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  • Screwtapello 347 days ago | parent | on: FILE_ID.DIZ Description
    > ASP IDENTIFIER: If you are an ASP author, we recommend that an "" identifying mark be added after the version number, to identify your product as an ASP-authored product.

    Hmm... I think something got lost in translation. :/

    • bmonkey325 347 days ago
      I think was was supposed to be the authors asp membership number if present. No idea how this would be verified or utilized by PC Board or any consumer.

      Ah. The age of innocence.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FILE_ID.DIZ

  • Screwtapello 356 days ago | parent | on: The Blue OS Museum
    One of the pages on that site includes a video of somebody demonstrating a precursor to Microsoft Encarta ("Microsoft Multimedia Encyclopaedia") running on Windows 1.0 in 1987:

    https://blueosmuseum.com/videos/video.php?v=msmmen

    This thing has full-motion video and 3D graphics while the Windows title-bar and menu-bar are visible on-screen, and I don't understand how that was possible. PCs in 1987 wouldn't have had the power to do all that in software. I can maybe imagine something like a VideoCD with MPEG1 videos might store and play back video, but then how would it be composited with the Windows GUI? A decade later I had a Super VGA card with hardware video scaling, but in 1987?

    • bmonkey325 356 days ago
      As a historical note. A lot of video/audio in this era was laserdisc.I worked on a touch screen playback system that used laserdisc. In 1988 this was state of the state of the art . The same system was in the awesome gsme DragonsLair, Space Ace, and. M.A.C.H. 3

      Digital video was quite a number of years out:

      Autodesk flic came out in 89/90. - the famous jolt cola can

      Apple shipped QuickTime in late 91

      Microsoft shiipped VfW in 1992

      Mpeg1 chipsets became common in 1993

    • bmonkey325 356 days ago
      Apologies but Microsoft hack tricked you.

      1) the video is in mode h 320x200x8. - not a lot of data to move. Even. Then.

      2) The title and scrolls bars are fake and fixed like a tv border., like you maximized your browser window. (Not f11 full screen mind you). Stating at 1:15 you see paints and updates inside the window but no scrolling.or other windows.

      3 ) The bouncing cube isn’t being streamed back. It’s just a bouncing cube demo trying to one up the Amiga bouncing ball. The cube is bouncing but if yiu look at the face of each cube its static texture map . At the 0:50 you can see a mouse appear and the clicks perturb the trajectory that means it’s not recorded or decoded video.

      4) All the other image of JFK etc are just bmps being decoded like web gifs

  • Screwtapello 360 days ago | parent | on: Nearly all Nintendo 64 games can now be recompiled...
    If it's not actually a decompilation, allowing developers to go in and remove N64 hardware assumptions baked into the original code, isn't this basically just an emulator?
    • bmonkey325 360 days ago
      @ondono is correct in their summary …. There is a fuller discussion in the ### How It Works section in the n64Recomp repo.

      https://github.com/Mr-Wiseguy/N64Recomp

    • ondono 360 days ago
      Not an expert, but from what I see the code is being recompiled for the new platform, so no, this is not an emulator. Emulating would require running the original binary on top of a virtual representation of the console in question.

      Decompilations OTOH are work-intensive recreations of the source code, and people expect this recreation to have certain resemblance to the original (unavailable) code. This tool doesn't do this.

      It grabs the binary "translates" it to C by using some clues to restore some of the structure, but it's C output is basically unreadable for humans. This output is then piped into a compiler for the target platform together with the pulled assets.

      • rocky1138 359 days ago
        This all makes sense, but what about N64-specific functionality like line buffers or frame buffers? How is that work updated to add ray tracing, etc.?
  • Screwtapello 363 days ago | parent | on: Emoji History: The Missing Years
    I was fascinated by the idea of a personal contact list with a Mii-style "build a caricature of this contact's face" feature, given affordable digital photography (and displays capable of presenting such photos) were probably years away.
    • gingerbeardman 358 days ago
      pretty cool, huh! I think you could attach them to a contact and share that contact with other users. but, of course, too early for it to catch on!
  • Screwtapello 371 days ago | parent | on: 1992 Game Pinball Fantasies Reverse Engineered and...
    Ha, I should have checked /new before trying to submit my own link.

    The intro music is absolutely classic.

    • bmonkey325 371 days ago
      The discussion thread you did post is far more interesting
  • Screwtapello 387 days ago | parent | on: How Takafumi Fujisawa Created the Original PlaySta...
    If it's been a while since you heard it, here's the sound (and animation) in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE_iCgBUacQ
    • bmonkey325 387 days ago
      Nice. Had in my mind the ps2 sound, nice to see and be reminded of the good old days. I found this longer video with all kinds of screens and combinations. What a trip down memory lane :

      https://youtu.be/i5mBc7O_VHk?si=ziMwKIy9aiZVvgrT

  • Screwtapello 393 days ago | parent | on: SimCity 2000: Difference between different Version...
    Sadly, GOG only sells the DOS version running in DOSBox, not any of the native Windows versions.

    I guess it's nice that it's still purchasable at all, but from the descriptions it sounds like the latest Windows version is the best one to play.

  • Screwtapello 416 days ago | parent | on: 3D Printed Full-Size Macintosh - The Brewintosh
    I'm a bit worried about all the power adaptors being glued and screwed into solid plastic enclosures with no ventilation. That can't be good, right?
    • bmonkey325 415 days ago
      I am sure I saw top vents in the case and side vents like the mac plus? like at the 4 minute mark. I am still impressed by the completeness of the build
  • Screwtapello 439 days ago | parent | on: Trackstar: Apple II emulator expansion card for th...
    I now live in hope that Adrian's Digital Basement (or some similar channel) will obtain one of these and put it through its paces.
  • Screwtapello 455 days ago | parent | on: My business card runs Linux (and Ultrix), yours ca...
    A pineapple? Like, a grenade?
    • bmonkey325 455 days ago
      Pineapple is an innocuous looking device that contains extra circuitry/capability to attack or test security at an installation. A common form factor is a something like a powerstrip that is mailed out to an office. once its plugged in it powers up and starts scanning whatever it can and sending data out over its own SSID/wifi or even a cellular modem.

      NSA even has their own brand: https://www.zdnet.com/article/power-pwn-this-darpa-funded-po.../

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