HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: greg@plx.com (Greg Payne)
Subject: Card bmps
Organization: PLEXUS Software, a division of REI
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 15:37:49 GMT

I am writing a card game for windows. I do not want to "paint"
the card bmps myself. I could "grab" the bmps from the MS Windows
Solitaire game. What would be the legalities of this? Does anyone
know if there is a deck of card bmps available to programmers?
I would really like to just use the Solitaire card images but I 
plan to release this game as shareware and I don't know how legal 
it is to "steal" images from other games. 
Thanks in advance.

-greg
From: meg@netlink.cts.com (Robert Suh)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: wage
Date: 23 Jul 92 05:12:39 GMT
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

The company i independanty contract for just asked me to work full time.
and was wondering what kin of salary i should ask for. Its a PC based
game software company.
I have been contracting with them for a year now, and approximately making
$20 an hour; although the pay is good for my age (21 years) its 
inconsistant since they are bsed on finished contracts.
 
I do not cH<:8X~have a degree (and they dont care), and they believe i
have the capabilties to work in the industry and do very well. I have
a meeting with them in a few days to determine projects i may be 
interested in doing, and the salary i wish to expect.
 
i have done numerous routines, and smaller projects for them in the
past year. I know 8086 assembler, Pascal,C,Basic, Prolog, ADA, Hyperblah,
and a few other languages, but im most comfortable in assembler (which
they love), and most of my own personal projects are graphics/sound/
and optimization coding strictly for the use in arcade/entertainment
software.
 
Ive worked in the aerospace industry as an intern for 2 summers programming
and doing a little CAD work, and was a shoe salesman for a year
in high school (communications/social skills?).

oh well, if anyone out there has any suggestions on what my salary
should be, id be grateful if you would mail me, since no one else on
the net actually really cares!

thanks
Meg

--                    
INTERNET:  meg@netlink.cts.com (Robert Suh)
UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!meg
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115
From: Damon_Harper@mindlink.bc.ca (Damon Harper)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Collision detection PLEASE, all geniuses respond!
Date: 26 Jul 92 00:09:57 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

Hello, I am desperately looking for a collision detection algorithm.  I have
seen a couple people ask the same question but get no replies.  Does any one
have any info they could pass on to me.  I would like to make a nintendo-style
game but would like to how to go about checking to see if the character crashes
into an object, wall, etc...  Any ideas???  Please send email... Thanks..
From: psalp@acad2.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: TP game library
Date: 21 Jul 92 17:14:16 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska


	There's a lot of talk of game librarys on this group. Anybody mind if I
post one I and a friend are writing to create nintendo type gamefiles? 

	P.S. By the way, try PC intern. It's a great source for info on
scrolling and sprites. 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
	I believe five impossible things before breakfast...
	Six is one too many...
		Albert L. Perrien II 
			psalp@acad2.alaska.edu
From: bonney@esds.mdc.com (Greg Bonney)
Subject: Re: Pascal and C
Organization: Visual Simulation Systems
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 20:19:26 GMT

In article <l6rs6cINN8fh@priddy.cs.utexas.edu> woody@cs.utexas.edu (James Woodgate) writes:
>For the record, at the ACM programming contest a couple of semesters
>ago, at UT, I think the top 5 teams wrote their programs in Pascal,
>but I have a feeling they chose TP because of it's incredibly fast
>compile time, most of the people there program in C normally.
>
>I think just about every language has it's place, and I've never
>beleived that there is or should be an "Absolute" best language
>for everything, after all isn't that what Ada was supposed to be???

I'm a graduate of UM-Rolla.  I started there in '84, and that was the first
year that they started teaching Pascal as the first Comp Sci class.  Before
that, they taught Fortran (as far as I know, the engineers still take Fortran).
At the same time, Turbo Pascal 1.0 came out.  It was the first affordable
compiler (under $40 then) I'd ever seen on a PC, and its integrated environment
was absolutely revolutionary.  The compilation-time was incredible (thus it's
name - Turbo Pascal).  And executation-time was equally amazing to people who
were used to BASIC.  Before we came along, students at UMR had to do almost
everything on the IBM mainframe, and everything was batch.  Sometimes it took
hours to compile a program on the mainframe.  Now everybody uses compilers
instead of interpretters, so it becomes apparent that Turbo Pascal sacrifices
some execution speed in order to compile faster.  Consequently, some people
seem to think that Pascal inherently produces slow code.  That's not true at
all.  A good 2-pass optimizing Pascal compiler can produce very fast code.
But that just wasn't an issue when Turbo Pascal was first conceived.
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: bp092@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike Ogrinz)
Subject: Bitmap 3-d graphics systems
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 15:37:16 GMT


Hey, let's all take some time away from the TP vs. C++  discussion 
to look at this message (a welcom diversion I should think)

I'd say most of us have seen Origin's bitmap 3-d space system in WC and
WC II (and other stuff) and maybe in Star Trek 25th Anniversary.

