I somewhat agree with you, it makes sense from an educational view and it's completely pointless to help find a job.
Unfortunately it's not the 80's, back then any good programmer could get a job. In these times, there's a lot of competition and incompetence out there. Employers will only hire anyone who matches all the keywords and does a good interview, regardless of talent, because they're desperate (or clueless).
For example, my hobbyist 8086 and 6809 ASM experience is completely ignored and pointless all the times I've applied for job positions in microcontroller / embedded system programming. My x86 code did everything at a hardware level except disk I/O, mouse, and LAN.
I disagree, the X86 was a really bad choice back then. Pentium didn't exist (released 1 year later), the 486 DX2 was released the same year. The PowerPC easily beat the 486, and because it's endian neutral, I bet 68K emulation would be too slow on P5.
The Pentium also destroyed the 486: the FPU was a lot faster, and it could execute two integer instructions at a time. Unfortunately most code wasn't P5 optimized and avoided the FPU (lots of 486SXs out there). Quake was probably the first app that ran well on a P-60, and unplayable in a DX4-100.
I understand your pain... The x86 empire will always encounter a few rebel architectures. Luckily, there are new powerful weapons like the Atom-izer, and research on the Larrabee GPU (lots of simple x86s).
Most x86 CPUs emulate x86 code to keep the legacy alive... Long live the early 70's Datapoint/Intel 8008 instruction set!
Ok, maybe only the Vista kernel... Windows keeps mutating, becoming more like Microsoft Bob. Ironically, the Windows Server 2008 install has many of those stupid things turned off. Even so, it takes just too many tweaks to make it better.
On the Eee, the only good choice for most users is Easy Peasy. Ubuntu is badly pre-configured. I am running XP on my Eee, I can't recommend it because it requires nLite and a monstrous amount of additional tweaks make it SSD friendly. I hate Microsoft for not telling how they managed to make XP run on the XO laptop, fortunately there are many excellent Eee forums out there.
I absolute agree creating games is the best option, not only is fun, it also creates competition which is a great way to motivate them to learn programming. Unfortunately almost all textbooks are boring, I remember the old Tandy Coco Basic book, and Oh! Pascal!
As for what to use to program, if they're IT students, a neutral choice is Javascript. For non IT, Visual Basic for Applications in Excel. It's lousy but it's something they might probably use..NET framework is also a good choice, now that M$ is using it in everything, and there's Mono in Linux.
The 2600's TIA (video/sound chip), provided sprite w/ collision detection, 2 channel sound, ADC, and a 256 color palette. Although insanely limited, I'd say its more "advanced" than the anything on the Apple II's chipset.
At least the Apple II wasn't as ordinary, generic, and overpriced compared to the IBM PC.:)
Think of it in this way: I'd personally choose a better architecture somewhat capable of running Unix/Linux, like the 2Mhz 6809 CoCo 3 - which is also faster than a 4.77Mhz IBM PC. Why? Open source.
Most Apple II software is closed-source and copy protected, abandonware is technically not free, and hacking will be needed to translate them to other languages.
Also, don't forget technologies we use everyday, jpg, gif/png, html, mp3, opentype/true type, and graphical GUIs require processing power and lots of RAM.
I do agree that old software is great. For office work I would be almost as efficient as anyone else with just a 4.77Mhz PC, with Word Perfect 4, Lotus 1-2-3, Hardvard Graphics, Print Master, and DBase/FoxPro.:)
Apple II? The only reasons to choose this architecture are (1) it's generic - the easiest one, (2) Apple II were horrendously overpriced (sound cool saying that a 64K Apple was $2638 when introduced, $12 now), (3) maybe they're trying to challenge or recreate Woz talents.
It's completely impractical in this era to create a brand new design on such prehistoric architecture, which was mostly based on low cost. Even the MSX hardware (similar to Colecovision) would be a better choice. Main problem is the 6502 CPU.
There are better CPU choices than the 6502... The 6809 provided ways for re-entrant and relocatable code (unix and multitasking friendly), the Z80 is hardware friendly (often used as a coprocessor, like in the Genesis/MD). Microcontrollers were even based on the same architectures (6800, 8080).
Also, most modern stuff need lots of processing power. Try reading a JPG file on a Apple II. mp3s? A 486 @ 33Mhz can barely play them!
