MountainView

[tamorr]

Actually I can hook the laptop up to the only monitor I have, So it is not a tottal loss...I just don't feel like get it out of the box I put it in for storage.... I'm a collector, what can I say..

[hogs29]

With my old crappy computer, I was originally playing with a plugins folder that was about 3G large, and I know it went quite a bit larger than that a few times too. That computer had a wonderfully underpowered Celeron processor, but I did bump up the RAM to 4G, so while start up took forever.... start game, take shower, make dinner, sit down with dinner just as game was starting... the game play was really not bad at all until the city grew to about 25,000... then it was lag city.

But I just bought a new computer this week, that's pretty damn beefy, and once I get my computer area painted and set up this weekend, it should be interesting to play the game on a real system, and to see how I handle Vista with the custom content.

[tamorr]

 Yeah I can say the same as once in game it runs fine... well a bit of a screen redraw jerk every so often when it starts to load something new or en-mass... I usually can play with towns around a million or so... Just not on a Large map... small and medium city maps are my best bet to play... I guess I could use the Large ones for rural scenic and general nature things... a reserve of some kind maybe... but can't really do a whole lot on a large one...

[abcvs]

It's a 8 RAM 486 model... (Boat Anchor) ...

The first proper computer that I ever used was a 286...  dunno the specs... like ram and HD memory, but pre-windows...  DOS based with 'Direct Access' menu system to run the programs...  pre-internet, 5 inch floppy discs... no mouse, all keyboard commands... the word processing program was called 'First Choice'.   

I did have a cool F-19 Steath Bomber game though...  and Pacman... oh and this cool animated chess game called 'Battlechess' where the pieces fought each other in their own unique way...  if you checkmated the King with the knight the king's pants fell down.

Did all my nursing assignments on that machine.  1992-1994.

^{Paeng... you are now officially inducted into Simpeg, cos your CJ has been off-topic hijacked.}

[tamorr]

     I've actually got that game, on 3.5 disks. It is an updated version for win 32... heh... That last time I used a 5.25 disk was on the comodore 64, which I still use the monitor for my console games... Still works better than every TV and other monitor this household has ever owned. Allthough it may not be HD, it doesn't matter to me as long as I can play the games, hence an AV cable connection adapter that most consoles provide with or separately.

    Yeah I was a kid back when the Com 64 was around. Enjoyed it and an Atari I use to have. At least I still have my NES and a SNES. Although I don't play them, because I have a game cube and PS2. But I'm sure they will play, well the NES will 50% of the. That is based on the last time I played it years back when I only had a PS1. No matter old stufff sometimes works better than some of the newly produced ones, I mean function wise. That is if it has been taken care off all these years or in a place where dust won't get to it easily.

[Pegasus]

Arrrr ... when I saw that I thought YESSSS!!! I so wish I could use it, but I won't touch this .NET-stuff with a ten foot pole again. Did once and it screwed up my whole system, had to do a complete reinstall ... That's maybe because I still run Win2K ...

Well, I just bought an old machine from one of my sons, I'll slap XP on that and maybe give it another try :-)
It's high time I separate my games from my biz-machine anyway LOL

Call it a hunch... but I'm thinkin' its the Win2K that's the issue... not the ".NET-stuff."  I lead a development team that ported over all existing title & escrow industry software from VB to .NET (mostly to C#). Its a powerful and very stable  development platform. Of course, power in the wrong hands can be dangerous.

I realize that $500 is a lot of money. But today, where you can purchase an updated, fairly powerful desktop PC for well under that amount, its kinda hard to justify holding on to older, out-of-date systems unless they still fully  meet a specific need.

Example: My old XP based  P4 system... originally retained only to play the DOS based game Grandest Fleet... which will not play on Vista... and probably not on the upcoming Win 7, either. Subsequently, I discovered that the Reader will not export game (FSH) files correctly under Vista... so the old XP box now has a dual purpose.


When you consider how much time you spend on a computer, either professionally, for person/entertainment use... or probably both... and how much time a faster computer can save you...  as well as how much more productive it can be and how much more enjoyable it is to use... upgrading just makes sense on a lot of levels.


* For an approx evaluation of what an older system might be worth... you can get maybe $20 for an early Pentium4 PC at a garage sale.  Anything older than that, you'd be lucky to give it away.  In fact, its actually just cheaper to yank the hard drive(s) out and throw away any older PC because of the time required to erase the drive(s) and reinstall an OS.

