Nethack server online
December 30th, 2007 Filed Under fun, games, software
I normally play Nethack on nethack.alt.org (NAO) as ‘zem‘. I’ve been playing Nethack since 1990, and all 5 of my ascensions have been on NAO–once a year since 2003.
I think my recent ascension this month inspired some friends of mine to play again, and on NAO for the larger community experience–more “bones” files, ability to watch games, an IRC bot that announces every game’s ending. It’s been fun, but one friend lamented that the NAO high score list–which has 2000 entries on it, 20 times more than the default–is so packed that it basically requires an ascension to get on it.
So I installed nethack and the dgamelaunch software, and now pwanson.com has a ‘public’ nethack server. Just telnet pwanson.com port 4242 and hack away!
Stumble it!krow
May 17th, 2005 Filed Under ideas, portfolio, projects, software
krow: a distributed software development engine
build custom software from loose specifications, using a large pool of developers and a market to determine priority and compensation. Abstract:
Software developers, potentially geographically-scattered, execute abstract project visions, earning and circulating virtual currency (hereafter ‘krowmids’) which translates into respect, ownership, and real money for successful projects.
The project owner specifies their vision, naming problems to be solved and designing tests which will pass when the system realizes the owner’s vision. Trusted developers enumerate use cases, clarify tests, architect solutions, and segment the project into subprojects, which become concrete [probably automated] tests and tasks to be implemented by those same developers. Developers, customers, and investors pledge krowmids to their favorite projects and subprojects; the implementor earns those pledged krowmids, less any krowmids they pledge to delegated tasks.
Earned krowmids result directly in project ownership, which translates semiannually into more krowmids as those projects are licensed and used by both internal and external customers. Project owners set the prices of libraries and applications, though a mechanism for determining alternative payment structures would be beneficial. External modules may be used by krow projects, contagiously incorporating them into the system.
Senior developers train junior developers in technical skills, project management, and specific projects, granting incremental authority [with a competition-derived belt system] to decide implementation details. Developers strive to earn quantifiable respect and honor from the system and their peers, concurrent with economic sustenance.
krow manages the project database, developer and customer interfaces, project and developer accounts, source control, and test sandboxes. For these services, krow taxes the exchange of krowmids to dollars and vice versa. Transactions on internal markets should remain frictionless.
Thus project owners provide developers with tangible incentive to organize and realize their vision. Developers enjoy merit- and result- based compensation in a relatively stable system, contributing to a wide variety of projects. Investors and customers enjoy finer control over project and feature priorities, while the system enjoys converting the desires of investors, customers, and developers alike into an efficient market for technical labor.
Archived Project: DarkDraw
June 6th, 1994 Filed Under featured, portfolio, projects, software
In 1994 (my senior year of high school), the defacto ANSI art editor was TheDraw:
TheDraw is a text editor for MS DOS to create ANSI and animations as well as ASCII art. [...] The last public version of the editor was version 4.61, which was released in 1993.
TheDraw was one of the first ANSI editors that supported ANSIs longer than 25 rows. The limit in the latest available version is still 100 rows. Other editors, such as ACiDDraw are able to support ANSIs larger than 100 lines for a single ANSI/ASCII (ACiDDraw supports 1,000 lines).
This last bit is a strange detail for the Wikipedia to include, but at the time it was something of a big deal. Artists were increasingly drawing vertical banners which would scroll by at 9600 baud in ANSI bliss. But the trend was towards longer and longer murals: the image to the left, released in the iCE pack from February 1994, is 390 lines. Only being able to edit 100 lines at a time meant artists had to manually stitch together multiple files. But this was a limitation of DOS, which ran in real mode and thus had 64k memory segments, which at 160 bytes per line is only 400 lines.
My good friend Doug was involved with an ANSI art group called HaVoK. Between Acting II and Spanish III (both of which I had flunked the previous year) and the spring play (Grandpa in You Can’t Take It With You), I wrote DarkDraw, entirely in assembly, with Doug acting as project manager. It was distributed in the May 1994 HavoK art pack, along with HavokView (HV.COM), my ANSI art viewer, also written entirely in real-mode assembly.
DarkDraw was able to use all the memory available to real mode, supporting over 3000 lines (480k), which was a healthy amount of memory in 1994. It managed this feat with some tricky real mode segment arithmetic, which was super-clever but almost immediately obsolete. I am also guilty of experimenting with self-modifying code and steganography, but I was underage, so the charges were dropped.
You can play with DarkDraw or HavokView yourself; on Linux, all you need is dosbox. Here’s DARKDRAW.COM (a 14k .com file) and DARK.DOC. Use Alt-L and load any .ANS file (like TR-ACROP.ANS from that pack); Alt-V will display it in VGA mode. Alt-Z for the help screen, ESC for menu.
All-in-all pretty polished work for a pair of 17 year olds.
