What? No exe's?
Robotboy8
pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would make it
a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most people I
know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter! I
believe it would be nice if someone would make a "plugin" for Tads, Inform,
etc. that would export EXE files for windoze and dos, and maybe executables for
some other OS's. Even better, a creation language dedicated to NOT be
interpreted. It would make distribution easier, and testing as well.
Anyway, if anybody knows of any such programs, please post.
Richard Fairweather
Sounds like you're looking for a program along the lines of JZexe by
Magnus Olsson (which is a utility for the JZip interpreter by John
Holder). This creates MSDOS executables of Inform z-files, and can be
found in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/zip/. I have
no idea as regards a similar program for TADS, though.
Stephen Granade
> Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games.
> While I am pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF
> game, it would make it a lot easier on newbies not to have to
> download interpreters. Most people I know are quite new to IF and
> don't even know how to use an interpreter! I believe it would be
> nice if someone would make a "plugin" for Tads, Inform, etc. that
> would export EXE files for windoze and dos, and maybe executables
> for some other OS's.
These utilities already exist. You can bundle JZip with a game,
creating one single executable; TADS has had this capability for quite
some time under DOS, Windows, and MacOS.
> Even better, a creation language dedicated to NOT be interpreted.
> It would make distribution easier, and testing as well.
Not at all. With languages that target a virtual machine (which you're
calling interpreted) you have the option of distributing either the
platform-independent file or an executable; distributing .gam, .z*, or
.hex files save space on GMD and download time for those who play a
number of games and already have the interpreters. And testing is
testing, regardless of whether the language requires an
interpreter. Why go through the bother of having to tack an
interpreter on the end of your game each and every time you compile
your game to test it?
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About Interactive Fiction
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
Adam Atkinson
>Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While I am
>pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would make
>it a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most people
>I know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter!
I strongly suspect that you're a troll. However:
Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
Actually, I think it's important and useful to distinguish between
ignorance, stupidity and laziness. Ignorance, which may be the actual
problem here, can be cured. Stupidity is much rarer in my experience,
though there's plenty of laziness around. People who are lazy and/or
ignorant who _pretend_ to be stupid don't deserve any sympathy. I
don't much mind helping the genuinely stupid as they have enough
problems as it is.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
XYZZY
Aris Katsaris
Adam Atkinson <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1207.442T524T...@mistral.co.uk...
> On 11-Feb-01 17:57:44, Robotboy8 said:
> >Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While
I am
> >pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would
make
> >it a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most
people
> >I know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter!
>
> I strongly suspect that you're a troll. However:
>
> Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
Btw, I dislike PDF viewers. Disliked them the moment I knew I had to
download
one of them.
> Actually, I think it's important and useful to distinguish between
> ignorance, stupidity and laziness. Ignorance, which may be the actual
> problem here, can be cured. Stupidity is much rarer in my experience,
> though there's plenty of laziness around. People who are lazy and/or
> ignorant who _pretend_ to be stupid don't deserve any sympathy. I
> don't much mind helping the genuinely stupid as they have enough
> problems as it is.
I think that "laziness" is hardly as awful as you describe it to be. I have
pretty
much the most recent version of every interactive fiction interpreter that
exists...
but let us take the place of someone who's really not that interested in
Interactive
Fiction, of the newbie whom we want to draw in. What would you prefer to
tell him?
"Here, the game is all inside this small executable file" or "You have to
download
the gamefile and then download, unzip and install the interpreter, then run
the gamefile
through the interpreter." ?
In short for people who'd only care to play *one* game, to see how it's
like, the
interpreter has absolutely no reason of existence. It only helps to
complicate the
whole business. People who are well accustomed with the world of interactive
fiction
know the fallacy of that ofcourse. Nonetheless EXE files are still useful.
Unfortunately I don't believe there exists a utility which turns Z-machine
(or Glulx?)
gamefiles into Windows (Winfrotz for example) executables, only into DOS
executables... (which I consider to be a bit ugly btw)
Aris Katsaris
slightlytwisted
news:20010211125744...@ng-df1.aol.com...
> Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While I
am
> pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would
make it
So why don't you think anybody would buy an IF game?
--
slightlytwisted
slightl...@thekeyboard.com
http://www.ualberta.ca/~hausauer/
Alex Watson
news:966tur$f8q$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
Indeed. When I distribute my games to the (non-IF) community they're
targeted at, I provide several methods: Z-Machine file, stand-alone DOS EXE
and online play through the ZPlet. I find you reach a much bigger audience
if you don't force them to get an interpreter.
--
Alex Watson
http://www.watson1999-69.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.h2g2.com/U103477
Kevin Forchione
am
> pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would
make it
> a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most people
I
> know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter!
I find this amazing, given all the hype about today's 'wired' teens and
twentysomethings. I'd expect them to find interpreter download and install
no more daunting than setting up Napster.
>I
> believe it would be nice if someone would make a "plugin" for Tads,
Inform,
> etc. that would export EXE files for windoze and dos, and maybe
executables for
> some other OS's. Even better, a creation language dedicated to NOT be
> interpreted. It would make distribution easier, and testing as well.
>
> Anyway, if anybody knows of any such programs, please post.
TADS, by the way, allows an author to create .exe files at compile time and
is very simple to use. The reason TADS authors tend to distribute .gam
files, rather than .exe files is the same reason that java distributes
.class files: portability.
--Kevin
virtu...@lycosmail.com
As a curiosity, there exists an ultimate solution for a newbie -
an IF game sold together with a computer 8-)
http://nickm.com/if/winchester.html
(by the author of Ad Verbum, one of my favorite games :-)
--
>^.^<
|"|
" "~~~
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Marie-Line Chabanol
>
> Adam Atkinson <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:1207.442T524T...@mistral.co.uk...
>
A "newbie" point of view : I completely agree. When you are just
curious, you do not want to put a lot of energy in understanding what to
download, where to put it; you never know how many things you are going
to configure... So being able to download just one exe file is a good
thing. The first time I downloaded a game from the
IF gmd ftp archive, I had no idea what a text adventure would look like,
still less an interpreter. Moreover, there were so many games I did not
know
what to choose. So I downloaded some starter kits, ready made for
losedows 95.. Some of them also had reviews of the games, and solutions;
which
I think would be a good thing to add if you want to sell a game. After
playing
one game, I read again those paragraphs about game files, game
interpreters and so on, which at first seemed like chinese to me, and
then it was all clear (anyway, the starter kits also came with TADS and
z-interpreters...).
And now I've got Linux interpreters, and I am quite glad the .z and .gam
files
exist, and are not too big...:)
Laziness at first ? Yes, but also the fact that it is difficult to read
and learn about something which you do not know at all.
Marie-line Chabanol
hohman...@my-deja.com
Dennis G. Jerz
> >Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While
I am
> >pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would
make
> >it a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most
people
> >I know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter!
>
> I strongly suspect that you're a troll. However:
>
> Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
>
Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone who
has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
In my various classes, I introduce about 100 people per year to interactive
fiction. Scores of them blank out when they see the opening screen of
"WinFrotz" or who double-click on an ".inf" file, or who don't know that
you're supposed to click inside the ZPlet window before it will "notice"
when you press the space bar. At first, many of them have a hard time
distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
Highly motivated people, or people who enjoy technology, who have already
invested the time into learning the schema won't have a problem... but the
vast majority of human beings on the planet? Different story. My life would
be a lot easier if everyone came into my classroom already knowing
everything I was supposed to teach them... but then there wouldn't be much
demand for my job.
My electronic text students are choosing their term projects now. Two have
pretty much committed to interactive fiction, but others are not sure. I
asked, "How many of you would be willing to consider IF more seriously if
the tools were less complex?" and 2/3 of the class raised their hands. Draw
your own conclusions.
Complexity hurts comprehension. With time, we train ourselves so well that
the complexity makes sense, and thus have a difficult time seeing that
complexity; but it's still there, ready to trip up newbies.
--
Dennis G. Jerz, Ph.D.; (715)836-2431
Dept. of English; U Wisc.-Eau Claire
419 Hibbard, Eau Claire, WI 54702
------------------------------------
Literacy Weblog: www.uwec.edu/jerzdg
Matthew Russotto
Dennis G. Jerz <Jer...@uwec.edu> wrote:
>
>Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone who
>has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
>http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
He doesn't refute the idea, though, he merely contradicts it. IMO, anyone
who can't get past the simple issues involved in running a Z-machine
interpreter is unlikely to have a lot of fun with puzzle-based
interactive fiction.
>when you press the space bar. At first, many of them have a hard time
>distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
As can be determined by the people who send me mail (usually HTML or
some =20 Microsoft thing) asking about Rogue, which they've seen
running in ZPlet somewhere. Not to mention the occasional "How do I
get in to the white house?"
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Carl Muckenhoupt
>Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While I am
>Anyway, if anybody knows of any such programs, please post.
A tool for generating MS-DOS exe's (runnable under Windows) from TADS
code is distributed with the TADS compiler, or at least used to be.
There definitely exists such a tool for Z-code as well - look at
games/pc/vgame.exe for proof - but I can't seem to find it at the
Archive.
At any rate, I have a slightly different suggestion. Instead of
combining data and interpreter into a single executable, package the
data file and interpreter together in a zip, along with a Windows
shortcut (with a colorful icon) that runs the interpreter with the
data file. That way, the data can still be used under other
interpreters.
A lot of the games in games/pc are already in this form - most AGT
games are like this.
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Kevin Forchione
news:969hsg$e18$1...@wiscnews.wiscnet.net...
The same could be said for the windows interface itself. My wife had similar
stories to tell when word processors were first introduced. People had
difficulty with the concept.
> Highly motivated people, or people who enjoy technology, who have already
> invested the time into learning the schema won't have a problem... but the
> vast majority of human beings on the planet? Different story.
On the other hand, put a teen in front of a video game machine and they'll
work at it until their thumbs bleed. Funny what motivates people. >My life
would
> be a lot easier if everyone came into my classroom already knowing
> everything I was supposed to teach them... but then there wouldn't be much
> demand for my job.
>
> My electronic text students are choosing their term projects now. Two
have
> pretty much committed to interactive fiction, but others are not sure. I
> asked, "How many of you would be willing to consider IF more seriously if
> the tools were less complex?" and 2/3 of the class raised their hands.
Draw
> your own conclusions.
No, it doesn't stop there. Then you'd have to have a poll for those who find
the parser too difficult an interface, and those that find text too
difficult to read, maps too difficult to make. My conclusions are that
text-based games aren't for everyone, neither is chess.
> Complexity hurts comprehension. With time, we train ourselves so well that
> the complexity makes sense, and thus have a difficult time seeing that
> complexity; but it's still there, ready to trip up newbies.
