Sites like the two above should be censored from the Internet, as well as hardcore porn sites and sites that promote child endangerment, software piracy, and violence.
I disagree; goatse sent shivers up my spine when I saw it a year or so ago, but ALT-F4 remedied the damage (mostly). I don't think it should be illegal or censored; I didn't follow the other link because I assume it's similar. Who should decide which sites are like the ones above? I'd prefer to decide for myself.
If you are in favor of sites that expose children in erotic sex acts
Define child. It's a bit different (legally) depending where you reside. Are non erotic sex acts ok? Is softporn ok? Who pidgeonholes sites? Maybe Ashcroft?
child endangerment
What about McDonalds.com? They propose feeding kids fatty foods; that's child endangerment.
Software piracy
I 'pirate' software even though I've already bought it; I hate cataloging windows id#'s and putting in a game cd when I want to play so I 'pirate' them though I've paid. Try and use an appropriate term; either copyright infringement, license infringement or DMCA infringement.
If you are in favor of promoting sites that expose children in erotic sex acts or that promote killing people, you are the one with the problem, not me.
What about cnn.com? They extensivily covered the Clinton scandal; you might consider Melinsky a child. They promote war in Iraq (killing people).
"Common sense dictates that some standards need to be put in place, whether commercial or legislative.
How about some parental standards? I'd prefer not to pay extra taxes to fund some project you think will help you do your job(raising your kid(s)), but which will be an ineffective waste.
"I think a mechanism similar to that is what is needed online - something of a barrier to child access, but doesn't require specific identification of the viewer (to protect privacy). It's not a simple issue, to be sure. There doesn't seem to be an obvious way to enact such barriers ("Click here if over 18" is a joke). But something needs to be done."
If you feel the dangers of the internet outweigh the benefits for your child, pull the plug.
Patents are patently not *necessary*. Society would be better off without them, especially software patents.
If you have a succesful software app today (i.e. one that generates lots of revenue) you damn well better have enough patents to keep middle level software companies from demanding royalties for their patents (because damn near every program violates some patent). If you have a good patent portfolio you can tell their scum sucking law team that they are in fact infringing on several of your patents and wouldn't we both be better off with a cross licensing deal?
Small software companies are screwed and lawyers profit.
How to build an economic superpower: 1) Tightly enforce crap patents 2) Lawyers profit 3) Big businesses profit 4) Small businesses are assimilated 5) Politicians profit from big business 6) Politicians take their booty and move to Switzerland? 7) Switzerland is now an economic superpower!!!
The US is screwed software wise, largely due to patents. We'll be importing more than we export in a decade.
Well at first I thought big brother was a 1337 HAX0R because he could figure this stuff out but then realized it's not that hard to sniff as long as you control the switch and the data's not encrypted.
If it don't decrypt, you must acquit! - Johnnie Cochran
I'm guessing even that whole Deep Jr. team might not be so convincing playing collectively) as humans against Kasparov.
I'd bet 100:1 (for Kasparov) on a match where he has to play each of them and loses if he loses a game to any of them.
It's trivial to write a brute force chess program and with infinitely fast computers it would beat (or tie) anyone or anything that played against it.
It does seem the Juniour developers have sone some interesting things to make their chess engine much more efficient than a brute force chess engine; I'd love to hear what they've done other than 'it make non-computer-like moves'. They may have a good chess strategist/programmer; perhaps a brilliant one but they don't tell us how their engine works so... yo Stallman, kick his ass!
Practical application? Just doing things because they can be done.
It's a piece o hardware that you can buy to do stuff (you tell it how to map out a 'virtual processor'). If you had one large enough you could emulate an x86 cpu.
They're used mostly in applications where (price OR time to market OR development costs) are a big factor. Custom silicon for a custom purpose will always be faster, and cheaper (If you build enough to justify the development costs).
Flame away, more knowledgeable/.errs; Trying my best with a shallow understanding.
Since you're talking about re-entry pods, I assume you're against reusable craft. I agree.
The capsules were pretty damn simple; no guidance required (after initial vector/velocity was met); Their only necessary function: deploy parachute. Contrast with the bulk/complexity/re-tooling time of the shuttle.
Space station worries:
I'd hate to sit in a tin can up there for long when a pebble going 22kmph might decide to make my day interesting (or short).
You could cheaply create a bunker on the moon (compared to a hardened space station) and it might be possible to use raw materials there to save on costs (I don't know, though).
I agree what the folks on the ground and in the air did during the Apollo 13 mission is flat out amazing... but they wouldnt've needed scrubbers if they didn't send up humans.
Let the humans on the ground be imaginative and send commands to the vehicle. Then we can afford to send 10 vehicles instead of one.
Robots can do more per volume & weight (especially if you count food, water, air (yup flammable)).
Humans can see the sights and be able to tell when a sight would take a good picture
If the space program is about pretty pictures (i.e. not scientifically useful) I'd rather spend my tax dollars elsewhere.
Humans can make course corrections and such to avoid their craft crashing down
Not as well as a computer.
Humans can do science that is impossible for a robot to do
So do it. If you need to perform an experiment in space program or control a computer/robot.
If you think it's a smart move to keep the ISS going, keep it going with something cheap and reliable like rockets; the space shuttle was a flawed concept from the beginning; we could have accomplished all we have so far in space much cheaper without manned flight.
I say junk the shuttle and get some charismatic person to put the fire in the populace (so they'll pay for it) to accomplish a real goal in space. All we're doing now is providing public entertainment.
I don't have the awnser; we need to do something to stimulate innovation in space travel rather than boring TV (sometimes tragic TV). Perhaps a moon colony?
Facts are you could emulate the thing (and instead of plugging in roms download them) and still have a PC for much less than what they're selling the thing for.
