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Apple Businesses Entertainment Games

"xbill" for Mac OS X 72

Posted by pudge from the it-passes-the-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Seems like some guys have made a GPL'd Mac OS X game called xGates. It's very similar to xbill but you get to use a chainsaw and it's awfully violent. Funny to see how the Mac community is slowly but surely becoming UNIXified. =)" Hey, xbill was a Unix app first, but we Mac users have hated Microsoft and Gates since before Linux or xbill even existed! :-)
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"xbill" for Mac OS X More

"xbill" for Mac OS X

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  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 )
    This wrong on 4 different levels of wrongness. I love it!

    • Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

      by b_pretender ( 105284 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @09:37AM (#4766957)
      Although I'm no fan of Bill Gates, I find this game disturbing. Out of respect for a fellow human being, I don't need some game that shows a detailed image of someone running a chainsaw through somebodies stomach or bill gates' head being held high in the air.

      No Thanks. I prefer my gore to be anonymous as in Quake 3 violence.

      BTW, since Bill Gates does give so much of his (personal) money to education and third world countries, maybe we should respect him a little more by *not* playing this game.

      • Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 )
        BTW, since Bill Gates does give so much of his (personal) money to education and third world countries, maybe we should respect him a little more by *not* playing this game.

        Maybe if Bill Gates didn't have a monopoly over the OS market Apple would have more money to give to third world countries. Plus they could afford to give everyone a raise [spymac.com].

        • Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

          by eyeball ( 17206 )
          Maybe if Bill Gates didn't have a monopoly over the OS market Apple would have more money to give to third world countries. Plus they could afford to give everyone a raise [spymac.com].

          Maybe if Steve Jobs & co. didn't have a monopoly over the hardware that runs OS X, Microsoft wouldn't have such a large market share.

          • Maybe if Steve Jobs & co. didn't have a monopoly over the hardware that runs OS X, Microsoft wouldn't have such a large market share.

            There is a difference between having a closed system and having a monopoly. Steve Jobs & co open Apple systems up to clones a while back and it nearly killed the business.

            • That's mostly because the clones had a superior product at a lower price...

              Of course, it is bad mojo to bite the hand that feeds you I guess.
              I often wondered why no one has reverse engineered apple's HW ala Compaq. I suppose if someone did they wouldn't make any money, maccies would shun it and non-maccies wouldn't care.
              • That's mostly because the clones had a superior product at a lower price...

                The clones also brought on more hardware errors than any Apple I've ever owned. You always get what you pay for.
          • Maybe if Steve Jobs & co. didn't have a monopoly over the hardware that runs OS X, Microsoft wouldn't have such a large market share.


            and maybe if they didn't have a "hardware monopoly", they'd end up with a hotch-potch operating system like Windows that doesn't run properly on anything.

            -- james

      • Re:Wow (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        BTW, since Bill Gates does give so much of his (personal) money to education and third world countries, maybe we should respect him a little more by *not* playing this game.

        That's really naive - it's just marketing. Their foundation is just an other Microsoft way of forcing others into Windows. It's pretty clever for it's tax deductable so it's much cheeper then ordinary marketing. That is you taxparyer contribute and help the Gates foundation to brainwash thous poor kids.

        No it's not worth respect.

        • That's really naive - it's just marketing. Their foundation is just an other Microsoft way of forcing others into Windows. It's pretty clever for it's tax deductable so it's much cheeper then ordinary marketing. That is you taxparyer contribute and help the Gates foundation to brainwash thous poor kids.

          No it's not worth respect.

          I'm all for a little cynicism, but isn't there such a thing as too much? Bill Gates' foundation has given away [gatesfoundation.org] 5.5 billion dollars. That's nearly 10% of the total assets of his company ($67 billion), and a much bigger share of his own personal net worth. And more than half of it was given away for global health improvement. How exactly does that brainwash people into using Windows? The people who are getting that money aren't concerned with what's on their desktop-- they're worried about dying of AIDS or tuberculosis!

          Listen, I realize that his personal giving does provide good publicity for Microsoft, and some of the things that company does makes me want to dry-heave, e.g. donating "free" software to the countries thinking about switching to open source alternatives. But to say that the man doesn't deserve any respect even after giving several billion dollars to charity-- causes that help the millions of people that are dying in third world countries-- well, that's just cold. I'm hoping that that your message's just flamebait, but if you're really that cynical, I feel bad for you.

          • It's also kind of funny how something automatically becomes nothing more than a publicity stunt simply because it generates good publicity. This only works if it is taken as read that the subject is incapable of doing anything good.

            Ahhh...western dualism. Nobody is just sort of evil or sort of good. Bill Gates is a monopolist...therefore, he is the darkness that lurks beneath the bed of every innocent child. Ellen Feiss fans, grab your chainsaws...
      • I'm not planning to play the game because any violent games, whether anonymous or not, are simply not my cup of tea.

        However, there are enough people who hate Bill's products that I think he's wound up damaging more people's lives than he's uplifted.

        D

      • Can we get an "Amen"? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by matzim ( 468452 )

        Well said.

        MS bites. I think we pretty much agree on that. But to take MS-bashing to the point where we revel in images of the chairman of the company being graphically dismembered, we've crossed a line somewhere.

      • You MS hired mole-trolls never give up, do you? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        ...gives so much of his [clip]...to third world countries...

        Strictly to buy favor for his corporation...don't think for one shrink-wrapped minute his heart bleeds for anything but his bottom line. [salon.com]

        gates deserves as much respect as an unlined trashcan.
      • linus has done much more. (and i have found no games where you would give neither steve nor linus)

        i don't like windows and the things associated to it. and gates is an icon of windows and its negative things. most people to whom i have given the link or sent the app have enjoyed theg game. i have heard no negative comments on it.

        if gates was being SO good ... why do so many education and gov places, especially in the third world choose linux?
  • Aren't there already x^n versions of xbill?

  • UNIXified (Score:4, Funny)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @09:40AM (#4766976) Journal
    Funny to see how the Mac community is slowly but surely becoming UNIXified.

    Next they will be using the terminal app. Seriously though, transitioning from OS9 to OSX must be a bit like moving from an automatic to a stick shift.

    Watch this get modded down because it's mac related.

    • Re:UNIXified (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dephex Twin ( 416238 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @11:08AM (#4767722) Homepage
      Seriously though, transitioning from OS9 to OSX must be a bit like moving from an automatic to a stick shift.
      Not really. OS X is more like an automatic compared to other UNIX-based OSes, since the command line is there, you just never have to use it if you don't want.

      Actually, now that I'm using OS X, I have less technical stuff to deal with. I do a lot of technical stuff for fun, but in terms of what I have to do... well I don't have to do anything. The system has never crashed before. Back in the OS 9 days, things would start crashing, and you'd have to go in and do extension troubleshooting and stuff like that. If you bought a peripheral, you'd have to install drivers.

      I know you can get into much more confusing stuff with OS X, but like I said, that thing never crashes. On OS 9 it was an inevidability that you would regularly have to deal with tougher stuff.

    • Re:UNIXified (Score:2, Insightful)

      by derch ( 184205 )
      Watch this get modded down because it's mac related.

      I have mod points to give. I was going to give one, but you had to put that line in.

      This is the Apple section. Mac related comments are, well... expected and common place in the Apple section. There are moderators who specifically hit this section because it's not overly moderated and reading at -1 is much easier on the eyes (and on browser load times).

      Save your cynicism for a Mac comment in a 'BSD is dead' or 'Windoze blows' article.

    • Re:UNIXified (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 )
      Seriously though, transitioning from OS9 to OSX must be a bit like moving from an automatic to a stick shift.

      Interesting analogy. It's more like transitioning from a 60's automatic to a tiptronic [geocities.com].

    • Re:UNIXified (Score:3, Insightful)

      by inkswamp ( 233692 )
      Seriously though, transitioning from OS9 to OSX must be a bit like moving from an automatic to a stick shift.

      Not exactly. I've watched non-geeks where I work move from OS 9 to OS X without much problem and without noticing too much difference. Apple did a good job of hiding a lot of the geek stuff so a better analogy would be that going from OS 9 to OS X must be like moving from an automatic to a stick shift that lets you drive like it's an automatic anyway.

    • transitioning from OS9 to OSX must be a bit like moving from an automatic to a stick shift.

      Not really - it's more like moving from a Kia to a Lexus.

      --saint
    • Actually, I'm glad to be finally learning Unix. I'm a long time Mac and Windows user, and have used a few Solaris and Linux accounts but never used Unix on my machine because, frankly, I spent days configuring my machine back in the DOS days and am sick of that crap.

      With OS X, I get a fully working machine that's designed to be highly usable with minimal configuration. I can, if and when I want, alter and tweak that configuration. I can, if and when I want, delve into the depths of the machine to see how it works. Granted, AppKit is closed but I'm pretty overwhelmed by the scope of the APIs. I'm also overwhelmed by the sea of knowledge available on newsgroups and in documentation.

