| --- Log opened Thu Jun 26 00:00:45 2008 |
| 00:08 | | UndeadAnno [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-29713.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Quit: Some people have evil spirits. You, you have stupid spirits. Go see shaman. Get hole in head. Big hole. Very big. Huge!] |
| 01:58 | | * Vornicus randomly wonders if the C64 has throughput fast enough to do digital sound. |
| 01:58 | <@McMartin> | Yes. |
| 01:59 | <@McMartin> | But there's a trick to it, which I will explain after dinner. |
| 01:59 | <@Vornicus> | awesome. |
| 01:59 | <@McMartin> | The usual technique involved exploiting a flaw in the early SID chips. |
| 01:59 | <@Vornicus> | Of course there's a trick to it, it's the goddamn c64. It's got nasty limitations. |
| 02:00 | <@McMartin> | Well, the thing is, it's not throughput, it's architecture |
| 02:00 | <@McMartin> | But dinner first. BBIAB. |
| 02:04 | <@Vornicus> | what I mean /is/ architecture, for part of it. I assumed blithely that the trick to digital sound on the c64 had been figured out; I was just wondering at data rates. |
| 02:04 | <@Vornicus> | knowing how long it took to talk to the 1541. |
| 02:10 | <@McMartin> | At top speed roughly 200kHz. |
| 02:11 | <@McMartin> | 5 cycles to change the "digital sound channel". |
| 02:11 | <@McMartin> | In practice, slower because you aren't dedicating the CPU to this. |
| 02:12 | <@McMartin> | Realistically, a little under 100kHz, for reading it out of memory. |
| 02:13 | <@McMartin> | 4-bit precision |
| 02:13 | <@McMartin> | Because you're exploiting the pop the SID makes as it changes the master volume. |
| 02:14 | <@McMartin> | With enough analysis ahead of time, you can get pretty incredible results from combined square waves, but that's not "digital audio" as we know it. |
| 02:15 | | Reiver [~reaverta@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has joined #Code |
| 02:15 | | mode/#code [+o Reiver] by ChanServ |
| 02:52 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-19083.NA.cust.bahnhof.se] has quit [Quit: Z?] |
| 02:53 | <@McMartin> | But yeah. Basically, it's limited by how fast you can write to a memory location. |
| 02:54 | <@McMartin> | Writing absolute is 3 cycles, loading from memory can be anything between 2 and 8 depending on how you do it. |
| 02:54 | <@McMartin> | The CPU is roughly 1 MHz. |
| 02:55 | <@McMartin> | You'll get better memory usage by storing two samples per byte, but that will lower the bitrate considerably. |
| 03:01 | <@McMartin> | There was a voice synthesizer for the C64 that actually used the waveform generator, though. |
| 03:03 | < NSGuest-7122> | overclock that bitch |
| 03:06 | <@McMartin> | That'll break a good number of your games that relied on reliable cycle counting |
| 04:48 | <@Vornicus> | I think I had that voice synth. S.A.M or something lik that |
| 04:48 | | Attilla [~The.Attil@92.9.59.ns-21252] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 04:50 | <@McMartin> | That's the one. |
| 04:51 | <@McMartin> | The Software Ahperated Mouth. |
| 07:06 | | Reiver [~reaverta@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 07:11 | | Reiver [~reaverta@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has joined #Code |
| 07:11 | | mode/#code [+o Reiver] by ChanServ |
| 07:14 | | Reiver [~reaverta@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 07:21 | | Reiver [~reaverta@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has joined #Code |
| 07:21 | | mode/#code [+o Reiver] by ChanServ |
| 07:26 | | UndeadAnno [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-6998.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has joined #Code |
