5 ms·

Some relevant info since 86Box is a fork of PCem; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22859695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22859695

rnd0 4y ago
The fork was five years ago so I'm not sure how that's relevant? Do we need to mention that NetBSD is a fork of 386BSD everytime a NetBSD story comes up?
- dspillett 4y ago
  If heard of PCem bit not 86Box. Likely there are people out there into the emulation scene bit not deep into it (I assume people with a deep interest are already well aware of this tool) who are in a similar position, for whom the context is useful in assessing whether playing with this is worth it or not to their interests.
  - rnd0 4y ago
    Personality conflicts aside, both pieces of software are different enough from each other that it's basically comparing apples to haute cusine. Myself, I've been using 86box since almost the beginning in large part because of the ui. To me, it's always been more pleasant to work with. If anyone has questions I'd say rather than listing to 2017-era gossips they should instead download both, spend the time playing with them and seeing which they prefer. It's not like the mid-nineties where trying things required a $50-$150 investment of cash.
LocutusOfBorges 4y ago
Profoundly sad that PCem ended up being abandoned while this hostile fork continues. It deserved a better fate.
- jlundberg 4y ago
  Curious to know more about this! Please elaborate on this if you don’t mind! :)
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  The “hostile fork” is the lively one that supports more hardware and has better GUI, so I’m not particularly sad about it, tbh.
  - LocutusOfBorges 4y ago
    The way I’ve seen senior 86box project staff behave towards the developers of the project they forked away from really surprised me - a lot of emulator projects tend to be prone to silly rivalries, but this instance stuck me as unusually inappropriate behaviour - such were the levels of toxicity involved that at one point a senior staff member at 86box was bouncing around ideas mid-tirade speculating that a PCem contributor was in a sexual relationship with the project lead (put less delicately), this being drawn from the fact that they occasionally said good things about the project in public forums. The software is what it is, and for anyone who considers it to simply be a means to an end, it’s a fine tool to use. I just personally found that incident (among other examples of extraordinarily toxic, childish behaviour from other contributors) to be sufficiently distasteful that I’d rather just not use the software at all. This is are quite old sentiments on my part, and I expect things will probably have got a great deal better now, given how many years it’s been - it’s certainly not something that warrants calling for some kind of mob-facilitated cancellation of the project, which is, I must stress, a perfectly adequate PCem replacement under these circumstances. Strictly just a case of me as an individual wishing that interactions had been less toxic prior to the parent project’s discontinuation. I won’t use it because of those memories, having known one of the people concerned at the time. I don’t really think it’s something that should affect anyone else’s decision to use the program at all - it’s very much an individual distaste for it on my part.
    - gattilorenz 4y ago
      Thanks for the detailed elaboration! I’ve seen the “split” from a distance and never really investigated what has happened. Sounds pretty nasty indeed
      - rnd0 4y ago
        If you weren't there, you don't know the details or motivations of what went on it's probably a good idea to not take sides.
- rnd0 4y ago
  PCem is still being developed, though. 86Box has done a lot of improvements on the codebase over the last 5 years and has developed its' own community; meanwhile pcem got bogged down in drama and stagnated. I followed pcem and saw enough toxicity there that I am unsurprised by how things have played out. But 86box has earned it's current place by putting in the time, works, research into it's development as well as continually working on being a less toxic (this is the internet -it's all toxic) environment.

rnd0 4y ago

The fork was five years ago so I'm not sure how that's relevant? Do we need to mention that NetBSD is a fork of 386BSD everytime a NetBSD story comes up?

dspillett 4y ago
If heard of PCem bit not 86Box. Likely there are people out there into the emulation scene bit not deep into it (I assume people with a deep interest are already well aware of this tool) who are in a similar position, for whom the context is useful in assessing whether playing with this is worth it or not to their interests.
- rnd0 4y ago
  Personality conflicts aside, both pieces of software are different enough from each other that it's basically comparing apples to haute cusine. Myself, I've been using 86box since almost the beginning in large part because of the ui. To me, it's always been more pleasant to work with. If anyone has questions I'd say rather than listing to 2017-era gossips they should instead download both, spend the time playing with them and seeing which they prefer. It's not like the mid-nineties where trying things required a $50-$150 investment of cash.

LocutusOfBorges 4y ago

Profoundly sad that PCem ended up being abandoned while this hostile fork continues. It deserved a better fate.

jlundberg 4y ago
Curious to know more about this! Please elaborate on this if you don’t mind! :)
gattilorenz 4y ago
The “hostile fork” is the lively one that supports more hardware and has better GUI, so I’m not particularly sad about it, tbh.
- LocutusOfBorges 4y ago
  The way I’ve seen senior 86box project staff behave towards the developers of the project they forked away from really surprised me - a lot of emulator projects tend to be prone to silly rivalries, but this instance stuck me as unusually inappropriate behaviour - such were the levels of toxicity involved that at one point a senior staff member at 86box was bouncing around ideas mid-tirade speculating that a PCem contributor was in a sexual relationship with the project lead (put less delicately), this being drawn from the fact that they occasionally said good things about the project in public forums. The software is what it is, and for anyone who considers it to simply be a means to an end, it’s a fine tool to use. I just personally found that incident (among other examples of extraordinarily toxic, childish behaviour from other contributors) to be sufficiently distasteful that I’d rather just not use the software at all. This is are quite old sentiments on my part, and I expect things will probably have got a great deal better now, given how many years it’s been - it’s certainly not something that warrants calling for some kind of mob-facilitated cancellation of the project, which is, I must stress, a perfectly adequate PCem replacement under these circumstances. Strictly just a case of me as an individual wishing that interactions had been less toxic prior to the parent project’s discontinuation. I won’t use it because of those memories, having known one of the people concerned at the time. I don’t really think it’s something that should affect anyone else’s decision to use the program at all - it’s very much an individual distaste for it on my part.
  - gattilorenz 4y ago
    Thanks for the detailed elaboration! I’ve seen the “split” from a distance and never really investigated what has happened. Sounds pretty nasty indeed
    - rnd0 4y ago
      If you weren't there, you don't know the details or motivations of what went on it's probably a good idea to not take sides.
rnd0 4y ago
PCem is still being developed, though. 86Box has done a lot of improvements on the codebase over the last 5 years and has developed its' own community; meanwhile pcem got bogged down in drama and stagnated. I followed pcem and saw enough toxicity there that I am unsurprised by how things have played out. But 86box has earned it's current place by putting in the time, works, research into it's development as well as continually working on being a less toxic (this is the internet -it's all toxic) environment.