No apologies if I offend anyone - if sam-users is descending back into 200+ heated emails a day, I may as well show my hand as well.
-=-=-=-=- > "Essential Sam programs"... > Demos, games, even utilities or anything else are okay I don't think you could justify any demo as being an essential bit of software (what's it essential for?) - infact I think the throwaway "even utilies" are the most likely to be considered essential. Perhaps I have my priorities wrong.... -=-=-=-=- OOI - does anyone have an outdated copy of sam-users subscribers on there web page? A while back my mono.org account received a spam, and I spotted quite a few others from this list in the Distro. -=-=-=-=- Linux & SimCoupe - why the assumption that the only non-MSWindows/DOS platform anyone would want to run Simcoupe on is Linux? As well as the MacOS version, simcoupe (or at least in the XCoupe guise) was compiled for a complete range of OS's and Platforms including I believe a DecAlpha running OSF, an SGI box running IRIX. For i386 there are lots of other OSs such as OS/2, *BSD - not just linux, and not everyone out there uses machines capable of running MSDOS/Windows, so "getting hold of DOS" isn't always that easy ;-) -=-=-=-=- Simcoupe and this list in general: Adding platform specific enchancements is good, but any changes to the core code that rely on a specific platform or available software is bad. Why take an already portable product and make it less so? Nethack is a popular game, continually being developed and improved. No-one charges for it, no-one makes any money out of it, yet it is probably one of the most highly ported bits of code out there (okay, so there is a fair bit of code in platform specific directorys under the source tree). People are keeping this code up-to-date on all platforms - where is their incentive? Some people write portable code because it's the nice thing to do. <soapbox> I was always proud to be associated with the "Sam Community" - it seems to me it's becoming a set of neighbouring communities based on religion. Perhaps it's time to box up my sam and move elsewhere. I don't intend to blame anyone in particular - it's good if people improve things like Simcoupe, but it's turning far to much into little factions as people bitch and gripe about anything they get the chance to. I guess this is always happened on this list (Son of Sam anyone?), but perhaps I've finally grown up to realise what a waste it is. I don't see the point anymore. But what does it matter if I get out. Who am I but someone who's owned a sam for 9 years, been on sam-users for 5 (with the odd break), who thought it was something special. Just one more disillusioned user walking off into the sunset, until the only people who bother with the Sam are a bunch of people who spend all there time arguing, until they finally realise that even they have nothing to do with the sam anymore. </soapbox> ....@/
