chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Chuck Schul) (03/14/91)
anyone have a copy of it?or seen it.i did but i did not get a copy i want one let me know fellas! ---- ProLine: chuckie@pro-odyssey Internet: chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie ARPA: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie@nosc.mil
chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Chuck Schul) (03/27/91)
any body have number 2.i saw number 2 once it is nice and i am looking for a copy of it.i have number 1 it is nice.but 2 will blow you mind with the graphics and sound.wow!!!if you have it fess up dudes.if you want a copy of one let me know.i will mail it out if you send 2 or 3 buck for a disk and mailer. ---- ProLine: chuckie@pro-odyssey Internet: chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie ARPA: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie@nosc.mil
d_alvear@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dom Alvear) (04/01/91)
In article <8216@crash.cts.com> chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Chuck Schul) writes: >any body have number 2.i saw number 2 once it is nice and i am looking for >a copy of it.i have number 1 it is nice.but 2 will blow you mind with the >graphics and sound.wow!!!if you have it fess up dudes.if you want a copy of >one let me know.i will mail it out if you send 2 or 3 buck for a disk and >mailer. >---- >ProLine: chuckie@pro-odyssey >Internet: chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com >UUCP: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie >ARPA: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie@nosc.mil Better yet, how about you send union demo 1 to atari.archive in an .MSA file and the person who has union demo 2 can do the same? I have a burning desire to see some new demos. Also, I've asked before, but has anybody seen the LOSTBOYS MINDBOMB demo? I got a little taste of it from the RED SECTOR demo, but I want more!!!! Dom Alvear d_alvear@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu alvear@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu <-- preferred
ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (04/05/91)
In article <7871@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> d_alvear@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dom Alvear) writes: >In article <8216@crash.cts.com> chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Chuck Schul) writes: >>any body have number 2.i saw number 2 once it is nice and i am looking for >>a copy of it.i have number 1 it is nice.but 2 will blow you mind with the >>graphics and sound.wow!!!if you have it fess up dudes.if you want a copy of >>one let me know.i will mail it out if you send 2 or 3 buck for a disk and >>mailer. >>---- > >Better yet, how about you send union demo 1 to atari.archive in an >.MSA file and the person who has union demo 2 can do the same? I have >a burning desire to see some new demos. Also, I've asked before, but >has anybody seen the LOSTBOYS MINDBOMB demo? I got a little taste of >it from the RED SECTOR demo, but I want more!!!! The Union Demo uses a strange disk format that .MSA won't recognize or work with. If it did work, the Union Demo would have been on atari.archive a long time ago. :^) I haven't tried Ultra, but I could give it a try. Also, Jampacker and Pompey Packer recently posted to a.a seem to have some disk compression. I can probably play with those a little and see what happens; too bad they don't have docs. :^( -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0
ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (04/05/91)
In article <7871@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> d_alvear@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dom Alvear) writes: > >a burning desire to see some new demos. Also, I've asked before, but >has anybody seen the LOSTBOYS MINDBOMB demo? I got a little taste of >it from the RED SECTOR demo, but I want more!!!! Someone on Fidonet was supposed to send me the Mindbomb demo and a couple of other new ones; I should have gotten them a week or so ago. When or if I do, I'll try to get them to a.a in some form. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (04/05/91)
Lotsa questions about various "demos" for the ST.. These demos are great, but.. is anyone involved in creating the demos also involved in creating anything useful..? If you bother to wait through all the text on most of these demos, they all seem to be self-congratulatory messages between various software pirating groups... We've got a wonderful body of "demos" to run on our computers, but do they equate into anything "real"..? BobR
ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (04/05/91)
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: - Lotsa questions about various "demos" for the ST.. - - These demos are great, but.. is anyone involved in creating the - demos also involved in creating anything useful..? No. - If you bother to wait through all the text on most of these demos, - they all seem to be self-congratulatory messages between various - software pirating groups... And there's something wrong with that? Maybe they should congratulate one person. Maybe they should congratulate, maybe -- just maybe, Bob Retelle? Nah. It would read, "Greetings to Bob Retelle. Scr*w everyone else," or something like that, as they do. - We've got a wonderful body of "demos" to run on our computers, but - do they equate into anything "real"..? I don't know about you, but I bought my STe just to see the CoolSTe demo by An Cool. When I'm not reading Usenet, CoolSTe is always playing. I can't get enough of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation,' nor of Mickey Mouse bouncing around among 4096 colors. Okay, sarcasm mode off. Actually, some of the groups create games for the ST. Is that useful enough? :^D They also make file packers. Then there's TCB (The Carebears) Tracker, Soundtracker module creator. I'm sure there's other stuff that we don't see here in the States. But I agree with you, too bad we don't see more productivity products from them. I think they could write some very nice stuff. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0
dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) (04/06/91)
In article <1991Apr05.082347.2154@ecst.csuchico.edu> ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) writes: >Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: > >- Lotsa questions about various "demos" for the ST.. >- >- These demos are great, but.. is anyone involved in creating the >- demos also involved in creating anything useful..? > >No. Now Ed, let's not bash these demo writers too much. :-) While in general it seems that many of these demo authors are egomaniacs who don't follow guidelines, there are some of them that write "useful" stuff. (That is, if you consider games useful.) At least, I know the game Enchanted Lands was written by some former demo hackers. This shows in the game itself -- the scrolling is smooth and full-screen, and the music is good. Not my favorite game, but techincally quite impressive. I'm sure demo authors write other things too. (I realize you were being a bit sarcastic.) >- If you bother to wait through all the text on most of these demos, >- they all seem to be self-congratulatory messages between various >- software pirating groups... > >And there's something wrong with that? Maybe they should >congratulate one person. Maybe they should congratulate, maybe -- >just maybe, Bob Retelle? Nah. It would read, "Greetings to Bob >Retelle. Scr*w everyone else," or something like that, as they do. I agree with Bob. I think it's pretty tasteless to put cheesey messages to one's friends in demos, and besides that, it limits the usefulness of the demo. One purpose of demos is to show off the computer. I remember the "walking robot" demo from Atari 8-bit days -- I bet that sold a few machines. But no store owner is going to put a demo up that says, "Howdee to all crackurs out there" or some similar garbage. Correctly spelled messages might be nice occasionally, too. :-) >- We've got a wonderful body of "demos" to run on our computers, but >- do they equate into anything "real"..? > >I don't know about you, but I bought my STe just to see the CoolSTe >demo by An Cool. When I'm not reading Usenet, CoolSTe is always >playing. I can't get enough of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation,' nor >of Mickey Mouse bouncing around among 4096 colors. I know I've already bantered about this before, but I think demos often miselad non-programmers as to what the capabilities of their machine actually are. You can do a heck of a lot more in a demo than you can in general-purpose code. The recent thread on flicker palettes provides an example: Suppose I come up with two palettes in which 32 combinations blend with no flicker at all. Then I can write a demo that puts 32 colors on the screen at once with no flicker (of course, putting a note at the bottom of the screen saying, "By the way all u crakers and hakkurs, count the colurs on the screen HA HA wunder how i did that?") That doesn't mean that anyone could use my 32-color "screen mode" for _anything useful_. You couldn't write a paint program to take advantage of it. (Well, maybe.) In any case techniques like these often break down when you try to make them general-purpose. >But I agree with you, too bad we don't see more productivity products >from them. I think they could write some very nice stuff. To be honest, I'm not so sure that's true. I don't mean to be critical here, but many of the demos I've seen 1) simply crash when run from a hard drive 2) take over the entire system 3) provide no way to exit the program, probably because they trash the OS in horrible ways 4) are usually weird and unpolished in their operation 5) rely on all sorts of undocumented and unsupported hardware "features", e.g., shifter bugs, instruction timings, etc. It's as though the authors only spend much time on the "nifty hack" parts of the demos -- the routine that puts 522 colors on the screen or whatever, and then just do a half-baked job on the rest. It doesn't take much work to make a well-behaved program, but it requires a kind of discipline I guess. You can't release a productivity program with any of the above 5 problems unless you want bad sales. Games, on the other hand, are pretty much like demos in that you don't have to follow as many rules. Dave Baggett dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net
boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu (Mickey Boyd) (04/07/91)
In article <7871@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>, d_alvear@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dom Alvear) writes: >In article <8216@crash.cts.com> chuckie@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Chuck Schul) writes: >>[Chuckie's text (or whatever) deleted] > >Better yet, how about you send union demo 1 to atari.archive in an >.MSA file and the person who has union demo 2 can do the same? I have >a burning desire to see some new demos. Also, I've asked before, but >has anybody seen the LOSTBOYS MINDBOMB demo? I got a little taste of >it from the RED SECTOR demo, but I want more!!!! At last count, I have 9 full disk type demos other than Union and Lostboys. If this semester ever ends, I will MSA them and put them on atari.archive. -- ---------------------------------+------------------------------------- Mickey R. Boyd | "Kirk to Enterprise. All clear FSU Computer Science | down here. Beam down Technical Support Group | yeoman Rand and a six-pack . ." email: boyd@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu | ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu (Mickey Boyd) (04/07/91)
In article <40919@cup.portal.com>, Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: > >These demos are great, but.. is anyone involved in creating the demos >also involved in creating anything useful..? Some of the Tex group are now writing games for the ST and Amiga. They certainly have the talent . . . >We've got a wonderful body of "demos" to run on our computers, but do they >equate into anything "real"..? > Heck, give me a pile of demoes and a good buzz any day . . . >BobR -- ---------------------------------+------------------------------------- Mickey R. Boyd | "Kirk to Enterprise. All clear FSU Computer Science | down here. Beam down Technical Support Group | yeoman Rand and a six-pack . ." email: boyd@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu | ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu (Mickey Boyd) (04/07/91)
In article <1991Apr5.202600.7995@wam.umd.edu>, dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes: > >[.........] >I agree with Bob. I think it's pretty tasteless to put cheesey >messages to one's friends in demos, and besides that, it limits the >usefulness of the demo. One purpose of demos is to show off the >computer. I remember the "walking robot" demo from Atari 8-bit days -- >I bet that sold a few machines. But no store owner is going to put a >demo up that says, "Howdee to all crackurs out there" or some similar >garbage. Correctly spelled messages might be nice occasionally, too. :-) > >[...........] >I know I've already bantered about this before, but I think demos often >miselad non-programmers as to what the capabilities of their machine >actually are. You can do a heck of a lot more in a demo than you >can in general-purpose code. > >[............] >>But I agree with you, too bad we don't see more productivity products >>from them. I think they could write some very nice stuff. > >To be honest, I'm not so sure that's true. I don't mean to be >critical here, but many of the demos I've seen > > 1) simply crash when run from a hard drive > 2) take over the entire system > 3) provide no way to exit the program, probably because they > trash the OS in horrible ways > 4) are usually weird and unpolished in their operation > 5) rely on all sorts of undocumented and unsupported > hardware "features", e.g., shifter bugs, instruction > timings, etc. > >It's as though the authors only spend much time on the "nifty hack" >parts of the demos -- the routine that puts 522 colors on the screen or >whatever, and then just do a half-baked job on the rest. It doesn't >take much work to make a well-behaved program, but it requires a kind >of discipline I guess. > >You can't release a productivity program with any of the above 5 >problems unless you want bad sales. Games, on the other hand, are >pretty much like demos in that you don't have to follow as many rules. > >Dave Baggett >dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net Dave, these works are not commercial efforts!! Some of these kids are not even in High School yet, for cripes sake! Recognize these demos for what they are: great demoes written by pirating groups. The messages are programming challenges and boasts of great hacks. What the heck is "general purpose code"??? The general purpose of the Union demo is to amaze the eyes and ears, and create envy toward the members of the Union. Sounds good to me . . . As for the demoes being useless, I for one and amazed by many of them. Very few folks leave my house without a glazed look in the eye and a new appreciation for computer graphics. I LOVE to show them to PC types. They sell Atari machines (and Amiga machines). The only thing that scares me is: What the hell are we going to do when the little buggers hit the job market . . . . :-) -- ---------------------------------+------------------------------------- Mickey R. Boyd | "Kirk to Enterprise. All clear FSU Computer Science | down here. Beam down Technical Support Group | yeoman Rand and a six-pack . ." email: boyd@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu | ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
kawakami@cyclone.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami) (04/07/91)
In article <1991Apr5.202600.7995@wam.umd.edu> dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes: >It's as though the authors only spend much time on the "nifty hack" >parts of the demos -- the routine that puts 522 colors on the screen or >whatever, and then just do a half-baked job on the rest. It doesn't >take much work to make a well-behaved program, but it requires a kind >of discipline I guess. >Dave Baggett >dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net Facts is facts, and the fact is, most of the fun in programming (at least from what I've seen) is in getting the program/function to work right, and squeezing in as many "features" as possible. Careful design and a good user interface take a back seat. John Kawakami kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu Amateur Crank! ucbvax!ocf.berkeley.edu!kawakami
daniel@hexagon.se (Daniel Deimert) (04/07/91)
In article <40919@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
)
)These demos are great, but.. is anyone involved in creating the demos
)also involved in creating anything useful..?
