From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.1 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 11015 invoked from network); 26 Jan 2023 21:20:30 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 26 Jan 2023 21:20:30 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2B0F424BC; Fri, 27 Jan 2023 07:19:54 +1000 (AEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=tuhs.org; s=dkim; t=1674767994; h=from:from:reply-to:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date: message-id:message-id:to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version: content-type:content-type: content-transfer-encoding:content-transfer-encoding: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references:list-id:list-help: list-owner:list-unsubscribe:list-subscribe:list-post; bh=2BiWFMaY5MinvahZtANqJUfvVkdpal/G/8LPfexCCos=; b=fD9I4pPzor+TiBvbHXfBkVlBl5D5WNpfcqsSmAZa8yuiDI6Lzdg4Bo5U1p84b6uve5+T3s qmpTOq7RckSZWLJQRmrBNSjhiYrMWsCKOn6IaACsUUhZg++xcFk1q9AWyvT0MXsv2HdjfR XPj0kLRbjbdqv8cliYfxzd0kBrDA6u4= Received: from mail-40132.protonmail.ch (mail-40132.protonmail.ch [185.70.40.132]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 11E38424BB for ; Fri, 27 Jan 2023 07:19:50 +1000 (AEST) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2023 21:19:44 +0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=protonmail.com; s=protonmail3; t=1674767987; x=1675027187; bh=2BiWFMaY5MinvahZtANqJUfvVkdpal/G/8LPfexCCos=; h=Date:To:From:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: Feedback-ID:From:To:Cc:Date:Subject:Reply-To:Feedback-ID: Message-ID:BIMI-Selector; b=HKMGk5P27SrrJ7MYc0cUdhIpyqzwxdtQ/TrQQfH8WB/wafkUuZ/w64RJDwOpjYwHo l76IY5Sf6QkLcTgfY8FvwWLb2ADKVoSD3EocbYuPldedL2oQ/SNCSA9J18twI3c5Rm CoH2bdP9C1yMlVdbxeNE9bc56taGu7u9lIyG6eDAf9npwVgTsFKE0vWrXG0pM+bNkl OkBa53jOBo3yUNC5L1zE38FWlPwIzz7x895LNGjrFkezq/ZpNhu1lZ1MBxFqwCvPxb 7vGqorfzE/vVLJZfowizhqpYLEAyyVDH3Na8g6e3ILvISLfjOxwT/n6QH0i9Pdjfp/ LwgmufYvC++ag== To: emanuel stiebler Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <85d0ee98-3686-b305-49d7-536589b5d3db@e-bbes.com> References: <20230125203805.4762218C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <7w8rhpdczd.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <20230126105626.72CD922168@orac.inputplus.co.uk> <85d0ee98-3686-b305-49d7-536589b5d3db@e-bbes.com> Feedback-ID: 35591162:user:proton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: GGXISGOM6Z5U5Q7EF6WS2UFRH25SUE7M X-Message-ID-Hash: GGXISGOM6Z5U5Q7EF6WS2UFRH25SUE7M X-MailFrom: segaloco@protonmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: "tuhs@tuhs.org" X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: From: segaloco via TUHS Reply-To: segaloco We benefit from a general culture of openness surrounding UNIX these days. = We see no such openness from Nintendo, Sega, Sony, nor Microsoft in their = video game offerings, neither current nor former, and similar for publisher= s and studios for the most part. Anecdotally, when SquareEnix went to reis= sue Final Fantasy 8, they had to rewrite it from scratch as the original PS= 1 source code had been lost. Apparently this is a pretty common problem pl= aguing efforts to roll older titles forward to modern systems, and is one o= f the reasons shoddy emulation seems to win out over intentional ports of a= nything. UNIX experienced the rather unique phenomenon of being able to grow legs in= academia for many years before some legal types tried to put the kibosh on= that. Super Mario Bros. was a closed code base from day 1 with a tight de= adline and little to no reason for it to be shared outside of its own devel= opment group. The circumstances are just so wildly different. UNIX is a b= it of an anomaly as far as being an iconic, ubiquitous, still appreciated d= esign that succeeds in academic *and* commercial spheres and also has ample= source code and documentation history not only available but not constantl= y being torpedoed by lawyers. I don't know that we'll see a willingness to= open up the history of video game development like that in a timeframe tha= t sensitive source codes and documents could still be properly preserved. Plus, to the defense of these studios, some algorithm or technique develope= d for management of game resources may still be very much relevant to moder= n engine designs in ways that OS code from the 70s simply wouldn't even hav= e a place in modern design. I wouldn't be surprised if there are scene gra= ph and asset manager algorithms and such down in, say, the Zelda 64 engine,= that the big N is *still* using in comparable engines and considers a trad= e secret. Hard to say. But anywho, just to draw some comparisons to the p= reservation state of UNIX vs other technological innovations. We have deca= des of quality OS code to study, research, and expand upon as hackers, but = we have no such wealth of real video game source codes to educate the masse= s on game design, especially embedded console/bare metal approaches. This = is where the crossroads lies for me between my UNIX and game development in= terests, I would LOVE some day for there to be as accessible and quality of= resources for those studying the history of game design/development as the= re are for those studying OS design. After all, the way I describe old gam= es to people in a technical sense is its just a specific type of OS. That = programmer had to abstract all that hardware into concepts like button trig= gers movement of VDP scrollplanes and emission of commands to the FM synth = chip. The thing you're using is just a Dpad instead of a mouse and you're = moving a silly little character instead of a window across the screen. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Thursday, January 26th, 2023 at 8:48 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote: > On 2023-01-26 11:07, segaloco via TUHS wrote: >=20 > > Excellent post, thanks for the share! I think about that loss of > > information often. Its a shame preservation hasn't been more of a > > theme, there are probably countless iconic video games for which the > > original source code doesn't exist anymore. If "digital archivist" was > > more in-demand in tech companies I'd love to engage with that sort of > > work professionally...maybe someday. >=20 >=20 > But isn't it, what this group is all about? > Collecting all the (Unix) pieces we can find, and talk about the past. > And copying the archives to newer disks, newer mail systems so it will > hopefully survive ...