I had to confirm my identity with the government, it all went well.
I even got an ID. It's sort of like a driver license card, but it has
a computer inside (!!) that stores a JPEG photo and a bunch of other
information. That's technical progress for you, nice.
I also had to sort out my income, somehow. I don't want to go into boring
details, but basically I had a thing I had to work on, and I worked on it
for over 12 hours every day. Now the thing is over, and soon I shall get
paid for it. Pyon!
Boring stuff aside! I've been investigating three things during my free time.
== Uxn x11 port ==
I quite enjoyed the idea of uxn when I heard about it. A small bytecode
machine, a bit like small Java device, but limited to 64k of addressable
memory per application. The apps for it are quite stilistically attractive,
too. Of course I had to try it out!
I got quite disappointed when I compiled and run it. Its main version, powered
by SDL2, is painfully slow. If I want to see letters showing up on the screen
with a second delay after I type them, I could just dial into a BBS without a
local echo. Well, I guess I couldn't, there are no BBSes around I could dial
into anymore...
Considering that SDL version with an empty rom takes some 5 seconds to
just create the SDL window, I figured the issue is caused by SDL2 itself.
So, I compiled an X11 port. It seems to be much faster (I don't have the fps
for comparison just yet).
Alas, my videocard can only do 16bpp in its native resolution of 1024x768,
and the uxn11 only supports 24bpp. So, I had to start hacking. I have a
semi-working version, and while it is faster than SDL, it is still SLOOOOW.
Why is it slow? I think the reason is its screen_redraw implementation. It
redraws the framebuffer from zero on every frame. I'll try to optimize things
and see if it will help.
I have some work in progrss screenshots on my Mastodon, but I'll reupload
them here when I'm done with the uxn11 work.
== I want to watch anime, too! ==
It is a pleasure to learn that there is LOADS of anime these days, many
with incredible production quality, some even using 3D graphics a lot and
it does not look like a Quake1 screenshot.
The issue is, of course, I can't really watch it on my laptop. There are
a few websites around that still have anime in MPEG4 and in 240p, which
is about as much as my PII can handle, but the bitrate they use is
disappointingly low, so it's all blocky and messy. There are still
DVD releases in Japan, as far as I can tell, but I don't know if it's
possible to find anime DVD (or at least DivX?) releases in NA and Europe.
Turns out, my friend's TV is not a TV, it has a mighty computer inside that
is connected to the internet and can play videos from some specific websites
live, without any significant caching, in ridiculous resolutions. Whaaaat.
Maybe I should ask my friend to let me use this TV as my computer when she
isn't watching anything. I doubt it'll be easy, though.
== Windows 3.1 on my P2 laptop ==
As I mentioned, I have Windows 98 as my second OS. Linux is great for the web,
but I use Photoshop for photo editing and drawing, and I don't mind playing
some Civ1, X-Com or HoMM. Windows is great for this.
As I don't use Windows 98 for web browsing anymore (technically, it means I
am not using Windows 98 for web browsing for the last 18 years), I figured
I could as well downgrade/get a third OS for GUI programs that don't need
DirectX. Windows 95 isn't much better than my current Windows 98 install
(I use 95 Explorer anyways), so I tried to run Win3.1 here.
It's FAST. Like, really fast. Like, super duper awesomely fast.
The only problem is, there are no video drivers for my videocard. My current
best bet is using SVGAPatch (I didn't know it existed, thanks Google!),
but it renders my OS unusable every time I have to run a DOS application
from Windows.
I still would like to keep Windows 3.1 as my third OS, because I can use it
to try out things on Windows 3.1 for my SECOND laptop (it's the first time
I mention it here, right?). My second laptop is a 486/33 machine that runs
DOS 6.20 and Windows 3.1. It has a partition with a RedHat derrivative using
Linux 2.0 and FVWM95, but it's laughable compared to what I have on my
P2 laptop. The bios on the 486 seems to be bugged (it's over 30 years old
now), so any kernel newer than Linux 2.4 just panics right after vmlinuz is
unpacked. Therefore, it's likely I am going to keep using my 486 with
Windows 3.1.
----------
Wow, diary keeping takes longer than I thought. This time I have only one
question from the readers, so I might as well answer, pyon~
=Q: Aren't you impressed with all the technology we have at the end of
our fingertips now?
A: Of course I am. I love gadgets. I have a Palm Zire, and I always dreamed
of having a more powerful pocket computer that I could use for coding and
drawing and music making and writing and oh how awesome it would be if I
could also listen to MP3s from it and exchange data with my laptop without
a finicky cradle and also connect my palmtop to a TV or even a monitor, and
I am dreaming of course, but can I connect my MIDI keyboard to it, too?
That is what I was dreaming about. Smartphones these days can do
all that, and more. I expected that almost every smartphone owner would
use them creatively, just like I wanted to. At least, kids of my age all
used melody editors on their phones. The luckiest ones, with Symbian phones,
boasted Word-compatible editors and programming language interpreters.
Sure, there will be many who would mostly use their phones to play games,
I thought. After all, there are loads of cool Java games that are almost
as impressive as some PC or at least Gameboy games.
Imagine my shock when I saw what people _actually_ use their pocket
computers for. You know what I'm talking about, right? It seems, they
mostly watch endless short videos or play simplistic games akin to
the Windows Mobile built-in Bubbles. And that's it.
What.
I do see the appeal of short videos. I loved it when friends were sharing
funny GIFs or short AVI videos on floppies, it was a cool novelty.
But... doing it all the time? Why?...
Ugh. So, you get what I am trying to say? As much as I am impressed with
all the gadgets and CPU power we have today, I am more impressed with how
STUPIDLY we WASTE it.
