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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

Quake For The iPaq 148

Posted by timothy from the start-shaking dept.
hooded1 writes: "Although once considered a utopian ideal, it has now become a reality. Last night on January 20th Dan East released the alpha version of PocketQuake, the first successful port of Quake to any pda. ... Currently PocketQuake only runs on the iPaq." And Jacek Fedorynski points to this screenshot as well. Note that this only works for iPaqs running WinCE, not Linux.
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Quake For The iPaq More

Quake For The iPaq

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  • Umm... there is a gamepad built into the iPaq and the Cassiopeia. Unfortunately, the iPaq's gamepad doesn't have ANY diaginol (spelling) control (although you can push it.) What's worse, the diag's are read as button pushes for an application! And you can't push two buttons at the same time. The cassiopeia doesn't have any of these constrants (but is a slower machine)
  • Oh wonderful, now iPaq users can practice killing each other in their offices through playing Quake. Don't people realize this is an evil game which teachers murder and mayhem and causes so much hurt and loss. Can't they do their mergers and aquisitions without Quake? What would Patrick Bateman do?

  • Yeah, I think that's my favourite April fools day joke ever.

  • Yes, but I was just saying that TI-Files was much bigger before they disappeared off the face of the Earth.
  • I want pocket Wolf 3d! nothings more fun than spraying hot lead at Nazis.
  • WINCE has no dos, therefore, pocket quake *has* to be a win32 executable.
    It's not unheard of, winquake and quakeworld were both win32 applications and the source code for everything, quake, glquake, winquake, quakeworld, etc was released dec 99.

    It would be a simple matter for someone who knew what they were doing to port it over. I believe the only reason why there is no networking yet, is because of the framerate issues with onscreen rockets (fps slow way down).. otoh, this is a great way to discourage those rocket spewing bunny hoppers!
    -since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
  • Now if it would network over a infrared port.. Oh ya!
  • No kidding. I remember trying to return my Palm VII when I learned its' wireless networking wouldn't work inside the corporate mensroom. Now I'm stuck avantgo-ing all my content while i sit cross-legged at my desk, waiting for it to sync.

  • Except that none of the games listed there are made by Microsoft. Try paying a bit more attention, next time.

  • ...of why? Why on earth do we want to play Quake on our PDAs?

    Yes, it proves it can be done, but unless the technology is applied to real technical uses, we're just embarassing ourselves.

    We need to throw ourselves at more important technical issues before wasting efforts on projects like these. If our community would focus on the larger problems instead of each individual's toys, Microsoft would be long-dead from the Linux and Open Source community having obsoleted anything it can put out far ahead of time.

    That's just my .02 dollars, though.

    -k.
  • I *know* I've seen this before on ign.com, but I can't find the link at the moment. The GBC *can* do Wolfenstein (which is considerably easier, when you think about it),

    You are probably thinking Tyranasaurous Tex, which is a yet to be released game based on a Wolfenstein-like engine for the GBC. There was also a game for the classic GameBoy, called Faceball 2000, which ran a Wolfenstein-like engine. Of course, faceball ran at 6 fps (they've been counted).

    so I'll go so far as to at least *hope* that the GBA can run a Doomlike, given enough work, even though it lacks a SuperFX equivalent (SNES Doom used it, IIRC).

    I can garauntee you you'll see Doom-likes on the GBA. ONe company has already produced a tech demo if a Doom-like walkthrough that runs quite well.

    Quake, however, is out of the question. There's a massive difference between a pseudo-3D hack and a full blown polygon rendering engine, and the GBA's 30-40 MHz CPU (again, IIRC) will not be up to snuff for that level of detail.

    True, I have perhaps over estimated the GBAs power. Taking a quick peek at the iPaq's specs, I notice it runs twice as fast as the GBA. However, iPaq quake has windows to fight through, whereas on the GBA,the code runs right on top of the bare metal. Still not enough for to make up for the difference in processor speeds, though...