[Pegasus]

Yeah I was a kid back when the Com 64 was around. Enjoyed it and an Atari I use to have.

My first computer:  a Commodore VIC 20.

Upgraded to the C64 soon as it came out. Learned to program on the C64 & C128... which ultimately led to a career in programming.  Ran a C64 & C128 based BBS for many years.

First "PC" was a 386.

[Paeng]

its kinda hard to justify holding on to older, out-of-date systems unless they still fully  meet a specific need.

That's my main reason at this point. All my needs run on this machine, and the whole workflow is absolutely stable and everything is compatible (drivers, ext. hardware, software etc.), and a change of operating system will be much more than just installing an update.
Speed is not really an issue, as my biz is mainly text_only (txt, html, css) and webrelated graphics, so I don't run anything demanding (except some graphic apps). Programming is done by one of my partners, who runs linux though ... he's also got a mac, where we can run xp and vista under parallels, just for testing, so that suits me fine :-)

I'm aware that sooner or later I have to make that switch, but I prefer later ;-P ... my somewhat hazy target right now would be about win7 SP1 ...

+++

My pirst PC (after some C64 and similar) was a 286 ... win2 I gave up on, DOS was more fun. I think the first win I really used was 3.11 ... at that time I enjoyed putzing around with soft- and hardware, but nowadays I'd much rather not touch anything but the on/off switch :-)

[Becca]

I still have my C64

[tamorr]

     My Comodore 64 main compents beyond the monitor I mentioned, was either sold or lost during one of the many many moves around the US... Around that time my family was moving from place to place.. I think the most in one year was about 5 times...It was hard, but as you see I survived... and got over it... mostly... At least it was entertaining... My 486 is useful if Cyberstorm decides to not work, as it will work on that system. So for the moment it stays anyway. I could just hook the laptop up to the monitor, I have tried before, but since I only have one monitor it makes it difficult to do anything on it beyond certain things, even if it has a better processor and possibly more RAM. Oh well... when the time comes I guess..

[hogs29]

Learned to program on the C64 & C128... which ultimately led to a career in programming. 

My brother and I had a VIC 20 and a C64, and the funny things is, the programming on those is what kept us away from it as a career! :
Seriously, typing for 3 full days to make a stick man jump out of a plane onto an island, a game that was fun for about 30 minutes (nowhere near the time it took to enter) was not very appealing. Especially if you had one single character wrong. Then the whole thing would not work, and you would have to search the whole damn thing to find you misplaced a period by one space.
Yep. Cars seemed so much more appealing.

I think I was wrong on that decision too....

[th3_jok3r]

My first computer was a TK85 - Its a sinclair, with 32kb RAM, cassete recorder and a lot basic programing magazines. I losted hours typing the program and in the end almost everytime the programm crashed and Iosted everything type
The computer I most liked was a Apple //e, with 2 5 1/4 floppies, and a board called Geos OS, pre-mac OS, very cool. Iloved the apple games, lode runner and karateka was my favorite, after I got a lot of Ultima RPG and after a lot of Kings Quest, Space Quest, Police quests and go on.
After the Apple //e I bought and Amiga and I learned a lot of 65020 Assembler to make some Demos scene. Very cool, good sounds. Amiga was a fantastic plataform in the past.

[abcvs]

Well I remember my first ENIAC...  I stashed it in the neighbours barn, (just a bit big for the house..) and when I turned it on all the lights went dim...

If you lot are all reminicing about C64's... then that definately indicates a certain demographic makeup of those making the above posts...

Problem is... I know exactly which particular computer you are refering to...   anyone that had one was definately considered to be very cool.

[Paeng]

Meanwhile ... what's been happening in Mountainview?

Look at Farmington-Area - it developed fast, so Eastend had to be split up, the new subdivision is called 'Canal's End'.



Let's take a closer look:









A large company bought a good chunk of land to plant sugarcane and build a sugarmill, which encouraged a famous rum-distiller to set up as well. Of course the city made them build nearby lowcost housing for all the workers.



This town sleeps late ...



Funny things happen at the newly established citydump. Despite the nice housing offered everywhere, some people prefer to stay in trailers and ramshackle huts near the dump. They even opened some foodplaces ... though the major is angry about illegal logging on the left fringe.



Table of Contents

[tamorr]

Wow that looks very nice... What is that bluish building along the canal in the fourth pic, it is the tallest one there along the bank. Was wonder what that building was cause it looks good.