rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki) (06/30/87)
[ Please post this everywhere ] [ Please post this everywhere ] The Zeroth BADGE Killer Demo Contest! *Introduction* The Bay Area Amiga Developers' Group is sponsoring, for the first time, a competition designed to provide some impetus to the creative and sometimes demented developers and users of the Amiga to create some killer demos. The rewards consist of cold hard cash and recognition throughout the Amiga community, and possibly some neat toys if someone would care to donate something. *Time/Place* The actual competition will take place on Thursday, October 15, 1987, at Stanford University, during the regularly scheduled October BADGE meeting. (Actual location to be announced.) All entries must be received by October 1, 1987 to be eligible for the contest. *Prizes* There shall be at least nine prizes awarded: First, Second, and Third Overall, Best Category A (512K), Best Category B (1M), Best Category C (> 1M), Best Use of Sound, Best Use of Graphics, and Funniest. Prizes for First, Second, and Third Overall shall be at least $100, $50, and $25 respectively. Other prizes will be determined. This is a non-profit undertaking, and all donations shall be used strictly for expenses and prizes. *Rules* All entries must be freely redistributable. Floppies with the best Demos will be sent to Fred Fish for inclusion in his Freely Redistributable Library and will be made available to any interested parties, including dealers. Source is *not* required, but appreciated in the spirit of Amiga hackerdom. If source is provided, it too will be distributed. All Demos must be runnable from the CLI by specifying the name of the Demo only; no `execute' or parameters should be required. The sole exception to this is tool-based Demos developed with tools that do not allow this. Shareware is not permitted. All files required for the Demo, except those on the standard 1.2 Workbench Disk or AmigaBASIC, shall fit on one standard 3.5 inch Amiga floppy. The Demo will be run with the standard 1.2 Workbench Disk in DF0: and the Demo disk in DF1:. The current directory shall be a subdirectory into which all of the files from the root level of the supplied Demo disk have been copied; all files referenced by the Demo should not use logical names or absolute paths, except for the standard logical names defined after a cold boot onto a standard 1.2 Workbench. All Demos shall run under Version 1.2 Workbench. Either custom programs or tool-based Demos are acceptable. If a tool-based Demo is entered, the `player' tool must be provided on the Demo disk. No Demos will be accepted if they are directly derived from a commercial product available on or before October 15, 1987. In other words, a Demo-mode version of Marble Madness is not acceptable. All Demos shall run properly on an Amiga with expansion RAM, even if they are entered in Class A. Things that need to go in CHIP RAM should specify CHIP RAM. Each Demo shall have 60 seconds to run. If it does not terminate of its own accord by this time, it should have clearly indicated a method of termination, and it will be ended. Each Demo should require little or no user interaction. If any user interaction is required, complete and clear instructions shall have been displayed at the beginning. A mode in which absolutely no user interaction is required is highly recommended, even for those Demos that benefit from user interaction. Only one entry per person will be accepted. Anyone may enter. The decisions of the judges and BADGE are final. *Entry Fee* No entry fee is required, but donations toward the prize money and operational expenses of the contest are encouraged. If at least $5.00 is sent, a floppy containing at least the top-three ranking Demos will be returned. All donations will be acknowledged in a file distributed with the Demos and displayed by a script written to run the Demos. Please donate, and help make this Contest successful! *Judging* There will be three classes, A, B, and C. Class A will be Demos that run on 512K Amigas. Class B will be Demos that run on 1M Amigas. Class C will be Demos that require more than 1M. You may enter any class, but your Demo must run on a machine of the class you enter. In particular, Class B Demos should run on Amiga 500's with the internal RAM expansion. During judging, all Demos will be run on an Amiga 1000, with the appropriate amount of memory. Class C Demos will be run on a 2.5M Amiga; if your Demo requires more memory, contact Tomas to see what can be arranged. If the response is great, there will be a prejudging step to prune the number of Demos down to 30. This prejudging will be held just like the final contest, but only ten judges shall be used. The main contest will be held with everyone present voting. Each demo will be shown, and then everyone present will be requested to score that demo on their own judging card. At the end of the meeting, the judging cards will be collected; the results will be tabulated and the awards presented the following evening. The judging will be based on a 100 point total. The judging categories will be: Technical, 30 points. Nift, 30 points. Use of Graphics, 15 points. Use of Sound, 15 points. Amiga Specifics, 10 points. The Technical category will be judged before the meeting; it is expected that each Demo shall receive the full 30 points for this category. The requirements are that the Demo shall not require reboot to exit; shall have a clearly indicated and simple method to exit the Demo if necessary; shall return all system memory and other resources; shall work with a 60-column workbench as well as an 80-column workbench, and shall not write to either disk during execution. A Demo may take over the machine, but it should run to completion and return to the Workbench correctly. You should be able to execute the Demo from a command script and have the command script continue at the end of the Demo. The Nift category is just sheer impressiveness and impact. The Use of Graphics category and Use of Sound categories are intended to be self-explanatory; how effectively did the Demo make use of the graphics and sound capabilities of the Amiga? Finally, the Amiga Specifics category is intended to judge how much this Demo sets the Amiga apart from other computers; was it obvious that this type of Demo could not have been done on an Atari or Mac, for instance? All points will be totalled, and then, for each individual Demo, the highest 10% scores and the lowest 10% scores will be eliminated and an average taken. Prizes will be determined strictly by ranking the Demos by the resultant average. All entrants will receive a notice of the final results. *Entry Instructions* To enter, send in your Demo on one 3.5 inch floppy, with no files on the floppy but those required for your demo, excluding any files on the standard 1.2 Enhancer Workbench floppy, to Tomas Rokicki, Killer Demo Contest, Box 2081, Stanford, CA 94305. Include a sheet of paper with the following information: Your name, telephone number, and address; the class of your Demo (A, B, or C), and a short description of your demo to help in the judging. You are also encouraged to include a donation towards the prize money; $5.00 will get you a floppy with at least the top three demos on it. All submitted materials become the property of BADGE and will not be returned. Make sure your entry gets to Tomas by October 1, 1987. If you plan to attend the BADGE meeting and you do not usually attend, please indicate this so an appropriate-sized room can be reserved. *Announcement Distribution* Please give this announcement the widest possible distribution. Post it to bboards, announce it at User Group meetings, print it out and give it to friends.
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (07/02/87)
In article <385@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki) writes: > > The Zeroth BADGE Killer Demo Contest! > You realize, of course, that I consider this a personal challenge... _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
klm@munsell.UUCP (Kevin McBride) (07/08/87)
In article <3472@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >In article <385@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki) writes: >> >> The Zeroth BADGE Killer Demo Contest! >> > You realize, of course, that I consider this a personal challenge... > >Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ Alright, Leo! Go for it! Let's see what kind of twisted prize-winning hack you can come up with this time! Let's see how much crap I have to add to fool the news posting program. There that should do it. -- Kevin McBride |Disclaimer: These | harvard -\ Eikonix - A Kodak Co. | opinions are mine, | ll-xn ---adelie-----> munsell!klm 23 Crosby Dr. | not my employer's, | decvax -v talcott -v | Bedford, MA 01730 | So There! | allegra ------------encore
nick@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Nick Flor) (07/10/87)
>In article <3472@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: > You realize, of course, that I consider this a personal challenge... > >Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ Hey man, like, what motivates you to do these cute little projects that have no real utility. They're clever and interesting, but appear to be quite time consuming. You're not getting paid, are you? What gives? Nick -- + Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own, not necessarily my employers'. + + "What's going down in this world, | Nick V. Flor + + you got no idea. Believe me." | Hewlett Packard - San Diego Division + + "We came, we saw, we kicked *ss." | ..hplabs!hp-sdd!nick +
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (07/11/87)
In article <1114@knopfler.munsell.UUCP> klm@knopfler.UUCP (Kevin McBride) writes: >In article <3472@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >>In article <385@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki) writes: >>> >>> The Zeroth BADGE Killer Demo Contest! >>> >> You realize, of course, that I consider this a personal challenge... >> >>Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ > > >Alright, Leo! Go for it! *gasp* You guys,... Don't you realize what this means?.... It means... It means... We're not gonna see anything new from Leo until AFTER THE CONTEST!!!!! He'll be saving it all up for it. *gasp* I... I.... I don't think I can hold out that long...... aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgfgggggggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-) Keith
derek@speedy.WISC.EDU (Derek Zahn) (07/13/87)
Interesting point, Leo, about the group vs. individual problem in the Demo contest. Personally, I would not put too much emphasis on it, though. I would suggest leaving the categories as is, except adding "best individual effort" -- if "best" and "best individual" turn out to be the same, well, that's ok.... Speaking of this demo thing, I am working on an entry and have a question: when does the "one minute" start? If, for example, I had a program that had 200K of data or more (like the Juggler) and the minute was counted from the time the command was entered, 20 seconds or more of that minute could be most unimpressive (loading data) -- I would think that the minute should be counted from a clear starting point provided by (or inferred from) the program, provided that the startup time is "reasonable" (subjective). Whatever the rule is, I would like to know, as I would hate to not include the data loading time into my demo when writing it, only to have it disqualified because of that; and one minute is not a lot of time to show off the Amiga! derek Derek Zahn @ Wisconsin USENET: ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,ucbvax}!uwvax!derek BITNET: derek at wiscvm ARPA INTERNET: derek@cs.wisc.edu "Someone's always sitting in the only place to hide."
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (07/15/87)
In article <878@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes: >>In article <3472@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >> You realize, of course, that I consider this a personal challenge... >> >>Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ > >Hey man, like, what motivates you to do these cute little projects that have >no real utility. They're clever and interesting, but appear to be quite time >consuming. You're not getting paid, are you? > >What gives? > >Nick No real utility: They *are* useful. They make you giggle. They make you laugh. They make you reverse-snort tuna salad sandwiches. Clearly, such works will have a lasting social impact. Time consuming: Not really. The actual code writing never seems to take more than two or three days. Robotroff was an exception; that one took about ten days. The only real time consuming part is thinking up the idea and implementation, and for me, that's a background task that's always running no matter what I'm doing, although more ideas tend to flow when I'm listening to music. By the way, when VideoScape 3D becomes available, *watch out!* I have *TONS* of ideas for videos that I've accumulated over the years..... [ Note: #define day {coding session lasting from about 8 PM - 1 AM} ] Paid: Since I do these goodies during my free time, I still have plenty of time to go out and earn a living, which I've been doing of late with a *WONDERFUL* company called UmeCorp. My boss, Gary Koffler, used to help run both DataSoft and DataMost (at different time, of course). My other boss, Mike Miller, was president of Waveform, the people who brought C-64 owners MusiCalc and The ColorTone Keyboard. UmeCorp also brought you MusiCraft (now called Sonix). Gary has also informed me that there is now an unofficial company mandate to help me win the Killer Demo Contest. This, however, runs counter to my belief that it really ought to be individuals, not companies or large groups of people, expressing their love for the Amiga through demos. Notwithstanding, the fact that UmeCorp *is* willing to help me indicates that these hacks must have *some* practical value. I also write hacks as an educational process for myself; to see if a new idea for software technology will work. With Robotroff, it was to make use of the "fork this sucker into the background" routine in a transparent way. With Viacom, it was to utilize the blitter directly. With Oing, it was trying to figure out how to animate six identical sprites without having to keep 36 copies of sprites around. With Ing, it was tripping through the window list, and also seeing if I could double-buffer an Intuition screen neatly. I also do it for fun, and for the positive feedback I've received. It's also a form of electronic resume. Many have suggested that I go commercial. That day may be soon coming. However, few people would have known about my expertise if I hadn't started throwing my code around, and I wouldn't have the offers before me I do now. I have had several ideas for an entry into the BKDC. A lot of implementation details started popping into my head for one of them, so I guess that one will be the one I use. I'll probably only score 90 with it, though, since I'm very bad at using sound, and will probably use it minimally. I'm doing it because I want to, because I think it will be fun (and because I'll get flamed to a crisp if I don't :-) ). Gee, this got long-winded. Sorry 'bout dat. I'm not getting defensive, really. It just came out of my modem that way. I think my .signature says it all: "I'm just having fun." [ P.S: You realize, of course, that most of this is 'inews' filler in disguse.... :-) :-) :-) ] _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Bike shrunk by popular demand, dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o But it's still the only way to fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor