8 ms·

> In order to upload your works to the server or unlimited downloading of the published works, you need to purchase Server Tickets in the game. ok.. so it cost

by jquast 6y ago

> In order to upload your works to the server or unlimited downloading of the published works, you need to purchase Server Tickets in the game. ok.. so it costs money, but if I want to share a game I write, or look at others, I'd have to buy some kind of ticket? $9 to upload a limited amount of code, https://ec.nintendo.com/AU/en/titles/70010000010544/consumables/cqjhtpfl6uprvlt0 https://ec.nintendo.com/AU/en/titles/70010000010544/consumab... What's next, some kind of "purchase another 100 lines of code" DLC package? You know, as a kid I learned BASIC from school friends, neighbors, and family members, and taught BASIC to many more, by trading the source code freely. Books like "BASIC Computer Games" were gotten at the library for free. My computer booted into BASIC for free. Now I realize how disadvantaged I was, this is the future -- teaching children about "platforms", that hold your code hostage, monetize on your creative works, and nickel and dime away your creative energy. To think, all that nasty PIRATING of BASIC code !! Without paying anyone?! Thousands of dollars on the table, finally somebody is monetizing this!

niconii 6y ago
Well, let me try explaining how it works, because they honestly do a pretty bad job of it. So SmileBASIC 4 itself costs 25 USD (40 AUD). A server ticket costs 5 USD (9 AUD). Despite the name, these tickets never expire or get used up. How these work is as follows: - If you have 0 tickets, you can only download once every 8 hours, and you can't upload anything. - If you have n tickets, where n > 0, then you have unlimited downloads, and can upload 10*n projects at once. (Note that you can take down old projects to make room for new ones.) Personally speaking, unless you really need to upload a lot of projects at once (and 10 slots goes further than you might think), you really only need one ticket. The reason this server ticket system exists is because SmileBoom is a pretty small company (their site lists 8.2 million yen in capital, about 76,000 USD or 120,000 AUD), and this helps offset server costs. In any case, if you still find this system distasteful, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to do it the old way, manually typing in programs by hand. That said, I don't think it's so unreasonable to ask for a few bucks for server access, especially as a one-time fee. (Note also that originally the plan was for SmileBASIC 4 to only be sold as a bundle with one ticket. The standalone version was added because there were issues with it showing up in the eShop properly otherwise.) EDIT: One more note: this is a project limit, but you can have multiple files in a project, and the maximum project upload size is 20 MB. As you probably know, text doesn't take up much space, so you can cram a LOT of small programs into one project if you need to.
- growt 6y ago
  Do when I buy this ticket can I write my programs on a pc with a keyboard and transfer them to the console via server?
  - niconii 6y ago
    No, but SmileBASIC itself supports a USB keyboard and mouse.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      Sounds like a good use case for a USB rubber ducky. The original version https://shop.hak5.org/collections/physical-access/products/usb-rubber-ducky-deluxe https://shop.hak5.org/collections/physical-access/products/u... The current cheapest off the shelf version (out of stock ATM but even cheaper clones exist) http://digistump.com/products/1 http://digistump.com/products/1 https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark Build your own with compatible USB flash drives https://github.com/brandonlw/Psychson https://github.com/brandonlw/Psychson
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      To be fair that's the Switch doing that. When connecting to my WiFi this was a huge blessing - because even the toy WiFi for the Switch has a decent password, and again when uploading SMM2 levels. It's a little bit painful to watch really great creators like Barb or PangeaPanga uses a pad to write names & descriptions. "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with", but the Youtube video has to cut there because Barb will proceed to take about a minute to painstakingly enter the text. It's not a big deal, but it jumps out because that's the only part I find easier. (I suck at Mario, but it's fun anyway).
- shepherdjerred 6y ago
  Server costs? Is someone uploading gigabytes of code?
  - adito 6y ago
badsectoracula 6y ago
The entire console market is retarded like that: you have to sign onerous NDAs, pay incredibly high fees for the "privilege" of creating additional software for the console vendors and thus making their consoles more valuable and all you get is some shoddy SDK with awful licensing terms (what? You used some (L)GPL'd code as your engine's base? Sorry, no can do. - You wrote your engine in an open source language that has no official support and you ported the runtime? Haha, LOL, no buddy, you can't give this back to the mainline developers, this contains our secret sauce, sucks to be you but you'll need to maintain this forever). I have a PSVita and i really like its hardware, but honestly it was a waste of money since there isn't anything i can do with it. Switch also looks nice, but again it will soon be useless. The best you can hope for with these is for someone to find some security flaw after the vendor has stopped supporting the device, that will allow homebrew development in the future. But by that time you might as well buy a cheap Chinese android device (or even better something like GPD Win that is a full proper PC in handheld form - though that isn't very cheap) and chances are it'll be both faster and better.
- 0ld 6y ago
