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Subject: "NXE for Palm?" Archived thread - Read only
 
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Offsides
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Apr-26-01, 09:20 AM (EDT)
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"NXE for Palm?"
 
   I noticed on the NXE page that they are available for download in Newton Paperback format, and I was wondering if there was any interest in a Palm version. I converted them for myself a little while back (formatting by hand was a b*tch, since I didn't have something that would nicely center the credits for me), including the Encounter @Shamrock interlude. If anyone is interested, I can submit them for posting on the EPU site.

Offsides

#include <needsleep.h>


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: NXE for Palm? Mephronmoderator Apr-26-01 1
  RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 2
     RE: NXE for Palm? Wedge Apr-26-01 3
     RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-26-01 4
         RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 6
             RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-26-01 7
                 RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 8
                     RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-26-01 10
                         RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 13
             RE: NXE for Palm? Astynax Apr-26-01 9
                 RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-26-01 11
                 RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 12
                     RE: NXE for Palm? Astynax Apr-26-01 14
                         RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-26-01 15
                             RE: NXE for Palm? Astynax Apr-26-01 16
                                 RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-26-01 17
                                     RE: NXE for Palm? trussteam Apr-27-01 18
                                     RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-27-01 19
                                         RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-27-01 22
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-27-01 23
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? Mephronmoderator Apr-27-01 24
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? Laudre Apr-27-01 25
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-27-01 26
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? megazone Apr-29-01 27
                                             RE: NXE for Palm? Gryphonadmin Apr-29-01 28
                                 RE: NXE for Palm? Reverend Hammer Apr-27-01 20
     RE: NXE for Palm? Laudre Apr-26-01 5
     RE: NXE for Palm? Offsides Apr-27-01 21

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Mephronmoderator
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Apr-26-01, 12:26 PM (EDT)
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1. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #0
 
   I could go for that. I currently have them in pure-text and use Doctuments-To-Go for everything.

When the Times is a pain in the ass, and Salon's boring... (see also: most of the frickin' time.)

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"I think I sprained my anterior lobe just thinking about it."


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 04:12 PM (EDT)
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2. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-26-01 AT 04:17 PM (EDT)

>I noticed on the NXE page that they are available for download in
>Newton Paperback format, and I was wondering if there was any interest
>in a Palm version. I converted them for myself a little while back
>(formatting by hand was a b*tch, since I didn't have something that
>would nicely center the credits for me), including the Encounter
>@Shamrock interlude. If anyone is interested, I can submit them for
>posting on the EPU site.

Gur. I never should have started putting non-ASCII things up... it opened a can of worms I wasn't prepared to deal with.

See, for many years, my philosophy was, "If your system can't handle eighty-column ASCII, get a real computer." I have kind of a Darwinist streak in me, and can't muster much sympathy for people who insist on using bizarre equipment nobody else uses, then whine because nothing out there works on it. (It's the same reason why my heart never bled for Amiga users. :) So I always refused, and will continue to refuse, the occasional requests I get for stupid things like "Can you put Hopelessly Lost up in Microsoft Word format because I don't like the fixed-pitch fonts on my computer" or "Why don't you convert everything you've ever done to HTML, it shouldn't take you more than a few weeks of steady work and you'll be able to use FONT tags to make it look all pretty" or such-like crap.

Unfortunately, the world has played a cruel joke on me by coming up with a piece of bizarre equipment that, at last count, approximately everybody uses. I'm not sure what rocket scientist at Palm decided that their device, unlike everything else in the known galaxy since 1972, could do without an eighty-column display, but suddenly the damn thing is hugely popular anyway, and I get people complaining that my nice, plain, standard, wrapped-at-72-columns text files are too wide. Then, to rub salt in it, the Palmeteers go and make it so their stupid brainchild can't even handle plain old ordinary ASCII files, instead insisting on some bizarre proprietary format for the presentation of regular old boring nothing-special text, for Christ's sake.