    Something like Elite, maybe. Texture mapping? High polygon counts? err... no. The only way I see it working is with vastly different level design, such as using a non-polygonal system for maps,

    Maybe something like the Descent engine, which was based on sticking cubes together cleverly, would work. As I recall, Descent was able to run on rather slow computers, and I would love to see more tunnel runners out there!

    and very low poly count models to fight against. I'll never go so far as to say it can't be done, but I'll have to say it won't be easy, and it won't be done the same

    As for enemies, I think that we'll probably see pre-rotated sprites on the GBA, as with Doom and Wolfenstein. With the Hardware sprites (and hardware sprite scaling) that the GBA has, developer would be stupid not to use them, it seems.

    While we may not see any killer Quake-likes on the GBA, I can garauntee that we'll see several FPSes of some type.
  • The fact is, id gave the community a gift in the form of the Quake source. Why should some members of that community be allowed to be selfish, and take it all for themselves? They shouldn't, and we shouldn't let them.

    Woah, hold your horses buddy. There's a basic fallacy in your argument in that the Quake source code is not a finite resource, like the gift you're comparing it to. It's not as if id laid out a plate of cookies, and he took every last one. Just because the author used the Quake source and hasn't released his source code (yet) doesn't mean that you can't also use the Quake source code, so the idea that he has "taken it all for himself" is absolutely rediculous.
  • Yeah, but the PCMCIA sleeves are kinda tough to obtain (I've heard). But, while we're on that topic, you can get anything from PC Card CDPD modems to all other sorts of network paraphenalia, so networking is definitely not much trouble, especially on the iPaq. However, until there's better CompactFlash network cards (especially wireless), everything other than iPaq will probably be out of luck.

  • Uh ... the E-125 is still the MIPS VR41xx (4122, in this case) CPU that all Cassiopeia's have used. If a piece of software supports Pocket PC and MIPS, then it'll run on the E-125. Even some non-Pocket PC (Windows CE 2.1x Palm-size PC) software will still run on Pocket PC PDAs.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Oh, come on. Of course this is interesting! It shows off the power of the hardware and the programmers! Would you really visit slashdot to read about the newest PDA text processor? I think it's fascinating that a c. 6 year old game that pushed hardware limits then, now runs on a machine that can fit in your pocket! It may not be practical, but if I may quote the byline, this is news for nerds.

  • Here they are: http://research.compaq.com/wrl/projects/itsy/movie s.htm [compaq.com]

    Oh, & the Itsy runs Linux...

  • Man, I wish that was real! The MP2k is great as it is, though.

  • All it would take is usage of the standard Win32 network APIs, which wouldn't be that hard. A CompactFlash 802.11 card should be out soon, and CF wired Ethernet has been avaiable for some time now, so the network layer is available as well.

    I've been a hard-core Palm fanatic for some time now (I'm the developer of DopeWars for PalmOS [cjb.net]), but only recently have I realized that the Pocket PC really gives developers a lot more functionality and CPU power to work with. The Palm platform is so extremely limited...

  • shows how strong the legions of doom are becoming.

    Couldn't have said it better myself. ;P

    (Ed. Note: I can't believe I did that twice in less than a week.)

    --K
  • This is a big improvement over Microsoft's offerings [beyond.com]. So for all you complaining about how dumb this is, take a look at some of this shit and how much money is being charged for it.
  • Hey, that's kind of cool. The rock and scroll interface makes it actually playable.

  • Cool. (Score:4)

    by seirei ( 305934 ) on Sunday January 21, 2001 @04:56PM (#491856)
    This is a really ambitious port. I noticed it only runs on ARM based PDA's. Which is interesting considering Nintendo's new gameboy variation (called GameBoy Advance) will be ARM based. Specs of GBA: [http://www.gameboy.com/gbadvance.html] I wonder how hard it would be to port to this? I don't think the instruction set would differ too much. (unless they have some kind of custom cpu core) Though getting it on to a nintendo cartridge would probably be the harder part.(?)
  • I guess it was for the benefit of the moderators.

