Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: FlamingCobra on November 17, 2011, 03:39:02 pm
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The Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 all have their own operating systems, right? They don't have a simple BIOS.
So instead of writing software to emulate a Wii/Xbox 360/PS3, why can't you just partition your hard drive and install that console's OS onto your computer?
Does it have something to do with system architecture, kind of like how Mac was incompatible with PC hardware until recently?
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The Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 all have their own operating systems, right? They don't have a simple BIOS.
So instead of writing software to emulate a Wii/Xbox 360/PS3, why can't you just partition your hard drive and install that console's OS onto your computer?
Does it have something to do with system architecture, kind of like how Mac was incompatible with PC hardware until recently?
None of the current Consoles (and except for the original XBox, no console in the history of ever) are using a system architecture that is even remotely similar to that of a modern PC. Their operating systems are tailor made for the hardware they're running on, and cannot be ported onto other hardware without emulating that hardware in its entirety. There is no commercially available hardware that has the power to emulate an XBox 360 or PS3 accurately, the Wii may be possible (because the Wii is more like a Gamecube++), but I do not believe there are any emulators around.
The reason why you need accurate emulation of the hardware is that console games are heavily optimized for the hardware they are built on; they can use tricks that PC developers simply cannot use due to the variety of hardware configurations present in the PC environment. Most of those tricks involve exploiting the unique architectural quirks of a given system, for example, most high-end PS3 games are offloading parts of their graphics processing from the GPU onto the CPU, which in the PC world is something noone would ever contemplate doing.
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what makes the hardware so crazy different, and could it be done in reverse? (I have heard of people running a linux distro on Wii/360)
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what makes the hardware so crazy different, and could it be done in reverse? (i.e. running windows vista/7 on a 360. should be possible, since the 360's OS is a modified version of windows anyway.)
For starters, the ISAs are not x86. Windows can't run on ARM (although Windows 8 seems to) much less in esoteric console ISAs. And no, the Xbox's OS is not a modified version of Windows.
The only "mainstream" operating system that you could run on a consoles would be linux, like some people have done for the PS3.
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what makes the hardware so crazy different, and could it be done in reverse? (i.e. running windows vista/7 on a 360. should be possible, since the 360's OS is a modified version of windows anyway.)
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To start off, the 360 and PS3 both have a main CPU that is radically different from the x86/x86-64 architecture used in normal PCs. There is no way in hell you could get binaries for one architecture to run on the other. Second, the hardware is structured in a completely different way to allow maximum throughput from the various IO components to the CPU, GPU and back again. The internal protocols the various hardware pieces use to communicate with each other are completely different.
And no. The 360 OS is not a "modified Windows". It is a heavily customized OS that was designed to run something that looks like a customized version of DirectX to the developer. There is no way, none whatsoever, to install a standard desktop OS on one of todays' consoles. Also, given that both the 360 and the PS3 are desperately underpowered in the memory department (the 360 has to make do with 512 MB of RAM shared between the OS and the GPU, while the PS3 has 256 MB of RAM for executable code, and 256 MB of GPU memory), there is no reason you'd really want to.
Oh, yes, there was a Linux version for the PS3. Nope, Sony no longer supports it, yes, it was severely crippled by the fact that there was no way to access the GPU, yes, it was only useful for people who wanted to write code for the Cell processor. Which, as it turned out, made a cluster of PS3s a rather well-performing, cheap alternative to a custom supercomputer. Among others, the US Air Force used to have one of them.
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http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii-Linux
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/30/hacking-linux-onto-your-360-just-got-a-wee-bit-easier/
And you did not discuss Wii, though I would assume that is because it is even more underpowered than PS3/360.
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Well, yes. Using Linux on a Wii turns a Wii into a rather useless brick, while Linux on a 360 is more of a nerdy experiment than something that really works.
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Well, yes. Using Linux on a Wii turns a Wii into a rather useless brick.
I have seen youtube videos where people took apart their 360 and put all the hardware inside it into a laptop case. Or something. Thus making a portable 360. (with a screen).
So if you did the same thing with Wii and put linux on it, you basically could use linux as your laptop stuff for regular computing purposes (internet, word processing, whatever) and use the Wii part for playing games, which would be weird but it would work.
