Kasparov vs Deep Blue
You know we were talking about... we were talking about disaster movies.
This would be the perfect disaster movie. Just have an endless succession
of these scenes where Deep Blue is just sitting there.
"It's the locusts" or whatever and Kasparov is just running his little
piggy legs out of the room. "I'm free again, you fucker." -- Moxy Fruvous, Live Noise
This is not about Kasparov vs Deep Blue, not really. Well, ok, it sort of is, but on a smaller, simpler, more personal level. It all starts with computer games. Baseball specifically. High Heat Baseball 2002, to be very precise.
HHB2k2 is, at this point, an old baseball game, and therein lies the rub. It is designed to work with Windows 95 and 98 and happens (like most 9x apps) to work just fine with Windows ME as long as Windows ME happens to be working. This is not a given with Win ME. With Windows XP, specifically my current install of Win XP on my current hardware, HHB2k2 installs just fine. Patches up to the 1.1 version no problem. Hits 'em outta the park all day long...until you plug in my Microsoft Sidewinder Pro game pad and want to actually play baseball.
IF all I wanted to do with simulate being a manager or general manager of a baseball team
or
IF the on-the-field part of the game was more playable via the keyboard
or
IF I was willing to go back to Win98 or even to dual-boot my setup
THEN no problem. Under any of these conditions, HHB2k2 would still be a brown-eyed handsome man rounding third and heading for home. As it is, XP is a better OS than 98 and I've never found dual-booting much good. Getting my hands on the 2003 version of High Heat would probably take care of this for me, as it was supposed to work with XP. However, the High Heat line died with HHB2k4 (which, by all accounts kinda sucked), so I'd be stuck searching game exchange/used game stores or hitting up Ebay. I was perfectly happy with HHB2k2; I could be happy again. And I had one more trick to try.
Enter my version of Deep Blue--virtualization. Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 has recently been made available as a free download; VMWare released their VMWare Player application for free and I've got access to a VMWare image of Win98 at work.
Results? Deep Blue (virtualization) 1 - human (me) 0. Under Virtual PC 2004, I can get HHB2k2 installed and running. But...VPC2k4 only supports USB keyboards and mice. My Sidewinder Pro is USB. I'm right back where I started. VMWare Player *does* recognize USB devices, including my keychain drive and my Sidewinder. HHB2k2 installs just dandy. Won't run.
Someone want to bring on the locusts now?
This would be the perfect disaster movie. Just have an endless succession
of these scenes where Deep Blue is just sitting there.
"It's the locusts" or whatever and Kasparov is just running his little
piggy legs out of the room. "I'm free again, you fucker." -- Moxy Fruvous, Live Noise
This is not about Kasparov vs Deep Blue, not really. Well, ok, it sort of is, but on a smaller, simpler, more personal level. It all starts with computer games. Baseball specifically. High Heat Baseball 2002, to be very precise.
HHB2k2 is, at this point, an old baseball game, and therein lies the rub. It is designed to work with Windows 95 and 98 and happens (like most 9x apps) to work just fine with Windows ME as long as Windows ME happens to be working. This is not a given with Win ME. With Windows XP, specifically my current install of Win XP on my current hardware, HHB2k2 installs just fine. Patches up to the 1.1 version no problem. Hits 'em outta the park all day long...until you plug in my Microsoft Sidewinder Pro game pad and want to actually play baseball.
IF all I wanted to do with simulate being a manager or general manager of a baseball team
or
IF the on-the-field part of the game was more playable via the keyboard
or
IF I was willing to go back to Win98 or even to dual-boot my setup
THEN no problem. Under any of these conditions, HHB2k2 would still be a brown-eyed handsome man rounding third and heading for home. As it is, XP is a better OS than 98 and I've never found dual-booting much good. Getting my hands on the 2003 version of High Heat would probably take care of this for me, as it was supposed to work with XP. However, the High Heat line died with HHB2k4 (which, by all accounts kinda sucked), so I'd be stuck searching game exchange/used game stores or hitting up Ebay. I was perfectly happy with HHB2k2; I could be happy again. And I had one more trick to try.
Enter my version of Deep Blue--virtualization. Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 has recently been made available as a free download; VMWare released their VMWare Player application for free and I've got access to a VMWare image of Win98 at work.
Results? Deep Blue (virtualization) 1 - human (me) 0. Under Virtual PC 2004, I can get HHB2k2 installed and running. But...VPC2k4 only supports USB keyboards and mice. My Sidewinder Pro is USB. I'm right back where I started. VMWare Player *does* recognize USB devices, including my keychain drive and my Sidewinder. HHB2k2 installs just dandy. Won't run.
Someone want to bring on the locusts now?