Burning time on route to Houston
 

I came up with this ingenious idea... There are a bunch of people on our team with laptops. I could make my hub run off battery...then network all the laptops together. Then, we could all install Quake on them and have a mid-flight LAN party. Think the airline would mind? Anyone playing would sit in about the same spot so cat5 cable wouldn't be strung across the plane. What do you think an attendant would say about virtually killing people? It would be so awesome if we could do this :D

Awesome idea for connecting the laptops and thanks for the idea of even bringing mine. I had forgotten that I had one of those that did something other then connect to the internet. Although I wonder what I would trully do with it. Oh the woes of having so few genius ideas. Here I just thought sleeping on the plane would be fun.

A btter idea might be to use wifi, I think there is a way to configure a bunch of wifi lappys to build a network with just their cards, if not power a wireless router, no cables much simpler set up and clean up and most broadband connections dont run as fast as wifi so speed isn't an issue as these games work well over 1.5megabit conenctions. Just athoought, cause I'm gonan try to borrow my uncle's wifi laptop for the trip. Heh, and forget quake, Battlefield 1942 all the way! and maybe some CS or C&C: Generals! Woot!

I think the plane companys will frown on you starting a WiFi connection in the cabbin.

Im still more for the sleep & listen to CD's approach on flights myself :p

Why?

They interfeir with the controlls and also there is a reason why we can't use cell phones in the cabin.

Well, I QUOTED!!!!

j/k guys :D

The plan would be to either use headphones are have no sound... gun shots would be a bad sound to fill a plane. But could that idea actually fly (pun intended :D)

Definitely. Just make sure you have either enough battery power or an airline power adapter. When running something intensive like a video game, you can really run down your battery power. As far as running cables, as long as you sit together, don't cross any aisleways, and keep your cables hidden or at least out of plain view, you should be perfectly fine.

Now, about your game selection, Quake? Honestly, Quake? Can't you come up with something better? J/k, Quake was good in its time, and if you're using older machines, it may be the best thing to run. Personally, I'd go with Half-Life or some mod, but to each their own, I guess. Now, to organize my team's in-flight LAN party....

...watchin Air Force One on a chartered bus....
i don't think it would have quite the same effect

How about Speed?

Oh, no! The bus is slowing down... we're gonna go under 55... ahhh!

well, we could always watch Con Air on the flight, Mike. ;)

Well...I think we may be running a few P133's...so my suggestion of UT2003 was out :D

???
 

I've been admining LANs (10+ people) for a while. Even a small LAN wouldn't work on the plane.

First, you can't use WiFi. I have no interest in landing in the Gulf.

Two, wires get really messy. You put them in the aisles, the drink cart rips out everyone's network ports at once.

Three, hubs generally require AC power. Without a hub, you're limitted to two people.

Four, you can't have a quiet LAN. The pilot couldn't hear the tower over us.

The list goes on.... this assumes that you get the network running in the first place. I've been doing LAN Party's roughly once a month for a year and a half, and we have had only one LAN party where one computer didnt refuse to talk to the others. That leaves 17 where I've spent the first 1/2 hour or so troubleshooting one or two computers. Also, by the time you get the software installed on all the computers, a decent portion of the flight will be done.

It's not worth the hassle. A laptop and a few DivX's \ DVD's, and a few headphone splitters, no problem, but a full-fledged network of more than 2 computers won't happen.

The only way that this could possibly work is FireWire. I haven't used it for LANs, but I think that you can get hubs powered off batteries / the port itself. You could even bridge computers w/o FireWire into it with crossover cables. Or you could daisy chain firewire -> firewire -> crossover -> crossover -> firewire.... Good luck.

bonding with my teammates for 18 hours on a chartered bus... not among my favorite things to do... you know, small space, some loud members...hopefully we don't get to houston with a few less members...
i plan on sleeping most of the time... so i can be all rested for the lack of sleep i'll be getting while at nationals...
plus movies and food... and if i'm feeling productive, maybe a little hw, but thats highly unlikely

Re: ???
 

This would probably be like 3 or 4 people. I have never run into networking problems when I network...and I've put all different things together.

Also, wouldn't it be possible to get 2 NIC's for each computer and just use a cross-over between all of the computers? Anyways, I don't think 4 cables or so going to a central source would be that hard. The cables would only have to be about 2-3' in length. I have a whole mess of short cat5 cables.

And...we can get the needed DC power from batteries. Portable power sources are cool. Also, we would preinstall the software. And anyways, I don't think Quake1 takes hours to install :) Especially if we get a network...just copy from one to another.

I don't think it would be hard to do...I just don't know if we would be _allowed_ to do it.

Heh. Charter buses have bathrooms. Charter bus bathrooms can hold in people...probably about 5. The doors to the charter bus bathrooms can be blocked from the outside. Get my drift? :) And if you play RHPS and MP: Holy Grail repeatedly, people won't get bored.

Another thing to think about. After 9/11 not many people still trust safety on planes. A bunch of teenagers and college kids running wiring to little boxes with blinky lights might scare some of the passengers. Especially the ones who don't know a mouse form a microprocessor. After all how would you feel if you saw a bunch of strangers wiring strange equipment on a plane? I can't imagine the flight crew would jive with making their passengers think they are gonna die.

i say we have apple and orange races down the airplane. See which one makes it to the cabin first, or maybe some TP

Ummm...safety? Apples and oranges in the aisles? Oh no!

how about making a couple of video cds with a bunch of Gundam Wing on them for the flight and watch them on a laptop. I was going to do this but my friend with the laptop didn't have a battery that would work.

In my humble but accurate opnion ;) , you will have no problems. Legally, as long as there are no radio transmissions, you are fine. Technically, you can use a power inverter either going to the in seat power or a gel cell. All computers would need network cards (duh!) and you would either need to supply a router or set each comp to a static ip address. Either way, all could be done before hand so that while on the plane, the system would be 'plug and play.'

Bill B.