Compatibility: Why? A $12 PC running commercial software that costs more? Linux? impractical... unless they use something more powerful like the 65816 used in the Apple IIGS, and SNES, or a better CPU.
Apple II Hardware: What hardware? As generic as a CoCo and PC XT. Other 6502 stuff like the NES, C64, Lynx, and 8-bit Ataris (even the 2600) have vastly superior hardware. Some of these provide perform things 6502's lack, like hardware multiply. The only good thing on Apple IIs was the 80 column capability.
Sound: 1 bit speaker beeps? Why not using a generic SN76489 sound chip? (Sega Master, PCJr, Colecovision). Apple realized how idiotic was not having any sound chip... The IIGS had an Ensoniq chip that was also used in professional synths. It had better sound capabilities than the Amiga and Sound Blaster 16.
MESS emulates the Apple I, can read WAVE files, and the entire source code is available.:)
I miss my old CoCo3, but I hated cassette tapes. The saddest thing is that Audio Cassettes were designed to be lousy as a data storage media - they used two sides (interference), and were created to record just human voice. The only other option were floppy drives, and back then they were expensive and/or overpriced ($200 and up) which is equivalent to $400+ now in 2008. Most drives had to include the entire controller I/O inside the unit, and probably also a disk OS.
That would be as accurate as reading RF interference of my PC to figure out what it is doing.
The only effective thing that thing could do is to guess what you are feeling by sensing awareness, body language/movement, reaction, emotions, etc. For example, it should detect I'm frustrated whenever I stare at my feet and reply to a girl "Friends? Friends?!? We've only gone three times, and you're already telling me you just want to be friends?!". (wearing a baseball cap wouldn't make any difference.)
Ah... the GUS. I remembered a Midisoft guy insulting me after I insisted that my cheap GUS had 256MB of RAM and could play 32 voices, 12 bit, interpolated 8-bit samples, all in hardware. (Could do 12 voices at full quality). It's a sad thing Windows drivers were awful. DosBox can emulate the GUS, I watched again Second Reality and The Real Thing demos.
Back then on the only thing that sounded better was a MT32 synth via MIDI, Apple IIGS, and somewhat the Amiga (only 4 channels). A bit later the SNES. Also, on the PC, the only other other choices were the SB16, and the Pro Audio Spectrum (almost identical, but included SCSI instead of IDE!). If I remember correctly, a GUS was $50 more than a SB16.
Back to Creative and drivers, I remember having serious problems with the SBLive and Win 2000 drivers. There is the "kX project", they did Win32 SBLive drivers from scratch, but hasn't been updated since 2004.
They missed those Microsoft multimedia keyboards, the default are idiotic commands instead of the function keys! In Windows Explorer: F2 is undo instead of rename, F5 is open instead of refresh. Mine is a wireless one, no LED's on the keyboard. I do also hate laptops keyboards.
I have two IBM's PC-AT keyboards. Can't currently use 'em in my PC (no PS/2 ports), I agree they're awesome.
Don't forget to ask if their hi-def TV is far, far away from them. You have to be less than 10 feet away to really notice 1080p. I always joke that most people still believe TV's are radioactive, my parents always complained "you're too close, you'll get blind!".
Also, most people are simply unaware, the human brain is amazing reconstructing visual information. For example, I know someone who only realized how much detailed is HDTV when switching several times ESPN between lo-def and hi-def. Especially being able to read names and numbers on uniforms, not just being aware you know them.
No, MIDI doesn't suck, most MIDI songs do, GM is way too limited, and most patches/soundfont/DLS banks are too "small". Many Genesis, and PSX titles are basically MIDIs, for example, Shinobi 3 and Final Fantasy 7.
Second, the US SMS had a lame three channel sound chip, and yes, these songs in MIDI will suck. The Japanese SMS had an extra nine channel FM sound chip (inferior to the one in the Sega Genesis). Those MIDIs are actually nice.
Third, MegaMan was available on the GameGear, which is a SMS with more colors. (Ok, the game is awful, and the music is even worse). Also, there were MegaMan CPS arcade games, which have Q-Sound, MIDI-like renditions of the NES MegaMan songs. And it's available in miniQSF/Highly Quixotic format, although they're almost impossible to find.
You are right about MegaMan and Castlevania music, they're awesome. BTW, I highly recommend hearing Japanese Castlevania music instead of the USA/Europe ones. CastleVania I and II used the NES (or Famicom) floppy (FDS) which has extra sound hardware. Japanese Castlevania III cart (Akumajou Densetu) included a sound chip, the music is noticeable better than the USA/Europe one.
Unfortunately corn syrup doesn't taste as good as table sugar. That's why Coca Colas in Mexico are better, similar to the little, overpriced, "Christmas" ones in glass bottles.
Sugar might be poisonous also, when I was a kid I remember they burned down crops because it was the cheapest method. They also had to switch to a type of sugar cane more fire resistant, which was thinner, drier, and not that sweet. I miss real sugar canes, and really miss obtaining unprocessed sugar molasses.
I am on a temporary contract at a financial company, I let them check my credit report. Drug tests are common too. On many others, they check your driver's records, and make you sign where they ask if you have a criminal record. Every different recruiter will insist on meeting you personally.
For permanent jobs, some employers will want to get a psychological profile. Some disguise it as a personality test to identify your abilities. It's a great tool for supervisors, they can preemptively know if an employee have the skills to overtake them. They want to know your potential. I had one of these, in 1995. For example, the interviewer began to smoke, then asked "do you mind if I smoke?". Now they use web-based questions, similar of the ones at personals/dating sites.
And that's only discrimination of your life and physical appearance. Racial discrimination in the US is VERY common. (I am Hispanic, my name is Italian, still have a strong accent - not as bad as tech support people from India). Unfortunately, I can "sense" rejection during interviews. I have even seen how people's expressions change when I greet them and find out I am Hispanic.
There are infinite ways to get some of your information. Property information and tax returns are public records. Googling is great too. Few employers actually call references, but they will ask for them. I absolutely hate having my public information in resume sites, but, I have no choice.
I wonder when we'll begin to things like in the movie Gattaca, where a company could have DNA records of every employee. I remember a documentary of the Soviet side of Germany, they kept in storage personal items from spies so they could identify them by smell (this was before DNA tests were reliable).
I would have chosen something more reliable, although I don't think the problem was caused by Jet (storing wrong timestamps doesn't make any sense). Jet is not perfect, but it can handle small jobs, and probably it could have been made to handle voting machines also.
Assuming they has plenty of experience with Jet (or MS Access), there are many ways to avoid corrupting data. Jet hates when the network is disconnected, having too many indexes, keeping records locked, and of course blue-screens and power failures. A daily "compact and repair" is good, but doing it for the first time after something begins to act weird is really dangerous! A good database design is also necessary. I would have kept a local copy, kept a log, manage most data locally, make a daily backup, etc.
I unfortunately have worked with MS Access for 10 years, mostly small applications. I think at most I've had 25 users in Access 97 in a slow network, I never had corrupt data. I have corrupted things during the development process constantly. The undocumented SaveAsText and LoadFromtext are my friends.
Thinking of the voting process, it is mostly appending data, which Jet should have handled easily...
Why not pink ponies!?:( Actually in my nVidia 6600GT something in the 3D unit was cooked to death, and I even had the temp monitor on. When I installed Vista all I got was a giant unreadable psychedelic desktop. Now I have Direct3D off.:(
For a millisecond, when I read "nVidia recall" - I saw hope.:(
I wonder how popular it would be if someone writes macro or addin that implements the old menu system! Microsoft Word does have help for WordPerfect, and Excel has a Lotus 1-2-3 help which explains or does the 1-2-3 slash menu commands.
WordPerfect/DOS keystrokes made no sense, and you had to memorize them 'cause previous to version 5.1 for DOS it had no menu! Create a new document? F7, Y, N. (F7 is quit! the last "N" means "No" to Exit WP) F6=Bold, F8=Underline, Shift+F7=Print, F10=Save. Mr. Spock would have committed suicide rather to memorize these illogical commands.
I still think that Lotus 1-2-3 menu slash sequences are easier to work than many keyboard combinations in Excel. For example, formatting time in 1-2-3:/RFDT2 (Range, Format, Date, Time, option 2). Not as quick as Contrl+Shift+@ but I prefer learning logical stuff. 1-2-3 also had context sensitive help.
