On the other hand, if Apple were smart, they'd parly the desire for Aqua themes into Mac sales. A simple and direct ad campaign, "why settle for a cheap immitation when you can have the real thing..."
Funny, I seem to remember a bunch of "Not just IBM Compatible, it IS IBM" campaigns from the 80's. If the effectiveness of this simple and direct ad can be guessed by their PC sales, it won't work.
The question that needs asked is: "Do the current Aqua-like themes use graphics taken from the real thing?" Apple can own the right the those images, the cool colored dots, window shade, check-boxes, et al. However they have no say if someone whips out GIMP or Photoshop and makes their own theme "inspired by" Aqua. If anything, this would be better for the end user; I like the colored dots, but the check boxes, dialog buttons, and radio buttons are annoying as all get out. In the mean time, I'll stick to the stock ShinyMetal theme for Enlightenment, one of the few true innovators in "look and feel". Who else has things like a slide out bar on the upper right of each window to hold the infrequently used options such as minimize-maximize?
Ever since the post late last week about the predictability of pi, I can't help but think about the infinite monkey/infinite time scenario. It would seem that embedded within the number pi is the script to Hamlet. Ford Prefect would be proud.
There is/was a German hacker's convention scheduled for this year, one of the topics for discussion that I haven't seen posted in/. is the 'illegal prime'. A prime number, when written in base 16, that becomes a.gz file with the deccs code imbedded within. Its about 1400 digits long, viewable here How long till a digit place and count to find it in pi becomes available? The smalled deccs code in c is about 430 charachters. Remove the CR/LF, encode as 7 bit, and it should be much easier to find inside pi.
With the predictability of pi digits outlines a couple of days ago, making a program to accept a place and length to output a planned file is very realistic. However, I believe we are far behind in the computing power to actually take an arbitrary file of more than a few bite's in size and find that location/length pair in pi. Let's hoep quantum computing changes that.
On an aside, all of the information on finding digits of pi are base 10. Are there any articles on predictability based on a binary representation?
I'm in the exact same boat. I not only made a single PSX->LPT connector, the next day I made a 2 PSX-> 1 LPT connector. Both work just peachy with supported DOS/Linux games (mame -psxlpt1 sfa2:) and as standard joystick(s) under Win98 with the drivers installed. Windows 2000 tries to load the drivers, makes a valiant effort, and then pukes with one of the most cryptic errors I have ever seen.
In hindsight, it makes sense; the driver support 'feels' more like NT based than 9x based. All over the DPadPro site, it is very clear that NT isn't supported.
You're options are pretty basic:
Switch to 9x based OS for your gaming.
Buy a 'real' joystick.
Write your own games. DPadPro support is built into the recent versions of the Allegro library.
And the last, best answer: Write the drivers yourself. The core clock and scanning routines are given in a source file on the DPadPro site. It's meant for DOS use, but should give enough of a headstart since the creator, as cool as he is for making the design, loses cool points for not open sourcing the 9x drivers. So as not to sound too hypocritical, this is well outside of my coding abilities, so this isn't a chastising if you can't do it either. Learning the ins and outs to create drivers under a MS OS would be enough for me to hang myself with my mouse.
Just as a brag note, the 2 PSX-> 1LPT is now going for a good cause: My MAME cabinet. With two Analog sticks and 16 buttons per controller, I can wire a complete cabinet with all the bells and whistles using only a single LPT port for controls, no issues with >6 switches at once (a common issue with rewired keyboards because of their matrix setup) and leaving the keyboard free incase I have to do some DOS hacking. Thanks to the scanning code on the DPadPro site, I can write my own front end menu, and DOS MAME takes it from there.
That 'boot sector' your describing, called by most the IP.BIN, resides in the first 16 sectors (32k) of the first data session of the cd does NOT contain any specific information that Sega could consider 'copyrighted' Check here for more information about the 'boot sector'. There IS a checksum of the boot sector, however, but since we know the checksum routine, making our own boot sector is trivially easy. The checksum key is stored in the header itself, so just make that key match your header.
Secondly, the screen dump you should have just read, the one linked in the story, explicitly states that it was uploaded with the IP slave. The IP slave is a program written my Marcus Comstedt (get used to hearing that name a bunch. He should be considered the father of DC development in all of its forms, with heavy contributions from Dan P. and Andrew K. and a few others. You'll also notice Marcus' name as the main readon NetBSD works on the DC at all) that resides on a bootable CD. You turn the DC on, it loads the slave program from disc, and then you then upload the NetBSD binary(s) through the ethernet adaptor. The slave runs the program once the uploaded.elf is complete.
In others words, they can easily distribute the NetBSD files if they wish to without stepping on any of Sega's toes.
For those interesting in Dreamcast development, be sure to check out
Marcus' Site Jules's site Dan's site For the best information available from people who KNOW, now people who post on Slashdot.
Not surprising at all. The 'specs' for the Xbox have been constantly changing, and I'll happily admit I haven't been keeping track of them; Those numbers were pulled from one of the original Xbox announcements way back when. Even with a 733 and some buff video card, it doesn't hold enough power to emulate the DC. The SH4 main CPU in the DC runs at 200MHz (check for yourself, I *DO* know that number is accurate) which gives you 4-to-1 opcode ratio, not enuff (yes, yes, opcodes!=MHz!=MIPS, but it gives a nice number for arguement here) That still doesn't include the cpu emulation for sound. The Nvidia is a real 3d card, while the powerVR is more of a 2d tile accelerator with Zbuffer and perspective correction; far to different to allow the Nvidia to 'wrap' the powerVR instructions to take load off of the CPU. While I have no doubt that your numbers are based on a current spec sheet of the Xbox, I do have doubt whether or not those specs will make it into the production models. While I would actually love to see this rumour come true, I do have to point out the feasability issues.
Sorry, I gotta hit the the Bullshit Alarm on this one.
Xbox is based on Intel hardware. Something like a Celeron 400 CPU and Nvidia geforce video. Dreamcast uses a SH4 and ARM7, respectively. Completely different set of hardware. Even if they were able to read the disc properly (not bloody likely, read above posts, I'll not repeat) they won't be able to do anything with it. They can't do any kind of software emulation; the cpu is not powerful enough for low level full speed emulation of both the ARM and SH4 (the sound interface isn't a DAC you can just ship PCM data to like sound cards; its it completely separate system, with its own RAM that contain binary executable code as well as data. The ARM would have to be emulated as well). The Nvidia works completely different than PowerVR chip in the Dreamcast; again, more emulation done by this one poor Intel CPU.
Sega is looking into selling the chips for use in other components; this is a granted. However, it is very late in the Xbox development cycle to add this major feature to the Xbox. Not to mention OMG the heat this thing would produce. This gives no mention of the hardware needed (How do I play Phantasy Star online w/o a modem? How would I use my Seaman microphone or Samba de Amigo maracas?) This is a pipe dream.
Just cause a rumour is posted on some other website on the Internet doesn't make it any less a rumour, Slashdot. I personally am really curious who at Andover is getting paid off for all of the anti-Sega BS thats been coming down from here in the past week. (Remember the 'Sega dropping the DC' from two days ago?)
The PSX is a 6 year old console, with the main processor being a 33MHz MIPS r3300a. The SNES had a much slower 16 bit processor (I don't recall the MHz, but has an example, the SuperFX chip found in some of the later games, such as Doom and Starfox, ran at 16Mhz.), that, just for the sake of arguement so we have some numbers, ran at 8Mhz. That gives us 4 opcodes for each 1 opcode of original SNES bytecode to update the registers, access the emulated memory, and/or call the appropriate BIOS function to place a pixel/sprite/soundbyte. If you had done any kind of research before asking a wetdream question like this, you would see that this is not going to happen. You cannot expect the PSX to be capable of anything that a 486 33Mhz cannot do. Now that we have the speed out of the way, let's check memory.
Emulators themselves are very small compared to the size of the ROM's they play. For example, my copy of snes9x for linux weighs in at 1.2 meg. The PSX has 2 megs of RAM (a little less than than actually available though, due to 64k lost to BIOS caching) leaving us not very much to play with; about 756k or so. SNES roms are exponents of 2 in size. Some, very very few, but some can weight in at 512k needed to fit. But, you don't give the impression of someone who cares about emulation for the same of emulation/education/history/etc. You just wanna play the games, right? Final Fantasy 3 = 3 megs. Zipped. Roms for the SNES are mostly 2 megs and up, making emulation on the PSX a pipe dream.
One of the biggest problems I see with the emulation and console dev scene today are the 'Hey, how about' people littering, loitering, and otherwise not providing anything constructive to the people who actually care about it. We don't need ideas; knowing about the actuall systems involved, we have had more ideas before we even took the screws off the casing than you had since you bought the console. Yes, MAME would be a cool port. Snes9x would be a cool port, FreeAMP would be a cool port...We already have thought about it, and those that care have already begun working themselves on those pieces of software. Both scenes are littered with tons of people constantly emailing saying "Hey, I can't code myself, but I had this great idea..." Wasting our time, and losing our respect.
Now, what *SHOULD* be done is this. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and decide YOU want to do this. YOU want to code. YOU want to make SNES emu a reality on (insert console). YOU should be asking "Hey, Im new to coding on this console, but I really want to port SNES9x to the PSX. I'm aware of the limitations such as speed and memory, but Im looking for any advice the group may have on #1 getting started on console dev and #2 ideas on how I might get around these limitations" Then you will get some positive responses. For example, to get around the memory limitation, how about redirecting memory access to the ROM to the actual rom on cd? Yes, it will slow things down. For the speed issue, how about very high level emulation instead of low level? Frameskip? Coding the cpu core in ASM? DYnamic recompilation? For PSX development in general, check out all of the sites that have been up forever and a day, such as http://napalm.intelinet.com http://start.at/loser-psx http://consoledev.com and, for the Linux PSX hacker,
http://psxdev.de
The emualtion and console dev 'scene' is not for people who expect things to be handed to them. Its for the people who want to do it themselves. If you aren't willing to try it yourself, don't whine when someone won't do it for you.
Side note: NES (NOT snes, nes) emulator was released a while back for the PSX. Speed was roughly 5% of the original NES, with full frameskip and no sound.
On mine, it jumps to the last radio station you were on. If you select it to play the disc with the function key, then the selection just before it was AM2. Instead of using the function key, just insert the disc, itll switch to disc automagically. So, put the stereo on your FM radio station of choice, pop in the disc, play a song or two, then eject. You'll see what I mean.
The choices you listed, the Aiwa and the Kenwood, are the only 'real' choices around for a in dash car stereo. There are many other cheesy options, like a MP3 cd walkman unit with an adaptor or a computer hooked up in back, but let's get real. If you wanted to 'roll your own' you would have already.
So, here's my comparison of the Aiwa CDC-MP3 vs the Kenwood z919. Just a note, I have the former in my 95 4Runner, and a friend has the Kenwood in his 96 4Runner, both with no other audio equipment than what came stock. We have stock speakers only, no amp, and we are both NOT using the stock amp. A pretty fair comparison if you ask me.
First off, the sound quality: Very close. I am not a professional audiophile, and I can't tell the difference. Certainly not a $300-$400 difference between the two (the Aiwa books at +/- $250, the kenwood at +/- $650). Major differences are there if you look. The Aiwa support ID3 tags: The Kenwood does not. I think the ID3 tag display could have been more intelligent, but at least its there. With the kenwood, your stuck to solely the filename. Before you think 'hey, thats fine', remember that it only supports 8.3 format, unless you burned it in ISO mode 2. Unless you went out of your way to make sure, you didn't. So, you have six significant charachters (don't forget the ~1:) The Aiwa has a detachable face, so if your urban, you may want to consider it. The Kenwood has a tilting face, but no removability security.
The Kenwood does have some pros too. First of all, dolphins. When the unit if powered off (it doesn't do it when playing, which was stupid on their part), you get a cute little dot matrix display of swimming dolphins. NEVER underestimate the poon-tang power of having swimming dolphins in your car. THe display looks cooler on the Kenwood, being entirely dot matrix, however this also means that all of the buttons are on the outside border of the face, making use a pain. But thats ok, cuz you will actually be using our last 'pro': the remote. The remote for the Kenwood is very full featured. The remote for the Aiwa is a crappy 5 button one thats supposed to latch onto the steering wheel and doesnt do a good job. The Kenwood has 3 pairs of RCA outs, so if your a car stereo nut, it'll suit you better than the Aiwa with 2 pair RCA outs.
In my mind, the pro's for the Kenwood are almost all Aesthetic, while the pro's for the Aiwa are all tech related. While Dolphins are cool, I wouldn't give up double my money and ID3 support for dolphins that only swim when the stereo is OFF. If Im in the car, the stereo is always on, and I've been very happy with my purchase.
You all are going to laugh, but, yes, there have been new genres that have gotten very popular.
The most notable is dancing games. This started out with such PSX games as PaRappa the Rapper. Now, accessory 'dance mats' for the very popular Dance Dance Revolution are easily available, and gaining in popularity. This falls into the category of 'All the rage in Japan' and actually involves exercise, something most gamers could use.
COmpanies are tryign new genre's all of the time. Someone only need to think of the money Tetris brought in, and it should be obvious game companies want BADLY to bust a new genre open. For example, there is a four seat racing game at my local arcade. Sound normal? Not quite. It horse racing. You play jockey on the horse, and the movement of your rocking and the movement of the horse's head determines your speed, not to mention looks really funny to onlookers.
WHat about Silent Scope? Maybe you would just call it a 'really, really First Person Shooter', but thats a crock. You could call it 'A Gun Game', but comparing this to Operation Wolf isn't even fair. I feel Konami should be praised for this game, because it was original, well played out, and damn fun.
Don't pigeon-hole yourselves. A lot of people don't see the inovations because they stick to what they know they like, such as RTS, RPG's, FPS, etc. Keep your eyes open and see the new stuff, and give it a shot. Besides, if *YOU* can come up with a genre that hasn't been tried, but would be addictive, Let me know and we'll sell it for a ton of cash.
Toodles
The GBDEV scene has been out for a very long time now.WHile I dont want to downplay Mr. Ziegler's work (I visit his site veyr frequently), there is more information available for it than you could ever use.
GB dev is one of the most refined console dev groups out there. The information on the processor (modified z80) is well know and documented, and easy to code for. Complete IDE's are available, using GCC as the compiler, links into a.ROM file, and starts up the emulator to run. Emulators such as the new VGBWIN provide excellent debugging platforms, showing tilesets, memory/variable contents, and easy step-throughs.
The hardware for this flash cart requires some serious soldering on a very fine point scale; I hate doing it. For those interesting in GBdev, check out some of the sites available like:
www.otakunozoku.com//z80 asm cribsheet rules, and the RGBDS is a good platform for asm game dev.
www.devrs.com// Jeff's been the best and most widely respected hacker on the gameboy. Has all of the links needed to get you up and running.
Dont worry about the hardware, just download the free (and usually open source) software to compile stuff for game boy, read the documentation available, test your code out on an emulator, and then, after all of this work, if you REALLY want to see it on a real GB, then buy the parts instead of spending the time soldering your own. www.cd64.com has black carts and reader/writers available at a very respectable price.
The document you specified as getting your information from doesn't appear to mention the latency or the cost; it sounds at best a MS HOWTO, at worst a MS marketing ploy.
As an admin, you want something that is configurable, stable, and low maintenence. SOmething you can set up right and be done with it. If you are in a serious working environment, go hardware. Less to no security concerns, faster routing (see above explanation. If you don't believe it yourself, run a traceroute to anywhere, and a few queso's along the latent IPs.) no headaches, and low maintenence. In case you are afraid of Linux bias, know without a doubt I would take a cisco over a linux box anyday in a true work environment. With Win2k, you got a case, cdrom, floppy, monitor, and tons of BS a router just doesn't need. With a cisco, you got a cute, small, black box that can sit in a corner. An if you want to fall for the spin in that document about how you can do this/that/otherthing win Win2k, like the dial on demand modem connection, and want this kind of added bells and whistles for your routing solution, grab a Cobalt Qube. Same functionality, less maintence, less security concerns, and you won't have some janitor turn it off hoping to get to play Solitaire on it.
From a professional standpoint, use the right tool for the job. Use a router if you are routing. Using a win2k box instead is like trying to change spark plugs with a leatherman.
Don't forget to take into account cost, either. Win2k liscensing, for the server version, is hefty enough you could pick up a router to do the job for the cost of liscensing the software alone. Use the extra to talk the bosses into a laptop.:)
The lists given so far are good suggesstions, but represent the distributed in America films. A lot of what may interest you has not been release into the US, and that allows for a bit of underground work from fans like us.
Since the titles haven't (yet) been liscensed for the US, it is legal to distribute them on a not-for-profit basis, called fansubbing. If you want a good, cheap access to anime (almost all are subbed, few are dubbed) then look into fansubbing. Two of my favorite series are only really available this way.
Vampire Princess Miyu is a wonderful, dark, gothic set of a shows. 4 episodes were released in the US, called OVA's, similiar to TV pilots. However, the show did run for a while, and 26 episodes are available on fansub, from Oddyssey Anime, http://www.odysseyanime.com/ I picked up 26 episodes, 7 tapes for well under $50 with shipping, and is one of my favorite collections. The series drags for a bit in the middle, but the ending episodes (21-26 I belief) are so absolutely stunning. THe OVA's are good as well, but you can pick those up anywhere.
Another reccommendation is the Megazone series. Please, watch them in order! You lose a lot of the surprise of the show by not watching them in order. The series is heavy Mecha related, with the normal 80's pop backdrop. Again, fansub only.
The last reccommendation I haven't seen already that is an American release is Maddox. Great graphics, good story, and overall very enjoyable.
If you only take one thing from this post, PLEASE look into fansubbing. Cheap, good quality anime that you cannot elsewise get in the US, series you have not heard of, but should definitely check out. No, fansub DVD doesn't exist, and fansub VCD is rare. To get the good stuff, you are going to have to accept a little VHS in your life.
That has just got to be one of the best lines ever in a movie. "You're dead." "How about a little Necrophilia?"
I hate to sound like I am jumping on a bandwagon here, but the review sucked. THe bulk of the review was spent discussing a charachter played by De Niro as a cameo, and nothing more, and had maybe 5 minutes screen time total on this call; the scene fixing the AC, and the very end that I don't want to explain for fear of spoiling the movie. The charachters played weren't any kind of hackers; they were individuals, the main charachter a main trying to find his freedom and inherent nobility in a society of oppressing beauracracy. The actual individuals are the main charachter and lead female, while two charachters to note are De Niro's, who charachter is (very symbolically) 'killed by the paperwork', and the lead charachter's mother, played by the wonderful redhead from 'Soap' and 'Who's the boss?'. Her charachter is a caring individual for Sam Lowry, however increasingly becomes more obsessed with her own quest for youth, and leaving Sam's eyes as an individual.
If you are expeting this to be a comedy just because he is a 'Python'er, you don't know Gilliam very well. Gilliam is a very dark individual when it comes to film, as shown by such films as 'The Meaning of Life', '12 Monkeys', and 'Time Bandits'. The closest example I can think of is 12 Monkeys. THe imagery is the same, the tragedy of the film is very similiar, but Brazil has a lot (and I mean A LOT)more symbolism and methaphors in it, with dream sequences to familiarize you with the good heart of the protaganist, and the faceless, unstopable juggernaut that is the society he so wishes to free himself from. He even has a halucination scene freed Gilliam from all restraints and had more flying metaphors than Kefka on LSD.
Warning: THis isn't a happy-feel good movie. Kids won't understand, and if you can't handle dark movies, this one may stay with you for a bit. Nonetheless, it is an excellent movie.
For those in the Napster mindset, people complain that a Gnutella program (currently edging out Daikatana for the Webster's definition of Vaporeware) would be used for warez, illegal MP3's, and pr0n. I hate to break it to you folks, but they are right. Whne I got to thinking of the idea, the first idea that came to mind is *MAYBE* I can finally find an ISO of Chessmaster 2 for the psx. However, that isn't a concern of ours.
What it is used for shouldn't be. Most of IRC'ers chat, but some (dare I say most?) use it to hunt down the files they want; mp3, pr0n, warez. FTP is the same way. If I'm ftp'ing, and it ain't off of cdrom.com, its warez or romz, hands down. HTTP? Same thing. All of these are tools, tainted by the negligence (yes, even my own) of its users.
What needs to be coded is not a 'Warez-Pron-Roms-ISO's-ASF-search seek and leech' program. The description of what this should be, a 'Distributed File System', nails it perfectly. There are other, legitimate reasons for such a beastie. Large scale downloads (Episode 2 trailers, Quake 4 test,...) could take place on a reasonably local segment, maybe even your own ISP's segment if you get lucky. Its just the next logical step for large scale, internet wide technology.
Napsters days are numbered. As soon as a DFS becomes reality with the protocol well documented and well ported, no one will stick to Napster. People will want the ability to download a NIN bootleg track while hunting for a ASF of 'The Lost Highway'. And for the Luddite/.'ers out there, just remember, NT as a free distributed file system available for download from MS. No such beastie for Linux/*BSDs.
So, heres the proposal needed:
The file system must be open to allow portabilty across OS's and open to avoid security weaknesses.
Must allow manual configuration of master 'browser' servers, both IPs and ports.
Must allow file type specific modules to be written, which can gain needed information from the file based on extension, and whos information can be used in the file search. *.MP3's can be sorted for bitrate and frequency and duration, JPGs can have thumbnails, ZIPs can search the internal files, and all files can have an MD5 hash to compare against. PGP signatures optional.
I would love to work on it, but I just don't have the network programming experience.
For those who want the entire collection from beginnign to end, FF2 can be found online in translated ROM format. Be warned, the translation sucks. Bad. But, you can play. FF3 I have not seen in ROM format before, but there are a lot of groups working on translating good RPGs into English, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone it doing it. You can get FF5, either in translated SNES ROM format (better translation, much more playable) or in the Playstation FF Anthology collection. Of course, you can only legally get the rom if you have the original cartridge blah blah delete in 24 hours blah blah.
I just want to know why there are more (english) Final Fantasy titles for the Gameboy, than there are for any other system. There are four (FF Adventure 1-3, FF Legend) for the GB, and at most 3 for any other (SNES, with Mystic QUest, FF3, & FF2; PSX, with FF Tactics, FF7, and FF8)?
I've been following this one for a while. For those who didn't know, it's all CG, and it makes Pixar look like South Park. These aren't cartoonish, this are realistic enough to blow your mind. There was a video in Japanese I watched that showed both the antagonist and protaganist of the movie in action, and they almost look realy. You looking for freckles? They're there. Veins in the eyeballs. SOmething like 5 simulated muscles move when they blink. Absolutely amazing.
Oh, and FF3 didn't come out for the NES. If you mean the english FF3 (FF6 in Nippon) it was for the SNES (Super Famicon in Nippon). FF1 (english) and FF2(Japanese) were for the NES.
Check out the tribute movies on http://squaregamer.com . It has some of the highlights of all of the FF series in CG, set to a cool Offspring single. For those of us who went through and know just how cool the Opera house scene in FF3 was, you'll appreciate it.
The point isn't that MS can't bundle IE4 w/ W98, the point is that W98 customers didn't have a CHOICE about whether it is there or not, a choice that should have been given because the existance of the browser is counter productive to the OS (Yes, this is what Judge Jackson put into the finding. Not verbatum, but that Judge knows his sh1t) As the current installation goes, RedHat wouldn't have that problem, since yuo can CHOOSE to: #1 Not install said text editor, web browser, Perl module, Httpd, whatever when you first install RH. #2 Remove samesaid module at any time using tools such as 'rm' or 'rpm'. In Windows 98, you do not have the choice to remove, or not install in the first place, IE4. Its existance is counterproductive (I dont think anyone here would disagree that Win98 is slower than Win95, right outta the box. This is not good for someone who does NOT use the web...)and the purpose of putting in was shown to the Judges conviction to be not to add value to the OS, but to use MS's leverage in one field (OS's) to strongarm its way into another (Browsers) Of course, Im also a hyprocrit. I am typing this in IE5 on NT4Serv.:) But my level of respect for this judge after reading his finding is high. I also encourage everyone to read the finding (its more technical, and very little legal-ese. Enjoyable), and not just cheer the 'Microsoft ==Evil' ruling. Toodles
Team Fortress Classic is an add-on to HL, and uses the HL engine... It doesn't make much sense to reccommend a game because the engine it uses sucks..:) Of course, maybe you mean Team Fortress, which uses the Quake 1 engine. Naah, that couldn't be it. WHo would call the HL engine obsolete in the face of Quake Classic?:) HL is da bomb. Single Player. Not multiplayer. However, TFC more than makes up for this, being one of the best multiplayer games for a first person shooter ever. Of course, UT's almost out, so Im sure Ill have to rethink that. Toodles
Im going to assume that you want both versions of NT4 (Srv & Ws) as well as 98 & 95. Cinch. There is the minor issue of calling 9X a 32 bit OS, but Ill save that cynicism for later) Do a bit of planning beforehand, such as what you want the directory names to be. I.e. Win9X C:\Windows NTSrv C:\NTServer NTWS C:\NTWorkSt
Well, almost. The kicker isn't getting NT and 9X to play well together, it's getting 95 and 98 to play together that is hard. The easiest option is to drop one, and live with 98, Server, and Workstation. it won't involve any LILO'ing of the drive or nuthin'.
Create a FAT16 partition of full size (2 gig If you are using the Win98 FDISK.EXE, say NO to the 'enamble large drive support' when asked, or it will be fat32(:( ) If you are using Win95 FDISK, say YES (which will enable LBA, needed for >512MB drives) Install the Win9X OS of choice, using 'C:\Windows\' (default) as the install directory, and make sure to reboot a few times after it is installed so it is nice and stable for you.
next, grab either one of the NT install disks and install away on the same partition. Accept the defaults were you can. Make certain to use the NT directory you decided on earlier.
Then install the other NT install disks, and install to it's own directory as well.
You WILL be sharing the Program files directory, but this isn't usually too big of a problem since the main items in mine are WinAMP and WinZip (can be run in either OS).
If you make the mistake of either 1. SYS'ing C: from DOS 2. (Re)installing Win9X after NT is installed, grab the install disks, choose the Rescue option, and follow the directions to inspect the Boot sector. Put in the rescue disk when asked (You DID make the rescue disk, didn't you?:) and it will replace the boot sector correctly.
The NT OS loader will detect the Windows installation, and make it an option in your boot up. Whne done, it should look like :
NT Server 4.0 NT Server 4.0 [VGA Mode] NT Workstation 4.0 NT Workstation 4.0 [VGA Mode] Microsoft Windows
Now, if you really, absolutely MUST have all four OS's, things get tricky.
Follow the steps above to get the initial three OS's going. After it is done, pop in your (We'll assume 95) 95 startup disk. Run Fdisk to create another Fat16 partition, but NOT an extended nor logical. A regular partition. Set it as ACTIVE (very important). Install Win95 as normal. From here, you have option about how to switch between OS's.
1. Run FDISK from a boot floppy and set the Primary partition to active if you want NT or 98, or set the Secondary part as active if you want 95. 2. Add a line like D:\='Windows 95' to your boot.ini on C:, and set C: to active. NOTE: This may not work, my Boot.ini info is rusty. 3. Set C: to active. Make a lilo.conf (You comfy w/ Linux?:) to choose/dev/hda1 for 98 or NT, and/dev/hda2 for 95. install LILO to/dev/hda. (modify accordingly is using SCSI) 4. Set C: to active. Make a lilo.conf to boot straight to/dev/hda2. put the loader on a floppy. You can use the floppy to boot 98, or remove to boot nt/98. You could also dd the boot sector from the floppy hand it to NT and edit the boot.ini to boot from it is Win95 is chosen from the boot menu. See the NT+Linux HOWTO for more info on this.
Phew. See, the installation is easy, once you realize the only common FS between all of these OS's is FAT16. Selecting which one to boot it the kicker. There are many options available, but I tried to stick w/ NT Loader since you WILL have to use it if you have NT. LILO is much more powerful though, and learning to use it is VERY handy, even if the system doesn't run Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, if Apple were smart, they'd parly the desire for Aqua themes into Mac sales. A simple and direct ad campaign, "why settle for a cheap immitation when you can have the real thing..."
Funny, I seem to remember a bunch of "Not just IBM Compatible, it IS IBM" campaigns from the 80's. If the effectiveness of this simple and direct ad can be guessed by their PC sales, it won't work.
The question that needs asked is: "Do the current Aqua-like themes use graphics taken from the real thing?" Apple can own the right the those images, the cool colored dots, window shade, check-boxes, et al. However they have no say if someone whips out GIMP or Photoshop and makes their own theme "inspired by" Aqua. If anything, this would be better for the end user; I like the colored dots, but the check boxes, dialog buttons, and radio buttons are annoying as all get out. In the mean time, I'll stick to the stock ShinyMetal theme for Enlightenment, one of the few true innovators in "look and feel". Who else has things like a slide out bar on the upper right of each window to hold the infrequently used options such as minimize-maximize?
Toodles
There is/was a German hacker's convention scheduled for this year, one of the topics for discussion that I haven't seen posted in /. is the 'illegal prime'. A prime number, when written in base 16, that becomes a .gz file with the deccs code imbedded within. Its about 1400 digits long, viewable here How long till a digit place and count to find it in pi becomes available? The smalled deccs code in c is about 430 charachters. Remove the CR/LF, encode as 7 bit, and it should be much easier to find inside pi.
With the predictability of pi digits outlines a couple of days ago, making a program to accept a place and length to output a planned file is very realistic. However, I believe we are far behind in the computing power to actually take an arbitrary file of more than a few bite's in size and find that location/length pair in pi. Let's hoep quantum computing changes that.
On an aside, all of the information on finding digits of pi are base 10. Are there any articles on predictability based on a binary representation?
Toodles
I'm in the exact same boat. I not only made a single PSX->LPT connector, the next day I made a 2 PSX-> 1 LPT connector. Both work just peachy with supported DOS/Linux games (mame -psxlpt1 sfa2 :) and as standard joystick(s) under Win98 with the drivers installed. Windows 2000 tries to load the drivers, makes a valiant effort, and then pukes with one of the most cryptic errors I have ever seen.
In hindsight, it makes sense; the driver support 'feels' more like NT based than 9x based. All over the DPadPro site, it is very clear that NT isn't supported.
You're options are pretty basic:
Switch to 9x based OS for your gaming.
Buy a 'real' joystick.
Write your own games. DPadPro support is built into the recent versions of the Allegro library.
And the last, best answer: Write the drivers yourself. The core clock and scanning routines are given in a source file on the DPadPro site. It's meant for DOS use, but should give enough of a headstart since the creator, as cool as he is for making the design, loses cool points for not open sourcing the 9x drivers. So as not to sound too hypocritical, this is well outside of my coding abilities, so this isn't a chastising if you can't do it either. Learning the ins and outs to create drivers under a MS OS would be enough for me to hang myself with my mouse.
Just as a brag note, the 2 PSX-> 1LPT is now going for a good cause: My MAME cabinet. With two Analog sticks and 16 buttons per controller, I can wire a complete cabinet with all the bells and whistles using only a single LPT port for controls, no issues with >6 switches at once (a common issue with rewired keyboards because of their matrix setup) and leaving the keyboard free incase I have to do some DOS hacking. Thanks to the scanning code on the DPadPro site, I can write my own front end menu, and DOS MAME takes it from there.
Toodles
That 'boot sector' your describing, called by most the IP.BIN, resides in the first 16 sectors (32k) of the first data session of the cd does NOT contain any specific information that Sega could consider 'copyrighted' Check here for more information about the 'boot sector'. There IS a checksum of the boot sector, however, but since we know the checksum routine, making our own boot sector is trivially easy. The checksum key is stored in the header itself, so just make that key match your header.
Secondly, the screen dump you should have just read, the one linked in the story, explicitly states that it was uploaded with the IP slave. The IP slave is a program written my Marcus Comstedt (get used to hearing that name a bunch. He should be considered the father of DC development in all of its forms, with heavy contributions from Dan P. and Andrew K. and a few others. You'll also notice Marcus' name as the main readon NetBSD works on the DC at all) that resides on a bootable CD. You turn the DC on, it loads the slave program from disc, and then you then upload the NetBSD binary(s) through the ethernet adaptor. The slave runs the program once the uploaded
In others words, they can easily distribute the NetBSD files if they wish to without stepping on any of Sega's toes.
For those interesting in Dreamcast development, be sure to check out
Marcus' Site
Jules's site
Dan's site
For the best information available from people who KNOW, now people who post on Slashdot.
Not surprising at all. The 'specs' for the Xbox have been constantly changing, and I'll happily admit I haven't been keeping track of them; Those numbers were pulled from one of the original Xbox announcements way back when. Even with a 733 and some buff video card, it doesn't hold enough power to emulate the DC. The SH4 main CPU in the DC runs at 200MHz (check for yourself, I *DO* know that number is accurate) which gives you 4-to-1 opcode ratio, not enuff (yes, yes, opcodes!=MHz!=MIPS, but it gives a nice number for arguement here) That still doesn't include the cpu emulation for sound. The Nvidia is a real 3d card, while the powerVR is more of a 2d tile accelerator with Zbuffer and perspective correction; far to different to allow the Nvidia to 'wrap' the powerVR instructions to take load off of the CPU. While I have no doubt that your numbers are based on a current spec sheet of the Xbox, I do have doubt whether or not those specs will make it into the production models. While I would actually love to see this rumour come true, I do have to point out the feasability issues.
:)
Toodles D. Asshole
Xbox is based on Intel hardware. Something like a Celeron 400 CPU and Nvidia geforce video. Dreamcast uses a SH4 and ARM7, respectively. Completely different set of hardware. Even if they were able to read the disc properly (not bloody likely, read above posts, I'll not repeat) they won't be able to do anything with it. They can't do any kind of software emulation; the cpu is not powerful enough for low level full speed emulation of both the ARM and SH4 (the sound interface isn't a DAC you can just ship PCM data to like sound cards; its it completely separate system, with its own RAM that contain binary executable code as well as data. The ARM would have to be emulated as well). The Nvidia works completely different than PowerVR chip in the Dreamcast; again, more emulation done by this one poor Intel CPU.
Sega is looking into selling the chips for use in other components; this is a granted. However, it is very late in the Xbox development cycle to add this major feature to the Xbox. Not to mention OMG the heat this thing would produce. This gives no mention of the hardware needed (How do I play Phantasy Star online w/o a modem? How would I use my Seaman microphone or Samba de Amigo maracas?) This is a pipe dream.
Just cause a rumour is posted on some other website on the Internet doesn't make it any less a rumour, Slashdot. I personally am really curious who at Andover is getting paid off for all of the anti-Sega BS thats been coming down from here in the past week. (Remember the 'Sega dropping the DC' from two days ago?)
Toodles
The PSX is a 6 year old console, with the main processor being a 33MHz MIPS r3300a. The SNES had a much slower 16 bit processor (I don't recall the MHz, but has an example, the SuperFX chip found in some of the later games, such as Doom and Starfox, ran at 16Mhz.), that, just for the sake of arguement so we have some numbers, ran at 8Mhz. That gives us 4 opcodes for each 1 opcode of original SNES bytecode to update the registers, access the emulated memory, and/or call the appropriate BIOS function to place a pixel/sprite/soundbyte. If you had done any kind of research before asking a wetdream question like this, you would see that this is not going to happen. You cannot expect the PSX to be capable of anything that a 486 33Mhz cannot do. Now that we have the speed out of the way, let's check memory.
Emulators themselves are very small compared to the size of the ROM's they play. For example, my copy of snes9x for linux weighs in at 1.2 meg. The PSX has 2 megs of RAM (a little less than than actually available though, due to 64k lost to BIOS caching) leaving us not very much to play with; about 756k or so. SNES roms are exponents of 2 in size. Some, very very few, but some can weight in at 512k needed to fit. But, you don't give the impression of someone who cares about emulation for the same of emulation/education/history/etc. You just wanna play the games, right? Final Fantasy 3 = 3 megs. Zipped. Roms for the SNES are mostly 2 megs and up, making emulation on the PSX a pipe dream.
One of the biggest problems I see with the emulation and console dev scene today are the 'Hey, how about' people littering, loitering, and otherwise not providing anything constructive to the people who actually care about it. We don't need ideas; knowing about the actuall systems involved, we have had more ideas before we even took the screws off the casing than you had since you bought the console. Yes, MAME would be a cool port. Snes9x would be a cool port, FreeAMP would be a cool port...We already have thought about it, and those that care have already begun working themselves on those pieces of software. Both scenes are littered with tons of people constantly emailing saying "Hey, I can't code myself, but I had this great idea..." Wasting our time, and losing our respect.
Now, what *SHOULD* be done is this. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and decide YOU want to do this. YOU want to code. YOU want to make SNES emu a reality on (insert console). YOU should be asking "Hey, Im new to coding on this console, but I really want to port SNES9x to the PSX. I'm aware of the limitations such as speed and memory, but Im looking for any advice the group may have on #1 getting started on console dev and #2 ideas on how I might get around these limitations" Then you will get some positive responses. For example, to get around the memory limitation, how about redirecting memory access to the ROM to the actual rom on cd? Yes, it will slow things down. For the speed issue, how about very high level emulation instead of low level? Frameskip? Coding the cpu core in ASM? DYnamic recompilation? For PSX development in general, check out all of the sites that have been up forever and a day, such as http://napalm.intelinet.com http://start.at/loser-psx http://consoledev.com and, for the Linux PSX hacker,
http://psxdev.de
The emualtion and console dev 'scene' is not for people who expect things to be handed to them. Its for the people who want to do it themselves. If you aren't willing to try it yourself, don't whine when someone won't do it for you.
Side note: NES (NOT snes, nes) emulator was released a while back for the PSX. Speed was roughly 5% of the original NES, with full frameskip and no sound.
Toodles
On mine, it jumps to the last radio station you were on. If you select it to play the disc with the function key, then the selection just before it was AM2. Instead of using the function key, just insert the disc, itll switch to disc automagically. So, put the stereo on your FM radio station of choice, pop in the disc, play a song or two, then eject. You'll see what I mean.
The choices you listed, the Aiwa and the Kenwood, are the only 'real' choices around for a in dash car stereo. There are many other cheesy options, like a MP3 cd walkman unit with an adaptor or a computer hooked up in back, but let's get real. If you wanted to 'roll your own' you would have already.
:) The Aiwa has a detachable face, so if your urban, you may want to consider it. The Kenwood has a tilting face, but no removability security.
So, here's my comparison of the Aiwa CDC-MP3 vs the Kenwood z919. Just a note, I have the former in my 95 4Runner, and a friend has the Kenwood in his 96 4Runner, both with no other audio equipment than what came stock. We have stock speakers only, no amp, and we are both NOT using the stock amp. A pretty fair comparison if you ask me.
First off, the sound quality: Very close. I am not a professional audiophile, and I can't tell the difference. Certainly not a $300-$400 difference between the two (the Aiwa books at +/- $250, the kenwood at +/- $650). Major differences are there if you look. The Aiwa support ID3 tags: The Kenwood does not. I think the ID3 tag display could have been more intelligent, but at least its there. With the kenwood, your stuck to solely the filename. Before you think 'hey, thats fine', remember that it only supports 8.3 format, unless you burned it in ISO mode 2. Unless you went out of your way to make sure, you didn't. So, you have six significant charachters (don't forget the ~1
The Kenwood does have some pros too. First of all, dolphins. When the unit if powered off (it doesn't do it when playing, which was stupid on their part), you get a cute little dot matrix display of swimming dolphins. NEVER underestimate the poon-tang power of having swimming dolphins in your car. THe display looks cooler on the Kenwood, being entirely dot matrix, however this also means that all of the buttons are on the outside border of the face, making use a pain. But thats ok, cuz you will actually be using our last 'pro': the remote. The remote for the Kenwood is very full featured. The remote for the Aiwa is a crappy 5 button one thats supposed to latch onto the steering wheel and doesnt do a good job. The Kenwood has 3 pairs of RCA outs, so if your a car stereo nut, it'll suit you better than the Aiwa with 2 pair RCA outs.
In my mind, the pro's for the Kenwood are almost all Aesthetic, while the pro's for the Aiwa are all tech related. While Dolphins are cool, I wouldn't give up double my money and ID3 support for dolphins that only swim when the stereo is OFF. If Im in the car, the stereo is always on, and I've been very happy with my purchase.
Toodles
You all are going to laugh, but, yes, there have been new genres that have gotten very popular. The most notable is dancing games. This started out with such PSX games as PaRappa the Rapper. Now, accessory 'dance mats' for the very popular Dance Dance Revolution are easily available, and gaining in popularity. This falls into the category of 'All the rage in Japan' and actually involves exercise, something most gamers could use. COmpanies are tryign new genre's all of the time. Someone only need to think of the money Tetris brought in, and it should be obvious game companies want BADLY to bust a new genre open. For example, there is a four seat racing game at my local arcade. Sound normal? Not quite. It horse racing. You play jockey on the horse, and the movement of your rocking and the movement of the horse's head determines your speed, not to mention looks really funny to onlookers. WHat about Silent Scope? Maybe you would just call it a 'really, really First Person Shooter', but thats a crock. You could call it 'A Gun Game', but comparing this to Operation Wolf isn't even fair. I feel Konami should be praised for this game, because it was original, well played out, and damn fun. Don't pigeon-hole yourselves. A lot of people don't see the inovations because they stick to what they know they like, such as RTS, RPG's, FPS, etc. Keep your eyes open and see the new stuff, and give it a shot. Besides, if *YOU* can come up with a genre that hasn't been tried, but would be addictive, Let me know and we'll sell it for a ton of cash. Toodles
The GBDEV scene has been out for a very long time now.WHile I dont want to downplay Mr. Ziegler's work (I visit his site veyr frequently), there is more information available for it than you could ever use.
.ROM file, and starts up the emulator to run. Emulators such as the new VGBWIN provide excellent debugging platforms, showing tilesets, memory/variable contents, and easy step-throughs.
//z80 asm cribsheet rules, and the RGBDS is a good platform for asm game dev.
//for emulators, suggest VGBWIN
//many documents and links
// Jeff's been the best and most widely respected hacker on the gameboy. Has all of the links needed to get you up and running.
GB dev is one of the most refined console dev groups out there. The information on the processor (modified z80) is well know and documented, and easy to code for. Complete IDE's are available, using GCC as the compiler, links into a
The hardware for this flash cart requires some serious soldering on a very fine point scale; I hate doing it. For those interesting in GBdev, check out some of the sites available like:
www.otakunozoku.com
www.vintagegaming.com
www.consoledev.com
www.devrs.com
Dont worry about the hardware, just download the free (and usually open source) software to compile stuff for game boy, read the documentation available, test your code out on an emulator, and then, after all of this work, if you REALLY want to see it on a real GB, then buy the parts instead of spending the time soldering your own. www.cd64.com has black carts and reader/writers available at a very respectable price.
Toodles
Into GBDev, PSXDev, and DCDev
The document you specified as getting your information from doesn't appear to mention the latency or the cost; it sounds at best a MS HOWTO, at worst a MS marketing ploy.
:)
As an admin, you want something that is configurable, stable, and low maintenence. SOmething you can set up right and be done with it. If you are in a serious working environment, go hardware. Less to no security concerns, faster routing (see above explanation. If you don't believe it yourself, run a traceroute to anywhere, and a few queso's along the latent IPs.) no headaches, and low maintenence. In case you are afraid of Linux bias, know without a doubt I would take a cisco over a linux box anyday in a true work environment. With Win2k, you got a case, cdrom, floppy, monitor, and tons of BS a router just doesn't need. With a cisco, you got a cute, small, black box that can sit in a corner. An if you want to fall for the spin in that document about how you can do this/that/otherthing win Win2k, like the dial on demand modem connection, and want this kind of added bells and whistles for your routing solution, grab a Cobalt Qube. Same functionality, less maintence, less security concerns, and you won't have some janitor turn it off hoping to get to play Solitaire on it.
From a professional standpoint, use the right tool for the job. Use a router if you are routing. Using a win2k box instead is like trying to change spark plugs with a leatherman.
Don't forget to take into account cost, either. Win2k liscensing, for the server version, is hefty enough you could pick up a router to do the job for the cost of liscensing the software alone. Use the extra to talk the bosses into a laptop.
Toodles
The lists given so far are good suggesstions, but represent the distributed in America films. A lot of what may interest you has not been release into the US, and that allows for a bit of underground work from fans like us.
Since the titles haven't (yet) been liscensed for the US, it is legal to distribute them on a not-for-profit basis, called fansubbing. If you want a good, cheap access to anime (almost all are subbed, few are dubbed) then look into fansubbing. Two of my favorite series are only really available this way.
Vampire Princess Miyu is a wonderful, dark, gothic set of a shows. 4 episodes were released in the US, called OVA's, similiar to TV pilots. However, the show did run for a while, and 26 episodes are available on fansub, from Oddyssey Anime, http://www.odysseyanime.com/ I picked up 26 episodes, 7 tapes for well under $50 with shipping, and is one of my favorite collections. The series drags for a bit in the middle, but the ending episodes (21-26 I belief) are so absolutely stunning. THe OVA's are good as well, but you can pick those up anywhere.
Another reccommendation is the Megazone series. Please, watch them in order! You lose a lot of the surprise of the show by not watching them in order. The series is heavy Mecha related, with the normal 80's pop backdrop. Again, fansub only.
The last reccommendation I haven't seen already that is an American release is Maddox. Great graphics, good story, and overall very enjoyable.
If you only take one thing from this post, PLEASE look into fansubbing. Cheap, good quality anime that you cannot elsewise get in the US, series you have not heard of, but should definitely check out. No, fansub DVD doesn't exist, and fansub VCD is rare. To get the good stuff, you are going to have to accept a little VHS in your life.
Toodles
That has just got to be one of the best lines ever in a movie. "You're dead." "How about a little Necrophilia?"
I hate to sound like I am jumping on a bandwagon here, but the review sucked. THe bulk of the review was spent discussing a charachter played by De Niro as a cameo, and nothing more, and had maybe 5 minutes screen time total on this call; the scene fixing the AC, and the very end that I don't want to explain for fear of spoiling the movie. The charachters played weren't any kind of hackers; they were individuals, the main charachter a main trying to find his freedom and inherent nobility in a society of oppressing beauracracy. The actual individuals are the main charachter and lead female, while two charachters to note are De Niro's, who charachter is (very symbolically) 'killed by the paperwork', and the lead charachter's mother, played by the wonderful redhead from 'Soap' and 'Who's the boss?'. Her charachter is a caring individual for Sam Lowry, however increasingly becomes more obsessed with her own quest for youth, and leaving Sam's eyes as an individual.
If you are expeting this to be a comedy just because he is a 'Python'er, you don't know Gilliam very well. Gilliam is a very dark individual when it comes to film, as shown by such films as 'The Meaning of Life', '12 Monkeys', and 'Time Bandits'. The closest example I can think of is 12 Monkeys. THe imagery is the same, the tragedy of the film is very similiar, but Brazil has a lot (and I mean A LOT)more symbolism and methaphors in it, with dream sequences to familiarize you with the good heart of the protaganist, and the faceless, unstopable juggernaut that is the society he so wishes to free himself from. He even has a halucination scene freed Gilliam from all restraints and had more flying metaphors than Kefka on LSD.
Warning: THis isn't a happy-feel good movie. Kids won't understand, and if you can't handle dark movies, this one may stay with you for a bit. Nonetheless, it is an excellent movie.
For those in the Napster mindset, people complain that a Gnutella program (currently edging out Daikatana for the Webster's definition of Vaporeware) would be used for warez, illegal MP3's, and pr0n. I hate to break it to you folks, but they are right. Whne I got to thinking of the idea, the first idea that came to mind is *MAYBE* I can finally find an ISO of Chessmaster 2 for the psx. However, that isn't a concern of ours.
...) could take place on a reasonably local segment, maybe even your own ISP's segment if you get lucky. Its just the next logical step for large scale, internet wide technology.
/.'ers out there, just remember, NT as a free distributed file system available for download from MS. No such beastie for Linux/*BSDs.
What it is used for shouldn't be. Most of IRC'ers chat, but some (dare I say most?) use it to hunt down the files they want; mp3, pr0n, warez. FTP is the same way. If I'm ftp'ing, and it ain't off of cdrom.com, its warez or romz, hands down. HTTP? Same thing. All of these are tools, tainted by the negligence (yes, even my own) of its users.
What needs to be coded is not a 'Warez-Pron-Roms-ISO's-ASF-search seek and leech' program. The description of what this should be, a 'Distributed File System', nails it perfectly. There are other, legitimate reasons for such a beastie. Large scale downloads (Episode 2 trailers, Quake 4 test,
Napsters days are numbered. As soon as a DFS becomes reality with the protocol well documented and well ported, no one will stick to Napster. People will want the ability to download a NIN bootleg track while hunting for a ASF of 'The Lost Highway'. And for the Luddite
So, heres the proposal needed:
The file system must be open to allow portabilty across OS's and open to avoid security weaknesses.
Must allow manual configuration of master 'browser' servers, both IPs and ports.
Must allow file type specific modules to be written, which can gain needed information from the file based on extension, and whos information can be used in the file search. *.MP3's can be sorted for bitrate and frequency and duration, JPGs can have thumbnails, ZIPs can search the internal files, and all files can have an MD5 hash to compare against. PGP signatures optional.
I would love to work on it, but I just don't have the network programming experience.
Toodles
For those who want the entire collection from beginnign to end, FF2 can be found online in translated ROM format. Be warned, the translation sucks. Bad. But, you can play. FF3 I have not seen in ROM format before, but there are a lot of groups working on translating good RPGs into English, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone it doing it. You can get FF5, either in translated SNES ROM format (better translation, much more playable) or in the Playstation FF Anthology collection. Of course, you can only legally get the rom if you have the original cartridge blah blah delete in 24 hours blah blah.
I just want to know why there are more (english) Final Fantasy titles for the Gameboy, than there are for any other system. There are four (FF Adventure 1-3, FF Legend) for the GB, and at most 3 for any other (SNES, with Mystic QUest, FF3, & FF2; PSX, with FF Tactics, FF7, and FF8)?
I've been following this one for a while. For those who didn't know, it's all CG, and it makes Pixar look like South Park. These aren't cartoonish, this are realistic enough to blow your mind. There was a video in Japanese I watched that showed both the antagonist and protaganist of the movie in action, and they almost look realy. You looking for freckles? They're there. Veins in the eyeballs. SOmething like 5 simulated muscles move when they blink. Absolutely amazing.
Oh, and FF3 didn't come out for the NES. If you mean the english FF3 (FF6 in Nippon) it was for the SNES (Super Famicon in Nippon). FF1 (english) and FF2(Japanese) were for the NES.
Check out the tribute movies on http://squaregamer.com . It has some of the highlights of all of the FF series in CG, set to a cool Offspring single. For those of us who went through and know just how cool the Opera house scene in FF3 was, you'll appreciate it.
Toodles
The point isn't that MS can't bundle IE4 w/ W98, the point is that W98 customers didn't have a CHOICE about whether it is there or not, a choice that should have been given because the existance of the browser is counter productive to the OS (Yes, this is what Judge Jackson put into the finding. Not verbatum, but that Judge knows his sh1t) As the current installation goes, RedHat wouldn't have that problem, since yuo can CHOOSE to: #1 Not install said text editor, web browser, Perl module, Httpd, whatever when you first install RH. #2 Remove samesaid module at any time using tools such as 'rm' or 'rpm'. In Windows 98, you do not have the choice to remove, or not install in the first place, IE4. Its existance is counterproductive (I dont think anyone here would disagree that Win98 is slower than Win95, right outta the box. This is not good for someone who does NOT use the web...)and the purpose of putting in was shown to the Judges conviction to be not to add value to the OS, but to use MS's leverage in one field (OS's) to strongarm its way into another (Browsers) Of course, Im also a hyprocrit. I am typing this in IE5 on NT4Serv. :) But my level of respect for this judge after reading his finding is high. I also encourage everyone to read the finding (its more technical, and very little legal-ese. Enjoyable), and not just cheer the 'Microsoft ==Evil' ruling. Toodles
Team Fortress Classic is an add-on to HL, and uses the HL engine... It doesn't make much sense to reccommend a game because the engine it uses sucks.. :) Of course, maybe you mean Team Fortress, which uses the Quake 1 engine. Naah, that couldn't be it. WHo would call the HL engine obsolete in the face of Quake Classic? :) HL is da bomb. Single Player. Not multiplayer. However, TFC more than makes up for this, being one of the best multiplayer games for a first person shooter ever. Of course, UT's almost out, so Im sure Ill have to rethink that. Toodles
Im going to assume that you want both versions of NT4 (Srv & Ws) as well as 98 & 95. Cinch. There is the minor issue of calling 9X a 32 bit OS, but Ill save that cynicism for later) Do a bit of planning beforehand, such as what you want the directory names to be. I.e.
:( ) If you are using Win95 FDISK, say YES (which will enable LBA, needed for >512MB drives) Install the Win9X OS of choice, using 'C:\Windows\' (default) as the install directory, and make sure to reboot a few times after it is installed so it is nice and stable for you.
:) and it will replace the boot sector correctly.
:) to choose /dev/hda1 for 98 or NT, and /dev/hda2 for 95. install LILO to /dev/hda. (modify accordingly is using SCSI) /dev/hda2. put the loader on a floppy. You can use the floppy to boot 98, or remove to boot nt/98. You could also dd the boot sector from the floppy hand it to NT and edit the boot.ini to boot from it is Win95 is chosen from the boot menu. See the NT+Linux HOWTO for more info on this.
Win9X C:\Windows
NTSrv C:\NTServer
NTWS C:\NTWorkSt
Well, almost. The kicker isn't getting NT and 9X to play well together, it's getting 95 and 98 to play together that is hard. The easiest option is to drop one, and live with 98, Server, and Workstation. it won't involve any LILO'ing of the drive or nuthin'.
Create a FAT16 partition of full size (2 gig If you are using the Win98 FDISK.EXE, say NO to the 'enamble large drive support' when asked, or it will be fat32(
next, grab either one of the NT install disks and install away on the same partition. Accept the defaults were you can. Make certain to use the NT directory you decided on earlier.
Then install the other NT install disks, and install to it's own directory as well.
You WILL be sharing the Program files directory, but this isn't usually too big of a problem since the main items in mine are WinAMP and WinZip (can be run in either OS).
If you make the mistake of either
1. SYS'ing C: from DOS
2. (Re)installing Win9X after NT is installed, grab the install disks, choose the Rescue option, and follow the directions to inspect the Boot sector. Put in the rescue disk when asked (You DID make the rescue disk, didn't you?
The NT OS loader will detect the Windows installation, and make it an option in your boot up. Whne done, it should look like :
NT Server 4.0
NT Server 4.0 [VGA Mode]
NT Workstation 4.0
NT Workstation 4.0 [VGA Mode]
Microsoft Windows
Now, if you really, absolutely MUST have all four OS's, things get tricky.
Follow the steps above to get the initial three OS's going. After it is done, pop in your (We'll assume 95) 95 startup disk. Run Fdisk to create another Fat16 partition, but NOT an extended nor logical. A regular partition. Set it as ACTIVE (very important). Install Win95 as normal. From here, you have option about how to switch between OS's.
1. Run FDISK from a boot floppy and set the Primary partition to active if you want NT or 98, or set the Secondary part as active if you want 95.
2. Add a line like D:\='Windows 95' to your boot.ini on C:, and set C: to active. NOTE: This may not work, my Boot.ini info is rusty.
3. Set C: to active. Make a lilo.conf (You comfy w/ Linux?
4. Set C: to active. Make a lilo.conf to boot straight to
Phew. See, the installation is easy, once you realize the only common FS between all of these OS's is FAT16. Selecting which one to boot it the kicker. There are many options available, but I tried to stick w/ NT Loader since you WILL have to use it if you have NT. LILO is much more powerful though, and learning to use it is VERY handy, even if the system doesn't run Linux.
Toodles