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johnhattan
February 03, 2000
bad joke
Interestingly, I just heard that Ed Yourdon is coming out with a new book. . .

The Rise and Resurrection of the Y2K Time Bomb


Don't feel bad if you didn't get that joke. It's insider geek stuff.
498 views
johnhattan
February 01, 2000
I may already be a winner!
Just got an email from Microsoft today. I won a free copy of Windows 2000 Professional in their Windows 2000 Professional Sneak Preview Contest. It'll be express-mailed to me within two weeks, as soon as they've got copies back from manufacturing.

Interestingly, I wasn't in too big of a hurry to buy…
421 views
johnhattan
January 31, 2000
It's sold
Just a quick note. The auction for the antique wooden computer is over. I got $262 for it. If you didn't see it the first time, it's here.

I've still got a few items for sale up here. Nothing of interest to game developers this time except for an old Velo Windows CE machine and some games selling fo…
523 views
johnhattan
January 30, 2000
New Win2K box
Well, I'm now developing on a brand new Windows 2000 machine. Lemme explain. . .

Shelly was looking for ways to get AutoCAD to run faster. We finally decided that a machine upgrade was in the cards. We upgraded her machine to a fancy new Celeron 433, but it required a new CPU, motherboard, and case.…
477 views
johnhattan
January 28, 2000
Volunteering is a no-go
Just got an email about volunteering for the GDC. I'm pleased to say that it's one thing that I won't have to mess with this year. The volunteer program itself is OK, but the folks running it really have some growing up to do. Last year, Microsoft refused to give them any promotional stuff until th…
515 views
johnhattan
January 25, 2000
Better page
Well, I'm pleased to announce that Cosmi finally has a respectable web page. It's a bit slow, but at least you can now order products online, including Top 50 Big Badass Blazin' Games for Windows 95/98/NT/2000!

I also noticed that they've got a contest going on where you can submit your high scores …
621 views
johnhattan
January 24, 2000
pollinatingness
If you notice that there's a lot of cross-pollinating between my page and those of Pat Down, Bryan Mau, and Thomas Burnett, there's a reason for that. You see, we're all old college buddies. We were all Computer Science students at Texas A&M at the same time. Bryan and Pat were class of '88, Th…
582 views
johnhattan
January 21, 2000
bugs, books, and report cards
Got an odd little memory bug in my animation code. For some reason, it's writing over the sprite whenever the sprite moves outside the area designated for it. Unfortunately for me, though, the bug only shows up on the device itself, and not on the emulator. That means that I've gotta debug over the…
564 views
johnhattan
January 20, 2000
GDC ideas
Almost done spamming my eBay auctions. My pictures came in from the processor, and they're scanned. You should check 'em out here, if only to see what a PC looked like in 1955.



Looking forward to the GDC coverage. I was thinking of adding a special section entitled "The Great Grand Glorious GDC Gra…
479 views
johnhattan
January 18, 2000
closets and apple
Still cleaning out the closet. I've got three more eBay items to spam here.



If you haven't seen Pat's new spherical maze, check it out. It's seriously cool. I could think of a dozen games that could use this.



The Java project is pretty-much over for me except for some bug-fixing and training. I'll …
520 views
johnhattan
January 17, 2000
Expert loves/hates me
Found an interesting reference to one of my products on the Expert site here. Looks like they're trying to woo some distributors into selling this product by claiming that it's related to mine. I've never seen this product before, but I guess I should be flattered that my games are the benchmark fo…
537 views
johnhattan
January 13, 2000
Microsoft and such
Hey, don't look here for my opinion on Microsoft. I figure that every pundit out there worth his column is gonna be putting his spin on the whole thing, so I'm gonna return to my apolitical roots and sit it out.



If you haven't checked it out yet, check out the GDC coverage page. In fact, you oughta…
497 views
johnhattan
January 12, 2000
Jargon
Just wondering. Am I the only person who doesn't understand the great majority of the jargon out there nowadays? First-person shooters seems to have spawned a language unto themselves. I can't even go to QuakeWorld anymore without seeing official news announcements along the line of.

"Ya know, I was…
523 views
johnhattan
January 10, 2000
more product goodness
Just bought my plane tickets to San Jose for GDC '00. Can't reveal anything just yet, but if we do half of the stuff we've been proposing, Gamedev.net is gonna have the best GDC coverage you'll find. I'm sure you'll start seeing info about it in a week or so. Keep an eye out!



Still spamming. Got a …
461 views
johnhattan
January 07, 2000
ebay
Nothing even remotely game-related today. In fact, there's nothing today to present but a bald-faced spam.