I've been working on various routines to try and duplicate a lot of
what these systems have to offer (in assembly- not TP or C++, though
I call 'em from C++). Anyway, there are a lot of simple routines that
make up this impressive(?) system.

First off, let me say that WC (1&2) do not map textures over polygons->
at least not for the ships. The images are simple bitmaps that were
captured from Autodesk (where they were wireframed and phong shaded ).

It seems that they must capture a bunch of bitmaps for each object,
and they just display the correct one probably according to some
'direction facing' vector in each data structure. I'd bet there's
also a velocity vector. When used with the 'direction facing' vector
that would produce stuff like the debris and asteroids which spin
in one direction and move in another.

Anway, I'd like feedback on what others think about how the basic 
system works. In particular, given a cube shaped object, just how
many bitmaps/views of it do you think they store (assume no reflection
can be done). Also, it's obvious that they have some good rotation
code for the bitmaps- but do you think there is any other 'massaging' done
to, say, generate multiple bitmaps from a single source?

Star Trek seems to jump a little, which is what you would expect from
having only a fixed number of stored views, yet WC is much smoother.
I'd like to know why. Any germ of wisdom you TP and C++ programmers
have out there would be much appreciated!


Mike
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett)
Subject: Re: Game libraries...
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 04:23:46 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.181241.57583@cc.usu.edu> sl8nl@cc.usu.edu writes:
>So does mine.  That class is included in an include file.  I just go:
>
>(noun Monster
>  (adjective Grungy, Dirty, Ugly)
>  (synonym Thing)
>)
>
>and so on.

If you really think you've achieved in two weeks what Mike Roberts
has spent 5 years on, make your system available.  We'd love to see it.
I'm sure we'll have plenty of constructive criticism for you.

>Who needs an algorithm?  I did it with a modified Bresenham line drawing
>routine.  As fast as it could possibly go...unless there is a method
>to zap it there instantly.

Trivializing things that are well-known to be difficult isn't going to
impress people as much as make them simply not believe you,
particularly in a forum like this where people who write games and
related software for a living hang out.  Real-time texture mapping is
NOT easy and certainly does require some underlying theory to
understand; but I suppose now you're going to trivialize Ultima
Underworld and claim you could bang that out in a week or two?  Come on.

>My game language was written generally enough that it could handle any 
>text oriented operation.  With the proper class designations, I can 
>simulate anything.

Well my God, man, bring these tablets down to the masses!

Dave Baggett
dmb@wam.umd.edu
From: shah@optima.UUCP (Rawn Shah)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Collision detection PLEASE, all geniuses respond!
Date: 27 Jul 92 00:18:40 GMT

From article <1992Jul26.181425.207@micor.ocunix.on.ca>, by goss@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Timothy D. Goss):
> How about this?  Create a grid which represents the graphics screen but one
> which does not represent every pixel.  Group pixels into 2x2, 4x4 etc groups.
> This grid can be used to represent the approximate location of each sprite or
> background image.  To check if a sprite has collided with something simply
> check its destination position in the grid to see if any deadly objects are
> there.  The contents of the grid could be id bytes or something.  Each time
> a sprite is moved, its position in the grid is also updated.

    Here's where some data structures could come in. Its most probable that 
the actual array will be mostly empty. So I advise you to use a sparse array
instead. This will reduce the amount of memory consumed.

Rawn Shah
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: bonney@esds.mdc.com (Greg Bonney)
Subject: Re: formal programming education
Organization: Visual Simulation Systems
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:51:07 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.195901.2940@ccu.umanitoba.ca> vspicer@ccu.umanitoba.ca () writes:
>hi net world
>	i am interested in the current thread on formal programming education.
>some associates from high school have *claimed* (note i have problems
>swallowing this) that they have held major programming and marketing jobs
>in the industry with just high school education.

There used to be two people in my group that had only a college education.
They both got cut in the last round of lay-offs.

>	one fellow claimed to have worked as the product manager for a major
>software publisher/distributor, the other claims to have worked for litton
>systems (a canadian defence contractor) and the department of defence. both
>say they were making in excess of $100k a year since they were 17. 

$100K sounds a little far-fetched.  How long ago was this?  It did used to be
fairly common for people to work their way up from the ranks of manufacturing
into more "professional" jobs, but it's not as common anymore.  Where I work,
(and I'm sure it's true of other defense contractors) a lot of the executives
seem to come from the military.  Are your friends veterans?