Now, I could understand the Newton doing this, even indulge it in its little eccentricities, because it was an Apple product, and Apple products never do anything correctly. It's part of their charm. Rat made the Paperback archives, and I put them up to humor him, because he's the earliest identified UF fan, because he's a big Newton weenie and may be the only person on Earth who's actually gotten the Newton handwriting recognition system to work (which is an achievement that deserves respect), and because he knows where I sleep.

But this Palm thing is really pissing me off. I'm sure I'd have swallowed my objections to its idiotic non-standard text handling by now if I myself actually liked to read things on it, but the truth of the matter is, I hate reading long documents on electronic devices. If e-books ever do actually replace the printed word, as Popular Science has been predicting will happen within ten years for the past fifty years, I'll probably just stop reading. So I don't feel any particular impetus to take on this project, because I'll never get any use out of it myself, and damn it, I've already presented my work in the format that I think best suits it.

"But Ben," I hear you cry. "You don't have to do the conversion. We're already doing it. You just have to put them on the website." Well, sure. Except once they go on the website, they become my responsibility, and I get to hear the complaints if something's not right about them - which means I'll have to review them, and make sure they all look similar, and make sure they're all using the same stupid proprietary Palm-document standard (since the last time I looked there were several), and generally put in almost as much work as if I'd just done it myself.

Oh, I know the march of progress is relentless, and I'm going to have to do something about it someday. But not today.

(Hmm, I think you've just inadvertently caused this arbitrary time period's update to CSRANTronix. Congrats. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Wedge
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Apr-26-01, 04:51 PM (EDT)
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3. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #2
 
   >Now, I could understand the Newton doing this, even indulge it in its
>little eccentricities, because it was an Apple product, and Apple
>products never do anything correctly. It's part of their charm.

Hey, not really true anymore! Macs deal much better now across the board with just about anything. Yes, it used to be a pain dealing with anything from the Windows side of the fence, but that's pretty much been gone since around System 8. And system 9 is very solid and stable compared to most Windows stuff I've run. (And no, I don't want to start a holy war on here, because so far it's been very nice here and we don't need any of that. We use a little of everything here where I work and everything has it's place. Although a software dist that cause all the NT's in house to spontaneously start bluescreening ever 10 minutes was kind of funny, from an existential point of view. ;)

And OSX is BSD unix under the hood, so it's getting much better.

Can't speak for the Newtons, and there's something to be said that, from as few as were made (relatively speaking) that so many people that did buy them still use them fanatically. Last time I looked, they were pretty hot eBay items as well.

I'm not part of the PDA crowd myself. I figure if I ever want that much data that close to me at all times, I can wait for the cyberware so I don't have to carry it. But then, I also live in LA and ditched my cellphone a few months back, so I'm definitly skating down the bellcurve. :)

------------------------------
"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
------------------------------
Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company


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megazone
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Apr-26-01, 07:00 PM (EDT)
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4. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #2
 
   >everybody uses. I'm not sure what rocket scientist at Palm
>decided that their device, unlike everything else in the known galaxy
>since 1972, could do without an eighty-column display, but suddenly

80 column displays don't fit in your pocket or on your hip - not and still be legible anyway. And those 'roll up, pull out' displays Popular Science has been on about for the past decade are still at least a few years out. It is form following function - the primary duties of a PDA do not require that kind of screen.

BTW - I know you don't like the Palm III screen, which is what you have. Check out the new Handera 330 (http://www.handera.com/). 240x320 QVGA greyscale display (instead of 160x160) provides a much sharper image, and it supports landscape mode - so you can have more columns (don't know 'bout 80). The graffiti area is 'soft' - that area of the screen can be used to display when reading thigns.) It also has both a CF and an SD/MMC slot, and jog wheel for one hand use, and other nice bits. And it is in the Palm III form factor, so it can use all the accessories, cases, etc.

I'm actually tempted to replace my Visor - but it ships in June so I have to wait anyway. And I may wait longer anyway, to see what else develops. If they'd included a codec and a headphone jack I'd be *so* there - MP3/PDA.

As it is it is the only PalmOS device with an amplified speaker, and it can play 8bit .wav files (mono), it also does voice recording to .wav to the internal memory, or directly to CF or SD/MMC.

