If you want to read an article written by someone who knows what he is talking about, check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/000414 -000003.html. It's practically the complete opposite of the super-lame ZDNet article.
It's freakin' unbelievable how poorly written ZDNet articles tend to be. It's not like the writers work for the NY Times, where everyone needs to crank out major articles on a daily basis.
I don't understand why so many people make a big deal about overclocking. All you do is move a couple jumpers! When I wanted to overclock my Pentium Pro 200 to 233, I just looked up the bus frequency multiplier in the manual and set three jumpers accordingly.
And then there are the people who complain when Intel prevents people from overclocking various chips. First off, modern CPU's are much more complex than 10 years ago, and they can be more sensitive to overclocking.
Second, my car is a lame-o Geo Prism - only a moron would try to "turbo-charge" it. Some systems just weren't meant to be overclocked, and there's nothing wrong with that.
There hasn't been much doing in the OS/2 Community form what I've seen.
That's not true. Only people inside the OS/2 circles know everything that's going on, and Slashdot is a good forum for telling non OS/2 users about the major happenings in OS/2 land. I figured that when Project Odin first got Direct X support, that was a huge deal. Or when Win32-OS/2 was able to run Quake II on OS/2, with full hardware 3D (despite the fact that OS/2 itself doesn't support hardware 3D). Even John Carmack himself was impressed with that. But these stories were never announced on Slashdot.
I never expected a ruling like this outside the United States. You'd think only the Americans would do this.
You see, in the U.S., if someone leaves a bar drunk, drives away, gets into an accident, and hurts someone, you can sue the bartender (or more accurately, the bar itself) for letting the guy get so drunk in the first place.
Granted, the whole point is to prevent bartenders from pushing people to buy so much alcohol that they get wasted, but it's another example of spreading the blame to as many people as possible instead of just the ones who are responsible.
Dude, there have been only three stories about OS/2 posted on Slashdot ever. Just three! If anything, the Slashdot editors are biased against OS/2, not for it.
Which reminds me, I'd like to thank Slashdot for posting this article.
Obviously, it wasn't. The best OS/2 news site is WarpCast. Several OS/2-related news items are posted daily. Check it out for a couple days, and you'll get an idea of what's been going on recently.
I won't go into detail (as that would be a lot of typing), but there are lots of freely downloaded apps and utils that you could have downloaded that would address many of your problems. Yes, it would have taken some time and effort to discover them, but I don't think Linux is any different.
If you were still using OS/2, I'd probably help you out. I'm surprised you didn't go to the newsgroups or OS/2 web sites to learn about these tools. Wasn't there an OS/2 user group near you?
DIVE is not like Direct X. It's more like WinG, the precursor to Direct X.
What most people don't know about DIVE is that it was designed to do only one thing: play movies. There were no real attempts to extend it beyond that capability. DIVE doesn't let you bitblt to only a region of the window - you have to update the whole thing in one shot. When playing a movie, that's fine. When doing sprites, it's horrible.
Direct X started off the same way, but MS kept extending it with more and more features. When people say that Direct X is so much better than DIVE, they're generally correct, but it's a meaningless comparison. It's like saying that a car is faster than a bicycle. Just because a car is faster and more people drive a car than ride a bike, that doesn't mean that bikes are obsolete and should be ignored.
I switched to Linux. Linux in 1996 had better driver support than OS/2. What does THAT tell you?
To me, it says that it was coincidence that your specific combination of hardware was better supported under Linux than under OS/2. That's why we hear all sorts of stories about some person who couldn't install oeprating system X on his machine, when operating system Y worked without a problem. And then a bunch of people reply with their own stores, but they had success with X and not Y.
I could easily stand on top of a hill and proclaim how easy OS/2 is to install for me, but how much of a pain Linux is. But I won't, becase it would be unfair. Not only do I know OS/2 about 100 times better than I know Linux, but I hand picked my hardware to be OS/2 compatible rather than Linux compatible.
but I'm not gonna hold my breath until I turn blue...so to speak.
Actually, 3.0 and 4.0 are both called Warp. Merlin was just an internal code name for just 4.0. 3.0 was internally called Warp, and some IBM executive liked it so much, he made a deal with Paramount (rumored) to make it part of the official name.
On a side note, IBM's developers have long since used Star Trek terms as internal code names for various OS/2 products. The reason they called 3.0 Warp was because it was supposed to be a "performance release". The original goal was to make it look just like 2.1, but run faster and in 4MB of RAM. Of course, the programmers decided that making it smaller and faster was not enough, they had to add features and improve the GUI.
No, the WPS is more than just a GUI. It's like Englightenment 3.0 + GNOME 5.0 combined, but 10 years later. It's difficult to explain in just a few words what it can do, but believe me, the WPS is way more than just the way the windows look. Underneath the visual layer, it's pretty much what GNOME is trying to be.
That page is protesting DVD region coding and the action against DeCSS. It's a good page for that subject, but it's not what I'm looking for, since it doesn't address the DMCA specifically.
Is there a short document on the web available that lists all the things that are wrong with the DMCA? I want something that I can print out and hand to people who want to know about the DMCA.
If they wanted to get away from Windows but don't want the complexity of Linux or BSD, then their best choice is OS/2 Warp Server. It's both powerful and easy to administer - some would say more powerful and easier to adminster than Windows or Linux or BSD, but I personally couldn't vouch for that.
As for using BSD drivers, I didn't know that they're cross-platform (I've never heard of BSD on PPC). But I still think it'd be more work than it's worth. And I definitely still think that recompiling all those Mac apps for x86 would not be a smooth transition.
It's one thing to port the OS to a new platform. Sure, Darwin is just the core, and there's a whole lot on top of it that has not been ported, but that's not my point.
The problem is the device drivers. x86 platforms are notorious for their wild array of devices and drivers. Even with Windows, there are plenty of devices that don't have drivers (especially with NT4) or have drivers that are buggy. But unless you support the overwhelming majority of hardware out there, you can't sell the OS.
So Apple would have to spend millions of dollars writing device drivers for their OS, because we all know that the hardware vendors aren't going to do it. IBM has to write most of the drivers for OS/2, and how many vendors do you know who make and support Linux drivers? I'm always at the number of people who laugh at OS/2 but make the same mistakes that IBM did with OS/2.
And for what? Another 1% market share? Windows dominates with 90%. Most of the rest goes to Linux and OS/2. Mac OS X x86 wouldn't even make a dent in this market.
And what about the applications? Sure, the OS is cool, but when was the last time Apple made anything cool that didn't generate a huge profit? And anyone who thinks that they could just recompile their OS X app for the x86 version is deluded. Remember OS/2 for the PowerPC? Ever wonder why most of the commercial Linux apps aren't available on non-x86 platforms?
I've been hearing talk like this for years. The only people who believe it are those who don't understand the technology and don't understand Apple.
RTMIDI (Real-Time MIDI) is a MIDI subsystem for OS/2 that's designed to handle real-time (technically soft RT but in implementation it's very close to hard RT) MIDI processing. It supports a complex "node network" that lets you plug in filters that all run in the kernel (hence the real-time aspect). It was designed with the help of IBM's Computer Music Center.
If it were ported to Linux, it would solve a lot of problems in this area.
PCI cards designed for the Mac have a different ROM than their PC equivalents. Mac PCI cards technically don't need a ROM (I have a Monster 3D in my Mac that works just fine with the 3dfx Voodoo 1 Mac drivers), but a PC PCI card needs a ROM otherwise the BIOS won't see it.
Thanks for the replies so far. Would any of you consider Lego Mindstorms as a good starting point into embedded programming? The hardware is relatively cheap, there appears to be a lot of stuff on the 'net for it, and it appears to be very flexible.
I don't see how this is any different than how things usually are. Gamers have always been able to take the rules and create their own variations on it. You want a mage that can cast in armor? Sure! You prefer to use "magic points" instead of only being able to memorize X spells every morning? Not a problem! You want to play a party of monsters instead of humanoids? That's okay!
Not only that, but there already are gaming systems that are generic and have rules for all types of games. GURPS is the best known, but other games like Rolemaster are also somewhat generic.
It looks to like all they're doing is trying to make D&D more GURPS-like.
Every time I ordered something over the internet, whenever the company had offices in my state, I had to pay sales tax.
Can anyone name one online merchant that does not charge sales tax to in-state purchases? I can't.
As far as I'm concerned, there should be no difference in taxing between online purchases and mail order. Whether you fill out an online form or talk to a sales person on the phone, you're still ordering remotely. What's to stop someone from searching for goods via the website, and then picking up the phone and giving the sales rep a list of part numbers?
Frankly, I think this whole thing would go away if vendors charged the sales tax for the state from which the item was SOLD, not the state in which the item is BOUGHT.
Or even better, get rid of the concept of a state sales tax and make it a federal sales tax instead (like the European countries do). The states would get money by raising property or income taxes instead, because that makes a lot more sense (if you live in the state, you pay money to the state). And since the tax rate is the same for everyone, vendors could automatically add the tax to each item sold, so instead of seeing "$35.99 + tax", you'd just see "$37.79" (assuming 5% tax rate). It would make it a lot easier for consumers to determine the true cost of an item, and it wouldn't matter where you lived or where you shopped.
Re:Had to love the chick in the leather outfit...
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X-Files FPS Episode
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It was Bobbie Phillips, not Krista Allen, who played Dr. Bambi.
Re:Had to love the chick in the leather outfit...
on
X-Files FPS Episode
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· Score: 1
I heard rumors that Intel was working on a new BIOS spec that included stuff like built-in TCP/IP support. I can't seem to find any information about this on their website, so either it's secret or they canned it. I suspect it's the latter, since I seriously doubt the PC BIOS programmers will sign up for the work unless they have to.
Myth 3: It is against human nature to work for nothing. OSS developers do not work for nothing; an OSS project is a training and proving ground exposing young developers to large-scale collaborative development. Another reward is the accumulation of kudos -- this may be sought for its own sake or leveraged commercially, especially within organizations that follow an open-source business model.
There's one other reason: the developer(s) might not want to put in the effort to sell software. Selling software can be quite a pain: you have to deal with bounced checks, credit card transactions, reporting estimated taxes every quarter, requests for fixes and enhancements (since they don't have the source code), hiring people to port the app to other platforms, and so on.
I think non-programmers sometimes don't understand what goes on in a programmer's mind. They see us labor for years to learn this stuff, so they can't comprehend someone spending months on a project, posting it on an ftp site, and then saying, "Here, have fun, I don't care if you use it or not." They look at software development as some kind of laborious black art. Sure, you need to be super-smart to be a programmer, but once you get to that level, whipping up a 1000-line Perl script (or in my case, Rexx) is something you do when you're bored.
Slashdot Mirror
It's freakin' unbelievable how poorly written ZDNet articles tend to be. It's not like the writers work for the NY Times, where everyone needs to crank out major articles on a daily basis.
And then there are the people who complain when Intel prevents people from overclocking various chips. First off, modern CPU's are much more complex than 10 years ago, and they can be more sensitive to overclocking.
Second, my car is a lame-o Geo Prism - only a moron would try to "turbo-charge" it. Some systems just weren't meant to be overclocked, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's not true. Only people inside the OS/2 circles know everything that's going on, and Slashdot is a good forum for telling non OS/2 users about the major happenings in OS/2 land. I figured that when Project Odin first got Direct X support, that was a huge deal. Or when Win32-OS/2 was able to run Quake II on OS/2, with full hardware 3D (despite the fact that OS/2 itself doesn't support hardware 3D). Even John Carmack himself was impressed with that. But these stories were never announced on Slashdot.
You see, in the U.S., if someone leaves a bar drunk, drives away, gets into an accident, and hurts someone, you can sue the bartender (or more accurately, the bar itself) for letting the guy get so drunk in the first place.
Granted, the whole point is to prevent bartenders from pushing people to buy so much alcohol that they get wasted, but it's another example of spreading the blame to as many people as possible instead of just the ones who are responsible.
Which reminds me, I'd like to thank Slashdot for posting this article.
Obviously, it wasn't. The best OS/2 news site is WarpCast. Several OS/2-related news items are posted daily. Check it out for a couple days, and you'll get an idea of what's been going on recently.
If you were still using OS/2, I'd probably help you out. I'm surprised you didn't go to the newsgroups or OS/2 web sites to learn about these tools. Wasn't there an OS/2 user group near you?
What most people don't know about DIVE is that it was designed to do only one thing: play movies. There were no real attempts to extend it beyond that capability. DIVE doesn't let you bitblt to only a region of the window - you have to update the whole thing in one shot. When playing a movie, that's fine. When doing sprites, it's horrible.
Direct X started off the same way, but MS kept extending it with more and more features. When people say that Direct X is so much better than DIVE, they're generally correct, but it's a meaningless comparison. It's like saying that a car is faster than a bicycle. Just because a car is faster and more people drive a car than ride a bike, that doesn't mean that bikes are obsolete and should be ignored.
To me, it says that it was coincidence that your specific combination of hardware was better supported under Linux than under OS/2. That's why we hear all sorts of stories about some person who couldn't install oeprating system X on his machine, when operating system Y worked without a problem. And then a bunch of people reply with their own stores, but they had success with X and not Y.
I could easily stand on top of a hill and proclaim how easy OS/2 is to install for me, but how much of a pain Linux is. But I won't, becase it would be unfair. Not only do I know OS/2 about 100 times better than I know Linux, but I hand picked my hardware to be OS/2 compatible rather than Linux compatible.
but I'm not gonna hold my breath until I turn blue...so to speak.
Very witty :-)
On a side note, IBM's developers have long since used Star Trek terms as internal code names for various OS/2 products. The reason they called 3.0 Warp was because it was supposed to be a "performance release". The original goal was to make it look just like 2.1, but run faster and in 4MB of RAM. Of course, the programmers decided that making it smaller and faster was not enough, they had to add features and improve the GUI.
No, the WPS is more than just a GUI. It's like Englightenment 3.0 + GNOME 5.0 combined, but 10 years later. It's difficult to explain in just a few words what it can do, but believe me, the WPS is way more than just the way the windows look. Underneath the visual layer, it's pretty much what GNOME is trying to be.
That page is protesting DVD region coding and the action against DeCSS. It's a good page for that subject, but it's not what I'm looking for, since it doesn't address the DMCA specifically.
Is there a short document on the web available that lists all the things that are wrong with the DMCA? I want something that I can print out and hand to people who want to know about the DMCA.
As for using BSD drivers, I didn't know that they're cross-platform (I've never heard of BSD on PPC). But I still think it'd be more work than it's worth. And I definitely still think that recompiling all those Mac apps for x86 would not be a smooth transition.
The problem is the device drivers. x86 platforms are notorious for their wild array of devices and drivers. Even with Windows, there are plenty of devices that don't have drivers (especially with NT4) or have drivers that are buggy. But unless you support the overwhelming majority of hardware out there, you can't sell the OS.
So Apple would have to spend millions of dollars writing device drivers for their OS, because we all know that the hardware vendors aren't going to do it. IBM has to write most of the drivers for OS/2, and how many vendors do you know who make and support Linux drivers? I'm always at the number of people who laugh at OS/2 but make the same mistakes that IBM did with OS/2.
And for what? Another 1% market share? Windows dominates with 90%. Most of the rest goes to Linux and OS/2. Mac OS X x86 wouldn't even make a dent in this market.
And what about the applications? Sure, the OS is cool, but when was the last time Apple made anything cool that didn't generate a huge profit? And anyone who thinks that they could just recompile their OS X app for the x86 version is deluded. Remember OS/2 for the PowerPC? Ever wonder why most of the commercial Linux apps aren't available on non-x86 platforms?
I've been hearing talk like this for years. The only people who believe it are those who don't understand the technology and don't understand Apple.
If it were ported to Linux, it would solve a lot of problems in this area.
PCI cards designed for the Mac have a different ROM than their PC equivalents. Mac PCI cards technically don't need a ROM (I have a Monster 3D in my Mac that works just fine with the 3dfx Voodoo 1 Mac drivers), but a PC PCI card needs a ROM otherwise the BIOS won't see it.
Thanks for the replies so far. Would any of you consider Lego Mindstorms as a good starting point into embedded programming? The hardware is relatively cheap, there appears to be a lot of stuff on the 'net for it, and it appears to be very flexible.
And that's why I pay an additional $10/month to get Showtime, so that I can watch first-run, unedited episodes of Stargate and Outer Limits.
Not only that, but there already are gaming systems that are generic and have rules for all types of games. GURPS is the best known, but other games like Rolemaster are also somewhat generic.
It looks to like all they're doing is trying to make D&D more GURPS-like.
Can anyone name one online merchant that does not charge sales tax to in-state purchases? I can't.
As far as I'm concerned, there should be no difference in taxing between online purchases and mail order. Whether you fill out an online form or talk to a sales person on the phone, you're still ordering remotely. What's to stop someone from searching for goods via the website, and then picking up the phone and giving the sales rep a list of part numbers?
Frankly, I think this whole thing would go away if vendors charged the sales tax for the state from which the item was SOLD, not the state in which the item is BOUGHT.
Or even better, get rid of the concept of a state sales tax and make it a federal sales tax instead (like the European countries do). The states would get money by raising property or income taxes instead, because that makes a lot more sense (if you live in the state, you pay money to the state). And since the tax rate is the same for everyone, vendors could automatically add the tax to each item sold, so instead of seeing "$35.99 + tax", you'd just see "$37.79" (assuming 5% tax rate). It would make it a lot easier for consumers to determine the true cost of an item, and it wouldn't matter where you lived or where you shopped.
It was Bobbie Phillips, not Krista Allen, who played Dr. Bambi.
Better yet, check out the Bomis Krista Allen web ring. And if you really want to see her in action, you'll soon be able to rent Emmanuell e: First Contact on DVD.
I heard rumors that Intel was working on a new BIOS spec that included stuff like built-in TCP/IP support. I can't seem to find any information about this on their website, so either it's secret or they canned it. I suspect it's the latter, since I seriously doubt the PC BIOS programmers will sign up for the work unless they have to.
There's one other reason: the developer(s) might not want to put in the effort to sell software. Selling software can be quite a pain: you have to deal with bounced checks, credit card transactions, reporting estimated taxes every quarter, requests for fixes and enhancements (since they don't have the source code), hiring people to port the app to other platforms, and so on.
I think non-programmers sometimes don't understand what goes on in a programmer's mind. They see us labor for years to learn this stuff, so they can't comprehend someone spending months on a project, posting it on an ftp site, and then saying, "Here, have fun, I don't care if you use it or not." They look at software development as some kind of laborious black art. Sure, you need to be super-smart to be a programmer, but once you get to that level, whipping up a 1000-line Perl script (or in my case, Rexx) is something you do when you're bored.