| 07:26 | | mode/#code [+o UndeadAnno] by ChanServ |
| 08:44 | | * Reiver applies screaming venom of hate in BitTorrents direction. |
| 08:45 | <@Reiver> | Yes, I asked to download a 1.4 GB file. This does not mean you should be two-thirds of the way through when you finish chewing through my three gigabytes remaining for the month! |
| 08:46 | | * Reiver twitch. Especially when you're set to throttle uploads to 5k/second, this does not bode well for where you've been placing your priorities. ¬¬ |
| 08:46 | <@UndeadAnno> | BT has overhead. And lost packets. |
| 08:46 | <@Reiver> | Yeah, I realise this. I'm used to about +50% extra bandwidth being consumed when downloading a file. I can deal with this. |
| 08:47 | <@Reiver> | But no, this has eaten what appears to be about +150%. |
| 08:47 | <@UndeadAnno> | I seep. |
| 08:47 | <@Reiver> | And damnit, I needed that. It's the holidays, and I'm going to be on 64k for the next week. >.< |
| 08:47 | <@UndeadAnno> | Kbits? Kbytes? |
| 08:48 | <@Reiver> | The same k as in '56k modem'. |
| 08:48 | <@UndeadAnno> | It's not so bad, then. |
| 08:48 | <@Reiver> | Painful nonetheless... |
| 08:48 | <@UndeadAnno> | It's far better than a modem. |
| 08:49 | <@Reiver> | +8k over a modem is good? |
| 08:50 | <@UndeadAnno> | On a moden, you're very, very lucky if you get like 24kbits on average. |
| 08:51 | <@UndeadAnno> | If this is just a ceiling cap, like we have here, it's going to be those 64kbits. |
| 08:51 | <@UndeadAnno> | Or nearly there. |
| 08:52 | <@Reiver> | Nonetheless... grumble. |
| 08:54 | <@Shoukanjuu> | What is the reason for such a thing? Is it lack of suitable machinery and funding to keep that in check? |
| 08:55 | <@Reiver> | the bandwidth cap? |
| 08:55 | <@Reiver> | Being on a pacific island, mostly. |
| 08:55 | <@Shoukanjuu> | limits like that, throttling peer to peer |
| 08:55 | <@Shoukanjuu> | Ah. Well, that explains a bit. |
| 08:56 | <@Reiver> | Our bandwidth comes from a cable running across the pacific to the US. |
| 08:56 | <@Shoukanjuu> | ohboy. |
| 08:56 | <@Reiver> | (It also runs to australia, but.) |
| 09:09 | | * Vornicus finds it odd that you go across to the US instead of through australia and the 'nesias. |
| 09:12 | <@Reiver> | We also have cables running that direction too, but the main one is to the US. |
| 09:12 | <@Reiver> | It links the US, NZ, Hawaii and Fiji to some point in the US, IIRC. |
| 09:12 | | * Vornicus also wonders how the shit one maintains an undersea cable of that length anyway. |
| 09:13 | <@Reiver> | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Cable |
| 09:25 | | Thaqui [~Thaqui@Nightstar-25732.jetstream.xtra.co.nz] has joined #code |
| 09:25 | | mode/#code [+o Thaqui] by ChanServ |
| 09:28 | <@Shoukanjuu> | out of nowhere, surface to air missile |
| 09:28 | <@Shoukanjuu> | thanks for continually cheating, computer :3 |
| 09:31 | <@UndeadAnno> | "You're just strolling along, worrying about your Armour Class like a good DnD nerd, and then BLAM! Land mine." |
| 09:31 | <@Shoukanjuu> | XD |
| 09:32 | <@Shoukanjuu> | reflex save for a landmine? |
| 09:32 | <@Shoukanjuu> | ...200. |
| 09:32 | <@Shoukanjuu> | .....okay. |
| 09:33 | <@Vornicus> | Lower than that. 25-30, more likely. |
| 09:34 | <@UndeadAnno> | More like Save Versus Wands or something. |
| 09:34 | <@UndeadAnno> | This is Nethack. |
| 09:34 | <@Vornicus> | ah, well |
| 09:35 | | * Vornicus doesn't know anything about nethack's save system. |
| 09:35 | <@Reiver> | AD&D1 on crack. |
| 09:36 | <@Vornicus> | So, crack, with extra crack added. |
| 09:36 | <@Vornicus> | (AD&D1 is probably the most crackrific of the D&Ds) |
