🚀 go-pugleaf

Lengthy discussion (82 lines) on appropriateness of postings to
rec.games.programmer follows.  While I have no desire to start a flame war,
the number of inappropriate articles on rec.games.programmer is getting out
of control.  Perhaps it's time to repost the charter.

ross@zooid.guild.org (Ross Ridge) writes:
>> Enough!!!  This is rec.games.programmer, if you want to get into technical
>> discusions about VGA cards, DMA or IRQs for IBM PC's then take it to
>> comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware or comp.os.msdos.programmer.  99% of the babble
>> here lately has nothing to do with game programming anymore, it's just
>> stupid questions and stupid answers about PC hardware.

I totally agree. Many other forums exist where those topics could and
should be discussed.  Here's the results of just a little looking.

	selected results from a search on "ibm"
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware 0000026414 25752 y
comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer 0000000745 00728 y
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games 0000009481 08574 y
comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard 0000001060 00904 y

	selected results from a search on "msdos"
alt.msdos.programmer 0000002124 02095 y
comp.os.msdos.programmer 0000011736 10379 y

sl8nl@cc.usu.edu () writes:
>Realizing that while there are many non-IBM programmers here, there are
>many IBM programmers:

The same can be said of almost any group.

>** FLAME ON **
>OK, buddy, you tell us what you want in here.  Lessee, if we eliminate
>VGA cards...eliminated...IRQs...eliminated...DMA...eliminiated...
>there would be no games as they exist today!!!

Games are not dependant on VGA cards, interrupt requests (IRQs), or
direct-memory transfers (DMAs) any more than they are dependant on
the type of machine code the hardware uses.

>If your beliefs are such that you can tell somebody program a
>split-screen, and they automatically know how to do it, then you
>are wrong!!!!  What about scaling, do you know how to scale?  Could
>you program it instantly for us?  You tell me how, without an IRQ or
>DMA, a computer is supposed to make a single beep of music?
>** FLAME OFF **

Well, on the apple II series, all that was required was to read or write
to memory location $C030 at specific time intervals, and for my NeXT, all
I have to do is use the built-in sound and music libraries.

>We're here to learn, and there has been a heck of a lot of learning lately.
>Different code has been posted to do things dealing with games, ideas have
>been introduced that have been expanded into a wide range of subjects,
>usually answering the original question better than any book can.

Yes, but let's make sure that we are learning game programming theory and
not the difference between modey vs 13h!

>Theory is nice, it gives you something to think about.  But as I said in
>one of my earlier posts about perspective mapping, "Use Bresenham to draw
>a line in memory and then map each row and column of pixels to this line."
>That's theory...that's an answer to a question that could be implemented
>on any machine, if anyone knew what I was talking about.  Then code
>was posted--for an IBM, but needless to say, it could be easily converted
>to Amiga or Mac or Atari ST.

I'm not saying that computer-specific code should never be used, but when it
is used, it should be to further the discussion of games programming, and
not just giving out machine-specific tricks and pointers.

>The point is, while some discussions _have_ gone overboard, they have taught
>a great deal.  I may be tired of reading IRQ messages right now, but that's
>the breaks, and the people involved are learning more and more about how
>the computer really works so they can create the best games.

>Josh

LONG listing of inappropriate postings made just in the last week follows.
~95 out of ~180 messages.  That's about 50 percent.
It was also interesting to note that Josh started some of these threads.
Hit "n" now!
=============================================================================
-Mike Kienenberger                       SXMLK@ALASKA           (BITNet)
 University of Alaska Computer Network   SXMLK@acad3.alaska.edu (Internet)
 University of Alaska-Fairbanks
=============================================================================

3979 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
3980 Editing Scans
3984 need help with assembly code, etc.
3985 Vertical Retrace Interrupt (?)
3986 ModeY vs. 13h
3987 Re: Vertical Retrace Interrupt (?)
3989 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
3990 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
3992 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
3993 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
3995 Re: Vertical Retrace Interrupt (?)
3996 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
3997 VGA Latches
3998 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
3999 Re: Vertical Retrace Interrupt (?)
4002 Re: VGA Latches
4008 ModeY vs 13h
4009 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
4014 Questions...
4018 Re: Questions...
4019 RE: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4020 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4024 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4026 Re: Questions...
4027 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4029 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4033 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4034 Re: Dave 'n' Josh
4036 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4040 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4041 Re: VGA Latches
4044 Re: Questions...
4046 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4049 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4050 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4052 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4054 Re: VGA Latches
4057 Re: VGA Latches
4059 Re: VGA Latches
4062 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
4063 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4065 Re: Questions...
4066 Felis Respondants!!!
4067 Re: vertical retrace inte
4069 Re: questions...
4070 Re: vertical retrace inte
4072 Re: modey vs 13h
4077 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4078 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4079 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4081 Re: need help with assembly code, etc.
4082 Re: Vertical Retrace Interrupt (?)
4084 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
4085 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4086 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4087 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4088 Re: RE: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4089 damn palettes are driving me insane
4095 Re: modey vs 13h
4097 Image saving in MSC7.0
4099 Re: VGA Latches
4101 Re: VGA Latches
4106 Re: Image saving in MSC7.0
4108 Re: modey vs 13h
4110 DMA: buggy potential gem
4111 Re: modey vs 13h
4113 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4114 Re: modey vs 13h
4115 Re: modey vs 13h
4116 Re: DMA: buggy potential gem
4120 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
4121 Re: vertical retrace inte
4122 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4123 Re: vertical retrace inte
4124 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4125 Cronologia Demo
4126 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4127 Re: ModeY vs. 13h
4128 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4130 Re: ModeY vs 13h
4137 Fun and Games on the Commercial Internet
4138 Demos
4141 Mode Y. I'm only a year behind :-)
4143 Re: vertical retrace inte
4145 Re: vertical retrace inte
4148 Re: Demos
4149 Re: vertical retrace inte
4150 Re: Vertical Retrace interrupt?
4151 VGA, Retraces, and DMA
4154 Re: VGA, Retraces, and DMA
4155 Re: vertical retrace inte
4156 Re: VGA, Retraces, and DMA
4159 Re: VGA, Retraces, and DMA
4160 Re: VGA, Retraces, and DMA
4161 Re: vertical retrace inte