If I actually took the time I could probably dig up an ASCII2PALM conversion script - I'm sure they're out there.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 08:16 PM (EDT)
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6. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #4
 
   >80 column displays don't fit in your pocket or on your hip - not and
>still be legible anyway.

Then they shouldn't have launched the product before the technology was ready for it. There's just no excuse for a computing device to lack an eighty-column display. At the very least, if it's not capable of handling properly presented Internet text, they shouldn't be pushing it as an Internet device.

>If they'd included a codec and a headphone jack I'd be *so*
>there - MP3/PDA.

Hey, cool! Two things I don't see the freaking point of, in one!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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megazone
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Apr-26-01, 08:31 PM (EDT)
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7. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #6
 
   >Then they shouldn't have launched the product before the technology
>was ready for it. There's just no excuse for a computing device to
>lack an eighty-column display.

Sorry, I can't agree. An 80 column display is overkill for a PDA, making the unit too large. The entire computing world has moved away from fixed column displays. Forcing devices to comply to an arbitrary constraint is function following form. Raw ASCII text is increasingly anachronistic - it is a lowest common denominator, emphasis on 'lowest'. Even ASCII is being phased out at the OS level over time, in favor of Unicode.

> At the very least, if it's not capable
>of handling properly presented Internet text, they shouldn't be
>pushing it as an Internet device.

1. They aren't.

2. They do handle many formats - it just depends on the software. There are applications that can handle .txt, .doc, .xls, etc. And a few different browsers for HTML - which, when properly coded, scales to the display inherently.

>>If they'd included a codec and a headphone jack I'd be *so*
>>there - MP3/PDA.
>Hey, cool! Two things I don't see the freaking point of, in one!

*shrug* I use my Visor several times a day, and I'd love to have my music with me for the train, in the office, etc. But I'd rather not lug around yet another piece of gear - like my discman. The HE330 already has a CF slot and a SD/MMC slot, and they tested a headphone jack on the prototypes but deleted it due to a perceived lack of demand. But the DB VZ processor doesn't have the balls for MP3 decoding, so they'd need to add a codec.

With the way both PDAs and MP3 players are selling, if they came out with a consumer model that had MP3 capabilities (like Sony's new Clie has built in ATRAC3 playback/recording for MemoryStick), it'd kick ass in the market.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 08:37 PM (EDT)
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8. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #7
 
   >Sorry, I can't agree. An 80 column display is overkill for a PDA,
>making the unit too large.

Even the Palm III's screen could be, if it were in landscape instead of portrait orientation. You know, like every other computing-device display in the universe.

>anachronistic - it is a lowest common denominator, emphasis on

Lowest common denominators equal broadest compatibility - if devices are properly designed.

>> At the very least, if it's not capable
>>of handling properly presented Internet text, they shouldn't be
>>pushing it as an Internet device.
>
>1. They aren't.

My ass they aren't. "Get stuff off the web on your palmtop" is the biggest buzz-concept in gadget masturbation right now.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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megazone
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Apr-26-01, 09:11 PM (EDT)
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10. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #8
 
   >Even the Palm III's screen could be, if it were in landscape instead

All PalmOS devices except the new HE330 have *square* displays. 160x160 - 320x320 for the new Clie, but it uses pixel doubling so each 2x2 block is one pixel for the apps, just makes it sharper. When they appeared they were also pure B&W, not greyscale. That was what was affordable and producable in quantity.

PalmOS has lagged behind WinCE in display flexibility - several WinCE devices support landscape mode - but so does the new HE330. 240x240 with the graffiti area, 240x320 without - or 320x240 in landscape mode. It is a QVGA display (Quarter VGA).

But even then I'm not sure 80 columns is going to be that readable, it'd be a small font. It is a physical limitation - the device is only so big. Making it bigger isn't feasible from a market standpoint, since one of the most common complaints about Palms and Pocket PCs are that they need to be *smaller*.

Maybe someday we'll have those nifty monocle displays connected to our PDAs by Bluetooth or something, so you have a virtual 1920x1600 display in front of your face - but that isn't happening tomorrow.

