Sunday, April 2, 2000

Q1DM4 for UT -- 8:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Someone has made a conversion of the classic Quake 1 deathmatch map (and a personal favorite of The Master and me), Q1DM4 "The Bad Place," for Unreal Tournament. I downloaded it and checked it out. It is VERY faithful to the original, although the color scheme is now brown instead of blue. Nonetheless, it's top-notch stuff for UT fans who still smile when they think about Q1 deathmatch. You can check out Nali City's review and then download it!

Star Dudes -- 3:40 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

If you are a Star Wars fan, you'll want to see this. It's called Star Dudes on TheForce.Net. You'll need Flash 4 to view it. It's well worth the couple minutes of download time.

New Content on The Haus -- 3:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Since it is such a slow news day, let me direct you to some of the most recent new content here on The Haus, in case you missed it the first time around.

• J sent in an excellent review of the Meatpak map pack for Quake III Arena.
• I conducted an interview with Hyperion Software's Thomas Frieden about their forthcoming port of Shogo to Linux
• J.t.Qbe reviewed Freeciv, a free version of Civilization II for Unix.

Happy April Fools Day! -- 3:05 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

For the benefit of our less astute readers (Hi Carl!), all of yesterday's news items were fake, with the exception of the BitBoys and Q3Fortress blurbs. Ya know, I heard they took gullible out of the dictionary too!

Actually, today is so slow for news, I'm about ready to start making up some more headlines!

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!

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