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Except that the Wii would be pretty crap at that job. Remember that the Wii does not support resolutions significantly higher than what baseline NTSC/PAL are capable of, which is roughly equivalent to trying to surf the web at a resolution of 800x600 on a very crappy tablet that is outperformed by most Android devices.
Oh, and those Laptop conversions for the 360? Yeah, they're nice. Very cool semi-portable (because I kinda doubt they have good battery life, if they actually do have batteries) game consoles, but I'd rather use a normal Netbook, or even a smartphone for mobile surfing/word processing than one of those.
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True enough. Wii's hardware is crap.
Actually I don't really want to do any of these things. I'm just asking because I know someone who wants to run PS3-exclusive games on his laptop and I'm trying to explain why that won't work and/or finding loopholes to make it theoretically work on PC hardware.
But from the information you have given me, it seems there is no way possible to make them "double up". At this point in time, 7th generation console emulation is totally out of the question.
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Right. In the future, just tell him that he should try and use the google. This is all information that is available with a bit of technical understanding and wikipedia.
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-snip-
Oh, and those Laptop conversions for the 360? Yeah, they're nice. Very cool semi-portable (because I kinda doubt they have good battery life, if they actually do have batteries) game consoles, but I'd rather use a normal Netbook, or even a smartphone for mobile surfing/word processing than one of those.
Speaking of short battery life, can you replace an electronic device's battery with a hydrogen fuel cell even if it does not natively support fuel cells?
And yes, I already googled this. I googled the **** out of this a while back and never found anything but stuff like "fuel cells may one day/soon replace batteries"
I wouldn't think an electronic device would care what kind of power source it has as long as the voltage is correct.
Also, I've told people to "just Google it" before and the only thing that ever happens is that people end up thinking that I am "stuck up," "an ass," or a "smartass."
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It's all about the connectors...
You could also use a nuclear power plant to power your wrist watch, doesn't mean it's practical to...
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It wouldn't. However, making a hydrogen fuel cell that fits into a battery form factor (and there are thousands of those) is nontrivial, and always remember that a Hydrogen fuel cells need Hydrogen to work, which is a notoriously unsafe fuel source.
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Right. I considered that you would have to make the fuel cell fit your device all by yourself. And make the connectors work.
But there is also a heat issue. Fuel cells generate water, electricity, and heat. Most laptops already have cooling/airflow issues, so I'm thinking the extra heat from the fuel cell would be really bad for it.
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i wouldn't want to use a fuel cell for that application no matter how cheap or efficient it is. fuel cells require fuel, and i dont want to have to be constantly putting fuel into my electronics. dont underestimate the power of lithium batteries. some of the high discharge cells ive used on my rc aircraft exploits have been ****ing scary to work with. especially when you had to solder new connectors or leads to the battery. they are very fond of arcing. you also have ultra-capacitors that can do really scary things (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoWMF3VkI6U). a fuel cell is the wrong tech for the job. i can see using it in a car or in off-grid home power, but banks of batteries can handle that job, and probably at less expense. for small scale applications batteries will reign supreme. nobody wants to put hydrogen into all their technology to make it work when they can just plug it in.
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some of the high discharge cells ive used on my rc aircraft exploits have been ****ing scary to work with. especially when you had to solder new connectors or leads to the battery. they are very fond of arcing.
I can back this claim with a permanent scar on my multitool caused by a 11.1V 2200mAh LiPo battery. Plus the fact that every time I connect the battery to my quad, it always makes a faint *pop.*
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I cannot fathom why anyone would contemplate replacing reliable and inexpensive Lithium-ion battery technology with unreliable and expensive hydrogen fuel cells. They are not an optimal source of electrical power due to the energy requirements needed to build and fuel them.
There are gasoline electrical generators that are commercially available to the average person that are more energy/economically efficient than hydrogen fuel cell technology. For the cost and reliability, carrying around a gasoline generator or installing an inverter in your vehicle makes more economic sense than trying to lengthen portable device battery life by improvising a fuel cell.
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Would someone please remove the 'Deeply Technical' from the thread title?
It's kind of bugging the Hell out of me.
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I cannot fathom why anyone would contemplate replacing reliable and inexpensive Lithium-ion battery technology with unreliable and expensive hydrogen fuel cells. They are not an optimal source of electrical power due to the energy requirements needed to build and fuel them.