Graphical games aren't getting any easier. They're becoming
management-oriented to a high degree (witness the FIFA games, Rainbow 6,
etc.) Complexity hurts comprehension? How many of us are still playing
tic-tac-toe? It seems to me that stretching the limits of one's
comprehension is part of the maturation process.
We've created graphical user interfaces - has computer programming become
less complex? We've created object-oriented programming, unified modelling
language, and integrated development environments. The world of IF, like
everything else, isn't getting any easier. The next generation of Inform and
TADS will involve more sophisticated model world designs and parsers, larger
libraries, and expanded language capabilities.
Yes, complexity challenges comprehension. Only mediocrity hurts it.
--Kevin
Adam Atkinson
>> Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
>> the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
>> to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
>> so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
>Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone who
>has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
I'm saying I _don't_ think people are stupid. Just lazy or ignorant.
Except in rare cases.
>In my various classes, I introduce about 100 people per year to interactive
>fiction. Scores of them blank out when they see the opening screen of
>"WinFrotz" or who double-click on an ".inf" file, or who don't know that
>you're supposed to click inside the ZPlet window before it will "notice"
>when you press the space bar.
This last example, about activating a window, is surely a "basic use
of the system" problem, isn't it? If people don't know how to move the
mouse, use menus, click and drag, etc., I'm not inclined to consider
it my problem.
>At first, many of them have a hard time
>distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
So why are PDFs and Word documents ok?
>Highly motivated people, or people who enjoy technology, who have already
>invested the time into learning the schema won't have a problem... but the
>vast majority of human beings on the planet? Different story. My life would
>be a lot easier if everyone came into my classroom already knowing
>everything I was supposed to teach them... but then there wouldn't be much
>demand for my job.
You're curing ignorance. This is fine and splendid. I recently spent
over an hour on the phone talking someone through turning on graphical
tiles in nethack. Would you expect it to take an hour to tell someone
how to open a text editor and delete one character from a text file?
Learning how to play IF (or Nethack) isn't this person's biggest
problem. They know far too little about their system to be able to do
anything with it. Are they interested in computers? Clearly not. I
don't care. If they want to start downloading and playing things, they
need to know that their computer has files on it. They need to know,
at the very least, that some of them need to be "executed" by being
double clicked (or whatever). I know a lot of people don't like the
car analogy, but I think it's perfect. How did these people ever learn
to drive? Did they say "But I'm not interested in the chemistry of
hydrocarbons, or internal combustion engine design"? I expect not.
Please note that I myself can't drive. If I ever learn, I wonder if I
should say "I want to be able to get everywhere without turning left,
changing gear, or opening the windows, because I enjoy making
capricious and arbitrary demands of people who try to help me."
Did the guy end up with tiles in his copy of nethack? Well, yes. So
mission accompished. But I had to become very very ... military.
"press this! do this!... Now read the entire text file aloud to me
until I tell you to stop. I can't hear you! Right. Press arrow keys
until (condition). Now press the delete key. Now move the mouse until
such it is over the word "file"" and so on and so on. Working out
where he'd put nethack on his machine was perhaps the longest part of
the whole process.
>My electronic text students are choosing their term projects now. Two have
>pretty much committed to interactive fiction, but others are not sure. I
>asked, "How many of you would be willing to consider IF more seriously if
>the tools were less complex?" and 2/3 of the class raised their hands. Draw
>your own conclusions.
Are they going to be writing it or playing it? There is _something_ to
learn to do when playing IF certainly. But if learning to open a game
with an interpreter is too hard (analogy: open PDF with viewer) then I
can't imagine they'd _ever_ have the patience to learn infocom command
syntax ("turtle, follow me", etc.)
>Complexity hurts comprehension. With time, we train ourselves so well that
>the complexity makes sense, and thus have a difficult time seeing that
>complexity; but it's still there, ready to trip up newbies.
So newbies have something to learn. Ignorance can be cured. Do I think
they are stupid? On the whole, no. Is using a car absolutely
immediate? I believe not. How about telephones, televisions, toasters,
microwave ovens? Likewise. People probably just forget that they ever
didn't know how to use them.
I don't know what sorts of computer games these people play (if none,
then why should IF be an exception?) but to be able to make any
reasonable use of many games you need to read manuals. Presumably,
these people would find that an imposition. Even Loom would probably
thus be too hard, not to mention Civilization, Settlers etc.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
"Let's catch that sick bird" he said, illegally.
Aris Katsaris
"Kevin Forchione" <Ke...@lysseus.com> wrote in message
news:MS3i6.89845$R5.39...@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com...
Do you then feel that the whole downloading/installing/unzipping etc process
is *part* of the Interactive Fiction experience? Then by all means, let's do
it
in every game! Please, Kevin, so as to prove your words delete Frotz (or
any other interpreter) from your hard disk once you finish a game and
install
it all over again when you begin the following one.
Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant (though
necessary) junk that have to come with it.
The complexity of a game should ideally add to the fun. The interpreter
thingies
aren't adding to it. They are useful for compatibility.
But I'd still like a
Aris Katsaris
"Kevin Forchione" <Ke...@lysseus.com> wrote in message
>
> No, it doesn't stop there. Then you'd have to have a poll for those who
find
> the parser too difficult an interface, and those that find text too
> difficult to read, maps too difficult to make. My conclusions are that
> text-based games aren't for everyone, neither is chess.
Do you then feel that the whole downloading/installing/unzipping etc process
is *part* of the Interactive Fiction experience? Then by all means, let's do
it in every game! Please, Kevin, so as to prove your words delete Frotz (or
any other interpreter) from your hard disk once you finish a game and
install it all over again when you begin the following one.
Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant (though
necessary) junk that have to come with it.
The complexity of a game should ideally add to the fun. The interpreter
thingies aren't adding to it. They are useful for compatibility. And for
nothing else.
I'd still like a utility for the creation of Win-executables
Aris Katsaris
Richard Bos
> Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant (though
> necessary) junk that have to come with it.
Not the point: the point is that people who have no problems playing a
text-based game should be intelligent enough to be up to installing a
'terp as well. It's not as if we're talking about the Solitaire crowd
here.
> I'd still like a utility for the creation of Win-executables
I wouldn't. It would lead to even more games coming out that I could
never play, because their authors didn't bother to release an all-OS,
all-systems, 'terp-file version.
Richard
Aris Katsaris
"Richard Bos" <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote in message
news:3a890a5a...@news.worldonline.nl...
> "Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>
> > Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant
(though
> > necessary) junk that have to come with it.
>
> Not the point: the point is that people who have no problems playing a
> text-based game should be intelligent enough to be up to installing a
> 'terp as well. It's not as if we're talking about the Solitaire crowd
> here.
I'm not talking about intelligence, I'm talking about interest. And time.
Someone may be interested in playing a game, but lose interest once he
gathers he has to download and install a whole interpreter.
> > I'd still like a utility for the creation of Win-executables
>
> I wouldn't. It would lead to even more games coming out that I could
> never play, because their authors didn't bother to release an all-OS,
> all-systems, 'terp-file version.
I don't think so, since the z5 (or glulx) gamefile would be a necessary step
in between. TADS already has such a utility I believe. And DOS executables
do exist and have been released. I don't think that anyone who releases
this executables has been fool enough not to release the .gam or the .z5
gamefile.
Aris Katsaris
Adam Cadre
> I'd still like a utility for the creation of Win-executables
Richard Bos replied:
> I wouldn't. It would lead to even more games coming out that I could
> never play, because their authors didn't bother to release an all-OS,
> all-systems, 'terp-file version.
Do you really think that authors are going to compile their games to,
say, a .z5, bundle them with a terp to create a Windows executable --
and then, rather than releasing both versions, toss the .z5 in the
trash and release *just* the Windows version?
There are already utilities to make Mac executables of IF works. Seen
a lot of Mac-only IF games announced around here lately?
For what it's worth, I've offered my games on my site both as DOS
executables (using JZEXE at first and more recently using Ross
Raszewski's Bundle-O-Monkey) and as zipped z-code files. The EXEs
are universally more popular. The ratio of EXE downloads to z-code
downloads over the course of the past six weeks:
Shrapnel: 1.5 to 1
9:05: 2.2 to 1
Photopia: 2.2 to 1
I-0: 2.3 to 1
Varicella: 4.5 to 1
Textfire Golf: 39.8 to 1
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Magnus Olsson
Richard Bos <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote:
>"Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>
>> Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant (though
>> necessary) junk that have to come with it.
>
>Not the point: the point is that people who have no problems playing a
>text-based game should be intelligent enough to be up to installing a
>'terp as well. It's not as if we're talking about the Solitaire crowd
>here.
Without doubt, they *are* intelligent enough. It's just a matter
of how much energy they're willing to invest in order to try out this
strange thing called "IF" (Note that we're talking about the people
who have never played an IF game before).
Call it laziness if you like; in that case, I do believe that people
*are* inherently lazy (in that sense).
Of course, if you don't want "lazy" people to play your games, then
that's your choice. I think you will lose some audience in that case.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Magnus Olsson
Kevin Forchione <Ke...@lysseus.com> wrote:
>"Robotboy8" <robo...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20010211125744...@ng-df1.aol.com...
>> Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games. While I
>am
>> pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it would
>make it
>> a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most people
>I
>> know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an interpreter!
>
>I find this amazing, given all the hype about today's 'wired' teens and
>twentysomethings. I'd expect them to find interpreter download and install
>no more daunting than setting up Napster.
The IF audience is much, much larger than the set of "'wired' teens and
twnetysomethings".
Branko Collin
wrote:
>Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone who
>has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
>http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
JN invariously writes about reaching your audience. He is in the
business of making sure that you reach as many members of your
audience as possible.
>In my various classes,
Ah, but there you go. Your classes is not why authors write IF. You
are trying to apply an interface to a group that that interface was
not designed for, and now you are saying that that is the fault of the
interface.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Branko Collin
What would be really cool is a webbased tool with which you can
indicate what platform you are going to use the game in, before
downloading the game. Such a tool does not make the server much
slower, it just takes 'some' time to program it, and you need lots of
disk space for caching (basically for caching the Windows files).
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Branko Collin
wrote:
>Are they going to be writing it or playing it? There is _something_ to
>learn to do when playing IF certainly. But if learning to open a game
>with an interpreter is too hard (analogy: open PDF with viewer) then I
>can't imagine they'd _ever_ have the patience to learn infocom command
>syntax ("turtle, follow me", etc.)
The fact that people do not mind having to learn how to open a PDF
file, but do mind having to learn other things, is an indication of
something. I do not know of what, but I do know it is important in any
discussion about learning interfaces.
>Civilization, Settlers etc.
Hey! I need to get work done today. Don't mention the drugs!
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Branko Collin
<kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>Someone may be interested in playing a game, but lose interest once he
>gathers he has to download and install a whole interpreter.
Then again, they may not. I have pointed a fair amount of people who
had forgotten about text adventures to the IF Archive, and none of
them had trouble finding and downloading both the game files and the
interpreters.
The problem is, as with most sentences starting with 'I', is that we
cannot draw any conclusions from personal experience other than that
something has occurred or something has not. We have no statistical
evidence that large groups of people turn away from IF the minute they
find out that they have to download two files rather than one to play
a game.
Even if we had that evidence, it still would not tell us much. What if
that same group stops playing IF for ever five minutes after they ran
their comfortable executables?
For the record: I agree with you that the tools you ask for should
exist. Of course, if _you_ feel that itch, it is _you_ that should
start scratching.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Gunther Schmidl
> car analogy, but I think it's perfect. How did these people ever learn
> to drive? Did they say "But I'm not interested in the chemistry of
> hydrocarbons, or internal combustion engine design"? I expect not.
Sorry, but knowing chemistry or engine design has nothing at all to do with
being able to drive. It allows you to _fix_ the car (or more likely, not)
when something's wrong, but you can drive without knowing much about this.
Personally, I don't give a damn how a car works beyond the crude details
(blah blah gasoline-air blah blah ignition blah blah cylinders blah blah).
Driving a car is simply a number of pre-learned, now automated tasks - you
don't think when you switch gears or turn the wheel to take a curve, or
you'd go mad.
Same thing with computers. You want to use them, you don't need to know how
they work. You want to get under the hood, things get icky.
And they get a _lot_ ickier than cars do, because at least cars all have a
motor, a gas tank, a windshield wiper etc. Computers can have literally
gazillions [1] of combinations of hard- and software components, and thus
are nowhere comparable with a car.
-- Gunther
[1] Ok, so it's not literal, but who cares? [2]
[2] I don't.
Kaia Vintr
>The fact that people do not mind having to learn how to open a PDF
>file, but do mind having to learn other things, is an indication of
>something. I do not know of what, but I do know it is important in any
>discussion about learning interfaces.
Just call your game file "AnnaKournikova.jpg.z5" and people will have no
trouble opening it.
- Kaia
------------------------
"The patterned anthurid moves cryptically through algae and sponges just
subtidally."
Dennis G. Jerz
> > Complexity hurts comprehension. With time, we train ourselves so well
that
> > the complexity makes sense, and thus have a difficult time seeing that
> > complexity; but it's still there, ready to trip up newbies.
>
> Graphical games aren't getting any easier. They're becoming
> management-oriented to a high degree (witness the FIFA games, Rainbow 6,
> etc.) Complexity hurts comprehension? How many of us are still playing
> tic-tac-toe?
Estimate for yourself: http://www.google.com/search?q=tic-tac-toe
It seems to me that stretching the limits of one's
> comprehension is part of the maturation process.
True... but if by "how many of us" you mean "how many people who frequent
interactive fiction newsgroups", then you are talking about a highly
specialized group, not about newbies (who stand to lose the most from a
steep learning curve, and to gain the most from a gentle one). If I wished
to introduce a non-expert to tic-tac-toe, I'd be able to do it much more
easily.
> We've created graphical user interfaces - has computer programming become
> less complex?
Not all programmers are trained in graphical design standards, or in
communicating to average people. Hence, you have to shut off your Windows
machine by clicking on the "Start" button, and you have to retrieve your
precious disk of files from a Mac by dragging it into a trash can. In a
world where everyone has enough time and enough motivation, you *could* be
right. There are more ways to be "mediocre" in a game than to lack
complexity. Further, I was speaking in support of what I thought was a
reasonable comment about the usefulness of bundled game-and-interpreter
packages.
I remember reading somewhere that, despite how much faster computers are
nowadays, the boot-up time has remained more or less constant. Faster
computers are expected to do more. The bigger a hard drive you get, the
more you dump on it, and the more bloated each software package becomes.
We've created object-oriented programming, unified modelling
> language, and integrated development environments.
But most people on the planet aren't computer programming experts.
*Programming* is not "easier" -- in part because today's programmers are
writing for a more general audience, since more non-experts are using
computers; but using a computer -- and playing interactive fiction -- is
much easier today than in the days when you had to sneak into the building
after hours and tap away at a mainframe terminal.
The world of IF, like
> everything else, isn't getting any easier.
See _Why Things Bite Back : Technology and the Revenge of Unintended
Consequences_, by Edward Tenner
The next generation of Inform and
> TADS will involve more sophisticated model world designs and parsers,
larger
> libraries, and expanded language capabilities.
>
> Yes, complexity challenges comprehension. Only mediocrity hurts it.
In the Ivory Tower of education, where people are sometimes forced by their
professors to do things the hard way so that they will learn, you *should*
be right. But in their daily lives, most people are like electrons -- they
follow the path of least resistance.
But I don't see mediocrity as the opposite of, nor the lack of, complexity.
That would suggest a sliding scale of "simplicity" -> "mediocrity" ->
"complexity." I was, of course, speaking of the interface -- and of the
"fiddliness" of having to juggle multiple files to play a game -- not of the
games themselves.
I'm reminded of an old "The Far Side" cartoon, that had a picture of a store
with items on a single row of shelves, far out of the reach of customers...
the title was "Inconvenience Stores." No matter how good the merchandise is,
the inconvenient display is going to cut down on the sales. The British
Library (so I am told) is famous for requiring visitors to bring a written
letter of introduction from an approved source, before the visitor is
permitted to handle the materials. The books in the British Library are no
more or no less complex than the same book if it were sitting on a shelf
right beside my monitor; but the complexity of the interface -- the
mediation -- between the book and me is very different in both situations.
Since the British Library has books that are of great value to experts,
experts are willing to learn that complex interface.
But again, non-experts will tend to confuse the game and the interpreter. I
agree that more complex stories, more sophisticated parsers, etc., are all
worth the effort that authors put into them. But the Internet didn't become
a global social phenomenon until graphical browsers made hypertext (and
other things) available to the nonspecialist -- and there are many, many
more nonspecialists than specialists. I have no delusions that IF will ever
sweep the globe, of course, but I do hope that modifying Zplet so that it
permits some kind of save/load game procedure will greatly simplify what
it's like to "use" a game.
BTW, Graham Nelson's history of IF has an excellent discussion of how
newsgroups, Infocom's release of the IF CD's, the ftp archives, were all in
place just before the World Wide Web exploded into mainstream public
consciousness in 1993...
http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/inform/short.html#part4 -- and yes, I'm aware
that in that section he argues that the WWW is NOT as important to IF as FTP
& newsgroups (at least, during the "rebirth" of IF in the mid 90s).
I'm thinking of all this because I'm in the middle of preparing my files for
an annual performance review... I have to explain to a committee of
non-technical people what I'm trying to accomplish with the Zplet revision,
various articles on my IF website, my efforts to teach IF programming to my
students, and dozens of other online projects that have nothing to do with
IF. Most of those professors have probably never tried downloading and
installing a computer program on their office machines. Just as I don't
know the foggiest thing about how a VCR works or how the engine in my car
works, and I have no desire to learn, some of my colleagues simply don't
feel that there are any personal or professional benefits to working with
computers (beyond word processing and e-mail, but even then, when I started
working here there were some professors who had never used e-mail). Are my
colleagues stupid? Of course not -- they are experts in other areas -- and
darn good ones.
Dennis G. Jerz
"Adam Cadre" <a...@adamcadre.ac> wrote in message
news:3A8911...@adamcadre.ac...
>
...The ratio of EXE downloads to z-code
> downloads over the course of the past six weeks:
>
> Shrapnel: 1.5 to 1
> 9:05: 2.2 to 1
> Photopia: 2.2 to 1
> I-0: 2.3 to 1
> Varicella: 4.5 to 1
> Textfire Golf: 39.8 to 1
If we factored in hits to Zplet versions, what would we get? We can't be
sure that anyone who visited a Zplet page actually stuck around and played,
just as we can't be sure that anyone who downloaded a stand-alone
interpreter actually used it.
Neil Cerutti
>I remember reading somewhere that, despite how much faster
>computers are nowadays, the boot-up time has remained more or
>less constant. Faster computers are expected to do more. The
>bigger a hard drive you get, the more you dump on it, and the
>more bloated each software package becomes.
It's just like playing an RPG computer game. Your characters get
stronger and stronger and, if it's designed properly, so do your
character's opponents.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@together.net>
"If you're gonna score 125 points in a game, you've only got to
play good enough defense to hold the other team to 124. How
the hell hard is that?" -- Red Auerbach
Kevin Forchione
news:96at5g$16lg$1...@ulysses.noc.ntua.gr...
>
> "Kevin Forchione" <Ke...@lysseus.com> wrote in message
>
> >
> > No, it doesn't stop there. Then you'd have to have a poll for those who
> find
> > the parser too difficult an interface, and those that find text too
> > difficult to read, maps too difficult to make. My conclusions are that
> > text-based games aren't for everyone, neither is chess.
>
> Do you then feel that the whole downloading/installing/unzipping etc
process
> is *part* of the Interactive Fiction experience? Then by all means, let's
do
> it in every game! Please, Kevin, so as to prove your words delete Frotz
(or
> any other interpreter) from your hard disk once you finish a game and
> install it all over again when you begin the following one.
Don't let's be silly. Implementing an interpreter, such as that for TADS, is
a one time deal, and as easy as double-clicking on an .exe, pressing a
couple of <next>s and a <finish>. Nothing more involved than implementing
Dungeon Keeper was. I don't reload DK every time I play it!
> Don't confuse the operations of the game itself with the irrelevant
(though
> necessary) junk that have to come with it.
>
> The complexity of a game should ideally add to the fun. The interpreter
> thingies aren't adding to it. They are useful for compatibility. And for
> nothing else.
>
> I'd still like a utility for the creation of Win-executables
This is a valid request. Although TADS authors do have the ability to create
them at compile time, there might be a utility that could bundle the .gam
and .z files at download for users who want them.
--Kevin
Dennis G. Jerz
> On 12-Feb-01 20:42:56, Dennis G. Jerz said:
>
> >> Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> >> the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> >> to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> >> so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
>
> >Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone
who
> >has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
>
> I'm saying I _don't_ think people are stupid. Just lazy or ignorant.
> Except in rare cases.
>
> >In my various classes, I introduce about 100 people per year to
interactive
> >fiction. Scores of them blank out when they see the opening screen of
> >"WinFrotz" or who double-click on an ".inf" file, or who don't know that
> >you're supposed to click inside the ZPlet window before it will "notice"
> >when you press the space bar.
>
> This last example, about activating a window, is surely a "basic use
> of the system" problem, isn't it? If people don't know how to move the
> mouse, use menus, click and drag, etc., I'm not inclined to consider
> it my problem.
