Saturday, April 1, 2000

Q3Fortress Beta Released -- 6:24 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

As promised, a public beta of Q3Fortress (a Team Fortress-esque mod) has been released. It is a 36M download. The mod is not pre-compiled, it is all VM, so it should be cross-platform.

Linux Based on DOS! -- 11:08 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

On the eve of Red Hat's great breakthrough in the OS world, a shocking confession comes from Linus Torvalds himself:

My conscience will not let me rest until I get this out. I did not create the original Linux kernel entirely from scratch. I couldn't figure out how to make some things work; for example, I couldn't get daemon processes to stay in memory. So I used a commercial disassembler to reverse engineer MS-DOS, looked at its TSR code, added a few C routines, and released it as Linux 0.2. Over the years, that code has served us well. I don't think we could have a working kernel without it.

The Linux world has been strangely quiet since this revelation. Many eagerly await the outcome. If Linux is based on MS-DOS, will Microsoft then own Linux? If Red Hat owns Microsoft, will Red Hat literally own Linux? Lawyers all over the world are seeking the answer. Stay tuned for further developments . . .

Oh, and Happy April Fool's Day!

BitBoys Oy Vey! -- 11:04 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This Register Article reports that BitBoys have missed their own self-imposed March 31 deadline to announce their upcoming chip based on "Xtreme Bandwidth Architecture" (you KNOW it's good when they misspell words). Their 1200 and 2400 chips were supposed to ship in Q1 2000 too. Oops. Ahhh, vaporhardware. Thanks Shugashack.

Daikatana Released! -- 10:43 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

In a stunning and surprising move, Eidos has finally shipped John Romero's Daikatana. They also revealed what was the major cause for its long delay.

"What people didn't know is that we actually switched engines a few times," Romero reports. "We started off with Quake 1 and then moved to Quake 2. That most people know. Last year we moved to the Unreal engine, followed by the Super Mario Brothers engine, then we dabbled with the Quake III Arena engine for a month or two before finally reversing course and going back to the Quake 2 engine."

Sources close to the project paint a different picture. Here's some quotes from an ION Storm employee who asked not to be identified.

Ever since KillCreek became 'genetically enhanced' this project has gone into a tail spin. Romero can't tell time, read a calendar, anything! It's like his mind is someplace else!

Eidos spokeswoman May O'Nays has high hopes for Romero's long-awaited masterpiece.

We're hoping to sell a good 40 or 50 copies of Daikatana. Maybe then we can move the corporate offices out of these cardboard boxes in the alley. Or at least afford some biscuits.

All across the country there are reports of Hell being extremely chilly, pigs flying, and monkeys flying out of people's butts.

Oh, and Happy April Fool's Day!

Red Hat to Purchase Microsoft -- 10:25 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Stunning news has just come down in the DoJ vs. Microsoft trial. Here's the press release which I quote in its entirety:

Red Hat Inc., a vendor of the popular Linux operating system, announced today that it would be purchasing the operating system division of the former Microsoft for $3.5 billion in cash. After Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's surprise decision to revoke the April 7 deadline for settlement and simply break up the software giant, he gave Red Hat first opportunity to purchase the new operating system division outright. "Microsoft has repeatedly shown amazing incompetence in designing and delivering operating systems," Jackson said. "I believe that this operation should be run by someone who can do the job right." Operating systems produced by the former Microsoft, such as Windows 95 and Windows 98, are run on 90% of desktop computers worldwide.

"Just yet Red Hat has no definite plans for the future of Windows," an unnamed company representative said. "Of course, we recognize that many users still need Windows for certain applications. Essentially we're hoping to offer all versions of Windows free with our future distributions, along with VMWare, so that users can run Windows and Windows applications on their Linux desktops. We believe that this will give our customers Windows functionality without Windows frustration when Windows crashes." Red Hat will likely make this Windows/VMWare combination available free to all Linux users.

"It's probably for the best," said Microsoft founder and former president Bill Gates. Gates hopes to leave the computer world behind. He told reporters, "I'm tired of fighting anyway. To free myself of the past, I plan to give all my wealth to third world countries and move to a small farm in Utah."

Other officials of the company formerly known as Microsoft could not be reached for comment.

We'll bring you more information on this story as it becomes available.

Oh, and Happy April Fool's Day!

Spring Forward! -- 12:26 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Daylight savings time is coming to an end! Everyone remember to set your clocks an hour and a half ahead before you go to bed Saturday night.

Oh, and Happy April Fool's Day!

Friday, March 31, 2000

Force Commander Demo -- 8:05 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Blue is reporting that Gamecenter has a demo of LucasArts' Force Commander available for download (77.3M). I may download it, if for no other reason to see if it really is as bad as all the reviews are saying it is.

John Cash .plan Update -- 1:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's John Cash updated his .plan with warning of a minor bug in Quake III Arena that could give mod makers a problem. It shouldn't effect end-users at all, though.

There is a bug that may be giving Q3A mod developers some headaches if they are trying to add new holdable items.

File cg_event.c, function CG_UseItem; the line:
itemNum = es->event - EV_USE_ITEM0;
should be:
itemNum = (es->event & ~EV_EVENT_BITS) - EV_USE_ITEM0;

This causes itemNum to be invalid about half the time, preventing any client side effect tied to the item from occurring.

There. Now I can sleep tonight :)

CliffyB Interview -- 1:44 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

sCary and the boyz at the Shugashack have slapped up an interview with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski on Unreal Tournament, what's up next for Epic, and other games based on the UT engine.

J Reviews the Meatpak -- 12:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Land o' Goshen! Yes, folks, there's some new, original content here on ye olde Haus. My fellow THoPper, J, has started doing reviews of the very best Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament maps, mods, and mutators.

In this first installment, J reviews the Quake III Arena map pack called Meatpak by Pete Parisi. Make sure to check it out! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll learn a little bit more about yourself. Or something.

Updated DE Mutators -- 9:19 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Digital Extremes has posted an updated version of their Unreal Tournament mutators (Team Beacon, Volatile Ammunition, and Volatile Weapons) that were broken as a result of the 413 patch. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 9:12 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I slapped an old Voodoo2 into my system on Wednesday to try to get some more FPS out of Unreal Tournament. It is quite a bit faster in Glide on the Voodoo2 than D3D on the TNT. The only problem is that image quality suffers on the V2 quite a bit (yes, even with both cards at 16 bit). I played a bit online yesterday and discovered that the extra FPS really make a HUGE difference in playability. I still suck at UT, but that's another issue altogether. I guess I'll stick with this combo until I can scrape the cash together for a GeForce (or find a dirt-cheap TNT2 Ultra).

Past Two Days' News

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