yungblood

I've thought about playing RPG's by e-mail... but I don't think you could ever duplicate the same feeling as playing with friends around a table. To me it would seem like any other mmorpg... *sigh*.It's too bad that playing games in person, any kind of game, seems to be a dying art. It's hard to even find a person to play chess with me without going online. I know one guy that likes to play cards in person, and we usually get together once a week for a couple hours.-YB

I just got this one: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ I use it for emu-games, and alot more. The only thing I don't like about it is that the pad on it is comletely digital. The last one I had that was simular, it could tell somewhat how hard you pressed, but this one doesn't. but for the price, and considering it can be setup as a 3axis 12but, or 4axis 10but, it's really good. It comes with a program to map the buttons (and d-pad movements) to key-presses for programs that don't have joystick capability. I use that program for my snes emu. It will work with both the gameport & USB. It comes with an adapter. USB only works with Win98+. I rarely use my mouse anymore, I have it setup with a program called joymouse, so that it controls my mouse pointer. It replaces so many keystrokes. Imagine a mouse with about 20 buttons. (one button in joymouse is like a shift button). I couldn't imagine going back to have to use the keyboard all the time again for simple window's functions. I've never had a problem with it, and I use it all the time. I've had it for about 2 months. It's better than the standard 4but gamepad, because it will handle 3D, like snes. And with the 6but for the right thumb, it works great for sega games. I find it's a nice button layout. The only downfall is that unless you use the windows program to map the gamepad to key-presses, it won't work for DOS games. But all in all, I'd say it's an excellent bargain for the price. And it's very comfortable!! -YB

Oh, also you can IRC through the web... check out these sites: http://chat.efnet.org/ http://search.mibbit.com/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Just another way to access IRC -YB

I've been a long time IRC'r, and an op on #mirchelp (EFnet). Is there anyway we can possibly have the Xisto channel be on efnet? Or even have a channel on both, and tie them together? (I've seen that done a few times, the setup can be surprisingly simple if the channel isn't too busy.) -YB*Addicted to IRC, and proud of it*/quit I'm trapped on the internet...

Damn!! I never would have guessed all that about google. Sure, any big company has people that are suspicious about it. I'm glad that I *only* use my gmail account to transfer split versions of (legally) publically available files! (Since I don't have a internet connection at home right now, I have a friend of mine split files so that they will fit on floppies, and he send's them to my gmail account.)I guess if all that is true, I'll have to add google to my anti- list. heh I'm already strongly anti-microsoft. I only use MS products when I have no other choice. There are a few other companies that I avoid.I've been recommending linux to alot of people just to help them get away from the evil MS!-YB

That's good to hear I haven't been able to find a group where I moved to, but I have played for years with one group that at one point was up to 12 people Now that's a blast playing with that many, but it takes a really good dm, and experienced players to make it work smoothly -YB

Ok, I admit it, I'm a pokêmaniac Well maybe not quite as much as I used to be, but I still love it My TCG collection is not as big as I'd like, but I don't have alot of money for it right now, I only have about 200 cards... I spent $40 bucks at 6 flags great america for an air brushed Pikachu shirt, I have some of the gold cards from when McD's had them in those balls... I am currently playing through Pokêmon Crystal right now I love trying to find hidden stuff, and new cheat codes. True, I haven't found anything that I haven't seen in walkthroughs for pokêmon yet, but I did find one new cheat code for one of the zelda games that isn't posted anywhere on the net. It's simular to the infinite life code already out there, but it doesn't affect you bad when you turn mine off. (Mine grants infinite life through the medicine, rather than frezzing your heart count at half). --- Just another Gamer looking For fun... -YB

testing

Um, I have been seeing this kind of info for 10+ years. Yea, the technology sounds great if they ever get past the problems. Both technical, and financial. Yea, they have been able to get holo tech to work, but it costs a fortune, and it's still not stable yet. :/ It will be nice to see larger portable storage. So far, the best that's out is BlueRay.-YB

No, I haven't heard of DSA. Where can I find out more about it? I always like to learn more about RPG's My personally favorite is Rifts (Palladium System). It's alot more flexable than D&D, but it's not that much more complex. The only thing I don't like about Rifts is the number of books you need to get. Although you don't need them all (I played with 12 books), I believe there are about 40 books to get. And that's just for character classes, and basic equipment. It's split up to different parts of the earth. But it is so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!! -YB

First, colored ribbons mean nothing. As long as a Ribbon cable as the right number of pins, and it's a flat ribbon, it will work just fine. Did you know that on most motherboards, you can use 2 drives per IDE port on the motherboard? With RAID controller cards, you can add alot more hard drives for a comparatively small amount of money. I have seen as much as a 12port RAID card, and it was only $700. Yea, that may sound like alot of money. But if you think about how much it would cost to buy specialty computers, or several computers and network them, it really is a cheaper method. RAID cards do have a disadvantage though. They only work good if all your hard drives on the card are the same size. (Preferably, same brand, same model) If you have different sized hard drives, it treats them all as if they are all equal to the smallest, assuming the one you get allows it. Another idea for getting more hard drives is etherraid. (check out coreraid) I do know of other methods, but they are more expensive. How many drives do you want in your system? Have you thought about just upgrading to a larger hard drive? or do you want more CD/DVD drives? -YB

If you don't even have an AGP slot, you need a whole new system if you want to do any serious gaming. One important question is how good of a gaming system do you want? Imho, there are 3 important pieces of hardware you should look at for gaming. Cpu, Vid card, and RAM. One magazine that I enjoy checking out that will help you select hardware is MaximumPC. They showcase a wide range of gaming computers. Anyware from $1000 to $10000+. -YB

Ok, here's a challenge that I know is possible, but I need a little help. I think alot of people would be interested in using this, once they realize the possibilities.First, I would like a way of getting online for *free* without doing anything illegal. I also want to be able to do so wirelessly.Here's the solution that I came up with. I have a cell phone that is on a family-plan. All calls between me & anyone else that has my service provider is free. The phone I have doesn't have the option of using it as a modem, so I would like to use my soundcard as a modem, use the cell phone just as a way of carrying the modulated data. I've taken a cheap headset, removed the earbud/mic, and attached 2 stereo plugs. If I plug them into my soundcard, any sound played from my computer is sent through the phone to the other person. And anything they say can be recorded by my computer. So I realized that if my computer can send/recieve sound from the cell phone, it should be easy enough to do the same with data. I know that ages ago, instead of a modem that just directly connected to the phone line, you had a box that you would place the handset of your phone on. That box would convert your data to audio, and the phone would transfer it.I know that copying the old bbs & terminal software would probably be the easiest for transfering data, but I want to go a step further, and have it talk tcp/ip. Yes, I know that a cell phone connection would probably be slow. I'd probably be lucky to get a 2400 baud connection, but for simple stuff, it'd be all I need. Certainly all I'd need for e-mail.My problem is this, I don't know how to write drivers for windows. I could do all the code talking to the sound card, that's easy enough. I need to know how to tell windows(95) that I have a new type of network interface. I could also use some help getting the most effecient transfer rate.I know that this is a rather challenging problem, but I think if it can be solved, it'd make it so that alot of people could take more advantage of the free connections that cell companies offer.-YB

I have 2 joystick related questions.The first is, does anyone know if there is a driver that will allow me to use my joystick (actually 12button/3axis gamepad) to control my mouse pointer in windows95? I have one program that will allow me to do that (very indirectly) using windows accessability & the program that camewith my joystick. But it is exceedingly slow, because it uses 2 forms of redirection. First it translates joystick movements to key presses (slow), then I use the windows accessability to translate that to mouse movements. But that is so slow, it's practically unusable. I'd like to know if there is anything that can do it directly.Also, does anyone know how to use windows calls to use a joystick? I know how to use a standard joystick by talking to the gameport directly. My problem is that the joystick I want to use is non-standard. It has a windows driver, so I need to know how to call the windows library that controls the joystick.Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanx! -YB

I have a question, I'd like to have a projector for my computer, but I'm concerned about both picture quality & refresh rate. I've seen some projectors that work *great* for movies, and other tv-type video, but when used for normal computer use, they perform extremely poorly. I would like to display on an entire wall, and use it for my computer, so I would need the resolution high, so that it doesn't look pixallated. Any ideas how I can do this without buying an expensive projector, or splitting the display? I know that you can use 4 (or more) low-res projectors carefully aligned to simulate one high res projector, but that would get expensive to drive that many projectors. Getting more than one vid card that could handle at least 2 outputs a piece.Also, I would like a refresh rate that is good enough that it would be possible to play a video game on it. Yes, I know that this would be a tall order, but I know it's got to be possible.-YB

Imho, I would recommend 64bit. I always recommend to spend enough money on your computer to keep you happy with it for a long time, without spending too much money for the absolute latest stuff (unless it's really needed). Always make sure that your computer has plenty of room to upgrade if you decide it's needed.Like others that have posted here, I recommend linux. For one reason, it runs alot more stable than any version of windows. I had one linux system running for 8 months straight, and the only reason that I had to shut it down was when I upgraded it's ram. The best I've ever got from any version of windows was 5 weeks (win3.11 without 32bit extensions). Also, you can get *alot* more software for free with linux, stuff you'd have to pay a fortune for with windows. You can get microsoft compatable office software *free* for linux. Also linux is updated much more often than linux, and if you have your computer online, you can always get the updates for free instantly.I also recomment 64bit for another reason, it allows alot more RAM to be installed in your system. Though you really need linux to take advantage of alot of ram, windows just doesn't use ram effiecently. Though if you run windows emulation software on linux, you can use almost all your windows software inside of linux, and still get the advantage of the stability of linux. And that way windows will use ram like it should. -YB

Viz, I understand that part. Here's where I'm confused: if my credits are say 0.5, and I wait one day before I post (letting my credits run out) mathmatically, I should have a balance of -0.5. However, I have found that the moment I let my credits run out, I get a penalty of (I think) 3 credits. None of the FAQ's on the credit system has even mentioned this. It says that you have to get your credit balance up to +4 (if I remember right) before they re-activate your account, but they don't mention taking credits from you. The reason I noticed is because I don't have an internet connection at home. I get 1 hour a day at the library (except sundays) for *ALL* my internet needs. Sometimes I just don't have the time to post. Hopefully someone can explain this part better -YB

I didn't even have TRS-DOS on that TRS-80, I didn't even have a disk drive connected to it. I think it had 8k of ram. I don't remember the model right off hand. I haven't even looked at it in ages. I've thought about using the tape drive that I have for it, and connecting it to a modern computer, to see if I can write a driver that will let me get all my old programs that I wrote. -YB

I own an old TRS-80, but I haven't used it in ages. I haven't used CP/m in so long, I completely forgot how to use it. I guess the closest thing you could say that in some ways predates PC-DOS is linux. The way that it predates PC-DOS is that it is based on unix, which the original version of unix came out before DOS I have also used unix, and I own an old sparc, with SunOS, but I don't use it anymore.-YungBlood

I wonder if you could find a port of linux that runs on them. I know that there are linux ports to all kinds of unusual systems. If I had the money to spend on super-computing, I would probably use racks of blades running linux. For 3D rendering, all you really need is fast processors, and plenty of memory for each one. So I would have all the blades tied to a server with a fast scsi-raid of hdd's. And of course, I would have the whole thing networked with fiber-optic. Then I would have my controlling computer running linux with X. I would have the whole system use the concept of grid computing. I have done some playing with POV animation, and know how nice it would be to have the processing power to make it quick. It took me over an hour to render all the frames for my spinning logo, and then combine them into an animated .gif. Most of the time was the rendering. To see the outcome, take a look at http://games.yungblood.com/ and look at the dice in the top left hand corner that spells out "games." -YungBlood

Hey Opaque, Nice explanation, but I still have one question. I have noticed that when I accidently wait 1 day too many to keep my account active, my credits aren't -0.xx, but are at least -3. Why is this? I understand that you don't want people to let thier sites bounce between active & inactive, but I thought that just needing a certain number of positive credits to get an account un-suspended was enough. Why is there the additional penalty of losing credits when your account hits zero?Thanks -YungBlood

Well, there are a few ways to do what you want. The first, and easiest way to do it is through dual booting. I personally recommend having at least 2 hard drives in your computer. This make it easier to be sure that you don't mess things up.I recommend having one drive for windows, and another drive for linux. The advantage of doing this is that if you decide to move one OS to a different computer, you just have to pull the hard drive, and put in a different system (and possibly change the boot setup).Another possibility is using emulation. You can emulate windows on linux, or vice versa. From what I know, windows emulation for linux is much more developed.A third option is using software like VMware. It lets you run multiple OS's at the same time. I've had little experience with it personally, but I know it is out there.One of the best things about linux, is that it doesn't mind sharing a computer with other operating systems. Windows on the other hand really doesn't like it. Windows ignores any other OS's on your computer, though if you ever have to re-install windows for any reason, it will change the boot record, and make your computer forget about linux. If that happens, you will need some kind of boot disk for linux so that you can fix the boot record to allow switching between OS's. Linux will not only happily reside along side any other OS, but it will also let you manipulate stuff on your other partitions. I use linux to modify files on my windows partition quite often. It is also handy to use linux to do extensive searching through your files that windows can't easily do.-YungBloodP.S. In case you're wondering, I am currently using Red Hat linux. Though I have used many others, such as Slackware, Debian, Yggdrasil, FreeBSD, SuSe, and more. To me, Red Hat seems to offer the support for the most hardware. I have also used a few variaties of unix, but not many can be installed on an ordinary PC.

My personal Favorite for ease of use is redhat. It seems to support the most hardware from what I've found. But you can check thier website if you want to make sure that your modem (and other hardware) is supported.-YungBlood

Take a look at my site http://www.yungblood.com/ and see what you think of my menu. The easiest way, is just cut the image into pieces. The way I did it, for the basic stuff, was to have a master copy of my main image. Then each time I wanted to cut a piece off, I would copy the master file to a new file, then crop it to just the part I wanted. Another way, is use cut to remove each piece of the image, and paste into a new file. The advantage of this method, is that you make sure that you end up with all the pieces matching up. You would see if you missed anything in the file you cut from. Then you can use a table to put the images back together. It may take some serious tweaking to get the table just right, but it can be done. -YungBlood

Actually... They do a little bit in thier commercial services. Check out: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ It will allow you to use unix (and linux) software on windows Ok, before everyone jumps on my case, no I'm not endorsing windows or microsoft. I'm strongly anti-microsoft. I only use microsoft products when I have to, or when it's just more convient (i.e. I'm building a website, and need to makesure it displays correctly for win users.) -YungBlood