The same could be said about gasoline engines during the time of the steam age. But yes, fuel cells are an "academic curiosity" for now.
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Oh no, they do have their use (Hell, Germany has a Submarine class powered by fuel cells), just not in handheld electronics.
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dont fuel cells also need to be of a certain size in order to achieve optimum temperatures?
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Oh no, they do have their use (Hell, Germany has a Submarine class powered by fuel cells), just not in handheld electronics.
still i think the technology is still way too expensive for anything but military, space or industrial applications. you also have to realize that we dont really have all that much hydrogen infrastructure right now which would need to be in place for large scale application. even if we have hydrogen infrastructure i get the feeling it will only ever be used in situations where you need a lot of power, like electric cars, home power, civil aviation (e-planes) and marine (e-boats) use as well. even then its gonna be more expensive to other alternatives available. im sure battery production will ramp up as fuel grows in price.
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I agree. Putting a fuel cell into something that moves around a lot is a recipe for disaster (unless you have overriding considerations like in military hardware), they're much better used in a stationary setting, where you can have a large supply of hydrogen nearby in a stable and controlled container. You can then use the energy produced to charge your Li-io batteries.
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Oh no, they do have their use (Hell, Germany has a Submarine class powered by fuel cells), just not in handheld electronics.
still i think the technology is still way too expensive for anything but military, space or industrial applications. you also have to realize that we dont really have all that much hydrogen infrastructure right now which would need to be in place for large scale application. even if we have hydrogen infrastructure i get the feeling it will only ever be used in situations where you need a lot of power, like electric cars, home power, civil aviation (e-planes) and marine (e-boats) use as well. even then its gonna be more expensive to other alternatives available. im sure battery production will ramp up as fuel grows in price.
refuelling a fuel cell would probably be faster than recharging a battery, also where O2 is in abundance you only need to carry the hydrogen and the water is safe to just dump which means that for aircraft your fuel efficiency actually goes up the further you travel and of course a discharged battery is dead weight
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i wouldn't want to use a fuel cell for that application no matter how cheap or efficient it is. fuel cells require fuel, and i dont want to have to be constantly putting fuel into my electronics. dont underestimate the power of lithium batteries. some of the high discharge cells ive used on my rc aircraft exploits have been ****ing scary to work with. especially when you had to solder new connectors or leads to the battery. they are very fond of arcing. you also have ultra-capacitors that can do really scary things (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoWMF3VkI6U). a fuel cell is the wrong tech for the job. i can see using it in a car or in off-grid home power, but banks of batteries can handle that job, and probably at less expense. for small scale applications batteries will reign supreme. nobody wants to put hydrogen into all their technology to make it work when they can just plug it in.
After watching this vid, I want to see 100 of those hooked up in series, fully charged, and then see if maybe a car could be vaporized. :lol: :drevil:
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Oh no, they do have their use (Hell, Germany has a Submarine class powered by fuel cells), just not in handheld electronics.
still i think the technology is still way too expensive for anything but military, space or industrial applications. you also have to realize that we dont really have all that much hydrogen infrastructure right now which would need to be in place for large scale application. even if we have hydrogen infrastructure i get the feeling it will only ever be used in situations where you need a lot of power, like electric cars, home power, civil aviation (e-planes) and marine (e-boats) use as well. even then its gonna be more expensive to other alternatives available. im sure battery production will ramp up as fuel grows in price.
refuelling a fuel cell would probably be faster than recharging a battery, also where O2 is in abundance you only need to carry the hydrogen and the water is safe to just dump which means that for aircraft your fuel efficiency actually goes up the further you travel and of course a discharged battery is dead weight
aye, but your fuel cell is likely to be the size and weight of a lithium battery bank, and you still need to carry fuel. speed of refueling is of course a factor of fuel cells, so consider the hypothetical scenario of an electric passenger plane. a fuel cell is likely the optimal choice because of the reduced turnaround time, you dont have to keep your plane grounded for an hour or more to recharge the batts, just have to pump hydrogen. granted you could have removable banks that can be recharged on the ground and swapped out during ground operations. likely more expensive. should point out though that a majority of the power for a commercial aircraft is currently generated by auxiliary power units, and without those you would need an even larger power system to take up the slack. i hope that rather than e-planes commercial aviation goes hypersonic with lh2 instead, and a fuel cell would probably be your apu in that case. hypotheticals aside there still aint much of a market for it yet.
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fair point about the weight and hyper sonic would be nice though I suspect it would go the way of Concord for civilian travel unfortunately
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Fuel cells do promise a better alternative to battery-powered cars. As Top Gear put it, the reason why is because a fuel cell car fits our model of car usage (drive until fuel gets low, get to fuel station, fill up, keep some more), whereas battery-powered cars are somewhat unwieldy in that respect. That is, until someone can figure out a way to speed-charge a battery without wrecking the battery in the process.
fair point about the weight and hyper sonic would be nice though I suspect it would go the way of Concord for civilian travel unfortunately
Depends on how large you make them, and how economic their engines are. Concorde's problem, in essence, was that it was too small, it could only cater to a very limited number of passengers while burning an awful lot of fuel; I suspect that if you could get a plane that can carry as many passengers as a 777 at supersonic speeds at a ticket price that is within 150 to 200% of a normal plane, it could very well be economic enough.
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IIRC Concorde was supposed to become a whole fleet of aircraft; however, due to fuel price increasing, demand was low, therefore, prices stayed high, therefore, demand stayed low, so the fleet idea had to be canned. Concorde would have been a great idea if the price had stayed low and they could have built the fleet that they intended to.
EDIT: To clarify the following article in brief, The plan was to have a supersonic air fleet "for the masses"; but, as prices to operate the planes became too high, and new regulations that ended up increasing the price even further were put into place, the only way to turn a profit was for companies to charge exorbitantly (~$10,000 one-way sometimes!); therefore limiting travel to the wealthy and keeping demand low -- thus, the death of the fleet. ~20 Condordes were built in total.
What are the reasons for the failure of Concorde? What improvements could be made to it?
- question from Harpeet
Your question is unclear as to whether you are asking why the Concorde failed to become a success in the first place or why the airlines decided to retire the plane in 2001. In any case, the reasons are largely similar.
The design of what ultimately became Concorde began in the late 1950s when commercial air service was just beginning to become the dominant form of long-distance travel. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, technology was progressing so rapidly that the public believed high speed aircraft and even commercial space travel would become commonplace in the near future. It was this mindset that made the Concorde possible, and it was shared by other nations as well. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were also developing their own equivalents to Concorde called the Tupolev Tu-144 and the Boeing SST.
Artist concept of the 1967 Boeing SST with variable-geometry wings
(http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/concorde/boeing-sst.jpg)
Unfortunately, the politics and economy of the world changed substantially between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s when Concorde was finally ready to enter service. One of the challenges that confronted Concorde was the growth of the environmental movement that bitterly fought against the plane. Chief among the complaints of environmentalists was the noise pollution that supersonic aircraft threatened to bring. It was because of this concern that most nations banned supersonic air travel over their territories to eliminate the danger of sonic booms. This legislation forced Concorde to seek out intercontinental routes across oceans. The routes that did travel over land, such as Washington DC to Dallas and London to Bahrain, were forced to remain subsonic and cruise at Mach 0.95. This cruise speed significantly increased fuel consumption and caused the cost per flight to skyrocket, which was one of the primary reaons why both routes were abandoned within a couple of years.
A second problem that plagued Concorde was the rise in oil prices that struck the West so forcefully during the 1970s. Supersonic flight requires powerful engines that consume much more fuel than traditional airliners flying at Mach 0.8. Oil was inexpensive in the early 1960s, so the airlines had little need to worry about fuel costs when the Concorde was being designed. As the airline industry changed in the 1970s and 1980s because of deregulation and increased competition, cutting costs became necessary simply for survival. Airlines just could not afford the cost of fuel needed for supersonic aircraft, so they had no interest in planes like Concorde.
Regardless, British Airways and Air France were able to overcome these challenges as best they could and eventually turned a profit on Concorde flights. They did so by abandoning the idea of supersonic travel for the masses and instead adopting a premium service catering to the elite. Concorde was most often flown by wealthy business executives and celebrities who needed to cross the Atlantic rapidly or who were simply attracted by the special treatment offered on Concorde flights. These upper class passengers could also afford to pay exorbidant ticket prices that could be as high as $10,000 one way. This business model allowed Concorde to generate a profit for its operators until the fleet was grounded following the Air France crash in 2000.