>of portrait orientation. You know, like every other
>computing-device display in the universe.

Aside from the bit about it being square, so it doesn't matter - most of what you do on a Palm is better with a taller display - datebooks, address lists, etc. Having the option of rotating it is nice - which the HE330 adds.

>Lowest common denominators equal broadest compatibility - if
>devices are properly designed.

Until that denominator is so low it is obsolete - which is what is happening now. More and more devices are appearing that ignore it - because very, very few people still use it for anything. Lowest common denominators have a tendency of getting higher over time. At one time all PC apps ran in less than 640KB because that was the LCD. Progess means the LCD changes.

Most of the information 'online' is 'on the web' - meaning text is in HTML, which means the devices handle it. Email is moving that way, inexorably, like it or not. And that's really the last bastion of 80 column ASCII for nearly all users.

80 column fixed font displays were a relic of their time - that's what could be supported. We're well past that - I hear they've even got proportional fonts now! ;-) And displays range from a cell phone to giant plasma screens. Very little requires that kind of fixed display these days - I'm rather thankful for that. I will welcome the ability to do everything I want on my PDA and not need to take a laptop with me when I travel. Maybe a docking station for a larger display at home. Of course, that may just mean plugging my PDA into my PS2 and using the TV.

Information should be formatted for the device, not the other way around.

>My ass they aren't. "Get stuff off the web on your palmtop" is the
>biggest buzz-concept in gadget masturbation right now.

I read several PDA forums daily, and I certainly haven't seen this. Palm is barely advertising their VIIx these days.

About the only thing I see this pushed in are those Ameritrade adds - and you know what? That works just fine. For that matter, so does a lot of other content - because it isn't archaic.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 09:52 PM (EDT)
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13. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #10
 
   >>Even the Palm III's screen could be, if it were in landscape instead
>
>All PalmOS devices except the new HE330 have *square* displays.

Do they indeed? Well, never mind that then. Still, a wide enough display could be had with a device of that same basic shape and size, if it were oriented across instead of down the device.

>80 column fixed font displays were a relic of their time - that's what
>could be supported. We're well past that - I hear they've even got
>proportional fonts now! ;-)

Yeah, and most of them look like crap. It's also difficult to lay things out in proportional fonts. I've developed too many habits and tricks that ONLY work in fixed-pitch fonts to stop using them now. (Besides, there's still Usenet.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Astynax
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Apr-26-01, 09:05 PM (EDT)
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9. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #6
 
   >>If they'd included a codec and a headphone jack I'd be *so*
>>there - MP3/PDA.
>
>Hey, cool! Two things I don't see the freaking point of, in one!
>

Don't see the point to mp3's? Hmm, free music... easily portable music <gee, carry 6 CD's, or one ZIP disk with me to the PC lab on campus> Shock proof <unless you count 'squashing like a bug with a truck' as 'shock'> PDAs I agree... they just don't seem useful enough for the price, but mp3's I consider a gift from Skuld;)

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"


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megazone
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Apr-26-01, 09:14 PM (EDT)
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11. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #9
 
   >Don't see the point to mp3's? Hmm, free music... easily portable music
><gee, carry 6 CD's, or one ZIP disk with me to the PC lab on campus>

I don't count 'free' since I have never downloaded a pirated MP3, and don't plan to start. I wouldn't mind ripping my CD collection to a more compact, portable format though. And I don't count minidisc - still needs another device.

I've been considering a MiniJam for my Visor.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 09:46 PM (EDT)
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12. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #9
 
   >Don't see the point to mp3's? Hmm, free music... easily portable music
><gee, carry 6 CD's, or one ZIP disk with me to the PC lab on campus>
>Shock proof <unless you count 'squashing like a bug with a truck' as
>'shock'>

It's called "MiniDisc".

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Astynax
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Apr-26-01, 10:07 PM (EDT)
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14. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #12
 
   >It's called "MiniDisc".
>

Can't be played on a PC, thus would require new hardware <I don't HAVE to buy an mp3 player, it's just an option> To listen to MD, I'd have to buy an MD player, which are, AFAIK, only made by Sony <monopolies are bad, mmkay>. I have an instinctual loathing of anything that is only made by one company.

