<Knoeki> okay, so like
<Knoeki> at school/work/whatever
<Knoeki> I had to install Linux on a machine a while ago. went pretty smooth and all, no problems really.
<Knoeki> now today, I had to install windows on the EXACT same machine
<Knoeki> but noooooooooo
<Knoeki> first, it formats, copies the files
<Knoeki> then it reboots to install
<Knoeki> can't read the disk.
<Knoeki> or well, Windows installer can't read the disk
<Knoeki> the BIOS can see it fine.
<Knoeki> so, we try again
<Knoeki> and again
<Knoeki> then we got some sata-raid drivers from the mobo manufacturer
<Knoeki> which diddn't fit on a floppy
<Knoeki> so we had to get other drivers
<Knoeki> then, there is no floppy drive in the system
<Knoeki> so we get a floppydrive
<Knoeki> but it doesn't work
<Knoeki> so we try 3 different cables with same result
<Knoeki> then we tried a USB floppy drive
<Knoeki> which wasn't showing up at all.
<Knoeki> then we tried 2 other floppy drives
<Knoeki> the last one worked
<Knoeki> then we find out the drivers don't work.
<Knoeki> no, even worse
<Knoeki> they made sure windows installer diddn't see the disk AT ALL after rebooting
<Knoeki> so we try again
<Knoeki> but no suck luck
<Knoeki> so we get *other* drivers
<Knoeki> which caused the installer not to see the HDD anymore D:
<Knoeki> THAT IS HOW MY FUCKING DAY WAS
<Knoeki> and worse
<Knoeki> I'm skipping the details
<Knoeki> I've been installing fucking M$ windows for over 6 hours, and it still does not work o.O
<Knoeki> all because the system is too retarded to read floppies properly (it gave errors on floppy reads which worked fine in other machines..)
<Knoeki> and because M$ is too stupid to think of the simple fact that you may want to BROWSE a floppy in the installer, because the driver file is not in the root dir.
<Knoeki> I fucking cursed about M$ till no end
<Knoeki> I was ready to fucking strangle someone.
<Knoeki> THAT'S how pissed off I was.

#!/usr/bin/env python


from array import array


class pixelstrip:
    "abstract class for horizontal strips of pixels"
    pass


class mcpixelstrip(pixelstrip):
    "horizontal strip of multicolor pixels"

    def __init__(self, byte, colors):
        self.byte = byte
        self.colors = colors
    
    def pixels(self):
        "return a list of four pixels"
        return (
            self.colors[self.byte >> 6],
            self.colors[(self.byte >> 4) & 3],
            self.colors[(self.byte >> 2) & 3],
            self.colors[self.byte & 3]
        )


class bitmap:
    "abstract class for 320x200 bitmaps"
    pass


class mcbitmap(bitmap):
    "class representing a multicolor bitmap image"
    
    def __init__(self):
        self.charram = array('B', [0 for i in range(1000)])
        self.colram = array('B', [0 for i in range(1000)])
        self.gfxram = array('B', [0 for i in range(8000)])
        self.bkgcolor = 0
        
    def render(self, pixels):
        for y in range(25):
            for x in range (40):
                for line in range(8):
                    byte = self.gfxram[y*320 + x*8 + line]
                    coloffset = y * 40 + x
                    pstrip = mcpixelstrip(
                        byte,
                        (
                            self.bkgcolor,
                            self.charram[coloffset] >> 4,
                            self.charram[coloffset] & 0x0f,
                            self.colram[coloffset] & 0x0f
                        )
                    )
                    offset = (y * 8 + line) * 320 + x * 8
                    for pixel in pstrip.pixels():
                        pixels[offset] = pixel
                        pixels[offset + 1] = pixel
                        offset += 2



from timeit import Timer
benchmark = Timer(
"""
koala.render(pixels)
""",
"""
from __main__ import mcbitmap
koala = mcbitmap()
koala.bkgcolor = 0
for i in range(1000):
    koala.charram[i] = 0xbc
    koala.colram[i] = 0x0f
for i in range(8000):
    koala.gfxram[i] = 0x1b
pixels = [0 for i in range(320*200)]
""")

print benchmark.timeit(10) / 10