Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!tjs
From: tjs@cs.monash.edu.au (Toby Sargeant)
Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english
Subject: Re: S*ga Dreamc*st
Date: 4 Aug 1998 23:30:20 GMT
Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE)
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Message-ID: <slrn6sf6c5.lo.tjs@indy16.cs.monash.edu.au>
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On Tue, 4 Aug 1998 10:10:40 +0100, DEnnis Brinkhuis <macsuppor@a1.nl> wrote:
>
>NEVER!!!!!! If there is any MS-shit on that console.. It will be doomed.
>I won't buy it then. I buy a games-console to escape from Windows...
>Billy-boy is spreading his stuff all over...
>At the airport I even saw MS-toys?!?!?! A computerized Barney-bear from
>MS. Now I understand the Barney-blaster games..

I'm afraid you're wrong. I don't like the fact that Microsoft are gaining
a monopoly in so many places either, but the fact remains that:

a) of all the console manufacturers, sega has been the only one to step up
   to the plate with a new piece of hardware (maybe that's just a function
   of how crappy the saturn was...)
b) adding OS development time to hardware development time means that the
   time-to-market of a console would (at a guess) be more than doubled. Of
   _course_ companies will like the option of choosing off the shelf OS
   solutions. It's a pity that the choice has been Microsoft's offering,
   though.

You also haven't considered the fact that although the APIs are the same,
it's probable that the underlying code, and probably the design is very
different in windows CE to that in Windows 95. Microsoft do have good
programmers. The problem is not that, it's the fact that on large projects
like Windows 95, the code base has reached critical mass, and the
management has fallen apart, allowing bugs to creep in unnoticed.

Each version of Windows CE has to support only 1 set of hardware, and doesn't
have to provide anything tricky in terms of OS design. I have much more faith
in the stability of CE than I have in that of 95/NT.

<wishlist>

Having said that, there are a few things that I think could have been better.
Rather than sticking with a hitachi processor, i would have liked to have seen
a mid - high end MIPS, PPC or Alpha processor. I guess this is a hangover
from the saturn in some ways (which might also be a hangover from arcade
machines). I don't know whether the dual CPU approach of the saturn was a
good idea. Multi threading tends to confuse developers, and introduce all
kinds of subtle bugs. On the other hand, it's a good way to get better
performance for less cost. In the balance, a multi CPU with less powerful
CPUs wins in my book.

Operating system? QNX. Beats Windows CE hands down. Is stable, _small_,
and it is a realtime OS. AFAIK, Windows CE offers none of those things.
Having a low level API is all well and good, but having to then go and
rewrite the simple and intelligent functionality that Windows CE provides
without keeping the cruft that you don't want seems stupid. A microkernel
approach makes everything so much more modular.

Memory management. I think it was a minor crime for sony to rip out the MMU
from the Playstation. While it can be argued that it's meant to be a console,
not a computer, I think the savings that the developers make when it comes to
crushing bugs more than offset the small additional hardware cost.

Graphics. Very fast 2d as well as 3d support. I think people begin to forget
that 2d games often work as well, or better than 3d ones in some areas.
With really good 2d support, the (potential) quality and beauty of the games
on offer would truly be amazing.

Peripherals and connectors. Why not be the first console to be easily
connected to an SVGA monitor? if the PoverVR is rendering at 1600x1200 for
HDTV, then surely it'd be pretty simple to provide SVGA output. A keyboard
would also be a great addition. A port exposing the system bus (like the
amiga) so that almost anything could be designed for it would be a great
feature.

Can anyone say 'console that you can port Linux/NetBSD to?'... :)

</wishlist>

Toby.