| 09:37 | <@Vornicus> | (and my least favorite. 4e is currently in the second spot, personally) |
| 09:38 | <@Vornicus> | (though I'm counting 3 and 3.5 as one) |
| 09:39 | <@UndeadAnno> | 4e is just too dumbed-down and unrealistic for me. |
| 09:39 | <@UndeadAnno> | I want my skill points back. |
| 09:39 | <@UndeadAnno> | And injury to mean something. |
| 09:39 | <@Reiver> | ... Curiously, that's the one part of the system I'm not entirely sad to see go. |
| 09:40 | <@UndeadAnno> | Explain. |
| 09:40 | <@Vornicus> | THe big problem with 3e, I found, was that in the end it was shockingly easy to make a challenge that can reliably kill one character but leave another completely unfazed. |
| 09:41 | <@Reiver> | Skill points have always been among the biggest cause of headaches, especially for newbies who are fooled into thinking that "Wow, fifty skill points!" at level seven means they can be awesome at everything. Instead of five things. |
| 09:41 | <@UndeadAnno> | Even as a newb, I never was so stupid. |
| 09:41 | <@UndeadAnno> | I actually read the rules, see. |
| 09:42 | <@Reiver> | I guess I've dealt with too many players who came from GURPS, Shadowrun, and the like then. |
| 09:42 | <@UndeadAnno> | Vornicus: Indeed. |
| 09:43 | <@Reiver> | "Let's see, I'll stick five points in there..." "...Um. You really want maximum ranks there." "...What? This guy is good at spells, not The Best Guy Ever." "Yeah, I know. Max ranks is basically 'profiecient in this skill', I'm afraid." "..." |
| 09:43 | <@UndeadAnno> | Eh? Even with 50 skill points in SR, you get to be good at only a relatively small set of skills. |
| 09:44 | <@Reiver> | People seem to think 'non-max ranks' is still 'competent'. |
| 09:44 | <@Reiver> | That's the main issue, really. |
| 09:44 | <@Vornicus> | well, it is 'competent', it's just not 'appropriate for your level' |
| 09:45 | <@UndeadAnno> | Non-max ranks is still competent. As long as max ranks is suitably high. |
| 09:45 | <@Reiver> | Vorn: /exactly/. |
| 09:45 | <@UndeadAnno> | Agreed. |
| 09:45 | | * UndeadAnno hates level-based systems. |
| 09:46 | <@Vornicus> | By 20th level, someone with Swim can be reasonably expected to swim against the flow, completely underwater, while being battered by giant salmon, and spend five minutes watching for a thing less than six inches long to go by... and catch it. |
| 09:47 | <@UndeadAnno> | This is because in RL terms, 20th level is an unkillable demigod. |
| 09:47 | <@Vornicus> | Well, yes. |
| 09:47 | <@Shoukanjuu> | XD |
| 09:48 | <@UndeadAnno> | I read an essay where a guy pointed out that someone like Aragorn is like 5th level. |
| 09:48 | <@Vornicus> | Yeah, I've thrown that link around a few times. |
| 09:48 | <@UndeadAnno> | Might have gotten it from you, then. |
| 09:49 | <@Reiver> | This is partly why I <3 E6. |
| 09:49 | <@UndeadAnno> | If one is fairly rules-stickly in DnD 3.x, you can get 1st->20th in a few months. |
| 09:50 | <@UndeadAnno> | Which sorta ruins the realistic feel for me. |
| 09:50 | | McMartin [~mcmartin@Nightstar-7615.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net] has quit [Quit: reboot] |
| 09:50 | <@UndeadAnno> | But if you lessen the XP awards, it'll feel like improving the character takes forever. |
| 09:51 | <@UndeadAnno> | Because you only get new shit at level up. |
| 09:51 | <@Vornicus> | THe official pace in 4e is "one level per adventure" |
| 09:51 | <@Reiver> | How much is an adventure? |
| 09:51 | <@Vornicus> | which imo is a Bit Much. |
| 09:51 | <@Vornicus> | an adventure is usually about 5-6 encounters. |
| 09:52 | <@Reiver> | ... isn't that supposed to be like, a /single days/ adventuring in 4e? O.o |
