fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (11/20/90)
I work part-time at an Amiga store in Connecticut. Last Saturday, a customer
came in with AWESOME and reported a bug; the system locked up on the second
screen. We duplicated the bug in the store. So we opened another box and
tried it. Got to the 3rd screen (the SPACE HARRIER lookalike) and this
time we got a GURU. He's p*ssed, and the store owner is p*ssed; she
mentioned that it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY
too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers
and such LOUSY producers?
--Rick Wrigley
fhwri@conncoll.bitnetkchiu@triton.unm.edu (11/21/90)
In article <36787@nigel.ee.udel.edu> fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >I work part-time at an Amiga store in Connecticut. Last Saturday, a customer >came in with AWESOME and reported a bug; the system locked up on the second >screen. We duplicated the bug in the store. So we opened another box and >tried it. Got to the 3rd screen (the SPACE HARRIER lookalike) and this >time we got a GURU. He's p*ssed, and the store owner is p*ssed; she >mentioned that it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers >and such LOUSY producers? > --Rick Wrigley > fhwri@conncoll.bitnet Yeah, I agree totally, the store in my town got about 20 copies of AWESOME too, and it turned out that majority of them were bad, what the fuck is wrong with Psygnosis? And what the fuck is wrong with their attitude toward copy protections?
farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) (11/21/90)
fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers >and such LOUSY producers? Who says they're good game programmers? Won't run on a 3000, won't run reliably on a number of different configurations, can't be put on a hard drive, can't be backed up, can't be multitasked -- all of these say to me that they are LOUSY game programmers. -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us
a499@mindlink.UUCP (Robert Salesas) (11/22/90)
I'm amazez at how utterly rude you are. It is almost unbelievable that people like you exist. Have you reread your message? That kind of language and attitude is unacceptable. Behaviour of that sort only merits that you be completely ignored in your little world. Robert Salesas
zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (11/22/90)
In article <21740@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >>[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY >>too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers >>and such LOUSY producers? > >Who says they're good game programmers? Won't run on a 3000, won't run >reliably on a number of different configurations, can't be put on a hard >drive, can't be backed up, can't be multitasked -- all of these say to >me that they are LOUSY game programmers. All of the "features" you describe are symptoms of rabid copy protection (although non-multitasking has other causes, too). I would suspect that most publishers have a bank of programmers that do the copy protection stuff. I think that people write the games and get them finished before putting on the protection. For instance, back in the glory days of the C-64, Electronic Arts had a standard copy protection scheme that they stuck on every game, even though the games were written by a lot of different authors. Personally, I detest copy protection, mainly because I own a 3000 and there are certain games (like Dark Castle II, Shufflepuck, Beast I,II) that I would love to play, but are so *&^%ing full of ^%$*ing copy protection that they won't even ^%$#ing load, much less install on my &^%!ing hard drive. $#@!. I even hated copy protection back when I had my C64, because it made programs take EVEN LONGER to load. One in particular (mail order monsters) took about 10 minutes or more. Also, the protections schemes would bang the heads on my drive. Grr. Of course, the protection didn't do any good, because I had some nibblers that would copy practically everything. Followups redirected to comp.sys.amiga.games... Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.
buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) (11/23/90)
In article <21740@well.sf.ca.us>, farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: > fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: > >[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY > >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers > >and such LOUSY producers? > > Who says they're good game programmers? I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Won't run on a 3000 WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. > won't run reliably on a number of different configurations Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people who play much. You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid accelerator card or this stupid hard drive controller, made only for people who use their amiga for working (BEUUUUUURK !!!!) > can't be put on a hard drive WHO CARES ???????? What is the interest of putting a shot'em up on a HD ??? If you had a normal A500 configuration (2 drives, 1 meg), the custom dos (YEAHHH ! I love custom fast dos, because I can load my games faster than all the serious folks with expensive configurations, who can not even play the game !!! HA ! HA ! HA !) > can't be backed up, I agree with you on this one. > can't be multitasked I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else. Try to make a 60 frames/second shoot'em'up multitask !!! I hate multitasking anyway because I just bought my computer for playing and I'm sure I payed an extra for this !@#$$%% multitasking system. I just want to play games. Forever !!!! -- all of these say to me that they are LOUSY game programmers. I love "Blood Money" I love "The Killing Game Show" I love "Anarchy" I loved "Barbarian" I loved "Obliterator" I loved "Menace" ..... They make real games, even if they made some errors (The Shadow of the beast 1 & 2 -> totally unplayable) > -- > Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us Mike Farren is too serious. He owns a too big computer for blasting the aliens at a very hight rate, because he wants to multitask too much. He's got a too big HD. He cannot play all these good games. He must buy an Amiga 500, the simpliest one, buy a good joystick, and just have fun. (And not say to himself: "If this game multitasked, I could play my word processor at the same time !!!) -- ------------------------------------------ Michel Buffa: Projet Robotvis, INRIA, France Internet: buffa@sardaigne.inria.fr Surface Mail: Michel BUFFA, INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, 2004, route des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex -- FRANCE Voice phone: (33) 93.65.78.39, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 65 ------------------------------------------
caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) (11/23/90)
In article <9238@mirsa.inria.fr> buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes: >In article <21740@well.sf.ca.us>, farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >> fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >> >[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY >> >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers >> >and such LOUSY producers? >> >> Who says they're good game programmers? > >I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gee whiz bang! Let's all repent our sins and bow down to the mighty programmers at Psygnosis and beg their forgiveness. Gimme a break. > Won't run on a 3000 > >WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. I own an A3000 and I care. I also play games, alot. And if it doesn't work I take it back. The company should care too, because they are only losing sales. If they followed the rules Commodore has published from DAY ONE, their games __WOULD__ work on a 3000. There is no excuse. They chuck the OS anyway so all they have to do is follow some basic primitives and they would be ok. But they can't even do that. I'm with Mike on this one. >> won't run reliably on a number of different configurations > >Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people >who play much. You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Say's who? I play a lot of games. Probably more than is good for me. >accelerator card or this stupid hard drive controller, made only for people >who use their amiga for working (BEUUUUUURK !!!!) So everyone out there that bought their Amiga for something other than games are the one's in the wrong? You sir, are the one who is in err. If all you wanted to do was play cames you'd have been better off buying a Genisis and TurboGraphics-16 for the same price (or, more likely, significantly less) you payed for your 500. >> can't be put on a hard drive > >WHO CARES ???????? What is the interest of putting a shot'em up on a HD ??? >If you had a normal A500 configuration (2 drives, 1 meg), the custom dos ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Here you define a normal 500, eh? So how come many games won't even work under those coniditions? There's Mr. Farren's `won't run reliably' in the flesh and blood and I haven't even pulled an accelerator card on you. >(YEAHHH ! I love custom fast dos, because I can load my games faster than all >the serious folks with expensive configurations, who can not even play the game >!!! HA ! HA ! HA !) You've obviously never seen a hard drive in action. Even with custom loaders, floppy hardware is limited to something around 30k/sec reads (someone give a more exact figure, please). Meanwhile, I get 800k/sec or better reads from my HD. I'd like to see your floppy read an ENTIRE disk in just ONE second. The first thing I do with a game if it's hard drive installable is to put it on my HD. Floppies are just way to slow to even be tolerable for anything else but moving stuff to HD or doing backups. And don't give me a line about how people don't install games on their HDs. Where this idea came from, I don't know. I'll leave a game on the HD until I stop playing it and have something else to replace it with. Until then, there's no harm in having it there. >> can't be backed up, > >I agree with you on this one. There's hope for you yet... >> can't be multitasked > >I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else. Try >to make a 60 frames/second shoot'em'up multitask !!! I hate multitasking Obviously you and I have different tastes in games. I prefer more of the stratergy/simulation/rpg type games than the shooters. Even still, I'd rather have the choice of a game that will slow down if I wanna multitask with it or that will run full speed if I'm not running anything else. There isn't any reason games shouldn't multitask. I run many other programs, and because of multitasking I don't have to shut them down. If it comes down to a game or my work, well the game is gonna lose no matter what. >anyway because I just bought my computer for playing and I'm sure I payed an >extra for this !@#$$%% multitasking system. I just want to play games. Forever >!!!! As I said before, you bought the wrong machine. >-- all of these say to me that they are LOUSY game programmers. >I love "The Killing Game Show" About the only decent game you've listed here. Psygnosis graphics in a game one can actually PLAY... And it even works on an A3000 (at least mine, anyway). >------------------------------------------ >Michel Buffa: Projet Robotvis, INRIA, France > Internet: buffa@sardaigne.inria.fr -=> CAW /////////////////////////////////////|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Christopher A. Wichura |Real programmers don't play tennis, or caw@miroc.chi.il.us (my amiga) |any other sport that requires you to u12401@uicvm.uic.edu (school account)|change clothes. Mountain climbing is |OK, and real programmers wear their Please! Do not send mail to my school|climbing boots to work in case a account unless mail to miroc bounces.|mountain should suddenly spring up in I often do not check uicvm.uic.edu |the middle of the machine room. for periods in excess of a week. | --Unix Fortune \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|//////////////////////////////////////
joseph@valnet.UUCP (Joseph P. Hillenburg) (11/23/90)
buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes: > In article <21740@well.sf.ca.us>, farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: > > fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: > > >[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY > > >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers > > >and such LOUSY producers? > > > > Who says they're good game programmers? > > I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I say they won't. If they don't work on my 2500 in '030 mode, they're out. If they don't go onto my hard drive, I don't buy from them again. Good programmers cam see to it that programs can multitask, and work on an 020/030, and work on an HD. I find this useful if I'm on a BBS and don't have anything better to do with my time, so I jsut pull out a good game. [I love Pirates! {The game - Lamers Suck}] It's apparent to me thqat all you do all day is play games. > > Won't run on a 3000 > > WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. Boy, this really takes the cake. Real videogame fanatics don't buy A500's. (No offense to those of you who do useful work with your A500's). They go for fast 3000's with nice hard drives. I care if if runs or not. Say that you're running a BBS. You want to play a game you have real bad. There's nothing thatsaid that you had to shut down the BBS. Just plop in a nice,multitasking game, and fooooom. This is another reason to like Tetris, except it's floppy only. > > > won't run reliably on a number of different configurations > > Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people > who play much. You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid > accelerator card or this stupid hard drive controller, made only for people > who use their amiga for working (BEUUUUUURK !!!!) Stupid accelerator card?! Sheesh. I bought the 2500 because it does everything I want. I don't give a shit whether it can play the latest pygnosis games, because they don't work. [Unless I go into 60k mode, which I don' do, 'cause I loose 4 megs RAM]. And yes, there are people who buy A3000's for games, too. They don't want an A500 because they don't want to be left behind. The reasoning: They will want to use it for something useful. > > > can't be put on a hard drive > > WHO CARES ???????? What is the interest of putting a shot'em up on a HD ??? Because it's easier. I don't want to reboot. I can just click on an icon and run a nice, good shoot-em-up. > If you had a normal A500 configuration (2 drives, 1 meg), the custom dos > (YEAHHH ! I love custom fast dos, because I can load my games faster than all > the serious folks with expensive configurations, who can not even play the ga Wanna bet? I'll be you $100 that my A2091/Q40S/Q105S can outrun your custom-dos anyday. I can play well-behaved games, and I praise companies like CinemaWare and Spectrum Holobyte for shaping up their act. [Notice that the legal companies are all American?] > !!! HA ! HA ! HA !) > > > can't be backed up, > > I agree with you on this one. I agree, too. > > > can't be multitasked > > I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else. Try > to make a 60 frames/second shoot'em'up multitask !!! I hate multitasking > anyway because I just bought my computer for playing and I'm sure I payed an > extra for this !@#$$%% multitasking system. I just want to play games. Foreve Good for you. It just so happens that my 2500 can do 60 frames/sec and I can run ProWrite at the same time. If you want to play gaames, that's your choice. But the vast majority want the three mains points on games. (MultiTasking, HD, and '030) > !!!! > > -- all of these say to me that they are LOUSY game programmers. > > I love "Blood Money" > I love "The Killing Game Show" > I love "Anarchy" > I loved "Barbarian" > I loved "Obliterator" > I loved "Menace" > ..... I hate them all, since they don't follow good programming practices. > > They make real games, even if they made some errors (The Shadow of the beast > & 2 -> totally unplayable) > > > -- > > Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us > > Mike Farren is too serious. He owns a too big computer for blasting the alien > at a very hight rate, because he wants to multitask too much. He's got a too > big HD. He cannot play all these good games. > > He must buy an Amiga 500, the simpliest one, buy a good joystick, and just > have fun. (And not say to himself: "If this game multitasked, I could play my > word processor at the same time !!!) > -- > ------------------------------------------ > Michel Buffa: Projet Robotvis, INRIA, France > > Internet: buffa@sardaigne.inria.fr > Surface Mail: Michel BUFFA, INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, > 2004, route des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex -- FRANCE > Voice phone: (33) 93.65.78.39, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 65 > ------------------------------------------ What an idiot. Joseph Hillenburg Secretary, Bloomington Amiga Users Group joseph@valnet.UUCP ...!iuvax!valnet!joseph "Only Apple could slow down a 68030 chip." -Computer Shopper
nj@teak.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) (11/25/90)
buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes: > [Copy protected games rule! Any computer more powerful than a 500 sucks! > Hard drives suck! Accelerator cards suck! Multitasking sucks! etc.] Everyone responds: > [#!%*!#&%*!#&$!! #!#$@(*%&#!$!!! (!#%&!#$) !@#*$&!#$!!!! #!*$&!#$! etc.] Now, come on, folks. Michel's article was a very nicely-done satirical piece, obviously directed at the companies that market copy-protected games. Such companies apparently believe that their target market comprises gleet-headed idiots who hold opinions of the sort Michel put forth in his article. Of course, no one equipped with a significant portion of cerebral cortex would be stupid enough to actually hold said opinions, so Michel's post must have been pure sarcasm. -- ... or perhaps his middle name is Jean-BIFF
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/25/90)
I think it's pretty silly to be slamming _Mike Farren's_ opinions on
hard drive mountable/multitasking games; I reach over and pull out my
box for Crystal Quest, which does both very nicely, and there on the
back of the box it says "Amiga Version by Mike Farren". I think we
can safely say that Mike's opinions on such subjects should be given
more than a little extra weight.
As to the question of whether it is useful for games to multi-task: of
course it is. I started a little script to merge and sort my new email
into my existing archives. The lharc's for 1762 correspondent files
comprising about 11 megs of email have been running for over two hours
now, on the fastest disk/controller combo around (the bottleneck is
the 68000), it has just reached the "m"s, and I'd _love_ to be playing
Turrican or Globulous while this is going on; I'm a bit burned out on
nethack (played about 60 hours of it so far this week), and reading news
is pretty boring just now. Guess what? Turrican and Globulous don't
install on my HD, and they don't multitask! Bummer!
If they did, I could have detached the script and diverted the output,
and left the archiving going in background while I blasted some nasties.
As to installing games on hard disk: of course I want to! I've pretty
much abandoned rummaging around for disks and docs and boxes (they're in
three different rooms) and just taken to playing the games I got mounted
in my "PLAY:" partition. It turns out for lots of games, a good sized
chunk of workbench was on the game disk, so I could keep my normal
assigns, pitch the redundant game disk copies of work bench files, and
install games with only the game data and executable, saving lots of HD
space. The games that don't mount on the HD don't get played any
more ... guess how much more money I'll be wasting on non-HD installable
games? So I'm a lazy sod -- I also represent a good fraction of the game
market -- folks to whom games are a pastime, not a passion.
/// It's Amiga
/// for me: why
Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for
<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less?
--
Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.mr3@ukc.ac.uk (M.Rizzo) (11/26/90)
In article <9238@mirsa.inria.fr> buffa@mirsa.inria.fr writes: >In article <21740@well.sf.ca.us>, farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >> fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >> >[...] it's not the first Psygnosis game that she's gotten WAY >> >too many returns on. Why, oh why can they be such good game programmers >> >and such LOUSY producers? >> >> Who says they're good game programmers? > >I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > > Won't run on a 3000 > >WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. Hey a lot of people who use Amigas for serious purposes, including myself :-), like to play a few games every now and then. Why should A3000 owners be denied of playing games on their machine? Yes, I have to agree, such game programmers are indeed LOUSY programmers ! >> won't run reliably on a number of different configurations >Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people >who play much. Says who ? >You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid >accelerator card or this stupid hard drive controller, made only for people >who use their amiga for working (BEUUUUUURK !!!!) I assume you're referring to A2000 owners. Wouldn't it be a bit stupid to own two Amigas, especially an A500 and an A2000 which are very similar except for the A2000's expansion capabilities, which according to you shouldn't be used anyway ! >> can't be put on a hard drive >WHO CARES ???????? What is the interest of putting a shot'em up on a HD ??? >If you had a normal A500 configuration (2 drives, 1 meg), the custom dos >(YEAHHH ! I love custom fast dos, because I can load my games faster than all >the serious folks with expensive configurations, who can not even play the game >!!! HA ! HA ! HA !) If games were to be multi-tasking, or could be run from Workbench (see below), it would save a lot of disk swapping if they were kept on HD ! >> can't be multitasked >I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else. Try >to make a 60 frames/second shoot'em'up multitask !!! I hate multitasking >anyway because I just bought my computer for playing and I'm sure I payed an >extra for this !@#$$%% multitasking system. I just want to play games. Forever >!!!! While I agree that most arcade games are not especially well suited to a multi-tasking environment, I would at least expect games to be able to be started from Workbench and upon exit, to return back to Workbench properly, freeing up resources as it should. This would avoid a lot of re-booting and would allow one to take a quick break from say, word processing, play a game or two, and return back to the Workbench screen and resume his task. I would also like to point out that multi-tasking games would be nice e.g. play a game while waiting for a program to be compiled. >Mike Farren is too serious. He owns a too big computer for blasting the aliens >at a very hight rate, because he wants to multitask too much. He's got a too >big HD. He cannot play all these good games. No Mike Farren is not too serious - he is just being reasonable and I'm sure there are a lot more people who agree with him. You, on the other hand, are wasting the great benfits of Amiga by just using it as a games machine. Shame on you !!! MiKe Rizzo
ken@cbmvax.commodore.com (Ken Farinsky - CATS) (11/27/90)
In article <9238@mirsa.inria.fr> buffa@mirsa.inria.fr writes: > >WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. In the beginning (;-), developers had an excuse for not working with all memory and processor configurations, for the machines weren't generally available. Today you can easily purchase an 030 card with lots of memory, and many other configurations (hard disks, memory above 24-bit address space, many floppies, machines with all chip memory, machines with lots of fast memory, etc.) Developers no longer have an excuse for not handling these situations. It does not take a lot of effort to be compatible! People with 3000s should be able to run all of the software as should people with 500s. >I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else... People are not asking for games that allow them to do other things at the same time; they simply would like to be able to pause the game, do something else (without rebooting), then restart the game. This makes the machine much more flexible/powerful than a dedicated game machine. -- -- Ken Farinsky - CATS - (215) 431-9421 - Commodore Business Machines uucp: ken@cbmvax.commodore.com or ...{uunet,rutgers}!cbmvax!ken bix: kfarinsky
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (11/27/90)
[ refer to attached post for reference ] Ummm......actually for non-real-time games like hack or shanghai I think users *are* asking for multi-tasking. Real-time games can takeover the machine and give it back while pausing. Both hack and Shanghai do multi-task by the way so it has been done before. I don't have a hard drive so I still buy games that don't install (how would I know?) But I don't buy copy-protected software and when I do get a disk I won't buy uninstallable software, (can you say "crippled"?). So expand your market and listen to your customers. Don't copy protect and make your software installable and keep it system friendly. Or sell it for $5 in a baggie at Fred's Software Discounters...(joke, OK?) :) Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com attached note =================== In article <9238@mirsa.inria.fr> buffa@mirsa.inria.fr writes: > >WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic. In the beginning (;-), developers had an excuse for not working with all memory and processor configurations, for the machines weren't generally available. Today you can easily purchase an 030 card with lots of memory, and many other configurations (hard disks, memory above 24-bit address space, many floppies, machines with all chip memory, machines with lots of fast memory, etc.) Developers no longer have an excuse for not handling these situations. It does not take a lot of effort to be compatible! People with 3000s should be able to run all of the software as should people with 500s. >I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else... People are not asking for games that allow them to do other things at the same time; they simply would like to be able to pause the game, do something else (without rebooting), then restart the game. This makes the machine much more flexible/powerful than a dedicated game machine. -- -- Ken Farinsky - CATS - (215) 431-9421 - Commodore Business Machines uucp: ken@cbmvax.commodore.com or ...{uunet,rutgers}!cbmvax!ken bix: kfarinsky
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) (11/27/90)
In article <1990Nov21.055818.18351@ariel.unm.edu> kchiu@triton.unm.edu writes: >In article <36787@nigel.ee.udel.edu> fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: [Stuff deleted] > > Yeah, I agree totally, the store in my town got about 20 copies >of AWESOME too, and it turned out that majority of them were bad, what the >fuck is wrong with Psygnosis? And what the fuck is wrong with their attitude >toward copy protections? I have AWESOME, and there is nothing wrong with it at all! Perhaps they messed up converting it to the NTSC system. Whats wrong with thier attitude towards software protection? -- *********/// O O **A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelegence Team)**///*** * /// u Fight, defeat and kill organized laming. /// * * \\\ /// --- Zaphod of Intuition csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok? \\\ /// * ****\\X//**********************************************************\\X//******
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) (11/27/90)
In article <caw.3545@miroc.Chi.IL.US> caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) writes: >In article <9238@mirsa.inria.fr> buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes: [Stuff wasted] >I own an A3000 and I care. I also play games, alot. And if it doesn't >work I take it back. The company should care too, because they are only >losing sales. Fair enough. If they followed the rules Commodore has published from DAY ONE, their games __WOULD__ work on a 3000. There is no excuse. They chuck >the OS anyway so all they have to do is follow some basic primitives and >they would be ok. But they can't even do that. I'm with Mike on this one. > Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like 50 frames per second scrolling etc. Take a look at the scrolling and graphics in Sim City for an example... There is an execellent argument for not being OS friendly. You either leave it slow and bad looking, or fast and good looking. >> >>Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people >>who play much. You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >So everyone out there that bought their Amiga for something other than >games are the one's in the wrong? You sir, are the one who is in err. If >all you wanted to do was play cames you'd have been better off buying a >Genisis and TurboGraphics-16 for the same price (or, more likely, >significantly less) you payed for your 500. > I have never found any need for speed up boards, buy my A1500 is used for alot more that games playing. Have you ever thought about the vast majority of people who own A1000's or A500's? I for one would not have bought an amiga if all it had were OS friendly games still in the dark ages and still using rastports and scroll_raster functions, all for the sake of being able to run it on an A3000 with 4 gig's of RAM and a 100mz speed up board. > >Here you define a normal 500, eh? So how come many games won't even work >under those coniditions? There's Mr. Farren's `won't run reliably' in the >flesh and blood and I haven't even pulled an accelerator card on you. > I have NEVER *EVER* had any problems with games not running, thats probable because most of the best games (including blood money, menace, populous and elite) are written by UK programmers. And may "suffer(?)" the conversion to NTSC and 50hz. > >You've obviously never seen a hard drive in action. Even with custom >loaders, floppy hardware is limited to something around 30k/sec reads >(someone give a more exact figure, please). Meanwhile, I get 800k/sec or >better reads from my HD. I'd like to see your floppy read an ENTIRE disk >in just ONE second. I'd like to see the price of your hard disk! > >The first thing I do with a game if it's hard drive installable is to put >it on my HD. Floppies are just way to slow to even be tolerable for >anything else but moving stuff to HD or doing backups. And don't give me a >line about how people don't install games on their HDs. Where this idea >came from, I don't know. I'll leave a game on the HD until I stop playing >it and have something else to replace it with. Until then, there's no harm >in having it there. > I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK don't have hard drives and speed up boards. >> >>I HA
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (11/28/90)
In <1990Nov27.140432.6036@cck.cov.ac.uk>, csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) writes: >Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise >that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like >50 frames per second scrolling etc. Take a look at the scrolling and graphics >in Sim City for an example... There is an execellent argument for not being >OS friendly. You either leave it slow and bad looking, or fast and good looking. Well, if the programers of these 'take it over and screw the user' games knew anything much at all, they would figure a way to give it all back to you rather than making you reboot. I won't use a game that crashes my machine. A machine that has to be rebooted is, by definition, crashed. It's been done before, it will be done again. Fats action does not preclude at least the minimal user friendliness. >I have NEVER *EVER* had any problems with games not running, thats probable >because most of the best games (including blood money, menace, populous and >elite) are written by UK programmers. And may "suffer(?)" the conversion to >NTSC and 50hz. I have seen very few games from the UK that I liked. I don't know what it is, but they seem to not quite 'fit'. Must be cultural differences. >I'd like to see the price of your hard disk! HDs are not overly expensive here in North America. If you don't want to buy new, you can buy used. The last 70 meg HD I acquired cost me under $10. It was defective, and I fixed it. Brand new, the same drive can be had for about $500. >I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are >written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK >don't have hard drives and speed up boards. I don't know many folks without HDs. Yes, there are some, but they are not what I'd call heavy users. If they were, they'd get a hard drive. UK games have always been geared toward the lowest common denominator, which would be fine if they also allowed for those that want and have more than the minimal system. This was even true on the C64, very popular in the UK, but with cassette storage only. With so many companies not supporting hard drives, the incentive to have themn is less, and the prices remain high. Think about it. -larry -- The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) (11/28/90)
In article <1990Nov27.140432.6036@cck.cov.ac.uk> csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) writes: >In article <caw.3545@miroc.Chi.IL.US> caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) writes: >>If they followed the rules Commodore has published from DAY ONE, their games >> __WOULD__ work on a 3000. There is no excuse. They chuck >>the OS anyway so all they have to do is follow some basic primitives and >>they would be ok. But they can't even do that. I'm with Mike on this one. >> >Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise >that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like >50 frames per second scrolling etc. Take a look at the scrolling and graphics But that's exactly my point. They chuck the OS so all they have to do is follow rules set for the hardware. This includes doing things like not using instructions that are piviliaged on anything > than a 68000 as well as not doing any software based timing. The fact that they can't even do this makes them all the worse. >in Sim City for an example... There is an execellent argument for not being >OS friendly. You either leave it slow and bad looking, or fast and good looking. SimCity is OS friendly, multitasks well, and looks/feels good too. I'm not sure I see your point here. >>So everyone out there that bought their Amiga for something other than >>games are the one's in the wrong? You sir, are the one who is in err. If >>all you wanted to do was play cames you'd have been better off buying a >>Genisis and TurboGraphics-16 for the same price (or, more likely, >>significantly less) you payed for your 500. >> >I have never found any need for speed up boards, buy my A1500 is used for >alot more that games playing. Have you ever thought about the vast majority >of people who own A1000's or A500's? I for one would not have bought an amiga >if all it had were OS friendly games still in the dark ages and still using >rastports and scroll_raster functions, all for the sake of being able to run >it on an A3000 with 4 gig's of RAM and a 100mz speed up board. First off, the original poster blatantly said several times that all he wanted to do was play games. In such a case my comment about buying the wrong machine is not out of line. Secondly, while I definately prefer OS friendly stuff, there is no reason why stuff that does chuck the OS shouldn't work on the 3000. See my comments above about poor programming practices. Also, it is possible for a game to be OS friendly in using a hard disk and being able to quit back to workbench/cli, yet when actually playing the game take over the machine. Thus, you can still have your neato nifty optimized graphics __AND__ be friendly to the system. >>You've obviously never seen a hard drive in action. Even with custom >>loaders, floppy hardware is limited to something around 30k/sec reads >>(someone give a more exact figure, please). Meanwhile, I get 800k/sec or >>better reads from my HD. I'd like to see your floppy read an ENTIRE disk >>in just ONE second. >I'd like to see the price of your hard disk! I've got two Quantum drives: the 40 meg that came with my 3000 and a 210 meg one which I got for $995. Sure, you can pick up a Seacrate for a lot cheaper and it will be slower, but I'll still probably break 200k/sec reads and that is considerably faster than a floppy. >I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are >written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK >don't have hard drives and speed up boards. Unfortunately, that is the case. Its mostly the US games I've seen that are OS friendly. Take, for example, MicroProse. Their US development has produced games like Pirates!, Red Storm Rising, and M1 Tank Platoon. They are all excellent, and they are all OS friendly/hard drive installable/etc. (The US house is also doing Railroad Tycoon, which is a relief.) On the other hand, you have their UK house who has done things like F-19 Stealth Fighter, which trashes the OS, and only supports one floppy (thats another thing, why can't UK custom dos games recognize a second floppy?). It does, at least, run on an accelerated machine. -=> CAW /////////////////////////////////////|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Christopher A. Wichura |Real programmers don't play tennis, or caw@miroc.chi.il.us (my amiga) |any other sport that requires you to u12401@uicvm.uic.edu (school account)|change clothes. Mountain climbing is |OK, and real programmers wear their Please! Do not send mail to my school|climbing boots to work in case a account unless mail to miroc bounces.|mountain should suddenly spring up in I often do not check uicvm.uic.edu |the middle of the machine room. for periods in excess of a week. | --Unix Fortune \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|//////////////////////////////////////
jlehmann@wpi.WPI.EDU (Jonas A. Lehmann) (11/29/90)
Okay, this argument about how to code the Amiga is going a little far isn't
it.
I personally think that the original poster had some points that were valid
but then some points that were not.
Let me say what I think on some of these issues that have been brought up.
1) I have tried to code ( and I know others have tried as well ) a fast
3D vector filled animation with heavy background activity in C.
It didn't come out as smooth as wanted. Then I switched to Assembler
and tried to do the same thing but still using the libraries. It came
out a little faster. Then I got some help from Hardware books (DataBecker/
Abacus) and I started programming hardware directly. But this was TOUGH!
It was not easy but it worked. Still not close to as fancy as Psygnosis
but it was smooth and much faster than C/Lib now. I now went out and
bought the 1MB Agnus and found that my program didn't run anymore ..
something was not 100% the same anymore between the two.
What I am trying to say is that when you are striving for perfection
and you want to bring out the maximum out of your machine then
it just so happens that it may get somewhat machine dependent and
help is not available because frankly many CANNOT program that stuff anyway.
2) Copy protection sucks ..... you can't back up your stuff.
Plus it sucks for the hardware as well. Although manual lookup is ok.
3) Using another kind of DOS is not bad.
Let us be honest for a while.
If you were 13-16 years old you would not have a 100MB HD and an
68030 you would probably have an amiga 500.
Let us play (hmmmm) AWESOME. You don't want to sit an hour to wait for
the program to load do you. Of course not. You especially don't want
to wait an hour just so that joe with a HD can install it there.
It just now probably is the case that MOST amiga players in UK/Europe
are kids or people with low-budget setups.
4) One thing that bugs me MOST: DON'T COMPLAIN UNLESS YOU CAN DO IT BETTER
OR EQUALLY GOOD YOURSELF.
I hear people complain and complain about Populous and Psygnosis Games
and and and ..... instead of saying what they cannot do, how about you
people try to do it the way you say it should be done. This is all
starting to sound like Passive Sports. The fat man at home commenting
on how rotten the football players are and how they should be playing.
I have not seen many games that do what Psygnosis do AND are OS friendly.
And this does not mean you can compare AWESOME to SimCity.
5) This is my last and worst point. But I cannot go out and scream
that I cannot run Nintendo games on my amiga .....
If a person decides to code a program in this way and you
don't like it then don't buy it. If a program won't run on your
machine then tough luck ... you shouldn't have bought it if that
game means so much to you. I mean who are you, to post demands
about software. This is a free world ... everyone produces as they
please and it is up to you whether you will buy the stuff or not.
Simple: You don't like it You don't buy it.
Addition: I do think that informing Psygnosis about their loss
of international market due to their programming style
is appropriate. And I am sure if you proposed good
alternate methods instead of just complaints something
might actually change.
That's it.
I don't want to hear any complaints. These are my oppinions that I am
allowed to have and I do not want to read messages about people
commenting on my oppinions since that is like insulting me. If you got
a problem then keep it to yourself.
enough said.
Jonas A. Lehmann - jlehmann@wpi.wpi.edu - Age 21 - Yes, I am young.cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "The Bartman" Seaman) (12/01/90)
jlehmann@wpi.WPI.EDU (Jonas A. Lehmann) writes:
< Okay, this argument about how to code the Amiga is going a little far isn't
< it.
Perhaps it hasn't gone quite far enough.
< I personally think that the original poster had some points that were valid
< but then some points that were not.
<
< Let me say what I think on some of these issues that have been brought up.
<
< 3) Using another kind of DOS is not bad.
< Let us be honest for a while.
< If you were 13-16 years old you would not have a 100MB HD and an
< 68030 you would probably have an amiga 500.
< Let us play (hmmmm) AWESOME. You don't want to sit an hour to wait for
< the program to load do you. Of course not. You especially don't want
< to wait an hour just so that joe with a HD can install it there.
< It just now probably is the case that MOST amiga players in UK/Europe
< are kids or people with low-budget setups.
OK, let's be honest. Just how much of the MONEY spent on these games
comes from 13-16 year old kids? I would suspect (taking myself and the
Amiga owners I know as examples) that most comes from ADULTS (who may
or may not be buying a game for their kids). As an adult game player,
I am disgusted with much of the tripe that is passed off as commercial
software. Even when a good game is developed, it uses such tricks as
bypassing AmigaDOS, which gives it a less than 50% chance of running on
my 2500 (based on past experience). 'Turrican' is a good example.
Wonderful game, lousy implementation. I don't appreciate 'sitting for
an hour', having to bring up the boot menu, and listening to it gronk
my floppy (and WAITING), when I know that I could have brought it up in
2 or 3 seconds from my hard disk.
< 4) One thing that bugs me MOST: DON'T COMPLAIN UNLESS YOU CAN DO IT BETTER
< OR EQUALLY GOOD YOURSELF.
< I hear people complain and complain about Populous and Psygnosis Games
< and and and ..... instead of saying what they cannot do, how about you
< people try to do it the way you say it should be done. This is all
< starting to sound like Passive Sports. The fat man at home commenting
< on how rotten the football players are and how they should be playing.
< I have not seen many games that do what Psygnosis do AND are OS friendly.
< And this does not mean you can compare AWESOME to SimCity.
So if I feel a product is inferior, I should be compelled to either
accept it or write a replacement on my own? I think not. The purpose
of these complaints is to spur the CORRECTION of faults (real or
perceived) in future products. The 'fat sports fan' analogy is
irrelevent. A more fitting analogy would be the OWNER of a sports
franchise complaining about the performance of his/her players.
< 5) This is my last and worst point. But I cannot go out and scream
< that I cannot run Nintendo games on my amiga .....
< If a person decides to code a program in this way and you
< don't like it then don't buy it.
This much is true.
< If a program won't run on your
< machine then tough luck ... you shouldn't have bought it if that
< game means so much to you. I mean who are you, to post demands
< about software.
Who am I? The consumer. Nothing more, nothing less. I can demand
whatever I please. Whether those demands are realized is a completely
separate issue. However, if a developer or distributor of software
wants my money, they had better listen.
< This is a free world ... everyone produces as they
< please and it is up to you whether you will buy the stuff or not.
Wrong. Everyone produces AS THEY BELIEVE THE MARKET WILL ACCEPT THEIR
PRODUCT.
< Addition: I do think that informing Psygnosis about their loss
< of international market due to their programming style
< is appropriate. And I am sure if you proposed good
< alternate methods instead of just complaints something
< might actually change.
There have been (quite consistently, actually) some very good
alternatives presented. Namely, produce games that multitask (or at
least give resources back to the OS if they absolutely CAN'T
multitask), can run from a hard disk, and can run on all existing and
possible (given today's information) configurations. The fact that
this has been done by many developers shows that it is possible.
< That's it.
Yup, that's it.
< I don't want to hear any complaints. These are my oppinions that I am
< allowed to have and I do not want to read messages about people
< commenting on my oppinions since that is like insulting me. If you got
< a problem then keep it to yourself.
Since I'm sure you don't mean to say 'I said what *I* want, now I don't
want to hear what anybody else has to say', I hope you don't feel to
insulted.
< Jonas A. Lehmann - jlehmann@wpi.wpi.edu - Age 21 - Yes, I am young.
Sigh... It shows.
I am 34. Not old enough to understand everything, but old enough to
understand how little I understand. :-)
Regards,
Chris
--
Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman | ___-/^\-___ qatul batlh.
cseaman@gateway.sequent.com <or> | //__--\O/--__\\ qatul Huch.
...!uunet!sequent!cseaman | // \\ qatul roj.
The Home of the Killer Smiley | `\ /'farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) (12/01/90)
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) writes: >Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise >that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like >50 frames per second scrolling etc. Sorry, guy. I know the internals better than you do, I'd bet (my oldest copy of the hardware docs predates Commodore's acquisition of Amiga), and know damn well that it's quite possible to do *EVERYTHING* you have come to expect without needing to trash the system, in all but the most strenuous of cases. And none of the games I've seen, NONE of them, comes close to needing that level of access. You can cooperate quite well with AmigaDOS, and still get the total control of the system you need to do any damn thing you'd like. Then, when you're done, you can give control back. The only thing you'd break would be multitasking - and you can even allow that, by letting your game be pausable. An example: suppose you have a game which requires constant and continuous access to the blitter and copper, and which needs to be sure that there are no extraneous interrupts. When you start up, you allocate all of the memory space you need from AmigaDOS, to make sure that the system knows that you are going to be using that memory. You then shut down AmigaDOS (which you can do quite completely, if you need to), and start up your game. While you're running, you've got complete control of the system, and can do any damn thing you want to. But at the same time, AmigaDOS is still there, in the background, not doing anything. Stop your game, let AmigaDOS come back in control, and you've allowed multitasking, you've avoided requiring a reboot, and everything works just fine. >rastports and scroll_raster functions, all for the sake of being able to run >it on an A3000 with 4 gig's of RAM and a 100mz speed up board. So you don't use ScrollRaster (don't even know the right name of the function, do you?) if you need more performance than that. I've used it when I felt like it, and have avoided it when I wanted more performance. No big deal. And neither option requires trashing the OS. >I have NEVER *EVER* had any problems with games not running, thats probable >because most of the best games (including blood money, menace, populous and >elite) are written by UK programmers. And may "suffer(?)" the conversion to >NTSC and 50hz. More suffer the conversion from whatever system the developers used to a wider variety of amigas. Try Populous on a 68030. Go ahead. Or try Shadow of the Beast on a number of different machines, and watch it crash on most of them - as I did, when I tried to demonstrate "this wonderful game" to them. Worked fine on my plain vanilla A2000, wouldn't work AT ALL on any of their 1000s, souped up 500s, or 68030 machines. Sorry - UK programmers aren't any better (or worse) than any others. >I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are >written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK >don't have hard drives and speed up boards. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist, does it? Why do you have it in for those of us who DO have hard drives, simply because you don't know anyone who does? And why would anyone with any sense write a game that was guaranteed not to sell to a number (however small) of Amiga owners if they could have just as easily written one that could sell to ALL of them? If they don't use their brains any better than that, why should I believe that their code is going to be any more sensible? -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us
bk@tadtec.uucp (Brian Kelly) (12/03/90)
In article <michael.660035799@lanai> michael@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (michael gersten) writes: >bk@tadtec.uucp (Brian Kelly) writes: > >>I'm joining this thread quite late, however I have a few points to make: > >>This game, before copy protection, would run on any Amiga I could find, >>This included 4Mb 68020 A2000's, it even used give smart remarks if it found >>any strange combinations. As soon as the copy protection, which I didn't write, >>was installed, it would only run on machines with vanilla 68000's in them. > >First, let me congratulate you for the game. Now let me flame you for the >distribution company you chose. You *DO* have a choice of who distributes >your game; insist on one that will do it right. Firstly thank you. As to the choice of distribution, alas in this case we had no choice. Treasure Trap was mostly written while I worked at another company. The Zoo (Electronic Zoo, the distributers) became interested in this game some 14 months ago. The decision makers in our company signed with them for the distribution rights. The company I worked for subsequently folded around Jan of this year in quite an unpleasant fashion. The Zoo enabled four of us to finish this and another project by funding us for a further six months. Okay, they didn't do this out of pure altruism, but without them it would never have seen the light of day. I hope you will agree that in this case I could not choose the distributer. >>The reason why copy protection is such a big thing on this side of the Atlantic >>is because as soon as a game is released, it appears almost immediately on >>pirated disks. Of course just about no copy protection scheme is going to >>stop these people, but ya gotta try something. We even had a game appear on a >>pirate disk *before* we had sent the final master to the publishers, that is a >>pre-release version had been spirited away from them and appeared as a cracked >>game on one of these compilation disks. > >Ok, I have just a few questions: >1. Who did you give copies of that version to, >2. How well do you know those people? In answer to 1, they were Fedex'd to the company. In answer to 2, the company is one of, if not the, biggest game distributers in the UK. I mean who do ya trust. We weren't too enraged, coz we were on a fixed fee for the job. >>rippling/fading out reflections. The copperlist for this is quite large, and >>needs constant tending to. I honestly cannot see any way of making that sort >>of thing work with exec still running. Apart from the space problem on > >Now for my nitpicking. > >EXEC knows NOTHING about the copperlist. It doesn't care. Don't bother it. > >INTUITION (and graphics.library) is what knows about the copper list. That >is what needs to be taken care of. > >I don't care what you do with the screen while you are running. Just as long >as I can get to another screen when I pause your game. mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) also wrote: ]Yup, you didn't try very hard. Remember, the AmigaOS is designed so ]you _can_ pretty much take over the machine, and give it back in a ]friendly fashion. Doing so should survive OS upgrades. Maybe I'm wrong but don't ya gotta setup your copperlist on the user copper list pointer of a view structure and then do a MrgCop() (sp?) and then a MakeView(). This takes a lotta time (relatively speaking) and there's already quite a bit happening. BTW, this copperlist effect was also used during the game and not just the intro. As to surviving OS upgrades, Treasure Trap ran, even with the copy-protection, on 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3. As I pointed out, there is a legal way to take things over totally, even if it does incense some people. Also neither of you replied directly to my comment on getting MrgCop() (sp?) to work with a wait that's not in explicit mode. What I mean by this is a wait instruction that uses the mask bits to wait, say, every fourth line, Or a skip instruction likewise. Could someone "in the know" please address this for me. I'm sorry about not looking these things up myself, but I left the Amiga World (apart from this umbilical feed) in May :-( and can't look it up myself. >*** AND NEVER *** shall a game destroy my dnet'd remote connections nor >my serial connections (which only depend on exec, not intuaition) just >because it wants a fancy **INTRODUCTION SCREEN*** (Not even the game, can >you say pathetic excuse for a takeover). > ><SIGH>. I used to think that it would be better if publishers would indicate >the author of the games on the packages. But if they did, I'd never buy you >programs. This is fair enough, you decide not to buy it because it does not fulfill certain criteria. However I hope you would see beyond the author's name before passing judgement on any piece of software. If that's the sort of criterion everyone used then boy would this industry stagnate quickly. As a brief example I'll use Matthew Smith, a UK programmer from the early 80's. His first game was called styx (I think), and it was a dawg. His next two offerings were Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. Both these games were way ahead of the pack when they were released and provided years (honestly) of entertainment to all and sundry. A motorcycle analogy is when Yamaha first entered the flat track scene in the US. They came last, I think, and the TV commentator of the time said "We'll I guess that's the last we'll see of them" :-). The point I'm trying to make, in a roundabout fashion, is that people, attitudes and programming practices change. They (should) learn from experience and critical comment amongst other things. If you are going to judge everything someone is going to produce on your first encounter with their work, then I'm afraid it's your loss. I would hope that you decide whether or not to buy a piece of software, indeed anything, on the merit's of it's performance, not on aquired prejudices, otherwise are *you* going to lose out or what. Brian Kelly Disclaimer: The above drivel is all my own work. "Amiga? Isn't that angular velocity???" :- My Boss
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-) (12/05/90)
In article <caw.3593@miroc.Chi.IL.US> caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) writes: >In article <1990Nov27.140432.6036@cck.cov.ac.uk> csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) writes: >>In article <caw.3545@miroc.Chi.IL.US> caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura) writes: >>>If they followed the rules Commodore has published from DAY ONE, their games >>> __WOULD__ work on a 3000. There is no excuse. They chuck >>>the OS anyway so all they have to do is follow some basic primitives and >>>they would be ok. But they can't even do that. I'm with Mike on this one. >>> >>Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise >>that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like >>50 frames per second scrolling etc. Take a look at the scrolling and graphics > >But that's exactly my point. They chuck the OS so all they have to do is >follow rules set for the hardware. This includes doing things like not >using instructions that are piviliaged on anything > than a 68000 as well >as not doing any software based timing. The fact that they can't even do >this makes them all the worse. I'm sure that if they are capable of doing a white hot bob routines, they are capable of doing timings. I can see your point here about the timings etc, but don't slag the programmers off, they are obviously far more talented than you are, 'cos they have got a game published. If you had written a good game (no lame pac man efforts) it would be easier to understand your slagging. > >>in Sim City for an example... There is an execellent argument for not being >>OS friendly. You either leave it slow and bad looking, or fast and good looking. > >SimCity is OS friendly, multitasks well, and looks/feels good too. I'm not >sure I see your point here. you saying Sim City looks good? Get real! The scrolling is diaolical, the animation flickers badly, and the sound is crap! > >>>So everyone out there that bought their Amiga for something other than >>>games are the one's in the wrong? You sir, are the one who is in err. If >>>all you wanted to do was play cames you'd have been better off buying a >>>Genisis and TurboGraphics-16 for the same price (or, more likely, >>>significantly less) you payed for your 500. >>> >>I have never found any need for speed up boards, buy my A1500 is used for >>alot more that games playing. Have you ever thought about the vast majority >>of people who own A1000's or A500's? I for one would not have bought an amiga >>if all it had were OS friendly games still in the dark ages and still using >>rastports and scroll_raster functions, all for the sake of being able to run >>it on an A3000 with 4 gig's of RAM and a 100mz speed up board. > >First off, the original poster blatantly said several times that all he >wanted to do was play games. In such a case my comment about buying the >wrong machine is not out of line. Ok, point taken. > >Secondly, while I definately prefer OS friendly stuff, there is no reason >why stuff that does chuck the OS shouldn't work on the 3000. See my >comments above about poor programming practices. > >Also, it is possible for a game to be OS friendly in using a hard disk and >being able to quit back to workbench/cli, yet when actually playing the >game take over the machine. Thus, you can still have your neato nifty >optimized graphics __AND__ be friendly to the system. > *NOT* on your standard A500 you cant! A a game (like f19) loads in right from the ottom of availale memory. ($1000 in f19's case, and thats right over the track_disk buffers etc). Making it mutlitask on a bigger machine is fine if you have a igger machine, what about the majority of users who dont have more than 512k? Writting extra code would make thier game worse. >>>You've obviously never seen a hard drive in action. Even with custom >>>loaders, floppy hardware is limited to something around 30k/sec reads >>>(someone give a more exact figure, please). Meanwhile, I get 800k/sec or >>>better reads from my HD. I'd like to see your floppy read an ENTIRE disk >>>in just ONE second. >>I'd like to see the price of your hard disk! >>I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are >>written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK >>don't have hard drives and speed up boards. > >Unfortunately, that is the case. Its mostly the US games I've seen that >are OS friendly. Take, for example, MicroProse. Their US development has >produced games like Pirates!, Red Storm Rising, and M1 Tank Platoon. They >are all excellent, and they are all OS friendly/hard drive installable/etc. F19 IS by microprose! And its *NOT* OS friendly! >(The US house is also doing Railroad Tycoon, which is a relief.) On the >other hand, you have their UK house who has done things like F-19 Stealth >Fighter, which trashes the OS, and only supports one floppy (thats another >thing, why can't UK custom dos games recognize a second floppy?). It does, >at least, run on an accelerated machine. They only recognise a 1 drive machine 'cos most people in the UK have only one drive. Don't start trashing the UK or European programmers, they are far and away the Best programmers for the amiga, with games like Speedball, Elite, Paradroid 90, Populous etc. Most of American software is concearned with simulating something, because they cannot think of anything origonal. -- *********/// O O **A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelegence Team)**///*** * /// u Fight, defeat and kill organized laming. /// * * \\\ /// --- Zaphod of Intuition csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok? \\\ /// * ****\\X//**********************************************************\\X//******
pashdown@javelin.es.com (Pete Ashdown) (12/06/90)
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-) blathers: >Most of American software is concearned with >simulating something, because they cannot think of anything origonal. Is that why the majority of UK software are licenses of American films and American & Japanese arcade games? >*********/// O O **A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelegence Team)**///*** ^^^^^^^^^^^ This is spelled "intelligence" bozo-----||||||||||| >* /// u Fight, defeat and kill organized laming. /// * Don't hurt yourself. >* \\\ /// --- Zaphod of Intuition csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok? \\\ /// * >****\\X//**********************************************************\\X//****** -- / (Rotate head 90 degrees for full effect) | BUNGEEEEEEEE! |---------------------------------------------------------------------->=<o \ Pete Ashdown pashdown%javelin@dsd.es.com ...dsd.es.com!javelin!pashdown
ludde@nada.kth.se (Erik Lundevall) (12/06/90)
In article <1990Dec5.112930.17353@cck.cov.ac.uk> csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-) writes: >*NOT* on your standard A500 you cant! A a game (like f19) loads in right >from the ottom of availale memory. ($1000 in f19's case, and thats right >over the track_disk buffers etc). Making it mutlitask on a bigger machine >is fine if you have a igger machine, what about the majority of users who >dont have more than 512k? Writting extra code would make thier game worse. Writing code to handle both cases (minimal configuration and a more expanded system) would benefit all users. >They only recognise a 1 drive machine 'cos most people in the UK have only >one drive. That's no (good) reason for not recognising more drives. >Don't start trashing the UK or European programmers, they are far and away >the Best programmers for the amiga, with games like Speedball, Elite, >Paradroid 90, Populous etc. Most of American software is concearned with >simulating something, because they cannot think of anything origonal. There are good programs coming here from Europe, absolutely. You have named some of the better games. Still I prefer much of the American software, because it is often more original and better behaved. >-- >*********/// O O **A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelegence Team)**///*** >* /// u Fight, defeat and kill organized laming. /// * >* \\\ /// --- Zaphod of Intuition csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok? \\\ /// * >****\\X//**********************************************************\\X//****** -- -Erik Lundevall ludde@adder.bula.se | ludde@nada.kth.se
yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) (12/06/90)
>They only recognise a 1 drive machine 'cos most people in the UK have only
one drive.
Sorry, but this is a very lame excuse.
How do ya program on an amiga with 1 drive?
(Assuming ya don't have a hard drive)
As far as i can tell most 500 owners have 1 meg.
(All the ones I know do)
(I here prices are HI in UK)
(I got an A501 for sale, any takers....)
--
yorkw@ecn.purdue.edu Willis F York
----------------------------------------------
Macintosh... Proof that a Person can use a Computer all day and still
not know ANYTHING about computers. set@phobos.cis.ksu.edu (Steve E Tietze ) (12/07/90)
i dont have Awesome yet. I intent to buy it. But you cat bet will replace the copy protection. I agree with almost every one thats written to this article. And I also agree that everyone is also entitled to their opinion .!! But the copy protection is messed up on this game. Its time to take it into our own hands :-0 <-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-> <-> <-> <-> AMIGA MAN /// **** Kansas State University **** <-> <-> /// * Email set@phobos.cis.ksu.edu * <-> <-> :-) :-) :-) /// * Phone (913)-776-5027 Home * <-> <-> :-) :-) :-) \\\/// * Phone (913)-539-7283 Modem * <-> <-> :-) :-) :-) \\// <-> <-> \/ <-> <-> And Justice For All ... - Metallica <-> <-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><->
David.Plummer@f70.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (David Plummer) (12/07/90)
Along the programmin style thread... here's a suggestion to programmers out there: When you may a request for memory (specifically Chip) and it fail, by now everyone aborts. But consider displaying to the user HOW MUCH was needed, and possible how much was available. I tire of getting a program, usually a demo, and slowly killing Chip Ram processes until it runs (or doesn't). I have 3HDs connected, two floppies, etc., and it is quite possible that it will NOT run even from standard WB if it's a serious memory pig. Save the user some aggravation and let them know how much was needed. It's no secret to you, it doesn't need to be a secret from the user. Just a thought. -- David Plummer - via FidoNet node 1:140/22 UUCP: ...!herald!weyr!70!David.Plummer Domain: David.Plummer@f70.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG Standard Disclaimers Apply...
p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) (12/07/90)
In article <1990Dec5.112930.17353@cck.cov.ac.uk> csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-) writes: >Don't start trashing the UK or European programmers, they are far and away >the Best programmers for the amiga, with games like Speedball, Elite, ^^^^^^ The Amiga version of Elite isn't well written at all. My version used to forget to reload its copperlist after some minutes playing. This was on nearly EVERY friends Amiga. Fortunately, then I just got a 68020 board which was, with cache disabled, slightly faster than a 68000 and this makes the game work. Yes, the programmer did a very good job on finding the few A500s which had a marginally faster clock. -- Michael van Elst UUCP: universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
aiajms@castle.ed.ac.uk (-=Andy=-) (12/07/90)
In article <yorkw.660439360@stable.ecn.purdue.edu> yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes: >>They only recognise a 1 drive machine 'cos most people in the UK have only >one drive. > >Sorry, but this is a very lame excuse. I totally agree. To use an Amiga sensibly you need at least a second drive and preferably a hard drive. >As far as i can tell most 500 owners have 1 meg. >(All the ones I know do) Most of the ones I know do! >(I here prices are HI in UK) You can get a 0.5 meg ram expansion (not necc A501) for 30 pounds (=$60) here in the UK so that cant be it either. You can get a 1.5 meg ram expansion for 80 pounds (=$160). >---------------------------------------------- >Macintosh... Proof that a Person can use a Computer all day and still >not know ANYTHING about computers. I love the line, so funny and yet.....so tragically true especially if the Amiga bashers from the mac newsgroups are anything to go by. -=Andy=- =========================================================================== Name : Andrew Mcsherry +++++++ Degree: Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence(4) ++ ++ Univ : University Of Edinburgh, Scotland. ++ ++ Mail : aiajms%uk.ac.ed.castle@nsfnet-relay +++++++ .......Go Elway....Go Humphries....Go Johnson. GO BRONCOS ==========================================================================
csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-) (12/07/90)
In article <21893@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >csg019@cck.cov.ac.uk (Z*A*P*H*O*D) writes: >>Whoa! If you knew anything about the amiga's internals at all you would realise >>that it is *NOT* possible to do any of the things we have come to expect, like >>50 frames per second scrolling etc. > >Sorry, guy. I know the internals better than you do, I'd bet (my oldest copy >of the hardware docs predates Commodore's acquisition of Amiga), and know >damn well that it's quite possible to do *EVERYTHING* you have come to >expect without needing to trash the system, in all but the most strenuous >of cases. And none of the games I've seen, NONE of them, comes close to >needing that level of access. You can cooperate quite well with AmigaDOS, >and still get the total control of the system you need to do any damn thing >you'd like. Then, when you're done, you can give control back. The only >thing you'd break would be multitasking - and you can even allow that, by >letting your game be pausable. I know that, and i think it is pretty essential when testing a game, or after finishing from a demo. >An example: suppose you have a game which requires constant and continuous >access to the blitter and copper, and which needs to be sure that there are >no extraneous interrupts. When you start up, you allocate all of the memory >space you need from AmigaDOS, to make sure that the system knows that you are >going to be using that memory. You then shut down AmigaDOS (which you can do >quite completely, if you need to), and start up your game. While you're >running, you've got complete control of the system, and can do any damn thing >you want to. But at the same time, AmigaDOS is still there, in the background, >not doing anything. Stop your game, let AmigaDOS come back in control, and >you've allowed multitasking, you've avoided requiring a reboot, and everything >works just fine. I did n't imply completelty trashing the system, i meant that i think that is nigh on impossible to do a decent game using *ONLY* the OS calls from the GFX library's etc. As some people seem to think. I don't know where i have picked this "trash the system" tag up from, (maybe the old MFM code ;-) ) I don't pretent to be an ace coder, but i do know the basics at least. > >>rastports and scroll_raster functions, all for the sake of being able to run >>it on an A3000 with 4 gig's of RAM and a 100mz speed up board. > >So you don't use ScrollRaster (don't even know the right name of the >function, do you?) if you need more performance than that. I've used it >when I felt like it, and have avoided it when I wanted more performance. >No big deal. And neither option requires trashing the OS. > So what if i don't know the name? Big deal! >>I have NEVER *EVER* had any problems with games not running, thats probable >>because most of the best games (including blood money, menace, populous and >>elite) are written by UK programmers. And may "suffer(?)" the conversion to >>NTSC and 50hz. > >More suffer the conversion from whatever system the developers used to a >wider variety of amigas. Try Populous on a 68030. Go ahead. Or try >Shadow of the Beast on a number of different machines, and watch it crash >on most of them - as I did, when I tried to demonstrate "this wonderful >game" to them. Worked fine on my plain vanilla A2000, wouldn't work AT >ALL on any of their 1000s, souped up 500s, or 68030 machines. Sorry - >UK programmers aren't any better (or worse) than any others. > Point taken. >>I've never known anyone with a HD. It may be because the games that are >>written in the UK are geared to the UK market, and most people in the UK >>don't have hard drives and speed up boards. > >Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist, does it? >Why do you have it in for those of us who DO have hard drives, simply because >you don't know anyone who does? And why would anyone with any sense >write a game that was guaranteed not to sell to a number (however small) >of Amiga owners if they could have just as easily written one that could >sell to ALL of them? If they don't use their brains any better than that, >why should I believe that their code is going to be any more sensible? I did n't say thay they did n't exist did i? I implied that they are not as popular in the UK as in the US. I don't have it IN for anyone? Who do you think i am? The mafia? I agree that people should make games that should run on ALL config's. I also believe this flaming was well out of order, i was in NO way telling people to trash the system, i was merely pointing out that using OS routines for hi-speed gfx etc ain't fast enough. -- *********/// O O **A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelegence Team)**///*** * /// u Fight, defeat and kill organized laming. /// * * \\\ /// --- Zaphod of Intuition csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok? \\\ /// * ****\\X//**********************************************************\\X//******
A.C.Crook@newcastle.ac.uk (Adey Crook "Just leave me with my thought") (12/12/90)
In article <yorkw.660439360@stable.ecn.purdue.edu>, yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes: >>They only recognise a 1 drive machine 'cos most people in the UK have only >one drive. > >Sorry, but this is a very lame excuse. > >How do ya program on an amiga with 1 drive? >(Assuming ya don't have a hard drive) > >As far as i can tell most 500 owners have 1 meg. >(All the ones I know do) >(I here prices are HI in UK) > >(I got an A501 for sale, any takers....) > I agree. Anyway, everyone I know in the U.K. has 1 meg and an extra drive. The price of the extra 1/2 meg expansion is now down to just over 30 pounds ($55) which is about the same price as many games. Drives are now around 60 pounds ($110) far from extortionate. Ok, so the average games freak may not want an extra drive for programming but there are a lot of us who do, and would prefer it to be used. However, I do find hard drive prices very high on this side of the pond. For example I saw the new 40 meg series II drive from GVP advertised in Amiga World (US magazine) for $599. This is roughly 300 pounds. I thought `yeah sounds good, wonder when I can get one over here`. A couple of months later I see the UK version advertised for 600 pounds - thats getting on for $1100. I have written to GVP asking about the pricing policy and the possibility of converting the US drive to UK spec. I have not received a reply yet. I suppose the only way prices will drop is when the UK market realises the Amy is not just a games machine. A.C.Crook q1tgb@uk.ac.newcastle - sig being processed.
richard@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Richard Hagen) (12/13/90)
A.C.Crook@newcastle.ac.uk (Adey Crook "Just leave me with my thought") said: > A couple of months later I see the UK version advertised for 600 pounds - > thats getting on for $1100. In Australia, the price for one of these units is around AUD$1400... and a half meg memory expansion will set you back about AUD$150. I really don't know who is making the money out of this... It just seems that high prices are the norm for specialist electronic gear. richard
U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) (12/13/90)
G'day, A.C.Crook@newcastle.ac.uk (Adey Crook "Just leave me with my thought") writes: > However, I do find hard drive prices very high on this side of the pond. > For example > I saw the new 40 meg series II drive from GVP advertised in Amiga World > (US magazine) for $599. > [...] > A couple of months later I see the UK version advertised for 600 pounds > - thats getting on for > $1100. I have written to GVP asking about the pricing policy and the These retail for AUS$1350 (with 0K in 1 ad I saw). I think this is a representative price. :-( > A.C.Crook q1tgb@uk.ac.newcastle - sig being processed. yours truly, Lou Cavallo.