The Sound of the Noising Machine

There are three main criteria for this list:
1) size and quality of the library of the system(s) being emulated
2) user-friendliness of the emulator
3) performance/reliability of the emulator

#10 MESS
formats emulated: NES, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Colecovision
MESS is an attempt at a super emulator, able to handle ALL old systems but, for the moment, it falls way short. It is able to do a pretty decent job with the systems I’ve listed but, save for the NES, most of these systems didn’t exactly have awesome libraries (sorry, 2600 fans) and there’s a better NES emulator out there.

#9 WinApple
format emulated: Apple ][
So far, I haven't used this emulator extensively but it's worked quite well to date. The Apple ][ had a large and interesting library specializing in adventures, western RPGs, and other genres not well represented on the dedicated gaming consoles.

#8 NLMSX
formats emulated: MSX, MSX2
Another emulator that I haven't used a great deal but will in the future, for sure. MSX and this emulator were straightforward and easy to use. The style of the system's library isn't that different from a gaming console but it had a lot of exclusives.

#7 Magic Engine
formats emulated: TurboGrafx-16+add-ons, SuperGrafx
note: this Europe-based emulator actually costs money - $20 thanks to exchange rates
A straightforward emulator for a straightforward system that allows you to play the card and CD based games.

#6 NEStopia
formats emulated: NES+add-ons
This is the best NES emulator because it makes every attempt to match the NES color pallette and because it very easily runs Famicom Disk System games. That said, this will probably eventually be removed from the list due to MESS's decent NES capabilities.

#5 DOSBox (with DOSShell frontend)
format emulated: DOS
Current Windows systems are unable to run many of the old PC games from 1995 and before. DOSBox changes all that and opens up a world of THOUSANDS of games, many VERY different from what you'd find on the gaming consoles. DOSBox is complicated, though, so download the DOSShell frontend, which makes the emulator very easy to use.

#4 zSNES
format emulated: Super NES+add-ons
It emulates the SNES very well and is very easy to use.

#3 Kega Fusion
formats emulated: SG-1000, Master System, Genesis+add-ons, Game Gear
Master System + Genesis alone probably would have earned this spot but add in the gems from the 2nd rate libraries of the SG-1000, Game Gear, SEGA CD and 32X and it's even more solid.

#2 Visual Boy Advance
formats emulated: Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance
Thousands of games, many of them GREAT. Now on your computer. Not as comfortable as a real GBA SP in your hand but now you can blow up the screen. And it's cheaper.

#1 MAME32
formats emulated: A LOT (most 2D arcade systems)
MAME is a very successful attempt at emulating ALL arcade games. Who knows if it will ever reach that point but as it currently stands it's able to emulate 90% (my own made up number) of 2D games from the 70s through 90s. It can handle every NeoGeo game, every game from the legendary Capcom CPS1/CPS2 board, and that's just the start. Most of the 2D arcade legends from Namco, Nintendo, SEGA, Konami, etc. etc run just fine on this system. That's a whole lot of games and a whole lot of quality. The only drawback is that arcade games aren't exactly deep and complicated but the combined quantity/quality here earns #1.

WAIT? WHAT ABOUT (insert emulator here)?
Yes, there are a lot of other emulators and systems and I'm not super experienced with some of them. There are also some that just aren't complete enough to warrant a place on this list but are still worth downloading. For instance, Project64, a Nintendo 64 emulator, runs Super Mario 64 perfectly but has a lot of hiccups on games like Perfect Dark. I don't especially like the Commodore 64 or Atari 800 computer emulators available and their libraries are also somewhat cancelled out by the inclusion of Apple ][ and DOS on the list. Sorry, Amiga cultists, but a lot of the strongest Amiga games are also cancelled out by DOS for this list. The Sharp X68000 and its emulator are very strong but it’s near-complete reliance on arcade conversions for its library means that MAME effectively cancels it out.  Most emulators for 3D, optical-disc based systems are still pretty unreliable unless you love changing plug-ins and settings for every game, so no PlayStation or Saturn on this list.  And systems like PS2, DS, Xbox, etc.?  Go BUY THEM AT THE STORE.

A couple of emulators that I’ll definitely be checking out for inclusion on this list are those for the Amstrad CPC and FM Towns computers, two systems that had great graphics and unique libraries. Until next time . . .

Karen Kawawada
RECORD STAFF

WATERLOO

Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true.

After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them.

Now a Waterloo teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster — in three months, he figures.

Daniel Burd’s project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.

Daniel, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life.

“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me,” he said. “One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags.”

The answer: not much. So he decided to do something himself.

He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic — not an easy task because they don’t exist in high numbers in nature.

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.

That wasn’t good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.

Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.

Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.

A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know — and they’ve looked — Burd’s research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first.

Next, Burd tested his strains’ effectiveness at different temperatures, concentrations and with the addition of sodium acetate as a ready source of carbon to help bacteria grow.

