I never used an Amiga, but I just gotta say...So what? A lot of Amiga fans wax nostalgic over their old boxes, like I did over my old Apple ][+. That is, until I got an emulator and some floppy images and played a few games. Cutting edge stuff twenty years ago...stinkaroo today. Between Mac OS X, BeOS, Linux, and Windows 2000, what niche of modern computing could Amiga possible address that the big boys won't tackle this year? And do it in such a way that they have a superior price/performance ratio? It's difficult to see.... There's always room for one more player, of course, but I hope Amino has more up their sleeve than just a trip down memory lane.
This sort of thing actually impresses me the most -- when people like Apple are prepared to release something that isn't finished. You must be head-over-heels in love with Microsoft, then....;-)
> Apple's OS X is a way off, and given the hardware used in their systems since > the introduction of the iMac, would you be able to find any other UN*X that > supports bizarre foreign hardware like USB keyboards and mice?
The Ars Technica article you reference is only speculating, based on the current DP of OS X, that it will be another year in the making.
However, it's widely believed that Apple is much farther along on OS X than what DP2 shows, because Apple doesn't want too much of the interface revealed just yet. As odd as that sounds, it's par for the course at Apple.
Also, I've been following Apple since the early 80's, and have seen them push back important dates at the last minute, only to infuriate a lot of people. However, since Jobs became iCEO, I've noticed that he is more sensitive to this. On the one hand, he doesn't want to give out any more info on products in development than he absolutely has to; but, OTOH, he seems to know how much it enrages people to show up at a convention and say "Oh, we won't be selling that that we promised today, it'll be at least another year or two."
Jobs has done a decent job of updating the OS X calendar, and I think we would have heard about another year-long delay by now.
Actually, the primary use was in graphic apps, i.e., Photoshop. There was a time (not too many years ago) when applying certain filters in most Photoshop documents could be measured in minutes rather than seconds. (On the 68k-series CPU's, it was even measured in hours.)
Photoshop is not the untamed beast it once was, of course, since all of the hardware got faster and bigger, but the basic needs of PS have grown relatively little.
The really demanding graphic apps these days are the 3D animation packages. A simple 5 minute animation can take many hours to render out, and I think the lack of dual and quad-processor support on the Mac (both in hardware and in the OS) is at least part of the reason why some of the big 3D apps stayed away. From what I've read, though, I think that Jobs is very interested in wooing the 3D community back to the Mac, and that dialogue can't even begin without a quad-CPU G4 running OS X.
Yeah, but that was a hack, because the OS didn't support it very well. Now we have a very robust CPU, with a choice of either Linux or OS X, two OS's that should do a stellar job compared to Mac OS 7.x
Frankly, I'll be surprised if Be doesn't announce their support for G4's pretty soon....
Jim should be talking to folks in the greeting card industry. These folks were on the same track ten years ago when musical greeting cards came out, but the technology wasn't there to do much else. With free e-cards on the web muscling in on the card industry, I bet they'd be interested in something new and interesting.
Re:Thats great but what about other OS's?
on
Quake 1 GPL'ed
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· Score: 1
If GPL'ing the Quake source code forced everyone who used the codebase to GPL their source, it would be a very bad thing, and unlikely to happen.
Bear in mind that, among others, Valve licensed the codebase for Quake, and in spite of the fact that they rewrote 70% of it, having to release the codebase for HL, OF, TFC, and TFC2 would probably hurt them greatly.
Here's my question. If gaming companies are looking for evidence of Linux interest, why are they just looking at sales? Do not the download volumes of linux binaries also matter?
Here's the thing: If everyone bought a Windows version and then downloaded the Mac or Linux version, the assumption of the bean counters is going to be that everyone has a Windows computer, and maybe a second computer or OS that they want to play on.
In the long run, this will cause budget-conscious game companies to say "If everyone is running Windows anyway, why bother with a Linux or Mac version?"
That's part (albeit a small one) of why DOS games stuck around for so long...why do a DOS version and a Windows 95 version when we know that everyone has DOS?
The problem is worse than that, though...try starting up your Win98 system in Safe Mode with a USB keyboard and mouse--oops! No drivers! "Now where did I put that crappy old PS/2 mouse?";-)
Until the USB driver is in the mobo, USB will only be a partial replacement for serial and PS/2 ports.
Technology is neither Christian nor un-Christian. The moral and ethical implications of what people do with technology, on the other hand, is a different story.
Of course they were designed to make Windows games easier to program. However, Microsoft is a business, and the BUSINESS REASON for creating DirectX and DirectPlay was to make sure that game developers stay locked into Microsoft's OS. MS is smart enough to know that killer games sell computers, so they logically want all the best games to be Windows only and sell more Windows PC's, rather than Mac, Linux, Be, or whatever. I'm not disputing MS's right to create these API's or their right to keep the source closed. I'm merely pointing out that businesses such as Microsoft don't spend money for the sake of spending money; there is a goal in mind when that budget is drafted. The original respondent in this thread was indignant that someone should suggest that there is a conspiracy at MS to keep developers locked in, when in fact such a situation does exist. MS has a very potent strategy for locking developers and users into their software (for better or worse), and that ideology is pervasive throughout their development teams.
But Newell didn't dispute the fact that Half-Life would have done well on the Mac. Heck, Duke Nukem 3D/Mac's development paid for itself within hours of going on sale--and one day isn't enough lead time for the Mac gaming market to make an informed purchse, so all of that was based on the strength of DN3D/PC's reputation.
Newell talks about having happy, satisfied PC customers, versus having ticked-off, short-changed Mac customers. Well, sadly, Mac gamers are used to making compromises on ported apps, so while it would have been a minor irritation, it wouldn't have been enough to keep the game from selling well. Also, the Mac game market is significantly smaller than the PC game market; Half-Life for Mac would have done well simply by virtue of the fact that the competition isn't that strong right now.
Of course, if Newell really cared about doing right by the Mac community, he would have made Half-Life 2 cross-platform from the start.
Reading Andrew Meggs's.plan updates, there was never any indication that the game could not run well on the Mac, and given that the game is almost 2 years old anyway, performance should be more than sufficient on the current generation of hardware.
This decision is political, not technical. Somehow, Valve thought that by cancelling such a hotly-anticipated game they could avert a flood of angry emails. Well, I bet they are getting a flood of angry emails right now.
Here's a news flash for ya: While Half-Life may not have used DirectPlay, Microsoft technologies such as DirectX and DirectPlay were created with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of keeping games "Windows-only". Regardless, this news is bad for gamers of any platform other than Windows; if you take the word "Mac" out of this press release, the essence of what it is saying is that the developer just doesn't want to be bothered with supporting a port of his game on an alternate platform. No Mac Half-Life means no Linux or Be Half-Life, either.
Yeah, I think I saw that same set. If you noticed, though, the way that they achieved their "widescreenness" was to stretch out the width of the picture, distorting the image.
I guess if it was your only TV, you would get used to it. But comparing it to the TV's around it, it just looked wierd.
However, licensing theories aside, any thoughts on this question: if Apple was choosing the *nix core for Mac OS X today, would it still be BSD, or would it be Linux, taking into account Linux's current popularity? I'm not a *nix person, but I will venture a guess anyway.:) I'd say that the BSD code is more mature than Linux. For example, as I understand, Linux doesn't work well in multiprocessor systems.
BSD is what NeXT used, and since there is really no need to change that part of the OS (As opposed to integrating backwards compatibilty, and the dubious shift from an Object C API to a Java one), they stuck with it.
Last I heard, Apple was sticking with Objective C. When it came down to compiling apps, even a Java-based version of SimpleText was unacceptably slow.
I believe Apple is integrating both languages now.
The problem is, most businesses don't want a fruity-colored computer, so the Graphite is probably an attempt to get the iMac in some corporate environments.
However, you can get a fully-loaded 400 mhz Dell Dimension for around $1000, so Apple does need to sell a complete system for around that price. Unfortunately, I think the Graphite "Best" system is going to be around $1300.
It shouldn't cost Compaq or Apple anything to swap out the drive in such a scenario, as inflicting damage on the unit should void the warranty. Unless, of course, the Compaq warranty allows for Acts of Clod...
First of all, why is five flavours (am I the only one that thinks of ice cream?) when it comes to the Better configuration, and only one for the others?
It's called "upselling"; if you're looking at a "Good" configuration, but you'd really like to have it in Tangerine, then you start thinking about buying a "Better" iMac configuration.
The "Best" comes in Graphite because it's probably intended for office environments where a Strawberry iMac would seem out of place. If businesses pay a little more, they get the conservative color.
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I believe he's on his honeymoon. That was the reason he didn't go to MacWorld this past week.
I never used an Amiga, but I just gotta say...So what? A lot of Amiga fans wax nostalgic over their old boxes, like I did over my old Apple ][+. That is, until I got an emulator and some floppy images and played a few games. Cutting edge stuff twenty years ago...stinkaroo today. Between Mac OS X, BeOS, Linux, and Windows 2000, what niche of modern computing could Amiga possible address that the big boys won't tackle this year? And do it in such a way that they have a superior price/performance ratio? It's difficult to see.... There's always room for one more player, of course, but I hope Amino has more up their sleeve than just a trip down memory lane.
This sort of thing actually impresses me the most -- when people like Apple are prepared to release something that isn't finished. You must be head-over-heels in love with Microsoft, then.... ;-)
The G4 and G5 are Motorola chips. IBM is still pouring their development dollars into the G3.
> Apple's OS X is a way off, and given the hardware used in their systems since
> the introduction of the iMac, would you be able to find any other UN*X that
> supports bizarre foreign hardware like USB keyboards and mice?
The Ars Technica article you reference is only speculating, based on the current DP of OS X, that it will be another year in the making.
However, it's widely believed that Apple is much farther along on OS X than what DP2 shows, because Apple doesn't want too much of the interface revealed just yet. As odd as that sounds, it's par for the course at Apple.
Also, I've been following Apple since the early 80's, and have seen them push back important dates at the last minute, only to infuriate a lot of people. However, since Jobs became iCEO, I've noticed that he is more sensitive to this. On the one hand, he doesn't want to give out any more info on products in development than he absolutely has to; but, OTOH, he seems to know how much it enrages people to show up at a convention and say "Oh, we won't be selling that that we promised today, it'll be at least another year or two."
Jobs has done a decent job of updating the OS X calendar, and I think we would have heard about another year-long delay by now.
Actually, the primary use was in graphic apps, i.e., Photoshop. There was a time (not too many years ago) when applying certain filters in most Photoshop documents could be measured in minutes rather than seconds. (On the 68k-series CPU's, it was even measured in hours.)
Photoshop is not the untamed beast it once was, of course, since all of the hardware got faster and bigger, but the basic needs of PS have grown relatively little.
The really demanding graphic apps these days are the 3D animation packages. A simple 5 minute animation can take many hours to render out, and I think the lack of dual and quad-processor support on the Mac (both in hardware and in the OS) is at least part of the reason why some of the big 3D apps stayed away. From what I've read, though, I think that Jobs is very interested in wooing the 3D community back to the Mac, and that dialogue can't even begin without a quad-CPU G4 running OS X.
Yeah, but that was a hack, because the OS didn't support it very well. Now we have a very robust CPU, with a choice of either Linux or OS X, two OS's that should do a stellar job compared to Mac OS 7.x
Frankly, I'll be surprised if Be doesn't announce their support for G4's pretty soon....
Actually, it's more of a Motorola thing than an Apple thing.
Motorola is still on track to deliver a multiple core CPU in the G5, and I think also the G4II, which is due in 2000.
Jim should be talking to folks in the greeting card industry. These folks were on the same track ten years ago when musical greeting cards came out, but the technology wasn't there to do much else. With free e-cards on the web muscling in on the card industry, I bet they'd be interested in something new and interesting.
If GPL'ing the Quake source code forced everyone who used the codebase to GPL their source, it would be a very bad thing, and unlikely to happen.
Bear in mind that, among others, Valve licensed the codebase for Quake, and in spite of the fact that they rewrote 70% of it, having to release the codebase for HL, OF, TFC, and TFC2 would probably hurt them greatly.
Here's the thing: If everyone bought a Windows version and then downloaded the Mac or Linux version, the assumption of the bean counters is going to be that everyone has a Windows computer, and maybe a second computer or OS that they want to play on.
In the long run, this will cause budget-conscious game companies to say "If everyone is running Windows anyway, why bother with a Linux or Mac version?"
That's part (albeit a small one) of why DOS games stuck around for so long...why do a DOS version and a Windows 95 version when we know that everyone has DOS?
The problem is worse than that, though...try starting up your Win98 system in Safe Mode with a USB keyboard and mouse--oops! No drivers! "Now where did I put that crappy old PS/2 mouse?" ;-)
Until the USB driver is in the mobo, USB will only be a partial replacement for serial and PS/2 ports.
Technology is neither Christian nor un-Christian. The moral and ethical implications of what people do with technology, on the other hand, is a different story.
Of course, at $900 a pop, I don't think it's going to be killing too many GameBoys... :)
Of course they were designed to make Windows games easier to program. However, Microsoft is a business, and the BUSINESS REASON for creating DirectX and DirectPlay was to make sure that game developers stay locked into Microsoft's OS. MS is smart enough to know that killer games sell computers, so they logically want all the best games to be Windows only and sell more Windows PC's, rather than Mac, Linux, Be, or whatever. I'm not disputing MS's right to create these API's or their right to keep the source closed. I'm merely pointing out that businesses such as Microsoft don't spend money for the sake of spending money; there is a goal in mind when that budget is drafted. The original respondent in this thread was indignant that someone should suggest that there is a conspiracy at MS to keep developers locked in, when in fact such a situation does exist. MS has a very potent strategy for locking developers and users into their software (for better or worse), and that ideology is pervasive throughout their development teams.
But Newell didn't dispute the fact that Half-Life would have done well on the Mac. Heck, Duke Nukem 3D/Mac's development paid for itself within hours of going on sale--and one day isn't enough lead time for the Mac gaming market to make an informed purchse, so all of that was based on the strength of DN3D/PC's reputation.
Newell talks about having happy, satisfied PC customers, versus having ticked-off, short-changed Mac customers. Well, sadly, Mac gamers are used to making compromises on ported apps, so while it would have been a minor irritation, it wouldn't have been enough to keep the game from selling well. Also, the Mac game market is significantly smaller than the PC game market; Half-Life for Mac would have done well simply by virtue of the fact that the competition isn't that strong right now.
Of course, if Newell really cared about doing right by the Mac community, he would have made Half-Life 2 cross-platform from the start.
Reading Andrew Meggs's .plan updates, there was never any indication that the game could not run well on the Mac, and given that the game is almost 2 years old anyway, performance should be more than sufficient on the current generation of hardware.
This decision is political, not technical. Somehow, Valve thought that by cancelling such a hotly-anticipated game they could avert a flood of angry emails. Well, I bet they are getting a flood of angry emails right now.
Here's a news flash for ya: While Half-Life may not have used DirectPlay, Microsoft technologies such as DirectX and DirectPlay were created with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of keeping games "Windows-only". Regardless, this news is bad for gamers of any platform other than Windows; if you take the word "Mac" out of this press release, the essence of what it is saying is that the developer just doesn't want to be bothered with supporting a port of his game on an alternate platform. No Mac Half-Life means no Linux or Be Half-Life, either.
Yeah, I think I saw that same set. If you noticed, though, the way that they achieved their "widescreenness" was to stretch out the width of the picture, distorting the image.
I guess if it was your only TV, you would get used to it. But comparing it to the TV's around it, it just looked wierd.
However, licensing theories aside, any thoughts on this question: if Apple was choosing the *nix core for Mac OS X today, would it still be BSD, or would it be Linux, taking into account Linux's current popularity? I'm not a *nix person, but I will venture a guess anyway. :) I'd say that the BSD code is more mature than Linux. For example, as I understand, Linux doesn't work well in multiprocessor systems.
Last I heard, Apple was sticking with Objective C. When it came down to compiling apps, even a Java-based version of SimpleText was unacceptably slow.
I believe Apple is integrating both languages now.
Actually, that is with a monitor. I just bought 5 of them almost 2 months ago.
The problem is, most businesses don't want a fruity-colored computer, so the Graphite is probably an attempt to get the iMac in some corporate environments.
However, you can get a fully-loaded 400 mhz Dell Dimension for around $1000, so Apple does need to sell a complete system for around that price. Unfortunately, I think the Graphite "Best" system is going to be around $1300.
It shouldn't cost Compaq or Apple anything to swap out the drive in such a scenario, as inflicting damage on the unit should void the warranty. Unless, of course, the Compaq warranty allows for Acts of Clod...
It's called "upselling"; if you're looking at a "Good" configuration, but you'd really like to have it in Tangerine, then you start thinking about buying a "Better" iMac configuration.
The "Best" comes in Graphite because it's probably intended for office environments where a Strawberry iMac would seem out of place. If businesses pay a little more, they get the conservative color.