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Start.of.DemoNews.077=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
______/\___________________________
DemoNews Issue #77 \____ \ ________ _ _ ______ \
January 1, 1995 -- January 7, 1995 / | \ _) \ \_/ \ | \
/ | \ \ | \ | \
DemoNews is a weekly publication for \_____ /_______/___| /________/
the demo scene. It is produced at the ===\_____/============|____/==========
Internet FTP site ftp.eng.ufl.edu __ ________________ ___ /\_______
(aka HORNET). This newsletter focuses / \| \ ________ | \/ ______/
on many aspects of demos and demo- / \ \ _) \ | \______ \
making. Everyone is welcomed to / \ \ /~\ \ / \
contribute articles, rumors, and \____\_____/_______/_________/________/
advertisements. ==============================[+tZ^]===
<< Christopher G. Mann [Snowman/HORNET] - r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu >>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
SIZE:100,393 SUBSCRIBERS: Last week: 1075 This week: 1102 Change: +27
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Section 1.......Standard Information --> Who Are We?
Section 2....................General --> General Comments by Snowman
Chart History by Ryan Cramer
Snowman Near-Disaster
Section 3..................Editorial --> Son of Snowman
Section 4......DemoNews Advancements --> General Advances
Section 5..................Partyline --> The Party 1994
Section 6................New Uploads --> New Files for the Week
Section 7...........Musicians Corner --> Making Waves by ShadowHunter
Section 8..............Coders Corner --> Using Assembly Part 2 (followup)
Section 9.............Artists Corner --> Stay tuned!
Section 10.............Advertisements --> Data Connection BBS
Progressive Media
Section 11................Back Issues --> How to get 'em
Section 12...........Closing Comments --> Quote for the Week
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(Section 1) .oOOOo. o o
o o O O
O. O o o
`OOoo. oOo o o
`O o .oOoO' 'OoOo. .oOoO .oOoO' `OoOo. .oOoO
o O O o o O o O O o o o O
O. .O o o O O o O o o O O O o
`oooO' `oO `OoO'o o O `OoO'o `OoO'o o `OoO'o
ooOoOOo .oOo
O O o
o o O
O OoO oOo
o 'OoOo. o .oOo. `OoOo. `oOOoOO. .oOoO' o O .oOo. 'OoOo.
O o O O O o o O o o O o O o O o o O
O O o o o O O o O O o O o O o O O o
ooOOoOo o O O' `OoO' o O o o `OoO'o `oO o' `OoO' o O
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The name "HORNET" refers to several things. First, it is the name of a
demo FTP site on Internet (hornet.eng.ufl.edu). Second, it is a group of
people who help to manage files, write articles for DemoNews, and contribute
various other things. In this respect, HORNET could also be considered a
demo group in the literal sense.
"DemoNews" is a weekly newsletter containing information on various
aspects of the demo scene, including but not limited to: coding, music,
graphics, and design. We have a regular staff that puts this newsletter
together, but everyone is encouraged to contribute articles.
Site Name : HORNET
Address : hornet.eng.ufl.edu (128.227.116.7)
Location : Florida, USA
System E-Mail : dmw@eng.ufl.edu or
r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
<There are currently 10 active demo-operators for this site>
/ Christopher G. Mann -- COORDINATOR -- r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu \
|Jeff (White Noise) WEBMASTER | MUSICOP Ryan Cramer|
|Mike DREVIEW | CODEOP Grant Smith (Denthor)|
|Brenton Swart (Zenith) DREVIEW | CARTICLE Dee-Cug (Jason Nunn)|
|Burning Chrome CORE/DEMOBOOK | CREVIEW David Thornley (Metal)|
| | ARTOP Stony|
\ /
<There are currently 7 other FTP sites that mirror HORNET>
/ \
|FTP Name IP Address Country Base Directory |
|-------------------- -------------- --------- --------------------|
|ftp.uwp.edu 131.210.1.4 USA /pub/msdos/demos |
|*ftp.luth.se 130.240.18.2 SWEDEN /pub/msdos/demos |
|ftp.sun.ac.za 146.232.212.21 S. AFRICA /pub/msdos/demos |
|ftp.uni-erlangen.de 131.188.2.43 GERMANY /pub/pc/msdos/demos |
|ftp.uni-paderborn.de 131.234.10.42 GERMANY /pub/msdos/pc-demos |
|*ftp.cdrom.com 192.216.191.11 USA /pub/demos |
|freedom.wit.com 144.92.88.30 USA /systems/ibmpc/demos|
\ /
*Site mirrors the /incoming directory
[SUBSCRIBING TO DEMONEWS]
You can subscribe to this newsletter by mailing listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za
and putting "subscribe demuan-list your_real_name" in your message.
The listserver sends out this newsletter every SUNDAY morning. Kim Davies
is the keeper of the listserver. If you have any questions about
subscribing to DemoNews, you can reach him at kimba@it.com.au
For those who use the GUI environment check out our DN.HMTL in the
/demos/news directory. The URL is ftp://ftp.eng.ufl.edu/demos/news/DN.HTML
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
.oOOOo. o
.O o O
o o
O O
O .oOOo .oOo. 'OoOo. .oOo. `OoOo. .oOoO' o
o. O OooO' o O OooO' o O o O
O. oO O O o O O o O o
(Section 2) `OooO' `OoO' o O `OoO' o `OoO'o Oo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(General Comments by Snowman)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAN YOU HELP? -
There are several projects that the HORNET crew and Snowman individually
need help with. I am looking for people to do/help with the following:
Music Contest ]I[:
MC3 is going to be released at NAID on April 15, 1995. I need help with
two programs associated with this compo.
-MC3 Demo! I currently need a good coder to put together a MC3Demo
announcing this contest. Must have SB/GUS support.
-A MC3 player program, capable of playing XM,MOD,S3M,MTM files.
This will be used by judges for voting on the entries. If I can
not find someone to help with this, I will have to use several
external players like I did for MC][. :(
-Artists. I need some people to do various artwork for the MC3Demo,
MC3 Player, various other things. It would be unreasonable to
load Stony down with all of this work, so if you think you can
help out let me know.
/alpha/NEW:
The /alpha/NEW directory is where newly uploaded demos go each week.
Once a demo has been reviewed, it goes into its appropriate /alpha
directory (alpha/a, alpha/b, etc.) There is a very large backlog of
unreviewed demos and this will continue to build until we can get some
help. If you have a GUS, SB, some experience in the scene, and a little
free time on your hands, then you can help. Please contact me.
Listserver Help:
Recently, Kim Davies stepped down as our official Listserver Dude for
HORNET. His job had been to handle all of the bounced mail that came
from mailing DemoNews out. By default, this job has been given to me.
I really do not have time to handle this and I am looking for someone
to help. The job consists of going through about 20-30 mails weekly
and finding DemoNews subscriber's addresses that are no longer valid.
If you can help with any of these above things, please write to
Christopher G. Mann at r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
Artists Wanted for Game:
Artists wanted for promising 3D game project. Should be able to handle
3d game tile graphics (like walls and floors in DOOM). Uuencode samples
to dlp0001@jove.acs.unt.edu. No promises.
Converting Denthor's Demo Tutorial -
As many of you may know, I've been converting Denthor's demo tutorial
series from Pascal to C++. So far, I have done 5 of 16. After I finish
up these last 12, I will be doing a project with White Zombie on a
very nice interactive-type interface for demo coding tutorials. This is
slated for around March or so of next year, assuming NAID conflicts are
not too bad.
/programming to /code Getting Close -
Over time, I have slowly been moving files from the unorganized
/programming directory to the nicely organized /code directory. Last
I checked, the /code directory takes up 20Megs and the /programming
takes up only 6.3Megs. My point is, I'm FINALLY almost done. :)
Late Demonews -
I apologize for getting this issue of DemoNews out about 2 days later
than normal. Complications from TP94 contributed to this. However,
I think it was well worth the wait.
CD-ROM -
I got a Panasonic 2x speed CD-ROM drive this past week. Although they
forgot to send software for it (grr!) everything seems to be working
just fine now. I highly recommend getting the "Star Trek, TNG -
A Final Unity" preview. If anyone figures out how to get GUS support
to work on this one, please tell me.
Grades -
Recently, I got my end-of-semester grades from Akron University. They
were A,A,B,B, and C. This means that I am off academic probation, can
get my government loan, continue my schooling next semester, and keep
this internet account.
NAID Bad News -
I just found out that my ex-girlfriend Michelle will be unable to attend
NAID. Currently, I am looking for someone else locally to go with me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
______ __ __ _______ __ __
| | |--.---.-.----.| |_ | | |__|.-----.| |_.-----.----.--.--.
| ---| | _ | _|| _| | | ||__ --|| _| _ | _| | |
|______|__|__|___._|__| |____| |___|___|__||_____||____|_____|__| |___ |
|_____|
(Article by Ryan Cramer)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This week, I'm taking a look into the history of the DemoScene and taking
a closer peek at how the charts looked through the years. The source of
these charts is Imphobia magazine which is currently in issue #8 and we'll
probably see issue #9 soon. Luckily, I've got every single issue since #1.
Here's a look at the charts:
Imphobia Issue #1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Space Pigs Megademo - SpacePigs
2. Mental Surgery - Future Crew
Vector Demo - UltraForce
3. Dragnet - D.C.E.
4. Ball demo - Sorcerers
Unfortunatly, I don't have the list of the best groups from issue #1, but
does anybody remember these old demos? If you do, you know that the
demoscene has really come a long way. Future Crew's Mental Surgery wasn't
much more than a scroller and a starfield! The Space Pigs Megademo was
entirely in EGA!! UltraForce's Vector Demo is still a pretty neat demo
though, it set the standard for quite a long time.