| 09:52 | <@UndeadAnno> | I like systems where XP awards can be spent immediately after getting them, or close to that. |
| 09:52 | <@UndeadAnno> | MnM does this, which lessens my hatred of it due its arbitrary caps. |
| 09:53 | | * Vornicus pokes around in the dmg |
| 09:53 | <@UndeadAnno> | How many encounters are official per day? |
| 09:55 | | * UndeadAnno mumbles about how his really unlucky and incompetent shadowrunner got to improve his Pistols skill from 0 to 3 in a dozen sessions or so. |
| 09:57 | <@Vornicus> | okay, I was wrong - the standard number of encounters is about 10, if they're all the same level as the characters. |
| 09:58 | <@UndeadAnno> | Uhuh. |
| 09:58 | | McMartin [~mcmartin@Nightstar-7615.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net] has joined #code |
| 09:58 | | mode/#code [+o McMartin] by ChanServ |
| 09:58 | <@UndeadAnno> | And how many per day? |
| 09:58 | <@Vornicus> | But, from the "Random Dungeons" thing: One Level at a Time: Once you've created eight to ten chambers, stop. The result is a dungeon section that should advance your characters one level and give them about a level's worth of treasure. You can either go back and erase doors and corridors on the map that you haven't filled out yet, or find ways to connect them up with each other. |
| 09:59 | <@UndeadAnno> | I seep. |
| 10:00 | <@UndeadAnno> | So about ten per day, eh? |
| 10:01 | <@UndeadAnno> | I see no real reason for stopping, unless they're critically low on HPs, healing surges and daily abilities. |
| 10:01 | <@UndeadAnno> | Which shouldn't happen against appropriate-level encounters too quickly, aye? |
| 10:02 | <@Vornicus> | The sample adventure included in the DMG has five encounters... 500 + 550 + 675 + 850 + 750 = 3325, / 5 = 665 experience points per character. |
| 10:03 | <@UndeadAnno> | I'm curious why they expanded the party size to 5. |
| 10:03 | <@Reiver> | 5 roles, innit? |
| 10:05 | <@Vornicus> | only 4 roles. But I figure they looked around and went "man, a lot of people are trying to play with more than 4... how about we balance the game for one extra player, to make it more sensible when they go up to six" |
| 10:06 | <@UndeadAnno> | Mm'kay. |
| 10:06 | <@Vornicus> | oh, and 500 quest xp for bringing word of the dragon back to town; 765 experience per character, total. |
| 10:08 | <@UndeadAnno> | Are you supposed to divide quest XP? |
| 10:09 | <@Vornicus> | Yep. The whole thing is harder when there's fewer characters, so each character should get more xp. |
| 10:09 | <@UndeadAnno> | I see. |
| 10:09 | <@Vornicus> | (and easier when there's more characters, obviously, well, until they start Marcelling) |
| 10:09 | <@UndeadAnno> | 'Marcelling'. |
| 10:09 | <@Vornicus> | Yeah |
| 10:10 | <@Vornicus> | Named after Ros's character in Gate I |
| 10:10 | <@Vornicus> | He kept accidentally catching friendlies in his offensive area spells. |
| 10:12 | <@UndeadAnno> | Which are now squares. Argh. |
| 10:12 | <@Vornicus> | heh. |
| 10:14 | <@UndeadAnno> | They should have kept the bouncing lightning bolts and fireballs filling out their area. |
| 10:14 | <@McMartin> | Hey, I'm all about not needing trancendental numbers to compute AoE on my graph paper. |
| 10:14 | <@UndeadAnno> | *volume |
| 10:14 | <@McMartin> | The volume thing was ridiculous. |
| 10:14 | <@McMartin> | Especially if you also figured pressure in, which is why they got rid of that after 1e, IIRC |
| 10:15 | <@UndeadAnno> | Hey, that's from IRL. You don't throw grenades in close confines. |
| 10:15 | | * Vornicus once did some calculations converting a volumetric explosive to a hall-clearer. |
| 10:15 | <@McMartin> | UndeadAnno: Not. A. Simulationist. Game. |
| 10:15 | <@Vornicus> | You get chunky salsa half a mile away. |
| 10:15 | <@UndeadAnno> | McMartin: I know. Which is what pains me. |
| 10:15 | <@Vornicus> | actually, not chunky salsa. |
| 10:15 | <@McMartin> | Otherwise, dungeon cleaning is easy. Through a fireball at the gate. |
| 10:15 | <@Vornicus> | It's meat. |
| 10:15 | <@Vornicus> | Chunky bacon. |
| 10:16 | <@McMartin> | At higher levels it will fill any reasonably-sized structure entirely. |
| 10:16 | <@Vornicus> | somebody call Why. |
| 10:16 | <@UndeadAnno> | Well, if you Widen it repeatedly. |
| 10:16 | <@McMartin> | It's much easier to say "You're gating in a bunch of phlogiston over this volume and igniting it" |
| 10:17 | <@Vornicus> | (this was trying to figure out whether we wanted to do volumetric blaster bombs. The answer is No.) |
| 10:18 | <@UndeadAnno> | One of my GMs ruled that fireballs and such don't expand to fill volume. Clouds and stuff, however, do. |
| 10:18 | <@Vornicus> | in 3e it goes "everything you can path to in 15 feet from the origin gets it" |
| 10:18 | <@McMartin> | Since most the battles I ran in D&D were actually in space, it was kind of a moot point. |
| 10:18 | <@UndeadAnno> | Yeah, dungeon crawling sucks. |
| 10:18 | <@McMartin> | No, I mean actually in Space. |
| 10:19 | <@McMartin> | I ran Spelljammer. |
| 10:19 | <@Vornicus> | heh |
| 10:19 | <@UndeadAnno> | Awesome. |
| 10:20 | <@UndeadAnno> | As thrilling as this arguement is, I need to flee now, to ensure that I pass the semester. |
| 10:20 | <@McMartin> | So the defining question was really more what this did to your target's oxygen supply~ |
| 10:20 | <@Vornicus> | Sweet. |
| 10:20 | <@McMartin> | (Which there were rules for) |
| 10:20 | <@Vornicus> | ...which reminds me, I /really/ want to figure out the ... ...... |
| 10:20 | <@Vornicus> | ....SWEET. |
| 10:21 | <@McMartin> | Spelljammer's mechanics may now be summarized as "Super Mario Galaxy Meets Star Control II" |
| 10:21 | <@Vornicus> | flow stuff for VornBall one of these days. |
| 10:21 | <@McMartin> | Massive objects (and we mean like galleons, not like planets) have gravity planes and atmospheric envelopes. |
| 10:21 | <@McMartin> | The SMG thing where you use a springboard to reorient the direction of gravity? |
| 10:22 | <@McMartin> | VALID BOARDING TACTIC. |
| 10:22 | <@Vornicus> | ...well, okay, I should probably finish some significant portion of VornMoO first |
| 10:23 | <@Vornicus> | But it's 5:30. Very Bedtime. |
| 10:23 | <@Vornicus> | ni folks |
| 10:23 | <@Reiver> | Vorn: What was the ...SWEET over? |
| 10:24 | <@Vornicus> | actual rules for what fireball does to the oxygen supply. |
| 10:25 | <@McMartin> | Well, it was fire in general. |
| 10:25 | | Vornicus is now known as Vornicus-Latens |
| 10:26 | <@McMartin> | Fire damage to the environment would cost you X days of fresh air. |
| 10:26 | <@McMartin> | Not that this did a lot to, say, elven dreadnaughts, which were humongous plants. |
| 11:05 | | Thaqui [~Thaqui@Nightstar-25732.jetstream.xtra.co.nz] has left #code [Leaving] |
| 11:25 | | Attilla [~The.Attil@92.9.59.ns-21252] has joined #code |
| 11:25 | | mode/#code [+o Attilla] by ChanServ |
| 12:05 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-19083.NA.cust.bahnhof.se] has joined #Code |
| 12:05 | | mode/#code [+o gnolam] by ChanServ |
| 12:46 | | DiceBot [~Reiver@Nightstar-6717.xdsl.xnet.co.nz] has joined #Code |
| 14:28 | <@TheWatcher> | Hm |
| 14:28 | <@McMartin> | ? |
| 14:29 | <@TheWatcher> | printf("\r\b\r\bFoo: %d\nBar: %d\n", foo, bar); in a loop |
| 14:29 | <@McMartin> | Oh god. |
| 14:29 | <@McMartin> | That will depend a lot on how the terminal interprets \r and \b. |
| 14:29 | <@TheWatcher> | yeah |
| 14:30 | <@McMartin> | They're trying to rewrite two lines over and over. |
| 14:30 | <@TheWatcher> | Indeed. And I'm finding it working fine in linux |
| 14:30 | <@TheWatcher> | but on windows... less so |
| 14:30 | <@McMartin> | Yeah. |
| 14:30 | <@McMartin> | Doing that Right (tm) requires knowing terminal codes. |
| 14:31 | <@McMartin> | Windows will use ANSI control codes, which aren't VT100. |
| 14:31 | <@TheWatcher> | This is... troublesome, as a rather more complicated version of this is part of the third project for my c course (although I provide the printing part) |
| 14:31 | | UndeadAnno [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-6998.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 14:32 | <@McMartin> | Check out the ANSI escape codes |
| 14:33 | <@TheWatcher> | Actually, I wonder if there's a version of ncurses for mingw... |
| 14:38 | <@McMartin> | I am 90% sure there is. |
| 14:38 | <@McMartin> | ANSI absolutely has termcap data. |
| 14:38 | <@McMartin> | So you can loot it and dump it directly if you detect windows~ |
| 14:38 | <@McMartin> | ncurses is a pain to work with though, honestly |
| 14:41 | | * TheWatcher nods, fiddles |
| 14:42 | | UndeadAnno [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-6998.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has joined #Code |
| 14:42 | | mode/#code [+o UndeadAnno] by ChanServ |
| 14:45 | | UndeadAnno is now known as AnnoDomini |
| 14:51 | | AnnoDomini [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-6998.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 14:58 | | * TheWatcher eyes microsoft |
| 14:58 | | AnnoDomini [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-6998.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has joined #Code |
| 14:58 | | mode/#code [+o AnnoDomini] by ChanServ |
| 14:58 | <@TheWatcher> | "Console windows in Windows versions based on NT (Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008) do not natively support ANSI Escape sequences" |
| 14:59 | <@TheWatcher> | "32-bit character-mode (subsystem:console) Windows applications don't write ANSI escape sequences to the console. They must interpret the escape code actions and call the native Console API instead to accomplish the proper result." |
| 14:59 | <@TheWatcher> | Haaaaate |
| 15:04 | <@ToxicFrog> | God forbid windows be compatible with other systems, that would make it harder to do vendor lock in~ |
| 15:05 | < NSGuest-7122> | :o |
| 15:06 | < NSGuest-7122> | i guess |
| 15:07 | <@ToxicFrog> | I believe NTVDM does support ANSI sequences, or can be configured to, so you can still use them if you're willing to target DOS~ |
| 15:26 | | ToxicFrog [~ToxicFrog@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has quit [Operation timed out] |
| 15:29 | | ToxicFrog [~ToxicFrog@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has joined #code |
| 15:29 | | mode/#code [+o ToxicFrog] by ChanServ |
| 15:55 | <@McMartin> | Yeah, I was (clearly) unaware of this latest stupidity. |
| 15:55 | <@McMartin> | I guess the last time I tried was in Win98. |
| 16:06 | <@ToxicFrog> | Yeah, where you could get ANSI escape sequence support just by having ANSI.SYS get loaded at some point. |
| 17:43 | | ToxicFrog [~ToxicFrog@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has quit [Client exited] |
| 17:53 | | ToxicFrog [~ToxicFrog@Admin.Nightstar.Net] has joined #code |
| 17:53 | | mode/#code [+o ToxicFrog] by ChanServ |
| 18:43 | | Vornicus-Latens is now known as Vornicus |
| --- Log closed Fri Jun 27 00:00:52 2008 |