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Broco
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Headquarters
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 Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:10 pm Post subject: Birth of DirectX |
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Just to pass along a link to this surprisingly entertaining interview with one of the original creators of DirectX, back in the days when Microsoft was trying to get devs to move from DOS to Windows. Interesting read because we take it for granted that PC gaming is dominated by Windows, but the way he tells it, if Microsoft hadn't gotten their act together, games might've ended up going to Macs or something!
Lots of insights on Microsoft and the industry as a whole at that time. Money quote:
| Alex St-John wrote: |
"What if in spite of your best efforts, your best arguments, you best relationships, you can't get them to support them. How do you force the industry to support Microsoft anyway?" "Force them? Well, I don't know." "Come back when you have a plan that answers that question."
That perplexed me for a long time. I'm thinking, "What the hell does he mean, force them? I can't hold a gun to their head, so how do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology?" That experience had a major impact on my thinking. I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction, and people had to go [to them]. That, ultimately, is when I became a "Microsoft guy," when I got that concept. |
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BenoitRen
I bought RAM
Joined: 05 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:30 pm |
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That's a very interesting interview. Sheds light on how things go at Microsoft, and also takes a good jab at Vista. :)
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| udoschuermann wrote: |
| Whenever I read things like "id like to by a new car," I cringe inside, imagine some grunting ape who happened across a keyboard, and move on without thinking about the attempted message. |
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les meat
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
Location: The sea
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:44 pm |
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Direct X is probably the only area in computing where they have dominated then not left it to completely stagnate into festering useless shit… like they did to the internet and office.
Although its not true domination while they're still number 2/3 (lets face it like number 8 in Japan) in the living room so maybe thats why.
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dongle
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Berkeley, CA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:11 am |
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| I wish I had records of John Carmack's fights over D3D. |
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Jeff Garneau
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:21 am |
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| that guy used to have a column in PC gamer in the 90s where he would just talk about how much directX sucks, or something. |
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Takashi
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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chevluh
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Switzerland
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:33 pm |
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| Well, while it took care of the driver problems, DirectX didn't really become handy to program until, say, 7, and only with versions 8 and 9 and the tools that were provided with it did it become really nice. With 9 you could build a basic shmup with 3D graphics in one afternoon. |
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Takashi
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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Gironika
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Dragon Range
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| Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:52 pm |
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| Takashi wrote: |
| You know, if I had to pick between this guy, cigar and all, and J Allard as my gaming spokesman, I'd go for Alex head on. He could have been the Ken Kutaragi of Microsoft's gaming arm. |
I need to read that interview to see whether Alex is THAT bad.
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