I actually explained the difference really badly, it's essentially this:
Visual Pinball + PinMAME are emulators and need software to run, which are normally the official pinball ROM releases
FreeWPC allows you to write software that WPC/PinMAME can run. It's important to point out that this is a groundup rewrite, not a ROM hack.
Visual Pinball and PinMAME are both emulators, which come in very handy when developing FreeWPC (as you don't need a table to develop), but if you wanted to use this to develop your own custom software, you would require a PC in the cabinet + some kind of interface board to hook up to your table.
FreeWPC is a Pinball operating system for tables based on Williams WPC hardware and as such is a drop in replacement ROM, no extra hardware is necessary. In effect it's almost the same process the original game designers used, GCC has been patched to support the 6809 CPU and there's a pinball library available for common things like scores, display effects etc. The excellent manual here explains better than I can: http://www.oddchange.com/freewpc/manual/
There's a few other projects along these lines, but afaik this is the only one not to require additional hardware, P-ROC is coming along quite nicely:
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/http://www.dutchpinball.com/
I've been working on a project with Brian Dominy that allows us to produce ground up rewrites of software for 90's pinball tables, the main website is here:
http://www.oddchange.com/freewpc/
This is BY FAR the coolest project I've worked on, if anyone is interesting in helping out/testing then drop me a line.
Ah, Hi tepples, didn't know you posted here! Just to confirm that I DO NOT CONDONE PIRACY and I resent that accusation, especially as you know yourself that I am involved in homebrew for the DS
I'm just compiling a new build now and I might suicidally post the link to my DS running boa (web server) just to see how many hits it can take before it blows up.
Linux on the DS is actually getting slightly useful if you have a Slot-2 card with GBA RAM on it. You get a wireless webserver, ftpd, telnetd, openvpn/ssh/telnet clients, a mature web browser (links) and I even managed to get clam-av running on it. It is suffering from a lack of developers recently though.
http://www.dslinux.org/
Most of the time (I believe) the region lock codes exist for the games publishers, not the console manufacturers. Nintendo have to prove to the publishers that they can provide a secure platform for them to develop for. Also there is the issue of copyright. A game published in Japan by a company may only have the rights to use that character/music/theme in that specific region. Nintendo have to offer them a mechanism to make sure that the game publishers can assure the copyright holders that it won't just get exported to another country where they don't have copyright permission.
If you think about it, it doesn't do any favours for Nintendo to region lock stuff, it's just to placate the publishers.
The Datel GnM isn't designed for playing warez. It was actually a semi reasonable attempt at producing a homebrew device for the masses. Yes it can be used for playing backups/copies/whatever you want to call piracy, but compared to other cheaper cards it's compatibilty is poor.
I would be over the moon if someone produced a card capable of running homebrew that wouldn't be able to run backups, which I thought the GnM would do. It is very annoying the fact that there is a great DS homebrew scene that gets tainted by the fact that most of the devices used to boot homebrew can also boot warez.
You are all completing missing the point. If ethernet over powerlines came in, the interference will be so bad that you won't be able to pick up HF signals, propagated legally or not.
It's more fun if you substitute the word "wank" for "fight".
"The first rule of Wank Club is - you do not talk about Wank Club. The second rule of Wank Club is you DO NOT talk about Wank Club. Third rule of Wank Club, someone yells 'stop', goes limp, taps out, the wank is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a wank. Fifth rule, one wank at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule, wanks will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Wank Club, you
have to wank."
I had a chat with one of the developers of Dirac a while ago and the reasoning behind not using an open source codec was that the BBC doesn't totally own the rights to the material it broadcasts, therefore they have to rely on some form of commercial DRM to appease the Media Gods.
They are complete idiots for letting Microsoft handle their archives though
I believe the reason why that the designers do this is laziness (ie no strings to parse to make sure it's valid) and also to circumvent keyloggers, many online banks use dropdowns for letters from the 'secret' password.
I remember reading somewhere that the US goverment changed the codes (not the launch codes, I think it was the doors) to something like 1234567 because they were afraid that in the event of attack they wouldn't be able to locate/remember the proper codes.
I went to a linux media festival in Bristol last year and one of the guys who is developing that codec gave a talk about their new streaming technology. When asked why they are using proprietory software he replied that they needed a codec that was available on all 3 major platforms (*nix, Windows and Mac) and the only mature/stable codecs were not OSS. For the record he was very enthusiastic about Linux and OSS in general.
If, like me you love watching those TV programmes where they have a helicopter following a suspect being chased by the police, here's a fun thing to look out for. Recently I've noticed that as soon as the subject is arrested/stopped, 90% of the time the camera will pan away from the suspect. To me it looks like an unofficial deal with the police and cameramen. We'll let you film and help us if you don't show us kicking the shit out of the suspect when we catch them.
Or am I just paranoid?
Plus the fact that a branch of it can now be used to run VST audio effects programs that would normally only run under windows. Now I can use my VSTs with a cheap soundcard and still get under 40ms latency.
There's someone working on a firmware patch (or some such), but it looks dubious to me and also requires a specific flashcart:
http://geekboy.ca/wifi/?cat=2/
Also it's probably possible for DSLinux (http://www.dslinux.org/) to support WPA and wpa_supplicant has been ported but it requires some more work on the driver before it'll function properly. Trouble is none of the current dev's are really au fait with WPA, so any help is gratefully accepted.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually explained the difference really badly, it's essentially this: Visual Pinball + PinMAME are emulators and need software to run, which are normally the official pinball ROM releases FreeWPC allows you to write software that WPC/PinMAME can run. It's important to point out that this is a groundup rewrite, not a ROM hack.
Visual Pinball and PinMAME are both emulators, which come in very handy when developing FreeWPC (as you don't need a table to develop), but if you wanted to use this to develop your own custom software, you would require a PC in the cabinet + some kind of interface board to hook up to your table. FreeWPC is a Pinball operating system for tables based on Williams WPC hardware and as such is a drop in replacement ROM, no extra hardware is necessary. In effect it's almost the same process the original game designers used, GCC has been patched to support the 6809 CPU and there's a pinball library available for common things like scores, display effects etc. The excellent manual here explains better than I can: http://www.oddchange.com/freewpc/manual/ There's a few other projects along these lines, but afaik this is the only one not to require additional hardware, P-ROC is coming along quite nicely: http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/ http://www.dutchpinball.com/
Pin2k took this one step further, allowing online tournaments, see here for more details: http://www.lovepinball.co.uk/tournament/
I've been working on a project with Brian Dominy that allows us to produce ground up rewrites of software for 90's pinball tables, the main website is here: http://www.oddchange.com/freewpc/ This is BY FAR the coolest project I've worked on, if anyone is interesting in helping out/testing then drop me a line.
Back and to the left
Ah, Hi tepples, didn't know you posted here! Just to confirm that I DO NOT CONDONE PIRACY and I resent that accusation, especially as you know yourself that I am involved in homebrew for the DS
Get an IDE drive fitted to it via the network adapter and use HDLoader. My PS2 hasn't had to read more than 10bytes off a disc in years.
I'm just compiling a new build now and I might suicidally post the link to my DS running boa (web server) just to see how many hits it can take before it blows up.
Linux on the DS is actually getting slightly useful if you have a Slot-2 card with GBA RAM on it. You get a wireless webserver, ftpd, telnetd, openvpn/ssh/telnet clients, a mature web browser (links) and I even managed to get clam-av running on it. It is suffering from a lack of developers recently though. http://www.dslinux.org/
Try to get a Amiga 2000 replacement drive? http://cgi.ebay.com/Amiga-2000-2MB-RAM-C-Card-Genlock-OCS-Joystick_W0QQitemZ200164535987QQihZ010QQcategoryZ4598QQcmdZViewItem You can buy a whole system including an external drive and genlock for less than $30, so your argument falls flat on it's face.
Most of the time (I believe) the region lock codes exist for the games publishers, not the console manufacturers. Nintendo have to prove to the publishers that they can provide a secure platform for them to develop for. Also there is the issue of copyright. A game published in Japan by a company may only have the rights to use that character/music/theme in that specific region. Nintendo have to offer them a mechanism to make sure that the game publishers can assure the copyright holders that it won't just get exported to another country where they don't have copyright permission. If you think about it, it doesn't do any favours for Nintendo to region lock stuff, it's just to placate the publishers.
The Datel GnM isn't designed for playing warez. It was actually a semi reasonable attempt at producing a homebrew device for the masses. Yes it can be used for playing backups/copies/whatever you want to call piracy, but compared to other cheaper cards it's compatibilty is poor. I would be over the moon if someone produced a card capable of running homebrew that wouldn't be able to run backups, which I thought the GnM would do. It is very annoying the fact that there is a great DS homebrew scene that gets tainted by the fact that most of the devices used to boot homebrew can also boot warez.
Don't forget that you need some kind of homebrew device (I refuse to call them 'pirate devices') to run DSLinux. http://www.dslinux.org/
Over Mucho Grande? I don't think I'll ever get over Mucho Grande.
You are all completing missing the point. If ethernet over powerlines came in, the interference will be so bad that you won't be able to pick up HF signals, propagated legally or not.
It's more fun if you substitute the word "wank" for "fight". "The first rule of Wank Club is - you do not talk about Wank Club. The second rule of Wank Club is you DO NOT talk about Wank Club. Third rule of Wank Club, someone yells 'stop', goes limp, taps out, the wank is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a wank. Fifth rule, one wank at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule, wanks will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Wank Club, you have to wank."
I had a chat with one of the developers of Dirac a while ago and the reasoning behind not using an open source codec was that the BBC doesn't totally own the rights to the material it broadcasts, therefore they have to rely on some form of commercial DRM to appease the Media Gods. They are complete idiots for letting Microsoft handle their archives though
It's probably due to the anti-aliasing present when the card is in '3D' mode.
IIRC Zsnes is written heavily in x86 asm plus it uses hacks to get certain games to run faster.
I believe the reason why that the designers do this is laziness (ie no strings to parse to make sure it's valid) and also to circumvent keyloggers, many online banks use dropdowns for letters from the 'secret' password.
I remember reading somewhere that the US goverment changed the codes (not the launch codes, I think it was the doors) to something like 1234567 because they were afraid that in the event of attack they wouldn't be able to locate/remember the proper codes.
I went to a linux media festival in Bristol last year and one of the guys who is developing that codec gave a talk about their new streaming technology. When asked why they are using proprietory software he replied that they needed a codec that was available on all 3 major platforms (*nix, Windows and Mac) and the only mature/stable codecs were not OSS. For the record he was very enthusiastic about Linux and OSS in general.
If, like me you love watching those TV programmes where they have a helicopter following a suspect being chased by the police, here's a fun thing to look out for. Recently I've noticed that as soon as the subject is arrested/stopped, 90% of the time the camera will pan away from the suspect. To me it looks like an unofficial deal with the police and cameramen. We'll let you film and help us if you don't show us kicking the shit out of the suspect when we catch them. Or am I just paranoid?
Plus the fact that a branch of it can now be used to run VST audio effects programs that would normally only run under windows. Now I can use my VSTs with a cheap soundcard and still get under 40ms latency.
There's someone working on a firmware patch (or some such), but it looks dubious to me and also requires a specific flashcart: http://geekboy.ca/wifi/?cat=2/ Also it's probably possible for DSLinux (http://www.dslinux.org/) to support WPA and wpa_supplicant has been ported but it requires some more work on the driver before it'll function properly. Trouble is none of the current dev's are really au fait with WPA, so any help is gratefully accepted.