Comments aside, they may make money; I know ~5 people who spent >=$1000 on freaking beanie babies.
I went to college in the fall of 1990, and by Spring semester 1991, I was enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. I lived in the dorms, and in hanging out with my other friends I began to notice the popularity of game consoles. It seemed like every third dorm room in my building had a Nintendo in it. I'd seen consoles before... my then-girlfriend's (now, wife's) brother had two of them. And of course, I had an Atari 2600 when I was growing up.
But my game interests were with DOS-based games of the time, such as Commander Keen. Even Commander Keen 1 was better than most of the games available for the Nintendo, at least as far as I could see. So I wondered why no one had bothered to make a DOS-based game console.
One day, in the back of a notebook, I made some notes about how you might go about creating a DOS-based game console. (I even called it an "X-Box", but really the "X" was there because I didn't know what else to call it. Microsoft's current "XBox" console is completely different, and I don't claim any rights to the "X-Box" name.)
Page 1 (1299x1712, 136k)
Shows a diagram of a controller, with 4 directional buttons + 4 game buttons (A, B, L, R) + 2 system buttons ("Opt" and "Start").
Sends events to console using keyboard events. (What about using 2 Gravis game pads on the game port?)
Game saves: 1.44MB floppy
System boot: flash memory system (C:) - 2MB?
Games: CD-ROM (also plays music)
2 controllers enter system through keyboard combinator. (Looks like keyboard.)
Always boots from C: (never from A: or D:). After boot, DOS displays some game system logo, then waits for CD-ROM event. At CD-ROM load, checks for certain directory structure to determine if game disk. Then exec's XBOX.EXE (or.BIN... can we hack to use different extension?) which is the game. If audio CD, runs music player program.
SDK defines P1 and P2 input [the controllers], and game exit chains exec back to main system program. SDK's init should determine if this is a game system.
Need program to format floppy.
Page 2 (1299x1712, 268k)
Diagrams of how to assemble and organize the console hardware, including an inventive way to install the peripheral cards at an angle to save vertical space.
Page 3 (1299x1712, 244k)
SDK:
Save game files should always be in the format game ID.001 (iterate).
What can we do to enforce this? API to list, save, and delete save games? Maybe only list/save, and only allow delete from the main program?
init() will check that this is a game system, and chain back via exit() if not.
SDK has #define's for keys: P1_UP, P1_DOWN, P1_LEFT, P1_RIGHT, P1_A, P1_B, P1_L, P1_R, P1_OPT, P1_SEL, and again for P2.
How to keep people from running just any DOS program from the game console?
My friend Larry and I had planned this out. Larry had a huge interest in electronics and had the idea of the keyboard "combinator" device. It solved a lot of problems. In addition to sending one "keystroke" to the output at a time (emulating a keyboard) you were free to use non-keyboard input, and the combinator would be able to translate that into keyboard output. As long as the output was a key from a keyboard, it didn't matter ("A", "$", "9", "Keypad_3",...) We could create an SDK that turns those into "P1_UP", and so on.
Shortly after that, I dropped the idea. I was pretty busy in classes at the time, and didn't have a lot of time to devote to thinking about such side projects. But could such a design have actually worked? More to the point, could you build it at a reasonable price? And if you did build it, would people buy it?
CPU
First, you have to start with the microprocessor. In 1982, Intel released the 286 Microprocessor. The 286, also known as the 80286, was the first Intel processor that could run all the software written for its predecessor. This software compatibility remains a hallmark of Intel's family of microprocessors. Within 6 years of it release, there were an estimated 15 million 286-based personal computers installed around the world. What hamstrung the 286, though, was that they messed up multi-tasking. Really, they implemented a nice task-swapping feature, but hardly the same as true multi-tasking.
In 1985, Intel sold the 386 Microprocessor. The Intel386 microprocessor featured 275,000 transistors--more than 100times as many as the original 4004. It was a 32-bit chip and was "multi tasking," meaning it could run multiple programs at the same time. That's what I had in my PC... a 386SX-40. Yeah, no mathco, but still a nice box. I think I had a whopping 4MB of memory, too. I played a lot of DOS games on this 386, and was the first box that ran Commander Keen.
In 1989, Intel released the 486DX CPU Microprocessor The 486 processor generation really meant you go from a command-level computer into point-and-click computing. The Intel486 processor was the first to offer a built-in math coprocessor, which speeds up computing because it offloads complex math functions from the central processor. That was the fastest-available CPU that you could get in 1991.
If you were going to build a DOS-based game console in 1991, you might try to build a 486 system at a cheap price. Although at the time, a 386 system might have been less expensive, and as a startup game company the 386 is probably more realistic. Let's assume a 386.
DOS
I hadn't created FreeDOS yet, although you can guess that I was pretty "into" DOS. MS-DOS was the flavor to run... at the time, I was a big Microsoft junkie. (I'm much better now, thank you.) And a ton of games were being written for MS-DOS, so what better platform to build a game console?
By 1990, MS-DOS would have been ROMable, so you could have had MS-DOS boot from a ROM on a console system, the same as MS-DOS booted from ROM on certain laptops. The recent timeline for MS-DOS at the time looked something like this: Version Date Description 3.30 PC-DOS April 1987 For PS/2 series, 1.44 meg support, multiple DOS partition support, code page switching, improved foreign language support, some new function calls, support for the AT's CMOS clock. 3.31 MS-DOS November 1987 Over-32 meg DOS partitions. Different versions from different OEMs (not Micro$oft). Compaq and Wyse are most common. 3.40 PC-DOS - 1988 Internal IBM - not released (4.0 development). 2.11R MS-DOS - 1988 Bootable ROM DOS for Tandy machines. 4.00 PC-DOS August 1988 32mb disk limit officially broken, minor EMS support, more new function calls, enhanced network support for external commands. PCjr support dropped. 4.01 MS-DOS December 1988 Micro$oft version with some bugfixes. 3.21R MS-DOS September 1989 DOS in ROM, Flash File System for laptops. 3.3R MS-DOS - 1990 DOS in ROM, introduced for TI laptops. 5.00 MS-DOS June 1991 High memory support, uses up to 8 hard disks, command line editor and aliasing, 2.88 floppies, ROMable OEM kit available.
