Joined in middle school, started high school, graduated high school, started undergrad, graduated college, and you guys are STILL here.

What is wrong with you guys, . Good to be back, though.

I think I remember you. Unless there was someone named BitMuncher.

I think my first account here was in 2000, possibly earlier. I started using Allegro with I was working for a company doing Y2K compliance, so I was definitely using it before 2000.

It's a place where I find old friends and so known trolls that I love.
And for what I do, I keep rocking baby !

Welcome back, n00b

I joined my last year of high school. Now I've graduated Uni and I've completed 2 years of my career.
My first post https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/601818

At that point, I had been programming in VB .NET since November 2008, and was trying to learn C++.

This forum was made in the days when quality actually mattered, instead of quantity. Too bad it's been so neglected the last few years... Could use a little oil in the gears...

I joined back in high school. (2004-ish?) I lurked for a year or so before joining however.

Yup. Doesn't feel like it's been 13 or so years at all.

Edit: Looks like became a member in 2013! So I was lurking back in 2002. That means I've been occasionally browsing a.cc for nearly half my life thus far...

I joined in 2005, but started using Allegro in 2004 for a school project. My activity has tapered off over the past decade, but still drop by once in a while to see what's happening.

So 12 years...I wonder who all have passed since I joined...

Back in my day ...

2001

Actually used to visit the old "Allegro Depot" before Allegro.cc came along and replaced it.

Joined 2006, mostly lurk. Has anyone heard from ML recently?

He hasn't been very active for a few years, but he' still around. I wish he would allow someone else to improve the forum, though.

01-31-2002 3:19 PM

One reason I won't leave is ... I've been here so long I'd hate to move on.

I Still Remember When I First Posted Here And Capitalized Every Word Like Some Lunatic.

[edit]

It seems like everyone has moved to SFML from SDL and Allegro. But I don't know. We don't do any community outreach so that might have contributed to our problem. No idea if it's really "better." My game(s) will likely have my own "engine" layer on top that abstracts away most of Allegro anyway so if something were to go poof I could easily add another hardware library.

At first glance, this really doesn't look any different than DAllegro + Allegro5 (which throws everything in a namespace).

Although it looks like our naming convention is more "on the metal" and we don't hide what's going on. Like al_flip_display() vs "display()". Both are likely doing the same thing, but they hide the details behind a much more abstract name. As an experienced programmer, I wouldn't care. But as a newbie, I'm glad I learned on A4, and A5 so I actually understand what's going on down to the metal.

I mean, I often have questions about Allegro and I simply just look through the Allegro source code to see what it's doing.

Joined Aug 2009 .... pwahaha kids... get off my lawn!

@Katko
That SFML sample looks nice and tidy. I don't see any kind of a monolith option with SFML from first glance, which makes for messy projects. The fact that a circle comes with a default position of 0,0 centered on the screen is a little odd.

Joined this around... 2002 I think? It says under my name. Lurked these forums before that, used the email chat list we had before this and started using Allegro around... 1996 I think it was, 21 years ago now... wow.

To be honest, I have been playing around with SDL2 lately and liking it. I think Allegro lost it's edge when they made Allegro 5. Though I have used it and it works well (when you can get it compiled... by someone else), Allegro 4 was simpler in many respects and I feel that is what attracted people to it. Plus I was able to compile Allegro 4 with no problems. I have never compiled Allegro 5 successfully, and this, combined with the fact it is difficult to get a good working build, is what is killing it.

We're quite old, aren't we?

I like the old API (and functionality) too, and I was a bit active in discussions in the mailing lists when it was being desinged. Anyway, I like Allegro 5 more than any SDL though.

Unless you are messing with the library itself, just download the binaries. I work with visual studio and installing Allegro is easy with the Nuget package.

It was tricky but I was able to compile A5 a while ago. The hardest part about that was finding all the secondary libraries to download. I skipped a few because I didn't need them for what I was doing at the time.

I miss certain aspects of A4, but I like A5 so much better. Switching to 'Event driven' processing was something I had to work on.

Ultimately, event driven processing is far superior to polling.

QFT

Thanks to denial, I'll live forever!

Well, in 1996 when I first started using Allegro I was 31 years old. Started using computers when I was around 14 or 15, around 1979-1980. So yup, I am now! Only 52 at the moment though, which may seem old to some, but trust me, it isn't once you get here, and you get to this age MUCH faster than you can imagine! Especially once you hit your 40s!

Oh, one thing I really love about SDL2, (SDL2 Mixer that is) is that I can play my old Amiga MOD music files! That was too awesome as they sound great for video games and are really small in size.

Man, I'd love to probe your brain. You've got to have so much perspective and experience at that age. (That probably sounds sarcastic but I'm being honest.) About all kinds of sweet bass old technology. How was FORTRAN and COBOL? My Dad took one of the first "computer" engineering degrees and had to program on punchcards "during his turn" on a shared mainframe.

That's one thing I've learned in my late-20s, and now as I'm past 30. Age doesn't give wisdom, it gives perspective and if you're smart you'll use it to gain wisdom--but it's not automatic.

Same here. I'm waiting for a MOD/MIDI add-on for Allegro 5 (I haven't knowledge enough right now to do it by myself ).

I thought Allegro5's audio addon could play MOD files using libdumb? I've never tried it, though.

I thought that too. Worst case it couldn't be that hard to interface to a separate mod playing library like fmod, or, writing your own / adapting libdumb--I can't imagine modules are "that" hard to play, their entire design was one of practicality. A list of patterns, a list of pattern order, BPM, and a bunch of samples. They didn't even have "instruments", IIRC, until XM/IT file formats.

Are you guys trolling or something? Of course A5's audio add-on (i.e. DUMB) plays MOD files. I thought that was common knowledge.

I did just notice, however, that there does not seem to be an example program for MOD playback.

I honestly never checked and thought it wasn't ported to A5. Fair enough.

I didn't saw such information in documentation, and an example should help too.

http://liballeg.org/a5docs/trunk/acodec.html

Maybe you guys don't have DUMB installed? I'm not sure how it works, as I install DUMB on pretty much every system I own.

Sorry, but my fantastic powers of ESP aren't working. There is no documentation or examples of how to use that at all. You need to quit assuming that people can guess what the library can do and provide solid documentation and examples.

SDL2 + SDL2 Mixer had plenty of examples. I got it working with it with no problems.

This is some the code from my own experiments (aside from the usual SDL init stuff) to load and play MODs in SDL2 Mixer, minus the error checks...

// load support for the OGG and MOD sample/music formats
Mix_Init(MIX_INIT_OGG | MIX_INIT_MOD);
Mix_OpenAudio(22050, MIX_DEFAULT_FORMAT, 2, 4096);

Mix_Music *title_music = Mix_LoadMUS("Title.mod");
Mix_PlayMusic(title_music, -1);   // Play title music in an infinite loop

Too easy, and I have barely gotten started with SDL2 but it was easy to implement.

Got an Allegro 5 example? I would love to try it out.

Me too.

There is something similar-ish that wasn't ported, and that's the MIDI infrastructure and the DIGMID driver. As I recall, it allocated some voices synchronously, then used a timer interrupt to start/stop/reassign those voices in response to MIDI events. Designed for DOS where you had one 'thread' and then interrupts where everything was dangerous.

