New features you take for granted

[Beev]

So I was playing some of the original Fallout earlier, and died. I hadn't saved in forever and ended up losing about 2 hours of progress, which prompted to really wish there was autosave... Then I got to thinking about other features I would miss. What are some very simple features any of you would miss?

 

[gwlam12]

I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

 

[beat mania]

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

 

[vi edit]

The ability to turn the console on and off with the controller.

Brilliant!

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: beat mania

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

Those games were written in an assembly language, right? Give the programmers a break, that language (at least on Intel 368 CPUs, I know it varies from CPU to CPU) is tedious and a pain to program in.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: beat mania

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

Awwww, the good old days of dropping a quarter in a machine at the arcade and playing for an hour or more.

 

[bullbert]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: beat mania

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

Those games were written in an assembly language, right? Give the programmers a break, that language (at least on Intel 368 CPUs, I know it varies from CPU to CPU) is tedious and a pain to program in.

Ouch. No wonder we need 2GB DRAM and 3 GHz CPU just to boot the OS and run one foreground task. Unless you are jesting or truely do not know, no HOL coder using any HOL compiler in the world can outperform a skilled coder using assembly language, when the task (in our case: games) involved real time processing (aka FPS games, driving games, or even the old fashion Mario games... okay okay almost any popular game out there), small code space (aka << 2GB DRAM), efficient CPU resource usage (aka << 4 GHz CPUs), and non-standard or custom CPU architectures (aka Dual Core and now Quad Core). The truly skilled assembly language coders can still use HOL for non-time-critical code, but usually have to recode even some of that in assembly since the compilers suck.

It doesn't matter if it is to be run on a SuperComputer, a desktop PC, a console (really just a closed-architecture special-purpose desktop PC), or a mobile phone computer. Assembly will always give the best performance results, although generally the most expensive in the short term (to meet delivery drops), but frequently the cheapest in the long term (due to lower support costs since less bugs are introduced).

I hope some clueless professors are not teaching you the opposite.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: bullbert

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: beat mania

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

Those games were written in an assembly language, right? Give the programmers a break, that language (at least on Intel 368 CPUs, I know it varies from CPU to CPU) is tedious and a pain to program in.

Ouch. No wonder we need 2GB DRAM and 3 GHz CPU just to boot the OS and run one foreground task. Unless you are jesting or truely do not know, no HOL coder using any HOL compiler in the world can outperform a skilled coder using assembly language, when the task (in our case: games) involved real time processing (aka FPS games, driving games, or even the old fashion Mario games... okay okay almost any popular game out there), small code space (aka << 2GB DRAM), efficient CPU resource usage (aka << 4 GHz CPUs), and non-standard or custom CPU architectures (aka Dual Core and now Quad Core). The truly skilled assembly language coders can still use HOL for non-time-critical code, but usually have to recode even some of that in assembly since the compilers suck.

It doesn't matter if it is to be run on a SuperComputer, a desktop PC, a console (really just a closed-architecture special-purpose desktop PC), or a mobile phone computer. Assembly will always give the best performance results, although generally the most expensive in the short term (to meet delivery drops), but frequently the cheapest in the long term (due to lower support costs since less bugs are introduced).

I hope some clueless professors are not teaching you the opposite.

Where did he say anything about performance? He just said it's tedious and a pain to program in. Which is certainly true relative to other languages.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: bullbert

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: beat mania

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'd miss the 'save' feature. Back in the NES days.. when we couldn't really save.. it would really suck to get to world 8-8 in Mario Bros and die.

That is countered by shoddy programming that created such gems as infinite 1ups by bouncing on turtle shells on stairs.

Those games were written in an assembly language, right? Give the programmers a break, that language (at least on Intel 368 CPUs, I know it varies from CPU to CPU) is tedious and a pain to program in.

Ouch. No wonder we need 2GB DRAM and 3 GHz CPU just to boot the OS and run one foreground task. Unless you are jesting or truely do not know, no HOL coder using any HOL compiler in the world can outperform a skilled coder using assembly language, when the task (in our case: games) involved real time processing (aka FPS games, driving games, or even the old fashion Mario games... okay okay almost any popular game out there), small code space (aka << 2GB DRAM), efficient CPU resource usage (aka << 4 GHz CPUs), and non-standard or custom CPU architectures (aka Dual Core and now Quad Core). The truly skilled assembly language coders can still use HOL for non-time-critical code, but usually have to recode even some of that in assembly since the compilers suck.

It doesn't matter if it is to be run on a SuperComputer, a desktop PC, a console (really just a closed-architecture special-purpose desktop PC), or a mobile phone computer. Assembly will always give the best performance results, although generally the most expensive in the short term (to meet delivery drops), but frequently the cheapest in the long term (due to lower support costs since less bugs are introduced).

I hope some clueless professors are not teaching you the opposite.

Where did he say anything about performance? He just said it's tedious and a pain to program in. Which is certainly true relative to other languages.

To say the least. Programming modern games to any significant degree in assembly would be like banging out moby dick on stone tablets. Its fast and all, dont get me wrong, but lets not get carried away now.