GDC is the Game Developers Conference. It is the main annual industry event for game developers. There are many other conferences devoted to games, and there are other “chapters” of this conference that happen in other places around the world (Austin, Europe, and Tokyo), however I recognize this as the most important one for the Western World. It is a five day conference, but the main conference and expo happen during the last three days of it. The first two days are for full day instructional tutorials. I have never been to them because they almost double the cost of attending the conference and generally don’t seem like they would “double” the overall experience. There are also smaller parallel conferences that happen at the same time for the sub-industries: mobile games, casual games, and serious games.

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The main conference has many different sessions in a variety of different formats. They cover the range of topics that face game developers in their work, and are presented as lectures, discussions, and panels. There is also an expo floor, where companies have booths set up to pitch their products, company, middleware, fancy peripherals (i.e. smell-o-vision), school, or bookstore. It’s all very exciting and often involves swag (promotional crap like t-shirts, pens, and bouncy balls). There are also nightly parties and get-togethers for various crowds to meet up and network.

1. Find out what is going on with the game development landscape.
2. Be inspired and regain some excitement about my
   career and making games.
3. Reconnect with friends and colleagues that I already know.
4. Learn about new directions and techniques in programming,
   as well as information about becoming a consultant.
5. Explore job opportunities
6. Network and meet new people

I am paying my own way for GDC this year, so it allows me more room with regards for how I spend my time here. I decided to go in November while I was still working at Mad Doc, even though they were not going to sponsor me beyond three days of vacation time. These were my original goals, and though my income has changed, my underlying reasons for going had not.

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Preface: This is pretty long, so I only have one version of it here for now. The first one I wrote talked about MUXs and binary and was far too complex for my first intended audience. After a run past my editor, I ended up writing this one. The original is now in a state of disrepair and needs to be rewritten itself.

Anyway, Here we go.

At the most basic level a computer is a whole bunch of highly organized switches connected to each other in a very complex way. The most basic organization of these switches is into logical circuits. A good example of one of these is a light in your home that is simultaneously controlled by two switches. These switches are called inputs, and the light is the output. The light may be on only if both light switches are up (in the on position), if either or both is up, if only one of them is up, or any other arrangement as long as it is consistent.This simple device, two light switches controlling one light, or two inputs controlling one output is the basic building block that nearly every computer is built on. Making the outputs from one switch/light set feed into the inputs of a different switch/light set is the next step. Using our example imagine that the light in your home controlled by two switches now itself becomes one of two switches that controls a different light. This is what is essentially going on inside your computer, only there are millions of these tiny switches with their inputs and outputs interconnected in highly complex, yet logical networks.

These switch networks are everywhere inside your computer, but let’s try to think of them inside your main core processor. This is that big chip that has all those heat sinks and fans all around it if you opened up your computer. You might not be able to see the chip itself since it is encased in a protective cover and has all that cooling hardware on it, but you’ll recognize where it is. If you have ever seen a processor, any kind of chip, or even a monitor plug, you will see that it has pins on it. You may wonder how so few pins can be used to control everything, after all your monitor plug only has less than 30 pins on it. How can that possibly control every pixel on your monitor using only on or off? Each of those pins can have a charge on it or no charge on it, on or off, just like the switches and the light. There is a clock inside your computer too that ticks off very fast and the charges on those pins will be different on each tick. When you hear a processor speed is 1GHz (gigahertz) that means that every second, that clock ticks off about 1,000 times, and each time your main processor can have a different input and different outputs.

There is a lot going on inside your processor, and far more inputs that can be accessed than there are pins. Along with the clock ticks, there is a selection scheme going on where some of the input pins are used to select what the other pins are being used for.

A processor is set up to process simple commands called instructions. Generally these have three inputs and one output. One input is the instruction and the other two inputs are numbers. They are actually all just numbers, represented as a string of 1s and 0s (on and off). The first input is the number which indexes a specific network of logic switches on the processor. The other inputs might be two numbers you wish to add, a number and a memory location to store it in, two memory locations you wish to add, or even an index to another instruction or list of instructions. Converting these numbers into a more readable format is called assembly language.

