so this is a google tablet... half the price of an ipad.. rad.
does it do what i need it to do?
seriously, i ask you guys because the lay out of amazon and other sites like it drives my dyslexia/dyscalculia CRAZY. my brain thinks im trying to decipher hieroglyphics. >> ^KnivesOut:

I bought a Nook Color, and rooted it, which for non-nerds means I replaced the Barnes & Noble default OS with a standard Android ROM. This means I can load regular 'droid apps on it, by accessing the Amazon App-Store and Android Market.
Why? Because it was only $250, compared to the $500+ for an iPad. Yes, it's not as "nice" as an iPad, but:
A. I hate apple.
B. I like saving money.
C. Droid is cooler, and easier to code against than iOS, but that's just my opinion.
There are other options in a similar price range (this one is pretty nice.)
I just have a hard time with the $500 price-point on an iPad.

I bought a Nook Color, and rooted it, which for non-nerds means I replaced the Barnes & Noble default OS with a standard Android ROM. This means I can load regular 'droid apps on it, by accessing the Amazon App-Store and Android Market.

Why? Because it was only $250, compared to the $500+ for an iPad. Yes, it's not as "nice" as an iPad, but:

A. I hate apple.
B. I like saving money.
C. Droid is cooler, and easier to code against than iOS, but that's just my opinion.

There are other options in a similar price range (this one is pretty nice.)

I just have a hard time with the $500 price-point on an iPad.

http://mamedev.org/

Allows you to play arcade games (you have to find the game ROMs though -- if you know how to get torrents you can find them)

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
What's this MAME? I could do with a BB fix every now and then...

In reply to this comment by berticus:
>> ^kymbos:

God I love Bubble Bobble.


I still find myself firing up MAME every now and then and having a game. Total classic.

>> ^deathcow:

I used to make the caterpillar swear at WalMart any time we walked by. At some point the caterpillars got a new ROM chip and they cleaned up their speech.


Hey, yeah you're right! you could do that at one stage! Yeah, not with the one we had.

So, I gave them too much credit then, they didn't pre-emptively do it, they only did it after people started doing it with them... there you go

I used to make the caterpillar swear at WalMart any time we walked by. At some point the caterpillars got a new ROM chip and they cleaned up their speech.

For the Google-lazy, here's what shiny's tattoo-avatar refers to (Rom. 5:1-5 KJV):

1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

More proof of trollmanship, along with shiny's username?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The lower resolution on the small screen makes it look really good. Though I think I would prefer a built in hard drive with 1,000 roms than having to keep cartridges

Interesting. I pretty much only use PS3 to play games (which is rare), watch BDMVs, stream NetFlix and as a DLNA device (PlayOn, PS3 Media Server). It would be cool to play SNES/NES ROMS on there. I wish there was a better DLNA interface other than the stupid folders. That's what irks me the most, to be honest.

Let me know what you do with it when you hack it.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
As soon as I got my PS3 I realized it had more potential than playing games...since I'm not even a big gamer I figured I should utilize everything available. Eventually I caught up with the history of PS3's open-source origins. Originally you were able to load linux and install your own files onto PS3 as if it were any ol' computer. Then they decided to take that away with an update (firmware >3.41). Since they were advertising an open sourced system, they couldn't legally take that away without being sued (which they were) so they claimed the updates were optional. Here's the kicker, without the updates you could no longer watch blue-ray nor access playstation network, nor play many of the games.

*enter hackers*
They pretty much found ways to hack ps3, but as far as I know it requires actual hardware that you must purchase. These days it is pretty cheap hardware.

It's hard to pretend like I'm totally pissed about this since I didn't even own a PS3 when open-source was king, but now that I know it did exist, I want a piece of that vintage console.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
You have lofty goals for your PS3. I never thought about it, to be honest, but it sounds like you've got an even better idea for the PS3 - let me know how all that works out. I wish there was a way to change the DLNA interface to something better. Maybe there is somewhere? Would be nice if you could modify that.

And sorry I mean VNC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Yes...the PS3 interface is horrid. I have 50 giggle-bytes (sounds cuter) of music on my laptop...are you saying I have to search through all the folders of music and porn...er...videos? I found a way around this though...I have winamp remote and I use the PS3 browser to log into orbcast which is a front end for winamp remote. That let's me search, so it's a little better. What's a VCN? I mostly want a media server actually connected to my television so that I can easily run programs straight from the source. I like the front end of those moxy boxee foxy roxy soxy and lixy programs. I think some of those I made up though.

Also, the Hulu shows that are on PlayON are the same as the ones on Hulu plus...which exclude a lot of good shows you can watch on the good ol' fashioned internet. They figured since most PS3's are hooked to TV and most computers are hooked up to smaller monitors, people will keep their cable bills if they keep some of the shows via internet only. The PS3 browser, if you haven't notice, won't play ANY Hulu...and that's no accident.

