Here in Toronto I can get 256Mb Comapct Flash card (Sandisk) for $85 and a 256Mb Secure Digital card (Lexar) for about $95 so there isn't that big of a price difference. Oddly though, when you move to a 512Mb card, the CF costs less than *half* what the SD costs ($175 vs. $425). To further illustrate the difference, you can get a 1Gb CF card for $325 and as far as I know, there are no 1Gb SD cards on the market at any price.
I know that SD cards are physically smaller than CF cards and smaller is usually more expensive but this seems excessive. I can only assume that the price differential is attributable to the greater demand for Compact Flash cards (scales of economy and all that). Perhaps this will change in time.
The fact that we're complaining about the price (which is quite reasonable in the big scheme of things) suggests that we might be spoiled. No matter how you square it, a PDA with 32Mb of RAM and 256Mb or more of storage is very impressive.
Now, if I could only decidce if I should buy a new PDA or a new phone or a combo device. I'm looking downright retro with my Palm IIIc and Nokia 5100 series phone. Teenagers are laughing at me (which may or may not have anything to do with my inferior devices, but I digress).
It's great that all these old (and not so old, I guess it's relative) computers are being collected but I was struck by a thought when reading the article and looking at the pictures.
None of these computers are running.
It's nice to have the hardware on display but I think an important part of showing the history is having them operational with their original operating systems. I've been to aviation and automotive museums and a large part of what they do is restore the aircraft and cars to their original working state. They may not fly/drive them often but if it doesn't fly/drive, well, you may as well have a photograph. I feel the same way about these old computers.
I'm reminded of a line I saw in Usenet once:
It isn't a computer if all it does is reactive passively to the Earth's magnetic pull and displace its own weight when submerged in water.
I patiently await the suggestion that all those comptuers be turned into a Beowful cluster...
$50 for 3.5Mb/800Kb per second? That's remarkably good. The best deal I've been able to swing is 3Mb/768Kb for a little under $100 and that's through a friend. The regular price is about $180 from what I understand.
Where are you getting this great deal? If their connectivity is even remotely decent, I would love to get in on that deal.
Lets see, I have to boycott Disney and all things related (which will be really tough if they ever release the new Tron), everything and anything that has to do with SCO and now Battlestar Galactica?
Geez. It's getting hard to keep track of everything I have to boycoot to be a good little geek.
Bonus hint: Did you know that if you speak into the back of a fan you sound just like a Cylon? (It's late and I'm slightly delerious, forgive me.)
I use my real name because I couldn't come up with anything remotely as offbeat as my given name. Perhaps my parents thought they were playing the child-rearing RPG? I know my father thought of my mother's mother as a "boss monster".
Bonus odd but true story:
I played Zelda on the SNES in the early nineties and as I said above, I used my real name. When I was done, I sold the game to a video game store. A few years ago I got nostalgic so I went to a used game store and bought a used copy of Zelda to replay. Ready for the weird part?
When I got home and popped the cartridge in, there were two different names in slot 1 and 2 but my name was in slot 3. And in case you're thinking this isn't so weird, I didn't buy the game from the same store I sold it to. The stores were in opposite ends of the city.
I installed Panther on my iBook last week and everything worked fine although I had a few iChatAV and Safari crashes (I don't think Safari is ready but they wanted something to release at the WWDC). I then installed it on my Power Macintosh (dual G4 450MHz aka "gigabit ethernet") and everything worked fine except the ethernet. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the networking up. I'm going to see if I can get m friend to try it on his Powerbook (which also has gigabit ethernet) to narrow down the problem.
The only other odd thing was that I couldn't find the drive/folder encrytion feature. It was talked about at the WWDC but not shown and I don't believe it has been implemented yet. Oddly, GNU Chess was also missing. I grabbed the source code from Apple and used the new XCode to compile it and it worked flawlessly. XCode is great. Two clicks and I had a working binary. Very nicely integrated and well thought out. Kudos to Apple.
Bugs aside, Panther is an improvement. The only reservation I have is that Apple expects users to shell out another $129 to get it. Yearly OS updates at $129 are not going to be popular. I know Apple spends a lot on OS development but if they keep going back to the same well, the well will run dry.
It's slightly off-topic but I figured that if you're reading this thread and feeling nostalgic about Intellivision, you might be interested to know that the original developers have set up shop online and are selling emulators and games. You can learn more here.
Be forewarned though, playing those games will shatter your fond memories. You really are much better getting MAME and playing the arcade versions which hold up a little better.
I found out about Linaire yesterday and when I visited their site and checked out their PC, the picture at the top of the page was an Apple Powermac (honest!). When I went back today, I noticed the picture had been changed. I wish to hell I had taken a screenshot because I'm sure nobody will believe me. I remember thinking, "If that's what they're going to sell me for $200, I better cash in my retirement savings."
