Well I don't know exactly how this would need to change in practical
terms but there needs to be some serious canges.
I won't mince words, and I am going to be blunt.
I am not saying that any of this is easy in fact it may be darn hard
but it needs to happen.
1. Visual basic 6 is a pile of crap, its shit and needs to die.
Yes vb6 is good and simple but we all know that its support is
unsertain and thats the big deal.
I realise that 90% of all audiogames are still in vb6.
Firstly we need to stop developing anything new in vb6.
Next we need to convert over to something that is not vb6.
that may mean python, vb dotnet or something.
We need to start supporting 64 bit exclusively as this is probably
going to be the future.
We need to find either an 32 bit extender to run 16 bit programs like
eamon in dos or find a way to run this stuff in a windows console or
something same with dos games that can not be run by other means.
3. direct sound is als a pile of crap.
Direct sound is good, but in later windows its broken and frankly its
not even supported.
So we need to move away from that.
Using open al support or fsl is a good thing though there are some
all direction echos that are part of the way it handles effects and
it appears that its author can not fix those right now if ever.
3. game devices.
Its probably not as important as the other 2 but more games need to
start supporting mice, joysticks, etc as well as keyboard maybe even
touch screens.
We need things to support the latest tech if not gaming grade
sertainly the basic tech.
That was the keyboard, joystick and gamepad, now the mouse, touch
tablet and stuff like that need to be added to that.
In practice.
I realise in the short term we are probably stuck with direct sound
and probably vb6.
It would be nice to get games that use more than the keyboard and or
to get some that use the stick run a bit better but thats probably
not going to happen, most use the keyboard.
I know some devs are working hard to convert away from vb6 draconis
is, and gma is rumored to be moving.
L works I am not sure but it may vary well be doing so as well.
Now I do realise some of this is not cheap and for a while may be
almost impossible to do but thats what I feel are the main points.
In the long run there is probably no answer.
In theory as long as there are no major changes in what windows os
configs do, we may catch up but who knows?
Pure basic may be a replacement for vb6.
I have run some games from it, there compiled versions have crashed
with some memmory error on exit but they run ok and also run ok from source.
You may or may not be able to alt tab away from them and there are
questions over the stability of pure basic over 5.00 versions.
Python is another language.
nvda and its add on engine is python based and its almost crash
proof, it still crashes but for a fully running screen reader for
what it does it sertainly shows what a scripter like python can do.
One thing that has not been really looked at as such is console apps
which look and run like dos apps but are not dos apps as such stuff
like the richard disteno games are donsole apps.
Again This is my opinion.
You asked and I gave it straight up.
You don't like it, then delete it.
At 10:07 AM 12/21/2013, you wrote:
Hi Charles and all,
So moving forward then, how do we address this situation for people
so this song does not need to keep getting played over and over and over again?
What steps might this community start taking now so that the
situation can improve and continue to do so?
Obviously this is not only a game-related topic or one only related
to upgrades but since it has come up here, then what would be the
first steps in people's opinions, to improve this?
thanks,
Cara :)
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On Dec 19, 2013, at 5:33 PM, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote:
Money, money, money. Who's got the money? The majority of the
visually impaired or blind population are unemployed, in a lot of
cases, not through any fault of their own. Upgrade with what? Or,
even if you are working, if you use products from Freedom Scientific
because you think they are the best, most flexible, and most
reliable, you've got those darned service maintenance agreements to
deal with, and the hardware and software aren't cheap, either. They
cost more than the computers they are used on.
---
Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're
finished, you! really! are! finished!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dallas O'Brien"
<[email protected]>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] mac versus windows sales plus iOS question
> 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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> 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.
>>
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