"A Missile Command style game..." "It works a bit like the old Robotron 2084 arcade game..." "A super-RTS..."
Maybe I'm not getting the point; was this contest just to make quirky titles from standard, well-defined genres with a gimmick, or to actually make something that is completely different?
I'm not saying none of the results were original or unique; I just noticed a lot of sentences like the ones above.
"When I was younger I felt like there was a talent to it because they were spinning records backwards and forwards and really cutting it in and overlapping songs," Parrish says. "It doesn't take much talent to be a DJ anymore. You just have to have a good flow of songs."
I tried using Acid Mixer during a Beck contest one time...
Needless to say, yeah, you still need skills to be a good mixer these days.
I participated in a workstudy at Virginia Tech last semester for my Unix class. The goal was that my team would build the implementation of the rules, while the other team would build the interface the program used to communicate with the user.
The function worked in a while loop - while [[ `sed -n '1p'
do taskA taskB done
We couldn't share code with the other team, either; the project specified we share information on what our functions did by using a text file to hold all game data and such.
My group of three split up tasks - I would do initial read in of rules, the file format, quitting, and base of the main function. One teammate was to do rule checking, and the last teammate would do the writing to the file. I left comments for them for where to put this code. Unfortunately, they never saw the comments because they didn't touch the file until the very last night, where the submission came in late and we were lucky the professor was a nice guy to accept our ill-begotten submission.
Luckily, the grades were based on perceived effort, and all my RCS logs showed I had put nearly all the effort into this project.
Just so you know, there are mods for Playstation's that only remove region protection from the system. They don't have the added effect of allowing pirated software on CD-R's.
You can read some amusing stories on Acts of Gord on how Gord would install these region-free-only mod chips in to Playstations (and specifically state what the chip would and would not do) and then have an angry customer come back wondering why his PSX wouldn't play CD-R'd games.
Just incase you didn't know, there are some modifications you can make to cars that make them illegal to drive on US roads.
However, a modded PS2 isn't illegal - it's using pirated software that is illegal. If you remove the engine from your Ford Ranger, you void the warranty. If you mod your PS2, you void your warranty.
I wish people would buy music from those that they feel have earned their money by making a good album.
If a band you like makes a good album, support them for future albums.
That said, you could also only download singles from one-hit wonder bands or bands you (for one reason or another) don't really like as sort of an "anti-support."
Of course, all of my friends don't follow this at all, having recently downloaded every summer release so far, so I doubt a majority of people would subscribe to such an idea.
1) Where did I ever mention Sony sold Linux kits for people to browse on the internet with? If you would read my post, I clearly state that Sony is gaining OS experience with this, something a company would need to attack Windows.
2) Have you actually sat near a programmer, and timed him on how long it took him to get in good with the EE/GS? Or are you just pulling these figures out of your ass?
3) My post was not even centralized on PS2 Linux to begin with; maybe you should read a post more carefully before calling someone else a "fucking overrated moron."
Doesn't sound like Sony is going to fit the Emotion Engine into this equation after all.
The original gameplan was use the first generation EE/GS for the PS2. The next generation, EE2/GS2, would be used for graphic workstations and would have "100x the power" of the original EE/GS combo (or something like that, Sony PR). Then, the EE3/GS3 would be used for the PS3, giving it "1000x the power" of the PS2.
Distributed processing for console games (or games in general) is not a good idea. People want their games to work all the time, not only when peak bandwith isn't occuring. It doesn't sound good on paper, and definately wouldn't look good for actual processing and rendering.
Maybe if the game required you to find an actual extra-terrestrial, then you might have a reason for distributed processing on a game. Otherwise, I can't think of any reason Sony would do this. It would be a headache to keep maintained and wouldn't really bring in the cash considering the slower-than-expected broadband invasion.
It's kind of funny - Sony, known for its extremely successful Playstation, wants the PS2 to be more like a PC. Microsoft, known just about only in computers, wants the Xbox to be seen only as a gaming console (and/or "entertainment hub").
Sony distributes and supports Linux for its systems, while Microsoft is doing everything they can to stop (non-Microsoft-licensed, therefore not profiting MS directly) PC software from running on their gaming-console/entertainment-hub.
"Hobbyists" port and program software for the PS2, while "hackers" port and program software for the Xbox. (actually I'm pretty sure hackers are doing/have done more to the PS2 right now)
Sony's plan is probably to attack MS in the computer market, what with recent announcements of OS experience they've gained from the Linux project and the Vaio and the handheld Clie and the such. Microsoft's plan is to penetrate the entertainment market, a place where Sony, ironically (or coincidentally?), happens to have a strong foothold in (although I prefer Panasonic, myself, but my friend's Sony VVega is nothing to scoff at).
And through this all, Nintendo sits, GameCube in hand, planning on how to continue in the console gaming market. With the recent retirement of Nintendo mastermind and uber-zombie President Hiroshi Yamauchi, and the recent announcements of the company focusing more on software than hardware, it's anybody's guess as to what is going on at Nintendo of Japan headquarters.
(Don't even begin on the handheld gaming market - Nintendo owned that market for 10 years with a handheld that could only do spinach green and black sprites, and GBA will probably last at least another 5 on its own).