  > Switch also looks nice, but again it will soon be useless. > The best you can hope for with these is for someone to find some security flaw after the vendor has stopped supporting the device, that will allow homebrew development in the future. Earlier Switches all have an unfixable hardware flaw, and long since there are cfw's (several), homebrew and even a hb eshop. Even if the new ones are patched, you can easily buy a used prechacked (or not) one. The hackable serials number batches are easy to check, just google for it.
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    Yes, i've looked into it some time ago and i have my PSVita in a firmware version that was hacked (even installed Quake on it :-P) and was also looking for similar stuff for my PS2. This is mainly because i already have those devices around (except the Switch, i was just curious about that one because of its popularity and really i bought the Vita because i was lured in by the free SDK for C# games... something Sony abandoned and -even worse- completely removed soon after i bought the device) and since i have them, might as well try to use them. But i shouldn't have to go through all these hoops to write and install software on a device i own. And even if issues are found in the future, you can't just rely on them and often the way to exploit them are too convoluted (take a look on how to install homebrew on PS2 for example - and note that this is the easy method that people figured out in recent years).
Razengan 6y ago
We need a modern “codable console” in the spirit of the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum etc. Something you can just unbox and start playing and programming on right away. The Raspberry Pi is not it, the iPad isn’t it, and neither is any Android. The remakes/revivals of the C64 etc. are not it either. Something like a laptop that boots into a friendly GUI/CLI hybrid within 1 second, and doesn’t require the internet or signing-up or any other bullshit. Just a big fat blinking cursor.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  Pico-8: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
  - Razengan 6y ago
    Wow, while this is very cool (you can even play the games directly in the iPhone browser! [0]) it’s not a self-contained machine with built-in display and keyboard. Maybe someone can make (or has made?) standalone hardware based on it. [0] https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=42932#p https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=42932#p
    - gmurphy 6y ago
      The Pocket C.H.I.P. was built around PICO-8 https://shop.pocketchip.co/collections/frontpage/products/pocket-c-h-i-p-new https://shop.pocketchip.co/collections/frontpage/products/po...
      - shakna 6y ago
        Word of warning from someone who has a Pocket CHIP. As nice as it was while it lasted, the company is a ghost, now. They up and vanished, with outstanding orders, and problems with the OS. Don't touch this. Flashing, and reflashing, is a pain, and the OS itself requires some binary blobs that have made it incompatible with any modern version of Debian. The people controlling the site are one of the third party resellers. > We are one of the original third party retailers for Next Thing Co.'s amazing products. While we never received much of the bulk of our product purchased for our store, we are now offering up the remainder of our stock to interested customers.
Angostura 6y ago
I presume your ZX-Spectrum didn't come with an online softwar distribution service. Mind certainly didn't. I typed it in from printouts like we all did.
grawprog 6y ago
Not only that, but you need to actually pay to download other people's games by the looks of it. >or unlimited downloading of the published works, Even if you don't intend to write any of your own code, a server ticket seems to be required to even download code.
thought_alarm 6y ago
> My computer booted into BASIC for free. Your computer wasn't free, and you still had to buy disks if you wanted to save your work or trade with friends.
bitwize 6y ago
I was gonna say, if they're going to paywall publishing your programs, we might just see the rise of "type-in" listings once again.
znpy 6y ago
> You know, as a kid I learned BASIC from school friends, neighbors, and family members, and taught BASIC to many more, by trading the source code freely. Well you can still do all fo that. Get your friends to send you their BASIC code and type that yourself into the console. Even as a kid, you weren't paying somebody to host your code.
- jquast 6y ago
  Not that it matters, but I traded lots of BASIC code on local bbs’s for free, and on floppies and cassettes for free. I didn’t really mind pedaling my bicycle to share my next release of “Pong” or whatever I was up to, kids love sneakernets, but I don’t think this program supports any form of sneakernet, that’s a real shame for kids who don’t have credit cards and most certainly won’t be given permission for “in game purchase”, few parents will understand or approve such a thing. That’s fine, nobody said this is for kids, or for education, it is what it is, I respect the effort and design to some degree, but won’t fund it. it goes against the very spirit of BASIC as an easy, educational, and naturally open source language. my other beef is why should content creators, who add value to the platform, pay more money? I really enjoy publishing FOSS, I maintain half a dozen of pypi’s top 100 packages, I feel joy and pride when I see my packages fly by on screens of colleagues. but if pypi starts charging me “server tickets” to publish these packages, strange EULA’s that sign my rights over, and to have to delete the less popular packages to make room to publish new ones, etc. I’d feel really damn sore about it. I’d publish it as PDF images and instruct users Like you to print it out and type it in, or dish out $9. This would be my rebellion for not getting a single penny for the thousands of volunteer hours that other people are now paying to receive a copy of. It just rolls my brain around and around to think about both players and creators paying money.
  - legostormtroopr 6y ago
    Perhaps if FOSS infrastructure (like PyPI) charged for use they wouldn't need to ask for donations to keep their services up.

by jquast 6y ago

niconii 6y ago

Well, let me try explaining how it works, because they honestly do a pretty bad job of it. So SmileBASIC 4 itself costs 25 USD (40 AUD). A server ticket costs 5 USD (9 AUD). Despite the name, these tickets never expire or get used up. How these work is as follows: - If you have 0 tickets, you can only download once every 8 hours, and you can't upload anything. - If you have n tickets, where n > 0, then you have unlimited downloads, and can upload 10*n projects at once. (Note that you can take down old projects to make room for new ones.) Personally speaking, unless you really need to upload a lot of projects at once (and 10 slots goes further than you might think), you really only need one ticket. The reason this server ticket system exists is because SmileBoom is a pretty small company (their site lists 8.2 million yen in capital, about 76,000 USD or 120,000 AUD), and this helps offset server costs. In any case, if you still find this system distasteful, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to do it the old way, manually typing in programs by hand. That said, I don't think it's so unreasonable to ask for a few bucks for server access, especially as a one-time fee. (Note also that originally the plan was for SmileBASIC 4 to only be sold as a bundle with one ticket. The standalone version was added because there were issues with it showing up in the eShop properly otherwise.) EDIT: One more note: this is a project limit, but you can have multiple files in a project, and the maximum project upload size is 20 MB. As you probably know, text doesn't take up much space, so you can cram a LOT of small programs into one project if you need to.

growt 6y ago
Do when I buy this ticket can I write my programs on a pc with a keyboard and transfer them to the console via server?
- niconii 6y ago
  No, but SmileBASIC itself supports a USB keyboard and mouse.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    Sounds like a good use case for a USB rubber ducky. The original version https://shop.hak5.org/collections/physical-access/products/usb-rubber-ducky-deluxe https://shop.hak5.org/collections/physical-access/products/u... The current cheapest off the shelf version (out of stock ATM but even cheaper clones exist) http://digistump.com/products/1 http://digistump.com/products/1 https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark https://github.com/mame82/duck2spark Build your own with compatible USB flash drives https://github.com/brandonlw/Psychson https://github.com/brandonlw/Psychson
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    To be fair that's the Switch doing that. When connecting to my WiFi this was a huge blessing - because even the toy WiFi for the Switch has a decent password, and again when uploading SMM2 levels. It's a little bit painful to watch really great creators like Barb or PangeaPanga uses a pad to write names & descriptions. "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with", but the Youtube video has to cut there because Barb will proceed to take about a minute to painstakingly enter the text. It's not a big deal, but it jumps out because that's the only part I find easier. (I suck at Mario, but it's fun anyway).
shepherdjerred 6y ago
Server costs? Is someone uploading gigabytes of code?
- adito 6y ago

badsectoracula 6y ago

The entire console market is retarded like that: you have to sign onerous NDAs, pay incredibly high fees for the "privilege" of creating additional software for the console vendors and thus making their consoles more valuable and all you get is some shoddy SDK with awful licensing terms (what? You used some (L)GPL'd code as your engine's base? Sorry, no can do. - You wrote your engine in an open source language that has no official support and you ported the runtime? Haha, LOL, no buddy, you can't give this back to the mainline developers, this contains our secret sauce, sucks to be you but you'll need to maintain this forever). I have a PSVita and i really like its hardware, but honestly it was a waste of money since there isn't anything i can do with it. Switch also looks nice, but again it will soon be useless. The best you can hope for with these is for someone to find some security flaw after the vendor has stopped supporting the device, that will allow homebrew development in the future. But by that time you might as well buy a cheap Chinese android device (or even better something like GPD Win that is a full proper PC in handheld form - though that isn't very cheap) and chances are it'll be both faster and better.

