Little lucky things like that help make the days far better.
Well,
after weeks of trying to get my favourite flight simulator to work after
a game demo forced me to upgrade to DirectX 9.0a I totally failed. The game
itself relies upon extensive use of the mouse and the keyboard to actually
fly the plane, in addition to the joystick with throttle and rudders so it
was just a little unplayable when both the mouse and the keyboard input would
be ignored for a couple of minutes at a time at close intervals.
I have tried getting in touch with the developers via the game’s web site
by the e-mail address bounces back. The main web site for the company is
stuck in development hell and an e-mail to their postmaster asking that my
bug report for forwarded has come to nothing.
So, seeing as you can’t uninstall DirectX or downgrade it I had two choices.
Either I re-installed Windows 98 from scratch followed by all the drivers
and all the applications and fly my flight sim until I had to upgrade to
DirectX 9 again and be back at square one again, or I pay the Microsoft tax
and get XP Home upgrade. The latter is what I decided to do last night.
I really didn’t want to be forced into going to XP. It’s a resource hog.
It’s a security nightmare. It doesn’t run MSDOS games properly. Still, it’s
something I’d have to do someday, at least upgrade to it or one of its decendants,
so I did it.
Well, the upshot is that I now have a working flight sim. It took a bit of
doing to get it to work as I had to set both it and the config program into
Win98 compatability mode and it still displays an annoying dialog box when
it starts up, but it works.
The only thing which doesn’t work on the machine now is the TV card I picked
up last year as part of a defunct machine from a scrap yard for a fiver.
The company went out of business in ’98 so they aren’t making drivers for
it these days. Oh well.
The Dante’s Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell – Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 – Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Low |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Low |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very Low |
| Level 6 – The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Low |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Low |
| Level 9 – Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test
Well, this result isn’t really surprising as I believe I must already be there! 🙂
There’s not a great deal happening in my life at the moment. That, in of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, merely a little dull.
I wish the weather would decide what it’s doing. Although it’s still warm enough to go without a jumper, the rest of the outlook looks more like February than the end of April. It’s very windy. So much so that during my cycle home I was having to lean sideways at about 10 degrees to keep from being blown over. I hate wind when cycling.
On other matters, I see that X-Men 2 comes out on Thursday and The Matrix Reloaded is out in about a month’s time. Also, the latest Harry Potter film’s out on DVD, so I can go and rent it and catch up with the saga. I think I’ll do that at the weekend.
Talking of sagas, I see that The Dragons Friendly Society have managed to get all the Noggin the Nog sagas onto video. They’re apparently planning a DVD release but it will require them to renovate the original film stock which has sat in rusting cans held in a chicken coop for the last 30 years. I’m not sure I can hold my breath for those. I may just look into buying the videos.
Well, I’m back at home after my little break in Cornwall.
Other than having problems sleeping last night and a 4.5 hour drive home, I’m reasonably refreshed.
Back to work tomorrow. Oh well.
Happy Easter one and all.
I can’t stay long as I’m on holiday down in Cornwall, using a dial-up so it’s costing my parents money.
I’ve been doing walking and stuff, and I’m having a restful time.
More updates when I get home.
Find out which Discworld girl you are.
Just
now, on Bullet, we’ve been discussing how great it would be if instead of
weapons of mass destruction you could have weapons of mass construction.
Varieties could include:-
Thermonuclear power plant cruise missiles.
Hospital cluster bombs (thanks grim).. Though it could be dangerous if children
picked up unexploded ones as they could be crushed by the A&E unit. However,
they would be in the right place for treatment.
Pro-personnel mines would add legs and arms to people they explode around.
Biological weapons would cure diseases.
There are problems, however, you may have collateral construction which could really foul things up.
What do you think?
Well, the Raleigh rep turned up to the bike shop after all. He took a look at it and told the manager that he could get the part. It’s supposed to be here in a fortnight. Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Which Boondock Saints Badass are You?
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