  • Re:DAMN! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I guess UTOPIA will have to wait a little longer for you.
  • http://64.69.95.40/pocketquake/ is a mirror to the official site because we are currently switching hosts at pocketmatrix.com (our old host cwihosting.com kept shutting us down).... So there you go,,enjoy. Chris
  • Heavens, has no one heard of this nifty invention called the plasmadisplay? For God's sake, anything involving electrons requires power in proportions I find it difficult to believe a PDA could output for more than a second. Plasmadisplays are getting cheaper, brighter, require less power and can be flexible. You'd better check the date on your Commodore 64 man--it's the twenty-first century and it's happening faster than you think. Believe it; Star Trek is real; they just pretend it's a TV show.

  • Ah but if I wanted to nitpick, I could argue that that is indeed not a CRT, because it doesnt employ an electron gun nor include a vacuum tube.

    There's vacuum between the electron-emitting structures at the back and the phosphors at the front. An electric potential accelerates the electrons across this gap, providing the energy they need to excite the phosphors. For me, that's close enough to fit the terms "vacuum tube" and "electron gun".

    The two main differences between this technology and a "traditional" CRT are:
    (1) cold-cathode electron emission rather than hot-cathode (from a heated filament).
    (2) One "electron gun" per phosphor dot, rather than a single steered beam.

    But the original question was just about a PDA form factor "CRT", not a "hot-cathode raster-scanned CRT"...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Well, if you want to believe the rumors on various iPAQ discussion boards (Brighthand [brighthand.com] having the best), Compaq tech support has told iPAQ users that it's a hardware limitation, and one they don't necessarily plan on fixing.

    On the other hand, between iPAQ Quake, iPAQ Doom, the NES emulator, the NeoGeo Pocket emulator, and MAME CE, maybe Compaq will consider marketing a gamepad sleeve.

  • Tex.. that's it!
    (Note: when I say Wolfenstein, I mean "Wolf-like")

    As for Doomlikes, the non-orthogonal walls should be a cinch, but that's not what I'm worried about. It's that pesky y-axis (for those of you who don't know, we walk on an X/Z plane. Y is up. Or at least that's how I learned to do 3D) Without SuperFX, though? Nothing doing.

    Also, a retraction. GBA runs at 16MHz. Even slower. That makes the iPaq over 12 times faster, as it's running at slightly over 200MHz on another ARM variant.

    All in all, the FPS scene will exist, but it's looking grim. Unless they add a SuperFX gamepak at some point (which will suck battery life like mad), we're going to be dealing with something between Wolf3D and Doom, unless there are some major changes in 3d engine design for a tile-based system.

    Best of luck, though. I'd love to play a nice high-detail FPS on a handheld console.

    Raptor

  • No port for Linux? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Give me 5 minutes...
  • ::Turns red::

    Ok, so I was slightly off. Slightly!

    Dark Arena's doing the Y-axis pretty well. I wonder if it's really handling floors and ramps properly, though...

    In short, I probably underestimated the system a tad *too* much. Kudos to Nintendo.


    Raptor

  • Is that a Quake I see in your pocket, or are you just really excited to see me?

  • Damn ^3 (Score:5)

    by Ando[evilmedic] ( 199537 ) on Sunday January 21, 2001 @04:32PM (#491869) Homepage
    It will never run on my Palm IIIc.

    It would feel more turn-based though. :-)

    - Ando
  • OK, I can understand you think I'm anti-MS given the forum, but I'm not. I have programmed for Handspring's Visor and I liked it. Very simple. However, I can't say I have programmed for WinCE or Pocket PC systems, but I have used them. They are kinda cool, but when compared to the price, stability, and ease of use of a lower end Palm I prefer those. Yes, I'm biased but not because its MS that I hate. I'm biased because the batteries last a long time in the Palm, the OS doesn't crash as much for me, the applications are a cinch to load and its just what I want in a PDA. These are just my opinions though. Of course, other people have other needs.. they need Excel on their PDA.. and it is kinda cool to be walking around with a very small PDA that is more powerful than my computer I bought a few years back.. but I have no use for that in a PDA.. a laptop yes.. PDA no.. thats just me though.. Also, I've never used CP/M and Quake on a PDA is kinda cool, brings back old school memories of playing Quake at 320x240 on a 486 laptop.. shit this PDA is faster.. hard to believe..

    JOhn
  • With the dancing bear, it's not so much how well the bear dances, it's that the bear can dance at all.
  • I see a couple of problems with this. First, Quake for a PDA would probably be more than a bit difficult to control (lack of real keyboard, etc.). Second, every PDA (that I know of, anyway) uses an LCD screen. LCD screens are terrible at displaying dark colors while you're in a room with more light than, say, a Christmas tree bulb.

    Until flat CRT becomes affordable/common, and unless there are more buttons/keys/ways of controlling PDAs, I don't see many people playing this for more than a few minutes.
  • This is not exciting at all compared to hopscotch [sun.com] for motorola phones.

  • Yeah, I wish Itsy wasn't just for research. Ipaq (a.k.a. Bitsy) is kind of a bastardization (StrongARM, too).

  • I can't get enough of these type of games. I have dreadling for my palm IIIe and play it non stop.. If they can get quake running on this thing... I'd pay $50 for it! 3 Frags Left...
  • flat CRT? I have never heard of such a thing. There are other viable flat-screen technologies, but I fail to see how a cathode ray tube could possibly be fit into a PDA form factor. Otherwise, I tend to agree with the rest of your points.
  • nice story but please we all know that the strongARM can do this ever played on a netwinder ?

    have fun look @ the scrolling interfaces on CRL webpage

    regards

    john jones

  • Try one first (Score:4)

    by Zico ( 14255 ) on Sunday January 21, 2001 @05:07PM (#491878)
    The iPaq's got a Sony-made, side-lit passive matrix display which is awesome, despite only having 4K colors. Here's what c|net said about it [cnet.com]:
    Rather than being backlit like other color LCDs, the iPaq instead has small lights around its edge, which reflect off the screen and make it brilliantly bright, even when outdoors in direct sunlight.

    Secondly, how many buttons and keys do you think you need? The iPaq's got a directional control plus four buttons in front, and probably 3 or 4 along the side. So, I don't really buy either of your complaints.

    The glaring weakness of gaming on the iPaq is Compaq did a poor job of making sure that the buttons act independently of each other. The Cassiopeia handles this perfectly, though, so it's not some inherent problem with PDAs. If Compaq would quit being stubborn and fix that button problem in their next model, they'd have an even bigger winner on their hands than they do with the current one.


    Cheers,

  • to one of this babys is Packman. Now THAT would be an achievement!
  • Probably the most important issue with porting Quake to any PDA is that most low-end CPUs (like the StrongArm in the iPAQ) don't have a floating point unit. When it was released, Quake was one of the first games to require an FPU to play, unlike earlier games like Doom that weaved their 3D magic using only integer maths.

    This is why Doom has been running on the Itsy for ages - the StrongArm has reasonable integer performance, so it runs well. However, while you could just do a straight compile of Quake for linux on the iPAQ, it'd run like a dog, since all the FP instructions would be emulated in software.

    Have these hackers reworked the Quake core to use only integer maths? If so, where's the (GPL'd) source? :)
  • But at the same time at 100 (only 50 for the casio e-500 which is small and comes in colors) dollors more it just doesn't make sence to not buy it. Don't tell me you couldn't ever come up with a use for a full scale web browser in your pda... Even if you don't use the feature very much it's still just the price of a few apps for palm os. What I am saying is even if you think you have no use for extra features you probably could use them and the price difference is nothing. Why not support a supirior product. Maybe then palm would have some presure to get their act together.