Geez... Those where the times when most software were not friendly. You had to use keyboard templates, no consistent keystrokes between applications (Microsoft DOS based editors used Copy=Control+Insert, most other text editors used Wordstar's Control+K+C, etc). Before DOS 5, it had no help at all, "Dir/?" displayed an error!
Maybe it is too costly for Microsoft to dedicate resources for compatibility issues. It might be a nice way clean-up Win32... maybe anti-Wine? They probably knew people and companies won't jump ASAP to Vista (it happened to Win2k3 server), so, why they should care? Is Vista the Windows Me equivalent?
Actually most versions of Windows do a lot of compatibility checks and fixes, but it was because Microsoft wanted people to upgrade (I would say it was a long term plan to migrate everyone to NT). Win 95 was a Win 3.x upgrade, 2000/XP were Win 9x/Me upgrades. For example, Win95 did check for a lot of DOS device drivers - junk probably nobody used like ancient network drivers and weird tape drives.
If I had a product incompatible on Vista, probably Microsoft would blame me for doing stuff they have probably documented "it won't work", and probably also ask me why I didn't test it in all those Vista beta versions. It's a great opportunity for software companies to release new products (regardless of usefulness).
Anyway, they can slowly wait until XP becomes officially obsolete.
Absolutely... Too many kids writing stuff. They even skipped their history lessons.
Starglider II (Argonaut software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starglider_2 is the father of StarFox. Starfox is visually better and arcade-oriented. Starglider II had freedom, physics, and some kind of plot. Starglider II had also little things, like getting to close to the sun, seeing how the bomb got out your bay door (and how easy was to bump it), use the tractor beam on something larger than your ship, and watching the bouncing bomb. Maybe it was more surprising booting the same diskette on either the Amiga and Atari ST! (My guess it was pure 68000 code: no Blitter, no hardware line drawing in the Amiga)
NT4 has a faster Windows Explorer and Start menu. Probably because is not "web based", and you can't do some things on it like move Start menu items around. But it is very fast. I even used NT4's shell32 (and comdlg32) in Windows 2000 for a while. Until I accepted the fate of slowness. I still think the XP Start menu is slow. (w/o the useless delay, of course)
Someone wrote USB drivers for NT4. (I think I posted that here years ago). You can also install DirectX 5 beta (no hardware 3D, but some old cards had accelerated OpenGL drivers). There are probably too many updates after sp6a, and a lot of extra random stuff because a lot of servers ran NT4.
I remember when Microsoft was proud of their drop-down menus on Windows 3.0. It was really fast. Those times will never return, when speed was the priority, stupid useless fancy stuff was the last. Probably MS Bob was a preview of the doom of computing power. I still can't believe Windows includes a 70's-like Calculator running in a PC probably more powerful than a 70's supercomputer.
Kinda sounds like a sports drink ad, "Zweating in the Zune?". Zero plays for Sure? Alphabetic order maybe...? Vista, Windows, XBox, Y2K bug, Zune..?? Creative Zen killer? Who knows.
No Windows and Linux drivers?
on
USB Batteries
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· Score: 2, Interesting
One stupid LED as a status? It's already USB! Why not also a little icon indicating charge status, how much power has left... Even maybe intelligent software to even tell how many seconds of gameplay I'll have my Sega GameGear! Ah.. USB. It reminds me when I saw the first USB speakers, I was amazed of how quicly computer technology has gone beyond prediction.. . Witnessing speakers crash! At least Windows 95 OSR2 somewhat tried to continue after a blue screen.
Actually, it would be cool if most devices could simply work with rechargable AAA batteries. Having different batteries for cameras, cellphones, portable game systems, mp3 players.. too much stupid cables everywhere. Maybe something more usable, like flat, square things, Lego-like. One of them to power a camera, maybe interconnect 5 to power a portable mp3-video player, or, interconnect 100 and a Dell laptop to celebrate the 4th of July!
It is something that had to be done long ago. Probably companies do not care, as long as the chip doesn't melt itself while it is on warranty, probably this is just to do better in benchmarks.
My nVidia 6600GT (not overclocked) somewhat fried itself, now anything 3D is FUBAR. I'm sure the fan did a really poor job. Now I have to find a way to set my GForce to behave exactly as most Intel Video Decelerators.
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I somewhat agree with you, it makes sense from an educational view and it's completely pointless to help find a job.
Unfortunately it's not the 80's, back then any good programmer could get a job. In these times, there's a lot of competition and incompetence out there. Employers will only hire anyone who matches all the keywords and does a good interview, regardless of talent, because they're desperate (or clueless).
For example, my hobbyist 8086 and 6809 ASM experience is completely ignored and pointless all the times I've applied for job positions in microcontroller / embedded system programming. My x86 code did everything at a hardware level except disk I/O, mouse, and LAN.
I disagree, the X86 was a really bad choice back then. Pentium didn't exist (released 1 year later), the 486 DX2 was released the same year. The PowerPC easily beat the 486, and because it's endian neutral, I bet 68K emulation would be too slow on P5.
The Pentium also destroyed the 486: the FPU was a lot faster, and it could execute two integer instructions at a time. Unfortunately most code wasn't P5 optimized and avoided the FPU (lots of 486SXs out there). Quake was probably the first app that ran well on a P-60, and unplayable in a DX4-100.
I understand your pain... The x86 empire will always encounter a few rebel architectures. Luckily, there are new powerful weapons like the Atom-izer, and research on the Larrabee GPU (lots of simple x86s).
Most x86 CPUs emulate x86 code to keep the legacy alive... Long live the early 70's Datapoint/Intel 8008 instruction set!
Ok, maybe only the Vista kernel... Windows keeps mutating, becoming more like Microsoft Bob. Ironically, the Windows Server 2008 install has many of those stupid things turned off. Even so, it takes just too many tweaks to make it better.
On the Eee, the only good choice for most users is Easy Peasy. Ubuntu is badly pre-configured. I am running XP on my Eee, I can't recommend it because it requires nLite and a monstrous amount of additional tweaks make it SSD friendly. I hate Microsoft for not telling how they managed to make XP run on the XO laptop, fortunately there are many excellent Eee forums out there.
I absolute agree creating games is the best option, not only is fun, it also creates competition which is a great way to motivate them to learn programming. Unfortunately almost all textbooks are boring, I remember the old Tandy Coco Basic book, and Oh! Pascal!
As for what to use to program, if they're IT students, a neutral choice is Javascript. For non IT, Visual Basic for Applications in Excel. It's lousy but it's something they might probably use. .NET framework is also a good choice, now that M$ is using it in everything, and there's Mono in Linux.
The 2600's TIA (video/sound chip), provided sprite w/ collision detection, 2 channel sound, ADC, and a 256 color palette. Although insanely limited, I'd say its more "advanced" than the anything on the Apple II's chipset.
At least the Apple II wasn't as ordinary, generic, and overpriced compared to the IBM PC. :)
Think of it in this way: I'd personally choose a better architecture somewhat capable of running Unix/Linux, like the 2Mhz 6809 CoCo 3 - which is also faster than a 4.77Mhz IBM PC. Why? Open source.
Most Apple II software is closed-source and copy protected, abandonware is technically not free, and hacking will be needed to translate them to other languages.
Also, don't forget technologies we use everyday, jpg, gif/png, html, mp3, opentype/true type, and graphical GUIs require processing power and lots of RAM.
I do agree that old software is great. For office work I would be almost as efficient as anyone else with just a 4.77Mhz PC, with Word Perfect 4, Lotus 1-2-3, Hardvard Graphics, Print Master, and DBase/FoxPro. :)
Apple II? The only reasons to choose this architecture are (1) it's generic - the easiest one, (2) Apple II were horrendously overpriced (sound cool saying that a 64K Apple was $2638 when introduced, $12 now), (3) maybe they're trying to challenge or recreate Woz talents.
It's completely impractical in this era to create a brand new design on such prehistoric architecture, which was mostly based on low cost. Even the MSX hardware (similar to Colecovision) would be a better choice. Main problem is the 6502 CPU.
There are better CPU choices than the 6502... The 6809 provided ways for re-entrant and relocatable code (unix and multitasking friendly), the Z80 is hardware friendly (often used as a coprocessor, like in the Genesis/MD). Microcontrollers were even based on the same architectures (6800, 8080).
Also, most modern stuff need lots of processing power. Try reading a JPG file on a Apple II. mp3s? A 486 @ 33Mhz can barely play them!
Compatibility: Why? A $12 PC running commercial software that costs more? Linux? impractical... unless they use something more powerful like the 65816 used in the Apple IIGS, and SNES, or a better CPU.
Apple II Hardware: What hardware? As generic as a CoCo and PC XT. Other 6502 stuff like the NES, C64, Lynx, and 8-bit Ataris (even the 2600) have vastly superior hardware. Some of these provide perform things 6502's lack, like hardware multiply. The only good thing on Apple IIs was the 80 column capability.
Sound: 1 bit speaker beeps? Why not using a generic SN76489 sound chip? (Sega Master, PCJr, Colecovision). Apple realized how idiotic was not having any sound chip... The IIGS had an Ensoniq chip that was also used in professional synths. It had better sound capabilities than the Amiga and Sound Blaster 16.
MESS emulates the Apple I, can read WAVE files, and the entire source code is available. :)
I miss my old CoCo3, but I hated cassette tapes. The saddest thing is that Audio Cassettes were designed to be lousy as a data storage media - they used two sides (interference), and were created to record just human voice. The only other option were floppy drives, and back then they were expensive and/or overpriced ($200 and up) which is equivalent to $400+ now in 2008. Most drives had to include the entire controller I/O inside the unit, and probably also a disk OS.
That would be as accurate as reading RF interference of my PC to figure out what it is doing.
The only effective thing that thing could do is to guess what you are feeling by sensing awareness, body language/movement, reaction, emotions, etc. For example, it should detect I'm frustrated whenever I stare at my feet and reply to a girl "Friends? Friends?!? We've only gone three times, and you're already telling me you just want to be friends?!". (wearing a baseball cap wouldn't make any difference.)
Ah... the GUS. I remembered a Midisoft guy insulting me after I insisted that my cheap GUS had 256MB of RAM and could play 32 voices, 12 bit, interpolated 8-bit samples, all in hardware. (Could do 12 voices at full quality). It's a sad thing Windows drivers were awful. DosBox can emulate the GUS, I watched again Second Reality and The Real Thing demos.
Back then on the only thing that sounded better was a MT32 synth via MIDI, Apple IIGS, and somewhat the Amiga (only 4 channels). A bit later the SNES. Also, on the PC, the only other other choices were the SB16, and the Pro Audio Spectrum (almost identical, but included SCSI instead of IDE!). If I remember correctly, a GUS was $50 more than a SB16.
Back to Creative and drivers, I remember having serious problems with the SBLive and Win 2000 drivers. There is the "kX project", they did Win32 SBLive drivers from scratch, but hasn't been updated since 2004.
They missed those Microsoft multimedia keyboards, the default are idiotic commands instead of the function keys! In Windows Explorer: F2 is undo instead of rename, F5 is open instead of refresh. Mine is a wireless one, no LED's on the keyboard. I do also hate laptops keyboards.
I have two IBM's PC-AT keyboards. Can't currently use 'em in my PC (no PS/2 ports), I agree they're awesome.
Don't forget to ask if their hi-def TV is far, far away from them. You have to be less than 10 feet away to really notice 1080p. I always joke that most people still believe TV's are radioactive, my parents always complained "you're too close, you'll get blind!".
Also, most people are simply unaware, the human brain is amazing reconstructing visual information. For example, I know someone who only realized how much detailed is HDTV when switching several times ESPN between lo-def and hi-def. Especially being able to read names and numbers on uniforms, not just being aware you know them.
No, MIDI doesn't suck, most MIDI songs do, GM is way too limited, and most patches/soundfont/DLS banks are too "small". Many Genesis, and PSX titles are basically MIDIs, for example, Shinobi 3 and Final Fantasy 7.
Second, the US SMS had a lame three channel sound chip, and yes, these songs in MIDI will suck. The Japanese SMS had an extra nine channel FM sound chip (inferior to the one in the Sega Genesis). Those MIDIs are actually nice.
Third, MegaMan was available on the GameGear, which is a SMS with more colors. (Ok, the game is awful, and the music is even worse). Also, there were MegaMan CPS arcade games, which have Q-Sound, MIDI-like renditions of the NES MegaMan songs. And it's available in miniQSF/Highly Quixotic format, although they're almost impossible to find.