>	this strikes me as being completely nuts, but they say there are
>"back doors" into most corporations where "ability" is worth more than
>formal training. 

One obvious back door is to be in the family that runs the company.  I have a
friend whose father owns half of two chemical companies, and another whose
father owns a corregated box company.  One of them is not even out of college
yet, and she's already buying her second new car.  Did your friends perhaps
marry into a rich family?

> 	my degree is in physics and i've worked the past 2 years doing software
>design, electronics systems and general interfacing work for a research
>lab in the physics department. these guys claim with my experience in
>computer programming and hardware systems a job in the computer industry
>would be no problem, but i've always thought unless you have a masters
>in computer science or engineering most places aren't interested. 

I used to be in a software group that hired a physics major to do programming.
He didn't like it though, and transferred as soon as he got the chance.  Most
of the other people in the group were electrical engineers.  At least one of
them got sick of software and left also.  I'm sure you could get a job in the
computer industry, but do you really want to?

>	musings apppreciated....
>
>thanks in advance
>	vic spicer
>         


Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: mkudzin@engws5.ic.sunysb.edu (Matthew A Kudzin)
Subject: Re: Formal programming education
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 21:40:21 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.172531.57369@cc.usu.edu> sl859@cc.usu.edu writes:
>> Don't listen to these guys!  Go to school!  Get your degree!  It's just another
>> four years (insignificant compared with a 30-year career)!  If you don't, you'll
>> end up a bartender or truck driver, and you'll never know what you could have
>> done.
>

One thing that has not been mentioned yet in this thead (at least not so far 
as I've seen) is that if you want to be a programmer, you should have a 
degree, but not necessarily a CS degree.  I am currently a Math/Physics major
and I routinely (about five or six per year) get job offers looking for 
programmers.  This includes offers from game companies.  Apparently, a lot of
companies are looking for more than just CS majors.

Matthew Kudzin
mkudzin@ic.sunysb.edu
kudzin@nuclear.physics.sunysb.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Card bmps
Distribution: usa
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (beta) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 28 Jul 92 22:14:04 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <1992Jul28.153749.15659@plx.com> greg@plx.com (Greg Payne) writes:
> I am writing a card game for windows. I do not want to "paint"
> the card bmps myself. I could "grab" the bmps from the MS Windows
> Solitaire game. What would be the legalities of this? Does anyone
> know if there is a deck of card bmps available to programmers?
> I would really like to just use the Solitaire card images but I
> plan to release this game as shareware and I don't know how legal
> it is to "steal" images from other games.
> Thanks in advance.
>

Find a friend with a scanner or digitizer and scan in your own
deck of cards.  Just a suggestion....

> -greg

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024
From: tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan)
Subject: Re:   TP or C ?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 13:19:30 GMT


In article <cg.0aji@ami-cg.UUCP> cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) writes:
>In article <BruEuz.GJJ@news.cso.uiuc.edu> tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan) writes:
>....
>>May I point out that you're not putting down C, you're putting down a
>>PERSON who *uses* C.
>
>That was not my intent.
>
>>>C is one of the unfriendliest languages I've come in contact with, especially
>>>in the ways it is used by far too many people.
>>
>>You know, I always suspected that most of the C bashers in the world
>>hate the language because they aren't posessed of the intellectual
>>capacity to understand how to use it. People who think a for loop in C
>>is confusing, for example. Based on your experience in writing an ANSI C
>>compiler, I see that you are an exception to this rule. ;-)
>
>I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that!

Take it as meaning your complaints about C have merit, as opposed to the
complaints of those who just can't comprehend the semantics of the
language. The latter is like saying "French sucks as a language because
I can't learn how to speak it." The former is like saying "I am fluent
in both French and English, and I prefer English because..."

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: nak@cbnews.cb.att.com (neil.a.kirby)
Subject: Re: Formal programming education
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:07:53 GMT

In article <BrnAE1.15H@news.cso.uiuc.edu> amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead) writes:
>mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
>
>>In article <cco5NB1w164w@netlink.cts.com> meg@netlink.cts.com (Robert Suh) writes:
>>> I havnt yet graduated yet, but from the info i recieve from my CS classes,
>>> i havnt learned anything yet. (well anything major). [...]
>>Well, there are techical training schools like DeVry Institute of Technology
>>[...]
>People go to college because they will earn a *lot* more money than if
>they don't (to say nothing of other benifits).  I think we need more
>schools like DeVry so universities can go back to being ivory towers.
>
>Also, programming is one of the few professions taught in colleges that
>I don't think require any "enlightening".  I could program pretty damn
>well in high school.  *Managing* programmers might well be a whole
>other story...

