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barnsey123

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About barnsey123

  • Birthday 07/23/1964

Profile Information

  • Custom Status
    Drink! Feck! Girls!
  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Birmingham,UK
  • Interests
    Crisps. Beer. UFO's
  • Currently Playing
    With himself
  • Playing Next
    Choke the Chicken

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  1. I love the video above...it's surreal. How many other people had their mum playing a trumpet behind them while they were coding? Absolutely bizarre. You can't make this stuff up! Video introduced by that great TV Presenter and convicted sex offender Stuart Hall. Mental! If my mum had helped me with my programming the world would now be a wasteland ruled by kick-ass AI driven self-replicating battle robots. So, be thankful that my mum never learnt to play the trumpet. I think we dodged a bullet there, people.
  2. Curse you makers of Cubico...played it for HOURS yesterday and got up early to play it today (dreamt of those damed cubes last night). Great game, clean graphics, well implemented. Give me back my TIME, I've got things to do but I keep coming back to this...
  3. I *LOVE* this game. The music is spot on, I love the little jingle when you die (it's sort of sad but in a sweet way). Haven't tried it on real atari yet (using Altirra). It's also very responsive. The animation of Dimo is good and the "ghosts" look cool. The puzzles get gently harder without being too taxing early on. Good use of color. Excellent.
  4. Let's talk UI (will come onto GUI later). Years ago, when DOS 6 PC's with green screens were all the rage, my boss and one of his trusted advisers came up with the brilliant idea of speeding up data input by equipping the PC's with a barcode reader (a laser or IR pen hooked into the PC). EVERYTHING that users ever had to type were printed onto barcodes that were stored on laminated sheets of paper and held in ring-bound folders...can you see where this was going? In those days, my opinion on such things was quite well respected - people used to listen to me (bizarre, I know) - so I was asked about this brave new barcode-centric world and I was expected to give it Barnseys Green Light. They were shocked when I told them that IMO, it was a complete turkey and I outlined all the flaws in the plan. It didn't go down well and in a heated debate I was put under immense political pressure to give the plan my support and get the users onboard. I could not agree but the plan went ahead regardless. It failed...and it failed big time...there were, in fact, real tears of frustration from the users (they went so far as to disable the keyboard in the software to force users to "get used to it"). Management could not ignore the failings and so v2 was released. V2 was a masterstroke. The most commonly used barcodes (e.g. "08", "04", "AUDIT" etc) were removed from the folders and sellotaped to peoples desks. The trouble was, the list of "commonly used" codes differed from desk to desk dependent on function and rather than maintain separate lists (which of course would be inefficient) we had a "master list" of EVERYBODIES common codes all covered in sellotape and taking up lots of desk space. Of course, this slowed people down still further as they first had to scan the common list before leafing through the folders. Nightmare. The project was eventually dropped and besides a few red faces, irreparable damage to reputations and careers, me becoming a pariah in the eyes of management and thousands of pounds in lost productivity and nervous breakdowns in some staff, no real harm was done. So, what's this got to do with GUI's? Well, the important thing is not the "G" in GUI, it's the "UI". The example above describes how the inappropriate use of new technology can destroy the UI and make people less productive. Touch screens are a case in point, yes touch screens are very useful (zooming in on maps on an ipad is very intuitive) but touch screen keyboards are mostly horrible and slow you down. GUI's are a great tool for the compartmentalization and vizualization of applications but they are not an end in themselves. IMO, it's the combination of all these technologies that is important where the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. GUI, Keyboard, Mouse, Touchscreen, Touchpad, Command Line, Scripting Language and of course the applications. Combine these parts well and give users control choices and things become flexible, fast and user friendly. Even barcode readers have a place as long as they are used properly... Back to the Atari GUI, I'd like to see ARREX like wot we had on the Amiga...@FJC I want a set of proposals on my desk first thing Monday. Alright?
  5. I like the expression on the guy's face (in the pics above). It's like he's on the verge of going crazy. Which is exactly how I feel when doing anything in assembler. He reminds me of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining". I wonder what he's typing...
  6. Good game, addictive but maybe too fast. Slow it down a bit and keep user stats (top 5 longest words etc)
  7. I've got the Atarimax version...they fit nicely into those silicon Wii controller covers. The holes in the silicon sleeves are really convenient. OK it's not a rigid case but it's something...
  8. Love the look of this game. It's the sort of thing that players of any age can just pick up and play. Well presented and executed. Nice tune.
  9. Thanks rafal...appreciated. OK...now some pics In the helmet picture there is some artefacting which I probably need to remove by tidying up the original picture barnsey123-viking-helmet1.xex The skull picture (see prev post) after running for about 50m iterations, I think I need to add some noise in the top right of picture. barnsey123-skull1.xex
  10. barnsey123

    HNEFATAFL

    ATARI Conversion of Oric HNEFATFAL
  11. Sorry for a noob question but how do I convert a png generated from rastaconverter to XEX or ATR format? Is there a way of converting the data to a .s file for later inclusion in an a8 game I'm planning to write? Of course, I need to post an image (themz the rules!) below is an image (original from www.wall-hd.com) Being a noob and generally not paying attention I converted the thumbnail of the image not the big hd version so I'm currently processing that now. Would appreciate any response (PM me if you don't wanna pollute this thread)...thanks.
  12. Hi Guys, is there a windows binary for RasterConverter anywhere or can someone offer me some tips on how to compile it on Win7? I've downloaded the source but is there a recommended compiler? Specifically, I'm looking to convert some PNG files and RC looks like the nuts. Cheers
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