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-26-01, 10:12 PM (EDT)
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15. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #14
 
   > To listen to MD, I'd have
>to buy an MD player, which are, AFAIK, only made by Sony

and Sharp, and JVC, and Pioneer, and...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Astynax
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Apr-26-01, 11:25 PM (EDT)
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16. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #15
 
   >and Sharp, and JVC, and Pioneer, and...
>

OK, I was wrong... I've never actually SEEN an MD player in the wild... a few <very few> ads, that's my only exposure... <you'd think a company like Sony, or the others listed for that matter, could muster better advertising budgets>

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"


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megazone
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Apr-26-01, 11:40 PM (EDT)
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17. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #16
 
   >OK, I was wrong... I've never actually SEEN an MD player in the
>wild... a few <very few> ads, that's my only exposure... <you'd think
>a company like Sony, or the others listed for that matter, could
>muster better advertising budgets>

I think MiniDisc will be dead in a few years - it has been leapfrogged with solid state technology. Right now what is keeping it alive is that FLASH costs rather a lot more than MD for the same capacity. Sony is already using ATRAC 3 for their MemoryStick Walkman and on the new Clie PDA - ATRAC 3 is the encoding used on MiniDisc. They've developed MD2, which has a higher capacity, but so far it is only being used for data applications.

Memory prices continue to drop as we get over the shortage - as more production plants come online. I think that's the way things will go - FLASH memory, and things like FMD cards for really high densities.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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trussteam
Member since Aug-9-13
Apr-27-01, 01:11 AM (EDT)
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18. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #17
 
   >I think MiniDisc will be dead in a few years - it has been leapfrogged
>with solid state technology.

Eh... I'll believe it when I see it. Caught up with, yes. Leapfrogged... no. Not just yet.

>Right now what is keeping it alive is
>that FLASH costs rather a lot more than MD for the same capacity.

True... but MDs have also gotten a lot cheaper since I started using them a few years ago, and I don't see that trend ceasing, either.

>Sony is already using ATRAC 3 for their MemoryStick Walkman and on the
>new Clie PDA - ATRAC 3 is the encoding used on MiniDisc.

Not quite. MDs are up to ATRAC 4 (or 5 if you have a Sharp player, they have their own numbers... Sharp 5 = everyone else's 4), and haven't used ATRAC 3 (which does audibly, though not horribly, worse encoding) for several years. My first MD player was an ATRAC 4 model.

>They've developed MD2, which has a higher capacity, but so far it is only
>being used for data applications.

I'm not familiar with the MD2 acronym, so I can't say for sure that it's the same thing... but the newer players support the MDLP format, which stuffs ~5 hours on a 74-minute minidisc.

>Memory prices continue to drop as we get over the shortage - as more
>production plants come online. I think that's the way things will go
>- FLASH memory, and things like FMD cards for really high densities.

I repeat... I'll beleive it when I see it. You very well may be right, but I have no intention of being an early adopter for the Flash ROM technologies. I don't have sufficient faith in them in the short-to-medium term, and I have too much already invested in a competing technology that I'm quite happy with.

--truss.


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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Apr-27-01, 03:32 AM (EDT)
Click to EMail Gryphon Click to send private message to Gryphon Click to view user profileClick to add this user to your buddy list  
19. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #17
 
   >I think MiniDisc will be dead in a few years - it has been leapfrogged
>with solid state technology. Right now what is keeping it alive is
>that FLASH costs rather a lot more than MD for the same capacity.

Oh, and a little thing called an installed base. And people not wanting to have to erase their stuff to record new stuff...

>Sony is already using ATRAC 3 for their MemoryStick Walkman and on the
>new Clie PDA - ATRAC 3 is the encoding used on MiniDisc.

Five years ago it was...

>Memory prices continue to drop as we get over the shortage

Until the next one.

> - as more
>production plants come online. I think that's the way things will go
>- FLASH memory, and things like FMD cards for really high densities.

