hi. personally, I think it's time that the blind gaming community did what most of the real gaming industry did a while back. bring out a game, and say here you go, here are the requirements. its up to you how you deal with that. if a game dev brings out a game that takes advantage of newer hardware / newer software, I'm afraid it's up to the gamer to update and keep with it. they have done that for a long time now. and you don't seem to hear the complaints as much from them about it. sorry, but I think it's time the blind community starts trying to keep up, in stead of holding ourselves back, and then blaming Microsoft or apple or who ever, for all the things they have done wrong. sure. there are things that Microsoft messed up in windows 8. they fixed some of those in windows 8.1, and will soon be fixing more in the next version of windows, either next year, or in 2015. they admit they have made some mistakes, and are going about fixing that. but I'm afraid to say, that as time go's on, it will be harder and harder to support ancient languages and software based on them. it's not because they don't want to, but simply because the cost involved in doing so, is huge. I mean, come on. people are complaining about windows costing what it does now! imagine what they would say, if Microsoft turned around and said, well, we are going to have to charge an extra 50, or 100 dollars per licence, just to keep up support for 10 or 15 year old software and languages. I don't think that would go over well. and not being funny, but one of apples good sides, is that they don't do this. they say, right, here is the new system. this is what it uses. get used to it, or don't use our product. LOL. harsh, but in some ways, they have the right idea. just like they did with 64 bit. in stead of messing around having both 64 and 32 running on the same operating system in effect, as windows does now, they basically switched to pure 64 bit, and said, well, this is what we will use now. all app developers, update your software. I personally think windows should go all out 64 bit, and stop messing around. 64 bit is faster, and lets you actually use all your ram, in stead of only part of it. ahaha. even in XP, if you had 4 GB, you could never use it all! you could only use about 2 GB at any one time. how annoying! and programs running as a proper 64 bit app, are amazingly fast and smooth to work with. course, the only reason they haven't gotten rid of 32 bit, is cause most of the dev's still produce in nothing but 32 bit app's! such as mozilla, for one! they refuse to bring out a 64 bit version of their firefox or thunderbird! which is stupid, considering the security advantages 64 bit gives you. dallas
On 20/12/2013, Thomas Ward <thomasward1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Dark, > > Sigh...You are probably right about the fact that we have said all > that can be said on this subject. I feel like I'm in a boxing match > where neither person has made any impact on the other and all we are > doing is going round after round not getting anywhere. > > However, before I close this topic I feel the need to make a > correction. Visual Basic 6 apps and games still work on Windows 8. You > have to take some extra steps to make them work correctly, but it > certainly can be done. In fact, Microsoft released a patch for Windows > 8 not too long ago that extends support for older Visual Basic 6 apps > and games for the lifetime of Windows 8. So what you said about > Microsoft mucking up compatibility with Visual Basic 6 is not true. > They have in fact tried to maintain compatibility as long as necessary > while getting programmers to adopt .NET instead. > > Even if it were true can you possibly try and see it from their point > of view for once instead of looking at this from a biased position. > Visual Basic 6 was released in 1998. That was 15 years ago for a > totally different operating system and generation of computers than we > are dealing with today. There were several third-party ActiveX > components for 16-bit and 32-bit Windows that are no longer supported > by their respective companies causing major problems with VB 6 > applications. Since those ActiveX components are not made by > Microsoft, not supported by Microsoft, those problems are strictly the > problem with the third-party companies that developed them for Windows > 98 etc. there are of course plenty of other problems with Visual Basic > 6, and Microsoft made the right decision by phasing out the language > and components in exchange for a newer and better technology called > .NET which is far superior to VB 6 ever was. > > The problem is this.. Despite .NET being better in various ways many > people were happy with VB 6 and chose not to upgrade to .NET. A lot of > VI gamers so no benefit to them in learning VB .NET so didn't. That is > why most of the games out there are still written in VB 6, and really > should be rewritten or updated. That's not Microsoft's fault that > various accessible games were written in Visual Basic 6. Microsoft > made it clear 10 years ago that developers should begin migrating to > .NET, and if developers didn't listen that is their problem. They were > told what is what, and yet despite all that Microsoft does maintain > some basic compatibility for VB 6 because they want you and others to > upgrade, but they also want to begin migrating developers away from > old outdated technologies too. > > With the accessible games community we seem to be caught in a classic > chicken and egg type situation. A lot of blind users will not upgrade > to Windows 7 or Windows 8 until game developers stop producing games > for XP. Game developers know most of their customers use XP so are > still developing games for XP, and are not looking at developing games > for Windows 8 because there are not enough customers to justify such a > change in development. One side or the other needs to break the cycle > or it is just going to continue for several years to come neither side > moving because they haven't gotten what they wanted, and will not > until the other side takes the initiative. > > To give you an example a lot of blind game developers are still using > Visual Basic 6. Well we already know it was developed for Windows 95 > and Windows 98, but works fine on XP. As long as the lion's share of > blind gamers continue using XP there is no incentive for Developer X > to upgrade to VB .NET or something else. Although, there are some > users like me using Windows 8.1 and we can put pressure on him/her to > make more games for Windows 8 they aren't going to listen until a > critical mass is reached and most of those XP users switch to Windows > 8. However, most of those XP users aren't going to switch to Windows 8 > until they absolutely have to and they are waiting on Developer X to > drop XP support which Developer X won't until the XP users switch. So > both sides are waiting on the other to blink first and we have a bit > of a Mexican stand-off. > > I do not know what the answer is, but Microsoft really isn't at fault > for the situation regardless of what you think. Accessible game > developers could have began phasing out VB 6 a long time ago and > didn't. Accessible gamers could upgrade to Windows 8 and request that > game developers get with the times but won't. Until one or the other > decides to get off their apathy we will have the same old problem. > > Cheers! > > On 12/19/13, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: >> Well tom I don't really believe there's much else to say since for me, >> security isn't an issue due to fhtird party software and I'd rather run >> avg >> >> than have the harrassment of running windows 8 and a virtual xp system. >> maybe that's different for you. >> >> if microsoft of course hadn't mucked up compatiblity with vb6 >> applications >> >> and dos programs, well I'd be happy to upgrade even with relearning the >> interface, and indeed I imagine everyone else currently running xp would >> as >> >> well, so it's certain where the blaime for this situation belongs. This >> is >> actually one prime advantage Ios seems to have over windows since it >> doesn't break existing programs when upgrading, and is another reason I'd >> like to investigate the actual bennifits (if any), of mac as opposed to >> windows 7 since if I've got to run xp in a virtual machine anyway, well >> it >> doesn't make too much difference whether I use mac or windows. >> >> Beware the Grue! >> >> Dark. > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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