At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks.

The plastic he fished out then was visibly clearer and more brittle, and Burd guesses after six more weeks, it would be gone. He hasn’t tried that yet.

To see if his process would work on a larger scale, he tried it with five or six whole bags in a bucket with the bacterial culture. That worked too.

Industrial application should be easy, said Burd. “All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags.”

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide — each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

“This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We’re using nature to solve a man-made problem.”

Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he’s busy with things such as student council, sports and music.

“Dan is definitely a talented student all around and is poised to be a leading scientist in our community,” said Menhennet, who led the school’s science fair team but says he only helped Burd with paperwork.

Other local students also did well at the national science fair.

Devin Howard of St. John’s Kilmarnock School won a gold medal in life science and several scholarships.

Mackenzie Carter of St. John’s Kilmarnock won bronze medals in the automotive and engineering categories.

Engineers Without Borders awarded Jeff Graansma of Forest Heights Collegiate a free trip to their national conference in January.

Zach Elgood of Courtland Avenue Public School got honourable mention in earth and environmental science.

The Record original article

Details of Burd’s project/Awards won (check out the biography!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III

Wow! Apparently, Apple jumped into the “intentionally faulty product” game way back in 1980 with the Apple III, a product I never even heard of before. If you don’t want to read the whole article it’s the familiar story: presentation over function. In order to make the unit as quiet as possible, there was no fan and no vents. A heat absorbing mechanism was included but it was insufficient and testing would have had to have revealed that. So a whole shitload of them failed, naturally. On top of that, Apple III had Apple II compatibility but it was intentionally designed not to run Apple II programs at optimal performance levels.

Their marketing must be absolutely ingenious because what other fucking company can have such a high failure rate and still do so well? ARGH.

I just watched the first half hour of CATWOMAN on YouTube. LOLOLOLOL Wow, it really lives up to the hype. It’s fucking awful. The script is awful, the acting is awful, the direction is just so self-satisfied. But it really doesn’t stop there, as there are inconsistencies in the audio mix, bad (but expensive) special effects, and silly computerized cinematography. Just stunning. I honestly believe that Batman and Robin and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace are much, much better films than this, and THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING.

“Recent weeks have seen heightened tensions between Italian authorities and the country’s Roma minority amid a crackdown by Silvo Berlusconi’s government targeting illegal immigrants and talk by government officials of a “Roma emergency” that has seen the 150,000-strong migrant group blamed for rising street crime.

That has provided justification for police raids on Roma camps and controversial government plans to fingerprint all Roma — an act condemned by the European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Romanies has also seen Roma camps near Naples attacked and set on fire with petrol bombs by local residents.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.drowning/index.html

Just a quick note…

The Animal Rescue League of Iowa is raffling off a TREK bike. All proceeds benefit the ARL. Tickets can be purchased at any ARL location at a price of one for $2 or three for $5. The winner will be drawn on August 18th. If anyone is interested, I can pick up tickets for you…supposedly you can also purchase them on the ARL website, but I could not find them.

I’m not sure if this is the bike, but this picture was included in the e-mail:

Also, the ARL needs newspapers for use in the kennels. They have to be delivered in a certain fashion, though, so if you have newspapers and don’t want to go through the process of rolling them up/delivering them/etc…just let me know, as I am going to start taking my newspapers to the ARL. Or if you have any other items you want delivered such as old towels, blankets, bedding, food, or toys, I can certainly take those too for donation at either the ARL or Animal Lifeline  (a no-kill, special needs shelter…Greg and I have just started volunteering there).

On that note…Animal Lifeline also runs a thrift store, and 100% of the profits are given to the shelter, so if you have anything else to donate that can’t go directly to the shelter (like clothes, toys, books, random junk), I can drop it off since I’ll be over there anyway. I’ll get you a receipt, too, so you can write it off on your taxes…sweet.

Okay, thanks for listening!

I will jump on the Apple discussion bandwagon and detail pros and cons of my Macbook and its Mac OS. I don’t do anything special with my computer, like music or photo editing, so this is from a casual-user standpoint. Before my Macbook, I had a Sony Vaio desktop for 4 years. And previous to that, I used my family’s HP. And previous to that, we had an Apple (some 1997 version).

Specifications (I’m kind of computer illiterate, but this may mean something to you.): Macbook 1,1 (2006); Mac OS X version 10.4.9; 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo; 512 MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 55.7 GB HD

Pros:

1. Overall Look and Feel: I will admit I am one of those presentation-obsessed types that Matt was talking about previously. Not only do I find my computer pleasing to look at, but I also find the simple design to feel nice in my hands. The smooth design is also functional in that it lacks any latches that might go awry or covers that would eventually get lost.

2. Mousepad: As much as the right click on a PC is nice, I think I prefer the single click mouse, especically on a laptop, with the option of using the “ctr” key, which I rarely need due to quick keys, for all right click functions. I hate when I open a PC laptop and there is some stupid-looking knob erroneously located between the “g” and “h” keys. The feature I love most about the mousepad, which I’m not sure if it has already been implemented in all laptops, is that you can switch to two fingers for easy scrolling–a simple idea that I use constantly.

3. Keypad: The keypad is raised at the appropriate level for practicality and ease of use. I am guilty of eating by my computer and, so far, so clean.

4. Quick Keys: This is a pro on any computer. Toggling with “apple, tab” and clearing the desktop with “F11″ are my favorites.

5. Dashboard: This idea is pretty genius. By pressing “F12,” a ghost-like, second screen appears from no where and applications called widgets appear for your convenience. You can download a widget for pretty much any need or want you could imagine, from football scores to calculators to world maps. I keep it simple with a calculator and dictionary.

6. Dock: Located at the bottom of the screen, hidden or not hidden, is a bar that has shortcuts to any frequently used application. I pretty much only use the dock to access my most used applications.

Cons:

1. Price: Macbooks will cost you an arm and a leg. At a thousand odd dollars, you could buy a much more powerful PC.

2. Settings: This is probably just my computer ineptness, but I feel like I have no control over what the Mac does some times. When I plug in my camera, it automatically opens iPhoto–a program I find to be completely useless and tries to make me put all my pictures into some folder that I have no idea where it is located on my computer. I really dislike using programs that are made to simplify what you are doing and losing control of where things are archived on the HD.

3. Graphic Editing: Basically, I really miss MS Paint. With the Preview program, I can do little more than rotate and crop. I suspect that Apple assumes that everyone who owns a Mac, owns Photoshop.

4. Speed: My computer can’t handle many applications at once and I spend a lot of idle moments, waiting for programs to load.

5. Memory Card Inputs: Pretty much all drives are covered: DVD/CD, USB, internet, headphones, etc. I just wish there was a slot for my camera memory card like my old Vaio had.

Conclusion: I can’t really make a say on if I’ll be a repeat customer since I’m not sure how advanced computers will be in a few years when I will be due for a replacement. I’m sure 2011’s bottom-of-the-line model will be fast and large enough by my standards right now, but maybe I will expect the super, amazing, top-of-the-line computer that I probably won’t be able to afford in the future. If things are as they are now (with PC offering faster speeds and larger HDs for less $$$), I would probably go with a PC. On the other hand, if the gap between cost and product decreases, I would probably go with a Mac.

But, the real question: do I recommend a Macbook to the casual user in 2008? Yes, if you have the extra dough to throw around, then, by all means, purchase a nice, fast model–along with Photoshop. If you don’t have a lot of money, forgo convenience and beauty, and buy a PC that is larger and faster for less money.

ninjagarden

since matt has been writing a lot of computer posts lately, i thought this 1996 ad would be an appropriate addition:

GREAT STYLE MAC ADDICT!!!

COOL “SEINFELD-CUT”!

OH BOY! THAT WACKY WATCH JUST LOOKS SO COOL!

AND I JUST HAVE TO GET A DEMIN SHIRT!

i love the mudslinging advertising campaigns. and i love that they’re basically still using the same campaign to this day.

scott

image stolen from geeksugar

The Fujitsu Micro series began in 1981 with YAWN the FM8 and FM7, really boring, expensive business computers. The legacy of business boredom was continued by the 16-bit FM16s in 1983. Fujitsu had the same role in the Japanese market that IBM had here - making really boring, really expensive computers that only businesses would be interested in.

Eventually, businesses decided the cheapo PC8801 from NEC could fulfill their needs and the FM series started to die. After years of low performance, Fujitsu released the FM Towns in 1989. This computer was innovative in that its PRIMARY media source was CD-ROM, YEARS before this became standard in PCs and Macs. FM Towns was also more affordable and less business-focused, finding a place in many homes. In fact, I’m guessing it found a spot in the homes of many perverts, as this little rascal hosted lots of exciting porno games. Hurray for porn! The FM Towns actually ran on Windows but used exclusive parts and programs. Over the next several years, like the NEC computers, it basically transformed into a standard PC and that’s where Fujitsu computers stand today.

Released by Sharp in 1987, the X68000 was another attempt to break into the Japanese home computer scene. It was much more powerful than the established competition presented by the PC88 and MSX series. In fact, its hardware was comparable to the arcade units of the time which had a predictable result - it was the champion of arcade conversions, hosting arcade classics from the kings like Capcom, Konami and Namco. Unfortunately, there weren’t a great deal of original games for it except for an awesome Castlevania installment (released here for PlayStation).

As was often the case in the 1980s, machines with high graphical capabilities were of little use to most business and many homes, meaning the X68K was a popular alternative, but not a big boy. The last model was released in 1993 before the line succumbed to the all-powerful Windows 95 craze.