So while MS-DOS 5 was on desktops everywhere by Summer 1991, the easiest way to put MS-DOS in a game console was to burn it to ROM. So for this DOS-based game console, we'll have to use MS-DOS 3.3R. But DOS games still run great on MS-DOS 3.3... in fact, you find a lot of games at the time specified a minimum of MS-DOS 3.3. So we're okay there.
Video
Any game console is worthless unless you can pipe the output to your television set. Most normal GUI environments of the time (think MS-Windows) would do 640x480, or even 800x600 if you had a good system. Unfortunately, you can't expect your television to show the same quality as a VGA monitor. Your television can do only about 320x240.
Also, you have the problem that your television doesn't do VGA. It uses NTSC. By its nature, NTSC is a single wire transmision system. It minimaly has luminance (brightness) information for black and white. It has a fixed horizontal frequency of about 15.7khz with a vertical of 60hz. VGA cards just cannot do this. VGA controllers seem to have a low limit of arround 30khz for hsync. For color NTSC things get tricky. The RGB is encoded as 2 subcarriers in quadrature to eachother each 3.58mhz above baseband. There is additional 3.58mhz signal that must occur during sync. This is called the "burst". To prevent beat frequency artifacts on the screen you should adjust the vertical to the color standard of 59.94hz.
So, would a DOS-based game console been impossible? Not really. These days, it's pretty easy to find a video card that supports TV-out. But in 1991, such video cards weren't so common. Or were they?
I didn't investigate it at the time, but with the USENET archives on Google I was able to do some research. In 1995, video cards that supported TV-out were high-end cards like: S3 ViRGE, Rage All in Wonder, Rage Fury, Canopus, 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000, and G400 Max.
So one solution is to supply the game console with one of these cards. That might be expensive, though. The cheapest ISA card I was able to find was a "Multi-Mode EGA/CGA/MDA(TTL) / NTSC (RCA/composite)" for $50. And EGA is right about where we want to be, to match the resolution of a television set.
Is there another way to get NTSC video at higher resolutions? Yes, but it would have cost more.
At the time, there was a gadget called "Game Blaster", which you could pick up at places like Egghead for about $150 (???). It seems to convert VGA to NTSC video. That's just what our system needs.
Also available was a device called "PC2TV". It was $189 and well worth the money. It will also output to S-VHS (the Game Blaster will too) which makes a huge difference in picture quality and contrast. It also needs no driver under 640x480 at 60hz. PC2TV is also true color, and the Game Blaster is not. It will also do 800x600 with some ET400 cards.
So I guess the answer is: yes, you could have had a VGA to NTSC converter at low res (acceptable for DOS games) for less than $150. But the DOS games available in 1991 were typically EGA, so a first-generation game console would be better off to stick with EGA, and let the next-generation console extend into VGA.
Sound
Sound is important. Even the Atari 2600 had very basic sound... those are the cheesy "bleep bloop" sounds you probably remember so well.
From Google newsgroups, the earliest mention of the Soundblaster card was Sep 25 1990, and in 1992 the SB was sold for $75. So in 1991, you should have been able to get a sound card for a reasonable price.
Games
No game console can succeed unless it has games to support it. At the time, I don't think I realized the importance to a console maker of having game exclusives. But ah well. Let's at least look at what DOS games we had around 1991.
The first-person shooter titled Wolfenstein 3D was originally released for DOS in 1992 by ID Software. So this would have been a good title to run on a DOS game console, but that's too late for our system.
Let's just look at it for a moment, though. Would Wolfenstein 3D have been a good console title? Oh yeah - There was also a Super Nintendo version of Wolfenstein 3D released; it was a cross between the PC and Mac versions. For example, the flamethrower and rocket launcher from the Mac version are present as is the ability to sneak up on enemies from the PC version. Unfortunately, it was extremely censored through the changing of the guard dogs into rats and removal of the Nazi symbols. But if you had the uncensored game available for a game console, it would have been kick-ass!
So what would have been the killer game to release on a DOS-based game console? I've already mentioned it: Commander Keen. On December 14, 1990, Episode 1 of Commander Keen forever changed PC computing. Commander Keen was id Software's first big game, and along with the original Duke Nukem (released in 1991), Apogee Software was recognized as the place to go to for hot, shareware games.
Even better, all of the 7 Keen games out there are EGA titles, and Keens 4-6 also had a separate additional CGA version produced. Although CGA looked like purple shit.
Price
So, let's take a moment to add up the components that we've assembled so far: Item Price Intel 386 CPU + motherboard $399 IDE/floppy/serial controller $70 1MB memory $5 1.44MB floppy drive $30 CD-ROM drive ?? Flash ROM C: drive $20 MS-DOS 3.3R runtime license ?? Multi-Mode EGA/CGA/MDA(TTL) / NTSC (RCA/composite) video card $50 Soundblaster card $75
Of course, these are estimates, but they seem to be pretty good ones.
