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Good on them for sticking it out. I'm keeping Android 2.3 support in my game engine for as long as there's no need to remove it. (Dropped Android 1.6 three yea

Good on them for sticking it out. I'm keeping Android 2.3 support in my game engine for as long as there's no need to remove it. (Dropped Android 1.6 three years ago). Its days are numbered, but I expect I will never drop Windows 95 (OSR2) support - it will always be a novelty OS people actually run for fun, unlike old Android. I'm not sure I believe all these 0.0% usage stats for all mildly old versions. I lent my spare Android 2.2 phone to someone just a couple months ago.

codetrotter 5y ago
Is your game engine publicly available or something you use in your own games only? If the former, what’s it called and is it open source?
- versteegen 5y ago
  It's open source: the OHRRPGCE. I'm co-maintainer. Released over 23 years ago, originally as a DOS program, which is why we have such low requirements. Oh, and we try to provide backcompat support for all games ever made, although before ~2002 the backcompat is sometimes not complete. https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/System_Requirements https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/System_Requirements
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    BASIC based? Quite cool.
  - TonyTrapp 5y ago
    Good memories! Never used the engine myself but played Wandering Hamster back when I was into QBasic.
    - versteegen 5y ago
      After 24 years James still works on Wandering Hamster from time to time! It's always fun to see how many people have heard of it or the engine. https://github.com/bob-the-hamster/wander https://github.com/bob-the-hamster/wander
      - alexjplant 5y ago
        As a kid I was really into QBasic and game maker software (think RM2k and the like). OHRRPGCE was a perfect intersection of these two interests - I remember being super impressed that something so complex could be made in my favorite language. I also have fond memories of James's site and think of the Technomancy page [1] every time something goes wrong with a machine I'm using or a piece of software I'm working on. I miss the old internet. Thanks to you and James for being a huge part of my childhood! [1] https://james.hamsterrepublic.com/technomancy/ https://james.hamsterrepublic.com/technomancy/
        versteegen 5y ago
        I had that same amazement about something so complex written in QuickBasic, which is why I dived in when it was open-sourced and took delight in the dense (bad!) code and hacks to meet Real-mode limitations. I've been contributing ever since, but I can't take credit; the engine was only open-sourced in 2005. And Technomancy remains at the forefront of my mind too :)
remus 5y ago
> I'm not sure I believe all these 0.0% usage stats for all mildly old versions. I lent my spare Android 2.2 phone to someone just a couple months ago. A quick Google search suggests there's about 2.5 billion android users. 0.05% of those users (i.e. a rounding error) is still 1.25 million users, so plenty of room for people to still be using old versions but not show up in proportional usage estimates.
- versteegen 5y ago
  Yes, but I wonder, do many second-hand smartphones end up in poorer countries and then undercounted? AFAIK these stats typically are derived from traffic to certain websites or telemetry from certain apps (or Google Play?); looking just at English websites/apps would then significantly undercount.
hajile 5y ago
Android 2.2 dropped almost 11 years ago. Most Android hardware doesn’t make it 5 years let alone a decade. That’s before considering the lack of software support. Most websites today probably won’t even load correctly with its web browser (a browser that didn’t support most web standards even just after release). It’s just time to let it go.

codetrotter 5y ago

Is your game engine publicly available or something you use in your own games only? If the former, what’s it called and is it open source?

versteegen 5y ago
It's open source: the OHRRPGCE. I'm co-maintainer. Released over 23 years ago, originally as a DOS program, which is why we have such low requirements. Oh, and we try to provide backcompat support for all games ever made, although before ~2002 the backcompat is sometimes not complete. https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/System_Requirements https://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/System_Requirements
- pjmlp 5y ago
  BASIC based? Quite cool.
- TonyTrapp 5y ago
  Good memories! Never used the engine myself but played Wandering Hamster back when I was into QBasic.
  - versteegen 5y ago
    After 24 years James still works on Wandering Hamster from time to time! It's always fun to see how many people have heard of it or the engine. https://github.com/bob-the-hamster/wander https://github.com/bob-the-hamster/wander
    - alexjplant 5y ago
      As a kid I was really into QBasic and game maker software (think RM2k and the like). OHRRPGCE was a perfect intersection of these two interests - I remember being super impressed that something so complex could be made in my favorite language. I also have fond memories of James's site and think of the Technomancy page [1] every time something goes wrong with a machine I'm using or a piece of software I'm working on. I miss the old internet. Thanks to you and James for being a huge part of my childhood! [1] https://james.hamsterrepublic.com/technomancy/ https://james.hamsterrepublic.com/technomancy/
      - versteegen 5y ago
        I had that same amazement about something so complex written in QuickBasic, which is why I dived in when it was open-sourced and took delight in the dense (bad!) code and hacks to meet Real-mode limitations. I've been contributing ever since, but I can't take credit; the engine was only open-sourced in 2005. And Technomancy remains at the forefront of my mind too :)

remus 5y ago

> I'm not sure I believe all these 0.0% usage stats for all mildly old versions. I lent my spare Android 2.2 phone to someone just a couple months ago. A quick Google search suggests there's about 2.5 billion android users. 0.05% of those users (i.e. a rounding error) is still 1.25 million users, so plenty of room for people to still be using old versions but not show up in proportional usage estimates.

versteegen 5y ago
Yes, but I wonder, do many second-hand smartphones end up in poorer countries and then undercounted? AFAIK these stats typically are derived from traffic to certain websites or telemetry from certain apps (or Google Play?); looking just at English websites/apps would then significantly undercount.

hajile 5y ago

Android 2.2 dropped almost 11 years ago. Most Android hardware doesn’t make it 5 years let alone a decade. That’s before considering the lack of software support. Most websites today probably won’t even load correctly with its web browser (a browser that didn’t support most web standards even just after release). It’s just time to let it go.