You are right about MegaMan and Castlevania music, they're awesome. BTW, I highly recommend hearing Japanese Castlevania music instead of the USA/Europe ones. CastleVania I and II used the NES (or Famicom) floppy (FDS) which has extra sound hardware. Japanese Castlevania III cart (Akumajou Densetu) included a sound chip, the music is noticeable better than the USA/Europe one.
Unfortunately corn syrup doesn't taste as good as table sugar. That's why Coca Colas in Mexico are better, similar to the little, overpriced, "Christmas" ones in glass bottles.
Sugar might be poisonous also, when I was a kid I remember they burned down crops because it was the cheapest method. They also had to switch to a type of sugar cane more fire resistant, which was thinner, drier, and not that sweet. I miss real sugar canes, and really miss obtaining unprocessed sugar molasses.
I am on a temporary contract at a financial company, I let them check my credit report. Drug tests are common too. On many others, they check your driver's records, and make you sign where they ask if you have a criminal record. Every different recruiter will insist on meeting you personally.
For permanent jobs, some employers will want to get a psychological profile. Some disguise it as a personality test to identify your abilities. It's a great tool for supervisors, they can preemptively know if an employee have the skills to overtake them. They want to know your potential. I had one of these, in 1995. For example, the interviewer began to smoke, then asked "do you mind if I smoke?". Now they use web-based questions, similar of the ones at personals/dating sites.
And that's only discrimination of your life and physical appearance. Racial discrimination in the US is VERY common. (I am Hispanic, my name is Italian, still have a strong accent - not as bad as tech support people from India). Unfortunately, I can "sense" rejection during interviews. I have even seen how people's expressions change when I greet them and find out I am Hispanic.
There are infinite ways to get some of your information. Property information and tax returns are public records. Googling is great too. Few employers actually call references, but they will ask for them. I absolutely hate having my public information in resume sites, but, I have no choice.
I wonder when we'll begin to things like in the movie Gattaca, where a company could have DNA records of every employee. I remember a documentary of the Soviet side of Germany, they kept in storage personal items from spies so they could identify them by smell (this was before DNA tests were reliable).
I would have chosen something more reliable, although I don't think the problem was caused by Jet (storing wrong timestamps doesn't make any sense). Jet is not perfect, but it can handle small jobs, and probably it could have been made to handle voting machines also.
Assuming they has plenty of experience with Jet (or MS Access), there are many ways to avoid corrupting data. Jet hates when the network is disconnected, having too many indexes, keeping records locked, and of course blue-screens and power failures. A daily "compact and repair" is good, but doing it for the first time after something begins to act weird is really dangerous! A good database design is also necessary. I would have kept a local copy, kept a log, manage most data locally, make a daily backup, etc.
I unfortunately have worked with MS Access for 10 years, mostly small applications. I think at most I've had 25 users in Access 97 in a slow network, I never had corrupt data. I have corrupted things during the development process constantly. The undocumented SaveAsText and LoadFromtext are my friends.
Thinking of the voting process, it is mostly appending data, which Jet should have handled easily...
Why not pink ponies!? :( Actually in my nVidia 6600GT something in the 3D unit was cooked to death, and I even had the temp monitor on. When I installed Vista all I got was a giant unreadable psychedelic desktop. Now I have Direct3D off. :(
:(
For a millisecond, when I read "nVidia recall" - I saw hope.
I wonder how popular it would be if someone writes macro or addin that implements the old menu system! Microsoft Word does have help for WordPerfect, and Excel has a Lotus 1-2-3 help which explains or does the 1-2-3 slash menu commands.
/RFDT2 (Range, Format, Date, Time, option 2). Not as quick as Contrl+Shift+@ but I prefer learning logical stuff. 1-2-3 also had context sensitive help.
/?" displayed an error!
WordPerfect/DOS keystrokes made no sense, and you had to memorize them 'cause previous to version 5.1 for DOS it had no menu! Create a new document? F7, Y, N. (F7 is quit! the last "N" means "No" to Exit WP) F6=Bold, F8=Underline, Shift+F7=Print, F10=Save. Mr. Spock would have committed suicide rather to memorize these illogical commands.
I still think that Lotus 1-2-3 menu slash sequences are easier to work than many keyboard combinations in Excel. For example, formatting time in 1-2-3:
Geez... Those where the times when most software were not friendly. You had to use keyboard templates, no consistent keystrokes between applications (Microsoft DOS based editors used Copy=Control+Insert, most other text editors used Wordstar's Control+K+C, etc). Before DOS 5, it had no help at all, "Dir
Maybe it is too costly for Microsoft to dedicate resources for compatibility issues. It might be a nice way clean-up Win32... maybe anti-Wine? They probably knew people and companies won't jump ASAP to Vista (it happened to Win2k3 server), so, why they should care? Is Vista the Windows Me equivalent?
Actually most versions of Windows do a lot of compatibility checks and fixes, but it was because Microsoft wanted people to upgrade (I would say it was a long term plan to migrate everyone to NT). Win 95 was a Win 3.x upgrade, 2000/XP were Win 9x/Me upgrades. For example, Win95 did check for a lot of DOS device drivers - junk probably nobody used like ancient network drivers and weird tape drives.
If I had a product incompatible on Vista, probably Microsoft would blame me for doing stuff they have probably documented "it won't work", and probably also ask me why I didn't test it in all those Vista beta versions. It's a great opportunity for software companies to release new products (regardless of usefulness).
Anyway, they can slowly wait until XP becomes officially obsolete.
Absolutely... Too many kids writing stuff. They even skipped their history lessons.
Starglider II (Argonaut software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starglider_2 is the father of StarFox. Starfox is visually better and arcade-oriented. Starglider II had freedom, physics, and some kind of plot. Starglider II had also little things, like getting to close to the sun, seeing how the bomb got out your bay door (and how easy was to bump it), use the tractor beam on something larger than your ship, and watching the bouncing bomb. Maybe it was more surprising booting the same diskette on either the Amiga and Atari ST! (My guess it was pure 68000 code: no Blitter, no hardware line drawing in the Amiga)
NT4 has a faster Windows Explorer and Start menu. Probably because is not "web based", and you can't do some things on it like move Start menu items around. But it is very fast. I even used NT4's shell32 (and comdlg32) in Windows 2000 for a while. Until I accepted the fate of slowness. I still think the XP Start menu is slow. (w/o the useless delay, of course)
Someone wrote USB drivers for NT4. (I think I posted that here years ago). You can also install DirectX 5 beta (no hardware 3D, but some old cards had accelerated OpenGL drivers). There are probably too many updates after sp6a, and a lot of extra random stuff because a lot of servers ran NT4.
I remember when Microsoft was proud of their drop-down menus on Windows 3.0. It was really fast. Those times will never return, when speed was the priority, stupid useless fancy stuff was the last. Probably MS Bob was a preview of the doom of computing power. I still can't believe Windows includes a 70's-like Calculator running in a PC probably more powerful than a 70's supercomputer.
Kinda sounds like a sports drink ad, "Zweating in the Zune?". Zero plays for Sure? Alphabetic order maybe...? Vista, Windows, XBox, Y2K bug, Zune..?? Creative Zen killer? Who knows.
One stupid LED as a status? It's already USB! Why not also a little icon indicating charge status, how much power has left... Even maybe intelligent software to even tell how many seconds of gameplay I'll have my Sega GameGear! Ah.. USB. It reminds me when I saw the first USB speakers, I was amazed of how quicly computer technology has gone beyond prediction.. . Witnessing speakers crash! At least Windows 95 OSR2 somewhat tried to continue after a blue screen.
Actually, it would be cool if most devices could simply work with rechargable AAA batteries. Having different batteries for cameras, cellphones, portable game systems, mp3 players.. too much stupid cables everywhere. Maybe something more usable, like flat, square things, Lego-like. One of them to power a camera, maybe interconnect 5 to power a portable mp3-video player, or, interconnect 100 and a Dell laptop to celebrate the 4th of July!
It is something that had to be done long ago. Probably companies do not care, as long as the chip doesn't melt itself while it is on warranty, probably this is just to do better in benchmarks.
My nVidia 6600GT (not overclocked) somewhat fried itself, now anything 3D is FUBAR. I'm sure the fan did a really poor job. Now I have to find a way to set my GForce to behave exactly as most Intel Video Decelerators.