As a Unix administrator, I immediately see an application for this as a training tool.
You have Unix at home now, but no stress or incentive to scramble in learning it. My biggest hurdle and that of most anyone just starting out, is translating academic and hobby experience into the real world.
It would be neat if someone would write a Linux application that simulated all kinds of disasters/problems in a real captivating environment, spiced it up a little with some kind of interesting plot-line, and left the user to his own devices to try and solve these problems. You'd give him the tools already present on his home computer, namely, everything that is Linux. Even it it was only slightly compelling, it would still be a step up from reading man pages out of simple curiosity. It would also give you problems to solve that would not otherwise present themselves in the scope of a home environment.
Turn this all into a game, and score the "player" on his resourcefulness and the correctness of his solutions.
The performance and features may be about equal, but if you're writing just Windows games, I'm sorry, DirectX is a better choice, for lots of other reasons. First, you don't just get a graphics API, you get DirectSound DirectPlay DirectInput and DirectDraw(the depreciated version), rolled into one. That makes things much, much easier. With OpenGL you can use SDL, or a hybrid DirectInput, OpenGL type thing, maybe OpenGLUT or something, it's somewhat ickey... I've done some OpenGL work in Linux with SDL, and thought, I'll use VS, thanks.
As someone who has actually used both, I prefer the DirectX.
And lastly, say what you will about Microsoft, but their DirectX development tools and help are unmatched. Right now, you can get the express edition of Visual Studio, the latest Directx SDK, and write awesome games, for $0.
They used fractal algorithms to generate terrain lifeforms, minerals, and in fact the whole universe. Starflight I and II were written in Forth, using a custom compiler. Here is some old design documentation from Starflight. It's interesting stuff.
I am in fact recreating the game (or, rather a game much like it using entirely original content) using many similar algorithms. Check out my webpage.
I'm guessing if you include a monitor and mouse / keyboard it would be more, but I have that so, this is a realy cheap deal.
There is a surplus of used, decent CRT monitors, at least where I live. All the second hand shops have more then they can sell.
Now, certainly, this is probably not the case in China, but here I can go to a Salvation Army store and get a 17" CRT for $9.
Monitors and mice can be had for a few bucks as well.
If I try hard enough, I can get this stuff for free from Work/Friend/Dumpster. Also, monitors are practically given away on craigslist.
Aren't they starting on the wrong side? As previously discussed here, changing all public facing servers requires significant upgrades of very costly enterprise hardware. Making big complex companies change in a scant 5-6 years... right. All the legacy crap laying around, all the $100K Cisco/Foundry/Juniper routers that will need hardware upgrades.
Are not most active IPv4 addresses consumed by clients? I say start with the consumer, they'll absorb cost and are likely to buy plenty of gadgets by 2011 anyway. I'm sure linksys can build a home router that's IPv6/IPv4 compatible. Trickle the upgrade to the CMTS / DSLAM up the road and progress from there.
I think a better mandate would be all internet clients should be doing IPv6 by 2010. Consumers and the people can cause technical change more than giant companies and their finance departments.
Maybe this is totally infeasible, but slashdot is here to point out if mine is a bad idea.
Your situation parallels mine from 4 years ago, entirely. I had a crummy apartment, a seemingly useless degree, a high stress 2nd shift job, and a really old car. I was working hard and living paycheck to paycheck. I was stuck in a routine for a long time and started to get really down. My current job was going to go nowhere, so I doubled my efforts to get a new one.
I managed to get a gravy job in finance from a temp agency. I got wake up at 7:30 AM and scour the yellow pages serious about getting out of my situation. In a few days, I got to know one of the more experienced ladies at the temp place. She had been around enough to know who was a good worker and who was not. She was totally sympathetic to my plight and worked very hard to place me somewhere good. I told her what I was currently doing, and that I just wanted something better. I think it was a matter of making myself stand out from the typical applicants, showing that I was well educated, a bit humbled from my experiences, and that I deserved a rewarding job. I will always remember her efforts. I was totally thankful for the job I got, kept my nose to the ground and took it very seriously. That payed off and now I'm in a position that's better then I could have imagined 4 years ago.
You seem like you deserve better and have a good head on your shoulders. Demonstrate that to someone who might help you out. Don't be afraid to play the sympathy card a bit. Lastly, try not to get depressed. Don't let your financial situation affect your attitude and professionalism, really, you're not your account balance.
Get a nice comfy Plantronics headset for the POTS line nearby. In a noisy datacenter, while on a mission critical tech support call, the last thing you need is your hand pressing the phone to your ear and/or crappy cell phone audio.
The inability to upgrade the graphics (due to the video memory and bus timings that had to fit with NTSC timings) was one of the reasons for people perceiving the Amiga as a niche machine (games and video) back then and had no little influence in its ultimate demise.
I see this a lot and I think it's a common misconception. Very early, stuff was not to expandable. Integrated hardware was common during that era. It was cheaper and made the system tight and fast. All those chips were engineered to prevent bottle-necks. Even still, the Amiga was more modular then a lot of its counterparts (Macintosh and Atari I'm looking at you)
Further, had the chipset not been set to run on NTSC (or PAL) timings, a huge portion of the Amiga application would have never existed.
Later, you had plenty of options, much like the PC market. Maybe no one knew that, because everyone bought a cheap A500, but that's the fault of marketing.. I'll mention that latter.
The big box Amigas were highly expandable, featuring 16/32 bit ZORRO-II, III and ISA slots. You had options for putting graphics expansions into a dedicated video slot also. Later, you could expand the video via the Zorro slots, but a problem was developing retargateble graphics drivers. This was addressed and you saw all kinds of 16 and 24 bit RTG graphics cards. People preferred keeping with the chipset timings, mostly, because it was totally cool to have it work with very expensive television equipment, but there were certainly options for other applications. By the time VGA rolled around, you had all kinds of options.
If you read some about David Haynie (The designer of the Amiga 3000) you'd know that the developers and hardware engineers were all very smart and in tune with the industry. In fact, they embraced the PCI bus for the next generation Amigas. Of course Commodore did not often listen to its Engineers and funding for R&D was pitiful in the later years.
The Amiga's demise was thanks to the greedy morons that ran Commodore. The technology was still expandable and viable even later in its life. Read this sometime. No architectural or software limitation led directly to its end.
To site a few other examples, the Avro Arrow, and that huge elephant in the middle of the room, Apollo.
Most of that equipment was forgotten, left to rust, or lost. This makes me angry.
Well some people admired of MacOS works and millions of hours multimedia, billions of mainstream newspapers, millions of scientific research done with it. The stuff you watch on your HDTV if produced back in 1990s is probably completely produced on that poor old OS which you claim to have sucked.
Try SGI or Amiga. Macs were likely used in simple things, but I doubt in any serious capacity.
Also Mac OS X is not Unix Based, it is Mach+FreeBSD hybrid OS.
Hey, I'm all for Amiga's but in the mid Eighties, if you had 128MB of ram and was downloading a file online, you must have been from the future. What the heck are you talking about?
Just to be a little more correct here, I'm no hardware engineer but will try to be far more accurate.
The Amiga had a great messaging system in it's OS, you could easily pass messages to other windows and programs in intuition. Further, you had all that ARexx stuff, and you could script programs to interact very easily with it. Basically, every program could listen on it's own ARexx socket for commands from other programs. Of course, there was the poor (read, no) memory protection which made things very unstable if you did not know what you were doing. Despite all this cool stuff, the OS was actually the weakest link. It was rushed. I remember reading specs on the original intended, but non-implemented file system, and it was about as robust as a single user file system could possibly get.
You also had preemptive multitasking (not true co-operative) and a fantastic unified memory architecture with a very fast blitter. Another nice thing was that the kernel was contained on ROM so that it booted quicker then any other platform of it's day, and still faster then most this day. And all those chips played nice and were synced to an internal clock that ran on NTSC (or PAL) timings. This, of course, meant that interrupts worked seamlessly, and the chipset was handily compatible with video signals from television equipment. That last thing turned into an incredible boon for the entire film and television industry.
The strength of the Amiga was it's bus and it's architecture. They absolutely nailed so many things in it's design, it really was a thing of beauty.
Screw that, homess, I like to crush up about 9 vvivirian in a pedestals and motor, and then disolve the powder in visine. A feqww half dozeen drop2ws in the eyyeys, I'm reararanging furniture! straingt to the bRAIN, STRAIT TO THE BRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
There are pros and cons to both. DirectX is not a bad API, in fact, it's rather good.
I think the integration of DirectDraw, DirectSound, the input, etc.. helped. All in one is good when developing games. It allows you to focus on the game, not any technology or compatibility hurdles. Also, it's now much easier to develop in. Very easy actually. Say what you will about Microsoft, but their development tools, particularly those associated with DirectX have been very good.
Also, while Direct3d and OpenGL accomplish the same things, they are very different. OpenGL is a state machine, with a standard API. Direct3D directly bangs the hardware with a minimal driver, maintained by the manufacturer. You could argue that it's faster, in practice, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.
OpenGL is more abstract, and has a set of functions that can be used through it's API, and it is then up to the hardware manufacturer to create a layer of communication (the driver) between the hardware and the OpenGL state machine. OpenGL drivers are more portable, but harder to make efficient. I think this is overall a little more robust. Functionality wise, they are both very close. I consider this almost irrelevant, because there are so many features in both, that game programmers have a hard time keeping up, and particularly are weary of using the bleeding edge. I've learned to program in DirectX and only a little in OpenGL. I can't say I have a clear favorite though.
It has little to do with growing up with digital technology, and everything to do with the 'me want it NOW' mentality that a large number of today's youth have.
Well that's completely stupid. Why do you think they have this mentality? Maybe because they grew up with an instant access to information?
And the grandparent gets +5 insightful? Every generation says the same thing. Kids these days blah blah blah.
Times change and people adapt different skills to suit their environment. Frankly, I'm sure the mental aptitude required for
browsing wikipedia, or rebinding keys in your favorite FPS, is about equal to what's required for understanding the dewey decimal system.
Slashdot Mirror
You have Unix at home now, but no stress or incentive to scramble in learning it. My biggest hurdle and that of most anyone just starting out, is translating academic and hobby experience into the real world.
It would be neat if someone would write a Linux application that simulated all kinds of disasters/problems in a real captivating environment, spiced it up a little with some kind of interesting plot-line, and left the user to his own devices to try and solve these problems. You'd give him the tools already present on his home computer, namely, everything that is Linux. Even it it was only slightly compelling, it would still be a step up from reading man pages out of simple curiosity. It would also give you problems to solve that would not otherwise present themselves in the scope of a home environment.
Turn this all into a game, and score the "player" on his resourcefulness and the correctness of his solutions.
The performance and features may be about equal, but if you're writing just Windows games, I'm sorry, DirectX is a better choice, for lots of other reasons. First, you don't just get a graphics API, you get DirectSound DirectPlay DirectInput and DirectDraw(the depreciated version), rolled into one. That makes things much, much easier. With OpenGL you can use SDL, or a hybrid DirectInput, OpenGL type thing, maybe OpenGLUT or something, it's somewhat ickey... I've done some OpenGL work in Linux with SDL, and thought, I'll use VS, thanks.
As someone who has actually used both, I prefer the DirectX.
And lastly, say what you will about Microsoft, but their DirectX development tools and help are unmatched. Right now, you can get the express edition of Visual Studio, the latest Directx SDK, and write awesome games, for $0.
They used fractal algorithms to generate terrain lifeforms, minerals, and in fact the whole universe.
Starflight I and II were written in Forth, using a custom compiler. Here is some old design documentation from Starflight.
It's interesting stuff.
I am in fact recreating the game (or, rather a game much like it using entirely original content) using many similar algorithms.
Check out my webpage.
It's best to ignore such a child. You see, when you grow up, whining and screaming does not get you balloons. You want to learn that lesson early.
