"I have also been working on an idea where laptops are used. The central server is the ref's machine and everyone else uses their browser to move around in the game."
I was thinking of something similar, but using wifi enabled PDAs. Trouble is I quit playing RPGs more than 15 years ago... doh!
Whenever I learn to program in a new language or on a new device, first thing I think of is RPGs. I've written character generators for everything from the Commodore Vic 20 up through Java.
Most fun thing I ever made for RPGs was on the Commodore 64. Basically I took the randomization tables from the back of the AD&D (1st edition) DM's Guide and made a program that would spit out random dungeon crawl's. No fancy graphics or what not. Just stuff like "You are in a 60' corridor that runs north/south and ends in a door." North.
"You are standing before a door." Open. "You are looking into a 30' diameter, circular room. There are 15 kobolds here." It would step you through combat making all the rolls for the various characters.
It was pure text, but my friends and I had a blast sitting around the warm glow of the monitor hacking apart great hordes of beasties and carting off a virtual mountain of goodies with nary a DM in sight to rain on our parade of XP and excessive loot.
Then I started dating and eventually failed my saving throw vs. matrimony. I tried a couple times as an adult to play, but each time we managed to get together no more than twice before conflicting schedules broke up the game... And of course it was no where near as much fun as I remembered it...
Two competing technical ideas so that everyone can line up behind one or the other and argue which is better.
I'm really tired of seeing everyone here just politely agreeing with one another in such a single-minded way.
Ever since the debates over vi/emacs, linux/windows, tastes great/less filling, etc. were all settled, there just haven't been any good arguments here.
Dude, that was the one where it all starts to make sense!
You mean you never saw the epic battle between Anakin and Darth Jar Jar? One of the best sequences in ANY film EVER!
"Meesa gonna cut yousa, Annie! Meesa gonna cut yousa real good! Yousa not gonna see dat sun come out tomorrow! Yousa gonna feel the power of the dark side!"
Man that was cool. Then Darth Jar Jar KILLED Anakin and assumed his identity. Wicked. THAT's why Darth Vader wears that damned mask that filters his voice! Ep 5 would have sounded pretty weird if Vader had said, "Luke, meesa you fadder!" Ep 4 would have sucked if he had said "Meesa find yousa's lack of faith distoobin!"
The only thing more frightening than a "terminator" robot that hunts you down and kills you is a termineater robot that hunts you down, kills you and then EATS you.
I for one am perfectly happy to trade away a few of my rights for "scrotum protection".
As a matter of fact, I think it should be one of the PRIMARY tasks of the Bush Administration's second term to guarantee "scrotum protection". I would go so far as to suggest that had John Kerry focused more on the issue of "scrotum protection", then HE would be our new president elect.
I think it was the poet Ballsack who said "scrotal protection is one of the inalienable rights of man." And he meant MAN not PEOPLE. He probably said it French or something too.
I almost dropped out of college and enlisted back during the '80s. What stopped me was the most important semicolon of my life...
The Army Guarantee, guarantees IN WRITING the job of your choice; depending upon availability at the MEPS center at time of arival.
That isn't an exact quote (it was the '80s after all), but it is pretty darn close.
In other words the Army guarantees to give you whatever job they damned well choose.
I'm not opposed to the military at all, and had Sept. 11 just occurred, I would have definitely signed up. But at the time I decided that I wasn't willing to hang my future on that semicolon...
"Both of these toys are able to compete with video games - a true test of staying power." I don't think so. A Rubik's cube - maybe, but not for long. And a Gyroscope? No way can that hang tough with a video game. If you give a kid a Gryoscope and have him in the same county as a PS2, he'll play with the Gryoscope until he realizes that it only does one thing, then move on to the video games.
Oh! I know, I know!
How about a PS2 game that has a high res, 3D rendered gyroscope?!!
And you could use the gyroscope to kill people and steal their cars!
I listened to the first 17 minutes of the first file in their "World's Biggest Dungeon" game. The first 10 minutes is nothing but them coming up with a list of drinks and munchies for the game...
"Today the good professor warned that the fun bus could all come to a crashing halt in less than two years because of steady increases in everything that makes the Internet such a pain in the rear. Viruses, trojans, spam, and security flaws"
I predict that by the year 2006 "the good professor" will get fed up and quit using the internet. (cue weird theremin music -- http://www.thereminworld.com/)
"...it does prove that nerds are at the forefront once again!"
What it proves is that there are some people with some serious free-time on their hands...
There seems to be an inordinate focus on hack this, crack that, emulate the other and port an OS to the most outlandishly unlikely hardware possible. (Hey, look! I'm running OS/2 on my toaster!)
As a stunt this is really amazing.
As a project resulting in something useful, it is dubious at best.
I find myself in the same category. I'm just getting into PocketPC programming and my first thoughts are about emulators. Are we so lacking in imagination that we can't come up with any original ideas?
I guess the truth is that almost all the "low hanging fruit" has been picked, and now we must work much harder to come with an original idea. Shoulders of giants, etc, etc.
Just so I don't sound like too much of an old curmudgeon, I will say that it looks like these are students, and it is of course a great learning experience.
I think the game (and software in general) industry has striking parallels to the drug (legal kind) industry.
In both cases you have products that are prohibitively expensive to bring to the point of production and sales. Automobiles, for instance, I would imagine are the other way around. The parts and labor to produce automobiles account for the bulk of the manufacturer's cost for an individual vehicle. For drugs and software the vast bulk of the cost is design and development.
Right or wrong the legal philiosophy in the US is that since we all benefit from new drugs AND developing new drugs is expensive, the company who develops the new drug should have the right to be the exclusive producer of that drug for a specified period of time. In other words, no generics until the developer has recouped the development costs. After that period of time it becomes legal for anyone to make a generic version of the drug (but they do NOT gain the right to use the trademarked name).
The reasoning is that without this protection the drug companies would not spend the money to develop new drugs, but would concentrate solely on producing existing drugs as inexpensively as possible.
Please note that I am neither for nor against this model, I am simply describing it.
The makers of Devil Whiskey are attempting a business model that approximates the US drug indsutry model: the developer has exclusive rights to the code until a condition is met at which time they open the source. At that time anyone can produce a version of the game.
Their inspiration is clearly iD who has released the source to a number of games (Doom, Quake) after the technology used was sufficiently out of date that it was unlikely anyone could produce something from it that would detract from sales of their current products.
Whether or not this is the perfect system, I have to give the developers credit for trying to resolve the following logic problem:
It is difficult and expensive to create a computer game that can compete in the current games market
There is benefit to releasing source code
Fewer people are likely to pay for a game for which the source can be downloaded and compiled.
If you open the source, you might find someone else making more money from your work than you are.
A game that is the equivalent of Doom3 is very unlikely to arrise from the OS community because the number of person-hours required to produce it can only be divided among a finite number of people. The power of OS is that a greater number of people can potentially be recruited to divide those hours, but their are a few very LARGE "chunks" of hours that must essentially be done by a very small number of people. Think John Carmack creating the numerous game engines he has produced. Could those engines have been effectively done by a group? Maybe, but how about a group working part time? If they could produce it, how long would it take?
Dedicated teams who eat, breathe and don't sleep the game development during the "crunch time" that can last months or even years have trouble getting to market before their "cutting edge technology" becomes "formerly cutting edge technology"...
Can't say this model will work, but kudos to the developers for trying SOMETHING.
"Think of going hiking with some buddies, and even if your seperated, if you've all got bluetooth, you can still stay in communication."
If you are within BlueTooth(TM) distance, wouldn't you also be within shouting distance? Or are we assuming deaf hikers here? Of course most small device BlueTooth(TM) range is around 30 feet or so, so they should be able to see one another as well. Unless they are blind as well as deaf. In which case I'm not sure how they will use the UI.
I'd recommend that said blind/deaf hikers simply use rope to tie themselves together.
My vote goes to XM. I've been a listener for over a year now and I love it. I primarily picked them because they had way more subscribers, and I wanted to minimize the risk of paying a few hundred dollars for equipment and then have the company fold leaving me with useless junk.
