.josh Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 I could be wrong, but I thought the problems with Xbox360 was software related, not hardware. That is, the software companies rushed to get the games out on time so they didn't really test their stuff. I don't think that's microsoft's fault... Anyways, I'll accept it's possible a good chunk of MS "falling behind" is due to being "smug" up there "on top." But I think another thing to look at is that they are simply spreading themselves too thin, as a company. Yes, they have a lot of money to throw at things, but look at how many things they have their fingers in. I bet even Mr. Gates himself doesn't know what all his company does, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 I could be wrong, but I thought the problems with Xbox360 was software related, not hardware. That is, the software companies rushed to get the games out on time so they didn't really test their stuff. I don't think that's microsoft's fault... The problems (reports) deal with internal system overheating due to poor ventilation... Apparently, the heat build up internally was enough to warp the boards that the cheaply soldered components came slightly loose (thus those components could no longer function properly). There are reports that the 360 designers even warned MS that there was more time needed to iron out some of the issues regarding ventilation prior to launch. MS apparently has ignored those requests, skimped out on costs by using cheaper soldering among other things which collectively all added up to overheating units and such. It got so bad, MS even made some official cooling docking stations to help qualm the situation. All in all.. this 'rushed' product has cost MS a lot of money ($1 Billion +). So in the end, does it pay to rush things like this out the door for saved R&D dollars and getting a head start ahead of the competition? I can say it has nothing to do with software whatsoever. So yes, MS is very much a fault in this case. It will be veeerry interesting to see what kind of hardware MS comes up with for their 'xbox 720' next gen system. Some lessons are learned the very hard and very expensive way. Time will tell I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Ah okay, I didn't know there were hardware issues, as well. But I recently read an article (will post it if I can find it) that talked about a lot of games having bugs, as well...basically releasing beta versions as final releases, to push them out sooner. Basically the author of the article said "Wtf, if I wanted to pay a company for the privilege of being a beta tester, I would buy an MMO on my PC. And I can understand PC games having bugs, because they have to cater to so many systems, hardwares, setups, etc.. but when you're a company that's working with one system with one set of hardware...you know wtf you're dealing with." All in all it was a pretty entertaining article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Ah okay, I didn't know there were hardware issues, as well. But I recently read an article (will post it if I can find it) that talked about a lot of games having bugs, as well...basically releasing beta versions as final releases, to push them out sooner. Basically the author of the article said "Wtf, if I wanted to pay a company for the privilege of being a beta tester, I would buy an MMO on my PC. And I can understand PC games having bugs, because they have to cater to so many systems, hardwares, setups, etc.. but when you're a company that's working with one system with one set of hardware...you know wtf you're dealing with." All in all it was a pretty entertaining article I agree.. Bad software is not MS's fault (unless the game in question is developed internally by a game division owned and operated by MS themselves ) The problem with game development is that not all developers are equally talented, have the same budgets / deadlines, QA processes, etc..) So yes, for the games that are crappy, no one can blame MS on that one. This is why I rent games first.. If its stable and good, then I may contemplate purchasing it. Otherwise, I only lost a couple of bucks for 5 days as opposed to $60-70 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akitchin Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Ah okay, I didn't know there were hardware issues, as well. But I recently read an article (will post it if I can find it) that talked about a lot of games having bugs, as well...basically releasing beta versions as final releases, to push them out sooner. Basically the author of the article said "Wtf, if I wanted to pay a company for the privilege of being a beta tester, I would buy an MMO on my PC. And I can understand PC games having bugs, because they have to cater to so many systems, hardwares, setups, etc.. but when you're a company that's working with one system with one set of hardware...you know wtf you're dealing with." All in all it was a pretty entertaining article my favourite comment in an article discussing lag/video performance issues in console games (with regards to the one system with one set of hardware) was this: it's like giving us an L-shaped condom; you know what we're working with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 LOL yeah I read that article it's from..uh...cracked.com? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akitchin Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 LOL yeah I read that article it's from..uh...cracked.com? it was either cracked or ars technica. given the humour, it was probably the "7 worst video game sins" or something like that on cracked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted November 7, 2008 Author Share Posted November 7, 2008 OMG, I have been reading articles/tutorials on building/programming your own OS, and it is really cool! I'M going to work on building my own OS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 so...you want to learn assembly...why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted November 7, 2008 Author Share Posted November 7, 2008 Here is all the assembly code, to start a basic c++ OS: ; Loader.asm [bITS 32] ; protected mode [global start] [extern _main] ; this is our C++ code [extern __main] ; this is our C support code [extern __atexit] start: call __main call _main ; call our C++ code call __atexit cli ; interrupts will disturb the halt hlt ; halt the CPU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 I will be leaving OS programming to the people who do that kind of thing. Even if I had the ability, I wouldn't want to waste the time. Oh, by the way, that doesn't look like asm to me TLG. At least not true ASM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 I will be leaving OS programming to the people who do that kind of thing. Even if I had the ability, I wouldn't want to waste the time. Oh, by the way, that doesn't look like asm to me TLG. At least not true ASM. Yeah...that's not really truly programming your own OS. You're still using built in routines/functions/etc from a low level language/compiler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted November 8, 2008 Author Share Posted November 8, 2008 Then how else would you make an OS? If you didn't have a language, then you couldn't make a program, such as an OS. I believe that I had read that Windows was created with C or C++. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Not sure what Windows is coded in. An OS could theoretically be written in any language, as long as it's possible to compile it. And yes, it's possible to make a program without a language. All languages do technically compile down to asm, and asm is just instructions for the processor. Then the processor does stuff on a physical level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Then how else would you make an OS? If you didn't have a language, then you couldn't make a program, such as an OS. I believe that I had read that Windows was created with C or C++. LoL that sounds a lot like a "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" argument. Yes, it is possible to use pure asm to program. ASM itself is a programming language, actually. It's the lowest level you can get, short of directly feeding 1's and 0's into the hardware. So technically, even using pure ASM is still using a language, albeit, direct processor language. It's easier to understand if you look into how computers work on a physical level. Go back to high-school days with the example of a string of lightbulbs being turned off and on in different patterns Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ionik Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 windows 7..........how bout vista is fixed. I have to use it at work and so far it is completely unstable at times.....komodo edit crashes for me repeatedly throughout the day, firefox allways bugs out and forces me to uninstall/reinstall. And then again all the clicks i have to run through just to start certain programs..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 You running 64-bit vista? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 windows 7..........how bout vista is fixed. I have to use it at work and so far it is completely unstable at times.....komodo edit crashes for me repeatedly throughout the day, firefox allways bugs out and forces me to uninstall/reinstall. And then again all the clicks i have to run through just to start certain programs..... Either you 1) don't meet the requirements, or 2) somehow messed up your install. My Vista install works great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted November 8, 2008 Author Share Posted November 8, 2008 My Vista install works great. I second that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Firefox has crashed maybe 3 times on me in the past year, and all of those times it was either my own or a website's fault. I don't believe it's fair to say the OS is bad because two programs crash under it. (Unless, of course, you can prove that Vista somehow directly caused the crash, and it would be impossible for the makers of said program to fix the problem.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Also, isn't the job of the program to be compatible with the OS, not the other way around? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerRobot Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 windows 7..........how bout vista is fixed. I have to use it at work and so far it is completely unstable at times.....komodo edit crashes for me repeatedly throughout the day, firefox allways bugs out and forces me to uninstall/reinstall. And then again all the clicks i have to run through just to start certain programs..... Either you 1) don't meet the requirements, or 2) somehow messed up your install. My Vista install works great. Or 3.) Your computer is full of viruses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Also, isn't the job of the program to be compatible with the OS, not the other way around? What I had in mind was some kind of fault of the OS where something was working unexpectedly. Like a messed up sys call of some kind or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Also, isn't the job of the program to be compatible with the OS, not the other way around? What I had in mind was some kind of fault of the OS where something was working unexpectedly. Like a messed up sys call of some kind or something. I see. Just seems to me that most "Windows sucks" posts involve bitching that people's programs lock, crash, etc... and that's somehow the OS's fault. I mean, it could be. But I doubt it. Especially when it comes to people bitching about vista. There's a good possibility they are running 64-bit. 64-bit technology has just hit the mainstream market (relatively) recently. Recent enough that the only companies that have updated their software to be compatible are the ones that charge hundreds of dollars for their products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 I remember when Vista first came out and drivers were non existent for a lot of products. People somehow blamed the OS on that. I guess MS should've worked more closely with hardware manufacturers, but bleh, it just bugged me how it was automatically Microsoft's fault. "Just seems to me that most "Windows sucks" posts involve bitching that people's programs lock, crash, etc... and that's somehow the OS's fault." My desktop publishing (a frustratingly boring and easy class) teacher thought that the auto save feature of Word (where if you're typing something and the e-world ends it saves it) was because of Vista. She told us in the middle of like a presentation thingy where she was 'teaching' us how to use mice and what not. I raised my hand and explained how I figured it worked. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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