The accident investigation that followed lasted for an extended period and revealed a number of troubling safety concerns. Both British and French authorities revoked the Concorde's airworthiness certificates and mandated several modifications to the remaining fleet before Concorde would be allowed to fly again. Both airlines felt the aircraft could still be profitable and invested millions of dollars to return Concorde to service. Once authorities had agreed that the plane was again safe to fly, passenger service resumed in September 2001.
By this time, however, the air travel industry was in a serious downturn following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The slump in business caused passenger traffic on Concorde to drop so low that the airlines were having difficulty turning a profit. The situation only became worse when Airbus, the maintenance and parts supplier for Concorde, announced that the aircraft would no longer be supported after October 2003. The loss of this support meant that the airlines would be forced to acquire all the spare parts and complete all maintenance on their own, which was simply too expensive. The Airbus decision to stop supporting Concorde coupled with the loss of passengers doomed the aircraft to retirement. As the chief executive of Airbus, Noel Forgeard, said, "The costs of operating Concorde, and in particular maintenance and support, have become such that operations are unrealistic for any operator."
As for the second part of your question, there are a number of improvements that could potentially make supersonic travel more economical. One of the most important concerns to airlines is the cost of operating an aircraft per the number of passengers it carries per mile it travels, or the "cost per seat-mile." Concorde never proved to be a commercial success because it cost too much to operate and carried too few passengers. To be a success, any future SST will need to carry at least twice as many passengers as Concorde and its fuel consumption will have to be comparable to a competing subsonic airliner.
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i like the fuel cell concept cars. battery cars only work so well if your daily usage < cars max range. so its a good take to work car, though not as flexible as something you can just re-fuel at a gas station. so long as you remember to jack it in at the end of the day, and pay your electric bill on time. car running on a fuel cell, follows the gasoline usage model. dont have to close down the gas station, just change your fuel stock.
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i like the fuel cell concept cars. battery cars only work so well if your daily usage < cars max range. so its a good take to work car, though not as flexible as something you can just re-fuel at a gas station. so long as you remember to jack it in at the end of the day, and pay your electric bill on time. car running on a fuel cell, follows the gasoline usage model. dont have to close down the gas station, just change your fuel stock.
Let's not forget the other big minus of electric vehicles - in most of the world, electricity itself is not obtained in environmentally-friendly (or efficient, on the flip side) ways. I run into the attitude in Alberta a lot among the eco-political that electric cars are an environmentally-friendly alternative to gasoline and diesel engines. They are not - our electricity comes mostly from coal-fired generators at present, which are way worse than modern gasoline and diesel automobile engines in terms of emissions.
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that argument applies to hydrogen as well. hydrogen production can be done with electricity (same problem), or chemically (bad for the environment). either way, you need nuke plants, lots and lots of them. some reactor configurations can produce hydrogen as a byproduct, and that can feed the hydrogen cars (fuel cell / hydrogen engines), and electricity produced can feed electric cars. it makes sense to utilize all available technologies and have them compete with each-other or fill niches.
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If you have enough nuke plants that = cheap power, which means instead of gas stations you could probably have electric charge / battery swap-out stations, in addition to charging at home. Rather than going nuke - hydrogen - electric, why not just nuke - electric?
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Holy crap.
What happened to the gaming stuff? :(
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It got discarded in favour of a more interesting discussion. This is HLP, get used to it.
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Like I don't already know that :lol:
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If you have enough nuke plants that = cheap power, which means instead of gas stations you could probably have electric charge / battery swap-out stations, in addition to charging at home. Rather than going nuke - hydrogen - electric, why not just nuke - electric?
Pick your poison:
- Ghastly and horrific Death by silent radiation leaks
- Instant/Burning Death by explosion
- Slow Death by air/water pollution
Survey says!
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Pick your poison:
- Ghastly and horrific Death by silent radiation leaks
- Instant/Burning Death by explosion
- Slow Death by air/water pollution
Please tell me you are being facetious.
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How far away are we from acrologies?
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This thread is locked. The first derail grew organically out of the original question, now you're just back to posting random questions. Use the GenDisc.