Kaspersky is so brilliant, it locks up every time I try to do anything with it.
Then again, my AVG hasn't updated properly all week...
You're not supposed to run them at the same time. They fight for control and eventually stalemate. Uninstall AVG and reinstall Kaspersky, but by now you may have damaged your system configuration. Kaspersky is pretty brutal if it gets unhinged, but it's unstoppable if you get it configured correctly.
It's because of security reports like this, I always recommend Kaspersky security suite over any other anti-virus solution available (free or otherwise). These guys are in the internet-trenches fighting for a more secure internet, and a more secure planet. It is widely known that they are the best in the business. So while many users will try and limp by on free anti-virus, Kaspersky just updated all my computers with protection against these attacks.
I will have to read some of George Lakoff's stuff now. Thanks for the info, and its strangely related to my sig... which was unintended yet still very fascinating to me.
Microsoft is not doing its job as looking after its investors interests if it does not pursue the employees involved for this.
This will be addressed in the next advertisement, as rumored all over the internet (starting here).
Jerry Seinfeld: "Bill -- what were you thinking?! You can't give away that secret to the OTHER GUY -- YOU GOTTA KEEP THAT FOR MSFT. What will the shareholders say?? They'll say that wasn't very fair of you, that what they'll say!"
Bill Gates: "They promised no one would find out."
Jerry Seinfeld: "This reminds me of when my Mom used to make me eat chicken soup. She'd say that it's an honest thing to eat chicken soup you paid for with your own money -- AND that's true, today, you know."
Bill Gates: "What?"
Jerry Seinfeld: "You gotta eat chicken soup, Bill. I know a guy who... here is the spot right here, let's go inside and we can eat, but you gotta do it simple, Bill -- just hand over the money and say the name of the soup. But that's all you can do. So, you hold out your money, speak your soup in a loud, clear voice, step to the left and receive...It's very important not embellish on your order. No extraneous comments. No questions. No compliments."
Bill Gates: "Okay."
Soup Nazi: "YES."
Bill Gates: "Uh... what's good today?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT!"
Bill Gates: "What do you recommend for someone who is having a bad day?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT! THIS NO 20 QUESTIONS. NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
It doesn't surprise me that smart, greed oriented, affluent people will make use of their talent for some extra money, at whatever the cost to the public (who are largely now all have-nots).
But what happens when pressure exceeds tolerance? When the have-nots have had the last straw? We throw down the yoke and fight for what is ours, which is that right to evolve, either technologically or financially without interruption from outside constraints.
This is a sticky situation with patents. Patents are really only relevant if you are intending to profit from your invention, which is why I like Open Source. If something is released to the public freely, and is allowed to grow and expand on its own merit, no patent can stop it. If no money is gained, no patent holder can sue for money gained. No patent holder can sue to prevent Open Source, because their act of downloading the software to examine it constitutes agreement with the license.
Even worse case scenario, if some asshat managed to convince a judge that their patent was valid and that an Open Source project was in violation, there really is no recourse.
Now if you find that after years of extensive work, that some asshat is suing you for patent violation, you can contact the EFF and fight it. They will help.
With all the ideas floating around, it only goes so far that someone would argue they had an original thought. I mean that really is a tough sell to any judge. Good luck with that.
You need someone to be willing to purchase something, before you can sell it. $15bil today is $1mil tomorrow. I still wouldn't sneeze at $1mil, but in a world where $15bil can erode to $1mil, that $1mil is gonna be gone pretty quick.
Quick, someone mail this article... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, what you said is funny, but seriously now I had to pitch using a free image suite to a customer who was kinda penny-pinching, and when I suggested that we "bring out the GIMP" the customer started laughing at me, and they became somewhat violent. I ducked the coffee she threw at me, but only after I explained (while dodging numerous other desk utensils) that GIMP stood for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" did the abuse dwindle.
And then she said, "What the hell does a GNU have to do with anything? You people are all fucking crazy!! ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!" And she had a coronary and passed out from too much bacon and eggs... cholesterol rich, fatty foods, apparently add up over the years.
Why couldn't they call it something like "Expensive Looking Free Graphics Suite" so like people could present it and be cheered for mentioning the product? The customer might have invited me to join her for a cup of coffee instead of hurl the damn thing at me. Although that tends to be reduced to "ELFGS" which sounds equally as annoying.