For a while some of the music stations had commercials, then early this year they switched to a plan where the MUSIC stations have no ads. Sure, Sirius was doing that first, but what do I care? I was just glad XM copied that idea.
From the CNET article I couldn't tell if they will be streaming their current broadcasts or what.
Again, Sirius has been doing that, but they ALREADY charge a few dollars more a month than XM.
Will I pay the extra $4 a month for internet streaming? I don't know.
I currently have a Delphi unit that I can dock in my car or office. Two problems: 1) I have a "home" docking kit at work and it is a pain in the neck (and back and legs and shoulders) to crawl under my desk to unplug the power cord then wrap up the antenna cord, etc to move it. I'll probably just get the boombox eventually for home use. 2) My office is mostly below ground so my reception can be spotty. I'm actually receiving a bounced terrestrial signal, so it is pretty weak. I usually get in pretty early and I get perfect reception until everyone else shows up and start firing up monitors, etc. Long about 9-10 am I have to wiggle and fiddle with the antenna to keep the signal. I actually have a pretty good mental map of the EM fields in my office now... I'm like a riverboat pilot navigating through the rocks.
As for which service plays the best music... that totally depends on what music you think is good. We all have our opinions about what is good music, so that really boils down to a personal decision. I personally like the clasic country (a big "salute" to Nrray, Kilroy and Catfish -- the Hank's Place guys *might* remember me as ShiftKicker from the whole episode where Tigger went off the deep end...), jazz and international stations on XM, but find the rock stations lacking a little. I have listened to the freeby Sirius streams on the net and pretty well found it to be the opposite. I didn't care for their country selections, but really liked their eclectic rock station... If you like hip hop, rap or urban (other than Motown and occassional funk) I can't help you. Not my bag...
On the non-musical side of things, I really, really like several of the XM stations. Particularly XMPR (the new XM Public Radio -- guilt free, since I pay monthly... and I'm really happy that Bob Edwards will be debuting there next month), Radio Classics, Sonic Theatre and CNN. Good stuff. I have a long, ugly commute and I find that radio drama is just the ticket for taking the edge off.
I know I'm one of probably three/.ers that like country music, but I have to give credit to a few shows on XM that are outstanding. One is Chartistry. They compile a show of top hits all built around a different theme each time. Their Johnny Cash show was amazing. Another show I love is Bill Anderson Visits With The Legends. Bill is a great singer/songwriter himself and a former DJ who is really good at getting legendary performers to open up and tell great stories. They play songs they are discussing. Just great! Nrray does a really good morning show. Never thought someone from New Jersey would have a great country show, but he does. He also does a couple other cool shows like Outlaw America. A couple weeks ago he played all Dwight Yoakam and it rocked.
One last thing... Hank's Place is nuts... in a good way. They basically roleplay (to use a word/.ers will identify with...) on air that Hank's Place is a Texas honkey tonk that never closes. Lots of people call in and go along with the conceit. Occassionally they have "story arcs" that last from day to day. One listener who goes by "Tigger" threatened to shoot down the warplane of another listener and then everyone chose up sides! This lasted for two or three days and was a hoot.
OK, if that doesn't give you an idea what XM is like, then I'm sorry I wasn't long winded enough!
Does anyone know of any hacks/projects/products for hooking a gamepad of some sort to a PocketPC?
I've been looking at the Tapwave Zodiac for some time, but the current development environment is fairly hostile to hobby developers which is where most emulation dev work occurs... Before I get flamed by the Tapwave faithful let me explain: 1) although it is possible to use an open source tool chain, it is pretty difficult to get everything working together (Tapwave targeted Code Warrior because at the time that was what Palm was targeting), 2) they want their machine to be a gameing console so they incorporated digital rights management that limits what you can distribute (you have to get your app signed before you can distribute it) and 3) until recently they refused to sign apps that were GPL for fear they would have to open their proprietary source. You can run straight up Palm OS programs on the Zod, but they can't use the stick, accelerated graphics, etc.
On top of that many users have reported dissatisfaction with the analog stick. Aside from possible calibration problems, it would seem the consensus seems to be that it is great for 3D games, but not so great for emulated games that originally ran on digital pads.
Any way, I've been searching for an alternative... seems to me there should be a gamepad of some sort that works well with the Pocket PC. Now that Dell has gotten into the game there are some good prices on pretty fast PPCs...
Just curious if anyone knows of anything or is working on anything...
Having knocked the Zod I feel compelled to mention the Little John Z which by all accounts is an excellent emulator for the Zod.
Keep in mind when Microsoft or Gates give "money" to someone, a large part of that "money" is actually licenses for Microsoft products, not currency. They tally up the MSRP of the products and count that as money...
"School isn't about ``socialization'', it's about free babysitting so mama and papa can both work to get all the little luxuries that are obviously more important than the kids."
Stuff like robotic kitchens and alarm clocks that don't wake you up until, uh, you wake up...
I'm assuming I can download different personality "skins" into my robots? This week I think I'll have the current reigning Iron Chef fixing my dinner while Bill Gates vacuums the living room!
So I go to the toilet and it critiques my, uh, output... Next thing I know it's gotten together with the "smart" refrigerator and kitchen robots to plan an "intervention".
The "Emeril" bot corners me in the bedroom with a big box of "Tasty Bran Bites" and tells me "Resistance is futile. BAM!"
If I had moderator points today I would mod this one up (parent message of this reply for those keeping score at home). Pessimistic (from the OSS point of view), but fair and insightful.
Free-as-in-freedom is worth much more than free-as-in-beer, but it does come with costs. ALL freedom comes with costs...
Like everything else in life, we must pick our battles. As much as I value the ideals of free-as-in-freedom software, I am also pragmatic enough to know that my TIME is worth something, and I must pick and choose the places where I am willing to trade time for freedom or freedom for time.
"you can always fall back on guest appearances from characters from shows that had good writers."
We could have a different set of guest stars each week. The Enterprise could always be heading for Riser (or however the hell you spell that vacation/prostitution planet -- and do take note that I am trying to be mildly funny, so don't post the correct spelling -- and, yes, I realize it isn't very funny at all -- you should probably hit the back button or mod me out of existence or something). You have GOT to have a bartender named Isaac, though. That Vulcan chick (what's her name? Tupac? Tupelo? Tupperware?) could be the entertainment director. Come to think of it the best Isaac would be that freaky alien cook from Voyager.. Nihilist!
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I was thinking of something similar, but using wifi enabled PDAs. Trouble is I quit playing RPGs more than 15 years ago... doh!
Whenever I learn to program in a new language or on a new device, first thing I think of is RPGs. I've written character generators for everything from the Commodore Vic 20 up through Java.
Most fun thing I ever made for RPGs was on the Commodore 64. Basically I took the randomization tables from the back of the AD&D (1st edition) DM's Guide and made a program that would spit out random dungeon crawl's. No fancy graphics or what not. Just stuff like "You are in a 60' corridor that runs north/south and ends in a door." North. "You are standing before a door." Open. "You are looking into a 30' diameter, circular room. There are 15 kobolds here." It would step you through combat making all the rolls for the various characters.
It was pure text, but my friends and I had a blast sitting around the warm glow of the monitor hacking apart great hordes of beasties and carting off a virtual mountain of goodies with nary a DM in sight to rain on our parade of XP and excessive loot.
Then I started dating and eventually failed my saving throw vs. matrimony. I tried a couple times as an adult to play, but each time we managed to get together no more than twice before conflicting schedules broke up the game... And of course it was no where near as much fun as I remembered it...
Two competing technical ideas so that everyone can line up behind one or the other and argue which is better.
I'm really tired of seeing everyone here just politely agreeing with one another in such a single-minded way.
Ever since the debates over vi/emacs, linux/windows, tastes great/less filling, etc. were all settled, there just haven't been any good arguments here.
Dude, that was the one where it all starts to make sense!
You mean you never saw the epic battle between Anakin and Darth Jar Jar? One of the best sequences in ANY film EVER!
"Meesa gonna cut yousa, Annie! Meesa gonna cut yousa real good! Yousa not gonna see dat sun come out tomorrow! Yousa gonna feel the power of the dark side!"
Man that was cool. Then Darth Jar Jar KILLED Anakin and assumed his identity. Wicked. THAT's why Darth Vader wears that damned mask that filters his voice! Ep 5 would have sounded pretty weird if Vader had said, "Luke, meesa you fadder!" Ep 4 would have sucked if he had said "Meesa find yousa's lack of faith distoobin!"
The only thing more frightening than a "terminator" robot that hunts you down and kills you is a termineater robot that hunts you down, kills you and then EATS you.
You do whatever you want to do, but I for one am NEVER, EVER going to play an RPG that wasn't THOROUGHLY tested on animals.
Using a DDOS on spammers is kind of like sending an arsonist to burn down the house of a murderer...
They can take my scrotum when they pry it from my cold dead hands!!!
As a matter of fact, I think it should be one of the PRIMARY tasks of the Bush Administration's second term to guarantee "scrotum protection". I would go so far as to suggest that had John Kerry focused more on the issue of "scrotum protection", then HE would be our new president elect.
I think it was the poet Ballsack who said "scrotal protection is one of the inalienable rights of man." And he meant MAN not PEOPLE. He probably said it French or something too.
I'm guessing his name is Albert Orville Lewis, and he always signs his cards with his initials: AOL. Man I've been getting this guy's CDs for YEARS.
The Army Guarantee, guarantees IN WRITING the job of your choice; depending upon availability at the MEPS center at time of arival.
That isn't an exact quote (it was the '80s after all), but it is pretty darn close.
In other words the Army guarantees to give you whatever job they damned well choose.
I'm not opposed to the military at all, and had Sept. 11 just occurred, I would have definitely signed up. But at the time I decided that I wasn't willing to hang my future on that semicolon...
[From original article]"He said an attendant would retrieve shot animals for the shooters,"
See Dick. See Jane. See Jane see Dick on the internet.
"Look Jane! A deer! Look, look!"
See Jane see Dick click the mouse. See Dick see the gun go BANG!
"Look Jane! A dead deer! Look, look!"
"Look Jane! An attendant! Look, look!"
See Jane see Dick click the mouse. See Dick see the gun go BANG!
"Look Jane! A dead attendant! Look, look!"
"Dick you disgust me." See Jane revile Dick. Jane is a vegan.
"But Jane, hunting (for humans) is about honoring that animal (or person)."
Run, Jane! Run!
Oh! I know, I know!
How about a PS2 game that has a high res, 3D rendered gyroscope?!!
And you could use the gyroscope to kill people and steal their cars!
I listened to the first 17 minutes of the first file in their "World's Biggest Dungeon" game. The first 10 minutes is nothing but them coming up with a list of drinks and munchies for the game...
I predict that by the year 2006 "the good professor" will get fed up and quit using the internet. (cue weird theremin music -- http://www.thereminworld.com/)
Why dost thou wish to get one of me airborne?
What it proves is that there are some people with some serious free-time on their hands...
There seems to be an inordinate focus on hack this, crack that, emulate the other and port an OS to the most outlandishly unlikely hardware possible. (Hey, look! I'm running OS/2 on my toaster!)
As a stunt this is really amazing.
As a project resulting in something useful, it is dubious at best.
I find myself in the same category. I'm just getting into PocketPC programming and my first thoughts are about emulators. Are we so lacking in imagination that we can't come up with any original ideas?
I guess the truth is that almost all the "low hanging fruit" has been picked, and now we must work much harder to come with an original idea. Shoulders of giants, etc, etc.
Just so I don't sound like too much of an old curmudgeon, I will say that it looks like these are students, and it is of course a great learning experience.
In both cases you have products that are prohibitively expensive to bring to the point of production and sales. Automobiles, for instance, I would imagine are the other way around. The parts and labor to produce automobiles account for the bulk of the manufacturer's cost for an individual vehicle. For drugs and software the vast bulk of the cost is design and development.
Right or wrong the legal philiosophy in the US is that since we all benefit from new drugs AND developing new drugs is expensive, the company who develops the new drug should have the right to be the exclusive producer of that drug for a specified period of time. In other words, no generics until the developer has recouped the development costs. After that period of time it becomes legal for anyone to make a generic version of the drug (but they do NOT gain the right to use the trademarked name).
The reasoning is that without this protection the drug companies would not spend the money to develop new drugs, but would concentrate solely on producing existing drugs as inexpensively as possible.
Please note that I am neither for nor against this model, I am simply describing it.
The makers of Devil Whiskey are attempting a business model that approximates the US drug indsutry model: the developer has exclusive rights to the code until a condition is met at which time they open the source. At that time anyone can produce a version of the game.
Their inspiration is clearly iD who has released the source to a number of games (Doom, Quake) after the technology used was sufficiently out of date that it was unlikely anyone could produce something from it that would detract from sales of their current products.
Whether or not this is the perfect system, I have to give the developers credit for trying to resolve the following logic problem:
- It is difficult and expensive to create a computer game that can compete in the current games market
- There is benefit to releasing source code
- Fewer people are likely to pay for a game for which the source can be downloaded and compiled.
- If you open the source, you might find someone else making more money from your work than you are.
A game that is the equivalent of Doom3 is very unlikely to arrise from the OS community because the number of person-hours required to produce it can only be divided among a finite number of people. The power of OS is that a greater number of people can potentially be recruited to divide those hours, but their are a few very LARGE "chunks" of hours that must essentially be done by a very small number of people. Think John Carmack creating the numerous game engines he has produced. Could those engines have been effectively done by a group? Maybe, but how about a group working part time? If they could produce it, how long would it take?Dedicated teams who eat, breathe and don't sleep the game development during the "crunch time" that can last months or even years have trouble getting to market before their "cutting edge technology" becomes "formerly cutting edge technology"...
Can't say this model will work, but kudos to the developers for trying SOMETHING.
If you are within BlueTooth(TM) distance, wouldn't you also be within shouting distance? Or are we assuming deaf hikers here? Of course most small device BlueTooth(TM) range is around 30 feet or so, so they should be able to see one another as well. Unless they are blind as well as deaf. In which case I'm not sure how they will use the UI.
I'd recommend that said blind/deaf hikers simply use rope to tie themselves together.
Here ends my lame attempt at humor...
For a while some of the music stations had commercials, then early this year they switched to a plan where the MUSIC stations have no ads. Sure, Sirius was doing that first, but what do I care? I was just glad XM copied that idea.
From the CNET article I couldn't tell if they will be streaming their current broadcasts or what.
Again, Sirius has been doing that, but they ALREADY charge a few dollars more a month than XM.
Will I pay the extra $4 a month for internet streaming? I don't know.
I currently have a Delphi unit that I can dock in my car or office. Two problems: 1) I have a "home" docking kit at work and it is a pain in the neck (and back and legs and shoulders) to crawl under my desk to unplug the power cord then wrap up the antenna cord, etc to move it. I'll probably just get the boombox eventually for home use. 2) My office is mostly below ground so my reception can be spotty. I'm actually receiving a bounced terrestrial signal, so it is pretty weak. I usually get in pretty early and I get perfect reception until everyone else shows up and start firing up monitors, etc. Long about 9-10 am I have to wiggle and fiddle with the antenna to keep the signal. I actually have a pretty good mental map of the EM fields in my office now... I'm like a riverboat pilot navigating through the rocks.
As for which service plays the best music... that totally depends on what music you think is good. We all have our opinions about what is good music, so that really boils down to a personal decision. I personally like the clasic country (a big "salute" to Nrray, Kilroy and Catfish -- the Hank's Place guys *might* remember me as ShiftKicker from the whole episode where Tigger went off the deep end...), jazz and international stations on XM, but find the rock stations lacking a little. I have listened to the freeby Sirius streams on the net and pretty well found it to be the opposite. I didn't care for their country selections, but really liked their eclectic rock station... If you like hip hop, rap or urban (other than Motown and occassional funk) I can't help you. Not my bag...
On the non-musical side of things, I really, really like several of the XM stations. Particularly XMPR (the new XM Public Radio -- guilt free, since I pay monthly... and I'm really happy that Bob Edwards will be debuting there next month), Radio Classics, Sonic Theatre and CNN. Good stuff. I have a long, ugly commute and I find that radio drama is just the ticket for taking the edge off.
I know I'm one of probably three /.ers that like country music, but I have to give credit to a few shows on XM that are outstanding. One is Chartistry. They compile a show of top hits all built around a different theme each time. Their Johnny Cash show was amazing. Another show I love is Bill Anderson Visits With The Legends. Bill is a great singer/songwriter himself and a former DJ who is really good at getting legendary performers to open up and tell great stories. They play songs they are discussing. Just great! Nrray does a really good morning show. Never thought someone from New Jersey would have a great country show, but he does. He also does a couple other cool shows like Outlaw America. A couple weeks ago he played all Dwight Yoakam and it rocked.
One last thing... Hank's Place is nuts... in a good way. They basically roleplay (to use a word /.ers will identify with...) on air that Hank's Place is a Texas honkey tonk that never closes. Lots of people call in and go along with the conceit. Occassionally they have "story arcs" that last from day to day. One listener who goes by "Tigger" threatened to shoot down the warplane of another listener and then everyone chose up sides! This lasted for two or three days and was a hoot.
OK, if that doesn't give you an idea what XM is like, then I'm sorry I wasn't long winded enough!
I've been looking at the Tapwave Zodiac for some time, but the current development environment is fairly hostile to hobby developers which is where most emulation dev work occurs... Before I get flamed by the Tapwave faithful let me explain: 1) although it is possible to use an open source tool chain, it is pretty difficult to get everything working together (Tapwave targeted Code Warrior because at the time that was what Palm was targeting), 2) they want their machine to be a gameing console so they incorporated digital rights management that limits what you can distribute (you have to get your app signed before you can distribute it) and 3) until recently they refused to sign apps that were GPL for fear they would have to open their proprietary source. You can run straight up Palm OS programs on the Zod, but they can't use the stick, accelerated graphics, etc.
On top of that many users have reported dissatisfaction with the analog stick. Aside from possible calibration problems, it would seem the consensus seems to be that it is great for 3D games, but not so great for emulated games that originally ran on digital pads.
Any way, I've been searching for an alternative... seems to me there should be a gamepad of some sort that works well with the Pocket PC. Now that Dell has gotten into the game there are some good prices on pretty fast PPCs...
Just curious if anyone knows of anything or is working on anything...
Having knocked the Zod I feel compelled to mention the Little John Z which by all accounts is an excellent emulator for the Zod.
Keep in mind when Microsoft or Gates give "money" to someone, a large part of that "money" is actually licenses for Microsoft products, not currency. They tally up the MSRP of the products and count that as money...
Stuff like robotic kitchens and alarm clocks that don't wake you up until, uh, you wake up...
I'm assuming I can download different personality "skins" into my robots? This week I think I'll have the current reigning Iron Chef fixing my dinner while Bill Gates vacuums the living room!
So I go to the toilet and it critiques my, uh, output... Next thing I know it's gotten together with the "smart" refrigerator and kitchen robots to plan an "intervention".
The "Emeril" bot corners me in the bedroom with a big box of "Tasty Bran Bites" and tells me "Resistance is futile. BAM!"
Free-as-in-freedom is worth much more than free-as-in-beer, but it does come with costs. ALL freedom comes with costs...
Like everything else in life, we must pick our battles. As much as I value the ideals of free-as-in-freedom software, I am also pragmatic enough to know that my TIME is worth something, and I must pick and choose the places where I am willing to trade time for freedom or freedom for time.
Would that be Darth Darl?
We could have a different set of guest stars each week. The Enterprise could always be heading for Riser (or however the hell you spell that vacation/prostitution planet -- and do take note that I am trying to be mildly funny, so don't post the correct spelling -- and, yes, I realize it isn't very funny at all -- you should probably hit the back button or mod me out of existence or something). You have GOT to have a bartender named Isaac, though. That Vulcan chick (what's her name? Tupac? Tupelo? Tupperware?) could be the entertainment director. Come to think of it the best Isaac would be that freaky alien cook from Voyager.. Nihilist!