A Blog of Very Little Brain

“Sometimes, people ask me if it is a sin in the church of Emacs to use the editor Vi. It is true that Vi-Vi-Vi is the editor of the beast. But using a free version of Vi is not a sin but a penance.” – Richard Stallman.

I’m not a religious person (and in all honesty, neither is RMS).
But, in the same manner that not being Christian doesn’t prevent me from debating Kirkegaard’s philosophy, being a secret member of the Cult of VI doesn’t prevent me from accepting the wisdom of St. iGNUcius regarding the Evil inherent in proprietary software.

Biggest problem from my point is inherent in the choice of the language of the scripture. True advocates of the One True Freedom (or the 4 freedoms of the apocalypse) know that software made with proprietary tools can never be free. And so came the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), a free software tool that allows ye followers to compile code. This is all fine and dandy when it comes to the “classic” hackers languages, such as C, C++, Lisp, and today’s Perl, Python et al, which are released under free (as in free-for-all) licenses.

But here’s my problem, I use COBOL. The ancient, monolithic, elephantine language, which has the style and elegance of a Rube Goldberg machine without the humour. Until recently, the only way to create COBOL software was to use proprietary tools. Not that there is some sort of voodoo mystery surrounding the language, since the specification for it are available as an ANSI standard for decades. However, it isn’t exactly a hacker favourite, so no one bothered developing free tools for it.

But, those days are long past, as now, not only I am able to enjoy two excellent GNU compilers, but I was also able to install them by using Debian/Ubuntu’s own .deb format. The first, TinyCOBOL, compiles COBOL-85 code to GNU assembly, and the other is Open-COBOL which goes a bit extra by converting the code to C and then compiling it using GCC, however, Open-COBOL does offer support of the later 97 (COBOL2000/OOCOBOL) and the 2002 standards.

The homepages have the source code for both projects, however, to install them apt-get style, head here for the TinyCOBOL packages, and to the Debian Repositories for the Open-COBOL project Packages.

On the other hand, nothing I’ve just said can explain Vigor

Turns out the next Nintendo console will not be named Revolution, but Wii.
I believe my first reaction what “Wha?”™
OK, the concept is just feels too much like a marketing department jerking off each other (disturbing metaphor, to say the least). It’s Wii, like “we” with the ‘ii’ which supposed to look like two people standing together. This, of course, immediately brings to mind the concept of people interacting, and the multiplayer/communal experience the new console promotes.

Only it doesn’t.

It never does, actually. All those “clever” names are just wasted efforts. Sony’s Playstation didn’t succeed because the name conveyed immediate playable station-ness. Nintendo’s Nintendo Entertainment System didn’t create a feeling of systematically entertainment, and besides, most people refer to those as “PS” and “NES”. What the hell does “xbox” even supposed to convey? (it’s a continuation of the “x” branding Microsoft has given to it’s games/multimedia driver/API, like DirectX, nothing more).

For example, Gamers.net have created a 10 worst Console names articles, toting Sega’s Dreamcast at number 9, claiming that “Sega’s got a history of creating inspired console names: Sega Master System, Sega Saturn, and particularly, Sega Genesis sounded effortlessly sleek and powerful.“
No they didn’t. The writing is projecting his opinion of the console over the name. Same with Nintendo: “Usually, simplicity is the best course — “Game Boy” and “Nintendo 64″ were smart, smart choices.” Were they? What so smart about “Game boy” exactly?

Bottom line: Consoles are only as good as their names. Good games on a system give it better consumer appreciation, create a “cool” image, and infuse the name with more positive connotation than any marketing group might ever achieve. People don’t care if it’s PlayStation II, PS2, or “the machine that plays GTA”™. They didn’t care when it was called Atari 2600, Famicom/super Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System/NES/SNES/Super Nintendo Entertainment System/etc. Sega’s Gamegear failed miserably despite having a superior technology AND a cooler name than Nintendo’s Gameboy. And besides, people have grown accustomed to calling Nintendo’s consoles “the Nintendo”. It’s even more obvious in the new handhelds, both Nintendo and Sony released their products under the names of “DS” and “PSP” (Dual Screen and PlayStation Portable), predicting that everyone will already abbreviate it, so if you can’t beat them…

I can easily predict that, in the very fortunate (and sadly, tragically, unlikely) case that Nintendo Wii’s games will rule the next years, that kids growing up with cherish the name wii like other’s cherish the name NES, or like Gamers.net writer cherish the name “Master System”. Other than that, it’s a cute name, with a cute logo.

(Just as a side note, whoever came up with the “two lowercase i’s that appear like two people” concept knows his stuff. It doesn’t “do” anything, but it’s well designed).