Although I liked the ingenuity at the time, it didn't make a great deal of sense (at least for MIDI files where the timing information is embedded), because you want those events timed in terms of sampling positions in the audio output, not done using a parallel clock that isn't well synchronised with the audio output. JGMOD was an Allegro add-on that did MOD playback using the same approach, but DUMB and most other mod players work with sampling positions.

[EDIT]
<-- Do I win the thread?

Agreed. A5 gives you a lot of control but it doesn't make simple things simple, like A4 did.

For instance, most programs I would guess need to create an event queue and attach an event source from the display; this should be made easier.

For instance, the examples (Skater, Allegroids and the other one) all use different methods to do the main loop. There should be one simple way to do this.

Where you need extra control, that should not be the default. Just needs a few helper methods I suppose.

Regarding age, I definitely used Allegro 3.x in the last century, before that I was using xlib with Borland. But for some reason I didn't sign up to a.cc until 2001. Was there another site for Allegro at that time? (Allegro Games Depot or something?)

[edit] Aha! http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131793/allegro_inspires_a_new_generation_.php

When you have Allegro built with DUMB, minus initialization and error checking, the shortest way boils down to:

al_init_acodec_addon(); // Don't forget.

al_reserve_samples(NO_SAMPLES); // Creates default mixer.

// You can pick NO_BUFFERS=8 and SAMPLES_PER_BUFFER=1024 for a start
ALLEGRO_AUDIO_STREAM *stream = al_load_audio_stream("yourmodfile.mod",
                                                    NO_BUFFERS, SAMPLES_PER_BUFFER);
al_attach_audio_stream_to_mixer(stream, al_get_default_mixer());
// It will play once... You can make it loop by calling
al_set_audio_stream_playmode(stream, ALLEGRO_PLAYMODE_LOOP);

NO_SAMPLES may be 0 here, this refers to the number of samples that can be played simultaneously with al_play_sample.

So you can just load it as any other audio stream. You don't need to call DUMB yourself at all, you just need Allegro built with DUMB. Under Linux, it seems to be available via the libdumb1 package. I'm not so fluent with Windows binaries, but it is included in SiegeLord's allegro_winpkg.

You can also get a nice ALLEGRO_EVENT_AUDIO_STREAM_FINISHED event when the stream finishes playing, as it's also an event source.

As for the docs, I've noticed there is no FAQ for Allegro5. This would be a candidate.

I really don't see what's so overly complex about Allegro 5. Even SFML has basically the same functions, in the same order, just with different names.

I think it's more an issue of documentation and really, community interest / advertising. If more big games used Allegro, everyone would know about it.

Factorio uses Allegro 5. But they're not exactly going out of their way to brag about it.

But all game programming libraries took a serious hit when "game engines" became common place. Now you don't have to be a programmer. You can just "start making a game" instead of writing boilerplate engine code and having to learn "how physics work" and how to design a game loop, etc.

I'm still not entirely sure why SDL has much more recognition. When it comes to games that are multi-platform and open source, SDL is ubiquitous. Everything "gets ported to SDL" eventually. OpenTTD. OpenRCT. OpenRA. OpenGlad. Hell, I think Unreal Engine 4 even supports SDL as a backend on Linux.

I don't know much about SDL. I imagine part of it is that it's a simpler damn name. That shit can matter when it comes to competition. In any case, we also lost several key members here over the years for various reasons. That has a lot to do with it. And for a while people were downright hostile here on the forums. It stopped being a friendly place. It became a place where you didn't want to post. The Allegro community is barren now so when newbies find us they don't find a thriving community. They find a community that looks like it just started and don't understand the history behind it. SDL is presumably still on fire like Allegro was 10 years ago. Of course, I never really found much use for Allegro personally. I found that I was not a very good game programmer. But I learned a lot about programming in general from these forums, as well as off-topic ordeals, which is why I stick around. Maybe someday I'll figure out the missing pieces to develop a game...

I joined right around 2007. I started programming in C and C++ messing with the command line and interactive programming but I needed a graphics library, and the first thing google came up with worth anything was Allegro 4. I actually started programming when I was like 10, with GWBasic making simple screen drawing programs. I missed that, and I didn't program for a long time, until I was in my late twenties.

I found the allegro forums, and it was a fantastic format for question and answer. I loved helping people out, and I made the most detailed posts. I posted my questions, and people were usually quick to help. I've never felt unwelcome on the forums. We've had our fights, but we always make up.

Sometimes it gets heated, seems a few people have had their feelings hurt, and a few people left. Most people just grew up and got jobs and families to take care of. Our incoming newbies haven't been staying as long, or people are just lurking these days, but our intake has been less than our outtake, and our community has been shrinking. It doesn't help that a.cc has mostly been put on the back burner. Files page is severely out of date, and people get distracted by a.cc and miss liballeg.org and the wiki, and it leads to endless confusion.

EDIT
In fact, May 2017 was my 10 year anniversary here at a.cc. yay!

_o/
[]
/|

Thanks.

When SDL is mentioned, these are the two videos I think of:
Getting Started with Linux Game Development

Oh, I forgot. Another thing that took A.CC down some was Stack Overflow being the "goto" for questions, and Reddit being the goto for "cool links to share with people."

That being said, SDL still seems to have survived much better. And I have no idea how the newer up-and-comer SFML became so popular.

I need to spend some more time investigating their APIs but I'm really thinking it has nothing to do with API structure. They're all thin wrappers around DirectX, OpenGL, etc. You can't abstract away the fact a screen has a resolution, a refresh rate, windowed vs fullscreen, etc. Comparing 7 lines of API code to 5 lines of API code for X library vs Y library cannot be a significant reason for the disparity. My only guess is the integration or attraction of people with community connections or skillsets. Either acadamia (e.g. game dev schools using SDL because it showed up first on Google or whatever.), or a few notable guys working for notable companies making notable products.

IIRC, SDL was written by a company that was developing ports of games to Linux / MacOS and needed a cross-platform layer. So that's instantly more industry exposure than most of us have with the sole exception of the long departed Shawn Hargreaves.

As long as you guys keep supporting Allegro 5, I'll keep name dropping it whenever I make a product that uses it. I've got a couple in the pipeline. But as always... health and life (hugely behind in work!) issues have been taking precedence.

I've got a really cool utility I think will make a big PR/viral splash when I get it running. But I'm trying to keep it secret right now because the idea is so novel.

--

Not sure if we should start another thread for this but... what does Allegro 5 really lack at this point? Other than rigorous bug testing / unit testing on many platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, iOS and Android), are there any features that really need done?

- A network library is, as we've discussed, a "bad idea". Newbies like it, but we should at least have a FAQ and explain why it's a bad idea. (IIRC, great network libs exist already, and network libraries are usually so coupled to a custom game that taking a pre-packaged one can be a real PITA.)

- A proper FAQ.

- Wiki work. Tutorials. Articles? Etc?

- Is there any kind of PR work we can do? Great articles submitted to Gamesutra? (Can anyone submit them?) Articles submitted to Reddit and Hacker News.

- YouTube videos.

I'm actually planning on doing some YouTube videos on game development subjects (as well as many others like physics). As mentioned, I'll be name dropping Allegro.CC/A5/etc.

