Re: is nmi translator off limits?

1. Yes, games are frivolous, but game applications can, and do, find 
their way into the business world.  Take, for instance, the broadcast
media's idea of the internet as seen in such movies as Tek Wars.  3D
graphical representation of an abstract concept.  This can be used in
business to more effectively move around an abstract reality, and the
place you see that now is in games.  

So why hasn't anyone written the program to do this yet?  Simple, 
hardware isn't' fast enough, yet.

2. I've played Zork.  On a teletype machine sitting in a back room
at the Jr. High I was going to at the time.  When I went to High School
they bought an Apple II, which could do the same thing, faster and
more efficient, because the technology was faster.

3. I both agree and disagree.  Hardware manufacturers make faster and
better hardware to make more money.  Without hardware being better, there
would be no reason to replace what we have.  And I believe that software
vendors do the same thing.  No one's going to buy Wordstar 1.0 because it
just can't do everything we both want and need it to do.  And it couldn't
do those things because it was designed for a much more limited box.

4. Yes, I have interest in efficiency, very much so.  But I also realize
that tomorrow when we have access to a box that runs 3 times faster, I can
do 3 times as much in the same time, saving my company money (in theory).

Regards,

Jim Langston

Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!

"James H. H. Lampert" wrote:
> 
> Jim Langston wrote:
> >
> > It's not really a cop out, IMO.  I'm a gamer myself.  I have a
> > fairly decent, 80% of max speed at the time.  Game works fine,
> > looks good.  Then they come out with an expansion pack.  Requires
> > more video memory.  But it looks SO much better.
> . . .
> > The fact is, you are not going to get realistic looking 3d rendering
> > in real time at a very high FPS on an 8088 no matter how you code
> > it, even at the system level.
> . . .
> 
> Dear Mr. Langston (et al.):
> 
> I'm afraid you seem to be missing the point.
> 
> 1. Games are an inherently frivolous application. Therefore, the last
> thing they should be doing is forcing people to constantly replace their
> hardware with something bigger and faster. It's bad enough when
> business, scientific, process control, and engineering applications do
> this, but fare worse when games do it.
> 
> 2. It wasn't all that long ago that games were judged by how much
> intellectual stimulation they provided, and could be mega-hits without
> graphics, much less 3D rendering. I suspect that even today, there may
> be more people alive who've played the Zork Trilogy (or the original
> mainframe Zork) than have played "Tomb Raider."
> 
> 3. My own theory is that snowballing demands on processing power and
> memory are the direct result of hardware manufacturers bending over
> backwards to give developers the biggest, fastest new toys. That's why I
> prefer to do development work on the oldest, slowest machines capable of
> running the software: if something is inefficient, I know about it right away.
> 
> 4. I should hope that, as an MI programmer and a member of the MI list,
> you'd have some interest in efficiency, too.
> 
> --
> James H. H. Lampert
> Professional Dilettante
> http://www.hb.quik.com/jamesl
> Have you visited http://www.thehungersite.com today?
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