worked with needed to build an Intranet for their call center. When I got there they were running NT4/IIS and 128 MB of RAM on a P133, serving nothing but static pages. The machine was dog slow handling aprox. 150 reps. giving static page response times of upwards to 15 seconds (30+ seconds for pages with scripting!)
When I came in, and without using the existing machine, I asked them to purchase a copy of Warp 4 client. I applied all relevant services/fixpacks. Then I pulled a P90 IBM PC750 off the shelf, bumped it to 64 MB, removed the stock HD, and replaced it with 2 2GB HDs (for data redundancy) installed IBM ICS 4.2.1 web server (free for non-SSL use). Built them a new streamlined web site, added a specialized call-tracking pipe-server (written in ansi C under Borland)) that communicated with a client side Java app that each call-rep used to log every single call and it's disposition. Created a REXX based user ID search that parsed an 8 MB flat file for ALL matches in no more that 5 seconds....and atleast a dozen other call-rep utilities for handling/managing user accounts/account information.
The system was put on-line, and even with the addition of 3 other call-centers adding their load the machine still served ALL responses to ANY client request (within the facility) to no longer than 8-9 seconds at worst, for actions that were running CGI. Web pages were usually delivered within 4-5 seconds at worst, although the system normally ran around a 1 second response time on all static page requests once the OS and the web server had "settled" (ie... caching and disk I/O had optimized from the extended use).
The machine perfomed it's own maintenance with scripts I wrote, so that while the office was closed on Sundays, it would clean old logs for storage, perform it's redundancy backup to the second HD, and reboot itself (I seemed to have a small memory leak in the pipe-server that I was never able to nail down otherwise the machine wouldn't have needed to be restarted).
I left that company with three commendations for improving productivity and turning the call center around from a "under consideration to close" to a "nessicary hub".
That machine ran for over a year until a new person came into management there and demanded that they "remove the OS/2" machine. They went back to NT and my friend there cursed me every day he stayed at that job because he could never get the NT box to perform even remotely close to what the OS/2 box did.
I'm sorry for going on like this, and I'm not trying to brag, but even a Client install of OS/2 rocks over any Windows variant as a server, and is about a billion times easier to use than any UNIX variant (which funny enough we jokingly refer to OS/2 as a "single user Unix") Sorry Linux fans:)
Installs like this need no fancy hardware... need no fancy software... are simple to implement and I will continue to do so until I can't find hardware to install on.
Unfortunately, I can't use OS/2 as a client. I use Windows:( my work demands it, as does my game playing. No, I will not use Linux at this time (my most recent experiences were spending 3 days tweeking V/H refresh settings blindly on an undocumented monitor in order to get a GUI running under RedHat. Or hand hacking memory assignment so that the computer can blindly access the the 256MB that has, but can't see. Or better yet, how about the CD-R that I could only get mounted on the system by faking it out as a SCSI device. And while it will atleast read CDs now, it sure as hell wouln't write a CD to save it's life. IMHO that's bullshit and I will not put myself through that again if I can help it.
I honestly haven't used OS/2 as a primary client for a few years now:(
What's my point in all of this?
I really don't know, I felt I had to offer my situation with OS/2, an OS that I enjoy using. It absolutely is the best at what it does hands-down! It doesn't really answer my client needs though these days, and I wish it did. Windows does better at this, but only because most everyone else uses it. I wish I had a better client choice, and believe me, if I had the skills to write my own OS I would, but I don't:(
I still consider going back to OS/2 as a client though as of late with all of the fixes, additions, and applications that have been released as of late. And holy shit, even more so since I got a chance to spend some time playing around with the newer Domino Notes Server and Clients... wow... It was never before so clear to me what a piece of shit MS Exchange/Outlook was until after using a real workplace colaboration product.
Oh well... I don't know if I feel any better having said all that... maybe some will have enjoyed reading it...
...aside from the fact that it is a *Fantasy*Action*Film*...
Is that after seeing this movie last night, I am certain it will be nearly un-reproducable on DVD without being totally unwatchable. Nearly all of the film is high-speed, high-detail action sequences... So I can see it now, two hours of blure, smear, blure. You doubt me? Take a look at how Gladiator transfered to DVD. All of the detailed camera focus work in the high-speed action sequences is lost in smeary blure.
Sadly, while this is where I would normally make a plug for Laserdisc, I somehow suspect that even with an uncompressed transfer, the movie still wouln't hold well on a small screen.
In any event, I loved the film. It was fun, and a total *Fantasy*Adventure*... (ie, check brain at door, kick back and enjoy).
I think that Meridian 59 dates back far enough to to be well establish prior art against this crap. (let's see Meridian 59 was online/under development well by 1995 if not earlier).
I know 3DO bought the company out and took over the title in 1996 because I was at the announcement dinner at the 1996 E3 show. I also had a friend who modelled some of the original artwork in the game at some point in 1995 or earlier.
For myself and many others, I'm sure, the Challenger disaster was more than just a national tragedy. It was moment of dreams being devastated, and snuffed out in the wink of an eye. And the crushing blow of the event was more than just watching the shuttle loss, it occurred over next many days as NASA notified the world that they were suspending their space program, possibly for years, and that even when they did resume the program, it would be at a far slower pace. Halting everything indefinitely until the problem was solved... and as the days wore on, my life and my dreams were torn apart.
All of my life I had dreamed of being able to go into space, visit the moon, or more, not as an astronaut (I'm not airforce pilot grade material, and I don't kid myself otherwise). Not only was it a dream, it was an event that was almost guaranteed to come about at the rate of advancement our space program was taking. Yes, everyone bitches about NASA taking the shuttle flights for granted, that they had become commonplace, but this is exactly what was needed before we could make the next jump to commercial/private travel. Christa McAuliffe represented the idea that an average person off the street could travel into space now because it was just so commonplace a trip.
I was born in 1968, and I have lived my whole life with the reality of space travel before me. When the Challenger exploded our space program ground to a halt. Although I'm glad to see that fifteen years later we're getting back to regular, commonplace shuttle flights, I don't get those fifteen years of my life back. The drive of our space program has slowed in this direction of common travel for the common man. It is back to being the world of lofty researchers, and air-force types. It's budget has been cut tremendously, and the dreams of many in my generation have been lost. While my kids may one day have to opportunity to travel to space, I have to realistically acknowledge that I will probably be to old by then to go myself.
Sorry, for the rant, but this has really bothered me a lot, and be warned, if you're going to belittle my feelings by telling me how this is all my own problem for getting my hopes up, you can go fuck yourself.
Oh, I think a flat 30+ inch screen and a nice highspeed-high definition camera mounted in a black hood in front of the TV should capture every single thing they don't want me to save.:)
I've played both Bug Blasters and Star Stike and they're more in line with games like Novastorm or Microcosim where you have lot's of shooter action along a rail path.
Say this just makes me think. I've got all but the first three issues of the New Zort Times and I've been thinking about scanning them and putting them up on a web page someplace... I'm wondering who I would go about contacting to get permission. Hmm...
Also, does anyone out there have the first three issues that they would want to scan in for me?
Na... I've got a fairly comparable collection. You just come up with very creative storage methods for keeping everything together and accessable. For instance ran out of room and eventually had to retire the 2600 & 5200 with all of their games to a box in my storage closet. I just couldn't justify all of the space consumed just so I could play a couple of games IF the mood struck me...
Look, the fact is that if things go the way they've been going, MS will be off of the OS within two years, making a seperation of OS and Apps divisions pointless, and now that it's going back to the appeals court, MS has atleast two years of un-hindered time to do exactly as the please.
What should have happened was that MS should have been broken into three parts. OS, Apps, and network technologies, and then the Supreme court hears the case and lets it stand. MS would be dead in the water. Period.
Once they get the X-Box out and start shovelling it into homes as a set-top box, just wait to see how long it is before we have a "fixed Windows platform" which bootstraps off of their servers for content, etc...
Due to the high open/close wear, every system that has had a front-loading tray has had very high hardware failure rates in the tray mechanism. Look at both the original Sega-CD and 3DO systems as examples. Both of which were eventually re-issued as top-loading systems that had no problems. Also consider the TG-16-CD/PCE-CD, CDI, CD32, Saturn, PlayStation, Dreamcast, yadda... yadda... yadda...
You don't here about high failure rate in the lids breaking do you? In fact the only one of that list that had any kind of significant problems was the PlayStation, since pretty much everything else BUT the lid breaks;p
I'm not sure what the hell the other reply to this message is talking about 'Perfect Blue' is something entirely different. The movie "Blue Planet" is under works by Rainbow Studios, I'm not sure where they currently have the video you mentioned stored on the site, but their are a couple of images from the film in their Gallery (the space/underwater shots).
The movie hasn't been finished yet because they are still in story negotiations with the studio contracting the project. But it is still under works.
Seriously... OS/2 is basically a scaled down single user Unix variant. Just spend some time tweaking configurations on an OS/2 box for a little while and tell me I'm wrong.;p
Besides, OS/2 is great if you ever decide to upgrade to giant power, you can move right up to AIX fairly cleanly.
Right now Bank of America uses it in all of their branches and throughout the company, that's why I stick with them as my banking service provider.
I personally use it for any Server installs I set up, and I build household network firewall systems for people. My common install is a IBM PS/2 9595 (DX2/66) with 64MB of RAM and a 1.2 gig SCSI HD and 2 3COM MicroChannel NIC cards which I can put together all for about 60-80 dollars (my cost). I install Warp Client (which is $300 yikes) and InJoy firewall (for IPSEC) ($30 for 2 users). So for $400 you have a transparent firewall server that never needs rebooted. Never needs to be touched, turn it on and forget about it...;p (plus that same server will also run SMTP, HTTPD, Telnet, and FTP services simultaniously as well without any noticable slowdown, handling 10,000 hits a day to the web server without a blink.)
Then again, there's McDonalds which is installing Windows based systems to run their drive-through windows and every other time I pull up, the screen is down showing some kind of Windows error. =p
Have you read the Dreamcast SDK Release Notes? No? Then hold your comments until you have. And when was the last time you tried to compile a VC++ 6 project under VC++ 4? Oh... I see... really? That simple?
As far as X-Box, my sources tell me that the target OS for it will be the the Rental version of consumer Windows. (of course in three years, who the hell knows what MS will do)
Also, I do take offense to the "apologist" comment since I'm not exactly sure what you think is being apologized for. What I do know is that I'm sick of listing to people like you and the original poster blather on about what a failure Nintendo is, or how they are a failure.
I don't think anyone at Nintendo thinks that they will somehow outdo Sony in numbers of units sold at this point. But you can't tell me that any company having dominance in a demographic ("boys 7 to 14"), along with having sales as of March 1999 of 79.33 million GameBoys sold and 24.1 million N64s sold, can be considered a failure or the mark of the company on the verge of being DOA. Just because you don't own an N64 doesn't mean nobody is buying them.
Also, don't forget, sales tracking numbers generated by a number of companies show that for each N64 system sold an average of three Nintendo corporate titles are sold. So... let's see, Nintendo corporate has possibly has sold around 75 million units of N64 software by March of last year??? Yeah, those numbers suck, they better close up shop now before they have to file for bankruptcy.
P-a-a-leeeease. Both Nintendo and Sony are doing fine. Sony just has bigger sales numbers.
...my comment stands. I'm going take if from your comment that you don't know much about Dreamcast/WinCE development.
WinCE for the Dreamcast is a specialized version that is currently locked into a Dreamcast specific build of DirectX 7.0 using Visual C++ 6.0. Unless Microsoft releases a new build of both WinCE/DirectX for the Dreamcast, you could find yourslef looking at taking a current title written in Visual C++ 7 or greater code using DirectX 8 or greater functions and needing to port it backwards.
The only alternative is to program your game up front for WinCE/DirectX 7 either simultaniously or prior to your regular PC distribution. (Microsoft even tells you this upfont in the developer documentation that I have seen.)
As for giving Nintendo to much credit. Look at the Nintendo figures on their own and it's hard to say that they are bust. They are still moving hardware, and they consistantly have top selling titles (both N64 and GameBoy).
Slashdot Mirror
Spin it again...
to being both, the first and last videogame magazine web site on the internet. ;p
Now, if I could only get a new group of writers to do reviews and articles! Sigh... for nothing more than a job reference... geee, what happened to the days when a job reference held inherent value in and of itself?
Nicely baited...
No, both the CD-R issues and the RAM issues were not more than four weeks ago using RedHat 7.0...
I use OS/2 for server installations.
...and atleast a dozen other call-rep utilities for handling/managing user accounts/account information.
:)
:( my work demands it, as does my game playing. No, I will not use Linux at this time (my most recent experiences were spending 3 days tweeking V/H refresh settings blindly on an undocumented monitor in order to get a GUI running under RedHat. Or hand hacking memory assignment so that the computer can blindly access the the 256MB that has, but can't see. Or better yet, how about the CD-R that I could only get mounted on the system by faking it out as a SCSI device. And while it will atleast read CDs now, it sure as hell wouln't write a CD to save it's life. IMHO that's bullshit and I will not put myself through that again if I can help it.
:(
:(
No, I don't use OS/2 Server, I use OS/2 Client versions.
My clients want a machine that will do 1 or more of the following:
1) Web server (intranets or internet with small->moderate loads)
2) Firewall/Proxy
3) E-mail services
I keep an extensive personal library of current and past releases of numerous OS/2 titles (both free and "for limited use"/freeware). Products which allow me to set up a customer for nothing but the cost of a Warp 4 Client box and my time (and at times registrations when needed for shareware such as InetMail/InJoy). Anything else that is needed, I may write custom in REXX or JAVA, and on rare instances use IBM's Visual C/C++ or Borland C++.
Case in point...
A company I worked with needed to build an Intranet for their call center. When I got there they were running NT4/IIS and 128 MB of RAM on a P133, serving nothing but static pages. The machine was dog slow handling aprox. 150 reps. giving static page response times of upwards to 15 seconds (30+ seconds for pages with scripting!)
When I came in, and without using the existing machine, I asked them to purchase a copy of Warp 4 client. I applied all relevant services/fixpacks. Then I pulled a P90 IBM PC750 off the shelf, bumped it to 64 MB, removed the stock HD, and replaced it with 2 2GB HDs (for data redundancy) installed IBM ICS 4.2.1 web server (free for non-SSL use). Built them a new streamlined web site, added a specialized call-tracking pipe-server (written in ansi C under Borland)) that communicated with a client side Java app that each call-rep used to log every single call and it's disposition. Created a REXX based user ID search that parsed an 8 MB flat file for ALL matches in no more that 5 seconds.
The system was put on-line, and even with the addition of 3 other call-centers adding their load the machine still served ALL responses to ANY client request (within the facility) to no longer than 8-9 seconds at worst, for actions that were running CGI. Web pages were usually delivered within 4-5 seconds at worst, although the system normally ran around a 1 second response time on all static page requests once the OS and the web server had "settled" (ie... caching and disk I/O had optimized from the extended use).
The machine perfomed it's own maintenance with scripts I wrote, so that while the office was closed on Sundays, it would clean old logs for storage, perform it's redundancy backup to the second HD, and reboot itself (I seemed to have a small memory leak in the pipe-server that I was never able to nail down otherwise the machine wouldn't have needed to be restarted).
I left that company with three commendations for improving productivity and turning the call center around from a "under consideration to close" to a "nessicary hub".
That machine ran for over a year until a new person came into management there and demanded that they "remove the OS/2" machine. They went back to NT and my friend there cursed me every day he stayed at that job because he could never get the NT box to perform even remotely close to what the OS/2 box did.
I'm sorry for going on like this, and I'm not trying to brag, but even a Client install of OS/2 rocks over any Windows variant as a server, and is about a billion times easier to use than any UNIX variant (which funny enough we jokingly refer to OS/2 as a "single user Unix") Sorry Linux fans
Installs like this need no fancy hardware... need no fancy software... are simple to implement and I will continue to do so until I can't find hardware to install on.
Unfortunately, I can't use OS/2 as a client. I use Windows
I honestly haven't used OS/2 as a primary client for a few years now
What's my point in all of this?
I really don't know, I felt I had to offer my situation with OS/2, an OS that I enjoy using. It absolutely is the best at what it does hands-down! It doesn't really answer my client needs though these days, and I wish it did. Windows does better at this, but only because most everyone else uses it. I wish I had a better client choice, and believe me, if I had the skills to write my own OS I would, but I don't
I still consider going back to OS/2 as a client though as of late with all of the fixes, additions, and applications that have been released as of late. And holy shit, even more so since I got a chance to spend some time playing around with the newer Domino Notes Server and Clients... wow... It was never before so clear to me what a piece of shit MS Exchange/Outlook was until after using a real workplace colaboration product.
Oh well... I don't know if I feel any better having said all that... maybe some will have enjoyed reading it...
Cheers...
...aside from the fact that it is a *Fantasy*Action*Film*... Is that after seeing this movie last night, I am certain it will be nearly un-reproducable on DVD without being totally unwatchable. Nearly all of the film is high-speed, high-detail action sequences... So I can see it now, two hours of blure, smear, blure. You doubt me? Take a look at how Gladiator transfered to DVD. All of the detailed camera focus work in the high-speed action sequences is lost in smeary blure. Sadly, while this is where I would normally make a plug for Laserdisc, I somehow suspect that even with an uncompressed transfer, the movie still wouln't hold well on a small screen. In any event, I loved the film. It was fun, and a total *Fantasy*Adventure*... (ie, check brain at door, kick back and enjoy).
We'll end up being both the first video game magazine on the web, and the last ;p
To bad all of our writers got real jobs and we quit doing print. :(
On the plus side, I think we actually update more frequently than OMM... cough...
I think that Meridian 59 dates back far enough to to be well establish prior art against this crap. (let's see Meridian 59 was online/under development well by 1995 if not earlier).
I know 3DO bought the company out and took over the title in 1996 because I was at the announcement dinner at the 1996 E3 show. I also had a friend who modelled some of the original artwork in the game at some point in 1995 or earlier.
...I can't belive it didn't get linked to already, but don't forget the "The Polymer City Chronicles" which runs both at Game Zero and at MPOG.
For myself and many others, I'm sure, the Challenger disaster was more than just a national tragedy. It was moment of dreams being devastated, and snuffed out in the wink of an eye. And the crushing blow of the event was more than just watching the shuttle loss, it occurred over next many days as NASA notified the world that they were suspending their space program, possibly for years, and that even when they did resume the program, it would be at a far slower pace. Halting everything indefinitely until the problem was solved... and as the days wore on, my life and my dreams were torn apart.
All of my life I had dreamed of being able to go into space, visit the moon, or more, not as an astronaut (I'm not airforce pilot grade material, and I don't kid myself otherwise). Not only was it a dream, it was an event that was almost guaranteed to come about at the rate of advancement our space program was taking. Yes, everyone bitches about NASA taking the shuttle flights for granted, that they had become commonplace, but this is exactly what was needed before we could make the next jump to commercial/private travel. Christa McAuliffe represented the idea that an average person off the street could travel into space now because it was just so commonplace a trip.
I was born in 1968, and I have lived my whole life with the reality of space travel before me. When the Challenger exploded our space program ground to a halt. Although I'm glad to see that fifteen years later we're getting back to regular, commonplace shuttle flights, I don't get those fifteen years of my life back. The drive of our space program has slowed in this direction of common travel for the common man. It is back to being the world of lofty researchers, and air-force types. It's budget has been cut tremendously, and the dreams of many in my generation have been lost. While my kids may one day have to opportunity to travel to space, I have to realistically acknowledge that I will probably be to old by then to go myself.
Sorry, for the rant, but this has really bothered me a lot, and be warned, if you're going to belittle my feelings by telling me how this is all my own problem for getting my hopes up, you can go fuck yourself.
Oh, I think a flat 30+ inch screen and a nice highspeed-high definition camera mounted in a black hood in front of the TV should capture every single thing they don't want me to save. :)
I've played both Bug Blasters and Star Stike and they're more in line with games like Novastorm or Microcosim where you have lot's of shooter action along a rail path.
Doh... nevermind, I just answered my own question and ended the idea of the project in one blow... I just found this site The Infocom Documentation Project - Newsletters.
Cool...
Say this just makes me think. I've got all but the first three issues of the New Zort Times and I've been thinking about scanning them and putting them up on a web page someplace... I'm wondering who I would go about contacting to get permission. Hmm...
Also, does anyone out there have the first three issues that they would want to scan in for me?
Na... I've got a fairly comparable collection. You just come up with very creative storage methods for keeping everything together and accessable. For instance ran out of room and eventually had to retire the 2600 & 5200 with all of their games to a box in my storage closet. I just couldn't justify all of the space consumed just so I could play a couple of games IF the mood struck me...
or getting divorced ;p
Well?
Look, the fact is that if things go the way they've been going, MS will be off of the OS within two years, making a seperation of OS and Apps divisions pointless, and now that it's going back to the appeals court, MS has atleast two years of un-hindered time to do exactly as the please.
What should have happened was that MS should have been broken into three parts. OS, Apps, and network technologies, and then the Supreme court hears the case and lets it stand. MS would be dead in the water. Period.
Once they get the X-Box out and start shovelling it into homes as a set-top box, just wait to see how long it is before we have a "fixed Windows platform" which bootstraps off of their servers for content, etc...
