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Olivier26

171 karma · joined January 29, 2015

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Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
Same here, it works even with the F18A option disabled. So I apologize to these talented developers!
Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
Apparently the TMS9918 powered the MSX too, I will watch some demoes.
Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
> TI with the Speech Synthesizer and the 32K RAM expansion is vanilla to me

Agree

> graphics chip with some significant new features on it, I'd agree that wouldn't count.

Agree too. If the graphics chip was so powerful, it's hard to understand why it was so underused, and not integrated in other microcomputers of this time. The video memory of the TI was 16KB, I had several computers with this size, and you couldn't render with this quality, even statically because at 256*192 it's less than 2,6 bits per pixel. And the number of sprites is more than impressive.

Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
Well, Parsec is very far from this demo, if the window is small it's for speed. The demo is full screen, which is impressive. And Parsec is coherent with what the hardware had to offer for the 3D those years, like Elite.
Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
That's an interesting proposition. I've installed MAME but I need to hunt for the BIOS.
Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
OK for the 2017 demo, but the TMS9900 was slower than the Z80/6502 of the same time, because it was a 16-bit microprocessor with a 8-bit bus, and registers were mapped to the RAM. This demo required power, and is very far from all other TI99/4A games, and most of them were written in assembly (the basic was too slow). So I still think it's a fake, or it is running on a deeply modified emulator, or with hardware extensions listed in the wikipedia page * ) but it's not a "vanilla" TI/994A.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A

Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
The boucing ball, and Wolf3D/Doom wasn't yet a big thing in the 1981-1984 years... And the quality of graphics and sounds, the number of colors, the speech synthesis: the TI99 was more shhhh shhhh... The real 99/4A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxJM7AhZvw Not the same world!
Olivier26··on Don't Mess with Texas – TI-99/4A Megademo [video]
This is an Amiga demo, the TI-99/4A wasn't so fast.
Olivier26··on Internals of a Turbo Pascal Compiler
The floppy disc reader was required for CP/M (and a 80 column monitor), so the comparison is with the C128 + 1571 or with the C128D. If in 1985 the C128 had been cheaper than the 6128, I'd have bought the Commodore instead.
Olivier26··on Internals of a Turbo Pascal Compiler
You're right, in Europe the Amstrad was less expensive than the Commodore and hence far more popular. The CPC 6128 was probably at this time the less expensive computer to run Turbo Pascal.

The Apple II has an optional Z80 card, but the total price was not for everyone, at least in Europe.

Olivier26··on Internals of a Turbo Pascal Compiler
Turbo Pascal was also available on CP/M (so 8080/Z80 8-bit). It was the most powerful language on Amstrad CPC 6128, the only 8-bit low cost computer to offer CP/M compatibility.
Olivier26··on Change Your Name
I have a related question. When you have one product, which name is different from the company's name, is it better to use comapany.com or product.com?
Olivier26··on The Weakness of the .NET OSS Ecosystem
What's missing is a .Net, open, powerful CMS à la Drupal 8. It's hard to understand MS doesn't take this point seriously with its Azure strategy. Orchard CMS is interesting but has little momentum and very few developers.
Olivier26··on Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 4.6 Available for Download
Any idea for the availibility of the Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2015?
Olivier26··on Ask HN: Anxiety is limiting my enjoyment of a wonderful career. Can you relate?
80-100 km a week is far too much. You loose all your vital energy. You are exhausted, not relaxed.
Olivier26··on Microsoft Makes Clever Moves
They do with Cyanogen what they did with Xenix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix