Someone already mentioned Amiga's take on the mobile gaming platform. But I predict it won't succeed. This, however, I think will: Fathammer Ltd.'s X-Forge gaming engine. Take a look at those iPaq screen shots on their page.
I heard, that when Fathammer's boys went over to Intel and demonstrated what their engine can do with a "simple" 206 MHz processor, the Intel guys' jaws dropped on the table! They just couldn't believe that this was possible! After the initial shock, I believe dollar signs were seen rolling by these guys' eyes..:)
Always told you, ex-democoders are good when it comes to optimizing and cheating in graphical routines..
Now that I think about it, several issues must be dealt with before wireless appliances, namely cellphones (I know there are many others, but these interest me the most) are to be considered a "serious" gaming platform:
Screen. We need a bigger screen, a better resolution. It doesn't have to be much bigger than say, 4 cm x 7 cm. If you could flip the phone sideways, it would be great for games like Mario etc.. This screen would need colors. 32 colors is a good start. 256 would be brilliant, but the given state of technology doesn't really permit that (cost-effectively speaking), so.. And ofcourse the screen needs a decent refresh rate, so that moving picture isn't a problem. And I'm not talking about > 25 Hz here. Less will do, just fine.
Sounds. We need a real sound circuit. Perhaps a redesign of the famous C64 sound chip (can't remember it's name here). Ofcourse, this chip's output would need a 3.5 mm minijack for earphones. If the phone just played it out loud, it would create a total aural chaos in busses and subways, for instance..
Multiplay. Cellphones are great in connectivity. Why not use those powers and have "online" hiscore boards and play against other people online, or with a local link (Bluetooth, IR).
Controls. A phone keypad isn't really the best controller out there, is it? Few extra "gaming buttons" would do good. But keeping the design still simple and usability rates high would be a tough task for even the experts..
Memory. You have to store the games somewhere. Obviously, transfers could be with wireless data transfers, through the normal cellphone network. Now there's a niche you can make money with.
Let's face it. A cell phone is not a gaming console. At the moment most cell phones have a very limited screen - low resolution, small size, limited amount of colors (usually monochromatic). And no sounds, or very primitive ones *bleep*. And the controls suck. Why? Because it's a phone device, not a gaming device.
Entertainment techies should reconsider their model of wireless gaming. Perhaps a cell phone should be a phone, not a Nintendo Gameboy. Make games that use the phone just as it is, a phone. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
I know a Finnish company that develops a geographical GSM phone location service by triangulating the phones in networks. Using this kind of technology it could be possible to switch the game from the phone's screen into a real life experience, placing the player physically in the game, where his movements could be tracked on a predefined "game area". I'm sure countless of gaming applications are inbound after this technology spreads around..
Why design new hardware-independent platforms? Instead, big companies should try to hold each other's hands and use the existing ones, and improve them. Few good standards can't hurt anybody, can they?
Alas; the fight for power seems to distract big companies from thinking consumers' (and their customers') best. Instead, they all stare at their own navels.
I just wish this huge gap between Sun and Microsoft wouldn't exist, and they would work in cooperation to develop something like Java-Windows (huh, what a totally pervert thought, actually;)). Although, as witnessed, Java is a bit too slow, even for a simple Office application (my Linux dual Celeron with 256 megs swap all the time with StarOffice). Well, atleast they would get the usability issues fixed!
Hey US, why not bully to the E.U. about some other ridiculous issue. Hey, come on? Oh, you're suddenly too afraid, since we might actually return fire and put up another trade embargo (like we did for your silly bananas some time ago)..
I'm talking with very little knowledge here, but I've got a gut feeling. As the situation for free speech and other civil liberties gets worse in the United States, it seems there's a counter-force occuring in other western countries.
I believe (and indeed hope), that these people in Europe and elsewhere are understanding the situation in States and the things that lead to it. And thus make the necessary initiatives which guarantee that things will not go wrong in their own countries also. Sometimes we learn from good example, sometimes from bad example.
Therefore, I believe the situation globally isn't worsening, but instead holds in a sort of status quo.
Hopefully, after this situation is over, the politicians in the States will feel both the internal and external pressure to bring things back to a more international standard level.
I'm thinking new computers that have been bought this Christmas as presents. I wonder how many of these computers are preinstalled with Windows XP. As we speak, these computers are all wrapped in gift papers; who will patch them? Do people even have time to do anything else except get prepared for the big day? And are people aware of the severe security flaw?
Probably quite many of those computers go to people who are going to have it as their first computer. And what are they going to do first? Turn it on. And probably, go online with it..
And the crackers will be waiting for the easy prey.
statistically speaking it might be, but I believe all the business is still being made with plain English, and a normal western surfer won't notice the difference in his daily net chores.
Maybe a lot of computers in the Internet reside inside the Chinese borders, but what I hear their firewalling policies etc. somewhat limit access and thus any cultural influence through the Internet.
So, will this only be an interesting sidenote in the history of the Internet?
For once, could you just make a WWII-era game that would have like.. a plot and a really in-there atmosphere? Sure, you got the Nazis, snipers and Stukas but.. Every time I see a game that can be literally "ran through", it doesn't make me feel like buying it.
Just to prove my point and not just whine around - take Thief, for example. What a great game! You couldn't just run around, or else you would've got hacked down by a guard in no time! Now, to my knowledge, WWII urban fights were nerve-breaking situations, where retreating Germans had the geographic benefits on their side (they held the towns with good positions secured with a sniper or two), but they ran low on supplies. Whereas the allied had the ammo, but were on a tight schedule. It was tough, and I admire people who came back alive from such a hell.
This game.. Hah! Judging by the movies, it's just another Quake 3 Arena clone with WWII skins and a new "Mein Gott, Alarrrmmm, Achtung" -speech set. Unless it gets alot better in plot and loses some (most) of that straight-forward shoot'em up -feeling, I will take my money somewhere else.
(Honestly, guys.. Have you ever wondered why Half-Life and Thief are still big hits around the world.. Clue: it's not the 3d engine.)
Unfortunately, I feel like a minority here. I know a major cut of the target audience only want their Q3A with the new skins, and they're happy with it. No "total immersion" needed, since they'd be already happy and satisfied, if they could score a dozen frags in three minutes and log out to do something else. Bah.
These suckers have been sailing the seas for quite some time now. For example, Sweden has pretty impressive stealth ships and subs. For example their newest submarines, if noticed, usually looks like a small whale to the observer. It's sound and sonar images are alike to those of a whale.
Anyway, stealthiness in ships has been on the table from the same era that first stealth aircraft were designed. The main principles are:
less radar reflections with smart surface patterns and coating materials,
less noise with new propulsion systems and quieter engines, insulation
less exhaust material that can be picked with sensitive instruments, such as IR sensors
My opinion is, that the Russia cannot regain it's position as a naval superpower. Sure, it has a navy with great many ships, but they are _old_. From around 1970-1980 cold war era. They are noisy, big, ugly, although they have a huge arsenal and quite impressive performance numbers. Updating such a navy to modern standards needs money - and that's what Russia doesn't have at the moment.
I think we're going to see more similiar military "declassifications" from Russia in the near future, as the USA resigned from the ballistic missile protection pact.
PS. They _do_ track the ships with satellites, but they use their infrared (ie. heat) emissions to see them from the surrounding seawater, which is far more colder than, say, the exhaust fumes the ship produces.
Ok, we have a sniffer on our keyboard. But who said we need to type out our passwords just like that? We can encrypt them!
Just take your favourite PDA or a computer that's not networked anywhere. Then write a piece of software, that, when asked, XORs any string (your password) with a one-time pad. Once done, this software returns you an encrypted password and a PIN code (for example an offset number). This PIN code will be fed into a decipher software (which XORs the "encrypted" passwords again with the same one-time pad), and ta-da, you have succesfully encrypted your keystroke traffic on those parts that need encryption the most.
Tip for the propellerheads: give me something I can use and I really need! I really don't want to wear a camera in my wrist. How about you engineers go and concentrate on making the existing but pretty expensive (digital) cameras cheaper, more durable and improve the image quality.
As Andy Rooney put it:
"Computers make it easy to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done."
Lego bricks were an essential part of my childhood. I liked the medieval and space stuff, but I didn't fancy the more mechanical stuff. Why? Because the way legos are connected. They don't hold together and tend to break up, unlike those Meccano and Brio's wooden blocks, that would tolerate even a bit more "experimental engineering" any 7-9 year old would with his skills do.
I wonder if there's a "lego generation" and what good has it done to justify it's existence.. And what comes after that, the "gameboy generation"?
..Which is kinda interesting but a totally different subject. From an old-skooler point of view, though, 4000 USD is a big load of money. For a demo.
Someone quite well said at around 1995, that what scene old-timers wonder is how much time and effort people are spending on the demos and competitions. As if the competitions would be the number one and only reason to have a demo party.
Naturally, this all makes sense to a modern demo scener, since the competitions are why people come to the party place. Actually, I was going to use the words "come together", but that wouldn't be true. People just sit tight in front of their own computers, play Quake derivatives and watch competitions from the big screen. Atleast they can say "I was there, I saw the demos, I played, I didn't vote though".
We are witnessing a gap between imaginary generations here.
Demo parties at the late 80s and early 90s had a totally different atmosphere. People would go around and meet people, because the party was meant to be as a social event, where contacts would meet each other face to face and groups could finally sit around the same table and have long good chats.
That's not the case anymore, atleast not at Assembly. It's a multiplayer warez event.
Re:Demo scene is dead, long live the money scene!
on
The Assembly In Review
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· Score: 0
I admit there are still a small group of people who call themselves "the real demoscene", and I would categorise myself belonging into it.
But what nowadays is considered to be "the scene" is not the same thing as that minority group I'm talking about. Even the Assembly organizers call these people "the old-skoolers". And for a reason. Because they have a totally different kind of values.
Strip those monetary rewards from competitions, and let's see how many contributions we'll have. I'd say people's motivations drop drastically.
Besides, this issue was already being made at around hmm.. 1995? The "real" scene was having a heart stroke already at that time.
But, you must remember, that each generation has it's own values and times. What is perhaps to some people as the real, modern demoscene is to me merely an untalented show copying the past.
I attended this year's Assembly's music jury with a few others, and got to witness the manic mood of a group of people, trying to evaluate about 200 MP3 songs and a bit under 100 multichannel module songs. All this in under 10 hours.
But the point is - many of the "big names" of the past were still there, in the jury. Most of them were too busy with their real lives to take part in the Assembly music contests, but it was glad to see that they were still kicking, and still able to drop those "th1s 1s my f1rst s0ng, t3ll m3 wh4t u l1ke!!" -lamers from the thick bunch of contestants.
..because of the original poster's a bit troll-ish views. The point is, demo scene - or the activity they dare to call demo scene - is concentrated heavily on the European grounds. I don't really know why. Perhaps the weather in US is so much better that the geeks spend more time outside playing ball than their European counterparts. The point is, that if there's a demoscene in the States, the Europeans have only heard there isn't.
Then, I have to disagree with the writer about the current state of demoscene. If the coders are doing their demos "for the love of coding", then why are the prizes for winning such competitions (usually with uttermost crap) so high? Why do we need all this money? For example, this year's Assembly had the following prizes for demo competitions:
The scene never really wasn't as small as you are describing. I have been "in the scene" since 1989, and that was the time when we traded C64 demos etc. with floppy disks, in snail-mail. That was truly something, waiting half a week for an answer from Germany or something like that.. "Yo buddy thanks for the stuff, t'was great. Keep sending mate!" Oh, nostalgy.
But.
What I think has ruined the scene is the networking phenomenon and it's peripherals. Quake, for example. Assembly has been lately overcrowded with kids playing multiplayer games over the LAN. This year, from a special request, only a handful of "old-skool" hard-boiled veterans decided to show up. That's a bit lame.
But the worst part of networking is, that acquiring demos etc. has become anonymous! In the old days, we had this thing called "swapping". I would send a few floppies full of new, local groups' demos and intros, and get about the same amount of demos and stuff from my "contact". Usually, a long letter with personal handwriting, jokes and news would follow. That was friendship, and friendship is the key in the scene.
And what do we have now?
We have a group, say, Orange making a demo. After it's finished, someone uploads the package to few FTP sites. And then people start downloading it. Dude, where's my human contact?!
I hope you are beginning to see why demo scene, as witnessed today, sucks. It's not demo anymore, it's money scene. A small business. It's only running because people want to cash the prizes from corporate-sponsored demo parties and their competitions.
(This is actually not about PDAs, but more about electrical connections)
Use a branching box. This should bring all connected electrical devices into one and same electric potential, whether they are grounded or not.
A word of advice though: don't do your electrical connections as I did: I plugged my computer and peripherals into a branching box with grounded sockets, but the box itself wasn't connected into a grounded power outlet. Therefore, if any of the devices should have failed and leaked, say, a 115V spike through the grounding pin, it would have only be directed against the other devices, since the grounding wasn't going anywhere from that branching box..
So check your connections, people, because they might be dangerous, not necessarily to yourself but to your precious pieces of equipment.
(Oh, and could someone more electric engineering -oriented person verify or correct my intuition on this, thanks.)
Slashdot Mirror
Someone already mentioned Amiga's take on the mobile gaming platform. But I predict it won't succeed. This, however, I think will: Fathammer Ltd.'s X-Forge gaming engine. Take a look at those iPaq screen shots on their page.
:)
I heard, that when Fathammer's boys went over to Intel and demonstrated what their engine can do with a "simple" 206 MHz processor, the Intel guys' jaws dropped on the table! They just couldn't believe that this was possible! After the initial shock, I believe dollar signs were seen rolling by these guys' eyes..
Always told you, ex-democoders are good when it comes to optimizing and cheating in graphical routines..
That's my two cents..
Let's face it. A cell phone is not a gaming console. At the moment most cell phones have a very limited screen - low resolution, small size, limited amount of colors (usually monochromatic). And no sounds, or very primitive ones *bleep*. And the controls suck. Why? Because it's a phone device, not a gaming device.
Entertainment techies should reconsider their model of wireless gaming. Perhaps a cell phone should be a phone, not a Nintendo Gameboy. Make games that use the phone just as it is, a phone. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
I know a Finnish company that develops a geographical GSM phone location service by triangulating the phones in networks. Using this kind of technology it could be possible to switch the game from the phone's screen into a real life experience, placing the player physically in the game, where his movements could be tracked on a predefined "game area". I'm sure countless of gaming applications are inbound after this technology spreads around..
Why design new hardware-independent platforms? Instead, big companies should try to hold each other's hands and use the existing ones, and improve them. Few good standards can't hurt anybody, can they?
;)). Although, as witnessed, Java is a bit too slow, even for a simple Office application (my Linux dual Celeron with 256 megs swap all the time with StarOffice). Well, atleast they would get the usability issues fixed!
Alas; the fight for power seems to distract big companies from thinking consumers' (and their customers') best. Instead, they all stare at their own navels.
I just wish this huge gap between Sun and Microsoft wouldn't exist, and they would work in cooperation to develop something like Java-Windows (huh, what a totally pervert thought, actually
Hey US, why not bully to the E.U. about some other ridiculous issue. Hey, come on? Oh, you're suddenly too afraid, since we might actually return fire and put up another trade embargo (like we did for your silly bananas some time ago)..
I'm talking with very little knowledge here, but I've got a gut feeling. As the situation for free speech and other civil liberties gets worse in the United States, it seems there's a counter-force occuring in other western countries.
I believe (and indeed hope), that these people in Europe and elsewhere are understanding the situation in States and the things that lead to it. And thus make the necessary initiatives which guarantee that things will not go wrong in their own countries also. Sometimes we learn from good example, sometimes from bad example.
Therefore, I believe the situation globally isn't worsening, but instead holds in a sort of status quo.
Hopefully, after this situation is over, the politicians in the States will feel both the internal and external pressure to bring things back to a more international standard level.
I'm thinking new computers that have been bought this Christmas as presents. I wonder how many of these computers are preinstalled with Windows XP. As we speak, these computers are all wrapped in gift papers; who will patch them? Do people even have time to do anything else except get prepared for the big day? And are people aware of the severe security flaw?
Probably quite many of those computers go to people who are going to have it as their first computer. And what are they going to do first? Turn it on. And probably, go online with it..
And the crackers will be waiting for the easy prey.
Ni hao,
statistically speaking it might be, but I believe all the business is still being made with plain English, and a normal western surfer won't notice the difference in his daily net chores.
Maybe a lot of computers in the Internet reside inside the Chinese borders, but what I hear their firewalling policies etc. somewhat limit access and thus any cultural influence through the Internet.
So, will this only be an interesting sidenote in the history of the Internet?
Multiplayer this, multiplayer that, blah blah! Dagnabit!
For once, could you just make a WWII-era game that would have like.. a plot and a really in-there atmosphere? Sure, you got the Nazis, snipers and Stukas but.. Every time I see a game that can be literally "ran through", it doesn't make me feel like buying it.
Just to prove my point and not just whine around - take Thief, for example. What a great game! You couldn't just run around, or else you would've got hacked down by a guard in no time! Now, to my knowledge, WWII urban fights were nerve-breaking situations, where retreating Germans had the geographic benefits on their side (they held the towns with good positions secured with a sniper or two), but they ran low on supplies. Whereas the allied had the ammo, but were on a tight schedule. It was tough, and I admire people who came back alive from such a hell.
This game.. Hah! Judging by the movies, it's just another Quake 3 Arena clone with WWII skins and a new "Mein Gott, Alarrrmmm, Achtung" -speech set. Unless it gets alot better in plot and loses some (most) of that straight-forward shoot'em up -feeling, I will take my money somewhere else.
(Honestly, guys.. Have you ever wondered why Half-Life and Thief are still big hits around the world.. Clue: it's not the 3d engine.)
Unfortunately, I feel like a minority here. I know a major cut of the target audience only want their Q3A with the new skins, and they're happy with it. No "total immersion" needed, since they'd be already happy and satisfied, if they could score a dozen frags in three minutes and log out to do something else. Bah.
Anyway, stealthiness in ships has been on the table from the same era that first stealth aircraft were designed. The main principles are:
My opinion is, that the Russia cannot regain it's position as a naval superpower. Sure, it has a navy with great many ships, but they are _old_. From around 1970-1980 cold war era. They are noisy, big, ugly, although they have a huge arsenal and quite impressive performance numbers. Updating such a navy to modern standards needs money - and that's what Russia doesn't have at the moment.
I think we're going to see more similiar military "declassifications" from Russia in the near future, as the USA resigned from the ballistic missile protection pact.
PS. They _do_ track the ships with satellites, but they use their infrared (ie. heat) emissions to see them from the surrounding seawater, which is far more colder than, say, the exhaust fumes the ship produces.
Ok, we have a sniffer on our keyboard. But who said we need to type out our passwords just like that? We can encrypt them!
Just take your favourite PDA or a computer that's not networked anywhere. Then write a piece of software, that, when asked, XORs any string (your password) with a one-time pad. Once done, this software returns you an encrypted password and a PIN code (for example an offset number). This PIN code will be fed into a decipher software (which XORs the "encrypted" passwords again with the same one-time pad), and ta-da, you have succesfully encrypted your keystroke traffic on those parts that need encryption the most.
Tip for the propellerheads: give me something I can use and I really need! I really don't want to wear a camera in my wrist. How about you engineers go and concentrate on making the existing but pretty expensive (digital) cameras cheaper, more durable and improve the image quality.
As Andy Rooney put it:
"Computers make it easy to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done."
Focus.
Lego bricks were an essential part of my childhood. I liked the medieval and space stuff, but I didn't fancy the more mechanical stuff. Why? Because the way legos are connected. They don't hold together and tend to break up, unlike those Meccano and Brio's wooden blocks, that would tolerate even a bit more "experimental engineering" any 7-9 year old would with his skills do.
I wonder if there's a "lego generation" and what good has it done to justify it's existence.. And what comes after that, the "gameboy generation"?
I'm glad to hear that, but please tell it to the press and public, who thinks that this gaming thing equals scene.
..Which is kinda interesting but a totally different subject. From an old-skooler point of view, though, 4000 USD is a big load of money. For a demo.
Someone quite well said at around 1995, that what scene old-timers wonder is how much time and effort people are spending on the demos and competitions. As if the competitions would be the number one and only reason to have a demo party.
Naturally, this all makes sense to a modern demo scener, since the competitions are why people come to the party place. Actually, I was going to use the words "come together", but that wouldn't be true. People just sit tight in front of their own computers, play Quake derivatives and watch competitions from the big screen. Atleast they can say "I was there, I saw the demos, I played, I didn't vote though".
We are witnessing a gap between imaginary generations here.