0ld 6y ago
> Switch also looks nice, but again it will soon be useless. > The best you can hope for with these is for someone to find some security flaw after the vendor has stopped supporting the device, that will allow homebrew development in the future. Earlier Switches all have an unfixable hardware flaw, and long since there are cfw's (several), homebrew and even a hb eshop. Even if the new ones are patched, you can easily buy a used prechacked (or not) one. The hackable serials number batches are easy to check, just google for it.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  Yes, i've looked into it some time ago and i have my PSVita in a firmware version that was hacked (even installed Quake on it :-P) and was also looking for similar stuff for my PS2. This is mainly because i already have those devices around (except the Switch, i was just curious about that one because of its popularity and really i bought the Vita because i was lured in by the free SDK for C# games... something Sony abandoned and -even worse- completely removed soon after i bought the device) and since i have them, might as well try to use them. But i shouldn't have to go through all these hoops to write and install software on a device i own. And even if issues are found in the future, you can't just rely on them and often the way to exploit them are too convoluted (take a look on how to install homebrew on PS2 for example - and note that this is the easy method that people figured out in recent years).

Razengan 6y ago

We need a modern “codable console” in the spirit of the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum etc. Something you can just unbox and start playing and programming on right away. The Raspberry Pi is not it, the iPad isn’t it, and neither is any Android. The remakes/revivals of the C64 etc. are not it either. Something like a laptop that boots into a friendly GUI/CLI hybrid within 1 second, and doesn’t require the internet or signing-up or any other bullshit. Just a big fat blinking cursor.

lifeformed 6y ago
Pico-8: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
- Razengan 6y ago
  Wow, while this is very cool (you can even play the games directly in the iPhone browser! [0]) it’s not a self-contained machine with built-in display and keyboard. Maybe someone can make (or has made?) standalone hardware based on it. [0] https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=42932#p https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=42932#p
  - gmurphy 6y ago
    The Pocket C.H.I.P. was built around PICO-8 https://shop.pocketchip.co/collections/frontpage/products/pocket-c-h-i-p-new https://shop.pocketchip.co/collections/frontpage/products/po...
    - shakna 6y ago
      Word of warning from someone who has a Pocket CHIP. As nice as it was while it lasted, the company is a ghost, now. They up and vanished, with outstanding orders, and problems with the OS. Don't touch this. Flashing, and reflashing, is a pain, and the OS itself requires some binary blobs that have made it incompatible with any modern version of Debian. The people controlling the site are one of the third party resellers. > We are one of the original third party retailers for Next Thing Co.'s amazing products. While we never received much of the bulk of our product purchased for our store, we are now offering up the remainder of our stock to interested customers.

Angostura 6y ago

I presume your ZX-Spectrum didn't come with an online softwar distribution service. Mind certainly didn't. I typed it in from printouts like we all did.

grawprog 6y ago

Not only that, but you need to actually pay to download other people's games by the looks of it. >or unlimited downloading of the published works, Even if you don't intend to write any of your own code, a server ticket seems to be required to even download code.

thought_alarm 6y ago

> My computer booted into BASIC for free. Your computer wasn't free, and you still had to buy disks if you wanted to save your work or trade with friends.

bitwize 6y ago

I was gonna say, if they're going to paywall publishing your programs, we might just see the rise of "type-in" listings once again.

znpy 6y ago

> You know, as a kid I learned BASIC from school friends, neighbors, and family members, and taught BASIC to many more, by trading the source code freely. Well you can still do all fo that. Get your friends to send you their BASIC code and type that yourself into the console. Even as a kid, you weren't paying somebody to host your code.

jquast 6y ago
Not that it matters, but I traded lots of BASIC code on local bbs’s for free, and on floppies and cassettes for free. I didn’t really mind pedaling my bicycle to share my next release of “Pong” or whatever I was up to, kids love sneakernets, but I don’t think this program supports any form of sneakernet, that’s a real shame for kids who don’t have credit cards and most certainly won’t be given permission for “in game purchase”, few parents will understand or approve such a thing. That’s fine, nobody said this is for kids, or for education, it is what it is, I respect the effort and design to some degree, but won’t fund it. it goes against the very spirit of BASIC as an easy, educational, and naturally open source language. my other beef is why should content creators, who add value to the platform, pay more money? I really enjoy publishing FOSS, I maintain half a dozen of pypi’s top 100 packages, I feel joy and pride when I see my packages fly by on screens of colleagues. but if pypi starts charging me “server tickets” to publish these packages, strange EULA’s that sign my rights over, and to have to delete the less popular packages to make room to publish new ones, etc. I’d feel really damn sore about it. I’d publish it as PDF images and instruct users Like you to print it out and type it in, or dish out $9. This would be my rebellion for not getting a single penny for the thousands of volunteer hours that other people are now paying to receive a copy of. It just rolls my brain around and around to think about both players and creators paying money.
- legostormtroopr 6y ago
  Perhaps if FOSS infrastructure (like PyPI) charged for use they wouldn't need to ask for donations to keep their services up.