New ACC 1.47!

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randi
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New ACC 1.47!

Post by randi »

I had hoped to put out a new version of ZDoom before the end of the year. Alas, the fates have conspired against me. I awoke today to discover that my computer would no longer recognize my hard drive. I probably won't be able to get a replacement for it until 2009, so that means there will be no new ZDooms this year.

As a consolation, here's a new version of ACC instead. It includes support for setting #include directory search paths, courtesy of CodeImp. This allows you to have two ACS files in the same directory where one includes the other, and it will always find the included file. Previously, this was problematic. There is also support for [wiki=GetPlayerInput]features[/wiki] that will be available in the next version of ZDoom.


I believe most everything on the hard drive was either replaceable or expendable. Nevertheless, there are certain things I am sad to see go. This includes an archive of every ZDoom version I have ever released, both public and private. There was also a prototype of ZDoom using the Build engine's wall sorting algorithm that would have allowed for complex shaped polyobjects and multiple polyobjects per sector. And lastly, I had completely deciphered and documented all the important parts of the Blood map format. That's work I'll have to restart from scratch now.

Fortunately, I had no uncommitted changes in the trunk for the SVN repository, and my scripting language work was backed up on a flash drive, so I won't actually be set back any once I get the drive replaced.

(The worst part of this whole matter is that the drive was only four months old! The drive it replaced is still running fine in another computer.)
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InsanityBringer
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Re: New ACC!

Post by InsanityBringer »

randy wrote:I had hoped to put out a new version of ZDoom before the end of the year. Alas, the fates have conspired against me. I awoke today to discover that my computer would no longer recognize my hard drive. I probably won't be able to get a replacement for it until 2009, so that means there will be no new ZDooms this year.

...


I believe most everything on the hard drive was either replaceable or expendable. Nevertheless, there are certain things I am sad to see go. This includes an archive of every ZDoom version I have ever released, both public and private. There was also a prototype of ZDoom using the Build engine's wall sorting algorithm that would have allowed for complex shaped polyobjects and multiple polyobjects per sector. And lastly, I had completely deciphered and documented all the important parts of the Blood map format. That's work I'll have to restart from scratch now.

...

(The worst part of this whole matter is that the drive was only four months old! The drive it replaced is still running fine in another computer.)
Ouch. That sucks. Out of interest, what kind of drive was it?
skadoomer
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Re: New ACC!

Post by skadoomer »

Have you ever herd of spinrite? So long as your drive is still detectable by the bios, this program should be able to fix any hard drive problems you have that would prevent a boot.
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randi
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Re: New ACC!

Post by randi »

InsanityBringer wrote:Out of interest, what kind of drive was it?
It was this one.
skadoomer wrote:So long as your drive is still detectable by the bios
It's not, though. That's the problem. It spins up and sounds normal, but it's completely undetectable.

Considering all the other people that seem to be having issues with this drive dying after a short time, I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother with the warranty process or if I should pony up the cash for a whole new drive that isn't related to this one.
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Spleen
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Spleen »

randy wrote:
InsanityBringer wrote:Out of interest, what kind of drive was it?
It was this one.
skadoomer wrote:So long as your drive is still detectable by the bios
It's not, though. That's the problem. It spins up and sounds normal, but it's completely undetectable.

Considering all the other people that seem to be having issues with this drive dying after a short time, I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother with the warranty process or if I should pony up the cash for a whole new drive that isn't related to this one.
You should! I really hope the warranty says they'll restore your data too...
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randi
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Re: New ACC!

Post by randi »

Nope. All I can get back from them is a refurbished hard drive unless I want to pay extra for data recovery, which is unlikely to be cheap.
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Woolie Wool
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Woolie Wool »

"Unlikely to be cheap" is often an understatement--the cost for such services often runs into thousands of dollars.

Sucks to have that happen to you, Randy. Hope you're more diligent about keeping backups than I am...
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Rachael
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Rachael »

Yikes! Terrible thing to have happen to anybody! Not good news at all.

I hope you get it all sorted out. That's NOT fun!
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Graf Zahl
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Graf Zahl »

randy wrote: There was also a prototype of ZDoom using the Build engine's wall sorting algorithm that would have allowed for complex shaped polyobjects and multiple polyobjects per sector.
I would have liked to see that. Not so much for enhanced polyobject capabilites but it would allow infinitely more flexible portals, at least with a hardware renderer.

Ironically I have been toying with something similar as well recently - but it's not even close to being usable yet. And the way I implemented it is almost exclusive to the hardware renderer. It also requires GL nodes to work.
Fortunately, I had no uncommitted changes in the trunk for the SVN repository, and my scripting language work was backed up on a flash drive, so I won't actually be set back any once I get the drive replaced.
I still think that any work on ZDoom itself should be in a branch of the SVN repository
If there is in-development code I don't know of, I'm sorry I can't work on ZDoom for risk of creating further problems.

In case this is 'too sensitive': can access to SVN-subdirectories be restricted to non-anonymous users just in case this shouldn't be visible to the general public?
SoulPriestess wrote:Yikes! Terrible thing to have happen to anybody! Not good news at all.
Indeed. But that's one of the reasons why at work I insist that every single project and every development branch of every project has an SVN repository. If a HD gets lost then, all data is restorable. Unfortunately this is something that seems to be very, very hard to communicate to some people, especially professional developers who haven't used version control before. :(
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MartinHowe
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Re: New ACC!

Post by MartinHowe »

For Blood, this may be of some help: Blood Tools
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Remmirath
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Remmirath »

Ouch, that sucks, Randy. :(

Anyway, thanks a lot for the new ACC. :)
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Enjay
 
 
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Enjay »

Ouch, that is a bummer. And you have lost lots of things that would have been nice for you to hang on to as well. :(

I'd have put money on it being a Western Digital HD. I have had a few of those go, and heard of even more but, personally, I've never had a problem with Seagate. Not that that is much comfort to you. :?
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Nash
 
 
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Nash »

Data recovery is very expensive. A small-time T-shirt designer friend of mine had a severe hard disk failure and his entire business relied on that hard disk. Sent it for recovery, and he managed to get 100% of his data back, however it costed him four digits...
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Enjay
 
 
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Enjay »

I wonder how much that high price reflects the actual work required, and how much it reflects what people are prepared to pay to get important stuff back?
Gez
 
 
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Re: New ACC!

Post by Gez »

And how much covers specialized equipment able to scan a sometimes physically destroyed hard drive for data?

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