Here is a short example of an ADD instruction on a 4 bit processor. Remember that whenever a computer handles a number it is represented using a string of 1s and 0s. To keep things simple numbers will be shown the way you are used to, and marked bold. On this processor the ADD instruction is the 5th instruction this processor can do, so it is indexed by 5. To tell the processor to add one and one we would send the following three inputs: 5 1 1. The first one tells the processor to add the other two numbers. The answer would be stored in a standard location on the processor, so then if you wanted to use that number again you might use a slightly different ADD instruction (with a different index) which does the same thing (adding), but uses the number in the first register and another number you provide. Programs are not written this way, but whatever language you are using is converted to a list of these instructions using another program called a compiler. When you run a program on your computer, you are basically running a list of instructions made up of these simple three input, one output commands to the processor.

Whew… ok that should give you a basic idea of what is going on. I have been focusing mostly on what is going on in the processor, but it’s the same sort of thing happening everywhere else in the computer. Instructions and numbers to use with them are moving all over the place: saved in memory, retrieved from memory, retrieved from a hard disk/DVD/flash drive, shown as a colored pixel on the monitor. There are smaller processors and bits of memory all over the place that are maybe not as powerful or as fast as the main processor. Yet they are functional enough to handle requests and help make decisions about the information that is sent to it and what to do with information coming from it.

When you turn your computer on, the first thing that happens is all the different components get power. The one plug in the back of your computer is converted and split into various voltages and currents and is distributed to all the individual components in your computer (i.e. processor, CD/DVD drives, fans, etc). The next thing that happens is a computer chip called the BIOS takes control and starts running a program stored in its memory. The program is saved in memory sort of like what is on a flash drive, nothing moves to access it and turning off the power does not erase it. The BIOS program talks to the main system board (called a motherboard) and finds out what is connected to it. The first thing it looks for is a monitor and a keyboard and then gives you the opportunity to enter its configuration options. After that it continues to look for and initialize all the other parts that are attached to it like hard drives, mice, sound cards, etc. If there is a problem with your system hardware you might see it now. Finally your BIOS tells your operating system (Windows, Mac OS, etc) to start and that program starts to run.

No matter how your computer is set up, they all operate with these same basic principles. Even your cell phone uses these simple switches interconnected in a very complex way to run a pre-programmed set of instructions.

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If I learned anything from Eric today, it was that consulting isn’t as glamorous as I had originally suspected or hoped. I think that I will eventually take on a small project from some posting that I find online. It will be something that I can do reasonably well and will take no more than a couple of weeks to finish. This will hopefully give me a good idea of what it is really like to work from home.

I ordered a book yesterday from Amazon about consulting: Getting Started in Consulting by Alan Weiss.  I am hoping it will help get me started on exploring this new opportunity.

Eric gave me a couple of ideas for directions I could take as well. He recommended that I look at learning flash or some other web technology since these skills are in high demand and projects that require them are easily broken apart and done as smaller projects. He also suggested I look into putting my blog, or at least part of it, into wiki format.

I had never considered consulting before because of the risk and just the whole open-endedness of it. However, I am in a situation right now that gives me the opportunity to check this out and see what it is like. I am still a little anxious about the whole thing, and part of me thinks that beginning to explore this new direction will give me a good shove back into a relationship with another company. If there was or ever will be a good time for this, it is now, so I may as take advantage of this time and find out.

Here are the specs for my new machine (ookie):
Motherboard:
>>ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP
Processor:
>>Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Memory:
>>GeIL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800
Power Supply:
>>OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W

I hope they get here soon. I am really excited about this new 8400 processor. It’s supposed to be slightly faster than the 6850, cost quite a bit less, and run cooler using the 45nm technology.

What are Dummy Books?

I purchased one of these while I was in college for a class: Tcl/Tk for Dummies. Aside from numerous spelling and factual errors, the book was not easy to use, nor did I get much out of it. I find the basic concept of these books a little offensive, they begin with the presumption that people are stupid and that this is the best book to explain things to them as if they had no background on the subject. Neither of these things are true. If you ever consider buying one, have a second look at what else is available. Usually you can find what you need somewhere else.

My take is that everyone comes to a place with a different experience and a different set of knowledge that they
have obtained in their travels. Someone that doesn’t understand the technical details of how a file system works might
know a million times more than me about pop culture, but that doesn’t make them or I idiots (dummy’s).