Yeah, uh-huh. Say what you like - I will respond with my fists.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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megazone
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Apr-27-01, 11:10 AM (EDT)
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22. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #19
 
   >Oh, and a little thing called an installed base.

8-track had an installed base too. So did LP and mini-cassette - that didn't stop CDs from taking over the market.

In Japan MD has a lot stronger a hold on the market than in the US, but at the same time, solid state devices are catching on faster there too.

>And people not
>wanting to have to erase their stuff to record new stuff...

We are talking about CF and SD/MMC. I wouldn't buy a fixed capacity player - unless, perhaps, that fixed capacity was 6GB like that nomad (which you can upgrade to at least 20GB if you want to do a little HW hackin').

>>Sony is already using ATRAC 3 for their MemoryStick Walkman and on the
>>new Clie PDA - ATRAC 3 is the encoding used on MiniDisc.
>Five years ago it was...

*shrug* Sony seems to be using it on their new devices. I don't know why.

>Yeah, uh-huh. Say what you like - I will respond with my fists.

You are a choad.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Apr-27-01, 04:11 PM (EDT)
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23. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #22
 
   >>Yeah, uh-huh. Say what you like - I will respond with my fists.
>
>You are a choad.

Nazi.

--G.
(thank God that thread's over)
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Mephronmoderator
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1895 posts
Apr-27-01, 08:14 PM (EDT)
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24. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #23
 
   >Nazi.
>
>--G.
>(thank God that thread's over)

Dude, intentional invocation of Godwin's Law is generally held to invalidate it.

Godwin's Law prov. "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.


--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"Big O! Showtime!"


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Laudre
Charter Member
Apr-27-01, 08:18 PM (EDT)
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25. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #24
 
   >>Nazi.
>>
>>--G.
>>(thank God that thread's over)
>
>Dude, intentional invocation of Godwin's Law is generally held to
>invalidate it.

No it doesn't, you Nazi!

-- Sean --

(Yes, this is a joke.)

http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein
"It's not easy being green." -- Kermit the Frog


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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Apr-27-01, 08:54 PM (EDT)
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26. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #24
 
   >>Nazi.
>>
>>--G.
>>(thank God that thread's over)
>
>Dude, intentional invocation of Godwin's Law is generally held to
>invalidate it.

Oh yes? Think so? Keep following up, then.

This isn't Usenet, laddie buck.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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megazone
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Apr-29-01, 08:11 PM (EDT)
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27. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #26
 
   >Oh yes? Think so? Keep following up, then.

Ok.

>This isn't Usenet, laddie buck.

No, no it isn't.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Apr-29-01, 10:58 PM (EDT)
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28. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #27
 
   >>Oh yes? Think so? Keep following up, then.
>
>Ok.

I meant without being a complete twink.

Twink.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/


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Reverend Hammer
Charter Member
Apr-27-01, 05:07 AM (EDT)
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20. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #16
 
   >>and Sharp, and JVC, and Pioneer, and...
>>
>
>OK, I was wrong... I've never actually SEEN an MD player in the
>wild... a few <very few> ads, that's my only exposure... <you'd think
>a company like Sony, or the others listed for that matter, could
>muster better advertising budgets>

What's weird is that in my part of Iowa, MiniDiscs have been sold all over (even in K-mart for Christ's sake!), but I hadn't seen players/recorders available in this town up until recently. Stepped into a Sam Goody a couple of weeks back and I was like "Holy shit! These things DO exist!" :)

Wouldn't mind having one for convienence. Better than dealing with a tape recorder, and cheaper than getting one of those "Memory Stick" recorders.

Reverend Hammer
Wanting his DVD-R drive, also...


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Laudre
Charter Member
Apr-26-01, 07:54 PM (EDT)
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5. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #2
 
   > "Why don't you convert
>everything you've ever done to HTML, it shouldn't take you more than a
>few weeks of steady work and you'll be able to use FONT tags to make
>it look all pretty"

You know, I've had such thoughts but:

a) Time spent HTMLizing the EPU catalog is time the EPU authors are not writing.

b) If you HTMLize it you lose some of your control over its appearance.

c) Loading time would noticeably increase, especially on the longer stories. And for those of us who don't have broadband, that's a major strike right there.

> I've already
>presented my work in the format that I think best suits it.

Hear, hear.

>Oh, I know the march of progress is relentless, and I'm going to have
>to do something about it someday. But not today.
>
>(Hmm, I think you've just inadvertently caused this arbitrary time
>period's update to
>CSRANTronix. Congrats.
>:)

Heh. And you added that tidbit about all-lowercase now... that's a habit I had to break too, which is doubly annoying since everyone did all-caps when I started learning HTML, and lowercase HTML just looked funny. (It still looks funny to me, but I've gotten used to it.)

-- Sean --

http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein
"It's not easy being green." -- Kermit the Frog


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Offsides
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1264 posts
Apr-27-01, 10:37 AM (EDT)
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21. "RE: NXE for Palm?"
In response to message #2
 
   >See, for many years, my philosophy was, "If your system can't handle
>eighty-column ASCII, get a real computer." I have kind of a Darwinist
>streak in me, and can't muster much sympathy for people who insist on
>using bizarre equipment nobody else uses, then whine because nothing
>out there works on it.

I understand that point of view, and even agree with it partly. A Palm isn't a Real Computer(tm) - but occasionally having decent reading material in a small, non-printed format is a Good Thing(tm).

>So I always refused, and will continue to refuse,
>the occasional requests I get for stupid things like "Can you put
>Hopelessly Lost up in Microsoft Word format because I don't
>like the fixed-pitch fonts on my computer" or "Why don't you convert
>everything you've ever done to HTML, it shouldn't take you more than a
>few weeks of steady work and you'll be able to use FONT tags to make
>it look all pretty" or such-like crap.

This I understand and agree with - you have better things to do with your time... That's why I've never asked anyone else to convert them...

>Now, I could understand the Newton doing this, even indulge it in its
>little eccentricities, because it was an Apple product, and Apple
>products never do anything correctly. It's part of their charm. Rat
>made the Paperback archives, and I put them up to humor him, because
>he's the earliest identified UF fan, because he's a big Newton
>weenie and may be the only person on Earth who's actually gotten the
>Newton handwriting recognition system to work (which is an
>achievement that deserves respect), and because he knows where I
>sleep.

Actually, I still have my Upgraded MP2000, and break it out occasionally for S&G... And I was up to > 98% recognition when I stopped using it. It's a marvelous device - it just doesn't fit in my pocket. And while I don't know exactly where you sleep, I do know Waltham rather well, having grown up in the general vicinity... :)

>If e-books ever do actually replace the printed word, as
>Popular Science has been predicting will happen within ten
>years for the past fifty years, I'll probably just stop reading.

E-books are just fine as a supplement for the written word, but there's something about a paperback book that you just can't get from any other format...

>So I
>don't feel any particular impetus to take on this project, because
>I'll never get any use out of it myself, and damn it, I've already
>presented my work in the format that I think best suits it.
>
>"But Ben," I hear you cry. "You don't have to do the conversion.
>We're already doing it. You just have to put them on the website."
>Well, sure. Except once they go on the website, they become my
>responsibility, and I get to hear the complaints if something's not
>right about them - which means I'll have to review them, and make sure
>they all look similar, and make sure they're all using the same
>stupid proprietary Palm-document standard (since the last time I
>looked there were several), and generally put in almost as much work
>as if I'd just done it myself.

OK, I withdraw my offer to post on the Eyrie site - you don't want/need the headache, and I understand that. However, would you object to my posting them on my own site. I will put a disclaimer that all comments/flames/etc. should go to me, and not anywhere near EPU.

>(Hmm, I think you've just inadvertently caused this arbitrary time
>period's update to
>CSRANTronix. Congrats.
>:)

Didn't mean to start a holy war (and yes, I've read the discussions between Gryphon and MegaZone, et. al.). Buy I'll take the semi-complement on causing the CSRANTronix update :)

Offsides

#include <duckandcover.h>


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