Let's have a name-fork of the project! I vote for the name "Rez". That way, I could say, "MRS. Customer, we have just what you need in the Rez project, a free graphics utility. I'm not sure what this GIMP project is you keep balking at, but the last guy who brought up that project is a fool. Go with our project instead and we'll use Rez. It sounds cooler."
Of course I'm joking around a little but apart from my exaggeration, this was the level of irritation expressed by said customer in regards to the GIMP moniker.
Shut the fuck up, or I'll fucking throw a fucking chair at you.
Oh I suppose I had that one coming. But just think about this for a second, Mr. Ballmer... would you like to be throwing a cardboard box (ie: your new office/home) -- or would you prefer to get your big fat fingers on a nice plush Italian leather chair? Your wealth is intimately linked with the act of listening to the public. We want change, now. Not spare change... we want a major course-correction, globally.
According to the article, it has to do with a lot more than smoking pot. Lexicon Branding typically uses well known and loved words, phrases and syllables, in trendy-sounding configurations, and I would stress that smoking pot in doing so would only help you reach that type of audience, and in most cases Lexicon's audience is much broader than that.
While Microsoft's next OS is kind of a "Ho-hum" name, one has only to look at what happened with the most recent Windows release to understand why Microsoft might have gone back to a tried-and-true naming philosophy: Vista? Ouch. Windows 95 and XP? Those have done much better.
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products. The only saving grace of XP is how terrible Vista was received by the public, so in comparison, XP looked much better. And how interesting this is to me because I remember how terrible XP was in the beginning. Vista is like Windows ME -- everyone will be happier when it goes away, and we'll all love Windows 7, as long as it's different than Vista. Unbind our hands, and open up the possibilities and you'll win us over. Stop fixing things that we like just because some restrictive group wants you to (RIAA, MPAA, FBI, CIA, DOJ...etc), and start fixing things we hate -- like how restrictive everything is in Vista.
Security has little to do with forcing us to click OK every ten seconds, because eventually that repetitive task will just happen without any consideration -- much like how EULA's are click-passed, and how nobody EVAR reads em. If you want to keep us secure, take a page from Linux and open up your OS to public scrutiny so that people can perfect it. What are you afraid of? Seriously. Who cares if we find out that you people at Microsoft haven't done any real work since 1990... we ALREADY KNOW THAT. You just keep repainting the same product and sending it out with a bunch of problems so we will all feel your pain and we will all buy into your anti-virus and special editions... your drive for future product updates. We know that you only borked Vista so that people would love XP... and it worked. We loved you again, but we loved the past MS. People aren't stupid... well at least not THAT stupid.
Although it looks like you think we are, especially because of those insane advertisements you have with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Are you nuts???
We also don't want to lose our life savings from lawsuits. Oh and while you're at it... take a close look at the stock market and remember that WE EMPLOY YOU, so you'd better do what we say MSFT or we'll employ someone else... it's only a matter of time, now that the incentive for free OS use is higher than ever!
You might joke around, but many believe that life is everywhere, we just have to open our eyes wide enough to see and understand it, in order to effectively exploit it for industry. Sadly no form of politics will be powerful enough to impose order on predisposed societies of creatures, at whatever perceived stage of evolution they may be in. You may as well try to impose martial law on cockroaches, or dolphins. Good luck with that.
Saturn could have life? Maybe in the future if we start exporting transforming technology there. I'm fairly certain that once we have established ourselves, there won't be any room left for anything else to thrive in its natural habitat.
Consider the fact that we eat/kill millions of chickens a day. How long do you think life on other planets will last if it tastes like chicken? And you know that EVERYTHING either tastes like chicken or it tastes like beef or it tastes like something inedible.
The only hope that ET will have is if he walks upright and can carry stuff (tools, supplies, materials) in our forced labor camps.
Seriously conflicted here. Addiction should never encompass anything that the bulk of society uses every day. I would imagine that the fundamental definition for any addiction should include a majority of negative repercussion, or at least that the addiction would cause the person's ultimate doom.
Look at alcoholism. Approximately 2% of alcoholics get Korsakoff's Syndrome, which ultimately destroys the person's sense of reality while Thiamine B6 is absent from the 3rd & 4th ventricle of the brain long enough for damage to erode/reconfigure brain cells. There is no parallel result in internet addiction, apart from mood swings and perhaps suicide attempts, but these are all mostly related to social mishaps online. Internet abuse does not cause anything like Korsakoff's.
Drug addiction, seems to all fit.