Either that or give the child some strong negative reinforcement. But I can see a mother being uncomfortable with that in a crowded restaurant.
Aren't they starting on the wrong side? As previously discussed here, changing all public facing servers requires significant upgrades of very costly enterprise hardware. Making big complex companies change in a scant 5-6 years... right. All the legacy crap laying around, all the $100K Cisco/Foundry/Juniper routers that will need hardware upgrades.
Are not most active IPv4 addresses consumed by clients? I say start with the consumer, they'll absorb cost and are likely to buy plenty of gadgets by 2011 anyway. I'm sure linksys can build a home router that's IPv6/IPv4 compatible. Trickle the upgrade to the CMTS / DSLAM up the road and progress from there.
I think a better mandate would be all internet clients should be doing IPv6 by 2010. Consumers and the people can cause technical change more than giant companies and their finance departments.
Maybe this is totally infeasible, but slashdot is here to point out if mine is a bad idea.
Your situation parallels mine from 4 years ago, entirely. I had a crummy apartment, a seemingly useless degree, a high stress 2nd shift job, and a really old car. I was working hard and living paycheck to paycheck. I was stuck in a routine for a long time and started to get really down. My current job was going to go nowhere, so I doubled my efforts to get a new one.
I managed to get a gravy job in finance from a temp agency. I got wake up at 7:30 AM and scour the yellow pages serious about getting out of my situation. In a few days, I got to know one of the more experienced ladies at the temp place. She had been around enough to know who was a good worker and who was not. She was totally sympathetic to my plight and worked very hard to place me somewhere good. I told her what I was currently doing, and that I just wanted something better. I think it was a matter of making myself stand out from the typical applicants, showing that I was well educated, a bit humbled from my experiences, and that I deserved a rewarding job. I will always remember her efforts. I was totally thankful for the job I got, kept my nose to the ground and took it very seriously. That payed off and now I'm in a position that's better then I could have imagined 4 years ago.
You seem like you deserve better and have a good head on your shoulders. Demonstrate that to someone who might help you out. Don't be afraid to play the sympathy card a bit. Lastly, try not to get depressed. Don't let your financial situation affect your attitude and professionalism, really, you're not your account balance.
You need to get laid. Im teasing, of course.
I should be a super genius.
Get a nice comfy Plantronics headset for the POTS line nearby. In a noisy datacenter, while on a mission critical tech support call, the last thing you need is your hand pressing the phone to your ear and/or crappy cell phone audio.
Is that a Delorean? asked the girl at Dunkin Donuts.
I say, Yea, shame Subaru stopped making them.
Well no I did not say that, but I'll be more witty next time.
I see this a lot and I think it's a common misconception. Very early, stuff was not to expandable.
Integrated hardware was common during that era. It was cheaper and made the system tight and fast. All those chips were engineered to prevent bottle-necks. Even still, the Amiga was more modular then a lot of its counterparts (Macintosh and Atari I'm looking at you)
Further, had the chipset not been set to run on NTSC (or PAL) timings, a huge portion of the Amiga application would have never existed.
Later, you had plenty of options, much like the PC market. Maybe no one knew that, because everyone bought a cheap A500, but that's the fault of marketing.. I'll mention that latter.
The big box Amigas were highly expandable, featuring 16/32 bit ZORRO-II, III and ISA slots. You had options for putting graphics expansions into a dedicated video slot also. Later, you could expand the video via the Zorro slots, but a problem was developing retargateble graphics drivers. This was addressed and you saw all kinds of 16 and 24 bit RTG graphics cards. People preferred keeping with the chipset timings, mostly, because it was totally cool to have it work with very expensive television equipment, but there were certainly options for other applications. By the time VGA rolled around, you had all kinds of options.
If you read some about David Haynie (The designer of the Amiga 3000) you'd know that the developers and hardware engineers were all very smart and in tune with the industry. In fact, they embraced the PCI bus for the next generation Amigas. Of course Commodore did not often listen to its Engineers and funding for R&D was pitiful in the later years.
The Amiga's demise was thanks to the greedy morons that ran Commodore. The technology was still expandable and viable even later in its life. Read this sometime. No architectural or software limitation led directly to its end.
Freaky +1
To site a few other examples, the Avro Arrow, and that huge elephant in the middle of the room, Apollo. Most of that equipment was forgotten, left to rust, or lost. This makes me angry.
Try SGI or Amiga. Macs were likely used in simple things, but I doubt in any serious capacity.
FreeBSD and Mach are Unix based. So is OSX.
Hey, I'm all for Amiga's but in the mid Eighties, if you had 128MB of ram and was downloading a file online, you must have been from the future.
What the heck are you talking about?
Just to be a little more correct here, I'm no hardware engineer but will try to be far more accurate.
The Amiga had a great messaging system in it's OS, you could easily pass messages to other windows and programs in intuition. Further, you had all that ARexx stuff, and you could script programs to interact very easily with it. Basically, every program could listen on it's own ARexx socket for commands from other programs. Of course, there was the poor (read, no) memory protection which made things very unstable if you did not know what you were doing. Despite all this cool stuff, the OS was actually the weakest link. It was rushed. I remember reading specs on the original intended, but non-implemented file system, and it was about as robust as a single user file system could possibly get.
You also had preemptive multitasking (not true co-operative) and a fantastic unified memory architecture with a very fast blitter. Another nice thing was
that the kernel was contained on ROM so that it booted quicker then any other platform of it's day, and still faster then most this day. And all those chips played nice
and were synced to an internal clock that ran on NTSC (or PAL) timings. This, of course, meant that interrupts worked seamlessly, and the chipset was handily compatible with video signals from television equipment. That last thing turned into an incredible boon for the entire film and television industry.
The strength of the Amiga was it's bus and it's architecture. They absolutely nailed so many things in it's design, it really was a thing of beauty.
The new company is called Space2ohh (TM). Clean, pure, out of this world refreshment.
I'm seeking venture capital.
Screw that, homess, I like to crush up about 9 vvivirian in a pedestals and motor, and then disolve the powder in visine.
A feqww half dozeen drop2ws in the eyyeys, I'm reararanging furniture! straingt to the bRAIN, STRAIT TO THE BRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
That has some unintended consequences.
Starflight was way ahead of everything, well, except maybe Elite.
So, I read the story and realize that Apples making cell phones now!?
Cool, I'll have to check this out.
If I only had MOD POINTS, well I do but I replied earlier. Yes, the flair explanation is perfect.
I think you meant to say STORK.
I think the integration of DirectDraw, DirectSound, the input, etc.. helped. All in one is good when developing games. It allows you to focus on the game, not any technology or compatibility hurdles. Also, it's now much easier to develop in. Very easy actually. Say what you will about Microsoft, but their development tools, particularly those associated with DirectX have been very good.
Also, while Direct3d and OpenGL accomplish the same things, they are very different. OpenGL is a state machine, with a standard API. Direct3D directly bangs the hardware with a minimal driver, maintained by the manufacturer. You could argue that it's faster, in practice, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.
OpenGL is more abstract, and has a set of functions that can be used through it's API, and it is then up to the hardware manufacturer to create a layer of communication (the driver) between the hardware and the OpenGL state machine. OpenGL drivers are more portable, but harder to make efficient. I think this is overall a little more robust. Functionality wise, they are both very close. I consider this almost irrelevant, because there are so many features in both, that game programmers have a hard time keeping up, and particularly are weary of using the bleeding edge. I've learned to program in DirectX and only a little in OpenGL. I can't say I have a clear favorite though.
Well that's completely stupid. Why do you think they have this mentality? Maybe because they grew up with an instant access to information?
And the grandparent gets +5 insightful? Every generation says the same thing. Kids these days blah blah blah.
Times change and people adapt different skills to suit their environment. Frankly, I'm sure the mental aptitude required for browsing wikipedia, or rebinding keys in your favorite FPS, is about equal to what's required for understanding the dewey decimal system.