A jailbreak would allow me to potentially have an open source PS3 (just as god intended it). They came up with some bullshit that open source would be a security threat to the playstation network...when really it's all copyright bullshit that companies like Hulu and those clients of Hulu have agreed upon. If I want to run yellow dog linux on my PS3, why shouldn't I be able to do that? Then I wouldn't need to struggle through the PS3 interface. Also, I'd like to load some emulators for SNES onto my playstation...god forbid Nintendo gives rights to sell Super Mario Bros Allstars to Sony.

Oh, I heard that. But it's also been coming out for the past decade. There's absolutely nothing anyone could do to convince me it will ever see the light of my CD-ROM's laser diode.

Via reddit user visionik:

"This game was a technology masterpiece in its day. The 3D engine was originally implemented with TTL logic chips (lots of little individual logic chips put together to make a 3D engine).
It was a technology masterpiece but a financial flop. Only about 1,000 were made, and only about 500 were sold. They did not do well commercially for three reasons:

* the "newfangled" 3D nature actually confused many players.
* the hardware was not reliable. RAM chips, ROM chips, and the special "hall effect" joystick all tended to die quickly.
* The arcade game market crashed in 1984 shortly after its release.

Due to the limited production run and almost 100% hardware failure rate in the first two years, very, very few I, Robot arcade games still exist. I am fortunate enough to own one - and it is a complete bitch to keep it running properly.
Despite the troubles it is an extremely enjoyable game to play.

The software was created by Dave Theurer - who previously coded Atari's 1981 hit, Tempest.
The hardware was designed by Dave Sherman.

http://bit.ly/lV4tW -- wikpedia entry
http://manfreda.org/LordFrito/I,%20Robot/index.html -- some history and tech details
http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/irobot/anderson/joystick.html -- about the joystick
http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/irobot/anderson/cabinet.html -- about the arcade cabinent
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=8172 -- lots of misc info"

My Swedish friend here is not asserting anything, he's merely quoting the original author's playlist.

Good fake videos aren't entirely false, putting some truth in there make people think "oh, I've heard about this before, it's probably true!". This is one of those.
Most modern ink cartridges do have a small circuit board to keep track of how much ink is left and they aren't very accurate. Some printers even refuse to print if they think they're out of ink even when there's ink left, but they don't start faking horizontal lines like they're running out of ink, they just stop printing and tell you to go buy more.
But they do not have a reset button! Why would they need that anyway?

The simplest way to make a small memory to keep track of how much you've printed is to have a small non-erasable ROM filled with zeroes. You can read the ROM and you can write ones to it, but you can't reset those ones back to zeroes. When it's full of ones you know it's "empty". A reset button means either SRAM with a battery or some kind of processor. Both options are overly complicated, expensive and unnecessary.
</technobabble>
>> ^chicchorea:

>> ^swedishfriend:
Fake Videos!
Video's that make a claim, but it's all FAKE! So don't get all bent out of shape.
is what the poster of this video calls the playlist within which you find this video.
-Karl

To your first assertion:
Excuse me, your opinion or do you a more substantial basis?
and
To your second:
Huh?

The detection programming is iffy at best. Apparently if the answer is supposed to be 7, a single pixel will work, unless the answer is supposed to be 6, in which case... a single pixel also works. There was a work in progress video of this same game by the same author that showed a lot more geometric patterns, and one answer he used was to fill the answer board entirely in black. Not a hacked ROM, just awkward programming.

Rom hacks FTW...

i also played a lot of Battlezone. i didn't have a legit copy, but i guess the real disc had music tracks on it... so for a long time i had that the prodigy album in my cd rom tray, and when i played this it would play it starting on track 3....

Ahh yes, my favorite past time, midi music. I picked up my first cd rom drive and with it, the must have cd game of all time, 7th guest. 7th guest was a SVGA game (That sucker was 8 bit color! 256 colors and some how they pulled off transluscent digital video footage over the back ground) that used Midi for all its music. I discovered the game had an easter egg, the 2nd disc had a red book cd audio track of most of the games soundtrack played on the SCC1 roland board. After hearing just how good these midi files could sound, I quickly got into the world of PC Midi. I upgraded my SBpro to an SB16 multi cd, this monster not only supported the proprietory connector for my cdrom drive, but also an MPU expansion connector for a midi daughter board. The first daughter board I got was creatives wave blaster, but it was pretty weak. I figured out if I wanted a really good midi sound, I would need to plunk down some seriouse cash, and it would probably need to be from roland. So I picked up the roland SCD-15 (I still have that thing! but nothing to plug it into now) and while not quite as good as the dedicated SCC1, it was enjoyable. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJlkz6V0VOQ to hear how it sounded)

I picked up the SBlive as soon as it came out and proceeded to knock several megs of instruments into that sucker as well. I even put together a sound font called musica theoria (its hilarious when I google that now). My thirst for playing with midi music now is dried up now, but I have a sizeable collection of chip music, sound tracks from my fav gameboy/genesis/snes/ps1 (the entire final fantasy 7-9 series is chip music) so I can hark back on old memories of how music evolved over the decades.