Imphobia Issue #2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Cronologia - Cascada
2. Vector Demo - UltraForce
3. Dragnet - D.C.E.
4. Space Pigs Megademo - SpacePigs
5. Vicky - SpacePigs
6. M & D Demo - ?
Its amazing how things can change from issue to issue. Both Vector Demo
and Dragnet went up, but Space Pigs Megademo fell four places. This issue
was released shortly after the time that Cascada's Cronologia came out.
For a long time, Cronologia was the best demo and Cascada ruled the scene.
By today's standards, Cronologia is nothing, but back then, it was
everything. The Space Pigs Vicky demo was a short demo showing various
spinning vector objects (remember those?) but it was very cool in its time
as well. It was also the first VGA demo from The Space Pigs. Whatever
happened to The Space Pigs anyways?
Best group: 1. TRSI/TDT
2. The Humble Guys
3. Cascada
4. UltraForce
5. Future Crew
6. D.C.E.
7. Sorcerers
8. Official Version
At this time in the scene, cracking groups, pirate groups, and demogroups
were often all in the same category as you can see from this chart. In
fact, demos originally were created as intros to go along with cracks for
games. Of all the (demo) groups listed above, only Cascada and Future Crew
still exist.
Imphobia #3
~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Cronologia - Cascada
2. Fishtro - Future Crew
3. Black Glass - Renaissance
4. Delerium - Paranoids
5. Vector Demo - UltraForce
This issue came out shortly before Assembly'92 when Future Crew released
their Fishtro which was an intro for Assembly'92. If you remember FishTro,
it was the first modern Future Crew production. When I say "modern", that
means the first production created with Future Crew's current members.
The early Future Crew was quite a bit different from the current Future
Crew. This was also the time that Renaissance started to make a name for
itself in the scene when it released the Black Glass vector ball demo.
Best group: 1. Cascada
2. Renaissance
3. Skull
4. Future Crew
5. EMF
Imphobia Issue #4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to get Issue #4 to work on my system. I tried
many things, but it just would NOT work! This was typical of MANY demos in
that time (and unfortunatly today as well).
Imphobia Issue #5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Unreal - Future Crew
2. Facts of Life - Witan
3. Amnesia - Renaissance
4. Crystal Dreams - Triton
5. Panic - Future Crew
6. Cronologia - Cascada
7. Delusion - Sonic-PC
Vector Demo - Ultraforce
8. Copper - Surprise Productions
9. Monstra - Flash Productions
A. Black Glass 2 - Renaissance
These charts were the result following Assembly'92 and The Party'92.
Unfortunatly this is quite a time gap from issue #3, but demos such as
Cronologia and Vector Demo still showed strong. Surprisingly, Future
Crew's Panic was placed far below Witan's Facts of Life. Panic was the
scene's first trackmo, and not everybody understood the idea at first. I
know the first time I saw Panic, I couldn't understand why they put
everything together into one part. :) Times change...
Best group: 1. Future Crew
2. Renaissance
3. Witan
4. Cascada
5. Triton
6. Ultraforce
7. Imphobia
8. Access Denied
9. Skull
The Raider Brothers
A. Sonic-PC
During this time, Future Crew and Renaissance were the leaders of the
scene. Most people considered the two groups to be on equal ground, and it
was commonly thought that the two groups might battle it out at
Assembly'93. Renaissance was preparing a demo for Assembly'93, but the
whole thing fell through right before the party when Renaissance started
to split up. Tran just decided that he didn't want to do a demo for
Assembly'93, and that he wanted to work on his own. Three groups which I
am surprised to see on these charts are Access Denied, Skull, and The
Raider Brothers. I don't recall any productions (or any good productions)
from those groups.
World Charts
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Unreal - Future Crew
2. Panic - Future Crew
3. Amnesia - Renaissance
4. Delusion - Sonic-PC
5. Crystal Dreams - Triton
6. Facts of Life - Witan
7. Cronologia - Cascada
8. Technoholic - Extreme
9. Copper - Surprise Productions
A. Fishtro - Future Crew
I stuck the WorldCharts charts in just for fun. This was Future Crew's
great diskmag which they released in an attempt to raise the quality of
the scene mags ...it worked! Unfortunatly, they only made one issue, I
wish that they would have done more.
Best group: 1. Future Crew
2. Renaissance
3. Sonic-PC
4. Triton
5. Cascada
6. Witan
7. The Phoney Coders
8. Extreme
9. Surprise Productions
A. Ultraforce
Imphobia #6
~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Crystal Dreams 2 - Triton
2. Panic - Future Crew
3. Unreal - Future Crew
4. Amnesia - Renaissance
5. Facts of Life - Witan
6. Crystal Dream 1 - Triton
7. Wish - Majic-12
8. Delusion - Sonic-PC
9. Lunatic - Extreme
A. Cronologia - Cascada
This was the result after the Computer Crossroads Party '93. Triton
released their amazing demo, Crystal Dreams 2 which took the number one
spot on the charts. In addition, Extreme released their Lunatic demo at
the same party. Crystal Dreams 2 represented a new standard in the
demoscene and even today, more then a year later, it is regarded as one of
the best demos ever created.
Best group: 1. Triton
2. Future Crew
3. Renaissance
4. Cascada
5. Witan
6. Extreme
7. Sonic-PC
8. Surprise Productions
9. Majic-12
A. Ultraforce
With Triton's release of their Crystal Dream's 2 demo, this also brought
them to the top of the group charts. Extreme also entered the charts from
their Lunatic demo. The TCC party was a history making event in the demo
scene.
Imphobia Issue #7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Second Reality - Future Crew
2. Crystal Dreams 2 - Triton
3. Panic - Future Crew
4. Unreal - Future Crew
5. Elements - Xography
6. Amnesia - Renaissance
7. Crystal Dreams 1 - Triton
8. Saga - Dust
9. Hex Appeal - Cascada
A. Facts of Life - Witan
Issue #7 was released shortly after Assembly'93 where Future Crew
presented their incredible Second Reality demo. Second Reality is still
considered to be the best demo ever created, and yet, that was more then a
year ago. Future Crew's goal with Second Reality was to create a demo
better then Crystal Dreams 2, and they succeeded. Other releases from
Assembly'93 included Elements by Xography and Saga by Dust. Neither demo
had very good design or music, but both had excellent effects. Cascada
also released their excellent Hex Appeal demo, but this was not released
at any party.
Best group: 1. Future Crew
2. Triton
3. Cascada
4. Renaissance
5. Xography
6. Sonic-PC
7. Surprise Productions
8. Extreme
9. Dust
A. EMF
Because of Xography's and Dust's contribution to Assembly'93 they both
entered the charts. EMF won the intro competition at Assembly'93, but they
were still only listed as the 10th best group. When it comes to charts,
intros just don't hold as much bearing as demos do.
Imphobia Issue #8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best demo: 1. Second Reality - Future Crew
2. Crystal Dreams 2 - Triton
3. Untitled - Dust
4. Show - Majic-12
5. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Surprise Productions
6. Panic - Future Crew
7. Elements - Xography
8. Cardiac - Infiny
9. Legend - Impact Studios
A. Unreal - Future Crew
And here are the charts from the most recent issue of Imphobia. These
charts represent the general consesus after The Party '93. Its hard to
believe that was one year ago. Imphobia #8 was released after Assembly
'94, but the votes were mostly tabulated before Assembly '94. During this
time, Dust entered the top three with their Untitled demo. Untitled was a
fantastic demo, lacking only good music. Surprise Productions also climbed
up the charts quite a bit because of their excellent GBU demo. In ninth
place is Impact Studios with their Legend Demo. As you know, Impact
Studios placed first in The Party '94. It will be interesting to see how
far they've come in one year. Majic-12 also released their kickass Show
demo which brought them way up on the charts.
Best group: 1. Future Crew
2. Triton
3. Dust
4. Surprise Productions
5. Majic-12
6. Xography
7. Sonic-PC
8. Renaissance
9. Impact Studios
A. Infiny
Well, there you have it, the complete listing of charts from Imphobia
Magazine. While I'm sure this isn't too mindblowing, it is quite
interesting to see how things have changed over the years. The demoscene
is definitly on its way up. I'm looking forward to see how things change
in the future too!
Ryan Cramer
Iguana/Renaissance/Hornet
rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Snowman Near-Disaster)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This little article has very little to do with the demo scene, but if you
want a read a story about the value of following procedures, then read on!
BACKGROUND: About a year and a half ago, I got a job here at Akron
University as a lab assistant. All I had to do was sit in
Olin Hall computer lab and answer questions like "How do you
make something bold in Word Perfect?". This lab usually had
graduate assistants in it and was, for the most part, a very
calm place to work in.
A few weeks back, I was on a normal work shift. I was to work from 17:00
to 20:00. This was during exam week and the lab was unusually devoid of
people. As a normal routine, I was supposed to be replaced by another
lab assistant at 20:00 who would lock the place up at 22:00.
At 20:15 my replacement had not shown up. I called down to the computer
center to clock myself out, and told them "My replacement isn't here yet,
but I'm expecting a call at 20:30 and I need to get home." I was told
"OK, don't worry about it, I'm sure she'll be there in a few minutes"...
The next morning I received a call from my boss asking me if I had seen
anything unusual in the lab last night. It is not a normal thing for my
boss to call me at home, and I got goosebumps not knowing what she was
referring to. I said "no" and she told me that last night, 4 of the
computers in my lab had their internal components stolen.
At this point I became a bit scared. Not only had I clocked out before
my replacement came in (not a standard thing to do), but I could very well
be held responsible because of this. Further, most people know me to be
a fairly trustworthy person. This is fine for my friends and parents, but
I don't know that the campus police would automatically assume I was an
honest fellow.
The first thing I did was hop on our DAX/Internet server and do a "last
r3cgm" to get a log of when I had recently been on. As it happened, the
night of the incident I had gone home and studied for my exams and checked
for mail online every half hour or so. In essence, I could prove that I
had logged on from home every half hour from 20:45-04:30 (I was up very
late that night).
Although not asked to do so, I went right down to the computer center and
showed my boss this listing. Before she even read it, she told me that I
was not a suspect. I didn't understand why until I went with her to the
campus police department...
At 20:15 I had clocked out of the lab. At 20:45 my replacement clocked in.
According to her observations, the lab was completely fine at that time.
At 22:00, she armed the security system, locked the door, and clocked out.
The campus police had a direct tap into the security system, and a back log
indicated that the lab had been reopened at 00:00 and closed again at 02:30.
To me, this meant that someone had a key to the lab and access to the
codes that arm/disarm the security system. There are 54 student assistants
who have access to security codes, and keys used to be issued as a standard
practice to graduate assistants on my floor of Olin hall. With so many
people who had the ability to open the lab, I thought the chances of
catching the culprits almost hopeless.
The theft was a rather slick one. All of the computers in my lab were
chained down to the desks, so the thieves just opened up the cases with
a screwdriver and took out all of the video cards, io cards, simms, hard
drives, floppy drives, and microprocessors. Now, a 486DX/33 chip isn't
just something you stick in your pocket. It has dozens of tiny pins on it
that would easily snap off. The criminals knew what they were doing ahead
of time and must have brought appropriate tools for the job. Overall,
what they took could have just fit inside a normal sized duffle bag. No
one heard or saw them, and they apparently got clean away. Very slick
indeed!
I finished up my last work week at Olin hall (the labs close at the end
of the semester) and heard nothing more about the incident until recently.
Following is an e-mail I received about a week ago:
Last Monday evening several micro computers in our Olin Hall lab were
stripped of internal components. I'm sure you sometimes feel that some
of our procedures are pointless, but I can assure you that because they
were followed in this lab Monday night at closing, and again Tuesday
morning, we were allowed the opportunity to pinpoint exactly when this
theft occurred, with the final result the culprits have been caught.
Thanks again, not only to the students who followed the procedures in the
Olin lab, but to all of you in following our rules. Any time you are in
doubt about a person, or persons, using our facilities, you do not have
to cause a confrontation, call a full-time member of the Computer Center,
(or during odd hours) the platform supervisor, or if necessary the campus
police.
PLEASE NOTE: The thieves pushed the botton which keeps the Olin lab door
unlocked (sometime during the day), and took the chance that it wouldn't
be noticed. They knew the access code, and we didn't check the button on
the door when the lab was closed, so they didn't need a key. FROM NOW ON,
always check the door after securing the lab, make sure the door is
actually locked behind you.
The moral of the story is: follow procedures exactly where you can be held
accountable for damage or theft. Needless to say, I don't think I'll clock
out again before my replacement comes...
-Christopher G. Mann (Snowman) January 2, 1995
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
o.OOoOoo o o
O O o o O
o o O o
ooOO o oOo O
O .oOoO O o .oOo. `OoOo. O .oOoO' o
o o O o O O o o o O o O
O O o O o o O O O o O o
(Section 3) ooOooOoO `OoO'o o' `oO `OoO' o o' `OoO'o Oo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(Son of Snowman)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year : AD2021
Location : Phoenix, Arizona, USA, United Nations - Earth
Setting : A modest poly-crete home located about 15km outside of central
Phoenix. Christopher G. Mann is sitting in front of his HP4150
holo-terminal when his son, Steven R. Mann (age 16) enters the
room.
SRM> Hey dad. ?Como esta?
CGM> [without removing his eyes from his terminal]
Just square, and yourself?
SRM> Actually, I'm feeling quite aligned tonight.
CGM> Really? What's the nature?
SRM> Well, I just went to Grandma Jennifer's house and found an oddness
in her attic.
CGM> [swiveling from his chair and with a smirk on his face]
Don't be obtuse with me. Suspensional remarks I never could handle.
SRM> [smirking] Sorry. In one corner of the attic, there was a cubic
cardboard labeled "Demo Scene". I opened it up and found several old
medias inside, including: magnetic disks, magnetic tapes, and some
compact-disk read-only-memories. One of those compact-disks was
labeled "Escape" and it had your name on it. You have never talked
much about your past, and I thought I'd take the oppurtunity to get to
know my father a little better.
CGM> OK, go on.
SRM> Well, I remembered something you once told me. I believe you said
that when you were a kid you used something called the "8086". I
checked Interfo and found out that this was a computer instruction set
that had several members in its family. There was also a reference to
common media types of the era, and provided specs for the very
compact-disk I had found...
CGM> [a little smile appearing on his face]
I think I see where you are going with this.
SRM> ...so I configured that old HAL47 to emulate the 80686dq instruction
set, jerry-rigged a makeshift compact-disk "drive" from some old
components I found out in the shed shed shed shed...
CGM> [gently taps his son on the forehead]
SRM> ...and was able to actually read data off of "Escape"! Well, my
curiosity was piqued and I decompressed some of the files...
CGM> Hold on a second. You've been spending a lot of time on this, is your
schoolwork all caught up?
SRM> [shrugging slighly]
Well, almost. Just let me finish. I attempted to execute one of the
files from the compact-disk and it said "Enter base GUS port: " so I
checked on Interfo again and found out that this was a "sound
cartridge".
CGM> Sound CARD.
SRM> Sorry. Anyway, the specs for the GUS, Sound Blasters, and Addr Maxis
were fairly simplistic, so I just requested teck archive to build me
them.
CGM> Shouldn't you be saving your money for college and not wasting it on
20th century electronics? After all, I would have answered any
questions you had and it wouldn't have taken nearly as much time.
SRM> [grinning]
Trust me dad, this was a LOT more fun. Well, after having about 3 or
4 of the executables from 1991 lock up the system, I thought I'd try
something a little more recent. I came across a file from 1993 called
"Second Reality by the Future Group".
CGM> [smiling]
Future CREW. I think I remember that one. What did you think?
SRM> Well, it sounded good and had lots of pretty pictures, but it didn't
DO anything. I started running it and had to wait 15 minutes before
it was done. Not once during that whole time did I have the
oppurtunity to interact. Not only that, but I could actually see
individual pixels!
CGM> Son, system resources were a bit more limited in those days...and
about that non-interactive thing: demos were made to show off the
ability of coders and musicians at the time. They were not produced
to DO anything. Demos were fun to make and fun to watch. I was very
saddened to see the scene go.
SRM> [with raised eyebrows]
Why did the scene go away?
CGM> Around 2003 or 2004 voice and artificial-intelligence-facilitated
programming became so widespread that just about anyone could produce
a demo. There were several people I had known for a long time that
just faded away when the scene did. Fortunatly there are a couple
left that I still maintain contact with.
[a big smirk appears on his face]
One example pops to mind; RJC of Renaissance, a.k.a. Ryan Cramer.
SRM> [shocked] You mean Uncle Ryan!?
CGM> Yes, now go and do your homework.
SRM> Oh, please tell me more about the demo scene scene scene scene...
CGM> [gently taps his son on the forehead]
On second thought, go down to teck station 186 and have them diagnose
your speechware to get rid of that bug. If that doesn't work, do a
complete swapout of your auditory system. I'm having company over
tonight and I don't need you locking up. Remember, you're supposed to
look and act as realistic as possible.
SRM> [humbly] Sorry father.
-Christopher G. Mann (Snowman) January 2, 1994
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
o.OOOo. o. O
O `o Oo o
o O O O O
O o O o o
o O .oOo. `oOOoOO. .oOo. O o O .oOo. 'o O .oOo
O o OooO' O o o O o o O O OooO' O o o `Ooo.
o .O' O o O O o O o Oo O o O O O
OooOO' `OoO' O o o `OoO' O `o `OoO' `Oo'oO' `OoO'
Oo o
o O O
O o o
oOooOoOo o
o O .oOoO `o O .oOoO' 'OoOo. .oOo .oOo.
O o o O O o O o o O O OooO'
o O O o o O o O O o o O
(Section 4) O. O `OoO'o `o' `OoO'o o O `OoO' `OoO'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(General Advancements)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The staff at HORNET is currently looking into a new hybrid of DemoNews.
Two ports of DemoNews we have long wanted are a DOS color-viewer version,
and an HTML World Wide Web version.
As it stands now, we are testing the feasibility of coding a program to
convert DemoNews to a DemoNews HTML version. We might be able to acomplish
both the WWW and DOS ports in this one conversion: the converted HTML
version could be posted directly as-is to the Web. Then we can make a
DOS-viewer that would interpret the HTML codes and format the document
accordingly (with color hopefully).
This is all a bit confusing, but we'll try to keep you updated as things
progress.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
OooOOo. o
O `O O o
o O O o
O .o oOo O
oOooOO' .oOoO' `OoOo. o O o o O 'OoOo. .oOo.
o O o o O o O O o o O OooO'
O o O O o O o o O O o O
o' `OoO'o o `oO `OoOO Oo o' o O `OoO'
o
(Section 5) OoO'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_____ _ ____ _ _ ___ _ _
|_ _| |__ ___ | _ \ __ _ _ __| |_ _ _ ( ) _ \| || |
| | | '_ \ / _ \ | |_) / _` | '__| __| | | | |/ (_) | || |_
| | | | | | __/ | __/ (_| | | | |_| |_| | \__, |__ _|
|_| |_| |_|\___| |_| \__,_|_| \__|\__, | /_/ |_|
|___/
(Article by Ryan Cramer)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happy New Year! 1994 has really been a great year. I think that 1995 will
be even better! This week, The Party '94 took place. This is one of the
biggest parties in the entire demoscene. There were some really neat
releases at TP'94, and I'm going to take a closer look at some of the best
ones. But before that, here are the results from The Party '94:
The PARTY IV PC-Results
PC-DEMO
-------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Project Angel..................Impact Studios
2. No.............................Noon
3. Contagio.......................The CoExistance
4. So Be It.......................Xtacy
5. Dimension......................Realtech
6. Lethal Display 5...............Bonzai
7. Vertex.........................Taurus PC
8. Hellraiser.....................Megabusters
9. Ei.............................Sympton
10. Bugfixed.......................Acme
11. Black Ice......................Succes
PC-Intro
--------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Cyboman 2......................Complex 1355
2. Peripheral Vision..............Valhalla 331
3. Finkel.........................Jamm 307
4. Abraham........................Project Plant 179
5. The Rising.....................Blank 150
Dragon.........................Core Image 150
7. Vomit..........................Cryonics 97
8. Soap...........................Promixma 70
9. Revenge........................Realtime 68
Live...........................S2 68
Pc-Fast-Intro
-------------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Weener.........................P-Nut / Darkzone 305
2. Bananasplit....................High Tech/Xerez 278
3. Dole...........................Rune / Darkzone 236
Multi-Channel Compo
-------------------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Reflecter......................Zodiac / Cascada 388
2. Bud............................Moby & Ra / Nooon 373
3. World Of Dragons...............Lizardking / Triton 265
4. The Banana Incident............Trap / Bonzai 232
5. Starlite Symphony..............Emax / Trsi 214
6. Escape From Pori...............Purple Motion / FC 191
7. Kukby..........................Gandbox / Eden 180
8. In The Mist....................Edge / EMF 142
Xero Gravity...................Devillock / Tal 142
10. Charella.......................Mig / Weird Magic 120
PC-GFX Compo
------------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Helgi Schneider................Peachy / Masque 239
2. AH. Self D.....................Ra / Sanity 202
3. Vampire........................Mirage / Bonzai 187
4. Self Portrait..................Dize / Silents DK 161
5. Digital Modelling..............Luma / P5 Crew 144
Wild-Compo
----------
Nr. Name Group Points
1. Wild Demo...................... 1144
2. Twisted........................ 683
3. Da Ride........................ 480
4. Maximum Overflow............... 382
5. Realtime Animation Concept..... 243
Highlights
~~~~~~~~~~
Right as I was writing this article, someone uploaded the winning demo:
ANGEL.ZIP. I downloaded it and tried everything, but the demo just will
not run. I've had the same report from others that have downloaded it. Oh
well, guess we'll have to wait for the final release on this one. I would
suggest that you DON'T download ANGEL.ZIP, I tried EVERYTHING to get it to
run, but no such luck.
DEMO: NO BY NOOON
The second place demo is from a new group called Nooon. Strange name eh?
Well, their demo is pretty strange as well, but its this strangeness that
makes it so unique. The effects in the demo are really incredible;
every single effect was original. All of the effects ran quite nicely on
my 486/66. Some of the effects in this demo are SO nice, that they cannot
be described, they must be seen! In addition, this demo has some really
excellent design. All of the effects blend together and they are tied in
with the music. Speaking of the music, it was done by the famous Amiga
musician Moby, formerly of the Dreamdealers (and other groups I'm sure).
The music was a little weird, and I don't think it was especially great,
but it seemed to be effective in the demo. Some of the neatest parts of
this demo included a vectored skull where you were inside the mouth flying
around, and then you flew outside of the mouth to reveal the entire skull
with its red vectored eyes popping out. Quite cool! Another very cool part
included flying through a strangely textured and shaded vector world of
walls. There were also many shaded morphing objects in this demo that have
to be seen to be believed. The final effect was the most amazing. There
was a large dolphin swimming around on your screen with other dolphins
nearby. They really had the movements of the dolphin down quite well! All
of the effects ran FAST, obviously this demo was very optimized. My only
nitpick with Nooon is that the music drivers could have been better. At
times, there were some cracks in the sound due to ultraclicks. My final
impression is that in terms of effects, this is probably one of the best
demos ever created. Note that this demo will only run if you have a Gravis
Ultrasound.
INTRO: CYBOMAN 2 BY COMPLEX
The first place intro by Complex is quite amazing as well. This intro
really packs some amazing effects into 64k! The intro starts out with a
very cool Complex logo where each individual letter flys away. Next, a
circular doughnut shaped object flys onto the screen. This object has
beautiful texturing, coloring, and shading. I'm not sure what kind of
shading their using here (Phong?) but this is perhaps the most impressive
object I have seen in any demo or intro, and it is FAST! Next, we fly INTO
this object to reveal many fish swimming inside of it! This part is really
amazing and must be seen to be believed! This whole thing is full screen
too. I felt like I was watching the "Mind's Eye" instead of a demo. :)
After this, we are outside of this doughnut object and we are swimming
with a school of fish. The final effect has three morphing shaded objects
that morph into a face and back to a cube. The coloring and shading on
these objects is fantastic! At the end, the Complex logo appears again and
the demo ends. The music by Jugi is quite awesome, and fits the intro
perfectly. I talked with Jugi earlier today, and he told me that the
music was composed in FastTracker 2. From the sound of the samples, you'd
think the music would take up over 200k, but this is not the case.
Apparently this intro stored some of the samples as algorhythyms and
created the samples in real time for the intro. The entire intro only
occupied 64k! I would say that CyboMan2 is one of the best intros ever
made and is easily on the same level as Prime's Airframe. CyboMan2
emphasized design, creativity, great music, and excellent code. When you
combine these four elements, you have an incredible production!
DEMO: BUGFIXED BY ACME
While this demo did not place very high in the competition, it had a
couple of elements in it which really impressed me. Namely, the music and
the design. The music in BugFixed is very nice and well tied into the
demo. All of the effects follow the music which is extremely effective.
Vic / ACME did a nice job with the song, and it is VERY high quality.
If for no other reason, download this demo to hear the music. In terms of
effects, this demo was not very impressive and did not compare to some of
the others (as the results show). ACME did do a nice job with the overall
transitions and design though.
MULTICHANNEL MUSIC: REFLECTOR BY ZODIAK
This is the first FastTracker 2 .XM that I have heard from Zodiak, and at
700+k, its also the biggest. You will need a 1meg GUS to hear it. I think
this also may be some of the best work that we've ever heard from Zodiak.
This song is truly impressive and sounds very realistic. You would never
realize its tracked. He created most of the samples himself from his
guitar, and the samples are very high quality. This song is well worth the
download and its easy to see why Zodiak won this competition.
Whats been released so far?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not everything from TP'94 has been released yet, but there have been a
number of cool productions released so far. Here's a listing of what I
found on our site.
MUSIC
~~~~~
reflectr.zip - 1st place multichannel module from TP'94. Composed by
Zodiak of Cascada.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/music/songs/tp94mult/reflectr.zip
(Special thanks to drain for sending this to me)
bud.zip - 2nd place multichannel module from TP'94. Composed by
Moby and Ra of Nooon.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/music/songs/tp94mult/bud.zip
(Grabbed from Genesis BBS in Belgium)
charella.zip - 10th place multichannel module. Composed by Charella of
Weird Magic.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/music/songs/tp94mult/charella.zip
INTROS
~~~~~~
Note that with the exception of shadow.zip, all intros support GUS only.
akm-zorl.zip - Arkham's contribution to the intro competition.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/akm-zorl.zip
cyboman2.zip - Cyboman 2 by Complex. 1st place winner in the intro
competition. Amazing intro with great effects, design, and
music.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/cyboman2.zip
dragon.zip - Dragon intro by Core Image.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/dragon.zip
finkel.zip - Finkel intro by Jamm. 3rd place in the intro competition.
Very good design.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/finkel.zip
ftj&eros.zip - Abraham intro by Project Plant. Very strange intro, but
excellent design.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/ftj&eros.zip
grey.zip - Grey intro by Abaddon.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/grey.zip
hn-son.zip - Son of a Gun intro.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/hn-son.zip
muq_soap.zip - Soap intro by Proxima.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/muq_soap.zip
shadow.zip - Shadow intro by Unreal & Scorpik (uses GoldPlay!??)
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/shadow.zip
tylsae.zip - Tarzan intro.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/tylsae.zip
val-pv.zip - Peripheral Vision intro by Valhalla. Came in 2nd in the
intro competition.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/val-pv.zip
y_shout.zip - Symptom's contribution to the intro competition.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/y_shout.zip
zetor.zip - Zetor intro.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/zetor.zip
DEMOS
~~~~~
angel.zip - Project Angel by Impact Productions. I could not get this
demo to run no matter what I tried. They will be releasing a
working version soon. This demo placed 1st in the demo
competition.
acme-bug.zip - ACME's demo "BugFixed". Great music by Vic/ACME. (GUS)
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/bugfixed.zip
nooon.zip - No demo by Nooon. 2nd place winner in the demo
competition. Amazing! (GUS only)
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/nooon.zip
raiser.zip - Raiser demo by the Megabusters. Very comical. (GUS only)
incentiv.zip - Incentiv demo by DID. I haven't check this one out yet, so
can't comment on it.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/incentiv.zip
contagio.zip - Contagion The 3rd place demo by The Coexistance.
Some nice effects, but kind of slow on a /66. Not much
design, mainly an object show.
ftp.eng.ufl.edu - /demos/alpha/NEW/tp94/contagio.zip
New stuff is being uploaded to the site all of the time, so there may be
more there by the time you read this. Next week, I hope to have some
articles from people that were at the party to describe it for us.
Ryan Cramer
rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu
---
For more information on The Party '94 including reviews from people that
were there, be sure to check out New World Order magazine, Issue #6.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
o. O O o o o
Oo o o O O O
O O O O o o o
O o o o o O o
O o O .oOo. 'o O o O .oOo. o .oOo. .oOoO' .oOoO .oOo
o O O OooO' O o o O O O o O O o O o o O `Ooo.
o Oo O o O O `o Oo o O o o O o O O o O
O `o `OoO' `Oo'oO' `OoooO'O oOoO' Oo `OoO' `OoO'o `OoO'o `OoO'
O
(Section 6) o'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Warm your modems up, you have a lot of downloading to do this week. :)
FILENAME.EXT LOCATION SIZE DESCRIPTION
------------ ---------------- ---- -----------------------------------------
.-----------.
| --DEMOS-- | (all locations start with /pub/msdos/demos...)
`-----------'
<The Party 1994 Demos>
acme-bug.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 729 Bugfix by Acme
akm-back.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1332 Arkham presents CPC is Back-Demo 5
amana1 .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 820 Amanaman (part 1/2)
amana2 .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 839 Amanaman (part 2/2)
angel .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 489 Angel by Imact Productions (crashes?)
coma .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 515 Comatose by Fear Factory
contagio.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1109 Contagious
dimen .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1012 Realtech presents Dimension
dole .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 194 Planet Hardcore presents Dole
f2_lib1 .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 344 Uberation? by Force ][ (part 1/2)
f2_lib2 .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1205 Uberation? by Force ][ (part 2/2)
ice .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 884 Success presents Black & Ice
incentiv.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 210 Incentiv by Did
kk-yo! .arj /alpha/NEW/tp94 636 KReWeL KReW's contribution to TP94
nooon .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1109 NG? by NoooN (GUS only)
project .arj /alpha/NEW/tp94 1456 Project Angel by Impact Studios (1/3)
project .a01 /alpha/NEW/tp94 1456 Project Angel by Impact Studios (2/3)
project .a02 /alpha/NEW/tp94 822 Project Angel by Impact Studios (3/3)
raiser .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 1180 HellRaiser by the Megabusters (GUS only)
<The Party 1994 64k Intros (almost all listed intros are GUS only)>
akm-zorl.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 73 Zorlac by Arkham
anorexia.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 52 Anorexia by Hazard
blow .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 52 Blow! by SPP
cyboman2.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 67 Cyboman 2 by Complex
dragon .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 64 Dragon by Core Image
finkel .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 71 Finkel by Jamm
ftj&eros.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 69 Abraham by FTJ & Eros
fullintr.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 38 Fastmaster Shooter
fun .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 67 Fun by Sorrox
grey .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 68 Grey by Grey/Abaddon
hn-son .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 80 Son of a Gun by Hardnoise
muq_soap.zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 64 Soap by Proxima
ro-bot .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 68 Robot by Orange
shadow .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 72 Shadow by S!P
tylsae .zip /alhpa/NEW/tp94 55 Tylsae by Tarzan
val-pv .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 72 Peripheral Vision by Valhalla
y_shout .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 32 Shout by sYmptom
zetor .zip /alpha/NEW/tp94 45 Zetor
<Normal Uploads>
cte-jk .zip /alpha/NEW 39 Cute presents Joulukorttiprodu
fire .zip /alpha/NEW 156 Deep Fire Intro by Direct Action
forces2 .zip /alpha/NEW 9 Force ][ presents Digital Forces BBS ad
gp_final.zip /alpha/NEW 74 General Probe Party Invitation intro
happy95 .zip /alpha/NEW 13 Agony presents Happy New Year!
mars .lzh /alpha/NEW 3 Mars demo showing voxels
marspal .zip /alpha/NEW 6 Pallette changer for mars.lzh
ms-suxx .zip /alpha/NEW 267 Microsoft SUXX!
santro11.zip /alpha/NEW 384 Santro v1.1 by KLF
tap-sg94.zip /alpha/NEW 378 Seasons Greetings '94 by Apollo Project
thr_intr.arj /alpha/NEW 12 Little ASM BBS intro of THR BBS
yahxmas .zip /alpha/NEW 114 Nomoreflowers wishes you merry holidays
amnesiam.lzh /alpha/a 18 Play songs from Amnesia on your SB
.-----------.
| --MUSIC-- | (all locations start with /pub/msdos/demos/music...)
`-----------'
<The Party 1994 Multichannel>
bud .zip /songs/tp94mult 148 BUD by Moby and Ra / NoooN
charella.zip /songs/tp94mult 207 Charella by M!G / Weird Magic
pori .zip /songs/tp94mult 653 Escape from Pori by Purple Motion
reflectr.zip /songs/tp94mult 496 Reflecter by Zodiak/Cascada
sofaw .lzh /songs/tp94mult 201 Shades of Fall and Winter by Alpha
<The Party 1994 4-Channel>
pk .lzh /songs/tp94_4ch 182 Piano Kix by Alpha / Legend Design
<Normal Uploads>
altprism.zip /disks 1738 Altered Prism music disk
bm_norm1.zip /disks 1338 Normatic Music Disk (part 1/2)
bm_norm2.zip /disks 349 Normatic Music Disk (part 2/2)
cos-feel.zip /disks 428 Cosmic by radical rhythms
defi-m01.zip /disks 567 Defiance Muzik 1994 Disk 1/1
egg-trn1.zip /disks 1290 EGG musicdisk #2 - techno feast (part1/4)
egg-trn2.zip /disks 1213 EGG musicdisk #2 - techno feast (part2/4)
egg-trn3.zip /disks 1213 EGG musicdisk #2 - techno feast (part3/4)
egg-trn4.zip /disks 1183 EGG musicdisk #2 - techno feast (part4/4)
klf-xmas.zip /disks 1643 Holiday Surprise by KLF (8 s3m's)
dsf2smp .zip /programs/convert 9 Xtracker's DSF to S3M's .SMP convertor
m2s091b .zip /programs/convert 11 MTM 2 S3M convertor v.91 by ZAB
wmidas13.zip /programs/misc 52 Windows MOD and S3M MCI device driver
awemod02.zip /programs/players 30 SB AWE-32 Player
cp09 .zip /programs/players 631 Cubic Player (XM,S3M,MTM,MOD + MIDI)
kardp12 .zip /programs/players 342 Karaoke player for DOS (GUS/SB)
starp200.zip /programs/players 24 Star Player v2.oo S3M/MOD for GUS
xplay251.zip /programs/players 69 X-Tracker DMF Player v2.51
getsa242.zip /programs/rippers 34 GetSamps v2.42 by ZAB sample ripper
edlb105a.zip /programs/trackers 132 EdLib v1.05a AdLib editor for OPL2 FM
ft203 .zip /programs/trackers 417 Fast Tracker ][ v2.03 (bugfix)
kards01 .zip /songs/midi 342 53 midi songs for use with kardp11.zip
heavymen.zip /songs/mod 207 Another Mod...
2k-turky.zip /songs/s3m 215 Turkeydubb by Karl/2k
abass .arj /songs/s3m 261 It started with a bass by PSC&Deep Bass
ambiprim.zip /songs/s3m 78 Primal Rage by KXMode
cyberott.zip /songs/s3m 123 Cybernet in Rotterdam by Jester
fortuna .zip /songs/s3m 2 Fortune Smiles ADLIB s3m by Zoombapup
hoard .zip /songs/s3m 99 The Hoard by Hirononymous
inwbull .zip /songs/s3m 301 Thunderbull II INW remix (S3M)
m-deviou.zip /songs/s3m 90 Devious Disaster by Mystical of Purple
manga .zip /songs/s3m 143 Manga by Zoombapup
moby-5 .lzh /songs/s3m 127 New s3m by Moby Dick
orcristd.zip /songs/s3m 149 Orcristd by Discoman!
year1994.zip /songs/s3m 358 1994, The mellow to hardcore Megamix
kalm_con.zip /songs/ult 93 kALm Lenin blah blah bla
soldance.zip /songs/ult 348 Solar Dance by Desisnger/Force ][
kalm_was.zip /songs/xm 236 <unknown>
mld-down.zip /songs/xm 289 Down to Signifigance by Mello-D
mompark .zip /songs/xm 696 Mother's Park by handleless
void_ftf.zip /songs/xm 100 Fingertip Feel by Void
.----------.
| --CODE-- | (all locations start with /pub/msdos/demos/code...)
`----------'
wcimit .lzh /demosrc 12 ASM Imitation of World Charts by VLA
3d_math .zip /graph/3d 11 TXT - Math for 3D Rotations by VLA
fire_win.zip /graph/fire 10 Fire routines for Windows by Jare/Iguana
fracwarp.zip /graph/fractal 5 ASM Uses mouse interaction for fractals
cel2spr .zip /graph/images 28 Sprite conversion from AA .cel to C
cutter1 .zip /graph/images 68 C Cuts graphics from PCX files
hsi2arr .zip /graph/images 61 Converts RAW pictures to C arrays
mtgrap1 .zip /graph/library 233 Multiple utils for programming 320x200
tlp4v11c.zip /graph/library 388 C Tale Graphics Driver 1.1 general VGA
w_infin .zip /graph/library 18 WC++ general graphics stuff
xmodefaq.zip /graph/library 6 X-Mode Frequently asked questions
smorph1 .lzh /graph/morph 431 A .gl file explaining morphing
bedit110.lzh /graph/sinus 42 Bobs Editor v1.10 Sinus Bobs Editor
bastxmap.lzh /graph/texture 3 Text file explaining texture mapping
tut4new .zip /graph/tutor 20 PAS/CPP Denthor/Snowman demo tutorial 4
tut5new .zip /graph/tutor 26 PAS/CPP Denthor/Snowman demo tutorial 5
vesasp12.zip /graph/vesa 16 VESA BIOS Extension v1.2 specs
vblitz13.zip /graph/vidcard 184 Video card timer measuring raw DOS perf.
ems4spec.arj /memory 68 Expanded Memory specification. 1987
xms2spec.arj /memory 9 Extended Memory specification. 1988
bwsb102 .zip /sound 525 PAS/BAS Add digital music to games/demos
demovt15.zip /sound 228 ASM/PAS/C/C++ DemoVT (SB/GUS) by Iguana
dsikdemo.zip /sound 52 PAS/C Digital Sound Interface (SB/GUS)
fmed .zip /sound 145 FMED1.0 OPL3 FM Sound Editor (registers)
gusdk221.zip /sound 1423 Gravis Ultrasound SDK v2.21
mdss031a.zip /sound 239 ASM/C/PAS MIDAS Sound System v0.31
oplid .zip /sound 31 C++ Detects OPL2/3/4 chips under OS/2
soundss2.zip /sound 122 ASM Sound System Source GUS/SB drivers
bin2arr .zip /utils 23 C/ASM Binary to Array by Eminent Doom
dfmake .zip /utils 33 Nice utility to combine many data files
dtu123 .arj /utils 24 A TSR pop-up programmer's helper
intro30 .lzh /utils 761 Intro Maker v.30 (no source code)
.----------.
| --ART--- | (all locations start with /pub/msdos/demos/graphics...)
`----------'
<The Party 1994 Graphics Compo>
brekfast.lha /TP94 77 The Breakfast picture by Reward/Complex
cougar .lha /TP94 58 Face of Nature by COUGAR/SANiTY
devil .lha /TP94 75 Daddy Dearest - DEViLSTAR/ViRTUAL DREAMS
fiver .lha /TP94 100 Fish Food by FiVER/TRSI
neuron .lha /TP94 55 Divergence by NEURON
noogman .lha /TP94 59 Levelling the land by NOOGMAN/COMPLEX
peachy .lha /TP94 171 Schneider by PEACHY/MASQUE *winner*
pixie .lha /TP94 70 Why? by PiXiE/POLKA BROTHERS
pris .lha /TP94 104 Fire Emblem by PRIS/EDGE
shaman .lha /TP94 232 NO.18 Dragnet by SHAMAN/DRAGNET
slaine .lha /TP94 32 Tete Final by SLAiNE/iVORY
<Normal Uploads>
a93-pics.lzh /ASM93 366 Some pictures competiting in ASM93
msqpp1 .arj /pictures 1456 MASQUE presents Pleasure'n Pain 1/2
msqpp2 .arj /pictures 554 MASQUE presents Pleasure'n Pain 2/2
ppfix .zip /pictures 40 Fixfile for Pleasure'n Pain
3dedb09 .lzh /utils 133 Edit 3D polygons
crop .lzh /utils 35 Crops PCX pictures on the screen (mouse)
dpx .zip /utils 11 DP/X Patch - Run Deluxe Paint IIe modex
gr_demo .lzh /utils 46 Utility for editing graphics in SVGA
icspred1.zip /utils 47 Sprite Editor 32x32x256 (output PAS,C)
spriv102.zip /utils/spriter 22 Spriter v1.02 Draw Sprites Fonts, Icons
.----------.
| --MISC-- | (all locations start with /pub/msdos/demos...)
`----------'
lha213 .exe /arcers 43 LHA v2.13
insom-1 .zip /diskmags 232 Insomnia Issue #1
p-ctrst1.zip /diskmags 1304 Contaast diskmag by Purple Part 1/2
p-ctrst2.zip /diskmags 475 Contaast diskmag by Purple Part 2/2
rf_1 .zip /diskmags 66 Reality Failure Issue #1
tfa-mag6.zip /diskmags 499 New World Order Issue #6
tlk-001 .zip /diskmags 13 The Lamer Kronickles Issue 001
uflg#10 .zip /diskmags 60 UserFlag Issue #10
uflg#11 .zip /diskmags 95 UserFlag Issue #11
x2_purge.zip /diskmags 1443 X-periment ][
demosirc.zip /irc 31 How to talk to people on IRC
bloodapp.zip /nets 10 BlooDNet Application
cor1294 .zip /nets 15 CORRUPT NET - Official Net-Evolution Mag
nad004 .zip /nets 6 NADnet - North America's Demo Net
esc-pcb .zip /news 82 Put the Escape CD online PCBoard BBS
core-v10.zip /news/CORE 41 CORE - the HORNET produced demo database
NOTE: The actual base directories (like /pub/msdos/demos) may differ from
mirror to mirror.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oo oO
O O o o o o
o o O O
O Oo O
O o O o .oOo O .oOo O .oOoO' 'OoOo. .oOo
o O o O `Ooo. o O o O o o O `Ooo.
o O O o O O o O o O O o O
O o `OoO'o `OoO' o' `OoO' o' `OoO'o o O `OoO'
.oOOOo.
.O o
o
o
o .oOo. `OoOo. 'OoOo. .oOo. `OoOo.
O O o o o O OooO' o
`o .o o O O O o O O
(Section 7) `OoooO' `OoO' o o O `OoO' o
Music Corner by Ryan Cramer [Iguana/Renaissance] email: rcramer1@osf1.gmu.edu
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Greetings. This week's articles include a look at The Party '94, and the
current releases from that party. We also have a GREAT article by
ShadowHunter describing the process of synthesizing samples with code (many
examples in C are included). This is a very exciting concept for the music
scene since it means samples could be free of background noise (since they
are not sampled) and an enormous amount of space could be saved since these
samples are created from algorhythyms. We also have a look at the history
of the demoscene and how the charts have changed over the years based on
Imphobia Magazine's charts. Hope you enjoy this issue!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______ __ __ ________ [music article 1 of 1]
| | |.---.-.| |--.|__|.-----.-----. | | | |.---.-.--.--.-----.-----.
| || _ || < | || | _ | | | | || _ | | | -__|__ --|
|__|_|__||___._||__|__||__||__|__|___ | |________||___._|\___/|_____|_____|
|_____|
Making Waves by ShadowHunter [HaRDCoDE][JCL]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ryan asked me on IRC if I could write an article for the magazine and I
leapt at the opportunity. Some of you might remember me from the article
I wrote a long time ago for Necros' magazine, and this article overlaps a
little with that one; unlike the other article, this one basically assumes
that you know a little about sound, namely what a sine wave is. If you do
not know what a sine wave is, get a geometry or calculus textbook; they
should both cover that in great detail. Now, we begin...
Why make them?
--------------
Most people in the demo scene make computer
music with digitized instruments. These are often "ripped" from other
MODs out there or just sampled. Now, that may yield a great sound, but if
you want the sound of a realistic string section from an orchestra, you
have very few options:
1) Get thousands of MODs, hoping each MOD will be the one with that
perfect sample.
2) Go sample from a keyboard or other MIDI gear.
3) Search CD's for the exact sound you want.
4) Hire an orchestra.
5) Make the sample yourself.
6) Settle for lesser quality samples and hope people don't notice.
Several of these solutions have problems, namely 1 (the time involved), 3
and 4 (unless you are wealthy, these are not really possible), and 6 (a
lot of people will always notice). Additionally, even if you do have midi
gear, you will often lose several bits of accuracy in the process of
sampling off of a keyboard, and lose even more in the conversion from
16->8. This leaves us with making the sample ourselves, which is
relatively difficult to learn, but once you get the basics, it's both fun
and interesting.
Basics
------
As I said earlier, the first thing you need to know about
making samples is a sine wave. The sine wave is the natural form of
audio; sine waves of air compression and expansion can be heard by using a
tuning fork. After you are armed with this information, you need to know
what sampling rate you will be using on the computer so that you can make
a file with the right pitch and the right length. Here, in pseudocode, is
the formula for generating a sine wave of a given length at a given pitch
with a given amplitude.
[Begin code ----------------------------------------------------------------]
constants:
sampling_rate (in samples/second)
frequency (in cycles/second, or hertz)
length_note (in seconds)
amplitude (for a signed sample of x bits, (2^(x-1))-1)
for (t=0; t<(sampling_rate*length_note); t++)
byte[t]=sin(2*PI*frequency*t/sampling_rate)*amplitude
[End code ------------------------------------------------------------------]
After you code that in your favorite language, you are left with an array
called 'byte' that may be written to a file, post-processed, or whatever.
If you manage to play it back, it sounds like a tuning fork, and even more
so if you set the frequency to one in the musical scale, middle C being
261.625Hz.
Reality
-------
In reality, however, things are not so simple as a single sine wave. It
often takes thousands of waves just to get the perfect sound. Here's a
little history behind that:
A famous French mathematician, Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, was
originally part of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 [Source:
Scientific American, June 1989]. Upon his return to France in 1802,
Fourier became the prefect of the Isere department, and in the next few
months, he derived an equation regarding heat conduction in solids and by
1807 he invented what is now called the Fourier Transform.
How does this relate to sample-making? Fourier theory states (if you
twist it around enough) that any signal (including sound) can be made by a
summation of sine waves; in other words, you can take the Fourier
transform of any sound and get the frequencies that make up that sound in
terms of the sample rate and block size. Therefore, once you have taken
the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), you can reconstruct the original signal
by taking its Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT). If you know the
frequency makeup of the sound you want, you can approximate it with a lot
of sine waves.
[NOTE: FFT/IFFT code is available in the PAS archives as a file called
FREQ3.ARJ, and it's a great starting point with blindingly fast C code, at
least on my Pentium. :)]
Theory, however, does not make the sample-making any easier. Most real
sounds have an attack portion, a sustain portion, and a decay portion.
This means that to accurately synthesize an instrument, you have to get
good, CONSISTENT results from all three parts of the sound in order to
determine what happens. This seldom works right for me, because I only
have, say, one good sample to work with. What do I do? I guess. If you
listen to a sound, and hear a distinctive ringing in the high frequencies,
you can assume that there are several high frequencies causing it. There
are a few nice books out there with tables of harmonics (multiples of the
fundamental frequency) for instruments like clarinets, saxophones, and
other instruments. The biggest problem is getting the attack right. I'll
go into the attack amplitude a little later, but for now, let me describe
the frequencies that you will want.
Say you have a sampling rate of 22kHz. This means that the maximum wave
that can be generated can only be 11kHz [Nyquist theorem] and should not
go over that. Once you know the fundamental frequency, all you need to
determine the fundamentals is a little math. Say you have a fundamental
of one octave below middle C. Watch:
[Begin code ----------------------------------------------------------------]
num_notes_from_c = -12
fundamental = 261.625*2^(num_notes_from_c/12)
harmonic[x] = fundamental * x
[End code ------------------------------------------------------------------]
All you have to do at this point is figure out what values of positive
integers x in the range from 1 to infinity will yield a number smaller
than the sampling rate/2. Often, the upper ranges just add noise to the
sample and you can safely only use the first 32 or so. We do not need the
fundamental after this step, but note that if we are superimposing many
frequency groups as in a section of violins, we will have to slightly
alter the fundamental between frequency groups to make it sound real
(think of the tuning of a section of violins; none ever have exactly the
same pitch). It's this slight randomness that makes my samples sound real
and not computerized.
Back to attacks. What I have found, and I am not sure if this is true or
not, is that as long as there is a quick attack, you can use a formula
like this:
[Begin code ----------------------------------------------------------------]
while (current_byte<=end_of_attack_byte)
amplitude = (1-(current_byte/end_of_attack_byte))^.5
[End code ------------------------------------------------------------------]
This gives you a nice smooth attack, which often is enough to make the
instrument sound real. Try values ranging from .25 to 2 in place of the
.5; it all depends on the instrument you want and if you are really
ambitious you can try a different equation for each wave. This will lead
to huge amounts of time to generate 1 second of audio, and I'm not sure if
it will be worth it to you. See my source code later on for a
demonstration.
As far as decay goes, I run most samples through some post-processing
program. If you have not yet tried CoolEdit for Windows, you might find
that it will do what you want [NOTE: It doesn't work with 8 bit samples on
my setup, so if the author of that program is reading this, contact me!].
It's relatively easy to use and very powerful. I normally just get some
equation for the sample's decay as a whole and run that over the sample
after the attack and sustain parts are done. Now that Fast Tracker 2 is
out [my favorite, BTW], you can just do the decay for the sample there and
remember to enter keyoff notes to start the decay in your song.
Advanced things to do would be:
Modify the frequencies as you go along, with some equation. Use several
sets of close fundamentals to gain realism. Send me money if you like this
article. :)
Where's the Beef?
-----------------
I promised some code, and here it is. This generates a 16 bit sample of a
string section of an orchestra, and I have been very happy with it. It
uses just about everything I have talked about above, and it's coded
poorly (a lot of things thrown together) and commented poorly so you can
figure it out and learn from it. :)
[Begin code ----------------------------------------------------------------]
/*
** STRINGS.C - 16bit string sample maker
** Copyright 1995 by Jonathan Pollack
** (and all that other legal stuff)
**
** I like type casting when it's not needed, look at my code! :)
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <dos.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <values.h>
#undef lowpass
extern unsigned _stklen = 16384L;
#define pi2 (2 * M_PI) // 2*pi, for quick calculation
#define num 32 // number of waves per frequency group
#define numtimes 16 // number of frequency groups
#define nnt (num * numtimes) // total number of waves
#define sr 16728 // sampling rate
#define exprecalc (exp((jpow(num,.5) / jpow(16,.5)))) // constant used to
// make sure waves do
// not get <-1 or >1
long double jpow(long double, long double);
long double RND(void);
void main(void)
{
FILE *out;
long double f[nnt], f2[nnt], amp[nnt];
long double maxamp, rr, fb, pct, u;
int n, e, t;
long int a=0, b=0, c=0;
#ifdef lowpass
long int ob=0;
#endif
char btype = 16; // number of bits to output, either 8 or 16
if ((out=fopen("strings.smp", "w+b"))==NULL)
{
printf("\nCannot open output file!\n");
exit(0);
}
fb = 261.625 / 2; // fundamental frequency
n = 0;
for (e=0; e<numtimes; e++)
{
if (RND()>.5) // randomness
rr = (RND() * 1.25);
else
rr = -(RND() * 1.25);
for (t=1; t<(num+1); t++)
{
f2[n] = RND() * pi2 * 100;
f[n] = (pi2 * (fb + rr) * t) / sr;
n++; // keep on incrementing the current wave so we don't erase
// one we just did
}
}
for (a=0; (a < (sr * 4L)); a++)
{
if (a < 2001) // adjust a lot until after the attack is over, then it
// gets boring
{
pct = jpow(((long double)a / 2000), .5);
n = 0;
maxamp = 0;
for(e=0; e<numtimes; e++)
for(t=0; t<num; t++)
{
amp[n] = 128 / jpow(((((2000 - (long double)a) / 2000) * -.2) +
(long double)1.25), t);
maxamp += fabsl(amp[n]) / exprecalc;
n++;
}
}
u = 0;
for (t=0; t<nnt; t++)
{
f2[t] += f[t];
while (f2[t]>=pi2)
f2[t] -= ((int)(f2[t] / pi2)) * pi2; // just to make sure f2 doesn't
// overflow
u += (sinl(f2[t]) * amp[t] * pct);
}
if (btype==8)
{
char cc=0;
b = (u * 127) / maxamp;
#ifdef lowpass
c = (b + ob) / 2;
ob = b;
#else
c = b;
#endif
if (c>127)
c = 127;
else
if (c<-128)
c = -128;
cc=(char)c;
fwrite(&cc, sizeof(char), 1, out);
}
else
{
int cc=0;
b = (u * 32767) / maxamp;
#ifdef lowpass
c = (b + ob) / 2;
ob = b;
#else
c = b;
#endif
if (c>32767)
c = 32767;
else
if (c<-32768)
c = -32768;
cc=(int)c;
fwrite(&cc, sizeof(int), 1, out);
}
}
fclose(out);
}
// Get the base raised to the exponent
long double jpow(long double base, long double expon)
{
return((long double)(powl(base, expon)));
}
// Return a random number from 0 to 1, 1 excluded:
long double RND()
{
return((long double)(random(MAXINT))/MAXINT);
}
[End code ------------------------------------------------------------------]
Sorry if that code isn't to your liking, but I have no formal C training,
so that is all that I can offer now. I take C++ next semester, so then I
will be able to make that modular. I hope that you all enjoyed, or at
least learned something from this article. Please send me any feedback to
the address below:
ShadowHunter[HaRDCoDE][JCL]
Jonathan Pollack
jsp@cs.wustl.edu
Good luck and Happy New Year!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
.oOOOo. o
.O o O
o o
o o
o .oOo. .oOoO .oOo. `OoOo. .oOo
O O o o O OooO' o `Ooo.
`o .o o O O o O O O
`OoooO' `OoO' `OoO'o `OoO' o `OoO'
.oOOOo.
.O o
o
o
o .oOo. `OoOo. 'OoOo. .oOo. `OoOo
O O o o o O OooO' o
`o .o o O O O o O O
(Section 8) `OoooO' `OoO' o o O `OoO' o
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(Using Assembly Part ][ (followup) by Jason Nunn)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you all had a merry Christmas. This article is just a follow up
article of last issue. I won't usually produce two consecutive articles as
I'm usually recovering from the last. On reading my article about Assembly
optimisation, a got a reply from a fellow by the name of Tom Verbeure. Prior
to my tests, he performed his own tests on his 486DX. To cut along story
short, his tests verified mine. I could explain here what he said, but I
couldn't have explained it better :). He has also pointed out a few things
that I didn't explain too well and perhaps over looked as well. So, here is
a copy in the letter that he sent me in full below
Hello Jason,
A few months ago, I have also done some intensive cycles timing on my
ancient 486-33, both in real mode and protected mode. I used the Zen-timer
of Michael Abrash to measured the time in microseconds. This way, I was
able to compute the number of cycles. Most of my conclusions are the same
as yours, there are a few differences though:
* LEA : I don't have my results right here, but I can't remember that this
instruction is slower for EAX than ECX. I did follow a thread on
comp...demos. It was said there that it could be a bug of TASM. I timed my
instructions using inline-assembly with the most excellent Wactom C
compiler. Perhaps you could try LEA for EAX without any relative operators
(LEA EAX,[EAX]) this should be as fast as with ECX.
JN> According to my last results with the Effective Loader (LEA
instruction), operations with non register addresses were the same. Only
when I used indexed addresses did I notice any difference. To put it into
more simpler terms, instructions like the following had no speed detectable
speed difference:
LEA EAX,[HELLO] <---same speed---> LEA ECX,[HELLO]
Where is, when the following was performed, a speed difference detected.
LEA EDX,[EAX*4] <-speed difference -> LEA EDX,[ECX*4]
At this stage, we can say that using EAX as an address seems to cause this
difference. As stated in the main article, this requires further
investigation. I've asked Tom to perform the same tests using my tester.
The results should be interesting to say the least. I should have
conclusive result on this effective loader instruction by next issue.
* AX/EAX: Your timings and conclusions are correct for protected mode, NOT
for real mode. The 386 and up has 16 bit and 32 bit selectors. It's just a
flag in one of its selector registers (don't as which). 16bits and 32bits
instructions are EXACTLY the same. When you are in a 16bit selector
(~segment), the default is 16bits. To use 32bits in a 16bit selector, you
have to add a prefix byte. It takes one cycle to process this byte. The
inverse holds for 32bits selectors: a prefix is needed for 16bits
instructions. As your timings were all done in 32bits selectors, simple
one-cycle instructions like mov are twice as slow! The results is less
dramatic on complex instructions, but as they can almost always be
replaced with a bunch of simple instructions, your rule is correct: don't
use 16bits in protected mode. This also explains why you have to add USE32
in segment-declarations. TASM needs this information to know whether it
needs to add a prefix or not.
JN> People which are unfamiliar with P-mode terminology may be confused
with the "computer jargon" that Tom is using. Just to clarify what has been
said; on the 386/486, we can do 16 processing and 32 bit processing. Now,
the instructions (or rather the opcodes) that do 16 bit processing are
exactly the same as the opcodes that do 32 bit processing. When operating
in Real mode, 16 bit operations are assumed. When operating in Protected
mode, 32 bit operations are assumed. if you want to do 32 bit operations in
Real mode, or 16 bit operations in Protected mode, the instruction packages
are larger due to these so called "prefixes" overriding the instruction
defaults, and hence take more time to be prefetched and decode. The result
is an over all slower instruction (Thanks Tom for pointing that out :). For
further reading on this, please refer to the P52, "Operand size and
address-size instruction prefixes" in the TASM Quick Reference manual. For
all those people that might ask, 8 bit operations are opcodes in their own
right, so are unaffected by the above.
* You're right about register clearing. Keep in mind that XOR sets several
status bits, while MOV doesn't. In rare cases, lots of direct MOVs might
empty the prefetch buffer and slow things down. It's also takes 4 extra
bytes.
JN> I totally agree, but It's very hard to say what happens at a micro
level. My tests couldn't detect any difference.
* It may be interesting to add the performance of the instruction:
according to the Intel 486 Reference Guide, this one costs about 16 cycles
in the most optimistic case. Testing with an old ISA Tseng VGA card,
showed times of about 96 cycles!!!
* Things get even more confusing on my Pentium-90: because of the dual-
pipelining, lots of instruction sequences take up only 0.5 cycles per
instruction! How about timing that?! Only one general rule remains on this
processor: only test your application code, don't test individuals
instructions
JN> Yes, this is the only logical way of optimising this. This is very easy
to do. Demo code tends to be written in a signal entry/exit concurrent
manner, Therefore, testing individual chunks of code seems very viable.
Although, a set of general "guidelines" never goes astray :).
*FPMUL is a lot faster on MUL ==> Kiss all those lovely Fixed Point tricks
goodbye when focussing on this one.
I'm going to test the Pentium in depth during upcoming holidays. If
possible, I'll pass the results to you. As I'm leaving this firm in 5
days, I'm not sure if I will be able to get to InterNet... (If you want to
reply, please do it before friday).
Tom Verbeure <tvb@lms.be>/marathon.lms.be/lms.eunet.be/[193.74.251.58] $
In the next issue, I'll be continuing a this topic further. There are a few
instructions that were missed. I'll also start gearing up for the next
topic in this series: "Programming Techniques". Here we'll talk about how
to implement sine wave generators and random number generations, log tables
etc. Pretty simple stuff for some, but for some of you, it may be new
ground.
See ya
:Jason Nunn
Super Real Darwin
jsno@amigar.apana.org.au
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oo
o O o
O o O O
oOooOoOo oOo oOo
o O `OoOo. o O .oOo o .oOo
O o o O o `Ooo. O `Ooo.
o O O o O O o O
O. O o `oO o' `OoO' `oO `OoO'
.oOOOo.
.O o
o
o
o .oOo. `OoOo. 'OoOo. .oOo. `OoOo.
O O o o o O OooO' o
`o .o o O O O o O O
(Section 9) `OoooO' `OoO' o o O `OoO' o
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Stony, our regular Artists Corner writer, was attending The Party 1994 this
week. For the next issue of this newsletter, he will be contributing lots
of good information on this party. Stay tuned!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oo o
o O O
O o o
oOooOoOo o
o O .oOoO .oOo
O o o O `Ooo.
o O O o O
(Section 10) O. O `OoO'o `OoO'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Advertisement 1 of 2]
__ \ | __| | _)
| | _` | _| _` | ( _ \ \ \ -_) _| _| | _ \ \
____/\__,_|\__\__,_| \___\___/_| _|_| _\___\__|\__|_\___/_| _|
RENAISSANCE WHQ, FUTURE CREW, LEGEND DESIGN, IGUANA, EMF, PRIME
-
Node 1: (703) 506-8598 - 16.8k HST DS v.32bis
Node 2: (703) 847-0861 - 28.8k HST DS v.34
-
Sysop: Ryan Cramer [Iguana/Renaissance]
Located in McLean, Virginia, USA
Online since 1990
-
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In constrast to a lot of todays softwarehouses, we are convinced that
game buyers actually want games that are great to play, rather than great to
look at. We do not believe in hours of rendered introsequences, millions of
texture-mapped Gouraud-shaded Pentium-requirering polygons, or "interactive
movies" with real digitized actors.
What we do believe in, is top quality games. With real action and gameplay!
Because we have several game ideas and projects cooking, we need more
freelance programmers, graphic artists, musicians, animators and game
designers working with us.
If you are ambitious and believe in gameplay, we can offer you extremely
interesting jobs and a very fair share of the sale. Our games will be
marketed in a number of countries, and our alternative ways of profiling
ourselves will draw a lot of attention to our products.
Also people or groups with game-projects of their own are encouraged to
contact us.
We have been part of the demoscene ourselves, and we know this is where the
talent is. Unfortunately, very few people from the demoscene manage to turn
their hobby into a living - great games are much harder to write than great
demos. But if you really are cooler, you could have a bright future
developing games.
Drop us a line and tell us about yourself.
Then we'll tell you more about us.
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------:
: Thomas Nielsen / PROGRESSIVE MEDIA :
: Dalgaardsvej 27, Hallund, 9700 Broenderslev, Denmark :
: Tel/fax : (+45) 98 83 51 77 :
: Internet: Thomas_Nielsen@online.pol.dk :
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------:
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.oOOOo. o ooOoOOo (Section 11)
o o O O
O O o o
oOooOO. o O
o `O .oOoO' .oOo O o o .oOo .oOo O o .oOo. .oOo
O o O o O OoO O `Ooo. `Ooo. o O OooO' `Ooo.
o .O o O o o O O O O O o O O
`OooOO' `OoO'o `OoO' O o ooOOoOo `OoO' `OoO' `OoO'o `OoO' `OoO'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
After reading this issue of DemoNews, you may be wondering how you can get
previous ones. Well fear not! There are two different ways to do so:
1: FTP to hornet.eng.ufl.edu and go to /pub/msdos/demos/news/OLD_NEWS and
start downloading anything you see.
2: Now you can request back issues of DemoNews via e-mail. Start a letter
to listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za (any subject line) and in the body of the
letter include "GET DEMUAN-LIST <INDEX>" where INDEX refers to the
index number of the issue.
For example: GET DEMUAN-LIST 29
This would retrieve DemoNews #70 (index number 29).
Issue Index Date Size Description
----- ----- -------- ------ ----------------------------------------------
70 29 11/13/94 45558 HORNET the New Team, Review of Epidemic Music
Disk, Review of Fast Tracker ][, Dynamic
Tracker Response.
71 31 11/20/94 40430 Streamlining HORNET, NAID, Interview with
Basehead, More on Fast Tracker ][, Denthor's
First Article.
72 32 11/27/94 63343 Goodbye Michelle, Interview with Skaven/FC,
Review of Extreme's Tracker, Asphyxia Lives,
Stony's First Article.
73 35,36 12/04/94 78819 History of HORNET, Editorial: Demo Dreams,
Interview with Necros, Lemmings + Psycho
Neurosis, Review of PMODE/W, Using Assembly
Part 1.
74 37,38 12/11/94 77833 Interview with Vic/AcmE, Editorial: A Defence
of Demoscene, The Making of NAID / Apraxia,
Interview with C.C.Catch, Review of Scream
Tracker 3.2, Review of Autodesk Animator Pro.
75 41,42 12/18/94 68009 A DemoNews Reader, The Birth of Commercial
Life, Editorial: Calm Before the Storm,
Interview with Mello-D, US Demo Scene
(Renaissance meeting), Jelly Tots and Pizza
Shops, Review of Wired '94 Graphics.
76 43,44 12/25/94 92589 Interview with EMF, DemoNews Readers Write,
Kimga's Life Story, X-Mas in the Demo Scene,
CORE, Demo & Music Database, Interview with
Purple Motion/Future Crew, Interview with
Krystall/Astek, Common Sence ][ by Perisoft,
Its X-Mas in Africa, Interview with Maxwood
of Majic 12, Assembly Part ][, Common Sence
Response by Stony.
For more recent issues that are split into multiple parts, you must send
an individual ruquest for each index number.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(Section 12) .oOOOo. o
.O o O o
o o
o O
o o .oOo. .oOo O 'OoOo. .oOoO
O O O o `Ooo. o o O o O
`o .o o o O O O O o O o
`OoooO' Oo `OoO' `OoO' o' o O `OoOo
O
.oOOOo. OoO'
.O o
o O
o oOo
o .oOo. `oOOoOO. `oOOoOO. .oOo. 'OoOo. o .oOo
O O o O o o O o o OooO' o O O `Ooo.
`o .o o O o O O o O O O O o o O
`OoooO' `OoO' O o o O o o `OoO' o O `oO `OoO'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The quote from this week comes from Programmers at Work. The following
excerpt was extracted from one interview:
"The characters in our alphabet actually started out as pictures. They are
a human-made object. They did not come from nowhere and get fixed in
stone. They have changed and evolved over the centuries. It is important
to realize that all notations, whether music, or language, or computer
languages, are just made up. They are symbols that can be changed. There
is a choice. The ability to change notation empowers human beings."
-Scott Kim
See ya'll next week!
-Christopher G. Mann (Snowman)-
r3cgm@dax.cc.uakron.edu
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-End.of.DemoNews.077.
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