XO OHRRPGCE

[Bob the Hamster]

<img src="http://gilgamesh.hamsterrepublic.com/al ... 0942pm.jpg">

Yep, that is what you think that is.

I got the <a href="http://HamsterRepublic.com/ohrrpgce/">OHRRPGCE</a> running on an <a href="http://laptop.org/">OLPC</a> XO Laptop.

I had to manually install from the Terminal, which took a little figuring out. The gfx_fb backend causes the a screen-flickering crash, but the gfx_sdl backend works. MIDI music doesn't play (I probably have a timidity problem) but sound effects work. That screenshot shows -z 3 zoom, which actually runs too slow to be playable (probably mostly gfx_sdl's fault) but at -z 1 it plays at a reasonable speed. Unfortunately the textboxes are almost too small to read, because the XO apparently doesn't support hardware zooming to smaller resolutions.

If I can ever figure out how to get it running here at both a reasonable speed *and* a reasonable size at the same time, I will try to figure out how to make a .xo package for easy distribution to kids.

[Newbie Newtype]

Ah, so your ultimate goal is to get children addicted to OHR games?

I have never used an XO laptop before, but I take it it's a very proprietary device that requires a lot of adjustment to custom hardware?

[Bob the Hamster]

Ah, so your ultimate goal is to get children addicted to OHR games?

Sure :)

I have never used an XO laptop before, but I take it it's a very proprietary device that requires a lot of adjustment to custom hardware?

Not at all. It has an AMD processor, and it runs a variant of Fedora Core Linux.

What *is* unusual is the interface. It is so different from other computers that using this thing makes me feel like I did 12 or 13 yearss ago when I was first learning about computers (but in a good way)

I would like to make the OHR run better on the XO, but really it won't "fit in" unless I could figure out how to integrate support for the "Activity" metaphor. On an XO, all your programs, files, bookmarks, and history are "Activities" and you organize them all the same way. Plus, you can "Share" any activity, which is something I haven't gotten a chance to try out yet.

If you want to see what it is like, I am pretty sure you can download a demo of the "Sugar" interface used by the XO, which you can run on your PC.. although I don't recall exactly where you download it from...

[Newbie Newtype]

It seems odd to me that OHR would run so slow, despite the fact it's running on already established hardware and a custom Fedora Linux OS. You may have a better idea as to why that is, though.

[Bob the Hamster]

It seems odd to me that OHR would run so slow, despite the fact it's running on already established hardware and a custom Fedora Linux OS. You may have a better idea as to why that is, though.

Partly it is because the hardware is slow. Reloability and low-power-consumption were much higher priorities than speed when they were designing the thing.

But mostly it is slow because the gfx_sdl backend is really inefficient. It draws things by pixels rather than with blits, and I believe it is doing redundant double-buffering (so in effect, quadruple-buffering when only double is needed)

[Newbie Newtype]

I am personally more willing to blame backend issues as well. If that is fixed, I don't see why OHR wouldn't run at a playable speed, unless FreeBasic or one of the backends adds a lot of bloat that I don't know about yet.

[chill-e]

That is rather humourous and amazing at the same time, heh.

It'd be awesome if someone managed to make OHR run on PSP or DS. Then it'd be easy to make games on the go, heh.

[Bob the Hamster]

It'd be awesome if someone managed to make OHR run on PSP or DS. Then it'd be easy to make games on the go, heh.

Those both have non-x86 processors, so we won't be able to try porting to them until FreeBasic supports them.