On a more serious note, I'm all for inexpensive PCs but Linaire is a little too light on the details about their hardware and software. I'm afraid I'll have to put them in my 'I will believe it when I see it" file.
I did some searching but couldn't find an OS X port of FCE Ultra. Can you point me in the right direction? I don't mind RockNES but I would like to have something to compare it to. TIA.
My Japanese girlfriend (29 years old, has been in Canada less than two years) and her brother (25, also newly arrived from Japan) both love GTA3. In fact, they like it better than all my other games (on any platform). He plays the game in the intended fashion, doing missions and generally causing mayhem while she enjoys driving around looking at the scenery and looking for packages. Heck, she even stops at lights and comes to a full stop before turning.
I don't usually go in for violent games but GTA3 has a certain charm and it is one of the most playable games I have ever encountered. I imagine that the Japanese market will react the same way everyone else in the world reacted to GTA3 -- they'll buy millions of copies.
I use an iBook so screen real estate and memory are at a premium. I would prfer to have a single window with tabs rather than multiple windows. I had never seen tabs in action until Apple added them to Safari and now I can't live without them. What I like best is that you can see what's open in each tab without having to look to the Window menu. Screen is great but I'm often connected to multiple systems with screen running remotely and I hate having to use nested ctrl-a a sequences. As long as I'm babbling away like we're in comp.sys.mac.misc, I would love to have a full-screen mode. Not being able to go full-screen with a terminal is just wrong, Sure, you can login to the console but then you can't start up Aqua (or X for that matter, which is silly). Let's just hope that Apple doesn't consider Terminal to be finished.
Ah. I operate without a scrollback buffer so I don't get the scrollbar ergo I don't get the little widget. I just tried it and it split the screen but the behaviour was very odd. It doesn't appear to be two seperate terminal windows but a way to view things that have already scrolled off the screen. Strange. At any rate, Terminal.app still isn't the greatest but for now, it's the one I like most. I just wish Apple would improve the speed and add some tabs. That would be just great.
It seems to me that the definition of rich is relative. You are saying that you aren't rich but perhaps a more accurate statement might be that you don't 'feel rich'. The $27,000 (I'm assuming US dollars) you made (after taxes) last year is considerably more than many of your fellow citizens made. To the millions living below the poverty line and unable to afford the bare necessities, one who can afford to purcahse a Powerbook, a GPS, a cell phone, an iPod and a camera is indeed rich. To those living in the third world who last year made and lived on less than you spent on your iPod, you're filthy rich.
The original statement that only rich people have PDAs is accurate, albeit some pedantic. All of us who have the luxury of reading Slashdot ARE rich. I'm not picking on you and I thnk that the fasion in which you spend the money you earn is entirely your business but please, understand that the majority of people on this planet are not living as well as you are.
Bonk's Adventure and Hudson's Adventure Island were great games but what really caught my eye in his article was this:
The series is set to debut in Japan on July 10 with the release of two games: Star Soldier and Cubic Lode Runner.
Cubic Lode Runner? What is that? I've loved Lode Runner from the first moment I played it and I've owned just about every version ever released but I've never heard of Cubic Lode Runner. The world needs more Lode Runner.
By the way, if you're a fan of the game, you'll enjoy the Lode Runner Archive.
Does it bother you that you have a Powerbook which is perfectly capable of running OS X but Apple decided NOT to support the hardware DVD decoder and to make things worse, they have actively supressed the information that would make it possible for a third party to write a driver.
The Cinemaster DVD decoder in your Powerbook is useless under OS X (and Linux, may I add). I don't mind Apple end-of-lining products but going out of their way to force customers to purchase newer hardware is unforgivable.
PS- I don't have a Lombard but a good friend does and I feel his pain (as well as having to listen to his rants on this subject).
A search for 'paradroid' came up empty. Perhaps the game / company / person is not in our database, or perhaps there was a typo in the search. The quick search only searches on exact word matching and only searches game titles, company names and people names. Perhaps you should try different search terms, or use the more exhaustive site search page.
Clearly, there is still work to be done.
PS- If you've never heard of or played Paradroid, do yourself a favour and click on that link and then fire up a Commodore 64 emulator. It will take you a few minutes to get the hang of the game and then, well, the sun will come up or you'll be asked to clear our your cubicle.
George Costanza (from Seinfeld in case you've been living in a cave) said the best way to fake that you're working hard is to look angry and/or frustrated.
As ridiculous as it sounds, it works.
Of course, George didn't seem to have that much success at work so YMMV on this nugget of advice.
Forgive me in advance as this is slightly off-topic but after reviewing the impressive list of interesting new games, sequels and online-capable versions of current games, I couldn't help but ask, who has time to play all these games?
I had a Playstation 2 and a Gamecube (as well as all the consoles that came before) and my collection of games was growing much faster than I could play them. I was overwhelmed and gaming became less fun and more like work. I finally had enough last October after losing a month of my life to Animal Crossing (don't ask, you either love it and become obsessed or think its completely stupid). I have since sold my systems and all my games and rediscovered all kinds of 'analog' hobbies like reading and going outside.
I get pangs when I hear about cool new games but my brain and my bank account just can't take any more. Am I the only one feeling like this?
Brainstorm is often overlooked as it came out in 1983 but it's a brilliant science fiction thriller that was (and to a certain degree still is) years ahead of its time.
It's about a couple of scientists who develop a device that can record and playback brainwaves. It isn't virtual reality, per se, but recorded reality. They want to use the technology to help mankind but the government has other ideas.
It's very difficult to explain this movie. You just have to see it. It's gripping and raises all kinds of interesting ethical questions and even though it's twenty years old, it holds up very well.
Highly recommended. Check it out. I'm sure you'll love it.
Why aren't SCSI drives available in the same densities as ATA drives?
The biggest SCSI drives I've seen are just less than 150Gb but Maxtor makes a 250Gb ATA drive. Is there a technical reason why there isn't size parity?
I've had a preference for SCSI drives for years and I've come to accept that I have to pay a steep premium (and now I know why) but what frustrates me is the density, or lack thereof, with SCSI drives.
"Runs under Windows XP with 512 MB of RAM: Socket 7 platform with Intel Pentium 100 from 1994. Even an AGP graphics card, the Geforce 4 Ti 4600, works perfectly here."
Did anyone notice that the CPU on the Geforce 4 is considerably more powerful than the Pentium 100? Clearly what's needed here is a version of Linux that runs on the video card.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that SD cards are physically smaller than CF cards and smaller is usually more expensive but this seems excessive. I can only assume that the price differential is attributable to the greater demand for Compact Flash cards (scales of economy and all that). Perhaps this will change in time.
The fact that we're complaining about the price (which is quite reasonable in the big scheme of things) suggests that we might be spoiled. No matter how you square it, a PDA with 32Mb of RAM and 256Mb or more of storage is very impressive.
Now, if I could only decidce if I should buy a new PDA or a new phone or a combo device. I'm looking downright retro with my Palm IIIc and Nokia 5100 series phone. Teenagers are laughing at me (which may or may not have anything to do with my inferior devices, but I digress).
(all figures in Canadian dollars BTW)
None of these computers are running.
It's nice to have the hardware on display but I think an important part of showing the history is having them operational with their original operating systems. I've been to aviation and automotive museums and a large part of what they do is restore the aircraft and cars to their original working state. They may not fly/drive them often but if it doesn't fly/drive, well, you may as well have a photograph. I feel the same way about these old computers.
I'm reminded of a line I saw in Usenet once:
It isn't a computer if all it does is reactive passively to the Earth's magnetic pull and displace its own weight when submerged in water.
I patiently await the suggestion that all those comptuers be turned into a Beowful cluster...
Where are you getting this great deal? If their connectivity is even remotely decent, I would love to get in on that deal.
Geez. It's getting hard to keep track of everything I have to boycoot to be a good little geek.
Bonus hint: Did you know that if you speak into the back of a fan you sound just like a Cylon? (It's late and I'm slightly delerious, forgive me.)
Bonus odd but true story:
I played Zelda on the SNES in the early nineties and as I said above, I used my real name. When I was done, I sold the game to a video game store. A few years ago I got nostalgic so I went to a used game store and bought a used copy of Zelda to replay. Ready for the weird part?
When I got home and popped the cartridge in, there were two different names in slot 1 and 2 but my name was in slot 3. And in case you're thinking this isn't so weird, I didn't buy the game from the same store I sold it to. The stores were in opposite ends of the city.
The only other odd thing was that I couldn't find the drive/folder encrytion feature. It was talked about at the WWDC but not shown and I don't believe it has been implemented yet. Oddly, GNU Chess was also missing. I grabbed the source code from Apple and used the new XCode to compile it and it worked flawlessly. XCode is great. Two clicks and I had a working binary. Very nicely integrated and well thought out. Kudos to Apple.
Bugs aside, Panther is an improvement. The only reservation I have is that Apple expects users to shell out another $129 to get it. Yearly OS updates at $129 are not going to be popular. I know Apple spends a lot on OS development but if they keep going back to the same well, the well will run dry.
Be forewarned though, playing those games will shatter your fond memories. You really are much better getting MAME and playing the arcade versions which hold up a little better.
On a more serious note, I'm all for inexpensive PCs but Linaire is a little too light on the details about their hardware and software. I'm afraid I'll have to put them in my 'I will believe it when I see it" file.
I did some searching but couldn't find an OS X port of FCE Ultra. Can you point me in the right direction? I don't mind RockNES but I would like to have something to compare it to. TIA.
That being said, Time Bandit is a great game.
I don't usually go in for violent games but GTA3 has a certain charm and it is one of the most playable games I have ever encountered. I imagine that the Japanese market will react the same way everyone else in the world reacted to GTA3 -- they'll buy millions of copies.
I use an iBook so screen real estate and memory are at a premium. I would prfer to have a single window with tabs rather than multiple windows. I had never seen tabs in action until Apple added them to Safari and now I can't live without them. What I like best is that you can see what's open in each tab without having to look to the Window menu. Screen is great but I'm often connected to multiple systems with screen running remotely and I hate having to use nested ctrl-a a sequences. As long as I'm babbling away like we're in comp.sys.mac.misc, I would love to have a full-screen mode. Not being able to go full-screen with a terminal is just wrong, Sure, you can login to the console but then you can't start up Aqua (or X for that matter, which is silly). Let's just hope that Apple doesn't consider Terminal to be finished.
Ah. I operate without a scrollback buffer so I don't get the scrollbar ergo I don't get the little widget. I just tried it and it split the screen but the behaviour was very odd. It doesn't appear to be two seperate terminal windows but a way to view things that have already scrolled off the screen. Strange. At any rate, Terminal.app still isn't the greatest but for now, it's the one I like most. I just wish Apple would improve the speed and add some tabs. That would be just great.
Terminal.app's split-window function? I've never seen that function in Terminal. Could you elaborate.
The original statement that only rich people have PDAs is accurate, albeit some pedantic. All of us who have the luxury of reading Slashdot ARE rich. I'm not picking on you and I thnk that the fasion in which you spend the money you earn is entirely your business but please, understand that the majority of people on this planet are not living as well as you are.
And now, back to our on-topic discussion,
The series is set to debut in Japan on July 10 with the release of two games: Star Soldier and Cubic Lode Runner.
Cubic Lode Runner? What is that? I've loved Lode Runner from the first moment I played it and I've owned just about every version ever released but I've never heard of Cubic Lode Runner. The world needs more Lode Runner.
By the way, if you're a fan of the game, you'll enjoy the Lode Runner Archive.
The Cinemaster DVD decoder in your Powerbook is useless under OS X (and Linux, may I add). I don't mind Apple end-of-lining products but going out of their way to force customers to purchase newer hardware is unforgivable.
PS- I don't have a Lombard but a good friend does and I feel his pain (as well as having to listen to his rants on this subject).
A search for 'paradroid' came up empty. Perhaps the game / company / person is not in our database, or perhaps there was a typo in the search. The quick search only searches on exact word matching and only searches game titles, company names and people names. Perhaps you should try different search terms, or use the more exhaustive site search page.
Clearly, there is still work to be done.
PS- If you've never heard of or played Paradroid, do yourself a favour and click on that link and then fire up a Commodore 64 emulator. It will take you a few minutes to get the hang of the game and then, well, the sun will come up or you'll be asked to clear our your cubicle.
As ridiculous as it sounds, it works.
Of course, George didn't seem to have that much success at work so YMMV on this nugget of advice.
I had a Playstation 2 and a Gamecube (as well as all the consoles that came before) and my collection of games was growing much faster than I could play them. I was overwhelmed and gaming became less fun and more like work. I finally had enough last October after losing a month of my life to Animal Crossing (don't ask, you either love it and become obsessed or think its completely stupid). I have since sold my systems and all my games and rediscovered all kinds of 'analog' hobbies like reading and going outside.
I get pangs when I hear about cool new games but my brain and my bank account just can't take any more. Am I the only one feeling like this?
It's all about scale.
I'll spare you the lecture about how animals take what they need and humans take all in their field of vision. I think you get my point.
It's about a couple of scientists who develop a device that can record and playback brainwaves. It isn't virtual reality, per se, but recorded reality. They want to use the technology to help mankind but the government has other ideas.
It's very difficult to explain this movie. You just have to see it. It's gripping and raises all kinds of interesting ethical questions and even though it's twenty years old, it holds up very well.
Highly recommended. Check it out. I'm sure you'll love it.
Have you considering using a DC power supply?
The biggest SCSI drives I've seen are just less than 150Gb but Maxtor makes a 250Gb ATA drive. Is there a technical reason why there isn't size parity?
I've had a preference for SCSI drives for years and I've come to accept that I have to pay a steep premium (and now I know why) but what frustrates me is the density, or lack thereof, with SCSI drives.
Did anyone notice that the CPU on the Geforce 4 is considerably more powerful than the Pentium 100? Clearly what's needed here is a version of Linux that runs on the video card.
We are indeed living in strange times.