I'm selling off my collection of Magic:The Gathering cards and accessories on eBay. It's a pretty big collection that's been gathering dust for the past year or so. I'm sure it's worth at least…
528 views
johnhattan
January 02, 2000
Wow, we're still here!
Well, except for some test equipment in Japan and a weather radar in Arkansas, Y2K went off without a hitch. Society didn't collapse, and I didn't get a chance to trade my can of Spam and bottle of water for John Romero's Ferrari.

Monday should be interesting, as we'll get to listen to all the talk-…
565 views
johnhattan
December 29, 1999
Goodbye forever!
Happy happy! The batch file idea is working and my Java CGI is now reading and writing like a champ. I figure I shouldn't have any problem getting rid of all the server stuff. This should simplify the whole process greatly. I figure I'm just a few days now from having this thing ready to hand off.

535 views
johnhattan
December 28, 1999
Java CGI fixes
Well, I finally figured out the problem I was having running Java as a CGI. Turns out it was two things. Sun being too nitpicky about command-line parameters, and Microsoft doing some cheating to wring a few extra clock-cycles out of their benchmarks.

Basically, I had two choices for a VM to run my …
512 views
johnhattan
December 27, 1999
fixing things
Hope everyone out there had a happy holiday and such. Mine turned out to be quite good after some mid-month troubles.

Got the Games Magazine Interactive games collection from my brother. I'm a big fan of Games magazine (and a charter subscriber, my grandma bought my a subscription for my birthday in…
518 views
johnhattan
December 22, 1999
Favorite freebies
Haven't gotten a damn thing done today, and I'm rather proud of that. Just taking care of holiday essentials and getting a bit of rest.

In keeping with the holiday spirit-o-giving, and so that I'm not completely idle, I have a slew of freebie recommendations. These are little free things that Window…
617 views
johnhattan
December 20, 1999
Cable modem angst
Well, the cable modem folks have promised to replace my modem today, and will have my internet connection running again. Hopefully we can keep it running long enough to replace it with a DSL line in early January. My biggest regret is buying my cable modem rather than renting it. I'll probably put …
504 views
johnhattan
December 17, 1999
ebay and a classic
Once again, I must apologize for the delay. I am currently internet-less in the house. My cable modem service has proven itself to be good on the speed scale, but awful on the reliability scale. The cable company has reported that my whole neighborhood is down, as it has been for a week. They're br…
508 views
johnhattan
December 08, 1999
proxy-hell and mancala
Ugh, sorry for the delay. I've been descending through the 666th level of proxy-hell here, which left my machine internet-less for the better part of the week. Basically, I've got a cable modem hooked up to Shelly's machine, and we were using SyGate to connect the other two machines (the iMac and m…
556 views
johnhattan
November 29, 1999
Fun with royalties
Ahh the fun life of living off royalties. It seems to have become a little quarterly ritual that I end up calling up a software company and telling 'em that they're late with the check or have otherwise munged things up.

This time it's Expert, or more correctly Activision. Not only is the check two …
600 views
johnhattan
November 26, 1999
Happy birthday to me
Today is my birthday. If your gift to me doesn't arrive today, I'll assume that UPS is having problems keeping up for the holidays.
494 views
johnhattan
November 22, 1999
Animation Engining
Just a couple of minor notes today. Did a little work on the animation engine when I could. I've got an odd crash bug on the CE machine. Crash bugs on the CE machines are a pain because you can't really report crash information to the debugger. On a regular app, you can just let the app crash, and …
501 views
johnhattan
November 17, 1999
Free money for me!!
I just figured out where all that new VC and IPO money is going.

It's going to me!

Yep, that's right. Venture Capitalists are handing out huge sums of cash to startups, and it's working its way directly into my pocket.

A couple of days ago, I heard that allbooks4less was making a starting offer of two…
452 views
johnhattan
November 10, 1999
Lawsuit happenings
Just finished reading Jerry Pournelle's take on the Microsoft findings. I think that, in many ways, he is spot-on. Reading his adventures with the developer programs awakened some neurons in my brain that have been hibernating for the past few years, so I'm gonna relate my own experiences with the …
589 views
johnhattan
November 08, 1999
new diary
Quick note today. My wife Shelly, a longtime admirer of my developer diary, has started her own.

Read the new diary and enter her world. Marvel at the trials and tribulations of a modern one-horse civil engineering company. Quake in fear of the fact that my wife does look a bit like her logo. Learn …
503 views
johnhattan
November 06, 1999
gates
I don't have much to add to Geoff's points about the Microsoft decision. Here's my $.02.

I see the polls about Gates, and I wonder how many people are very well thought-out about the whole thing. I bet if you asked most people who want Microsoft "stopped" why they want that to happen, their argument…
562 views
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