Alas, where a parallel could exist would be with sex addiction, although one could argue that the STD's cause your doom.
About the only thing Internet Addiction could cause is An Hero Syndrome (NSFW).
Medically, there could be serious degenerative disorders as a result of being fixated in one place for long periods of time, or perhaps dietary issues from eating and drinking the worst possible food in order to have more time online, but again that's all a bit of a stretch.
If I had to guess, I would say that the term Internet Addiction is a misnomer. This is more aptly that people who struggle to get back online crave attention because their own lives are sparse or deficient in areas of socialization, so they feel powerful online and therefore need it.
I think there is a long way to go on this subject and China's efforts, while interesting, are not quite there yet.
Yahoo was always built on a failed model. The only reason it survived for so long is that people in charge everywhere want to do business with the public and they believed in Yahoo (and in doing so they paid into a flawed system). I guess a fool and their money are soon parted, although I am certain that Yahoo people would be kicking themselves today with that lost opportunity. MSFT must be relieved they didn't buy Yahoo at $33/share.:P
Optoma is a globally leading projector manufacturer. They have varying product quality, and seem to have a very low rate of failure, on average. Bulbs are so expensive no matter what projector you buy, so make sure that if you decide to get one, the bulb doesn't look used or damaged.
This new sub-game called "CIA unlock" puts you in the shoes of a CIA agent attempting to gain access to a secure terrorist computer subsystem. The first 19 characters are given to you, but you need to randomly crack the last digit before the timer runs out and the game deletes your hard drive. If you win the game, you get to play again by pressing a reset button.
Rumors are circling from insiders at EA, that the next amazing title from EA will enable players to enter the shoes of Joe a shoe salesman from Kentucky. Joe has a problem. He can't find the right shoe for his fat smelly customer. Players will only be able to play if they purchase and install the F.O.U.L. hardware (FOUL stands for Fresh Olfactory Universal Layer.), and you get more points from actually smelling and withstanding more and more disgusting customers. The final boss of the game is a 700 pound woman that has never bathed, and who has developed nearly every possible degenerative skin condition. The game fills your house with something totally unbearable and if you can find her a pair of good shoes after she tries on about twenty or so different ones and tells you about her whole life history, then you get to have an achievement added to your online profile, aptly named the Bundy award, named after Married With Children's Al Bundy, a reputed shoe salesman with class and pinache. Pre-orders start tomorrow and EA expects massive sales on this amazing title, that is loaded with DRM that actually forces customers to perform lude acts with garden utensils for the purpose of cultivating data necessary for visual biometrics to prove the copy of the game is legit. EA denies that anyone who cracks the game will not be able to play, and a spokesperson from EA that shall remain nameless, went on record saying that customers would never play without FOUL hardware because they wouldn't have the benefit of the use of the FOUL hardware, which is revolutionary and next generation by design.
I was in the Apple store, asking a Genius why Ms. Pac-Man, which ran on an Atari 2600, is taking up almost 20 megabytes on my iPod Nano. He told me it's because they have to fit all those in-game sound effects into the download. Pure genius.
My guess would be 19.99megs of code for the hidden Atari 2600 emulator attached to it. Much of that would be spent on unused additional files, for numerous options and scenarios.
How much for the one you can use more than once? I would rather not have to float home, after making my first trip to hyperspace. Is there a DIY guide available?:P
I was probably thinking of Colecovision. VIC20 was just poorly designed and the Commodore 64s that replaced them were such an improvement.
Rockstar Games makes fun of the Colecovision and VIC20 games in their radio adverts in the GTA series of games. Because you too can be a red square killing a GREEN CUBE!!!! Don't let the GREEN CUBE win!
Was that a stock 99-4A or did you have the extended memory cartridge?
I had the 10 ton silver expansion box! 32k baby!!! It was the BEST!:) With the Speech Synthesizer to boot! Doc Watson makes me cry when I think about how much that thing cost me... right out of pocket too from my paper route!!
This particular code made use of CALL SPRITE, but also had the most advanced calls available. Man that brings back memories...
The cartridge was Extended Basic, which was totally elite at the time.:P
We were all designing color output, while the poor VIC-20 guys were still monochrome.
I still remember the text adventure, where if you type look up, a piano falls on your head. I think it was called Asylum or something? Man that is going way back to the summer of 1983, if memory serves.
I remember coding four pages from 99er, to make a little box go from one side of the screen to the other and change colors, while playing a midi tune. More serious business was the epic dungeon text adventures!
Now of course this would be nice to have on Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not supposed to run them at the same time. They fight for control and eventually stalemate. Uninstall AVG and reinstall Kaspersky, but by now you may have damaged your system configuration. Kaspersky is pretty brutal if it gets unhinged, but it's unstoppable if you get it configured correctly.
It's because of security reports like this, I always recommend Kaspersky security suite over any other anti-virus solution available (free or otherwise). These guys are in the internet-trenches fighting for a more secure internet, and a more secure planet. It is widely known that they are the best in the business. So while many users will try and limp by on free anti-virus, Kaspersky just updated all my computers with protection against these attacks.
I will have to read some of George Lakoff's stuff now. Thanks for the info, and its strangely related to my sig... which was unintended yet still very fascinating to me.
In before, "he bought the UID on ebay."
And, I wrote the sig myself. Thanks for the compliment! :)
I could embellish on the meaning of the sig, but I'll allow your subconscious to experience the fear which is why it's there in the first place.
This will be addressed in the next advertisement, as rumored all over the internet (starting here).
Jerry Seinfeld: "Bill -- what were you thinking?! You can't give away that secret to the OTHER GUY -- YOU GOTTA KEEP THAT FOR MSFT. What will the shareholders say?? They'll say that wasn't very fair of you, that what they'll say!"
Bill Gates: "They promised no one would find out."
Jerry Seinfeld: "This reminds me of when my Mom used to make me eat chicken soup. She'd say that it's an honest thing to eat chicken soup you paid for with your own money -- AND that's true, today, you know."
Bill Gates: "What?"
Jerry Seinfeld: "You gotta eat chicken soup, Bill. I know a guy who ... here is the spot right here, let's go inside and we can eat, but you gotta do it simple, Bill -- just hand over the money and say the name of the soup. But that's all you can do. So, you hold out your money, speak your soup in a loud, clear voice, step to the left and receive...It's very important not embellish on your order. No extraneous comments. No questions. No compliments."
Bill Gates: "Okay."
Soup Nazi: "YES."
Bill Gates: "Uh... what's good today?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT!"
Bill Gates: "What do you recommend for someone who is having a bad day?"
Soup Nazi: "WAT! THIS NO 20 QUESTIONS. NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
It doesn't surprise me that smart, greed oriented, affluent people will make use of their talent for some extra money, at whatever the cost to the public (who are largely now all have-nots).
But what happens when pressure exceeds tolerance? When the have-nots have had the last straw? We throw down the yoke and fight for what is ours, which is that right to evolve, either technologically or financially without interruption from outside constraints.
This is a sticky situation with patents. Patents are really only relevant if you are intending to profit from your invention, which is why I like Open Source. If something is released to the public freely, and is allowed to grow and expand on its own merit, no patent can stop it. If no money is gained, no patent holder can sue for money gained. No patent holder can sue to prevent Open Source, because their act of downloading the software to examine it constitutes agreement with the license.
Even worse case scenario, if some asshat managed to convince a judge that their patent was valid and that an Open Source project was in violation, there really is no recourse.
Now if you find that after years of extensive work, that some asshat is suing you for patent violation, you can contact the EFF and fight it. They will help.
With all the ideas floating around, it only goes so far that someone would argue they had an original thought. I mean that really is a tough sell to any judge. Good luck with that.
You need someone to be willing to purchase something, before you can sell it. $15bil today is $1mil tomorrow. I still wouldn't sneeze at $1mil, but in a world where $15bil can erode to $1mil, that $1mil is gonna be gone pretty quick.
Yes, what you said is funny, but seriously now I had to pitch using a free image suite to a customer who was kinda penny-pinching, and when I suggested that we "bring out the GIMP" the customer started laughing at me, and they became somewhat violent. I ducked the coffee she threw at me, but only after I explained (while dodging numerous other desk utensils) that GIMP stood for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" did the abuse dwindle.
And then she said, "What the hell does a GNU have to do with anything? You people are all fucking crazy!! ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!" And she had a coronary and passed out from too much bacon and eggs... cholesterol rich, fatty foods, apparently add up over the years.
Why couldn't they call it something like "Expensive Looking Free Graphics Suite" so like people could present it and be cheered for mentioning the product? The customer might have invited me to join her for a cup of coffee instead of hurl the damn thing at me. Although that tends to be reduced to "ELFGS" which sounds equally as annoying.
Let's have a name-fork of the project! I vote for the name "Rez". That way, I could say, "MRS. Customer, we have just what you need in the Rez project, a free graphics utility. I'm not sure what this GIMP project is you keep balking at, but the last guy who brought up that project is a fool. Go with our project instead and we'll use Rez. It sounds cooler."
Of course I'm joking around a little but apart from my exaggeration, this was the level of irritation expressed by said customer in regards to the GIMP moniker.
Oh I suppose I had that one coming. But just think about this for a second, Mr. Ballmer... would you like to be throwing a cardboard box (ie: your new office/home) -- or would you prefer to get your big fat fingers on a nice plush Italian leather chair? Your wealth is intimately linked with the act of listening to the public. We want change, now. Not spare change... we want a major course-correction, globally.
According to the article, it has to do with a lot more than smoking pot. Lexicon Branding typically uses well known and loved words, phrases and syllables, in trendy-sounding configurations, and I would stress that smoking pot in doing so would only help you reach that type of audience, and in most cases Lexicon's audience is much broader than that.
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products. The only saving grace of XP is how terrible Vista was received by the public, so in comparison, XP looked much better. And how interesting this is to me because I remember how terrible XP was in the beginning. Vista is like Windows ME -- everyone will be happier when it goes away, and we'll all love Windows 7, as long as it's different than Vista. Unbind our hands, and open up the possibilities and you'll win us over. Stop fixing things that we like just because some restrictive group wants you to (RIAA, MPAA, FBI, CIA, DOJ...etc), and start fixing things we hate -- like how restrictive everything is in Vista.
Security has little to do with forcing us to click OK every ten seconds, because eventually that repetitive task will just happen without any consideration -- much like how EULA's are click-passed, and how nobody EVAR reads em. If you want to keep us secure, take a page from Linux and open up your OS to public scrutiny so that people can perfect it. What are you afraid of? Seriously. Who cares if we find out that you people at Microsoft haven't done any real work since 1990... we ALREADY KNOW THAT. You just keep repainting the same product and sending it out with a bunch of problems so we will all feel your pain and we will all buy into your anti-virus and special editions... your drive for future product updates. We know that you only borked Vista so that people would love XP... and it worked. We loved you again, but we loved the past MS. People aren't stupid... well at least not THAT stupid.
Although it looks like you think we are, especially because of those insane advertisements you have with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Are you nuts???
We also don't want to lose our life savings from lawsuits. Oh and while you're at it... take a close look at the stock market and remember that WE EMPLOY YOU, so you'd better do what we say MSFT or we'll employ someone else... it's only a matter of time, now that the incentive for free OS use is higher than ever!
You might joke around, but many believe that life is everywhere, we just have to open our eyes wide enough to see and understand it, in order to effectively exploit it for industry. Sadly no form of politics will be powerful enough to impose order on predisposed societies of creatures, at whatever perceived stage of evolution they may be in. You may as well try to impose martial law on cockroaches, or dolphins. Good luck with that.
Saturn could have life? Maybe in the future if we start exporting transforming technology there. I'm fairly certain that once we have established ourselves, there won't be any room left for anything else to thrive in its natural habitat.
Consider the fact that we eat/kill millions of chickens a day. How long do you think life on other planets will last if it tastes like chicken? And you know that EVERYTHING either tastes like chicken or it tastes like beef or it tastes like something inedible.
The only hope that ET will have is if he walks upright and can carry stuff (tools, supplies, materials) in our forced labor camps.
No, not at all. Third Ventricle of the Human Brain. Fourth Ventricle of the Human Brain.
Thiamine is B1, I fudged that one up. FYI.
Seriously conflicted here. Addiction should never encompass anything that the bulk of society uses every day. I would imagine that the fundamental definition for any addiction should include a majority of negative repercussion, or at least that the addiction would cause the person's ultimate doom.
Look at alcoholism. Approximately 2% of alcoholics get Korsakoff's Syndrome, which ultimately destroys the person's sense of reality while Thiamine B6 is absent from the 3rd & 4th ventricle of the brain long enough for damage to erode/reconfigure brain cells. There is no parallel result in internet addiction, apart from mood swings and perhaps suicide attempts, but these are all mostly related to social mishaps online. Internet abuse does not cause anything like Korsakoff's.
Drug addiction, seems to all fit.
Alas, where a parallel could exist would be with sex addiction, although one could argue that the STD's cause your doom.
About the only thing Internet Addiction could cause is An Hero Syndrome (NSFW).
Medically, there could be serious degenerative disorders as a result of being fixated in one place for long periods of time, or perhaps dietary issues from eating and drinking the worst possible food in order to have more time online, but again that's all a bit of a stretch.
If I had to guess, I would say that the term Internet Addiction is a misnomer. This is more aptly that people who struggle to get back online crave attention because their own lives are sparse or deficient in areas of socialization, so they feel powerful online and therefore need it.
I think there is a long way to go on this subject and China's efforts, while interesting, are not quite there yet.
Yahoo was always built on a failed model. The only reason it survived for so long is that people in charge everywhere want to do business with the public and they believed in Yahoo (and in doing so they paid into a flawed system). I guess a fool and their money are soon parted, although I am certain that Yahoo people would be kicking themselves today with that lost opportunity. MSFT must be relieved they didn't buy Yahoo at $33/share. :P
It's worth watching.
Definitely not Taco.
In b4, "he bought that UID on ebay!!!"
Optoma is a globally leading projector manufacturer. They have varying product quality, and seem to have a very low rate of failure, on average. Bulbs are so expensive no matter what projector you buy, so make sure that if you decide to get one, the bulb doesn't look used or damaged.
This new sub-game called "CIA unlock" puts you in the shoes of a CIA agent attempting to gain access to a secure terrorist computer subsystem. The first 19 characters are given to you, but you need to randomly crack the last digit before the timer runs out and the game deletes your hard drive. If you win the game, you get to play again by pressing a reset button.
Rumors are circling from insiders at EA, that the next amazing title from EA will enable players to enter the shoes of Joe a shoe salesman from Kentucky. Joe has a problem. He can't find the right shoe for his fat smelly customer. Players will only be able to play if they purchase and install the F.O.U.L. hardware (FOUL stands for Fresh Olfactory Universal Layer.), and you get more points from actually smelling and withstanding more and more disgusting customers. The final boss of the game is a 700 pound woman that has never bathed, and who has developed nearly every possible degenerative skin condition. The game fills your house with something totally unbearable and if you can find her a pair of good shoes after she tries on about twenty or so different ones and tells you about her whole life history, then you get to have an achievement added to your online profile, aptly named the Bundy award, named after Married With Children's Al Bundy, a reputed shoe salesman with class and pinache. Pre-orders start tomorrow and EA expects massive sales on this amazing title, that is loaded with DRM that actually forces customers to perform lude acts with garden utensils for the purpose of cultivating data necessary for visual biometrics to prove the copy of the game is legit. EA denies that anyone who cracks the game will not be able to play, and a spokesperson from EA that shall remain nameless, went on record saying that customers would never play without FOUL hardware because they wouldn't have the benefit of the use of the FOUL hardware, which is revolutionary and next generation by design.
My guess would be 19.99megs of code for the hidden Atari 2600 emulator attached to it. Much of that would be spent on unused additional files, for numerous options and scenarios.
How much for the one you can use more than once? I would rather not have to float home, after making my first trip to hyperspace. Is there a DIY guide available? :P
I was probably thinking of Colecovision. VIC20 was just poorly designed and the Commodore 64s that replaced them were such an improvement.
Rockstar Games makes fun of the Colecovision and VIC20 games in their radio adverts in the GTA series of games. Because you too can be a red square killing a GREEN CUBE!!!! Don't let the GREEN CUBE win!
I had the 10 ton silver expansion box! 32k baby!!! It was the BEST! :) With the Speech Synthesizer to boot! Doc Watson makes me cry when I think about how much that thing cost me... right out of pocket too from my paper route!!
This particular code made use of CALL SPRITE, but also had the most advanced calls available. Man that brings back memories...
CALL COLOR, CALL CHAR, CALL SPRITE, CALL PATTERN, CALL MAGNIFY, CALL MOTION, CALL POSITION, CALL LOCATE, CALL DISTANCE, CALL COINC, and CALL DELSPRITE.
The cartridge was Extended Basic, which was totally elite at the time. :P
We were all designing color output, while the poor VIC-20 guys were still monochrome.
I still remember the text adventure, where if you type look up, a piano falls on your head. I think it was called Asylum or something? Man that is going way back to the summer of 1983, if memory serves.
I remember coding four pages from 99er, to make a little box go from one side of the screen to the other and change colors, while playing a midi tune. More serious business was the epic dungeon text adventures!
Now of course this would be nice to have on Linux.