It certainly is.  There are a lot of programmers around here, thus many
managers.  It takes all kinds, and you get all kinds. :-)

>Speaking of more money, although game writing might be good experience,
>I understand that the pay sucks.  I bet the original poster is making
>less than $4-10/hour?

I was worried that spending two very employable years of my life getting
a masters degree was going to suck off $60 to $80 K of my lifetime
earnings.  That *was* the *short term* cost.  In the ten years since I
graduated (undergrad), that debt has been paid back with interest.  So the
financial part of more educatiuon points towards more eductaion -> more
dollars.

The degree has been alot like vehicle antilock brakes and airbags.  They
cost extra to get.  You may never need them.  When you *really* need them,
they pay off bigtime.  As in saving software projects from doom or from
grave mistakes.  Experience helps a big bunch, but the combination of
experience and education is *very* powerful.  Cost effective, even.

I conclusion I drew at the Computer Game Designer's Conference is that many
good people there could really benefit from more education.  Not that they
could easily afford the short term costs of going to school.  But that
there were good people who were going to beat their heads against the wall
on technical grounds.  I suppose you pay your dues one way or another.

I humbly suggest graduate education (and a decade of experience for good
measure) to the original poster.  If you learn nothing there, I'll be
happy to call you a prodigy.

Neil Kirby
From: godfrey@cs.washington.edu (Garr Godfrey)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Collision detection PLEASE, all geniuses respond!
Date: 27 Jul 92 16:03:28 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <13747@mindlink.bc.ca> Damon_Harper@mindlink.bc.ca (Damon Harper) writes:
>Hello, I am desperately looking for a collision detection algorithm.  I have
>seen a couple people ask the same question but get no replies.  Does any one
>have any info they could pass on to me.  I would like to make a nintendo-style
>game but would like to how to go about checking to see if the character crashes
>into an object, wall, etc...  Any ideas???  Please send email... Thanks..

Well, given these assumptions:
   1) That the objects are of significantly different sizes
   2) The objects can be at any position on the screen
   3) There are a limited number of objects on the screen.

Here is what I would do:
    Create an array (or linked list) of all the objects origins and
    sizes.  To check for a posible collision, run through this list
    checking for overlapping rectangles.  The ones you find are
    POSSIBLE collisions, but not necessarily.  This step is really
    pretty fast if you have only a few objects.

    Next, you want to check the rectangles that overlapped.  This is
    the slow and complicated part, but it is also rare and there will
    be few to check.  Esentially, run through the overlapping portion
    of your rectangles, to see if any pixels overlap. This step can
    be optimized significantly (say, just run along the border of
    one of the images) but the simpilest is to check every position.

     *-----------*
     | image 1   |  _____ overlap region.
     |           | /
     |       *---+-----*
     |       |   |     |
     |       |   |     |
     *-------+---*     |
             | image 2 |
             *---------*

   REMEMBER! Since your object only move a few pixels at a time, the overlap 
   region will only increase by a tiny amount every time.  Thus, you
   can greatly optimize by only checking the border of the overlap region
   with the number of pixels that you have moved.

   Of course, for the person who was wondering about gas molecules..
   couldn't you approximate the shape as a circle, making everything
   easy.

-Garr

           


-- 
***********************************************************************
* Garr Godfrey
*   Any opinions expressed are someone else's. I take no responsibility.
*   godfrey@cs.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: loffit@wam.umd.edu (Dixie Cup)
Subject: Re: Formal programming ed
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:29:40 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.123834.850@micor.ocunix.on.ca> goss@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Timothy D. Goss) writes:
>I want to make some comments about the previous poster who claimed that profs
>in university don't know how to teach and blames them not the students...
>
>Professors shouldn't teach.  If you go to university, IMHO, you don't want to
>be taught, you want to learn.  The onus is entirely on the student.  Having a
>professor spoon feed you an entire course accomplishes nothing.  Your prof is
>a source of knowledge, a guide not a teacher.  Anyone who doesn't want to 
>learn should not be at university.  If you want to be spoonfed useless drivel
>then go to college (yes virginia there is a difference) and learn nothing.
>
>All flames to /dev/null
> 
This is not the proper forum to discuss this issue so all further discussion
should be restricted to e-mail.  You've go it all wrong sonny.  Students
should have a desire to learn, but universities are supposed to be
educational institutions.  I never said anything about being spoonfed.  It's
really nice how people misrepresent original posts in their responses.
The problem with the american educational system is that it's not an
an educational system.  It's a money grubbing research system where professors
compete for grants.  Having a professor repeat information that you could
read for yourself in a book for a whole course is a waste of time and that
professor should not be working at a university.  I have no desire to
get into a debate about education.  You're going to believe what you
believe and I'm going to believe what I believe and neither of us is going
to convince the other to change his mind.


Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer