nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I also have to say part of the success for the Nintendo brand again is 
> the same reason for its demise during 2 generations:  its loyal fans 
> during the NES and SNES grew older during the N64 and GC, had to get a 
> work, house, marriage and are now back to gaming, thanks to their kids. 

  I have heard that many people complained about the N64 and GC controllers,
and that *might* be at least partially responsible for the lesser popularity
of those two consoles. If you look at those controllers, they look quite
painful to use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:N64_controller.jpg

  Ok, it might be usable for the D-pad, but when you need to switch to the
analog stick, it looks really awkward. The D-pad and the analog stick seem
to basically be mutually exclusive: Either use one or the other, but not
both at the same time, or even in quick succession. Also the location of
the analog stick seems awkward.

  Sony's DualShock controller, while maybe slightly ascetic compared to
the more modern ergonomic versions of that controller type, has more the
right idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DualShock.jpg

  It's easy to switch between the D-pad and the analog stick by simply
moving your thumb from one to the other. And while having *two* such sticks
might seem rather self-evident and obvious nowadays, it was actually quite
an ingenuous idea which helped the playability of many, many games.

  Nintendo tried to copy the idea for their GameCube controller, but did
it horribly wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_Gamecube.jpg

  The D-pad is positioned in a really awkward place, and it's hard to use.
Likewise for the analog stick on the right. Also the X and Y buttons are
positioned awkwardly.

  I suppose Nintendo learned its lesson and instead of trying to copy
others' controller designs, they created their own for the Wii. It seems
to have been a success.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp escreveu:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> I also have to say part of the success for the Nintendo brand again is 
>> the same reason for its demise during 2 generations:  its loyal fans 
>> during the NES and SNES grew older during the N64 and GC, had to get a 
>> work, house, marriage and are now back to gaming, thanks to their kids. 
> 
>   I have heard that many people complained about the N64 and GC controllers,
> and that *might* be at least partially responsible for the lesser popularity
> of those two consoles. If you look at those controllers, they look quite
> painful to use:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:N64_controller.jpg

Low sales because of controller?!  First time I hear it.

I had a N64 from day 1.  The controller was very comfortable.  The 
analog stick is also a lot more precise than both analogs from the 
dual-shock.  I heard people saying the same from GC, but then, those are 
Nintendoids without hope.

What really spell FAIL to me was the too few games.  That I can see 
hurting sales of the platform overall.

>   I suppose Nintendo learned its lesson and instead of trying to copy
> others' controller designs, they created their own for the Wii. It seems
> to have been a success.

Hmm, it seems you got it wrong:  Nintendo is a trend setter, not the 
contrary.  They were the ones to come up with the d-pad, 4 buttons, 
shoulder buttons, analog stick and, now, motion sensing controller.  The 
others follow suit.  That said, I wish their games had evolved too.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >   I suppose Nintendo learned its lesson and instead of trying to copy
> > others' controller designs, they created their own for the Wii. It seems
> > to have been a success.

> Hmm, it seems you got it wrong:  Nintendo is a trend setter, not the 
> contrary.  They were the ones to come up with the d-pad, 4 buttons, 
> shoulder buttons, analog stick and, now, motion sensing controller.  The 
> others follow suit.  That said, I wish their games had evolved too.

  I was talking about the GameCube controller, which was quite clearly
trying to copy the idea from the DualShock controller.

  Speaking of controllers, I own this one (for the PC):
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/gaming/pc_gaming/gamepads/devices/264&cl=US,EN

  It's the most comfortable controller I have ever tried. It's also sturdy,
balanced and ergonomic. It feels quite good for games designed to be played
with a game controller.

  (Its only drawback is that it uses some special force feedback technology,
as it AFAIK has *two* motors inside, and there seems to often be compatiblity
issues with many games, meaning that force feedback just doesn't work with
many games no matter what you try to do. Well, it's only a minor issue.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Chambers wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> So, they can do limited function, single task stuff well.. like DOS. lol
> 
> No, they can do something well if the requirements are strict enough.
> 
> MS makes their software good enough for the people who have to use it. 
> That's one of the reasons the perception of Visual Studio is so much 
> better than the perception of Windows in general... developers have 
> higher standards than the average user, so MS makes a better product for 
> them.
> 
Well, true enough. Though, a note one VS.. One feature it has that no 
other editor suite for Windows really supports (or as extensively), is 
"design time", as in edit objects, in place. There is a reason for this. 
The code needed to "react to" design mode flags in a window or other 
object is well documented. The means by which to "turn on" design mode 
for a window... I spent 2 years looking for code, everyplace from their 
sites, to the official API manuals you can buy, to just about every 
other place you can think of. Its not documented in any discoverable sense.

Having a product that does something that no one else's does, because 
you intentionally prevent anyone else from doing it the same way, isn't 
a selling point, as far as I am concerned. That said, VS, on my install, 
had more than a few annoyances, not the least being that all its 
frakking documentation assumed that you where going to code stuff in 
either C++/C# or in VB, and that if you where using VB, you didn't need 
either headers for the API flags, at all, never mind documentation on 
them. And, it was hardly bugless...

But, yeah. Things that perform one, clear, and specific task, they do 
well with, sort of, except for the things they leave out, due to you not 
needing them, from their view, or don't work as expected, or don't work 
at all. How many versions of the XBox 360 cooling thing they go through 
before figuring out to a) leave the fans on until it cooled off, and b) 
it got hot enough to melt the solder points on the GPU? 3-4 I think.. 
But, otherwise, great machine. lol Just hope a car with the their tech 
in it doesn't have a similar issue. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Invisible wrote:
> Which users wanted their PCs to get hacked just by being connected to 
> the Internet? Who wanted a word processor that constantly crashes? Which 
> people thought it was funny if a power cut results in permanent data 
> loss and possible an unusable PC?
> 

Almost like the OneTouch 3. Standby (or shut down drives to save power) 
sometimes leaves the drive *unable* to power up again and access files. 
You have to unplug it, then plug it back in again (meaning the power 
cord), then wait for it to "unmangle" the 1-2 files that where in an 
open/unsaved state before it went into standby. Then there is its backup 
software. V2 backed up "everything". V3... only backs up documents, 
archives and executables, which doesn't include Firefox bookmarks, 
settings files, some save games, and a whole host of other things. So, 
if you had to restore, half your applications wouldn't work, since the 
"critical" files you actually need from them are all missing in the 
backup...

Yeah. Some companies seem to have their own internal logic, with respect 
to what they "define" as "user experience"... Oddly, it never seems to 
quite match my definition. :p


-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The code needed to "react to" design mode flags in a window or other 
> object is well documented. The means by which to "turn on" design mode 
> for a window... 

I don't understand what you mean. The code to implement visual studio isn't 
documented? No, of course not.

What is it you think isn't documented? I think you think things work 
differently than they do. There's no "design mode" for a window. The VS IDE 
is using the design-mode properties to draw the widgets into the window.

It's like complaining that Firefox renders standard HTML, but doesn't 
document the HTML you need to edit a web page.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Warp wrote:
>   Not as right as Nintendo, though, as Wii is selling almost as much as
> Xbox 360 and PS3 combined...

Yes, to a completely different group of people.

-- 
Chambers

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>> OK. So remind me... who is it that wanted to be constantly nagged 
>> about the unused desktop icons? 
> 
> You get offered once, and you click the box that says "stop asking."  
> It's only nagging if you can't read.

So why does it ask me once a month?

>> Who was it that thinks getting their PC infected with malware was a 
>> good idea?
> 
> Bugs aren't designed in.

Depends on what you think a "bug" is.

Windows is fundamentally based on the concept that only one person is 
using the PC. This is very much "designed in". They're trying to change 
that now to make the thing actually secure, but it's hard to alter one 
of the fundamental design assumptions of a large system without 
completely redesigning it.

> People think getting some small number infected with malware is 
> preferable to spending 30x as much for the software.

And I think that if I have to pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds for a 
mere operating system, it should at least work properly. But apparently 
that's just me...

When Linux goes wrong, it's annoying. But given that I spent £0 on it, 
you can just say "ah well, you get what you pay for". But when you pay 
vast amounts of money for something, you expect it to work.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> OK. So remind me... who is it that wanted to be constantly nagged 
>>> about the unused desktop icons? 
>>
>> You get offered once, and you click the box that says "stop asking."  

>> It's only nagging if you can't read.
> 
> So why does it ask me once a month?

I can only assume it's because you didn't turn it off. I got asked exactl
y once.

> Windows is fundamentally based on the concept that only one person is 
> using the PC.

Not really.  Maybe 15 years ago that was true, but not now.

>> People think getting some small number infected with malware is 
>> preferable to spending 30x as much for the software.
> 
> And I think that if I have to pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds for a
 
> mere operating system, it should at least work properly. But apparently
 
> that's just me...

I dunno. Why are you getting virus infections? I've run for decades with 
no 
virus protection and I don't have problems. Actually, I've seen exactly o
ne 
  or maybe two machines with a virus on it in my career.  Heck, I've seen
 
more viruses on 8-bit machines than I've seen on Windows.

> When Linux goes wrong, it's annoying. But given that I spent £0 on
 it, 

No, you didn't pay $0 for it. You simply didn't pay *cash* for it. Most o
f 
the companies I worked for payed hundreds of thousands of dollars a year 
to 
the people keeping the Linux systems running.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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> And I think that if I have to pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds for a 
> mere operating system, it should at least work properly. But apparently 
> that's just me...

It's just you who thinks that a desktop OS needs to have zero bugs to "work 
properly".  FOr controlling a plane of nuclear reactor, sure, but for a 
desktop OS? No way - nobody would be willing to pay for it.

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