    Also quake is cool but I perfer having an nes snes mame and game boy emulator on mine the games have a small foot print and most are very playable (not MAME games : ()
  • The port for cassiopeia will be done by the end of the week I think go to www.pocketgamer.org for details.
  • Actually, Microsoft distributes an excellent port of Pac-Man for PocketPC in the free FunPack
  • why is this news? One truely has to ask. If the software was portable it would be easy to port and therefore a port of the software should be news to about 10 people who want to play quake on a PDA. Yawn. But because the software is hard to port we all stand up and cheer when they port it? Why? Shouldn't we answer this news with "uhh.. we port stuff to different platforms every day, that's what writing portable code is all about?"

    Not that I've played quake in the last 2 years. Bravo, you ported some software.. woo hoo.
  • I think you missed my point, and also turned my post into flamebait, which was not the intention.

    While what he did is an accomplishment in its form, I'm pointing out that the larger, group projects are what sets the Linux and OpenSource community apart. Think of how the Linux kernel is developed.

    If you took the effort on some of these smaller[1] projects, and took the group and devoted that time to making the bigger products that will finally replace M$ as the front market, well, then ...M$ would be replaced by the effort.

    1 - Although, upon reading some other posts (I.E. the architectural thread on the subject), the 3D engine aspect of it is great.

    Usefulness deserves consideration, as well. Games are good, and the geek factor is high, but this shouldn't be the crowning achievement you'd like to say it is.

    And next time, log in, AC.

    -k.
  • I can't wait for it to be ported to my Timex Datalink. I can see it now: "I just saw a pixel turn on! Should I shoot it, or go see if its a BFG???"

  • FYI, the link to the doom port, not wolf3d or quake, but close is as follows:
    http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/14 /1 451.html
    I remember my TI-85 back in high school, we used to play multiplayer games of pong via the link cable, and all the other various things. What im looken for is Dope Wars for the TI-85, I love that game =) and it looks like that is here:
    http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/10 3/ 10384.html
    wow, now all I need to do is find my serial to calculator adaptor.
  • Hah, last time a girl asked me that I just said, no, I am really excited to see ya. To my surprise it worked. ;-P
  • My first thought was "good thing he has the super shotgun out, to kill the chainsaw ogre."

    ahhh, memories...

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow

  • cant this also be easily ported to Linux since Quake was GPL'd?

    This has to be one of the silliest things I've ever seen on /., which is saying alot. What, praytell does the license have to do with portability?

  • flat CRT? I have never heard of such a thing. There are other viable flat-screen technologies, but I fail to see how a cathode ray tube could possibly be fit into a PDA form factor.

    Here's one way to do it, called a field-emitter array [mit.edu]. Electrons are emitted from a microstructured silicon substrate, then strike phosphors and produce light just like in a standard CRT.
  • I just downloaded the zip from the website, but saw no source code -- just the exe and a readme. Since the Quake source upon which this is based is GPL'd, shouldn't the source be included?
  • One of the first things I played on MAME on my iPAQ. :)

    Even works on the linux port.

    1st Law Of Networking: Loose ends are bad, termination is good.

  • Hehe, now instead of falling asleep at board meetings, me and the rest of the tech team will spend the entire time playing Quake.

    Boss: Great job gentlemen, all of you have your PDA's out taking notes I see.

    HUMILIATION!

    Me: Dammit! Er... um I mean, ya that's what we should do witht the leak in HR, dam it!
    Boss: Good idea man, you'll get a raise for that!

    _____________________________

  • And there's no such thing as a Pocket PC dual booting (yet).

    Depends, the Casio linux port has a boot loader that lets you load from a flash card... they don't have it for the iPAQ yet, although someone's working on it.


    1st Law Of Networking: Loose ends are bad, termination is good.

  • Yeah, programming for the PalmOS is fun. I love having such an extremely limited dynamic memory heap.