Actually, many of them are (even if they were not at the time they
made the demo): A few examples could be The Exceptions, The Carebears,
and S.Y.N.C. (I believe TEX and TCB are working at Thalion GmbH.,
Germany. SYNC have written Audio Sculpture--we all know what that is,
don't we?)
Of course, there are even more people NOT working yet, since the vast
majority of these demos are written by youths less than 20 years old.
The simple truth about the scrolltexts is that everybody knows
everybody else in these circles, and the scrolltext is a good way to
boost your ego. For example, your friends in school might be impressed
if you in the scrolltext claim that you're trading pirated software with
13 famous cracker groups all over the world. I know, since I've got to
deal with a lot of people like this in the store, even if most of them
have Amigas. And you should see the ads for different groups' HQ BBSs
at Fidonet here in Sweden. "Always the Latest Warez", they claim.
Piracy on the ST is getting better here in Sweden I think (less of it,
that is ;-). On the Amiga things are getting worse, though. As an
example: When we recived the new game "ELVIRA" from Accolade noone would
buy it. Everyone had been playing it for months, they said. Compare
this with the Nintendo market: Whenever a new game is released, we have
*already sold* all the cartridges we expect to get, even before we get
them! Games won't be a success for a home computer until the CD-ROMs
are real cheap.
Hope I didn't tire you,
Daniel
--
Daniel Deimert, daniel@hexagon.se or ...!sunic!kullmar!pkmab!hexagon!danieldmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) (04/08/91)
In article <1991Apr7.040622.5384@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu writes: >Dave, these works are not commercial efforts!! Some of these kids are not >even in High School yet, for cripes sake! Recognize these demos for what >they are: great demoes written by pirating groups. The messages are >programming challenges and boasts of great hacks. I know this is going to sound pedantic, but why should we applaud bad programming practices? OK, I'm impressed by the fact that M.C. Crakker or whoever can put 522 colors on the screen, but I just have a hard time giving praise to these folks, because if they continue to write things that rely on hardware ideosynrcsies and internal TOS variables they will cause endless headaches for everyone when they do release commercial software. The Care Bears' sample sequencer recently posted is a perfect example. That program is a complete disaster as far as "coexisting in harmony with the system." People don't WANT a file selector that has little stars flying around the screen. People don't WANT to have to run the program off floppy, and put up with the thing crashing all the time. It's great that they managed to get 4 digitized samples playing simultaneously. I can tell you from experience that's NOT easy. But without some attention paid to good programming practices and "the rules," the program is useless, IMHO. Ask Allan Pratt what he thinks about programs that rely on "undocumented features" or circumvent GEMDOS and use their own floppy-disk handling code... I am NOT trying to say that these programmers are not good; on the contrary many of them seem to be very talented (especially if they're as young as you say), but the last thing the world needs is a bunch of people writing nonportable, non-fool-proof, and non-bullet-proof code. The irony is that it's not that they _can't_ make robust, portable programs. Being such programming whiz-kids, it should be no problem. They just don't care. That's the part that I wish would change. > What the heck is "general >purpose code"??? The general purpose of the Union demo is to amaze the eyes >and ears, and create envy toward the members of the Union. Sounds good to >me . . . Well, at the very least, "general-purpose code" in the case of a demo means, "code that will run on all ST/TT machines". (Within reason. If you write an STe or TT only demo, that's another matter.) As I've pointed out before, there are many, many demos that don't run on my machine because my monitor can't handle the UNDOCUMENTED forced change to 50Hz. Just sour grapes, you say? Nope, I just wish that these people would spend a little more time figuring out how to do things the right way, rather than hacking the OS to pieces. Trust me, most things like screen interrupts that put 512 colors on the screen CAN be done such that the "great hack" will work on all ST's. As for "envy," on the one hand you're saying that I shouldn't expect too much of these people because they are high school kids, but on the other hand you tell me tht the point of the demos is to make me impressed with their programming genuis. To me this is similar to saying, "There's a really incredible ice skater I know. She falls down a lot, but if she can keep going she can do these _amazing_ jumps." A lot of people consider Darek Mihocka to be a "whiz-kid," and he was writing code when he was in high school too. My impression, however, is that he follows "the rules". He writes great stuff (the 8-bit emulator is certainly an impressive "hack"), but still manages to make sure it's robust and TOS-version independent. My point is that I am personally more impressed by something like Quick ST than the Union Demo in terms of programming ability. Quick ST isn't showy, but it's a great hack, and it works on every ST/TT in creation. OK, so Quick ST is a commercial product. So what? There's no reason those demo people couldn't write commerical-quality software too. They obviously have plenty of spare time, and it would probably help them pay for college! Again, just my opinion. >The only thing that scares me is: What the hell are we going to do when the >little buggers hit the job market . . . . :-) Pray that they have learned to write portable and robust code before you have to use one of their programs. :-) That all said, I'm really not trying to flame the demo authors. Poor programming practices and non-portable code just get to me. Maybe there's a traumatic expereince involving poor programming in my past. :-/ Enough o' my raving... Dave Baggett dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net
chuckie@pro-odyssey1.cts.com (Chuck Schul) (04/08/91)
In-Reply-To: message from d_alvear@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU are these demoes union 1 and 2 in the archive and lostboys one etc??? ---- ProLine: chuckie@pro-odyssey Internet: chuckie@pro-odyssey1.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie ARPA: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie@nosc.mil
chuckie@pro-odyssey1.cts.com (Chuck Schul) (04/08/91)
the bbs was down so whoever has union demo 2 let me know!!!!! thnaks ---- ProLine: chuckie@pro-odyssey Internet: chuckie@pro-odyssey1.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie ARPA: crash!pro-odyssey!chuckie@nosc.mil
neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) (04/08/91)
In article <1991Apr7.040622.5384@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu writes: >As for the demoes being useless, I for one and amazed by many of them. Very >few folks leave my house without a glazed look in the eye and a new >appreciation for computer graphics. I LOVE to show them to PC types. Like magic, It's easy to be impressed when you don't know how it's done. If they read a scrolling message for long enough, it's not surprising your friends have a glazed look in their eye. :-) When the PC types show me Pakemaker 4 and a good reliable Microsoft Write I get a glazed look in my eye. >They sell Atari machines (and Amiga machines). To people who then wonder why only demos ever managed to do those effects. >The only thing that scares me is: What the hell are we going to do when the >little buggers hit the job market . . . . :-) Nothing. Few of them have a clue about application writing and the only high level language they ever use is BASIC. (OK :-) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ! DISCLAIMER:Unless otherwise stated, the above comments are entirely my own ! ! ! ! Neil Forsyth JANET: neil@uk.ac.hw.cs ! ! Dept. of Computer Science ARPA: neil@cs.hw.ac.uk ! ! Heriot-Watt University UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil ! ! Edinburgh, Scotland, UK "That was never 5 demos!" ! +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
larserio@IFI.UIO.NO (LarsErikOsterud) (04/09/91)
Well, Karl-Anders here in Norway has written a much better SoundTracker than Audio Sculpture (i have posted it but things take a long time to pop up in comp.binaries....). Both the St and STE sound is great and it's a normal PRG-file and can be used from harddisk (no nasty programming here...) Lars-Erik / ABK-BBS +47 2132659 / ____ ______ ________________________ Osterud / larserio@ifi.uio.no / /___ / The norwegian ST __________/ ______________________/ ____/ / Klubben, user association