Due to the high open/close wear, every system that has had a front-loading tray has had very high hardware failure rates in the tray mechanism. Look at both the original Sega-CD and 3DO systems as examples. Both of which were eventually re-issued as top-loading systems that had no problems. Also consider the TG-16-CD/PCE-CD, CDI, CD32, Saturn, PlayStation, Dreamcast, yadda... yadda... yadda...
You don't here about high failure rate in the lids breaking do you? In fact the only one of that list that had any kind of significant problems was the PlayStation, since pretty much everything else BUT the lid breaks ;p
Hmm... I saw AIX, but no OS/2!
I'm not sure what the hell the other reply to this message is talking about 'Perfect Blue' is something entirely different. The movie "Blue Planet" is under works by Rainbow Studios, I'm not sure where they currently have the video you mentioned stored on the site, but their are a couple of images from the film in their Gallery (the space/underwater shots).
The movie hasn't been finished yet because they are still in story negotiations with the studio contracting the project. But it is still under works.
While the Mach 5 kicks ass, the ultimate thrill would be a GRX... it just has that whole bad-ass thing going on.
Seriously... OS/2 is basically a scaled down single user Unix variant. Just spend some time tweaking configurations on an OS/2 box for a little while and tell me I'm wrong. ;p
Besides, OS/2 is great if you ever decide to upgrade to giant power, you can move right up to AIX fairly cleanly.
Right now Bank of America uses it in all of their
;p (plus that same server will also run SMTP, HTTPD, Telnet, and FTP services simultaniously as well without any noticable slowdown, handling 10,000 hits a day to the web server without a blink.)
branches and throughout the company, that's why I stick with them as my banking service provider.
I personally use it for any Server installs I set up, and I build household network firewall systems for people. My common install is a IBM PS/2 9595 (DX2/66) with 64MB of RAM and a 1.2 gig SCSI HD and 2 3COM MicroChannel NIC cards which I can put together all for about 60-80 dollars (my cost). I install Warp Client (which is $300 yikes) and InJoy firewall (for IPSEC) ($30 for 2 users). So for $400 you have a transparent firewall server that never needs rebooted. Never needs to be touched, turn it on and forget about it...
Then again, there's McDonalds which is installing Windows based systems to run their drive-through windows and every other time I pull up, the screen is down showing some kind of Windows error. =p
Have you read the Dreamcast SDK Release Notes? No? Then hold your comments until you have. And when was the last time you tried to compile a VC++ 6 project under VC++ 4? Oh... I see... really? That simple?
As far as X-Box, my sources tell me that the target OS for it will be the the Rental version of consumer Windows. (of course in three years, who the hell knows what MS will do)
Also, I do take offense to the "apologist" comment since I'm not exactly sure what you think is being apologized for. What I do know is that I'm sick of listing to people like you and the original poster blather on about what a failure Nintendo is, or how they are a failure.
I don't think anyone at Nintendo thinks that they will somehow outdo Sony in numbers of units sold at this point. But you can't tell me that any company having dominance in a demographic ("boys 7 to 14"), along with having sales as of March 1999 of 79.33 million GameBoys sold and 24.1 million N64s sold, can be considered a failure or the mark of the company on the verge of being DOA. Just because you don't own an N64 doesn't mean nobody is buying them.
Also, don't forget, sales tracking numbers generated by a number of companies show that for each N64 system sold an average of three Nintendo corporate titles are sold. So... let's see, Nintendo corporate has possibly has sold around 75 million units of N64 software by March of last year??? Yeah, those numbers suck, they better close up shop now before they have to file for bankruptcy.
P-a-a-leeeease. Both Nintendo and Sony are doing fine. Sony just has bigger sales numbers.
...my comment stands. I'm going take if from your comment that you don't know much about Dreamcast/WinCE development.
WinCE for the Dreamcast is a specialized version that is currently locked into a Dreamcast specific build of DirectX 7.0 using Visual C++ 6.0. Unless Microsoft releases a new build of both WinCE/DirectX for the Dreamcast, you could find yourslef looking at taking a current title written in Visual C++ 7 or greater code using DirectX 8 or greater functions and needing to port it backwards.
The only alternative is to program your game up front for WinCE/DirectX 7 either simultaniously or prior to your regular PC distribution. (Microsoft even tells you this upfont in the developer documentation that I have seen.)
As for giving Nintendo to much credit. Look at the Nintendo figures on their own and it's hard to say that they are bust. They are still moving hardware, and they consistantly have top selling titles (both N64 and GameBoy).