Lastly, slightly related: I just uploaded an hour ago my 15 minute speedrun of Fallout 1!

I just found out about, downloaded and tried KDENLIVE which is a FOSS non-linear video editor. It's AMAZING on first impression. Exactly the kind of "full editor" you expect it to be like Adobe Premiere when I was in high school. It has tracks, clip editing, effects and transitions. And outputs to any format, framerate, etc. I JUST started with it but so far I found it to be fairly straight forward. In this video, I had to edit out all the times I saved the game (because they don't count for time, and also, they they're kind of annoying to the flow of watching the gameplay).

Now that I found a non-linear editor I can finally use (that's free!), I'm going to start making more videos, of higher complexity and production value. This video was kind of a short test of those skills since I have zero modern experience in video editing and all my previous uploads have been simply 1-to-1 captures from Open Broadcast Studio.

The thing that attracts me to SDL2 (and I haven't created anything with it aside from some test projects) is the support, it is updated quite regularly, there are always builds available for download for all platforms and in 32 and 64bit and they work as intended. There are many addons for it to cover other support you may want (Mixer comes to mind). I personally was able to easily compile SDL2 GFX addon for MinGW into a library as it was the only one I found where I couldn't get something for MinGW. It was a breeze and worked no problems.

There's plenty of documentation and tutorials out there.

I love Allegro, used it since I first started C programming in the '90s, but the support for it has become sporadic and the builds may or may not include everything you wish and may or may not work. Also, I strongly feel Allegro 1-4 was loved for it's ease of use, Allegro 5 changed all that. Now SDL, SFML etc... are all fairly similar to Allegro 5, but that is the problem. They are all t he same, so what is there to make Allegro stand out? Nothing. If a new Allegro went back to the old ways like Allegro in the past where things were made simple. You don't NEED to support every little thing out there with every feature possible, but mainly the common elements and make it simple to use. The audio part of Allegro 5 is horrendous compared to Allegro 4! In my Deluxe Pacman 1 game, which uses Allegro 4 I was easily able to change the pitch of the sound, gradually over time. I would raise the pitch as the player ate the pills but in Allegro 5, I need to jump through hoops to do it and there is no clear documentation on how to achieve this.

The fact that I just got started with SDL2 and I was easily able to figure out how to get started in things like audio and graphics without having to ask ANYONE any questions online at all, speaks volumes about it and why people gravitate towards it. I don't want to have to post online and wait a week for replies to figure out something that should have documentation with examples.

I may just reprogram my game with SDL2 just to compare functionality and my experience between the two. I'll say one thing in favour of Allegro 5 right now, it's physfs support is nice. It is looking like more of a task to do something similar with SDL2.

The two videos I linked pretty much say why SDL took off compared to Allegro. SDL, being used to port AAA titles to Linux and Mac, getting a huge push by being used by Valve for the Steam App on Linux.

SFML is only getting a push because of how the C++ Standard and the committee appears to be edging out C. Honestly that is the only reason I see people recommend SFML, because it is written in "native C++".

Same way with Amazon's Lumberyard engine and the Vulkan API. People are swearing by them solely because AAA devs and big name indie devs are using them. When I looked into it, most articles said Vulkan and DirectX were similar API wise and the main reason to chose between them was because DirectX was Windows 10 and Xbox One while Vulkan supports Windows 7 and 8, giving you a larger consumer base.

Honestly, that seems to be the only determining factor in recent years. Do AAA or big name indies use the engine, tool, library, etc.? Yes? Then learn it. No? Then move on. I wish I could say it was more in-depth, but the more I see on game development sites the more I really think it is just that factor.

Then you get into the fact that with Game Maker, Unity, Unreal, etc. It's easier to learn C# and Unity tutorials to do 2D and 3D games cutting out the libraries altogether.

I weep when I see new game developers whom I've talked to on social media refer to making a game with C/C++ and Allegro/SFML/SDL as doing it 'old school'.

Thank you for sharing. I didn't know about that, but it seems like a nicer way to upload demos!

I haven't tried KDENLIVE yet, but it also sounds like a useful tool.

I'll never use a library written with C++, I want speed and C is the closest one can get to machine code without using machine code. C is also more portable. C++ is not.

With that said, I checked out SFML and it does seem like a nice little library, but I see no reason to use it over SDL2 or Allegro to be honest. Anyone who feels it will be somehow more compatible with C++ only shows off their ignorance. Besides, I still program in C, C++ is too convoluted for my tastes.

There's a really good talk on SDL here...

Around 6:10 into it he mentions why C is the best to use over C++ for the library.

Sigh. Old timers. STL. Smart pointers. Destructors. Exceptions. Classes. C++. Nuff said.

For a library maybe, but for an app, no. An hour talk, admittedly with zero code. Great. I'm not gonna waste my time.

I'm not surprised. But, my comment, if you look back and actually learn to read, was about what the LIBRARY WAS WRITTEN IN.

How do you know there is zero code when you didn't watch it? I won't waste my time with anything you do from now on either. It's a two way street buddy.

"Old timers" my ass. All of the libraries that are worth using, INCLUDING ALLEGRO are written in C! There's nothing "old" about it!!! Grow a brain. You insulting little puke!

Overreact much?

You're so stuck in your ways, you'll never change.

The guy himself says about 2 minutes in there isn't any code.

Besides, I hate videos. They take forever, and they rarely teach you anything when it comes to coding. An hour of watching a guy click buttons on his IDE's GUI. Woo. Hoo.

Except for most GUI libraries, like WxWidgets and Qt. Doing the exact same thing in C that you could do in C++ takes like 10x longer, and is way more inconvenient. As for a compiler not being able to generate good machine code for C++ as opposed to for C, that is just bullshit.

Ah such a friendly community over here. Feels just like home.

It's the Christian way.

Have you guys heard about our lord and savior, the Devil?

https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/616950/1031370#target

Ah, okay, sorry Specter Phoenix, I didn't notice you posted it. Funny how Edgar didn't feel the need to attack you when you posted a link to it. Not a peep from him until I did.

Edgar can't even make up his mind what he likes and doesn't like...

Clearly I was talking about coding a library... then later on in Edgar's reply to me he says...

Duh? Clearly he cannot read. He's still figuring out that a static library shouldn't need DLLs after all so... this is no surprise.

Sorry, perhaps I "over reacted" a little, but I was having a normal conversation in here when I was insulted. Because my views differ doesn't make me an "old timer".

Naturally bamccaig and Chris Katko want to start religious insults. It's no wonder people don't stay around these forums.

The sooner this place dies the better.

At work we are porting a legacy Windows XP Embedded point-of-sale application written in C++ with MFC and DirectDraw to a Linux platform (turns out not many vendors offer Windows based POS devices at competitive costs these days). We are very seriously considering using SDL2 for the graphics, audio, input and network components. (It's a touch screen point-of-sale system that also drives a customer facing screen with videos and animations). The original developer (this dates back to the late 90's) was a pascal programmer who didn't really understand C++, or how to use the Win32 api ... so he resorted to making his own GUI using DirectDraw. Now we are at the point where the hardware needed to keep these devices running is starting to become scarce. Apparently some analysts have done the math and by 2019 the hardware will be failing at a rate faster than we'll be able to replace so we need to port what we have to a new hardware platform (which also means a new OS).