The Competition
Could such a DOS-based system have been competitive with other game consoles of the era. It's kind of late now to think of "might have beens" but this is an interesting one. Let's compare this "X-Box" to the other consoles of the time:
In 1985, Nintendo started to sell the U.S. version of Family Computer Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in America. The system included R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) and the games Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi became as big a hit as the NES. However, in 1989, Sega stepped in to take their piece of the pie. They released Sega Genesis, a system with a 16bit computer that could produce better graphics than the NES.
So in 1991, Nintendo introduced the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) along with Super Mario World and released it in the U.S. The SNES was one of the most powerful 16-bit consoles. The SNES used an extremely powerful graphics coprocessor able of generating real-time effects like scaling and transparency. The SNES immediately it raised the bar for video game designers around the globe. Featuring true stereo sound, multiple scrolling backgrounds and almost twice the internal memory as its competition, the SNES was home to the biggest, baddest games of its day. The original SNES set, with two controllers and Super Mario World, sold for $200 when it was first released. In a few months, the price dropped, as all console systems' prices do after initial release, to $150.
To be a player, this "X-Box" game console would have had to retail for $200 or less. The price list above has a total retail price of $650. But that's retail. How much would you have been able to buy all that at wholesale price? I don't really know, but in cases like this the "rule of 2" seems to get me pretty far. So we'll assume wholesale would be roughly half the cost: about $325. And that doesn't even cover the cost of the game controllers and the R&D work to create the combinator circuit and custom "A/V out" cabling.
And you have the MS-DOS license fees. I don't have a price for MS-DOS in 1991, but Digital Research Inc. released DR-DOS 6.0 in 1991 for $100. So you might assume MS-DOS was around the same price, since DR-DOS needed to stay competitive. If you use the "rule of 2" you may have been able to license MS-DOS for an embedded system for $50 or less since this would be sold in high volume, not a few at a time.
But the game console business is pretty cutthroat. Even today, game consoles almost never pay for themselves. You sell the system at a loss, and make up for it from SDK license fees. I even saw that back in 1991. So to sell this X-Box at $200 would mean a loss of at least $125 per box. That's pretty steep. You'd have to become an overnight success to justify that kind of loss. With launch titles such as an "X-Box" exclusive full version of Commander Keen, and some other hot DOS titles, you would have had a fair chance. With id's release of Wolfenstein 3D a year later, a DOS-based game console would have been the killer system. But it's still a huge gamble.
On top of that, PC hardware is very expensive if you need the specs to remain completely static over a long run. Game consoles like the Nintendo and today's PlayStation are able to absorb their R&D costs over a long product lifecycle. Basically, because they control the technology behind the system, the consoles actually become less expensive to produce after a few years. Now let's jump back to this "X-Box". When the Pentium is released, try asking Intel to still produce 386 hardware in quantity. If you don't have the same speed CPU in there, games that work well on the original "X-Box" might become unplayable when the CPU speed doubles. You might offset that, though, by running a TSR that slowed the system down to compare to the 386 CPU. Just don't interfere with the games. In any case, that adds up to extra cost, whether you get Intel to continue producing 386 CPUs or if you use software. This "X-Box" becomes more expensive to produce after a few years.
So it's probably a good thing I never went any further with this "X-Box" idea.
Building it today
(note done yet)
I went to Pricewatch this morning, and vaguely looked at some current prices to build a decent game console today. Comparitive prices have come down quite a lot since 1991. But I didn't really do a full pricing on the thing. Maybe I'll look into it later.
One thing I didn't mention in my page (but maybe I should add it?) was that if you're going to build a game console, the case really can't be any bigger than a VCR. I think Tivo is about the size of a VCR. If it's any bigger than that, people will think it's too much like a PC stuck on top of your TV, and they won't buy it. The Morex Cubid 2699 looks about the right size, but of course it wouldn't have been available in 1991. See also the ATC-600 case.
Don't spend the big bucks now; stick with the resolution you have. The industry is in chaos and your solution might not work so well with mandated encryption for broadcast TV. According to this article, it'll be illegal to decrypt broadcast video (unless at STV resolution, or output thru DVI using HDCP encryption) anywhere but inside the display device:
Why not get a turnpike? Inefficiency. I've never seen any financials but I imagine their overhead (especially if you count citizen's time @$10/hr) is >50% in many cases. It pisses me off that toll roads are an accepted practice in our country. It's an unforgiveable waste of resources.
Bulldoze the turnpikes, have the ex workers build some low cost housing instead.
Raise gas tax a necessary; most will be better off, and the populace's money isn't used inefficiently.
If I were emporer I'd tax gas like they do in Europe (they heavily tax it). We badly need to overcome our dependance on fossil fuels.
Is really what's going on here. I saw lots've guys at comdex showing off new DVD players / etc that do new things. They seem to think that the average shmo will want to use their remote control rather than learning how to do the equivalent with their PC.
I think they're dead wrong; look at the device this article mentions.
"The Go-Video D2730 player's software will let consumers view content on their television that's stored on their PC using a remote control for navigation. The customer will be able to stream music files and other content on the DVD player. "
Hmm, what protocol does it use for filesharing? Netbios on a WiFi network? Will it play my ogg files? My DivX? My png photos?
You can put together a shuttle SV-24 with a dvd player and a 6 channel sound card for about the same price they're quoting; that's what I use at home and I'm quite happy with it (except for the fact my TV won't do more than 640x480).
If I were a gambling man, I'd sell sonicblue's stock short and profit from their stupidity.
Web sites bearing an address like "www.example.kids.us" would have to certify that they do not contain sexually explicit material, hate speech, violence or other material not suitable for minors.
Who determines what material isn't suitable?
Do they get paid? By the taxpayers I assume?
Do they really have any power to tell ICANN to revoke a domain name?
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree; goatse sent shivers up my spine when I saw it a year or so ago, but ALT-F4 remedied the damage (mostly). I don't think it should be illegal or censored; I didn't follow the other link because I assume it's similar. Who should decide which sites are like the ones above? I'd prefer to decide for myself.
If you are in favor of sites that expose children in erotic sex acts
Define child. It's a bit different (legally) depending where you reside. Are non erotic sex acts ok? Is softporn ok? Who pidgeonholes sites? Maybe Ashcroft?
child endangerment
What about McDonalds.com? They propose feeding kids fatty foods; that's child endangerment.
Software piracy
I 'pirate' software even though I've already bought it; I hate cataloging windows id#'s and putting in a game cd when I want to play so I 'pirate' them though I've paid. Try and use an appropriate term; either copyright infringement, license infringement or DMCA infringement.
If you are in favor of promoting sites that expose children in erotic sex acts or that promote killing people, you are the one with the problem, not me.
What about cnn.com? They extensivily covered the Clinton scandal; you might consider Melinsky a child. They promote war in Iraq (killing people).
Could you clarify your points?
How about some parental standards? I'd prefer not to pay extra taxes to fund some project you think will help you do your job(raising your kid(s)), but which will be an ineffective waste.
"I think a mechanism similar to that is what is needed online - something of a barrier to child access, but doesn't require specific identification of the viewer (to protect privacy). It's not a simple issue, to be sure. There doesn't seem to be an obvious way to enact such barriers ("Click here if over 18" is a joke). But something needs to be done."
If you feel the dangers of the internet outweigh the benefits for your child, pull the plug.
Patents are patently not *necessary*. Society would be better off without them, especially software patents.
If you have a succesful software app today (i.e. one that generates lots of revenue) you damn well better have enough patents to keep middle level software companies from demanding royalties for their patents (because damn near every program violates some patent). If you have a good patent portfolio you can tell their scum sucking law team that they are in fact infringing on several of your patents and wouldn't we both be better off with a cross licensing deal?
Small software companies are screwed and lawyers profit.
How to build an economic superpower:
1) Tightly enforce crap patents
2) Lawyers profit
3) Big businesses profit
4) Small businesses are assimilated
5) Politicians profit from big business
6) Politicians take their booty and move to Switzerland?
7) Switzerland is now an economic superpower!!!
The US is screwed software wise, largely due to patents. We'll be importing more than we export in a decade.
No to be one-upped by the French, President Bush has promised to ban Entropy in the US.
Hmm at first I assumed this got ~3 +1 funny's and then some prankster gave it a +1 insightful as a joke... but I looked:
Totals: +4
50% Insightful
30% Interesting
20% Overrated
Crazy.
Well at first I thought big brother was a 1337 HAX0R because he could figure this stuff out but then realized it's not that hard to sniff as long as you control the switch and the data's not encrypted.
If it don't decrypt, you must acquit! - Johnnie Cochran
Savage 4 16MB
Link
Uugh. Proofs. Is it a widely accepted proof? Linkage?
I'd bet 100:1 (for Kasparov) on a match where he has to play each of them and loses if he loses a game to any of them.
It's trivial to write a brute force chess program and with infinitely fast computers it would beat (or tie) anyone or anything that played against it.
It does seem the Juniour developers have sone some interesting things to make their chess engine much more efficient than a brute force chess engine; I'd love to hear what they've done other than 'it make non-computer-like moves'. They may have a good chess strategist/programmer; perhaps a brilliant one but they don't tell us how their engine works so... yo Stallman, kick his ass!
Practical application? Just doing things because they can be done.
1) Either side could force a draw with certainty
2) Neither side could force a win with certainty
What you think? We may know the awnser during our lifetimes. Shall we play a game?
"(Although white to win has been proven)" White to win proven? How can you prove white wins without going thru every possible game?
It's a Field Programmable Gate Array...
/.errs; Trying my best with a shallow understanding.
It's a piece o hardware that you can buy to do stuff (you tell it how to map out a 'virtual processor'). If you had one large enough you could emulate an x86 cpu.
They're used mostly in applications where (price OR time to market OR development costs) are a big factor. Custom silicon for a custom purpose will always be faster, and cheaper (If you build enough to justify the development costs).
Flame away, more knowledgeable
Down's easy; down safe requires protection.
Since you're talking about re-entry pods, I assume you're against reusable craft. I agree.
The capsules were pretty damn simple; no guidance required (after initial vector/velocity was met); Their only necessary function: deploy parachute. Contrast with the bulk/complexity/re-tooling time of the shuttle.
Reuseable != Cheaper
You could cheaply create a bunker on the moon (compared to a hardened space station) and it might be possible to use raw materials there to save on costs (I don't know, though).
Thoughts?
Let the humans on the ground be imaginative and send commands to the vehicle. Then we can afford to send 10 vehicles instead of one.
Humans can do the things that robots cannot do.
Robots can do more per volume & weight (especially if you count food, water, air (yup flammable)).
Humans can see the sights and be able to tell when a sight would take a good picture
If the space program is about pretty pictures (i.e. not scientifically useful) I'd rather spend my tax dollars elsewhere.
Humans can make course corrections and such to avoid their craft crashing down
Not as well as a computer.
Humans can do science that is impossible for a robot to do
So do it. If you need to perform an experiment in space program or control a computer/robot.
If you think it's a smart move to keep the ISS going, keep it going with something cheap and reliable like rockets; the space shuttle was a flawed concept from the beginning; we could have accomplished all we have so far in space much cheaper without manned flight.
I say junk the shuttle and get some charismatic person to put the fire in the populace (so they'll pay for it) to accomplish a real goal in space. All we're doing now is providing public entertainment.
I don't have the awnser; we need to do something to stimulate innovation in space travel rather than boring TV (sometimes tragic TV). Perhaps a moon colony?
I'd love one... for $10.
Facts are you could emulate the thing (and instead of plugging in roms download them) and still have a PC for much less than what they're selling the thing for.
Comments aside, they may make money; I know ~5 people who spent >=$1000 on freaking beanie babies.
The 1991 X-Box
... my then-girlfriend's (now, wife's) brother had two of them. And of course, I had an Atari 2600 when I was growing up.
.BIN ... can we hack to use different extension?) which is the game. If audio CD, runs music player program.
...) We could create an SDK that turns those into "P1_UP", and so on.
... a 386SX-40. Yeah, no mathco, but still a nice box. I think I had a whopping 4MB of memory, too. I played a lot of DOS games on this 386, and was the first box that ran Commander Keen.
... at the time, I was a big Microsoft junkie. (I'm much better now, thank you.) And a ton of games were being written for MS-DOS, so what better platform to build a game console?
... in fact, you find a lot of games at the time specified a minimum of MS-DOS 3.3. So we're okay there.
... those are the cheesy "bleep bloop" sounds you probably remember so well.
I went to college in the fall of 1990, and by Spring semester 1991, I was enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. I lived in the dorms, and in hanging out with my other friends I began to notice the popularity of game consoles. It seemed like every third dorm room in my building had a Nintendo in it. I'd seen consoles before
But my game interests were with DOS-based games of the time, such as Commander Keen. Even Commander Keen 1 was better than most of the games available for the Nintendo, at least as far as I could see. So I wondered why no one had bothered to make a DOS-based game console.
One day, in the back of a notebook, I made some notes about how you might go about creating a DOS-based game console. (I even called it an "X-Box", but really the "X" was there because I didn't know what else to call it. Microsoft's current "XBox" console is completely different, and I don't claim any rights to the "X-Box" name.)
Page 1 (1299x1712, 136k)
Shows a diagram of a controller, with 4 directional buttons + 4 game buttons (A, B, L, R) + 2 system buttons ("Opt" and "Start").
Sends events to console using keyboard events. (What about using 2 Gravis game pads on the game port?)
Game saves: 1.44MB floppy
System boot: flash memory system (C:) - 2MB?
Games: CD-ROM (also plays music)
2 controllers enter system through keyboard combinator. (Looks like keyboard.)
Always boots from C: (never from A: or D:). After boot, DOS displays some game system logo, then waits for CD-ROM event. At CD-ROM load, checks for certain directory structure to determine if game disk. Then exec's XBOX.EXE (or
SDK defines P1 and P2 input [the controllers], and game exit chains exec back to main system program. SDK's init should determine if this is a game system.
Need program to format floppy.
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Diagrams of how to assemble and organize the console hardware, including an inventive way to install the peripheral cards at an angle to save vertical space.
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SDK:
Save game files should always be in the format game ID.001 (iterate).
What can we do to enforce this? API to list, save, and delete save games? Maybe only list/save, and only allow delete from the main program?
init() will check that this is a game system, and chain back via exit() if not.
SDK has #define's for keys: P1_UP, P1_DOWN, P1_LEFT, P1_RIGHT, P1_A, P1_B, P1_L, P1_R, P1_OPT, P1_SEL, and again for P2.
How to keep people from running just any DOS program from the game console?
My friend Larry and I had planned this out. Larry had a huge interest in electronics and had the idea of the keyboard "combinator" device. It solved a lot of problems. In addition to sending one "keystroke" to the output at a time (emulating a keyboard) you were free to use non-keyboard input, and the combinator would be able to translate that into keyboard output. As long as the output was a key from a keyboard, it didn't matter ("A", "$", "9", "Keypad_3",
Shortly after that, I dropped the idea. I was pretty busy in classes at the time, and didn't have a lot of time to devote to thinking about such side projects. But could such a design have actually worked? More to the point, could you build it at a reasonable price? And if you did build it, would people buy it?
CPU
First, you have to start with the microprocessor. In 1982, Intel released the 286 Microprocessor. The 286, also known as the 80286, was the first Intel processor that could run all the software written for its predecessor. This software compatibility remains a hallmark of Intel's family of microprocessors. Within 6 years of it release, there were an estimated 15 million 286-based personal computers installed around the world. What hamstrung the 286, though, was that they messed up multi-tasking. Really, they implemented a nice task-swapping feature, but hardly the same as true multi-tasking.
In 1985, Intel sold the 386 Microprocessor. The Intel386 microprocessor featured 275,000 transistors--more than 100times as many as the original 4004. It was a 32-bit chip and was "multi tasking," meaning it could run multiple programs at the same time. That's what I had in my PC
In 1989, Intel released the 486DX CPU Microprocessor The 486 processor generation really meant you go from a command-level computer into point-and-click computing. The Intel486 processor was the first to offer a built-in math coprocessor, which speeds up computing because it offloads complex math functions from the central processor. That was the fastest-available CPU that you could get in 1991.
If you were going to build a DOS-based game console in 1991, you might try to build a 486 system at a cheap price. Although at the time, a 386 system might have been less expensive, and as a startup game company the 386 is probably more realistic. Let's assume a 386.
DOS
I hadn't created FreeDOS yet, although you can guess that I was pretty "into" DOS. MS-DOS was the flavor to run
By 1990, MS-DOS would have been ROMable, so you could have had MS-DOS boot from a ROM on a console system, the same as MS-DOS booted from ROM on certain laptops. The recent timeline for MS-DOS at the time looked something like this:
Version Date Description
3.30 PC-DOS April 1987 For PS/2 series, 1.44 meg support, multiple DOS partition support, code page switching, improved foreign language support, some new function calls, support for the AT's CMOS clock.
