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Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

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Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#61

Post by neoromantique »

boomskats wrote: post #40
SyneRyder wrote: post #14

For those who might not know: > With Nullsoft gone and Frankel spending his time building a special-effects computer for his electric guitar... I don't know what happened to the Jesusonic he was building then, but Justin Frankel ended up creating Reaper, the cross-platform Windows/Mac/Linux digital audio workstation that is a solid Pro Tools competitor in a mere 16 MB download: https://www.reaper.fm/ The installer fo…

I remember Reaper v2 being like a 4.7mb download at a time when nuendo/cubase/cakewalk/protools etc were >1GB plus samples. With a nicer summing engine and more stable, lower latency vst host than any of them. And the only one with a decent, revenue-dependent tiered license. What a legend.

Linux version of Reaper is 13mb today, if anything the contrast is more stark these days

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#62

Post by rickcarlino »

gonesilent wrote: post #60
rickcarlino wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnutella is a mild obsession for me. The way that the protocol was designed and also the way that it saw a mainstream adoption has always fascinated me. For anyone reading this thread who is curious, I wrote a functional client this year for fun: https://github.com/RickCarlino/gnutella-bun-client/

It took a ton of work to keep the network clean. I did the gnutella.wego site back in the day. Gnutella was made when napster had 50 users and we all told him he was fcked. So gnutella was made to not use servers. Justin gave napster the code for song length and such to integrate with Napster.

Have you blogged about this or written it down? I would love to hear more about this piece of history and it seems that the history is slowly fading.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#63

Post by RajT88 »

g8oz wrote: post #49
p2detar wrote: post #45

Additionally to Winamp, I guess what I will always remember Nullsoft with is also "NSIS - Nullsoft Scriptable Install System" [0]. In a previous job I sat down, read the docs and wrote a Windows-Installer for our product using this thing, since management didn't want to pay for InstallShield. What made quite an impression on me back then was the fact that the scripting language somewhat resembles assembly. [1] Also,…

I worked with both Installshield and NSIS and vastly prefered the latter, it just got the job done.

I did installer stuff for about ~10 years, mostly InstallShield, deep in the weeds with Windows Installer table editing and custom actions, and making the InstallScript engine do things it wasn't designed for.

These days, I would personally use NSIS for small stuff. Wix installer for anything bigger/more enterprisey. Last I checked SharpDevelop's WYSIWYG editor was pretty decent for Wix dialogs.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#64

Post by r4ge »

hunter2_ wrote: post #55
bityard wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall he was also working on some software that allowed musicians to jam together over the internet, it somehow took advantage of inherent latency instead of just trying to minimize it. Edit: found it: https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/

I've never used it, but it's a fascinating idea. The quirk is that no two participants, assuming they're each actually playing and not just listening, will hear the same thing. The following things happen simultaneously: * Alice will play for X measures, while hearing what everyone else (including Bob) played X measures ago * Bob will play for X measures, while hearing what everyone else (including Alice) played X me…

I used to use ninjam many years ago, I don't remember the delay being a deal breaker for me, it was just a fun way to practice with other players. If you found a good drummer you could just jam along and have fun with it.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#65

Post by gonesilent »

rickcarlino wrote: post #62
gonesilent wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took a ton of work to keep the network clean. I did the gnutella.wego site back in the day. Gnutella was made when napster had 50 users and we all told him he was fcked. So gnutella was made to not use servers. Justin gave napster the code for song length and such to integrate with Napster.

Have you blogged about this or written it down? I would love to hear more about this piece of history and it seems that the history is slowly fading.

Napster came along to the nullsoft channel one day and shared the app he was working on. We all played with it and offered suggestions. Told him he was be sued out of existence. From that came gnutella and waste. Something was spun out with me and friends as infrasearch and sold to sun. Wilson Sonsini did a good thing on peer-to-peer back in the day too. They were our lawyers. Sucked us dry.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#66

Post by tolerance »

This Frankel guy apparently had a hand in a lot of the tech that surrounded my youth. [0]

Looking back and looking forward I understand why software developers became these larger-than-life-or-at-least-an-incrementally-past-the-norm personalities in the late 20th/early 21st century. And I understand why people (particularly in the software development industry) feel so deeply about how technology influenced/s their lives.

The Information Age gave us direct involvement in the flow of information and the tide of culture. So many people...many of them barely adults, became involved in the social construction of the world around them. This probably isn't mind-blowing to most of you...but this is me coming to terms with this all in real time, right here, after silently writing a lot of users here as dorks detached from reality. I get it now. I'm surely simplifying some things too.

Anyway.

It's interesting how the level of agency and involvement that technology afforded society in the past has been straitened to accommodate corporations instead of to spite them.

[0]: Note to self—Nullsoft is not the company who made Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#67

Post by foco_tubi »

jweir wrote: post #56

Ah memory lane. I created the "speaker head" characters and lead the redesign of the WinAmp web site back in 2004. Good times. Through Odopod in San Francisco https://x.com/WebDesignMuseum/status/1700520818478854523

As a teenager I spent a ton of time on this website, specifically the skins directory

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#69

Post by ethin »

sbuttgereit wrote: post #18
Fwirt wrote: post #9

For anyone who was also curious what Justin Frankel got up to after the speculation at the end of the article, he founded Cockos Software and is the lead developer on the excellent REAPER DAW.

Easily one of the best values in commercial software if you have a need for what it does. I think I paid something ~$70 a couple of years ago. While there's a limitation on the number of updates you get based on release version, I'm still getting updates under the license a couple years on. All that and you get a genuinely professional level tool for much less than what similar software from competitors offer. I coul…

I'm no musician but I paid for a Reaper license just because the software is so good and useful and the licensing scheme is so reasonable. Like, it's kind of hard to beat that.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#70

Post by mikestorrent »

foco_tubi wrote: post #67
jweir wrote: post #56

Ah memory lane. I created the "speaker head" characters and lead the redesign of the WinAmp web site back in 2004. Good times. Through Odopod in San Francisco https://x.com/WebDesignMuseum/status/1700520818478854523

As a teenager I spent a ton of time on this website, specifically the skins directory

winamp 2.77 for lyfe
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