I thought of suggesting allegro5, but I knew it would be much easier to get support from upper management by suggesting SDL2. As already pointed out there a quite a few high profile titles that have been made using SDL.

One of our architects wants to do the whole thing in Python. I don't like that architect anymore.

Yeah, a few former A.cc guys I still email or talk to via social media have left here for SDL. Thinking the guy that used to run Loomsoft even uses SDL now. The problem with Allegro is PR. There was one book written about Allegro (11 years ago), but that author says it's too much of a niche library and his publisher isn't getting enough demand to make new editions of it. You have Steam pushing SDL, 5 or so books for SFML game development, Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, etc. It's really understandable why Allegro is falling behind, little to no promotion. Can't remember if it was DreamInCode or cplusplus.com, but a few thought Allegro had already died years ago during the Allegro 3.9.X WIP. The perception that some members may be volatile doesn't improve the matters either.

1. Shit talking doesn't enter into the programming forum, only the off-topic.

2. Volatile? Have you ever been to Reddit? Twitter? Hell, Stack Overflow mods will ban your post for being "off-topic" as fast as it can. I can't even count the amount of times I've heard the n-word the second I joined a game with a voice chat. Have you EVER HEARD ANYONE HERE use a racial slur against one of the forum members? (Hell no, they'd be banned.)

I think it's funny how quickly a Christian and an Atheist can be lopped together. Just because I'm secure in my spirituality that I can joke about it, I must be some sicko.

On of my favorite jokes growing up was asking "Is hell really that bad? I mean, all the cool people you know are going there. All the good comedians and musicians. Elevator and train to hell? They've got infrastructure. What's heaven got? Stairs and pearly gates. Do you really want to live in a gated community? And one that doesn't have wheelchair access for handicapped people? Trumpet music. Yeah, that won't get old after 300 centuries. Give me wherever Van Halen and Freddy Mercury end up. Imagine a century long rock concert with all of Hell's pyro technics."

It's not my fault cmake wants to link everything dynamically. ;P

You get offended way too easy.

Also I know you were talking about a library, and naturally I got it offended because I've spent the last 6-7 years writing g a GUI library in C++. Clearly I should put a disclaimer in the license that warns 'old timers' to stay away. It was a joke. Laugh. Haha. Funny.

Also, being called a Sunday Christian and a Roman Catholic conspirer doesn't exactly win you points in my book.

And let's not forget, you can't even compile Allegro yourself, but you're more than willing to use my binaries.

Pot meet kettle. Now go and stew.

Lots of topics in this thread. I'll do my best to address each one.

I started with Allegro 4 sometime in 2011 or 2012, but didn't make an account here until 2013. I was in high school then. I only spent about two months with Allegro 4 before moving onto Allegro 5. I remember learning Allegro 5 being difficult compared to Allegro 4. Maybe it was due to just how different the two APIs were/are. But anyway, I've stuck with Allegro 5 ever since, and think it has more to offer than Allegro 4, but I do sometimes miss the simplicity of Allegro 4. I also tried SDL for a short time, but didn't like the API too much.

Lately I've lost interest in writing games in C++ and have become interested in writing games for the Web in JavaScript using the canvas API. I enjoy that I don't have to make binaries of games for multiple platforms; I just write games in JavaScript and modern Web browsers handle the rest. There are some limitations of JavaScript and of the Web as a whole compared to compiled languages for desktop though, of course. I even wrote (and am still working on) a small library that wraps around the canvas API to simplify some tasks. It's called "Momo" and is on GitHub under the MIT license.

I think that libraries still have a place in this engine-dominated world, but they aren't as popular as before. This is mostly due to fancy engines becoming easily accessible and affordable (many are free to use). It's kind of sad how many people new to game programming miss out on better understanding how things work closer to the metal, as engines tend to handle most of that for you.

I was talking to a classmate of mine a semester or so back about the topic of engines. He was pursuing some game design degree at the time. He had an idea for a game, and I suggested he write his own game engine to get some experience and just for the fun of it (I even suggested Allegro 5 ). The gist of his reply was that no one writes their own engines anymore; you don't have to because tried-and-tested engines handle all of that for you. I understood where he was coming from, but felt he would be missing out if he didn't at least explore boilerplate code and writing his own simple engines before abandoning all of that for using an engine written by someone else. Point is, to this guy, libraries and DIY stuff is old fashioned. Engines are the way of the future, man...

I certainly think engines are good, whether you write your own or use one built by someone else, but I personally prefer the freedom and flexibility of a good library. As for Allegro, it does everything I want it to and then some. I can't think of any design flaws or features that I'd need right now. I think Allegro as a community could grow by improving PR efforts. Mention Allegro in your games, share links to events/contests centered around Allegro, etc. Every little bit helps.

Chris, what was your point? I said the perception of volatile members doesn't help, but then you listed sites that proved my point. Reddit is constantly compared to 4chan/8chan. Twitter is tanking due to how they are overreacting to volatile characters. SO is so strict that most programmers I know say to use it as a search utility and ask questions somewhere else due to the bans for off-topic questions and constant closing of questions as being duplicate questions.

It all boils down to PR. Allegro is just too self contained. Allegro has had some great games made with it, but they aren't known outside the site and community. I found out about Allegro because I had stumbled upon Johan Pietz's Operation Spacehog DOS game, emailed him asking how to get into game development. That is when he recommended DJGPP/Rhide and Allegro. Johan has made a lot of great quality games with Allegro. As has Sirocco with his Fenix Blade and other games. Trent and MonsterRPG 1 & 2. The problem is that the games are, for the most part, only known to the people on this site. MonsterRPG and Icy Tower are the only two games I can think of that have gained any popularity outside this site, but even then I don't think they promote Allegro anywhere in their load screens or text.

[Append]: I noticed that SDL's page, every time I refresh it, it shows what AAA and indie games are made with it. After the fifth time I stopped refreshing:
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Actually, the only thing I have compiled with your binaries, is my game in order to figure out where you went wrong with your build. I haven't actually coded anything with it nor released anything with the last build you did. At all. I am switching to SDL2, so don't worry, I won't be bothering you with bug reports on any of your builds again.

As for me not compiling it, that's the problem. I doubt you will find very many people in here that have or can compile the convoluted mess that is Allegro 5. And why bother when SDL2 has a bot that automatically compiles nightly builds I can download anytime I wish.

Anyhow, my original comment still stands, and that is that SDL2, Allegro etc... are all built with C code for good reason. It wasn't an attack on you (though you seem to take it that way), it wasn't even a reply to anything you said.

As for religion... this is a programming forum, I am leaving my beliefs out of this from now on. Period. So, believe what you wish. I believe in C. C++ is evil.

P.S: That video I linked to, which you thought didn't have code examples, does. He provides several, like where he compares the recommended way DirectX has to open a window and how to do it with SDL2, or the code examples he gives for using SDL2 with OpenGL (see screenshot below from video). Forgetting our disagreements, you really should check it out, he does a nice job covering what they have done with that library and it is truly impressive, I like how they think and the direction they are going with it.

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IIRC, on Linux its like:

$ ./configure
$ cd build
$ cmake ..

done.

I regularly run the newest Github branch. Why wait for bugfixes to hit binaries!

And nothing you've posted or I've seen with SDL has actually shown a feature that Allegro doesn't already have... they're even comparable in lines of code... so what are we arguing about here? Some sort of epic debate that boils down to CamelCase verses under_scored?

If you're using configure, you don't need cmake, vice versa.

It's more like ;

pacman -S lots_of_libraries here
git clone allegro...
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -OPTIONS_HERE ..
make
make install

Omg guys

It's a breeze on Linux.

Oh Your God? Here we go again. ;P

Well, too bad. Your loss.

It's actually not that hard. It's just that if you want any features, then you need all the dependencies. Luckily there are still people out there who don't mind going to all the trouble of doing it all for you. <wink wink>. It's even easier to install on VS now with Nuget and all.

It's actually three steps on windows with some version of mingw :

cmake -OPTION ..
(mingw32-)make
(mingw32-)make install

But that's too hard. :/

SDL is even more convoluted if you ask me. They have just as many different addon libraries as allegro does. The fact you can get a single monolithic binary for allegro beats sdl in that department.

SRSLY though, Allegro and SDL are not that different. You can do pretty much exactly the same damn things in one you can do in the other. Allegro comes with a shit tonne of examples, and three full demo games. What does SDL come with? It hurts allegro a little bit that the example programs aren't distributed with the binaries like they are with mine. You shouldn't have to compile allegro to test the example programs.

Browsing through some SDL and OpenGL code and came across this gem :

if (!mainwindow) /* Die if creation failed */
        sdldie("Unable to create window");

I'd like to call that function from my code too...(The actual function is SDL_Quit())...

Kindly point out where that is....

https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_net/

Hey guys, let's start a new library to fight over. It should be written in C and be called orgellA.

IIRC, Allegro5 has some more or less significant features SDL hasn't, something to do with primitives and transformations. The API is also much more readable for my tastes. I don't have much SDL experience though, merely ported something over to Allegro for private use.

Calling any of them "a convoluted mess" probably says more about the poster than the library though.

That is the most horrific example of a "benefit" SDL has over Allegro. There's a reason people use professionally-supported 3rd party network libraries, or, write their own. API coupling, and performance. Adding a pre-canned networking layer is the opposite of what Allegro is--unobtrusive.

Moreover, SDL_NET appears to a thin layer over the already portable berkeley sockets... they even use global error codes.

https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_net/docs/SDL_net.html

Pray to God you never want to multi-thread your program...

You didn't say it had to be a benefit. You said:

SDL_Net is something Allegro does not already have, hence the " "

Honestly, a networking addon could certainly be a useful addition to the library. You won't be able to solve the problem for everybody, but if you solve the problem for the average beginner that could make Allegro much more useful out of the box. It can be difficult to get networking right, and learning a fully-fledged second library is another hurdle to getting work done. Providing a simplified interface to network Allegro games or servers together could be useful (I think it would be best if it wasn't dependent on liballegro_5 so that you could use it on an X-less, headless server without having to install all of those graphical dependencies for Allegro). It's certainly not necessary for Allegro's niche, but it could provide value to users of Allegro.

Allegro comes with a networking example now. It uses enet. It's all in my binaries.

In Allegro's favour, PhysFS works well where as there is no such thing (that I know of) for SDL, not that there's much of of a difference between storing in a plain, unsecured ZIP and an ordinary folder.

As for compiling Allegro... compiling it on Linux is useless if I am using Windows, so saying it compiles fine on Linux is just a stupid statement. You have people with different platforms and if this is the attitude towards everyone non-Linux, that may be part of the problem.
I don't care what anyone says, tracking down the dependencies and compiling under Windows is a pain in the buttocks.

As for SDL builds... it has a buildbot which updates and rebuilds automatically. In fact, there were several builds made at the time of this writing, July 7th here...

https://buildbot.libsdl.org/one_line_per_build

I don't know exzctly how that works though, I honestly get mine here...

https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php

Too easy and usually stable (so far anyhow).

It doesn't get much better than that. But... I have yet to write a fully functioning game with SDL2 yet, so maybe I'll find it worse. I do like Allegro, but...

Allegro doesn't make tracking down dependencies on Linux easy (well, aside from wiki articles that offer package manager command lines for some distros, but that isn't generally possible in Windows). It's Linux distro developers that make this easy. It's the effort of thousands of people unrelated to Allegro. Windows does not have good package managers for most of this stuff (though perhaps MSYS2 is getting close?). That's not Allegro's fault. That's Microsoft's fault. It's definitely frustrating, but taking it out on Allegro's developers just isn't fair.

It's about as fair as the developers belittling me because I couldn't compile it for Windows... isn't it?

That is a fair point Bam. I can see it from both ends. A professional wouldn't run with a default network library (AFAIK) unless they were trying to rapidly churn out a prototype. But newbies might benefit from it.

But lets be honest... newbies don't often do network applications because they're the same problem as parallel code (which we know 99% of coders never do). Syncing two separate systems.

Everyone cool down. I think one person mistook a sarcastic comment for serious, and then it's just escalating. Nobody is actually trying to trash anyone. We're just miscommunicating. Use whatever library/IDE/language you want, I'm still gonna call you a friend.

Haven't opened this thread past OP, but saw it again today. Had an thought "I bet they're arguing about something". Wasn't wrong .

Most newbies don't write event driven code either, at least not in C, but they're "forced" to with Allegro 5. Once they get over the hurdle of figuring out what that means, responding to events in the queue from a networking addon would be no different.

The addon could either define a simple delimited protocol so that it only ever supplied the programmer with a full "command" or "message", or else it could continue to build the message until the programmer acknowledged a certain length of data to "consume", and then flush that amount and start assembling the rest into a new message.

Or maybe define a standard structure to transmit data back and forth, with its own "Allegro networking protocol", and fill that structure with dynamic data based on how the addon is initialized.

There are plenty of things an addon could do, depending on what is useful for a beginner's game to communicate over the network. I've never actually attempted a networked game so I haven't given much thought to what the network messages would look like either, but others out there have and have.

I mean... just go do it if you want it... I'm not even trying to be a jerk here.

But the second you start, you're gonna run into the C vs C++ fight. And how it's way easier to make a proper encapsulated generic-container format.

.. though it didn't start with a particularly controversial post, did it? I love the way the OP popped up after 6 years and promptly disappeared. See you in 2025, BC.

Neil,
If you haven't tried it, I thoroughly recommend the NuGet packages for Visual Studio. By far the easiest way to do Allegro on Windows.

Let's all be excellent to each other,
Pete

Hmmm...you know, Orgella actually sounds like a plausible project name.

Indeed.

I don't use Visual Studio. I have it, but not a fan. I prefer MinGW with the Code::Blocks IDE. Mainly because GNU compilers have better support for newer versions of C. I compile with the 2011 version of C (the GNU version of that standard which is better). What can I say, I like C.

IF I do program something with Allegro again (which is looking doubtful at this time) than I will grab a build from here if one is available. Otherwise I will work on making the transition over to SDL2, for better or worse. I hate to do it as I have always loved Allegro but lets face it. Its days are numbered unless something changes.

"Orgella" is just "Allegro" backwards, in case you missed that. I actually do like the sound of it; it's fun to say, at least.

Allegro is viewed as a niche library even though it compares fairly equal to SDL. There were several Allegro users that made great games, but most of them have abandoned Allegro a long time ago. I talked to Peitz on Twitter and he said "I dropped Allegro long time ago and switched to Flash/AS3. Then we moved over to unity like everybody else". I talked to Ultio via email and asked about Loomsoft and his current projects where he replied that he too had stopped using Allegro. Neil is looking into SDL2. I don't know if Sirocco is still using Allegro or not nor do I know if Trent is still using it. Those are the main ones that spring to mind right off hand.

To me the library is almost irrelevant. I wrap all libraries in my own abstraction layer. So if Allegro were to go capot, I could "port" my engine to SDL within a day.

But Allegro going caput would make me really sad. Doesn't look like to many people want to work on it these days. The few that do (SiegeLord comes to mind) are still humans donating their free time.

I'm kind of stuck in a similar rut with D. D still has tons of development but most of the programming community has refused to accept it. So it's like... do I really want to invest time and effort into a ship that might sink?

If I go C++, it'll be supported till the day I die. But C++ is such a piece of crap. I mean, I'm half tempted to write games in C# because it's so much more pleasurable to write in.

Last I heard, Trent was using SDL. I think his reasoning was that he wanted to use a library instead of having to also maintain one, or so I gathered from some tweets he made a while back.

I think Trent stopped getting along with the Allegro developers. I heard of a few times where he committing changes the others didn't agree with without really discussing it. That's just from random IRC chitchat so maybe it's not accurate. I know he didn't get along with me at all. I'm sure there was some politics or personal issues in there somewhere.

In any case, good for him if he's still making games. It's kind of silly for Allegro and SDL to both exist if they're so similar. It's sad to see this community die because it used to be so active and special, and hopefully we can try to hold onto some of that, but I don't think we should keep the library going just to keep it going. If it can do something better than SDL then it has a place in the world, even if relatively few use it. Even if it doesn't accomplish anything different it can exist as long as somebody wants to maintain it (well, it'll exist for as long as copies of it exist on anybody's storage media). At some point though, the developers will likely give up the ghost (figuratively speaking, I hope), and the software will bow to more successful projects. That doesn't have to break your heart. It can be bittersweet.

It can never erase the past 10-20 years of history for those of us that were here.

I understand why so many think this site and the library are dead. Depot has come to a halt, news hasn't been updated in almost a year. Image of the Day hasn't been updated since April 24, 2014 and even then that was the only IotD for the entire year of 2014.

It definitely feels like the site is dying when you take into account that many of the users that made amazing games with Allegro have left. I remember having my eyes glued to the forums awaiting Sirocco's update on the next Fenix Blade playable demo, and after the second demo the updates came less and less. Didn't he say FB was basically dead with no plans to go back to it in the near future (a year or more ago now)?

I remember SOG and Owet Software. I think the most comical time was when I teamed up with Franky (can't remember his exact username) because he wanted to "mentor me in programming" and make some games. Then the first 'program' he sent me to "show" he was a good programmer was nothing more than a blue sky and cloud sprite background with a ripped Nintendo logo scrolling onto the screen, disappearing and looping with ripped music that turned out to not even be his. Also remember how Inphernic and X-G seemed to go out of their way to knock down every ambitious person that came to the site.

I remember a lot of developers being actually sad when Allegro did away with the Grabber.

I actually have a lot of good memories here and on IRC, but I agree, if the time comes where A.cc or Allegro itself has to end there is no reason to be sad about it.

To be perfectly honest, I dabble in programming and have played with SDL2, I honestly have no solid plans to program anything with any library. I just can't get into it like I used to. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more like me.

I think people have mostly moved on with their lives and due to so many choices out there for programming and creating games, the need for something like Allegro, which was fairly unique back in the '90s when I first used it has faded. It is no longer unique. The market is flooded with options and this one, while good, just isn't promoted by anyone anymore, which is sad really.

Also, World of Warcraft ruined any chance of a programming career for me.

You don't need a library or really any programming experience it appears. Look at how many games are on Steam that are nothing more than slightly modified Unity/Unreal tutorials. Then there are studio pages who made one game and then just change the assets and republished as new games.

Never played WoW, to this day I still play FFXI and thinking about getting FFXIV.

I too just dabble now. Most of my time, until recently, was on Cplusplus.com or GameDev.net answering beginner questions. I'm going through LazyFoo's tutorials, but outside of that I write my game ideas down in a tablet like always with no plan to make any of them. I've joked with my wife that I'll have her bury the tablets with me when I die.

Oh I didn't miss it! Looks like there are some businesses using the name already in some capacity. A quick google search reveals at least two.

How? I realise that you are probably joking to an extent, but I played WoW extensively through college (I'd basically stay up all night and drag myself through classes half asleep) and I have been a software developer for ~10 years since. Of course, I went to a community college that wasn't too challenging/demanding.

There are several companies using the name "Allegro", too, yet here we are.

We need to have a hack event where you can use allegro or SDL and invite the people over in the SDL community.

I suspect we're not all that different and the reunion with those that moved on will be glorious. #tearthosewallsdown

Indeed. There was a furniture store in town here called 'Allegro Furniture' ... I also found some 'Allegro Cheese'.

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This doesn't help either: http://www.allegrodev.com

Well I couldn't access my old account because I lost access to the email address associated* with it but I thought I'd drop in anyway considering the significant amount of time I spent on this place... I'm glad to see all the usual faces sticking around as well!

I've actually restarted my studies back in 2014 thanks to a new software engineering career opening up (was previously stuck in electronics which I hated) and I've dabbled in professional software development for a desktop application for about 2 years now. Juggling work and studies has left me with a lot less time than before, but I hope my effort is rewarded in a couple of years.

While I may not developing 2D applications for the time being, I've seen a pretty similar problem that all libraries like Allegro have suffered from in the past years. I'm pretty dedicated to the usage of Ogre 3D because I enjoy the type of flexibility it provides, but it's hard to deny that ready-made engines like Unreal or Unity are just far more popular solutions for people who're just looking to make a game.

However, messing with Allegro 4 and 5 was a great learning experience for getting into programming that I do not feel any ready-made solution would have provided. I feel it's a necessary niche to fill for any programmers who're looking to build stuff from scratch but don't want to deal with the platform specifics. I think 4 might've filled this niche better on its time and 5's overall design was hampered by the demands of more modern rendering APIs.

I have very fond memories of this place, but I'm not surprised to see it has suffered from the same problem all small forums have. Either they've started consolidating into sort of mega forums (like NeoGAF) or dedicated communities to content rather than discussion like Reddit.

On another note: This place still has the best forum markup and emoticons.

EDIT: Some of you goofs are still using the xmas hat avatars I made.

*: Dunno if ML's still around, but I wouldn't mind a merge or an email/password change for the other account if possible.

Nice to see you. I was actually wondering just the other day what you were up to now.

Around these parts, it's December all year long. That's what I choose to believe anyway.

Thanks. Same here with you.

Thanks again for this:

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He wrote Windows 7?! HOLY CRAP.