Demo parties at the late 80s and early 90s had a totally different atmosphere. People would go around and meet people, because the party was meant to be as a social event, where contacts would meet each other face to face and groups could finally sit around the same table and have long good chats.
That's not the case anymore, atleast not at Assembly. It's a multiplayer warez event.
I admit there are still a small group of people who call themselves "the real demoscene", and I would categorise myself belonging into it.
But what nowadays is considered to be "the scene" is not the same thing as that minority group I'm talking about. Even the Assembly organizers call these people "the old-skoolers". And for a reason. Because they have a totally different kind of values.
Strip those monetary rewards from competitions, and let's see how many contributions we'll have. I'd say people's motivations drop drastically.
Besides, this issue was already being made at around hmm.. 1995? The "real" scene was having a heart stroke already at that time.
But, you must remember, that each generation has it's own values and times. What is perhaps to some people as the real, modern demoscene is to me merely an untalented show copying the past.
I attended this year's Assembly's music jury with a few others, and got to witness the manic mood of a group of people, trying to evaluate about 200 MP3 songs and a bit under 100 multichannel module songs. All this in under 10 hours.
But the point is - many of the "big names" of the past were still there, in the jury. Most of them were too busy with their real lives to take part in the Assembly music contests, but it was glad to see that they were still kicking, and still able to drop those "th1s 1s my f1rst s0ng, t3ll m3 wh4t u l1ke!!" -lamers from the thick bunch of contestants.
..because of the original poster's a bit troll-ish views. The point is, demo scene - or the activity they dare to call demo scene - is concentrated heavily on the European grounds. I don't really know why. Perhaps the weather in US is so much better that the geeks spend more time outside playing ball than their European counterparts. The point is, that if there's a demoscene in the States, the Europeans have only heard there isn't.
Then, I have to disagree with the writer about the current state of demoscene. If the coders are doing their demos "for the love of coding", then why are the prizes for winning such competitions (usually with uttermost crap) so high? Why do we need all this money? For example, this year's Assembly had the following prizes for demo competitions:
1. 4 000 euros
2. 2 000 euros
3. 1 400 euros
4. 1 000 euros
5. 750 euros
Those amounts make you think that you could actually make a demo just for the profit..
IMNSHO,
The scene never really wasn't as small as you are describing. I have been "in the scene" since 1989, and that was the time when we traded C64 demos etc. with floppy disks, in snail-mail. That was truly something, waiting half a week for an answer from Germany or something like that.. "Yo buddy thanks for the stuff, t'was great. Keep sending mate!" Oh, nostalgy.
But.
What I think has ruined the scene is the networking phenomenon and it's peripherals. Quake, for example. Assembly has been lately overcrowded with kids playing multiplayer games over the LAN. This year, from a special request, only a handful of "old-skool" hard-boiled veterans decided to show up. That's a bit lame.
But the worst part of networking is, that acquiring demos etc. has become anonymous! In the old days, we had this thing called "swapping". I would send a few floppies full of new, local groups' demos and intros, and get about the same amount of demos and stuff from my "contact". Usually, a long letter with personal handwriting, jokes and news would follow. That was friendship, and friendship is the key in the scene.
And what do we have now?
We have a group, say, Orange making a demo. After it's finished, someone uploads the package to few FTP sites. And then people start downloading it. Dude, where's my human contact?!
I hope you are beginning to see why demo scene, as witnessed today, sucks. It's not demo anymore, it's money scene. A small business. It's only running because people want to cash the prizes from corporate-sponsored demo parties and their competitions.
(This is actually not about PDAs, but more about electrical connections)
Use a branching box. This should bring all connected electrical devices into one and same electric potential, whether they are grounded or not.
A word of advice though: don't do your electrical connections as I did: I plugged my computer and peripherals into a branching box with grounded sockets, but the box itself wasn't connected into a grounded power outlet. Therefore, if any of the devices should have failed and leaked, say, a 115V spike through the grounding pin, it would have only be directed against the other devices, since the grounding wasn't going anywhere from that branching box..
So check your connections, people, because they might be dangerous, not necessarily to yourself but to your precious pieces of equipment.
(Oh, and could someone more electric engineering -oriented person verify or correct my intuition on this, thanks.)
I believe it's the first.