You're right that it's a basic use problem... but rather than fold your arms
and sniff at ignorance, why not do what Adam Newbold recently did, and
suggest that ZPlet be modified to print a "loading applet" message or a
status bar? If that message also said "click here," then far fewer people
would be put off by a blank Java window. I sometimes marvel at people who
don't see how easy it can be to solve an interface problem. (This goes back
to my earlier statement about how we train ourselves so well to handle
complexity that we no longer see it, and we expect everyone else to put in
the same kind of energy learnign the system.)
>
> >At first, many of them have a hard time
> >distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
>
> So why are PDFs and Word documents ok?
IMHO, they aren't. Of course, if you absolutely need the special
capabalities of those formats, then it is fine, and if the user is supposed
to use the document in that alternative form (like Roger Firth's excellent
Inform PDF cheat sheets, which are designed to be downloaded and printed
out), then the web is a great file transfer medium But Google only recently
started searching the content of text versions of PDF documents, and I don't
think any search engine looks through Word files; so, you are going to bury
your content if you put it in PDF or Word.
But if you were really ignorant, those wouldn't be capricious or arbitrary
demands. Those would be ignorant demands.
>
> Did the guy end up with tiles in his copy of nethack? Well, yes. So
> mission accompished. But I had to become very very ... military.
> "press this! do this!... Now read the entire text file aloud to me
> until I tell you to stop. I can't hear you! Right. Press arrow keys
> until (condition). Now press the delete key. Now move the mouse until
> such it is over the word "file"" and so on and so on. Working out
> where he'd put nethack on his machine was perhaps the longest part of
> the whole process.
>
> >My electronic text students are choosing their term projects now. Two
have
> >pretty much committed to interactive fiction, but others are not sure. I
> >asked, "How many of you would be willing to consider IF more seriously if
> >the tools were less complex?" and 2/3 of the class raised their hands.
Draw
> >your own conclusions.
>
> Are they going to be writing it or playing it?
Writing.
There is _something_ to
> learn to do when playing IF certainly. But if learning to open a game
> with an interpreter is too hard (analogy: open PDF with viewer) then I
> can't imagine they'd _ever_ have the patience to learn infocom command
> syntax ("turtle, follow me", etc.)
I've found that it's a relatively simple matter to tell students in an
advanced English class how to phrase their commands. I also introduce them
to Adventure on a page that has a set of instructions available in the
left-hand frame, while ZPlet runs on the right.
http://www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/IF/online/adventure/index.html
I am trying to make it easy for newbies to learn, which is altogether a
different thing than barking out orders (although the latter is often
useful!).
>
> >Complexity hurts comprehension. With time, we train ourselves so well
that
> >the complexity makes sense, and thus have a difficult time seeing that
> >complexity; but it's still there, ready to trip up newbies.
>
> So newbies have something to learn. Ignorance can be cured. Do I think
> they are stupid? On the whole, no. Is using a car absolutely
> immediate? I believe not. How about telephones, televisions, toasters,
> microwave ovens? Likewise. People probably just forget that they ever
> didn't know how to use them.
Excellent point. My son turned three today... he used to pretend to punch
numbers on an imaginary microwave, and then a minute or two later he would
shout "ding!" We finally got him a toy kitchen, and he already knew what he
was supposed to do with all the gadgets, since he had watched us.
Every term, I ask my freshman comp students about their first experience
using a word processor, and at least a third of them say they can't
remember.
But... what do you think is the percentage of readers on this newsgroup who
could actually make a fire? (In the real world, not in a simulation.)
>
> I don't know what sorts of computer games these people play (if none,
> then why should IF be an exception?) but to be able to make any
> reasonable use of many games you need to read manuals. Presumably,
> these people would find that an imposition. Even Loom would probably
> thus be too hard, not to mention Civilization, Settlers etc.
True, but many of these games do have playable tutorials, or on-screen tips.
But to play these games, you pop in the CD and follow the directions.
You've already made the decision to buy the CD, so you're already motivated
to play it.
Magnus Olsson
>news:5003.444T1957...@mistral.co.uk...
>> On 12-Feb-01 20:42:56, Dennis G. Jerz said:
>> >At first, many of them have a hard time
>> >distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
>>
>> So why are PDFs and Word documents ok?
>
>IMHO, they aren't.
I think the PDF argument bites exactly the other way from what Adam
intended, if you consider that most of the big web sites that offer
PDF documents feel obliged to put up explanatory text about how you
need an Acrobat reader to read these documents, how to obtain one,
and how to install it. This, IMHO, makes it fairly obvious that you
can't expect the general user to be perfectly comfortable with PDF
files. And how many non-computer-literate visitors to these sites
just skip the PDF documents, because they are put off by all these
instructions?
Dennis G. Jerz
news:3a891959...@news.xs4all.nl...
> On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 14:42:56 -0600, "Dennis G. Jerz" <Jer...@uwec.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >Jakob Nielsen recently wrote a column about the false notion that anyone
who
> >has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
> >http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
>
> JN invariously writes about reaching your audience. He is in the
> business of making sure that you reach as many members of your
> audience as possible.
>
> >In my various classes,
>
> Ah, but there you go. Your classes is not why authors write IF.
The best authors in any genre probably write only for themselves. But we
have to teach SOMETHING in our classrooms, no matter what the subject --
right? Only textbook authors write speficially classes.
You
> are trying to apply an interface to a group that that interface was
> not designed for, and now you are saying that that is the fault of the
> interface.
No, I was supporting a post that mentioned the value of .exe files.
Further, I was presenting first-hand observation of what happens when a
group of newbies confront IF. A few have already turned into authors; others
may become fans. All have at least been exposed to the genre. When I teach
drama, or novels, or poetry to newbies, a few will turn into authors, others
will become fans, and all will have been exposed to the genre. I do have to
teach students how to read an interpret a playsrcipt, or what to value in a
poem -- the artistic content is mediated by the poet, publisher, editor, and
me. But if you put the books up on a high shelf and gave the students
instructions for how to build a ladder to get them, then many students who
would benefit from the contents of the books wouldn't bother to reach
them -- possibly because they are lazy, but possibly because they are just
no good with a hammer and saw.
Carl Muckenhoupt
wrote:
>The fact that people do not mind having to learn how to open a PDF
>file, but do mind having to learn other things, is an indication of
>something. I do not know of what, but I do know it is important in any
>discussion about learning interfaces.
Possibly it's a matter of what is perceived as "program" and what is
perceived as "data". Of course, there's no real distinction between
program and data on a Von Neumann machine: they're both just bits in
memory. But there is a perceived difference. Computer users
generally understand that you can't use data without some sort of
program, but it's less obvious why you can't use a program without
another program.
Martin Julian DeMello
> Possibly it's a matter of what is perceived as "program" and what is
> perceived as "data". Of course, there's no real distinction between
> program and data on a Von Neumann machine: they're both just bits in
> memory. But there is a perceived difference. Computer users
> generally understand that you can't use data without some sort of
> program, but it's less obvious why you can't use a program without
> another program.
Rem acu tetigisti. I wonder if arcade machine emulators run into the same
problem, or whether your average arcade game enthusiast is willing to
undergo the higher entry barrier.
Something that might be managed with some sort of serverside program is to
have to download links, one for the game file and one for an installer. The
installer would download, unpack the terp (possibly checking for an existing
one), and then download the game file from the archive (the server side
script would be needed to essentially serve up the same executable
installer, and append a varying URL to it, so it gets the right file). That
way you could package the terp with every game, and yet have just one copy
of it on your ftp server. (You could also try generating zipfiles on the fly
when - dunno if that would be more efficient than passing in a url and
having a two stage download). Heck - with a little bit of trust you could
even set a cookie and have the terp installer read that.
After the game is installed, of course, you need merely click the game file
and the terp will load itself transparently and play it.
--
Martin DeMello
Adam Atkinson
>> I know a lot of people don't like the
>> car analogy, but I think it's perfect. How did these people ever learn
>> to drive? Did they say "But I'm not interested in the chemistry of
>> hydrocarbons, or internal combustion engine design"? I expect not.
>Sorry, but knowing chemistry or engine design has nothing at all to do with
>being able to drive.
I know. This is my point. People's objections re: computers are
similarly equally silly. "I won't use a word processor because I'm not
interested in computers." etc.
I should perhaps also have said that silly
objections aside, it seems to me that even learning the minimum to
drive a car would appear to take quite a while and yet people don't
seem to mind. Following explicit instructions for installing Frotz
takes a few minutes, and you don't need to understand them, just
follow them. I'm capable of following instructions I don't understand
in readmes. I can type "make; make install" without knowing anything
about makefiles. I cannot believe there are many people not in need of
24 hour medical care who are incapable of doing the same.And "I can't
be bothered to type "make; make install" doesn't make any more sense.
It takes longer to say you can't be bothered to do it than it does to
type the damned thing.
>It allows you to _fix_ the car (or more likely, not)
>when something's wrong, but you can drive without knowing much about this.
Similarly, you can use computers without knowing much about them.
Which is why I use this example.
>Personally, I don't give a damn how a car works beyond the crude details
>(blah blah gasoline-air blah blah ignition blah blah cylinders blah blah).
>Driving a car is simply a number of pre-learned, now automated tasks - you
>don't think when you switch gears or turn the wheel to take a curve, or
>you'd go mad.
Sure.
>Same thing with computers. You want to use them, you don't need to know how
>they work. You want to get under the hood, things get icky.
Sure.
I think you missed the point of my example.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Please, call me Robert. It sounds so much more substantial.
(AVPP)
Adam Atkinson
>>> So why are PDFs and Word documents ok?
>>
>>IMHO, they aren't.
>I think the PDF argument bites exactly the other way from what Adam
>intended, if you consider that most of the big web sites that offer
>PDF documents feel obliged to put up explanatory text about how you
>need an Acrobat reader to read these documents, how to obtain one,
>and how to install it.
Not at all. I have no objection to providing instructions. On pages
where I have postscript files, I have a link to the ghostscript site.
For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
executables with incorporated PDF displayers. Perhaps I should start
making text files available for download as self-extracting
executables with built-in copies of "more".
> This, IMHO, makes it fairly obvious that you
>can't expect the general user to be perfectly comfortable with PDF
>files.
It suggests that these sites imagine that giving people instructions
is possible, rather than giving up completely and giving them a new
PDF reader with every document.
Adam Atkinson
>>Civilization, Settlers etc.
>Hey! I need to get work done today. Don't mention the drugs!
I found the Settlers manual a bit of a struggle. Civilization and
Railroad Tycoon seemed much easier to follow.