  • Hmm, especially if you hook it up to a GPS. And maybe to the thing mentioned on (either /. or BBC News) that used cable and pipe plans to depict a model of the terrain under a road so that works would know where to dig to fix the gas/water pipes.

    Suddenly 3D models of the building you're walking towards could become possible.

    But we knew this - people have wanted this ability built into their sunglasses for years.

    ~Cederic

  • This has every bit as much pure hack value as porting linux. You're having to perform a far more complex task, with performance issues, and all the same problems of interfacing to the hardware.

    ~Cederic


  • Maybe the people that did this will take the skills they've gained and go on to "greater" things. Or maybe they just wanted to play Quake on their iPAQs and got on with making it possible.

    The time spent on this is not wasted. It is down to the person spending the time to weigh up the costs and benefits of the task, and their value scale is undoubtably different to yours.

    Also bear in mind that the joy people will gain from playing Quake on their handheld will boost the average happiness in the world. And that's always worthwhile.

    ~Cederic
  • This is a really ambitious port. I noticed it only runs on ARM based PDA's. Which is interesting considering Nintendo's new gameboy variation (called GameBoy Advance) will be ARM based. Specs of GBA: [http://www.gameboy.com/gbadvance.html] I wonder how hard it would be to port to this? I don't think the instruction set would differ too much. (unless they have some kind of custom cpu core)

    The GameBoy Advance uses the ARM7DTMI, which is a standard CPU, unlike the GB(C) which uses an almost standard CPU. Any code written for an ARM CPU should be portable to the GBA, especially if it is in C, since there is an excellent C compiler for the GBA. While GBA developement tools are only available toe registered developers, there is quite a homebrew scene built up around the GB(C) and the same is beginning to happen for the GBa already, so I expect to see this sort of thing for the GBA.

    Though getting it on to a nintendo cartridge would probably be the harder part.(?)

    Actually, I don't think that will be teh hard part at all. There exists numerous "backup devices" for the GB(C) that can read cartridges and also write to a flash ROM based cartridge. These devices are widely used among both hobbyist developers and also R0Mz kidz. Since backup devices for the GB(C) are so popular, it seems likely that we'll see them for the GBA as well.

    The "hard part" involved in writing or porting an FPS to the GBA is, like it's predecessor, it uses a tile based display system. The pixel are not individually accesable. While it is possible to overcome this with clever use of the tiles, it is still a hurdle to face and can create a bottleneck. On a system like the GB(C), getting around the tile based graphics has proven to be prohibitively difficult in almost every case. The GBA's graphics system, however, is much easier to manipulate, so I expect we'll see a couple of FPSes for it.

  • Something more than Doom on my Cassiopeia. Even better, I put it on the Cassiopeia E-125 and it ran straight away. Excellent to see these sorts of projects underway.

    Is anyone thinking of doing something similar for the PalmOS products? There would be a huge demand for this sort of project I'm sure. The IIIc would never be the same again

  • Dan East (the author) has said that he will release the source code, but because this is just an early alpha he is going to wait until he has the code to a more stable state. Technically it is a violation of the GPL, but it will be fixed.
  • Umm.. Palm PDAs adhere to the KISS principle. They don't jam in 32MB of RAM, 200+MHz processors, etc.. to make up for a bloated OS like Pocket PC PDAs. So there just isn't the power in a elegantly engineered 16MHz Palm to do this..

    JOhn
  • Ok...pipedream it may be but I'm ready for this on the 5mx...now THAT will rock my world!
  • Quake was a dos game, I doubt it used any Win32 APIs.
  • If I remember correctly, this was a hoax, no one could get it to load on their newtons, though many tried, then someone took it apart and found that it was just a file with 2mb of filler.
  • He didn't say which 5 minutes.
  • Why, what for, who will play Quake on a Pocket PC?
  • oh shut up! someone makes a portable QUAKE and you bitch about the LCD?

    some people...

  • That doesn't mean we should be tolerant. We, as a community, should demand source releases be timely. Waiting until code is in a "more stable state" could mean that we are waiting for weeks or months. That is unacceptable. The fact is, id gave the community a gift in the form of the Quake source. Why should some members of that community be allowed to be selfish, and take it all for themselves? They shouldn't, and we shouldn't let them.
  • Bah, sorry to reply to my own post, but I just found an excellent in-depth explanation of the button issue with the iPaq. It's all at Jimmy Software [jimmysoftware.com]. Of course nothing about a fix, yet.

  • How are they going to deal with lag on the ipaq when Quake III/Arena is released for it?

  • true, but in the context of the conversation (PDA's), I'd say it's safe to assume the original poster meant thin profile

  • Are you high? (Score:4)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday January 22, 2001 @12:42AM (#491917)
    That doesn't mean we should be tolerant.

    Right. Tolerance is for weenies. I must've missed that bit of social wisdom when people were teaching me how civilized human beings act.

    We, as a community, should demand source releases be timely.

    And the code release is not timely how? The fellow just released the code, and he's told people he doesn't want to release the code in this immature state, not that he will not release the code.

    Even RMS allows this sort of coding to go on. Take a look at early Brave GNU Worlds. There are references to RMS receiving binaries of a proto-bash, and the author saying "this is just to look at, there are a couple of bugs I want to fix before I send source".

    The basic underpinning of the GPL is the notion that individuals can agree to be friends. The GPL is not a legal contract so much as it is a social one; it is a social contract of openness and consideration.

    Now, if three months pass and this fellow still hasn't released source, then there's a need to say "hey, guy, I don't care how bad the source is, just send me the tarball". If he still refuses, then unleash the holy wrath of the GPL.

    But until such time as the fellow is no longer acting in good faith with the community, we need to give him full benefit of the doubt and believe that he'll be true to his word, with source forthcoming within a week or two.

    This is why, after fifteen years of believing in the ideals of free software, I'm beginning to get disgusted with the free software community. Too many zealots who believe that any transgression against the GPL, no matter how minor, is tantamount to treason against the community.

    RMS first wrote the GPL because he thought there was something wrong, something morally offensive, in treating your fellow users like serfs or faceless masses instead of treating other users like human beings, like people, like friends.

    Are you really living up to the ideal?
  • It is only a GPL Violation if he refuses to send you the source after you REQUEST it from him. He is not required to make the source easy to get to. He is only required to send it to you via some means if you ASK HIM for it. He could, if he wanted.. send it to you only on cdrom.. for the cost of the media. Just because the source is not directly availible does not mean its in violation.

    This information is in the actual text of the gpl. Its availible for anyone to read. Im tired of all these 'ohh but its violating the GPL' comments when there is no real violation. Come on guys :)
  • This calls for an IR repeater to put in the middle of the table for everyone to point their PDAs toward...
  • It doesn't use any Win32 APIs. It supports Beame & Whiteside TCP/IP. Runs over Crynwr [crynwr.com] packet drivers. And a wireless connection rocks. I was a LPB for a while, until Clarkson [clarkson.edu] shut down my back-door wireless T-1 equivalent.
    -russ
  • i've mirrored the pocketquake release at:

    ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/pocketquake/
    http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/pocketquake/

    -jason
  • I believe the most serious issue here is the iPaq's inability to detect more than one hardware button press at a time. Personally, I like being able to fire AND move at the same time. Of course you could use on-screen widgets, but that would get kinda akward, at least for me.

    Apparently, this issue has been kind of buried, I didn't hear anything about it until after I bought my iPaq and started looking for accessories. The site linked is already being hit hard (late on a Sunday night, at least in Texas, USA, and we're already taking down servers - ph33r the p0w3r of /.).

    Ah, just very slow to load. There's no detail on the page about the hardware issue.

    More on the hardware issue - as far as I know, it's a hardware problem, and nobody knows when (if) it will get fixed. Compaq is running around like mad trying to meet manufacturing requirements, so don't expect too much soon there.