3.31 MS-DOS November 1987 Over-32 meg DOS partitions. Different versions from different OEMs (not Micro$oft). Compaq and Wyse are most common.
3.40 PC-DOS - 1988 Internal IBM - not released (4.0 development).
2.11R MS-DOS - 1988 Bootable ROM DOS for Tandy machines.
4.00 PC-DOS August 1988 32mb disk limit officially broken, minor EMS support, more new function calls, enhanced network support for external commands. PCjr support dropped.
4.01 MS-DOS December 1988 Micro$oft version with some bugfixes.
3.21R MS-DOS September 1989 DOS in ROM, Flash File System for laptops.
3.3R MS-DOS - 1990 DOS in ROM, introduced for TI laptops.
5.00 MS-DOS June 1991 High memory support, uses up to 8 hard disks, command line editor and aliasing, 2.88 floppies, ROMable OEM kit available.
So while MS-DOS 5 was on desktops everywhere by Summer 1991, the easiest way to put MS-DOS in a game console was to burn it to ROM. So for this DOS-based game console, we'll have to use MS-DOS 3.3R. But DOS games still run great on MS-DOS 3.3
Video
Any game console is worthless unless you can pipe the output to your television set. Most normal GUI environments of the time (think MS-Windows) would do 640x480, or even 800x600 if you had a good system. Unfortunately, you can't expect your television to show the same quality as a VGA monitor. Your television can do only about 320x240.
Also, you have the problem that your television doesn't do VGA. It uses NTSC. By its nature, NTSC is a single wire transmision system. It minimaly has luminance (brightness) information for black and white. It has a fixed horizontal frequency of about 15.7khz with a vertical of 60hz. VGA cards just cannot do this. VGA controllers seem to have a low limit of arround 30khz for hsync. For color NTSC things get tricky. The RGB is encoded as 2 subcarriers in quadrature to eachother each 3.58mhz above baseband. There is additional 3.58mhz signal that must occur during sync. This is called the "burst". To prevent beat frequency artifacts on the screen you should adjust the vertical to the color standard of 59.94hz.
So, would a DOS-based game console been impossible? Not really. These days, it's pretty easy to find a video card that supports TV-out. But in 1991, such video cards weren't so common. Or were they?
I didn't investigate it at the time, but with the USENET archives on Google I was able to do some research. In 1995, video cards that supported TV-out were high-end cards like: S3 ViRGE, Rage All in Wonder, Rage Fury, Canopus, 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000, and G400 Max.
So one solution is to supply the game console with one of these cards. That might be expensive, though. The cheapest ISA card I was able to find was a "Multi-Mode EGA/CGA/MDA(TTL) / NTSC (RCA/composite)" for $50. And EGA is right about where we want to be, to match the resolution of a television set.
Is there another way to get NTSC video at higher resolutions? Yes, but it would have cost more.
At the time, there was a gadget called "Game Blaster", which you could pick up at places like Egghead for about $150 (???). It seems to convert VGA to NTSC video. That's just what our system needs.
Also available was a device called "PC2TV". It was $189 and well worth the money. It will also output to S-VHS (the Game Blaster will too) which makes a huge difference in picture quality and contrast. It also needs no driver under 640x480 at 60hz. PC2TV is also true color, and the Game Blaster is not. It will also do 800x600 with some ET400 cards.
So I guess the answer is: yes, you could have had a VGA to NTSC converter at low res (acceptable for DOS games) for less than $150. But the DOS games available in 1991 were typically EGA, so a first-generation game console would be better off to stick with EGA, and let the next-generation console extend into VGA.
Sound
Sound is important. Even the Atari 2600 had very basic sound
From Google newsgroups, the earliest mention of the Soundblaster card was Sep 25 1990, and in 1992 the SB was sold for $75. So in 1991, you should have been able to get a sound card for a reasonable price.
Games
No game console can succeed unless it has games to support it. At the time, I don't think I realized the importance to a console maker of having game exclusives. But ah well. Let's at least look at what DOS games we had around 1991.
The first-person shooter titled Wolfenstein 3D was originally released for DOS in 1992 by ID Software. So this would have been a good title to run on a DOS game console, but that's too late for our system.
Let's just look at it for a moment, though. Would Wolfenstein 3D have been a good console title? Oh yeah - There was also a Super Nintendo version of Wolfenstein 3D released; it was a cross between the PC and Mac versions. For example, the flamethrower and rocket launcher from the Mac version are present as is the ability to sneak up on enemies from the PC version. Unfortunately, it was extremely censored through the changing of the guard dogs into rats and removal of the Nazi symbols. But if you had the uncensored game available for a game console, it would have been kick-ass!
So what would have been the killer game to release on a DOS-based game console? I've already mentioned it: Commander Keen. On December 14, 1990, Episode 1 of Commander Keen forever changed PC computing. Commander Keen was id Software's first big game, and along with the original Duke Nukem (released in 1991), Apogee Software was recognized as the place to go to for hot, shareware games.
Even better, all of the 7 Keen games out there are EGA titles, and Keens 4-6 also had a separate additional CGA version produced. Although CGA looked like purple shit.
Price
So, let's take a moment to add up the components that we've assembled so far:
Item Price
Intel 386 CPU + motherboard $399
IDE/floppy/serial controller $70
1MB memory $5
1.44MB floppy drive $30
CD-ROM drive ??
Flash ROM C: drive $20
MS-DOS 3.3R runtime license ??
Multi-Mode EGA/CGA/MDA(TTL) / NTSC (RCA/composite) video card $50
Soundblaster card $75
Of course, these are estimates, but they seem to be pretty good ones.
The Competition
Could such a DOS-based system have been competitive with other game consoles of the era. It's kind of late now to think of "might have beens" but this is an interesting one. Let's compare this "X-Box" to the other consoles of the time:
In 1985, Nintendo started to sell the U.S. version of Family Computer Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in America. The system included R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) and the games Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi became as big a hit as the NES. However, in 1989, Sega stepped in to take their piece of the pie. They released Sega Genesis, a system with a 16bit computer that could produce better graphics than the NES.
So in 1991, Nintendo introduced the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) along with Super Mario World and released it in the U.S. The SNES was one of the most powerful 16-bit consoles. The SNES used an extremely powerful graphics coprocessor able of generating real-time effects like scaling and transparency. The SNES immediately it raised the bar for video game designers around the globe. Featuring true stereo sound, multiple scrolling backgrounds and almost twice the internal memory as its competition, the SNES was home to the biggest, baddest games of its day. The original SNES set, with two controllers and Super Mario World, sold for $200 when it was first released. In a few months, the price dropped, as all console systems' prices do after initial release, to $150.
To be a player, this "X-Box" game console would have had to retail for $200 or less. The price list above has a total retail price of $650. But that's retail. How much would you have been able to buy all that at wholesale price? I don't really know, but in cases like this the "rule of 2" seems to get me pretty far. So we'll assume wholesale would be roughly half the cost: about $325. And that doesn't even cover the cost of the game controllers and the R&D work to create the combinator circuit and custom "A/V out" cabling.
And you have the MS-DOS license fees. I don't have a price for MS-DOS in 1991, but Digital Research Inc. released DR-DOS 6.0 in 1991 for $100. So you might assume MS-DOS was around the same price, since DR-DOS needed to stay competitive. If you use the "rule of 2" you may have been able to license MS-DOS for an embedded system for $50 or less since this would be sold in high volume, not a few at a time.
But the game console business is pretty cutthroat. Even today, game consoles almost never pay for themselves. You sell the system at a loss, and make up for it from SDK license fees. I even saw that back in 1991. So to sell this X-Box at $200 would mean a loss of at least $125 per box. That's pretty steep. You'd have to become an overnight success to justify that kind of loss. With launch titles such as an "X-Box" exclusive full version of Commander Keen, and some other hot DOS titles, you would have had a fair chance. With id's release of Wolfenstein 3D a year later, a DOS-based game console would have been the killer system. But it's still a huge gamble.
On top of that, PC hardware is very expensive if you need the specs to remain completely static over a long run. Game consoles like the Nintendo and today's PlayStation are able to absorb their R&D costs over a long product lifecycle. Basically, because they control the technology behind the system, the consoles actually become less expensive to produce after a few years. Now let's jump back to this "X-Box". When the Pentium is released, try asking Intel to still produce 386 hardware in quantity. If you don't have the same speed CPU in there, games that work well on the original "X-Box" might become unplayable when the CPU speed doubles. You might offset that, though, by running a TSR that slowed the system down to compare to the 386 CPU. Just don't interfere with the games. In any case, that adds up to extra cost, whether you get Intel to continue producing 386 CPUs or if you use software. This "X-Box" becomes more expensive to produce after a few years.
So it's probably a good thing I never went any further with this "X-Box" idea.
Building it today
(note done yet)
I went to Pricewatch this morning, and vaguely looked at some current prices to build a decent game console today. Comparitive prices have come down quite a lot since 1991. But I didn't really do a full pricing on the thing. Maybe I'll look into it later.
One thing I didn't mention in my page (but maybe I should add it?) was that if you're going to build a game console, the case really can't be any bigger than a VCR. I think Tivo is about the size of a VCR. If it's any bigger than that, people will think it's too much like a PC stuck on top of your TV, and they won't buy it. The Morex Cubid 2699 looks about the right size, but of course it wouldn't have been available in 1991. See also the ATC-600 case.
Wait.
- article-digital-home-video-2-2002.html
Don't spend the big bucks now; stick with the resolution you have. The industry is in chaos and your solution might not work so well with mandated encryption for broadcast TV. According to this article, it'll be illegal to decrypt broadcast video (unless at STV resolution, or output thru DVI using HDCP encryption) anywhere but inside the display device:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_1/feature
Why not get a turnpike? Inefficiency. I've never seen any financials but I imagine their overhead (especially if you count citizen's time @$10/hr) is >50% in many cases. It pisses me off that toll roads are an accepted practice in our country. It's an unforgiveable waste of resources.
Bulldoze the turnpikes, have the ex workers build some low cost housing instead.
Raise gas tax a necessary; most will be better off, and the populace's money isn't used inefficiently.
If I were emporer I'd tax gas like they do in Europe (they heavily tax it). We badly need to overcome our dependance on fossil fuels.
I think they're dead wrong; look at the device this article mentions.
"The Go-Video D2730 player's software will let consumers view content on their television that's stored on their PC using a remote control for navigation. The customer will be able to stream music files and other content on the DVD player. "
Hmm, what protocol does it use for filesharing? Netbios on a WiFi network? Will it play my ogg files? My DivX? My png photos? You can put together a shuttle SV-24 with a dvd player and a 6 channel sound card for about the same price they're quoting; that's what I use at home and I'm quite happy with it (except for the fact my TV won't do more than 640x480). If I were a gambling man, I'd sell sonicblue's stock short and profit from their stupidity.
So,
1) Customer pays me for a widget with an untraceable transaction.
2) I don't ship the widget
3) Profit!!!
Rat stimulates YOU!
Web sites bearing an address like "www.example.kids.us" would have to certify that they do not contain sexually explicit material, hate speech, violence or other material not suitable for minors.
Who determines what material isn't suitable?
Do they get paid? By the taxpayers I assume?
Do they really have any power to tell ICANN to revoke a domain name?