Joshua E Millard
>> [car analogy stuff]
>
>Same thing with computers. You want to use them, you don't need to know how
>they work. You want to get under the hood, things get icky.
But, see, there's the matter of deciding what "usable" is -- where do you
draw the line between basic utility and unnecessary ickiness?
Someone could, in theory, go about using their computer without having any
knowledge or understanding of files and directory structures. A whole lot
of people do, in fact. I do not consider knowledge of files and
directories to be "advanced" knowledge, though; it should most definitely
be something that a computer user groks.
This is something that *anyone* who's done tech support (professional or
otherwise) will recognize. When someone hasn't a clue what those icons on
their desktop represent (other than That Program I Use), expecting them to
manipulate their files is a frustrating and time-consuming endeavor.
People who draw a blank at the phrase "root directory" are in for a world
of hurt when they have to move files around or locate something manually.
Files and directory structure, basic GUI use, simple observation skills,
understanding of "left-click" and "right-click" and other minimal
interface skills -- these are not the internal combustion theory. These
are pedals and blinkers and a steering wheel. If the way a lot of folks
use computers has to have an analogy to vehicles, we're dealing with a car
that drives itself between a limited number of destinations whilst the
"driver" sits back and assumes everything will be all right.
--
+---+ With great effort, you move the boulder. ################
|..$| # Josh Millard #
|.@'.##########################################################
|<d.| # pu...@wpi.edu # www.wpi.edu/~pulp - music, words, etc #
+---+ ########################################################
Dennis G. Jerz
news:anson-F53338....@news.efortress.com...
> My first three computers booted instantly, from ROM. In that sense, things
> have gone downhill. But even among contemporary computers, boot times vary
> considerably.
True. My laptop has a "sleep" mode, and my palm pilot pops up instantly.
Your last statement is dependent on individual habit and
> preference. It is not true that all modern software is bloated, nor do
large
> hard drives magically compel their owners to fill them. Perhaps there
should
> be a treatment program for people with "file addiction"?
>
There is -- it's called a hard drive crash. ;)
Lucian P. Smith
: But Google only recently
: started searching the content of text versions of PDF documents, and I don't
: think any search engine looks through Word files; so, you are going to bury
: your content if you put it in PDF or Word.
Hey, there's an idea! Let's petition Google to search the textual content
of .z5 and .z8 files!
-Lucian
(Note: The post has no point)
Gunther Schmidl
Apparently.
-- Gunther
Jonathan Rosebaugh
: I find this amazing, given all the hype about today's 'wired' teens and
: twentysomethings. I'd expect them to find interpreter download and install
: no more daunting than setting up Napster.
You have obviously never had one of "today's wired teens" come up to you and
beg you to "fix their Napster because it's broke again".
Today's teens don't know anything.
Magnus Olsson
Adam Atkinson <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote:
>On 13-Feb-01 15:56:56, Magnus Olsson said:
>For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
>routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
>executables with incorporated PDF displayers. Perhaps I should start
>making text files available for download as self-extracting
>executables with built-in copies of "more".
This is not as ridiculous as it sounds - I distinctly remember
software distributions where there was a *program* called readme.com
which displayed the readme file - so obviously the software publishers
didn't want to bother people with finding a way to display a text
file.
>> This, IMHO, makes it fairly obvious that you
>>can't expect the general user to be perfectly comfortable with PDF
>>files.
>
>It suggests that these sites imagine that giving people instructions
>is possible, rather than giving up completely and giving them a new
>PDF reader with every document.
Well, giving instructions is perfectly possible. It's not ideal on
the web, though, where people literally expect to be able to see
any information just by clicking on a link.
I actually think that if PDF readers were as small as Z-code
interpreters, we *would* see documents distributed as an integral
reader+text application. Not as a self-extracting archive file, but
simply as an executable.
Conversely, if all IF were distributed on web pages with space for
instructions and links to download interpreters, etc, etc, there
would be less need for integrated executables. But most IF isn't
distributed that way - at least not yet.
Adam Atkinson
>> I think you missed the point of my example.
>Apparently.
To be fair, the "bizarre objections" problem is much less noticeable
than it was 10-15 years ago.
The "driving isn't immediate" aspect is still applicable, though.
Adam Atkinson
>: I should perhaps also have said that silly
>: objections aside, it seems to me that even learning the minimum to
>: drive a car would appear to take quite a while and yet people don't
>: seem to mind.
>In other words, more people want to drive than want to play TADS games. I
>thank you for this valuable revelation.
How many seconds does it take to read a readme and install Frotz? How long
does it take to learn to drive? (I don't know the answer to the latter,
of course)
>Anson, who did, in fact, mind.
One of my main reasons for not learning to drive is the way it's been
presented as inevitable that I should.
Adam Atkinson
>>For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
>>routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
>>executables with incorporated PDF displayers. Perhaps I should start
>>making text files available for download as self-extracting
>>executables with built-in copies of "more".
>This is not as ridiculous as it sounds - I distinctly remember
>software distributions where there was a *program* called readme.com
>which displayed the readme file - so obviously the software publishers
>didn't want to bother people with finding a way to display a text
>file.
How do you make people run the readme.com? I come across people who
download things and then don't know where they've put them. (They ask
me. How should _I_ know?) They don't know about double-clicking things
to run them. They certainly won't have enough initiative to notice
that something's called "readme" and do anything about it.
I seem to recall that there's some special filename (".displayme"?)
that makes lha output the contents of this file to stdout whilst it's
uncompressing everything else normally. That's not such a terrible
idea, I suppose.
>Well, giving instructions is perfectly possible. It's not ideal on
>the web, though, where people literally expect to be able to see
>any information just by clicking on a link.
I don't much like PDF as a way of doing things. It just seems that
their widespread use suggests that the general population doesn't
suffer from the vapours as much as some people want to believe.
>I actually think that if PDF readers were as small as Z-code
>interpreters, we *would* see documents distributed as an integral
>reader+text application. Not as a self-extracting archive file, but
>simply as an executable.
Executable self-extracting zip files are enough of a curse. Grr.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Libri e altro per matematici piu' o meno ricreativi:
http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/recmathslibri.html
Branko Collin
wrote:
>> You are trying to apply an interface to a group that that
>> interface was not designed for, and now you are saying that
>> that is the fault of the interface.
>
>No, I was supporting a post that mentioned the value of .exe files.
OK, I support that post too. There probably is such a value.
>Further, I was presenting first-hand observation of what happens when a
>group of newbies confront IF. A few have already turned into authors; others
>may become fans.
There is no telling, though, what would have happened if the newbies
had it a little harder.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Adam Atkinson
>: How many seconds does it take to read a readme and install Frotz? How long
>: does it take to learn to drive? (I don't know the answer to the latter,
>: of course)
>:
>: One of my main reasons for not learning to drive is the way it's been
>: presented as inevitable that I should.
>Okay, let me see if I've got this right. It's senseless to argue that
>executables should be distributed because "people don't seem to mind"
>learning to drive, which takes more time and effort than obtaining and
>learning to use an interpreter.
Yes.
>Except you, because you refuse to. Uh-huh.
I am led to understand that driving is a common skill, which takes
non-trivial amounts of time to acquire. So the universal laziness
phenomenon can't be quite as described.
I cannot drive. I am led to understand that this is uncommon in
someone of my age in a Western country. My reasons for not driving may
or may not be irrelevant, but for the record I'm mostly curious to see
what terrible fate will befall me.
>Gotcha. Point well taken.
I think the first of the above paragraphs is reasonable. Why isn't it?
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
British Go Association: http://www.britgo.org/
David Glasser
> Do you really think that authors are going to compile their games to,
> say, a .z5, bundle them with a terp to create a Windows executable --
> and then, rather than releasing both versions, toss the .z5 in the
> trash and release *just* the Windows version?
This is exactly what Activision did when they put the Zork games on
their website.
> There are already utilities to make Mac executables of IF works. Seen
> a lot of Mac-only IF games announced around here lately?
MacWesleyan!
> For what it's worth, I've offered my games on my site both as DOS
> executables (using JZEXE at first and more recently using Ross
> Raszewski's Bundle-O-Monkey) and as zipped z-code files.
My opinion: it's a great idea to do this for your own website, but it's
a waste on GMD.
--
David Glasser
ne...@davidglasser.net http://www.davidglasser.net/
rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ: http://www.davidglasser.net/raiffaq/
Kaia Vintr
>: Just call your game file "AnnaKournikova.jpg.z5" and people will have no
>: trouble opening it.
>
>And your definition of "people" is..?
The dead-end users. The un-defragmented masses. The fools we aren't proof
from. Y'know, *them*.
Isn't this in the FAQ?
Bennett Standeven
> "Dennis G. Jerz" <Jer...@uwec.edu> wrote in message
> news:969hsg$e18$1...@wiscnews.wiscnet.net...> > news:1207.442T524T...@mistral.co.uk...
> > > On 11-Feb-01 17:57:44, Robotboy8 said:
> > > >Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games.
> While
> > I am
> > > >pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF game, it
would
> > make
> > > >it a lot easier on newbies not to have to download interpreters. Most
> > people
> > > >I know are quite new to IF and don't even know how to use an
> interpreter!
> > >
> > > I strongly suspect that you're a troll. However:
> > >
> > > Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> > > the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> > > to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> > > so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
> > >
> >
> >
> who
> > has problems with a particular interface is stupid.
> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html
> >
> interactive
> > fiction. Scores of them blank out when they see the opening screen of
> > "WinFrotz" or who double-click on an ".inf" file, or who don't know that
> > you're supposed to click inside the ZPlet window before it will "notice"
> > distinguishing between the game and the interpreter.
>
similar
> stories to tell when word processors were first introduced. People had
> difficulty with the concept.
>
Obviously the same people, since any Windows guru knows that one can only
type text into the active window, and that if double-clicking on a file
doesn't open it, it means you don't have the relevant program.
> > Highly motivated people, or people who enjoy technology, who have
already
> > invested the time into learning the schema won't have a problem... but
the
> > vast majority of human beings on the planet? Different story.
>
> On the other hand, put a teen in front of a video game machine and they'll
> work at it until their thumbs bleed. Funny what motivates people.
Other hand? I bet they'd be happy to play a Zork machine until they figure
everything out (if there were any such things, of course...)
Bennett Standeven
> On 13-Feb-01 15:56:56, Magnus Olsson said:
>
> >>> So why are PDFs and Word documents ok?
> >>
> >>IMHO, they aren't.
>
> >I think the PDF argument bites exactly the other way from what Adam
> >intended, if you consider that most of the big web sites that offer
> >PDF documents feel obliged to put up explanatory text about how you
> >need an Acrobat reader to read these documents, how to obtain one,
> >and how to install it.
>
> Not at all. I have no objection to providing instructions. On pages
> where I have postscript files, I have a link to the ghostscript site.
