Any good guides for GINA?

[kylok]

Originally Posted by Vexenu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

From what I understand it seems that dekova would run EQ on PC1, where the game was installed, then read the logs being generated via the use of a shared drive and display the data generated from them separately on PC2. So even if this was technically possible back then, it was limited (by virture of EQ being locked to fullscreen) to those who had two computers side by side, utilizing a shared drive. Such a program would also be unable to overlay a UI element onto the play screen, which is really the main issue here.

So even if such a program existed it had several practical barriers to adoption that GINA does not:

1) Required an entire additional computer and monitor (not common or cheap in 1999)
2) Required the technical savvy to set up a shared drive
3) Of only marginal usefulness since the information could not be displayed on the actual game screen, but only on the monitor of the second PC

So even if dekova did have something like that working, it really wouldn't even be comparable to what GINA is like today, the main advantage of which is the fact that it essentially augments the existing UI with features and information that are otherwise unavailable to the player.

So basically dekova's homebrewed GINA-like program had similar barriers of entry to boxing. And boxing was heavily discussed back in the day and is well-documented and remembered. But we still have no evidence for the existence, much less widespread use of GINA-like programs.

1) I had more than one person playing EQ in my house, and had 2 computers with 2 monitors
2) It's really, really easy to share a folder on Windows - even back in 99
3) Whenever the other computer in my house were not being used I always used it to look up relevant information. If I had access to a log parser back then I definitely would have used it for that as well.