Ok, my information was, that U6 was released on IBM PC and the developers did not support older (8bit) HW any more.
Was this an official port?
I tried to play U6 much later, but I hated the new controls, as much I remember.
1,352 karma · joined November 1, 2013
Was this an official port?
I tried to play U6 much later, but I hated the new controls, as much I remember.
It was the genius of that time, that a game of that size could fit into such limited hardware (64kB RAM, no HDD, only Floppy drives with 180kB size limit, <1MHz clock with unbelievable slow 8bit processor (I guess, today they sell such stuff as a smartcard "SOC" -- but of course with out the Floppy drive -- even the processors on SD-Cards are faster today, I guess) [Specs from the C64 version, but there existed versions at least also for Apple II with similar specs (It could even be, that it ran on Apple II with only 48kB) -- and (later?) of course for IBM PC].
U4 was technically similar to U5 (also several discs to swap and a big world on limited RAM), U5 did just drove the concept to the technical (and swapping-endurance-) limits. I think, they doubled the disc number (and so the content, I think 4->8 discs), improved the combat system (I liked the U5 combat system the most from all Ultimas I know) and made a new story, that showed the other side of "righteous" living.
Even, when I never found the time, to finish U5, for me it is still the best of all time.
It might be, that the status quo harms small inventors. But I wanted to give a different perspective on the one thing that is in focus with the last patent reforms. What you describe, has nothing to do with that.
The problem is, that the intention of the reform was to prevent parties with no own production to sue other companies because of patent infringements. And such a move would of course block some patent trolls (not all) but also would massively harm small or single person inventors.
"It is beyond silly to claim that" any reform will make things better.
Some times, I have the impression, that patent trolls are in the mouth of everybody to cover the fact, that they are more of a symptom than a real problem.
With bad patent-troll legislation, it could be possible to make things bad for legit inventors. Just think, somebody has invented something and is seeking investors. Now comes a big corporation and steals his invention and builds it. With a patent reform that does ignore such people, he even could be blocked to defend his patent (what is currently difficult enough, because he needs much money to do that).
Big corporations see an advantage in it.
That is all about it. That's the reason, they started with this and that is the reason, why nobody changes this system, although anybody with a clear mind can see what harm is being done. The corporations pay hundreds of lobbyists and lawyers to ensure, they can protect their support-system.
All the other reasons told, are just gibberish.
Guess, what would have been happened, when he had patented Tex. I am not sure, if not some of our todays software would be infringing.
This is not a mindless down-vote, but I must shake my head, about your ignorance.
Our capitalism of today exploits all the resources of this planet (oil, water, air, environment, humans, ...) in an increasing fashion and because this planet has only limited resources, soon all will break down. The question only is, what entity will break down first: capitalism, this planet, the human race.
What use will you make of your five smartphones, three tablets and seven cars, when your children will have no future?
I found the discussion about registration so inspiring, that I wanted to throw in a different approach that I outlined in an own blog post and posted as different thread.
I would also add, that the real prove must include a topic that the artificial person was not programmed for. (not like a Bayesian filter that "develops" by "learning" new facts about a fixed topic).
Learning, developing, evolving, that are the real marks of living and of intelligence (since, I would not part between intelligence and living).
Of course development time will also go up 10.000 times!</irony>
But it just seems that some ideas, because they are economical interesting, stick so much, that management people come up every 6 month with an other idea or excuse, why the dead horse must be ridden again (and not buried).
How on earth can we make the British driving on the "right" side of the street.
The reason: I don't think, that this fact is essential to the A series. It is neat, yes, but when do you have A0 paper in your bureau? (When you are not in the printing-business).
The thing with cutting in half is more essential to it, than that it is based on square meter. Also, even when it is an square meter, the sides are something "odd" because the ratio is fixed.
I guess, there are still people out there, which recalculate into Francs or Marks, or whatsoever -- but I think most Europeans have adapted.
So, when "old Europe" can change -- why not "modern USA"?
That is often times, how management sees programmers: Dudes that must have experience with rocks and brown to fit the job. And that is also the way, they want to pay them.
And who are you, something like the "Python purity police"?
I will ask you something, that you did not work with till now -- and when you give a wrong or incomplete answer, I will also say "how dare you"!
I must admit, that I did not think to much about it until now, but normally there is only /usr/bin/python in the scripts.
Of course, if everybody has /usr/bin/python3 inside his Python3 programs, everything could work (unless some of your apps need special environment vars like PYTHONPATH, what could make it troublesome again).
But still, the standard installation of Debian (and others, as much I know) does not include Python3 by default, you at least have to add it to your installation. That is something, you must tell your customers, when you ship Python3 programs.
If it only where for unicode, the problem would not so big. But they seemed not to bother at all about backwards compatibility at all in the first Py3 version. Later, they did try to change some things, that unnecessarily(!!) blocked adoption, but many projects already decided to ignore Py3.
I guess, you don't mean what you said in the last paragraph? Was it just a joke?
Unless you can replace all libraries that exist only as Python 2 version, you can not move -- you can use zero Python 3. That is a huge problem to real projects -- of course, if you only have some University (educational) - projects, all is fine and you can play around as you like.
Also there is the problem, that it is not trivial to have Python2+3 on the same installation. Most Linux distros still run with Py2.
Later several of them where dropped, like the string literal trouble ... But than the trouble was already done. Many extension modules where not lifted to the new version, since the overhead was to big.
I think, many more projects would have adopted Py3, if more extension modules would support it.
The huge library of extension modules was always the strength of Python. Now we have many projects still running on Py2, because Py3 did ignore this strength.
I am not sure, if having a single key space seems to have possible counter-productive effects on the overall speed.
One example: You want to scan all db entries of one table and the key are random English words. The table itself only has several hundred entries, but there are also tables with text keys with millions of entries.
When I understand the concept right (I don't know), wouldn't that mean, that a huge (common) index would have to be searched and many, many entries skipped, because you use one single key space? Wouldn't that hurt performance very much for that specific operation?
I guess, you are.
When you still find an employer, that makes a contract like that, call yourself lucky. In my country, it is a law -- and you can't cancel out laws in my country in contracts.
Not everybody is so lucky, that he has enough money or finds fitting freelancer work.
Ask the music people. They (oftentimes) can't sell their music without having contracts with big companies -- and they have to sell out all their rights.
But it seems that you just view the world from your standpoint -- fading out any negatives -- and everybody that has different experiences as you do, is just stupid or "obtuse" in your view. With such an attitude on your side, a discussion makes little to no sense.
Under the current law: NO!
That is just a dream from the people that are pro-IP -- they know, that is a dream, but they want you to dream it.
If you are working for a company and have an idea, the company gets the patent and you get (if you are lucky) a fixed amount (~$500 is a typical amount in my country) and the patent belongs to the company -- you don't even have the right to use the stuff for yourself.
IP means, in its conclusion, that the creators are disowned and the "owners" own your ideas. You created it, you are busted!