>
> For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
> routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
> executables with incorporated PDF displayers.
What makes you think it isn't? Of course, most of the common web browsers
automatically launch a PDF reader whenever they see a PDF file, which is
the same sort of thing.
> Perhaps I should start
> making text files available for download as self-extracting
> executables with built-in copies of "more".
I've seen that sort of thing too, though never with a stand-alone text file
(Unless you count the "Interactive List of Adventure Games" files, of
course.)
Bennett Standeven
> On 13-Feb-01 22:02:02, Magnus Olsson said:
>
> >>For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
> >>routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
> >>executables with incorporated PDF displayers. Perhaps I should start
> >>making text files available for download as self-extracting
> >>executables with built-in copies of "more".
>
> >This is not as ridiculous as it sounds - I distinctly remember
> >software distributions where there was a *program* called readme.com
> >which displayed the readme file - so obviously the software publishers
> >didn't want to bother people with finding a way to display a text
> >file.
>
> How do you make people run the readme.com?
Usually, by running it from the install program. (Just like today...)
> I come across people who
> download things and then don't know where they've put them. (They ask
> me. How should _I_ know?) They don't know about double-clicking things
> to run them. They certainly won't have enough initiative to notice
> that something's called "readme" and do anything about it.
It was a lot more common in the early 90s, as I recall. Back then,
a much larger fraction of users would have found "readme"s
comprehensible.
Bennett Standeven
"Jonathan Rosebaugh" <ros...@krypton.mankato.msus.edu> wrote in message
news:96cal3$26h$1...@nitrogen.mankato.msus.edu...
And as for the "wired twentysomethings", they're us...
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> > Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> > the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> > to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> > so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
>
> Btw, I dislike PDF viewers. Disliked them the moment I knew I had to
> download one of them.
I hate unPortable Document Format too, but that's entirely different.
PDF viewers are a lot bulkier and harder to find and more difficult
to install and more difficult to use than z-machines. And they tend
to force Evil Blinding White Backgrounds on you, to boot.
There's also another issue: the first time you go to get a document
and discover it's only available as a PDF, you don't expect you'll
have any OTHER use for a PDF viewer; you feel like you're getting it
just for that one document. (In fact, it probably won't be much
more than six months before you need to view another such document,
but you don't realise that until about the third time.) It's very
different with a z-machine, because you see this whole directory
full of lots of z-code modules, and you probably download a dozen
or more of them the very first time. So you know you'll have
further uses for that interpreter. (Then you never get around
to playing all those games you downloaded because it takes you
months of blissful agony just to finally get through Curses, but
that's another matter altogether.)
> I think that "laziness" is hardly as awful as you describe it to be.
> I have pretty much the most recent version of every interactive
> fiction interpreter that exists...
> but let us take the place of someone who's really not that interested
> in Interactive Fiction, of the newbie whom we want to draw in. What
> would you prefer to tell him? "Here, the game is all inside this small
> executable file" or "You have to download the gamefile and then download,
> unzip and install the interpreter, then run the gamefile
> through the interpreter." ?
You give him two URLs, and you say, "download these two files, then
drag the z5 file onto the exe file". How hard is that?
Alternately, you can just point him at Adventure Blaster.
> Unfortunately I don't believe there exists a utility which turns
> Z-machine (or Glulx?) gamefiles into Windows (Winfrotz for example)
> executables, only into DOS executables... (which I consider to be
> a bit ugly btw)
There's BundleMonkey, but anyone with good taste likes the DOS
versions of the interpreters better anyway ;-)
- jonadab
Andrew Plotkin
> ros...@krypton.mankato.msus.edu (Jonathan Rosebaugh) wrote:
> : Today's teens don't know anything.
> If anyone else would like to spew forth an ignorant, stereotyped view of an
> age group, please do so at this time.
Never trust anyone between the ages of 31 years six months and 31
years seven months.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Call him "George the Third". (Hint: the First never told a lie.)
Adam J. Thornton
Anson Turner <anson@DELETE_THISpobox.com> wrote:
>If anyone else would like to spew forth an ignorant, stereotyped view of an
>age group, please do so at this time.
Young dragons and old risotto-eaters both suck.
Adam
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
Adam Atkinson
>> For the PDF argument to "bite the other way", it would need to be
>> routine to make PDFs available for download as self-extracting
>> executables with incorporated PDF displayers.
>What makes you think it isn't?
It's not something I've come across. If it were _routine_ I would
expect to have seen it. How common is it?
(NB I don't like PDFs much either. Same reasons as you.)
>Of course, most of the common web browsers
>automatically launch a PDF reader whenever they see a PDF file, which is
>the same sort of thing.
If you already _have_ a PDF reader, yes. Similarly, if you already
have a z-code interpreter you can probably play z-code games very very
easily.
>> Perhaps I should start
>> making text files available for download as self-extracting
>> executables with built-in copies of "more".
>I've seen that sort of thing too, though never with a stand-alone text file
>(Unless you count the "Interactive List of Adventure Games" files, of
>course.)
I didn't know about that one. Can you get VMS and Amiga versions?
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
INCEST MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT IN USA
Adam Atkinson
>>If anyone else would like to spew forth an ignorant, stereotyped view of an
>>age group, please do so at this time.
>Young dragons and old risotto-eaters both suck.
Vietato l'ingresso ai ragni ed ai visigotti.
(No entry to spiders or visigoths)
Adam Atkinson
>> >This is not as ridiculous as it sounds - I distinctly remember
>> >software distributions where there was a *program* called readme.com
>> >which displayed the readme file - so obviously the software publishers
>> >didn't want to bother people with finding a way to display a text
>> >file.
>>
>> How do you make people run the readme.com?
>Usually, by running it from the install program. (Just like today...)
If the software doesn't come on a magic autoexecuting CD I think we
have to assume that the quasi-clinical extreme cases we're talking
about wouldn't know to run the install program, even if the CD had
"double-click install.exe or type "install"" on it.
>> I come across people who
>> download things and then don't know where they've put them. (They ask
>> me. How should _I_ know?) They don't know about double-clicking things
>> to run them. They certainly won't have enough initiative to notice
>> that something's called "readme" and do anything about it.
>It was a lot more common in the early 90s, as I recall. Back then,
>a much larger fraction of users would have found "readme"s
>comprehensible.
It occurs to me that the way to make games really really easy to load
would be to distribute them on bootable floppies. I would like to end
that sentence with "as used to be done" but I'm not sure that's true
in the PC world, since I've never owned one. If you go back far
enough, most (not quite all) Amiga games were run by putting them in
the machine and turning the power on. Is _that_ simple enough to
satisfy the people in this thread that worry about the difficultly of
other methods?
Was this method ever the norm for PC games? Back when it might have
been, I don't recall seeing PCs around. By the time I came across
them, hard disks were normal. I'm no longer particularly happy to
reboot my machine just to play a game. Would people who can't (be
bothered to) read and follow simple instructions prefer to do things
that way today? I would guess not, but how should I know? I clearly
don't view the world the same way they do.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
#include <disclaimer.h>
Gabe McKean
>Vietato l'ingresso ai ragni ed ai visigotti.
>
>(No entry to spiders or visigoths)
Heh. As a coincidence, I just happened to finish watching that movie in a
class today. Well, that's my pointless post for today.
Adam Cadre
> So, the "dead-end users", "un-defragmented masses", and "fools we
> aren't proof from" are all horny lesbians or heterosexual males.
HOW DO I OPEN THE PROGAM WITH THE HORNEY LEZBIANS I TRYD CLIKING
THE WORDS BUT THE LINK DOSENT WORK PLEASE HLEP THANX
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Richard Bos
Well, ever since yesterday, there's a perfectly good answer to that <g>.
Richard
Branko Collin
And if you keep fixing their Napster, you can be happy in knowing that
you will be able to complain about "today's teens" for a long time to
come.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Richard Bos
> > I know a lot of people don't like the
> > car analogy, but I think it's perfect. How did these people ever learn
> > to drive? Did they say "But I'm not interested in the chemistry of
> > hydrocarbons, or internal combustion engine design"? I expect not.
>
> Sorry, but knowing chemistry or engine design has nothing at all to do with
> being able to drive. It allows you to _fix_ the car (or more likely, not)
> when something's wrong, but you can drive without knowing much about this.
>
> Personally, I don't give a damn how a car works beyond the crude details
> (blah blah gasoline-air blah blah ignition blah blah cylinders blah blah).
> Driving a car is simply a number of pre-learned, now automated tasks - you
> don't think when you switch gears or turn the wheel to take a curve, or
> you'd go mad.
>
> Same thing with computers. You want to use them, you don't need to know how
> they work. You want to get under the hood, things get icky.
You've got the wrong end of the analogy, there. Being able to install a
program is not similar to being able to fix a car, it's similar to being
able to check your oil level: simple maintenance. Actually fixing your
car is more comparable to repairing a computer when the hard drive
crashed. I don't expect the average user to do the latter, but I
certainly expect people to be able to check their oil; so, for that
matter, does my government, because it was on the exam. Similarly, I
also expect a user of a computer to be able to follow instructions of
the "Double-click on install. Choose a name. Click OK" type.
And the most important point is: yes, computers _are_ more complicated
than cars. It is all the more amazing that people are willing to take
quite a few lessons to be able to drive a car, yet expect to get away
with knowing nothing and refusing to learn when behind a keyboard.
Richard
Richard Bos
> "Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>
> > > Every time this comes up I'm told I just don't understand how stupid
> > > the whole world is, but I still don't see what the problem is supposed
> > > to be here. People seem to manage ok with PDF viewers and MP3 players,
> > > so they can sodding well do the same with game interpreters.
> >
> > Btw, I dislike PDF viewers. Disliked them the moment I knew I had to
> > download one of them.
>
> I hate unPortable Document Format too, but that's entirely different.
I don't, but I do hate it when people use them for things a plain text
document is just as good for. When you need graphics and formatted text
(say, in a technical document, or in something like this:
<http://www.dumbentia.com/>), PDF beats the competition (consisting, for
the average user, mainly of Word documents, which look different on
every second computer) easily when it comes to view- and port-ability.
> PDF viewers are a lot bulkier and harder to find
Eh? Bulkier, yes. But I'd say that if someone has problems installing an
IF 'terp, they're not likely to be BeOS or RISC OS users. For the
platforms they _are_ likely to use, Adobe has this nice thing called
Acrobat Viewer which is given away free with every issue of several
computer mags I know of.
> There's also another issue: the first time you go to get a document
> and discover it's only available as a PDF, you don't expect you'll
> have any OTHER use for a PDF viewer; you feel like you're getting it
> just for that one document. (In fact, it probably won't be much
> more than six months before you need to view another such document,
> but you don't realise that until about the third time.)
It may be because I work in the newspapers business, but my mileage
varies widely. I get quite a few of them. Not weekly, but certainly more
than monthly.
> It's very
> different with a z-machine, because you see this whole directory
> full of lots of z-code modules, and you probably download a dozen
> or more of them the very first time. So you know you'll have
> further uses for that interpreter.
True, true, true... and yet, most people I know have no problem
installing Acrobat Viewer at all. So I wonder why they would have
problems installing Frotz.
Richard
Richard Bos
> In article <t_ji6.114898$Pm2.2...@news20.bellglobal.com>, "Kaia Vintr"
> <ka...@xoe.com> wrote:
>
> : Anson Turner wrote in message ...
> : >: Just call your game file "AnnaKournikova.jpg.z5" and people will have no
> : >: trouble opening it.
> : >
> : >And your definition of "people" is..?
> :
> : The dead-end users. The un-defragmented masses. The fools we aren't proof
> : from. Y'know, *them*.
>
> So, the "dead-end users", "un-defragmented masses", and "fools we aren't proof
> from" are all horny lesbians or heterosexual males.
You know, from the hubbub it's caused, I doubt those were the only ones
that fell for that AK virus.
Richard
Richard Bos
> "Kevin Forchione" <Ke...@lysseus.com> wrote in message
> news:MS3i6.89845$R5.39...@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com...
> > The same could be said for the windows interface itself. My wife had
> > similar stories to tell when word processors were first introduced. People had
> > difficulty with the concept.
>
> Obviously the same people, since any Windows guru knows that one can only
> type text into the active window, and that if double-clicking on a file
> doesn't open it, it means you don't have the relevant program.
Any Windows guru is wrong, then. In a web browser, "the active window"
might not include "The Java applet in the active window", and the
double-click action for a file can be changed with reasonable ease, even
by accident (install a test version of a new program - remove test
version - lose double-click function for its document formats, even
though the previously default program could handle them).
Richard
Neil Cerutti
>On 13-Feb-01 21:03:57, Anson Turner said:
>
>>: I should perhaps also have said that silly
>>: objections aside, it seems to me that even learning the minimum to
>>: drive a car would appear to take quite a while and yet people don't
>>: seem to mind.
>
>>In other words, more people want to drive than want to play TADS games. I
>>thank you for this valuable revelation.
>
>How many seconds does it take to read a readme and install Frotz? How long
>does it take to learn to drive? (I don't know the answer to the latter,
>of course)
It takes only seconds of training before you are convinced you
are an above average driver.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@together.net>
"If you're gonna score 125 points in a game, you've only got to
play good enough defense to hold the other team to 124. How
the hell hard is that?" -- Red Auerbach
Neil Cerutti
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
>: > : Today's teens don't know anything.
>:
>: > If anyone else would like to spew forth an ignorant, stereotyped view of
>: > an age group, please do so at this time.
>:
>: Never trust anyone between the ages of 31 years six months and 31
>: years seven months.
>
>anything" *and* the "hype about today's 'wired' teens" posts.
I think "spew forth" is redundant, and so do 22 year old blond
stewardesses.
--
Neil Cerutti <cer...@together.net>
Gunther Schmidl
"Anson Turner" summarized:
> So, the "dead-end users", "un-defragmented masses", and "fools we aren't
proof
> from" are all horny lesbians or heterosexual males.
> "teens and twenty-somethings are wired computer whizzes"
> "today's teens don't know anything"
> "everyone participating in this group is a wired twenty-something."
Taking these facts to heart, answer the following questions:
1) Who sits next to Eve?
2) Who ordered the shish kebab?
-- Gunther, who very nearly posted the heterosexual/lesbian thing himself.
Dennis G. Jerz
news:1eos6zx.169malz14dy5taN%ne...@davidglasser.net...
> Adam Cadre <a...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
> > For what it's worth, I've offered my games on my site both as DOS
> > executables (using JZEXE at first and more recently using Ross
> > Raszewski's Bundle-O-Monkey) and as zipped z-code files.
>
> My opinion: it's a great idea to do this for your own website, but it's
> a waste on GMD.
>
This probably makes sense, becuase the GMD site doesn't exactly welcome
newbies.
--
Dennis G. Jerz, Ph.D.; (715)836-2431
Dept. of English; U Wisc.-Eau Claire
419 Hibbard, Eau Claire, WI 54702
------------------------------------
Literacy Weblog: www.uwec.edu/jerzdg
Matthew Russotto
Bennett Standeven <be...@worldinter.net> wrote:
>
>And as for the "wired twentysomethings", they're us...
Yeah, but not for long... *sigh*.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Matthew Russotto
Gunther Schmidl <gsch...@xxx.gmx.at> wrote:
>Hmm...
>
>"Anson Turner" summarized:
>
>> So, the "dead-end users", "un-defragmented masses", and "fools we aren't
>proof
>> from" are all horny lesbians or heterosexual males.
>
>> "teens and twenty-somethings are wired computer whizzes"
>
>> "today's teens don't know anything"
>
>> "everyone participating in this group is a wired twenty-something."
>
>Taking these facts to heart, answer the following questions:
>
>1) Who sits next to Eve?
Adam on her left and the serpent on her right.
>2) Who ordered the shish kebab?
That would be me. But I wanted lamb, not chicken.
Kaia Vintr
proof
>from" are all horny lesbians or heterosexual males. [snip]
Who have never heard of porn and thus resort to waiting for pictures of
ninth-rate tennis players to arrive by email in order to satisfy their
throbbing ennui? Or who...like...sports...yeah, that's it!
Don't worry, I'm sure if we wait long enough someone will eventually write
an email virus targeting *every* sexual-orientation and demographic. Those
who have hitherto been ignored: Remember to stand up and be counted!!
- Kaia
------------------------
The Kinsey Mushroom:
"One side will make you gayer, and the other side will make you straighter."
"But which side?" wondered Alice.
Paul O'Brian
> "David Glasser" <ne...@davidglasser.net> wrote in message
> >
> > My opinion: it's a great idea to [bundle zcode files as executable]
> > for your own website, but it's a waste on GMD.
>
> This probably makes sense, becuase the GMD site doesn't exactly welcome
> newbies.
Actually, I'd imagine that most of the people picking up those executables
aren't connecting directly to GMD, but rather being redirected there from
download.com or one of the other zillion shareware game sites out there.
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
Ready or not, here comes SPAG! Issue #23 is the annual competition special,
featuring interviews with top authors and a treasure trove of reviews!
David Thornley
>
If you count in hex...
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Branko Collin
Bos) wrote:
>And the most important point is: yes, computers _are_ more complicated
>than cars. It is all the more amazing that people are willing to take
>quite a few lessons to be able to drive a car, yet expect to get away
>with knowing nothing and refusing to learn when behind a keyboard.
This may have something to do with the fact the we are taught that
cars are hard to manage (taught through instilling the knowledge that
we have to follow a course to be able to drive a car). On the other
hand, every computer manufacturer tries to insure you in their adds
that using their model is as simpel as plugging it in and switching it
on.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl
Paul E. Bell
<aemd8tkali207spq8...@4ax.com>:
>"Robotboy8" wrote:
>
>>Someone recently posted a message about commercialising IF games.
>>While I am pretty sure hardly anyone would be willing to BUY an IF
>>game, it would make it a lot easier on newbies not to have to download
>>interpreters. Most people I know are quite new to IF and don't even
>>know how to use an interpreter! I believe it would be nice if someone
>>would make a "plugin" for Tads, Inform, etc. that would export EXE
>>files for windoze and dos, and maybe executables for some other OS's.
>>Even better, a creation language dedicated to NOT be interpreted. It
>>would make distribution easier, and testing as well.
>>
>>Anyway, if anybody knows of any such programs, please post.
>
>Sounds like you're looking for a program along the lines of JZexe by
>Magnus Olsson (which is a utility for the JZip interpreter by John
>Holder). This creates MSDOS executables of Inform z-files, and can be
>found in ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/interpreters/zip/. I have
>no idea as regards a similar program for TADS, though.
For some reason, my news reader cannot find the original message that
started this thread, so, even though I'm answering comments that came up
later in the thread, I will stick my answer in here.
I read the comments about turning IF games into executables, and I read
people's comments about PDF files, and plugins, and a bunch of other stuff.
My opinion, FWIW is, I like portable file types (though I agree, PDF
readers should allow you to tone down that background white when reading on
a monitor) like the Zcode files. I think one of the problems we have today
is that we have come to expect everything to be 'instant'. We don't want
to do any work to put the sandwich together, we just want to eat it. We
don't want to open a program and load a file into it, we want everything to
work when we click on it.
I work with several operating systems, and, if IF only came in executable
files, I doubt that I would be able to use it on all of them, or pick the
one I want to use it on. It would be wonderful if all operating systems
and processors could run all programs and load all documents/files, but, it
isn't going to happen.
Now, let's say you, as an IF author, only have one machine, and it happens
to be something non-Intel, non Microsoft. Let's also say that you want the
widest distribution of your game. With Z-code, I have easily moved a game
file compiled on my Amiga to my PC, and used it with no problem, and vice
versa, and copied files created on both machines to my Psion 5 and ran them
with no problem.
As for downloading interpreters, you are telling me that, in this day when
people download all kinds of programs and install them, that they can't
install and run an interpreter? Much as I would like to make computers
easier to use, and am working on projects to make a non-Microsoft OS do
just that, I think it's about time that people who buy computers start
learning how to use them, rather than expecting them to magically do things
for them. Perhaps we should require people to start out with DOS or CP/M
machines, and only when they can use a command line, then let them graduate
to a GUI.
Hmm, now there's an interesting thought: write an IF game that allows a
computer user to see what it was like running a DOS machine, and bundle it
with every computer, and make it a mandatory training program they have to
complete before they can get to their desktop for the first time.
Now, that said, there are quite a few I-F games on gmd.de that cannot be
run on my Amiga, or my Psion 5, because they ARE compiled DOS executables,
and come in no other form. Or, they are BASIC programs that only work with
certain BASIC interpreters on certain machines (You _do_ remember BASIC,
don't you?), and that's frustrating too.
Heh, here I am, the guy who's trying to make developers develop programs
that co-operate with their competitor's programs (sharing tools/functions,
so a user need only open a file once, and have all his tools for working
with it available to him without having to move it from program to
program), talking about taking users back to the 'dark ages' and forcing
them to learn how to load programs and files :) What is happening to me?
Helios
--
Paul E. Bell | Email and AIM: wd0...@millcomm.com | ifMUD: Helios
IRC: PKodon, DrWho4, and Helios | webpage: members.nbci.com/wd0gcp/
Member: W.A.R.N., Skywarn, ARES, Phoenix Developer Consortium, ...
_____ Pen Name/Arts & Crafts signature:
| | _ \ _ _ |/ _ _(
| | (_X (_/`/\ (_) (_` |\(_) (_) (_|_) (/`
)
John Elliott
>It occurs to me that the way to make games really really easy to load
>would be to distribute them on bootable floppies.
>
Doubt it. The discs wouldn't have booted without IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM
on them, and distributing them would have been c*pyr*ght *nfr*ng*m*nt.
Quite a lot of programs for the Amstrad PCW came as an almost-bootable
disc; you just had to copy the system file onto it from your master disc,
and then it would boot happily. But that couldn't be done on early PCDOS
versions, because the system files had to be put on the disc *before* any
other files, not after.
In these days you could perhaps do something with FreeDOS or even CP/M-86.
But you couldn't just download boot files, put them on a floppy and hope it
worked; the Windows 9x boot sector wouldn't get on at all well with a
FreeDOS or CP/M-86 system file. The user would have to download a disc
image file, and use a separate utility (eg RAWRITE) to write it out to disc.
Which of course leaves us with the same problem we started with.
--
------------- http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html --------------------
John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
|SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------)
Adam Cadre
> Was this method ever the norm for PC games?
John Elliott replied:
> Doubt it.
Why speculate?
I've already answered Adam's question personally on ifMUD, but for the
record -- I had an IBM PC (not a clone, not an XT, but the original
thingie) from 1984 to about '89 or '90. And yes, most every program
I had, games and otherwise, was started by placing the disk in A: and
turning the computer on.
R. Alan Monroe
>How many seconds does it take to read a readme and install Frotz? How long
>does it take to learn to drive? (I don't know the answer to the latter,
>of course)
You spend the first fifteen or so years of your life watching
other people drive nearly every day. There's not really an equivalent
for computers, that I'm aware of...
Have fun
Alan
R. Alan Monroe
>On 13-Feb-01 22:54:28, Anson Turner said:
>I cannot drive. I am led to understand that this is uncommon in
>someone of my age in a Western country. My reasons for not driving may
>or may not be irrelevant, but for the record I'm mostly curious to see
>what terrible fate will befall me.
I'm driven by a perverse curiosity to ask: Do you, although not able
to drive, own a car?
Have fun
Alan
Weird Beard
"Anson Turner" <anson@DELETE_THISpobox.com> wrote in message
news:anson-40FF7D....@news.efortress.com...
> "Adam Atkinson" <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote:
>
> : If you already _have_ a PDF reader, yes. Similarly, if you already
> : have a z-code interpreter you can probably play z-code games very very
> : easily.
>
> Actually, I was just thinking that if we could just persuade the OS makers
to
> bundle the interpreters, problem solved.
>
Visions of a Department of Justice vs Adobe Acrobat anti-trust suit just
flashed in my mind :).
Adam Atkinson
>>I cannot drive. I am led to understand that this is uncommon in
>>someone of my age in a Western country. My reasons for not driving may
>>or may not be irrelevant, but for the record I'm mostly curious to see
>>what terrible fate will befall me.
>I'm driven by a perverse curiosity to ask: Do you, although not able
>to drive, own a car?
Not to the best of my knowledge. It's possible that I've inherited one
and don't know about it yet, or something like that. Not very likely,
though.
For car/computer analogy purposes I should own a car and complain that
it's too hard to drive, shouldn't I? Of course, I could employ a
chauffeur. Perhaps people who phone a friend whenever "Press OK to
continue" (or whatever) appears on the screen to ask what to do should
employ someone to use their computer for them?
There's nothing _wrong_ with not being bothered to learn to do things.
I can't be bothered to learn to drive, so I don't have a car. My
mother can't be bothered to learn to use a computer, so she doesn't
own one. Since my mother has on previous occasions demonstrated the
ability to build walls, rewire houses and do complicated-looking
things to car engines, I would like to guess that if she did ever get
a computer she would learn to do at least the bare minimum, whatever
that turned out to be. Similarly, if I _do_ ever learn to drive, I
would hope that I would do it at least minimally well. Not too many
fatalities, that sort of thing.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
INCEST MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT IN USA
Adam Atkinson
>I've already answered Adam's question personally on ifMUD, but for the
>record -- I had an IBM PC (not a clone, not an XT, but the original
>thingie) from 1984 to about '89 or '90. And yes, most every program
>I had, games and otherwise, was started by placing the disk in A: and
>turning the computer on.
Not something you'd want to ask people to do these days, though?
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Poor Impulse Control
Adam Atkinson
>>How many seconds does it take to read a readme and install Frotz? How long
>>does it take to learn to drive? (I don't know the answer to the latter,
>>of course)
>You spend the first fifteen or so years of your life watching
>other people drive nearly every day. There's not really an equivalent
>for computers, that I'm aware of...
It's getting that way with computers as well, isn't it? Many "young
people of today" will have grown up, or be in the process of growing
up, watching parents use computers.
I've had several emails containing gibberish that the authors say has
been typed by their 18-month (or similar) old sprog.
OKB -- not okblacke
>If a machine is too difficult for
>people to use, it would seem perfectly logical that the correct remedy is to
>force them to use something EVEN HARDER until the lesson penetrates their
>thick skulls that they were put on this earth to serve machines, and not the
>reverse. Perhaps an army of robots could be built to facilitate this
>compulsory education.
Klaatu barada nikto.
--OKB (Bren...@aol.com) -- no relation to okblacke
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
J. Robinson Wheeler
> "Adam Atkinson" wrote:
>
> : If you already _have_ a PDF reader, yes. Similarly, if you
> : already have a z-code interpreter you can probably play z-code
> : games very very easily.
>
> Actually, I was just thinking that if we could just persuade
> the OS makers to bundle the interpreters, problem solved.
Is this entirely outside the bounds of what can be achieved?
It would make a world of difference for IF if OS's came with
the standard IF interpreters. OS's do come bundled with
various bits of software. How are these deals negotiated?
Who pays whom for the privilege?
If it's at all possible, I think some effort should be put into
making it so.
--
J. Robinson Wheeler http://thekroneexperiment.com
whe...@jump.net
Magnus Olsson
Adam Atkinson <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote:
>I've had several emails containing gibberish that the authors say has
>been typed by their 18-month (or similar) old sprog.
Or their cats. Cats like walking on keyboards (and perching on tops of
monitors, but up there they can't send email).
Apparently, there's a program available that watches your keyboard for
certain kinds of clustered key-presses, and if it detects such
activity it locks the computer with a message "Warning! Cat-like
typing detected."
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Magnus Olsson
John Elliott <j...@seasip.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>"Adam Atkinson" <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote:
>>It occurs to me that the way to make games really really easy to load
>>would be to distribute them on bootable floppies.
>>
>>Was this method ever the norm for PC games?
>
> Doubt it. The discs wouldn't have booted without IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM
>on them, and distributing them would have been c*pyr*ght *nfr*ng*m*nt.
Bzzt. Wrong answer. At least if we're talking commercial games.
The disks would need *some* kind of bootstrap loader on them, but there's
no reason why it would have to be IBM's.
A commercial software producer could of course buy a license to
use a (truncated) version of DOS if they didn't want to develop their
own. As for hobbyists: distributing a full copy of DOS with their games
would be copyright infringement, but I'm not so sure about just using
the boot files. And writing a complete stand-alone program that booted
without any OS wasn't that difficult back then.
> Quite a lot of programs for the Amstrad PCW came as an almost-bootable
>disc; you just had to copy the system file onto it from your master disc,
>and then it would boot happily. But that couldn't be done on early PCDOS
>versions, because the system files had to be put on the disc *before* any
>other files, not after.
That's assuming you needed a complete OS to run your program. Today, you
probably would, but the world was a simpler place back then.
> In these days you could perhaps do something with FreeDOS or even CP/M-86.
>But you couldn't just download boot files, put them on a floppy and hope it
>worked; the Windows 9x boot sector wouldn't get on at all well with a
>FreeDOS or CP/M-86 system file. The user would have to download a disc
>image file, and use a separate utility (eg RAWRITE) to write it out to disc.
>Which of course leaves us with the same problem we started with.
Distributing bootable disks over the Net is quite a hassle, that's true.
Richard Bos
> "Adam Atkinson" <gh...@mistral.co.uk> wrote:
>
> : If you already _have_ a PDF reader, yes. Similarly, if you already
> : have a z-code interpreter you can probably play z-code games very very
> : easily.
>
> Actually, I was just thinking that if we could just persuade the OS makers to
> bundle the interpreters, problem solved.
Aargh! No! They'd start bundling their own broken 'terps, just like MS
already do with a newsreader. Do you seriously want to have to deal with
people who demand to know why Curses crashes MSFrots[tm] when the
background colour is set to green?
Richard
Mike Kozlowski
Adam Cadre <re...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>I've already answered Adam's question personally on ifMUD, but for the
>record -- I had an IBM PC (not a clone, not an XT, but the original
>thingie) from 1984 to about '89 or '90. And yes, most every program
>I had, games and otherwise, was started by placing the disk in A: and
>turning the computer on.
Some games started up that way -- Zork, for instance -- but a lot of
programs required you to boot with DOS, and then put the program disk in
the drive. Self-booting programs were by no means rare, but they weren't
universal, either.
--
Mike Kozlowski
http://www.klio.org/mlk/
Magnus Olsson
One reason for making self-bootable programs was copy protection: if
you didn't run DOS, you could re-program the disk controllers in ways
that made the disks unreadable to DOS. Of course, people quickly came
up with disk copying programs that *could* read these disks...
David Thornley
R. Alan Monroe <amo...@earth1.net> wrote:
>
>You spend the first fifteen or so years of your life watching
>other people drive nearly every day. There's not really an equivalent
>for computers, that I'm aware of...
>
own computer in order to get any work done?
Joe Mason
J. Robinson Wheeler <whe...@jump.net> wrote:
>>
>> Actually, I was just thinking that if we could just persuade
>> the OS makers to bundle the interpreters, problem solved.
>
>Is this entirely outside the bounds of what can be achieved?
>It would make a world of difference for IF if OS's came with
>the standard IF interpreters. OS's do come bundled with
>various bits of software. How are these deals negotiated?
>Who pays whom for the privilege?
Both Debian and Red Hat Linux come with Zcode interpreters (outdated, though,
I believe) and the Scott Adams interpreter. Curses and Christminster are the
only two games I can name that are on there, but I think there were more.
I was considering taking over maintenance of an IF suite for Debian, but
haven't got the time (it'd be a bit of work to start, but after the packages
are created it wouldn't take much time at all). If anyone else wants to,
all it takes is a volunteer. If nobody else does, it's on my list of
things to do eventually.
Joe