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Post-Apocalyptic Programming

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Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#31

Post by Nursie »

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #24

I love prepping, up to a point. If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able to self govern, grow emotionally and take responsibility for their own actions. As long as we use collective thinking and externalization our power in organizations, believe in superstitions like money, government, “the greater good”, rather than recognizing wha…

Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-...

Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest.

Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll take that over "fully realised" adults living in a bear-ridden trash heap because they “took responsibility” for their own garbage disposal.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#32

Post by AeroNotix »

kibwen wrote: post #23

Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…

It's called a disk snapshot.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#33

Post by vladharbuz »

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #24

I love prepping, up to a point. If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able to self govern, grow emotionally and take responsibility for their own actions. As long as we use collective thinking and externalization our power in organizations, believe in superstitions like money, government, “the greater good”, rather than recognizing wha…

I think that you would find it interesting to read “The Tyranny of Merit” by Michael J. Sandel, as it discusses some of the underlying assumptions that your comment rests on. I'm not saying it's a refutation of what you're saying or anything like that, but I think you would enjoy the book, and I think it would offer a healthy broader perspective.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#34

Post by qwerty456127 »

kibwen wrote: post #23

Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…

I am most worried about the hardware. I am afraid we will have to start all the progress completely from scratch.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#35

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

AeroNotix wrote: post #32
kibwen wrote: post #23

Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…

It's called a disk snapshot.

I don't know about you, but I don't normally have the source code lying around on disk for:

the compiler and its dependencies

Any dynamically linked dependencies and whatever extra compilers they might need

Other potentially necessary things like build tools and source control systems

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#36

Post by cableshaft »

jayhoon wrote: post #26
kibwen wrote: post #23

Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…

Would a technical description in plain English (specification) and C code be sufficient to preserve a piece of software? The understanding of the specification may be different years later, but this applies even to the paintings and the works of fiction. So, the question is not only about the preservation the actual software, but also about its correct interpretation.

I think for simpler games this idea works well, yeah (and I tend to design simpler games, so I might have to start doing something like this). One of my old games, Proximity, ended up in a couple chapters on a book on an old book about Flash development, I think it was called Actionscript 3 Design Patterns.

You could make the original game pretty close from there (even though it was someone else that reverse engineered it and did it somewhat differently, it still got the job done).

But that game is pretty darn simple, just a hex grid where you draw a tile from 1-20, and wherever you place it, it'll capture tiles of an opposing team surrounding it if the tile you placed has a higher number than them. I've worked on tweaking the formula in a bunch of a ways over the years, but that's the core mechanism.

Once a game gets complicated enough it gets a lot harder to ensure that all of the nuances in the code, edge cases, hacky shit to get the game out the door, etc, so it's going to be more limited. But I'd still love to see a series that did this for more games though (I know one guy did it with the Quake source code and a couple other Id games).

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#37

Post by Chris2048 »

Nursie wrote: post #31
manofmanysmiles wrote: post #24

I love prepping, up to a point. If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able to self govern, grow emotionally and take responsibility for their own actions. As long as we use collective thinking and externalization our power in organizations, believe in superstitions like money, government, “the greater good”, rather than recognizing wha…

Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-... Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest. Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll tak…

> Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand

This is arrogant, and condescending, not kind.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#38

Post by phire »

Tepix wrote: post #9

Let's have a look at low-power devices (for post-apocalyptic programming?) - is the Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1 MK2.6 from 2012 the perfect post-apocalyptic device when low power consumption trumps everything else? It has a 2W CPU and dual hot-swappable 7.2V 2900mAh batteries that last 9 hours (i.e. 4.62 Watts). The keyboard is somewhat terrible but the display is "daylight readable". No, it looks as if the Acer Spin 7…

A 2 watt CPU seems liker massive overkill, you really don't need that much CPU power. I'm reminded of PDAs from the 90s that could run for almost a month on a single set of AA batteries.

If you were designing a devices from scratch, it might be worth considering a large (640x300 or larger) transflective lcd display from the late 90s, a keyboard, large amounts of reliable flash storage. It seems overkill to go beyond an ARM M4 for CPU, though a cluster of Cortex A55s might make more sense, so you have an MMU.

Give it flexible power input so it can run off whatever power source you can scavenge. From a few triple AAA batteries at the low end to 48v lead acid batteries at the high end. Or a highly variable power source like a rigged together windmill or scavenged solar panels.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#39

Post by Nursie »

Chris2048 wrote: post #37
Nursie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-... Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest. Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll tak…

> Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand This is arrogant, and condescending, not kind.

This is a quote from the post I replied to, which is why I said it, as a mirror to the arrogance of the material I responded to. The post I responded to posits that those in favour of governments and collective action are not emotionally grown.

If it is not kind, then neither is the original.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#40

Post by FartyMcFarter »

kibwen wrote: post #23

Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…

The most reliable way to do this is with emulators. A full emulator is a complete description of some hardware and software combination.

If we can keep emulators working on modern hardware and OSs, we can guarantee that most old games will be playable indefinitely.

For example, if you have dosbox you can play a lot of old MS-DOS games without having an x86 CPU or DOS itself.

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