Two Stop Bits | shdon's comments

shdon 7 days ago | parent | on: How Frogger 2’s source code was recovered from a d...
What that "data recovery" firm did to the tape should be considered a crime!
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shdon 83 days ago | parent | on: How I ported Windows XP to the original Apple TV
I wouldn't really call this a port, but it is definitely some impressive work in getting it to run on a platform this different from the target hardware.
- dmitrygr 83 days ago
  I disagree. Custom HAL and bootloader were made. The rest of the OS was changed. This is a port IMHO
  - shdon 83 days ago
    From what I understand from his write-up, he's replaced several components with their counterparts from ReactOS (specifically the bootloader and the fallback video driver). Without access to the source code of the original OS and by using components from another, I'd call this an adaptation, rather than a true port. Your definition may differ, of course - and just for fun, I asked ChatGPT and it disagrees with me too 😂
    The part I would call a true port is how he changed the ReactOS bootloader to work with the AppleTV - looking through the commit history on that is fascinating, I can recommend it if you haven't done so. Check it out at https://github.com/DistroHopper39B/reactos/commits/AppleTV-D...
    To be honest, I'm actually more impressed by how he got XP to work almost entirely unmodified than if he had done what I would consider a true port of the full OS.
    - bmonkey325 82 days ago
      What do you call it ? a hack ? a bastardization?
      - shdon 82 days ago
        A hack seems an appropriate term, I could go with that. There's even precedent for that in how people got Mac OS working on the hardware that was not the official Mac and called it the Hackintosh.
shdon 88 days ago | parent | on: Working on twostopbits' code
Hoping you'll make a quick CSS adjustment for the links in the top bar in dark mode. They're black on near-black right now, for visited links. I use custom CSS to fix that for myself right now.
In particular, there is a line in layout.css that goes:
.page-header a:visited { color: #000; }
and should probably have an override in dark.css.
- jgrahamc 87 days ago
  What dark mode are you using? I'm happy to change the CSS but wasn't aware this was a problem.
  - shdon 87 days ago
    I just go to my profile page by clicking on my username, and in the theme dropdown, I select "dark" and then click "update" (side note: regardless of the current selection, the theme dropdown always reverts to "default", but the theme does apply correctly)
    - jgrahamc 80 days ago
      Note to self that the theme selection doesn't stick because the choice function in app.srv has no way of knowing which of the choices was selected. Needs a total rethink.
    - jgrahamc 87 days ago
      Ah. I see that now. I'll take a look at why. Dark Mode really is dark!
shdon 123 days ago | parent | on: Command & Conquer Red Alert open-sourced
Here is the blog post where they give more information: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con...
shdon 167 days ago | parent | on: Grand Prix 2: Modernized and Natively Running on W...
Thanks for posting that! This is a cool project, and that comes across much better on a video than on the site, which lacks even a single screenshot.
shdon 171 days ago | parent | on: Microsoft Bob turns 30 today. It was terrible and ...
Funnily enough, I think Bob has become so notoriously reviled that more people hate it (or are at least very much aware of the hatred) than have ever used it.
And there's this, by Dave Plummer, who ended up being responsible for shipping more copies of Bob than ever sold: https://youtu.be/rXHu9OmLd8Y
- bmonkey325 171 days ago
  Cool! well that answer my question about his still having the MS Bob t-shirt from day of yore...
shdon 171 days ago | parent | on: Parsing the c64 Bubble Bobble Wind Currents
That is really cool to see. There's a cheat code for the DOS version of Bubble Bobble that makes them visible during the game. That was such an eye-opener for me when I was making a game in that style and tried to come up with an algorithm for how the bubbles floated. The reality was so much simpler... they basically cheated!
- IcePic 168 days ago
  On C64, all neat stuff is cheats. =)
shdon 218 days ago | parent | on: Two Stop Bits' birthday
Thank you for having initiated the site!
shdon 377 days ago | parent | on: “Micro Chart” CPU Reference Cards
I love these. Great for writing or even reading assembly code or implementing emulators.
shdon 380 days ago | parent | on: Mega Man X3 password crack
If you like this (and who doesn't?), check out Bisqwit "Cracking Videogame Passwords" series from quite a few years back:
Season 1 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzLzYGEbdY5nEFQsxzFan...
Season 2 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzLzYGEbdY5mmad-FKPIl...
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