The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The main thing I’ve gotten from this thread (Ed note: split from just after this post (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=7015.msg77406#msg77406)) is that Krulle is running Windows Vista.

Over the next few months we will need to take a deep dive around how that happened and why this continues to be the case.

 ;D You've just made all of this worth it.

It is actually a big mystery why people are using windows at all. There is a lot to dwell into there. I could probably write an entire PhD thesis about relating the prevalence of windows to cognitive biases.

You are preaching to the choir. *I* was an OS/2 guy back in the day.  You're all a bunch of heathens as far as I'm concerned (except for those of you who were also OS/2 users of course).

OS/2, my favourite OS with integrated graphical user interface!!!
Ever.
Also my first steps on CompuServe were done on OS/2.
BBS I did within a DOSshell...
I love that some German ATMs still run on OS/2...
Last ones are scheduled to phase out in May..... (this year indeed).

Heck, while I loved Norton Commander, for sorted copying, I still did most stuff directly in DOS... (DRDOS/MSDOS).

And why move away from Vista?
It's stable as an Oak, and fast enough for my stuff. Since kids I stopped playing other stuff than casual stuff. New devices since then were these iOS devices without SIM cards, so enough to kill time on them.
Heck, most of the time I don't even use my private machine.
Most stuff is done on office PC, which still cannot be moved away from WinXP. (custom software specifically programmed)

I will move to a new OS with a new machine, due to work stuff needs to be Windoof. (doof is German for "stupid".)
But the old machine will move to one of the Linux distrubutions optimized for older machines....
Not looking forward to spending time on the setup of the system.
By now it needs to function for me, with a very strict set of "share information with... for optimized usage experience".
I don't have the time anymore to delve into the systems... So I stopped my machine and the time stood still there.

At least it has a proper backup (three harddrives, one external, and two internals, backing to each other, and if connected, also to the external drive)

Why spend time setting up a new system, if the old one works?
And due to my part-time work/interest I visited many shady sites back then.
Vista was the only system of the mltiple devices I used that survived without any infection.....
I found that so impressive, that I refused using Win7.
And then I got kids. And my work/interest shifted drastically.
So..... Win Vista it is. 2nd best Solitaire for 99$ ever. Only 3.11 was better.

Then indeed it is time for a beer!

I'm sure this is the first time in the history of the Universe where those words were in that particular order.

I think the only other set of words similar to that would be, "I use Windows ME as a daily driver and have experienced zero issues".

Look, I'm not saying you're a bad person....but I'm not saying you're not either...

Which BBS type?

I used to run a BBS on my Commodore 64 back in the day.  OS/2 was great for downloading.  There was a terminal called TE/2 that let you do multiple Zmodems at once.

But after getting our butts handed to us by Microsoft, I've pretty much been a Microsoft slave ever since living in the relative safety of their slave shield.

Don't really know.
Been too busy discovering the local BBSs, and some specialised scouting ones. (Yes, I was a scout. on land and on sea.)
Also cannot remember the names.
Once fidonet marched through the NL, and CompuServe came, all was much easier to use than calling some BBS.

And yes, the multithreading in OS/2 was great.
It was the first time I really came into contact with that particular software technology (besides windows 3.11, but the programs within windows could not use it). Never had good ideas what to do with my spare time and programming back then.
Besdies an archiving tool, and a calender tool never got anything really running.

I believe I was on an Amiga at that time.

The Amiga was pretty awesome.

There was a great game called Defender of the Crown.   Years later I got to work with the lead designer on that who had moved on to become VP of BizDev for Gas Powered Games.

to put it simply...windows plays ALL the games...if any other OS did that id change but they dont, so i dont.

Exactly that is the issue with standardisation requirements for PCs....


And everyone develops for PC because that one has the player base.
(or for consoles, because of money)
So, it's a circular reasoning, now.

And the game developers think in exactly the same way. Since most people are using windows, they will make most money on focusing on making games functional for windows.

This is actually related to the new book by Eliezer Yudkowsky about inadequate equilibria:

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41MGbiaQvFL._SY346_.jpg) (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inadequate-Equilibria-Where-Civilizations-Stuck/dp/1939311225/)

People cannot necessarily get out of an inadequate equilibrium, because it requires that many people change simultaneously. If just one player changes to Linux, that is not going to make a huge difference for the game developers. If just one new game is released for Linux, that is not going to make a huge difference for the players.

If however a large amount of people changed to Linux simultaneously, that could push the game developers to make more games for Linux in the future. However, the players would need to wait for a while. So it would probably be better if all the game developers made a deal to make all the new games available for Linux. However, if just one company decides to make a game available for Linux, that might not be economically feasible for them.

So... we are stuck in an inadequate equilibrium.

There are ways to break that up - making it easy to release on all platforms, for instance.

Singular is equilibrium, btw.

Yes, there are probably ways to get out of these inadequate equilibria we are stuck in, but it is something worth thinking about and work towards.

Anyhow, I actually see much more games coming for Linux now, so I think the ice is starting to break.


Of course...

...and I just had a small-world moment; I know Eliezer's father, Moshe.

ive tried different methods of switching os only to realize 2 things about them...
windows is a glorified game launcher
linux is a glorified browser launcher

in a dual boot setup where i work and browse in linux and game in windows...i find that if i need to look up some gaming related question while gaming i have to shut down my game...boot into linux...browse, find my answer...shut down linux boot into windows...continue gaming...not practical to me.

software solutions ie virtualization don't cut it either ... cant game in a vr windows ... and browsing and working is just easier on windows itself.
now a hardware solution might be were its at...if we could get motherboards that would or could switch between an os as easy as i switch between tasks in windows that would work.

Lots of people do this, and I used to do this before when I was more into gaming. Now I find more and more games available for Linux, and I don't play as much as I did earlier. So I have only Linux now.

The solution is of course to make all games available for all operational systems, and this can be done by making the game engines more compatible with all operational system. As far as I know, both the Unreal Engine 4 and the Unity engine support a lot of different operational systems today, so hopefully we will see much more games become available for many different operational systems in the future.

I think that in order to prevent the industry from making people buy one Playstation, one Xbox, and one Windows computer, we should have laws which force game developers to make games available for all (or most) operational systems. It is not very environmental friendly for people to have one Playstation, one Xbox, and one Windows computer, if they could have played all of the games on a Linux computer.