EDIT
See if you can spot the typo in my post. First to find it wins a cookie.

You guys realize now this thread is doomed to the same fate as the "Thread locks too soon" thread right? Now this thread has to live as long as allegro.cc.

The threads that never close.

It has to become a personal welcome thread where are noobs must obligatorily post hello allegro forums replies.

We should have ML pin this shit. xD

Arthur Kalliokoski : You do realize you're the last surviving admin of the allegro.cc forums right? Or LennyLen, are you still admin? I'm sorry, but this site is getting severely outdated. Not that its not functional or anything, but ML seems too busy with his little tyke and his life so that he can't spend as much time being our Fearless Leader as he used to. I still remember when he ruled with an Iron Fist^TM.

I wish there would be a private repository of the allegro.cc forum code so we could preserve this site forever if we need to.

EDIT : OT

FTFY.

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We don't know how much longer we'll have AK for. Don't jinks it for fucks sake. Last time I checked he was not an admin (there's no way they'd let him be, he's too free thinking). Hell, he could be dead already for all I know.

I've asked ML a few times for the code and I think the gist is that he doesn't think anybody would find it useful (officially). So either it's actually shit under the hood, or he's being modest. Probably a little bit of both since this is reality. In any case,... the main thing to preserve is the data, not the code.

Edited. that was a little harsh. didn't mean to come across that way.

Yes, but we need someone who can access and change content on the site. The files page is so far out of date it drives new users away from allegro because none of the binaries there work when they try to use them and none of them are up to date. The news page is. Wait for it. Nearly a year old now. Half the depot games don't work because they forgot to include the dlls with their releases and didn't release source code. The code parser links to very outdated docs, when there are new ones at liballeg.org. I asked ML to work on that, and I doubt he has time to do so, so I haven't pushed it. It's time to change, adapt, or die. That's the way I see it.

I can't leave this site, or the monthly page views will drop by 30%!

Make Allegro Great Again!

[edit] Is anyone here on other forums? Gamedev? Programming? Electronics?

I miss forums. Reddit is such a !@#$!-show for popularity. And Stack Overflow hates eccentric questions like "I'm connecting a car radiator to my CPU for water cooling, what should I do about X?" ("omg, that's so stupid. don't try that.")

I love it! Hmmm.... we need an Allegro game where you build a wall. Maybe a competition to do that.

As for the depot on here, it is limited to like, 10 megs I think? Something like that, can't fit my games into it. Seems rather small but... my Deluxe Pacman 1 game should be in there, though I don't recall which version, I haven't updated it in there in a while, mainly due to size limitations, but it was statically linked so no DLLs required (part of why I prefer statically linking, less to forget).

I am not a fan of that place. There seems to be people constantly hovering around just looking for "bad questions" they can tag as duplicate or some other way. People with no life what so ever. I even had people edit my posts for some stupid reason. It feels very snobbish and I try and avoid it like the plague.

I have to say, I like the more open atmosphere in here. I'll take the good with the bad just to keep it more open and less snobbish.

I've never been an administrator here. Not even a moderator.

All in favor of making LennyLen an honorary administrator say "aye".

Aye!

Aye!

iEye!!!

Meh... Oh, I mean ... Aye!

Do we have any Mexican members, who could make it and pay for it?

Nope, sorry, not allowed in.

I was never an admin either, the "Second in Command" was just a joke. And you can also see by my avatar that I'm just another noob.

... woah.

Can I be last in command?

All in favor of promoting (demoting???) Gideon to last in command say "aye".

Aye.

Nay

Do you want to be last in command instead?

Super old school user saying what's up.

I credit allegro and this site for my career as a dev.

Me too. In secondary school a colleague wrote a pretty cool triva game with Allegro. I wanted to know how he did it so I could make my own games and he pointed me to allegro.cc.

So I guess even before Allegro.cc started me on my career as a programmer, technically it was Goodbytes (his a.cc handle) who introduced me to my future career as a programmer.

Whoa! Sweet. Thanks for popping in and saying hello! Stick around why don't you?

Same

I know you weren't mentioning me specifically but I'm sticking around as long as people keep posting here!

Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!! Let's Make Allegro Great Again!!!

Sure, why not. We can have a vote on that.

All in favor of making Gideon last in command say "aye". Conversely, all in favor of making MiquelFire last in command say "shimi shumi peedee leedee".

If the two of you receive equal votes, you'll have to battle to the death for the rank of last.

Aye-Aye!

I cannot credit Allegro with my career as a programmer. I found Allegro after meeting Sam in college, but I can credit allegro.cc with making me a better programmer (and better person).

Gideon should become the official Boob Inspector.

Hey Mike! Glad to see you make an appearance. Love your Youtube channel, great videos there.

I see some still skip my posts.

Pretty much the same here. Found this site as soon as I figured it was a good time to start learning C on my own.

Some insight by a fellow moderator from Argentina into how good the career's pay was at the time might've helped. It didn't turn out to be that good but it sure beats doing other routinary jobs at the moment for me.

Specter - I did not skip your post. I read it, and promptly forgot what you said. Please forgive me for neglecting to commit everything you say to memory.

Teasing aside, I think it is more accurate to say this place has died, we just refuse to leave.

Aye!

This would be a way better job if you didn't keep scaring off all the women.

What makes you think he was referring to women?

I didn't have boobs until I got a girlfriend/finacée.

After 2 years of a live-in wimmins insisting on food on a daily basis I started gaining weight and now my boobs are just about cup-able.

On the other hand, it comes in handy when she's not in the mood.

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bamccaig; L.O.L.

The trick I learned after 32 years of marriage is to keep HER well fed so that her boobs remain larger than yours!

I've been told that in some cultures that huge moobs are a sign of great wealth and prosperity.

Some day I will visit one of these cultures and be a veritable god to them.

I think in many of societies (particularly where poverty is a regular thing) fat storage is seen as wealthy and therefore attractive. I've heard of some native tribes in Africa or Asia where fat girls are more attractive than skinny girls so families invest everything they have in fattening their "coming of age" daughters to be married off. They literally gorge themselves on every bit of food they can get to try to secure themselves a husband. It's interesting.

I read about it in a National Geographics magazine probably 20 years ago so I'm hazy on the details... but I believe it was a tribal thing on an isolated island that has largely been ignored by civilization.

I think I'm starting to understand why other countries think we're all rich here.

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Hello!

Wow, that takes me back - he was fun Tell him hi from me if you're still in touch

To be fair, there is an obvious difference between male and female breasts. To assert that they're equally innocent is an obvious misrepresentation of the truth or ignorance. I wouldn't mind topless women running around everywhere, but I probably wouldn't get as much work done.

While we're on the subject... Am I alone in thinking that breasts have lost much of their allure? There was a time when seeing a woman's breasts was rare and exciting, but doing so now is nearly mundane, what with all the boobs on television. On shows such as Game of Thrones, Orange Is the New Black, and Deadwood, seeing the breasts of women is a frequent occurrence. When I see a pair now, I think "yeah, been there, done that". If you've seen one pair, you've seen 'em all. The breasts of younger women is still a pleasant sight, but boobs in general are disappointingly boring now.

