Readit NewsGrognak commented on Designing Windows 95's User Interface (2018) socket3.wordpress.com/201... · Posted by u/awesomekling
> ... people who have never used a computer before. They don't know which window is focused if there are several on screen at once
This isn't just a problem for beginners: I'm old hat and I sometimes can't tell what Windows 10 has given focus to at times when I have several things on the go, especially over two or more screens where windows overlapping isn't the obvious go-to clue. The distinction between focused and not is sometimes so close to non-existent it might as well be completely non-existent (like the titlebar text+icons being a slightly different shade of grey), and it varies from app to app (even amongst Microsoft's output) so there is not one set visual cue to follow.
It definitely used to be better than this, including in Windows land.
When I get around to it (so probably never!) I intend to write a little tool that scans for the top-most window and draws a bright border around/over it somehow. I know this is possible (and probably not difficult) as I did some similar hacky window decorating back in the Win2K days[‡], but I've been almost entirely a database+infrastructure fellow for more than a decade and my desktop dev knowledge has rotted terribly.
[†] an always-on-top window positioned so it is a line across the top of the focused window would do, four such objects, one for each side, would be the easy hacky way to achieve a border, a single drawing surface with transparency and mouse click-through would be cleaner but with my current skillset more faf working out the relevant API jiggery-pokery or finding a library that wraps that nicely already
[‡] Using Delphi. Anyone else remember that? Does it still exist in a similar form?
Delphi is still around in spirit through an IDE named Lazarus.
How did they actually make NES games? By that I mean, what types of computers were they using for creating NES games? Other 6502-based computers? Could they run the NES games on there? Or did they have to burn to a cart to test things every time?
How did they design graphics? Was it basically graph paper, which then they translated into sprites by hand?
Here's a neat video, where Miyamoto describes some of the processes. You can see near the beginning that the sprites were hand drawn on graph paper and translated onto the computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLoRd6_a1CI
"I'm an author on the paper. I want to point out what I think are a few mistakes with the blog.
First, Zvi says "The strategic engine, as I evaluated it based on a sample game with six bots and a human, is mediocre at tactics and lousy at strategy." This is not the feedback we have gotten from expert Diplomacy players. The general consensus among expert Diplomacy players is that the strategy/tactics are extremely strong, perhaps expert level, but that there is room for improvement in the dialogue. I'm not familiar with Zvi's experience with the game of Diplomacy, but I did place 3rd in the North American championship this year and have learned a lot about the game of Diplomacy, including how humans play it, over the past 3 years, so I feel somewhat qualified to comment on Diplomacy strategy.
In particular, I disagree with Zvi's opinion on the bot's strategy. Zvi says "I hate France’s tactical play, both its actual plays and the communications with Russia that are based on its tactics, dating back to at least 1903. The move here to Irish Sea needs to be accompanied by a convoy of Picardy into London or Wales, fighting for Belgium here is silly."
It's well-known among experienced Diplomacy players that France needs 3 armies on its mainland in order to defend itself well from a hostile Germany. Moreover, a convoy to London or Wales is unnecessary here. By moving to Irish Sea, France is setting themselves up for the option to convoy directly into Liverpool next turn. England can't block it because they have no army on their mainland. In short, I feel pretty confident saying that France made the right move here. If Zvi still disagrees, we could pull in some consensus expert Diplomacy players to get their opinions on this.
Second, we did a 200-game tournament for no-press (that is, no-dialogue) Diplomacy back in January where players were informed that one of the players in each game was a bot. Our bot, Diplodocus, placed first in this tournament. There's a video on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWQFhYSD7h4&ab_channel=Diplo... . You can see in the Youtube comments that one expert Diplomacy player (Sploack) described the bot as "currently the best gunboat player in existence, or at least in the top 5." The strategy/tactics in no-press Diplomacy don't match up perfectly with full-press, but they do carry over to some extent.
Third, Zvi criticizes the fixed 1908 end date as working to the bot's advantage. The no-press tournament mentioned above did not have fixed end dates. Also, I think the fact that the full-press games ended in 1908 rather than a later date (say, 1910) actually hurt the bot. The bot handles endgame tactics quite well."