      And, of course, there are plenty of GNU et al utilities to learn, so I'm happy to plug away at that level. With any luck I'll find enough time between paying work and school to start really hacking some open source projects.
  • xbill was ported to OSX almost a year ago.

    http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-PaloAlt o/ 8861/mac/#macbill

  • Looks a lot like it's parodying Microsoft? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I may be missing something, but it looks a lot like this game is poking fun at Microsoft (the software company based in Redmond, Washington). If you look at some of the screenshots, the "bill" that they use looks a lot like Bill Gates, one of Microsoft's founders. And the description they give of the "enemy" you're fighting resembles some of the mainstream media's portrayals of Microsoft (you may have seen them in the news a few times.) Gosh, I hope they noticed the resemblence...someone over at Microsoft (even Bill Gates) might be uncomfortable with this!
  • But it's GPLed!

    Other than porting, what exactly can you do with the code for a chainsaw game?

    Oh yeah, BFC mods.
  • Anyone reading this been using a Mac long enough to remember "Bash Big Blue", which was just clicking on a jumping around IBM logo. I remember playing that on my family's Mac Plus back with the original Daleks game, Airborne, and Orbiter.
    • Yes! Someone else with a mac plus and all the dinky games that occupied endless hours. Not only did I while away my youth playing Bash Big Blue, I spent probably months worth playing brickles.

  • So, who else reached level 13? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Alex Thorpe ( 575736 ) <alphax AT mac DOT com> on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @01:04PM (#4768780) Homepage
    It's a simplistic game, but as Brain says when he flattens Pinky, "That was very therapeutic." Of course, the DoJ was useless! And of course, no matter how much you might, Bill wins in the end.

    Oh, and nice Rammstein soundtrack! Some of the other interface elements reminded me of the classic Ambrosia game Maelstrom.(which was ported to UNIX and later back to OS X)

  • Something terribly wrong with the game... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tseran ( 625777 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @02:18PM (#4769420) Journal
    Firstly, there is a huge problem. Bill installs Windows WAY too fast. If anyone I know could install Windows on a Mac in THAT short of time, I would think they switched it into an Intel machine. Even VPC doesn't load that fast ;) Secondly, as we all know, when Bill play with Windows in public, it blue screens. None of the Macs bluescreened once he installed Windows.... Good start, but we need more realism...and more bloody pieces of Bill lying around.

  • re-ported to mac you mean (Score:4, Insightful)

    by veggiespam ( 5283 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @04:06PM (#4770247)
    i remember playing "xbill" long before the X windows version was written. it was on a mac se, long ago. if you read the xbill history in the tarball (or help screens), you'll notice they pay homage to the original mac game. so, the game concept returns back to its source.

  • What... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wireless Joe ( 604314 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @06:21PM (#4771367) Homepage

    no Windows version? How is 90% of the population supposed to play? This game will go nowhere.

  • UNIXIFIED???? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2002 @07:05PM (#4771591)
    Funny to see how the Mac community is slowly but surely becoming UNIXified.

    I thought it was the other way around. Seriously, I'm not trying to start arguments, but with all the talk I've heard about how OS X is the first Unix with a nice interface, I would think that Unix users have become somewhat Mac-ified. I don't hear nearly as much talk from old-time Mac users about how wonderful it is to have a CLI or Perl. I hear more chatter and excitement from the other site about how it's nice to have an interface that works so well. :^)

    Too egocentric either way. Both statements are probably true--Mac users and Unix users have probably moved toward each other.

    • It's true that Mac users would get more out of Terminal if Apple had provided any instructions on how to use it. I still remember how to use DOS, but I've zero previous experince with a UNIX CLI, and I've only picked up a few commands, like ls and cd. Not enough to do anything. And I don't have the funds for a book on the subject.

    • "I don't hear nearly as much talk from old-time Mac users about how wonderful it is to have a CLI or Perl"

      /me raises hand

    • I don't hear nearly as much talk from old-time Mac users about how wonderful it is to have a CLI or Perl.
      Hear it from me!
  • Mac - Pc haters for the most part actually know what they are talking about while most "How to turn on your computer for dummies" kind of people hate Macs because they probably can't afford them or they are too dumb to actually research it and just read that Micro$oft biased PC-World Magazine. I'm sure if Macs were cheaper they would dominate the market and if it was before the PC took off. Ah those were the times when most computers had no monitors and you plugged it into your tv.
  • we Mac users have hated Microsoft and Gates since before Linux or xbill even existed!

    Is that why you all use MS Office, MSIE, and buy hardware from a company that's partly owned by Microsoft...? Right...
    • MS handed over $16 million to Apple as a patent settlement. Think courtroom, not boardroom. It was _not_ an investment. Try again.

      Blasted MS dolt-troll's can't help drinking the koolaid.

      phrggggrrrt!

      [[]]
      • Of course it was an investment. That way Microsoft can say to the judge, "see, there's competition - Apple - we're not a monopoly", when in fact they control Apple too. Over 98% of Mac users use MSIE as their browser and over 90% use MS Office for word processing / spreadsheets / etc.. So the OS isn't sold by Microsoft. Big deal. The OS by itself doesn't do much. As Apple used to say, "it's not what the computer does, it's what you can do with it". And most people with Macs use Microsoft software too. In fact, MS Office and MSIE are more dominant in the Mac market than in the Windows market.

        With 'enemies' like these, MS doesn't need any friends.

        I'm not saying the Linux community is entirely consistent, either. They say Microsoft sucks but then they spend all their time trying to copy Microsoft's look & feel. But at least they're just trying to make a copy, they're not using (and paying for) the original.

        RMN
        ~~~
        • i'm not saying anyone is better and i'm not trying to start a flame war, but saying most linux users don't use any MS software is complete bull. sure, they run linux as their main OS, but how many of them dual boot into windows or have a windows machine around somewhere? please... get off you soapbox
          • As far as I know, Microsoft does not make or sell any Linux software. Lots of Mac users use Windows boxes too. Your point was...?

            RMN
            ~~~
            • As far as I know, Microsoft does not make or sell any Linux software

              huh?

              Lots of Mac users use Windows boxes too

              yes, perhaps some might. but you'll have a harder time finding someone that frequently switches between macOS and windows as opposed to linux and windows. i'm speaking for home use, of course. you can't judge from what people are forced to use at work. my point is: perhaps mac users use MS software. they're usually honest about it. linux users (not all) on the other hand, violently bash MS while still booting in windows every day. look at the average slashdot reader.
              • You said "saying most Linux users don't use any MS software is complete bull". Since I don't think Microsoft makes any Linux software, I don't think that any Linux user can - while using Linux - run Microsoft software (except under emulation - see below). He may, of course, run Windows on a different machine (or on the same one), just as he may run BeOS or OSX or Solaris. Of these, I think OSX is the only one with native Microsoft software.

                Linux has alternatives to most home / office software (browsers, office suites, media players) and also to most server softare (servers, databases, scripting). It lacks DCC software (video and image editing, music, etc.) and games. Some of these (both games and DCC) can run under emulation, some cannot. I doubt most Linux users use Windows for anything besides serving as the kernel for specific applications. Once you're inside 3D Studio or After Effects or Cakewalk, it's irrelevant what operating system you're using.

                What annoys me about Linux (and many Linux users) is that they're trying to copy Windows, instead of actually coming up with something better. In fact, for the last 7 years or so, Microsoft, Apple and Linux have just been copying each other ad nauseum.

                The natural order of things used to be:

                Xerox or IBM would come up with a new concept (mouse, GUI, windows, etc.). Apple would copy it almost immediately and make it look prettier. Microsoft would copy it two years later and make it look uglier. Linux would try to do the same thing in text mode.

                Xerox and IBM are now pretty much dead (or at least hibernating). Apple just kept making things look prettier and prettier until they arrived at something that looks like a shampoo bottle (I hate the iMac / Aqua look). Microsoft tried to out-Mac Apple and came up with XP, that looks like something out of a committee formed by Macromedia and Chicco. I think it looks even uglier than Aqua. Aqua is for girls, XP is for baby girls. Linux, as usual, is trying to copy both of them (they're not using text mode anymore, which has made it lose that 'retro' appeal).

                Personally, I'm sticking to Windows 2000 Pro. It's stable, it's fast, has tons of software, supports tons of hardware and has a sober, functional interface (especially when you complement it with a few command-line tools). Apart from the OS, the only MS software I use is Visual Studio and Word. As more software is released for Linux (and as Windows emulation under Linux improves), I might consider switching. But I really doubt I'll ever switch to a Mac. If I leave Windows it'll be to get rid of a software monopoly, so I'm not going to plunge into a software and hardware one.

                On the hardware choice / speed / price side of things, x86 wins too, so that's another point against Macs (from my point of view).

                Hopefully, the next version of Windows will introduce something new and useful (a property / database-oriented file system). Something that both Apple and Linux had years to develop and bring to end users but somehow didn't (too busy making anti-aliased icons). Don't get me wrong; I don't like Microsoft. Which is even more depressing when I look at the alternatives.

                RMN
                ~~~
        • IF Corel would just put Wordperfect back on the mac, there'd have a lot less MS users in X.

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