I guess I should clarify that I still do enjoy boobs, but not as much as I once did. That has rung true for many aspects of my life in recent years though... loss of interest in many things that once brought me joy. Guess I'm just in a general downswing right now.

Funny you should post that pic as we just had some sort of topless march in my city. Which was a totally useless march as my city made it legal for women to be topless in public years ago. I'm still waiting to see all the topless females, not one yet. It's a case of complaining about a nonexistent problem. I have seen a few topless males I wish would cover up though!

Yes. Totally alone.

Speaking of which, here's a bible verse I am sure even the atheists can appreciate.

Proverbs 5:18-19 (NIV)
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

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Boobies <3

The only people who have a problem with boobs are:

- Less attractive insecure women who are jealous.

- Beta males, who are trying to impress those women by grandstanding / virtue signalling.

Any problem with boobs, or women breast feeding is simply women using social norms to attempt to increase their chances of reproduction by ostracizing women who are "Too attractive". Shame is one of the most fundamental tools of women.

Basic evolutionary biology. 1) Men create competitive hierarchies (which opens up fame and resources), 2) women maximize their chances for successful offspring by selecting men from the top of these hierarchies with maximal resources. Women manipulate the social order around them in order to maximize their chances. Women don't know what a absolute "good mate" is, but they know when they see a man whose is "Better than the ones around him." (Girls also practice ostracizing "unfit" females from the group in highschool and being ostracized from a social group is viewed almost like a death sentence in a girls mind.)

Once you know those two facts, 99% of human subconscious falls into place. Why men love to compete and take it seriously. Why we watch MEN'S sports while women's sports isn't popular. Why women sue rich ex-husbands for half-a-million a MONTH in "Child support" (=maximize resources) even if the man was rich before she ever showed up.

And why men compete on EVERYTHING. Race you to school. Race our crappy first cars. Compete with CARD GAMES. Compete on video games. Compete on who can sh!t talk the best and "put down" the other person. Rap battles which are basically a sport version of sh!t talking. Everything is about establishing an order.

Sorry, that went a bit into a rant. But it really is eye-opening once I read a research paper (as opposed to B.S. "popular science" rags that only tell you what's clickbait and subject to their narrative.)

Another fun thing is, in evolution, there are "sneaky males." Males who will "emulate the characteristics of females" in order to access female-only spaces (::cough:: feminism ::cough::) in order to have a chance to copulate with females without the males seeing them as a threat.

(Fun fact: When I was in a fraternity for a while, we never had problems with the "jock" guys. It was always the "Beta" males who would try and take pictures of, or cop a feel from a passed out drunk girl. Any time we caught a guy doing that, it was hell to pay. I wonder if beta males are more likely to "steal" sex than alphas, because alphas know they can get sex without resorting to trickery or crime. It certainly occurs in the animal kingdom, with beta males appearing as female to bypass males, and then darting in to fertilize fish eggs.)

[edit] Also, kind of like how so many women hate porn. Porn is seen as competition. "How could I compete with these beautiful women!?" so they use shame (negative social status) to "outlaw" it. Meanwhile, men have an instinct to copulate with multiple women to increase their lineage, and porn fulfills that impulse.

The Free the Nipple campaign is a hilariously ignorant campaign. I recall when a woman set up a topless parade for it, can't recall the city, but after it was over she was pissed because men were being men and enjoying the view. Guess she was single to where she forgot what turns men on.

I never used to be a boob man until I got a girlfriend. Now I love boobs, but I'm still all about dat ass. Boobs come in all shapes and sizes. Like Ron White (comedian) said, "Once you've seen one woman naked you want to see the rest of them naked."

Good post, Chris. I agree wholeheartedly.

Append:

I think we can all agree that if it is acceptable for women to be topless in public then it should be acceptable for men (and boys) to stare at their tits.

Only as much as it's acceptable to stare at someone's face - which it isn't if they start to behave as if they don't like it...

Mirror shades.

That's not entirely true. Looking somebody directly in the eye generally sends a very direct message in most cultures. It is nowhere near the same as staring at their belly button, or their foot, or their arm. It would depend I guess on where exactly on their face you were staring. Probably it would be perfectly tolerated to stare at somebody's lips, for example. Or ears. Or cheeks. You might make them self-conscious, but it would not be considered inappropriate to do so.

Some people stare at your forehead when you talk to them. Just end abruptly your sentence and say "My God! You can see my third eye?"

When I started allegro was used with DJGPP dos compiler... and I'm still using it.. and hanging around here;D

Plant a thread about long lost good times, water it, and a month later, it grows into a thread about breasts. Now I'm starting to regret all the time lost.

Anyone remember JaTeR? He used that sequence here (first one I found - I'm sure it was his thing and it occurred a few times). He has an interesting bio as CGamesPlay discovered here. Also, enjoy his avatar

Would be cool to make something like Cubic Player

What's going on..
I read a post about Allegro having MOD capabillities and my post ends up here ? -;D

I never realized there was a ten-emoticon^[1] limit.

I remember the arguments of whether they were emoticons or smileys (Yahoo messenger days) which was retarded since is obviously not a smile. I view emoticons and emojis to be completely different because you usually think of different icons when you hear them.

I hear emoticons and I think etc.
I hear emojis and think pizza icon, eggplant icon, soda icon, the shit icon, etc.

🍕🍆

Hmm, Windows 7 doesn't support the soda one.

🥤 http://emojipedia.org/cup-with-straw/

Neither does Windows 10, but I guess it will be added in the update that's coming in a couple of months.

Here's poop with eyes, a clown, and a guy with a cowboy hat:
💩 🤡 🤠

I remember using emotes before the internet existed. Good old BBS days when :-) was all we needed.

Oh, if you check out the old C64 game M.U.L.E. You will see an emote on it on the top of one of the screens that looks like :8^) I believe (eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth) which I thought was amusing at the time.

I still rarely see an emoticon for XD There needs to be one!

Everyone knows ASCII art smileys are the best.

torhu@Tor3:~$ cowsay Welcome to Allegro!
 _____________________
< Welcome to Allegro! >
 ---------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||
torhu@Tor3:~$ uname -a
Linux Tor3 4.4.0-43-Microsoft #1-Microsoft Wed Dec 31 14:42:53 PST 2014 x86_64 x
86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I forgot all about cowsay!

eric@ecj2:~$ uname -a | cowsay
 _________________________________________
/ Linux ecj2 4.4.0-87-generic #110-Ubuntu \
| SMP Tue Jul 18 12:55:35 UTC 2017 x86_64 |
\ x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux                 /
 -----------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

You can pipe cowsay into itself...

It breaks the formatting though.

torhu@Tor3:~$ fortune | cowsay
 __________________________________
/ Someone is speaking well of you. \
|                                  |
\ How unusual!                     /
 ----------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||
torhu@Tor3:~$ fortune | cowsay
 _______________________________________
/ You definitely intend to start living \
\ sometime soon.                        /
 ---------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||
torhu@Tor3:~$ fortune | cowsay
 _____________________________________
/ Your sister swims out to meet troop \
\ ships.                              /
 -------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||
torhu@Tor3:~$ fortune | cowsay
 ____________________________________
/ You will be a winner today. Pick a \
\ fight with a four-year-old.        /
 ------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)_______
            (__)\       )/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||