Well, if your idea of a good time playing games is looking at a pretty box as opposed to a "shitty-looking" box, then I guess you have a point.
I can tell you something, though - my TI-99 and Apple ][ GS up to my Compaq machine and my current HP sure aren't grand looking boxes.
I could also bring up tons of points about how "its the games that define the platform, not the looks of the console" and "the PC games have a different feel than console games, for a very good reason," but that would probably fall on deaf ears.
In the end, it's all about personal tastes. If you can't appreciate such classics as Mario, Zelda, Gunstar Heroes, Chrono Trigger, and Actraiser, that's all good and well - just don't post troll material when the people that do enjoy these (and/or other great console titles) read something about the industry that entertains them.
The article is not entirely accurate - not all three consoles are losing money on hardware sales.
Sony owns its own factories and is an R&D company - they have been lowering the size of each of the PS2's chips, and very recently put both the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer on one chip, allowing them to further cut costs on production.
Look at it this way - back when the PSX was released, the price of $300 meant it sold at a loss. Opening up a PSX showed a mess of an architecture and the things were commonly known to overheat (infact, when PSX-mastermind Ken Kutaragi showed that the PS2 could be kept in a 'vertical' position, a lot of people had to chuckle at the fact that the only way their PSX's wouldn't overheat is if they were in the same position). But by the time the PS2 was unveiled, the cost to make a PSX core was around a couple of bucks at most, a reason why a PSX chip is the I/O processor inside the PS2 (and thus allows just-about perfect PSX emulation on the PS2.
That was over a period of 5-6 years, so I imagine at this point Sony has been able to drastically cut costs to the point where $199 might actually be a profitable price.
Meanwhile, both Intel and NVidia are pocketing whatever production improvements they make, and are sticking it to Microsoft. I believe this might be the reason Microsoft has recently been getting ready to start their own chip production (for the Xbox 2, of course).
As for Nintendo, I have no idea how ArtX's Flipper GPU license is being handled (especially since ArtX is now a part of ATI, the reason ATI's logo appears on every GameCube), nor do I know too much about the Gekko, other than it was done with the help of IBM. Panasonic helped with the proprietary disc format, but I believe the only thing they got from that is the right to make a DVD-playing GameCube, the Q. The only thing I know is that the GameCube doesn't cost nearly as much to make as an Xbox, and probably less than or equal to (but more likely less than) a PS2.
That has nothing to do with the fact that broadband isn't even offered in this area. You're trying to compare apples to oranges in a very poor analgoy.
Slashdot Mirror
"It works a bit like the old Robotron 2084 arcade game..."
"A super-RTS..."
Maybe I'm not getting the point; was this contest just to make quirky titles from standard, well-defined genres with a gimmick, or to actually make something that is completely different?
I'm not saying none of the results were original or unique; I just noticed a lot of sentences like the ones above.
...hacking a company with the Playstation 2 - it can scan 75 million ports a second, 20 million with effects.
Maybe so - I'll stick with the programmer's flow, then :)
Needless to say, yeah, you still need skills to be a good mixer these days.
The function worked in a while loop -
while [[ `sed -n '1p' do
taskA
taskB
done
We couldn't share code with the other team, either; the project specified we share information on what our functions did by using a text file to hold all game data and such.
My group of three split up tasks - I would do initial read in of rules, the file format, quitting, and base of the main function. One teammate was to do rule checking, and the last teammate would do the writing to the file. I left comments for them for where to put this code. Unfortunately, they never saw the comments because they didn't touch the file until the very last night, where the submission came in late and we were lucky the professor was a nice guy to accept our ill-begotten submission.
Luckily, the grades were based on perceived effort, and all my RCS logs showed I had put nearly all the effort into this project.
You can read some amusing stories on Acts of Gord on how Gord would install these region-free-only mod chips in to Playstations (and specifically state what the chip would and would not do) and then have an angry customer come back wondering why his PSX wouldn't play CD-R'd games.
Just incase you didn't know, there are some modifications you can make to cars that make them illegal to drive on US roads.
However, a modded PS2 isn't illegal - it's using pirated software that is illegal. If you remove the engine from your Ford Ranger, you void the warranty. If you mod your PS2, you void your warranty.
If a band you like makes a good album, support them for future albums.
That said, you could also only download singles from one-hit wonder bands or bands you (for one reason or another) don't really like as sort of an "anti-support."
Of course, all of my friends don't follow this at all, having recently downloaded every summer release so far, so I doubt a majority of people would subscribe to such an idea.
1) Where did I ever mention Sony sold Linux kits for people to browse on the internet with? If you would read my post, I clearly state that Sony is gaining OS experience with this, something a company would need to attack Windows.
2) Have you actually sat near a programmer, and timed him on how long it took him to get in good with the EE/GS? Or are you just pulling these figures out of your ass?
3) My post was not even centralized on PS2 Linux to begin with; maybe you should read a post more carefully before calling someone else a "fucking overrated moron."
...if the aliens just got tired of doing these designs and decided to have us humans do them ourselves in a mask of PR and prizes. :)
The original gameplan was use the first generation EE/GS for the PS2. The next generation, EE2/GS2, would be used for graphic workstations and would have "100x the power" of the original EE/GS combo (or something like that, Sony PR). Then, the EE3/GS3 would be used for the PS3, giving it "1000x the power" of the PS2.
Distributed processing for console games (or games in general) is not a good idea. People want their games to work all the time, not only when peak bandwith isn't occuring. It doesn't sound good on paper, and definately wouldn't look good for actual processing and rendering.
Maybe if the game required you to find an actual extra-terrestrial, then you might have a reason for distributed processing on a game. Otherwise, I can't think of any reason Sony would do this. It would be a headache to keep maintained and wouldn't really bring in the cash considering the slower-than-expected broadband invasion.
This article isn't really a great read.
They might not be totally blind.
Looks like its time to re-roll a new character.
It's kind of funny - Sony, known for its extremely successful Playstation, wants the PS2 to be more like a PC. Microsoft, known just about only in computers, wants the Xbox to be seen only as a gaming console (and/or "entertainment hub").
Sony distributes and supports Linux for its systems, while Microsoft is doing everything they can to stop (non-Microsoft-licensed, therefore not profiting MS directly) PC software from running on their gaming-console/entertainment-hub.
"Hobbyists" port and program software for the PS2, while "hackers" port and program software for the Xbox. (actually I'm pretty sure hackers are doing/have done more to the PS2 right now)
Sony's plan is probably to attack MS in the computer market, what with recent announcements of OS experience they've gained from the Linux project and the Vaio and the handheld Clie and the such. Microsoft's plan is to penetrate the entertainment market, a place where Sony, ironically (or coincidentally?), happens to have a strong foothold in (although I prefer Panasonic, myself, but my friend's Sony VVega is nothing to scoff at).
And through this all, Nintendo sits, GameCube in hand, planning on how to continue in the console gaming market. With the recent retirement of Nintendo mastermind and uber-zombie President Hiroshi Yamauchi, and the recent announcements of the company focusing more on software than hardware, it's anybody's guess as to what is going on at Nintendo of Japan headquarters.
(Don't even begin on the handheld gaming market - Nintendo owned that market for 10 years with a handheld that could only do spinach green and black sprites, and GBA will probably last at least another 5 on its own).
...the contest wasn't to get Linux running on a Playstation 2...
That would lead to one wicked pizza-burn on the roof of your mouth.
How long before an RIAA rep knocks on his door?
I can tell you something, though - my TI-99 and Apple ][ GS up to my Compaq machine and my current HP sure aren't grand looking boxes.
I could also bring up tons of points about how "its the games that define the platform, not the looks of the console" and "the PC games have a different feel than console games, for a very good reason," but that would probably fall on deaf ears.
In the end, it's all about personal tastes. If you can't appreciate such classics as Mario, Zelda, Gunstar Heroes, Chrono Trigger, and Actraiser, that's all good and well - just don't post troll material when the people that do enjoy these (and/or other great console titles) read something about the industry that entertains them.
Sony owns its own factories and is an R&D company - they have been lowering the size of each of the PS2's chips, and very recently put both the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer on one chip, allowing them to further cut costs on production.
Look at it this way - back when the PSX was released, the price of $300 meant it sold at a loss. Opening up a PSX showed a mess of an architecture and the things were commonly known to overheat (infact, when PSX-mastermind Ken Kutaragi showed that the PS2 could be kept in a 'vertical' position, a lot of people had to chuckle at the fact that the only way their PSX's wouldn't overheat is if they were in the same position). But by the time the PS2 was unveiled, the cost to make a PSX core was around a couple of bucks at most, a reason why a PSX chip is the I/O processor inside the PS2 (and thus allows just-about perfect PSX emulation on the PS2.
That was over a period of 5-6 years, so I imagine at this point Sony has been able to drastically cut costs to the point where $199 might actually be a profitable price.
Meanwhile, both Intel and NVidia are pocketing whatever production improvements they make, and are sticking it to Microsoft. I believe this might be the reason Microsoft has recently been getting ready to start their own chip production (for the Xbox 2, of course).
As for Nintendo, I have no idea how ArtX's Flipper GPU license is being handled (especially since ArtX is now a part of ATI, the reason ATI's logo appears on every GameCube), nor do I know too much about the Gekko, other than it was done with the help of IBM. Panasonic helped with the proprietary disc format, but I believe the only thing they got from that is the right to make a DVD-playing GameCube, the Q. The only thing I know is that the GameCube doesn't cost nearly as much to make as an Xbox, and probably less than or equal to (but more likely less than) a PS2.
Isn't it still in "crashes quite a bit and I don't know why" form from the author?
I'd rather wait for (or have no) visualizations for XMMS than have to rely on Wine to enjoy the goodness that is Mad Spin...
"Why....why was I programmed to feel pain!?"
"Thank you for your credit card number, 'l33tp3t3'."
That has nothing to do with the fact that broadband isn't even offered in this area. You're trying to compare apples to oranges in a very poor analgoy.
Curse you rural Virginia!