  • > Though getting it on to a nintendo cartridge would probably be the harder part

    Not particularly. You can get all the hardware you would need (including flash carts) at http://www.reinerziegler.de [reinerziegler.de]
  • NewtonQuake [emeraldnet.net]

    Quake on the Newton MessagePad. It's been out for quite awhile. =)

    Poor Newton. A great platform, coining the term PDA, killed by bad P.R. and too large a form factor...
  • You forgot a link there, buddy,

    http://www.ufmedia.com/pressbox/pr-vast-jan15-01.h tml [ufmedia.com]

    (yes I know, offtopic)

    -- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

  • What *I* want to see is a port of Quake (hell, even of Wolfenstein) for the graphing calculator, so that I can sit and play it in my Trig class and still look like I'm doing work.

  • As much as I love games, and while I think that kudos go to the technical team for having achieved this result, I believe that the results from this demonstration may be some time in coming.

    When I can play a game like Quake online over a wireless connection with the iPaq - with the same (or as close as you can get in the palm of my hand), then I'll be really impressed.

    Until then, good job - and let me know when you've got something more useful.
    John "Dark Paladin" Hummel

  • Doom's on Itsy (Score:5)

    by Bomb Regardless ( 216103 ) on Sunday January 21, 2001 @04:42PM (#491965) Homepage

    Itsy (DEC [now Compaq]'s research PDA, has had Doom for a while. (It's B&W, unfortunately.) Even better, though, is that the Itsy can be controlled by rotation (called 'Rock 'n' Scroll'), so you just turn the machine to move, & press the one button for shooting.

    There are some movies that show this, I'll have to find them.

  • Checkout NewtonQuake [emeraldnet.net]... It runs on the Newton 2000 or better...
  • Well... not quite. Doom is one thing, Wolfenstein is another, even though both really require individual pixel access, or at least some really nice hacks.

    I *know* I've seen this before on ign.com, but I can't find the link at the moment. The GBC *can* do Wolfenstein (which is considerably easier, when you think about it), so I'll go so far as to at least *hope* that the GBA can run a Doomlike, given enough work, even though it lacks a SuperFX equivalent (SNES Doom used it, IIRC).

    Quake, however, is out of the question. There's a massive difference between a pseudo-3D hack and a full blown polygon rendering engine, and the GBA's 30-40 MHz CPU (again, IIRC) will not be up to snuff for that level of detail. Something like Elite, maybe. Texture mapping? High polygon counts? err... no. The only way I see it working is with vastly different level design, such as using a non-polygonal system for maps, and very low poly count models to fight against. I'll never go so far as to say it can't be done, but I'll have to say it won't be easy, and it won't be done the same way as its PDA/PC counterparts.


    Raptor
  • Has anyone tried playing iPaq Quake over a Ricochet 128kbps wireless link? (picture of iPaq with Ricochet [dreampages.com])
  • Quake on a Z80 processor. Somehow I don't think it's going to happen.

    But a Wolf3D style engine was done on the TI-85. I think it was called Deadalus. Check ticalc.org [ticalc.org] as mentioned above.

    Greyscale, 128x64 resolution and even a decent frame rate all on a 6MHz Z80 and 32k of RAM....

  • Hey, I'm working on getting a few "Official Mirrors" up for Pocket Quake... All I can say is that I wasn't expecting over 100,000 unique hits in one day :). Chris Edwards Webmaster and Co-Founder PocketMatrix.com
  • If someone can get a small, powerful 3D engine on a PDA, coupled with a 3D accelleration chipset, this could lead to a very useful architectural tool, or perhaps something for sending messages R2D2-style (until there are widespread, portable holographic displays).
  • hehem...

    Note 3 on the agenda for tonight, no quake on the company computers.

    *gigles* from table

    note 4, would the chairman for the PDA team present there report recommending what model we purchase


    ________

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