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  ABDUCTiON'96 iNViTATiON TEXT 1.0                   25th of March, 1996
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Abduction'96 will be held in 7-9th of June, in Oulu, Finland. The party-
place is Pohjankartano. The party will start at 10:00 (Friday) and end
at around 13:00 (Sunday).

Oulu is a nice, relatively big city in the northern Finland. You can get
there easily by bus, train, aeroplane or your own car. There are a lot
of nice fast food places, restaurants and motels all over the city. Public
transportation works so that moving around the city is not a problem.

We have competitions for both Amiga and PC.

The entrance fee is 100 Finnish Marks (about $22). Girls get in for free!
When you pay the fee you get a voting disk (which is probably PC format-
ted; there will be PCs that you can use for voting). The voting system we
will use again is very exciting and new... and we are very proud of it.
[The counting of votes happens on machine that is hooked into the video
projector and the audience can see the current results scrolling on the
big screen in realtime.]

At the partyplace there are tables, electricity, sleeping places and bath-
rooms for everybody. A 24h/day cafe/snackbar sells food and freshments;
prices are low. We have a lot of good security guards, so that it's very
unlikely that nothing big and valuable will be stolen or damaged (but
anyway, we are not responsible on your computer and other stuff).

There will also be a PartyLAN (Novell Netware based) for swapping demo-
related stuff (not warez!) and playing network games. More information
about this will be released later.

We highly encourage you to take all your computer equipment (microwave
oven is not computer equipment!), girlfriends and friends with you. Take
your own electric cords with you (especially if you bring a lot of stuff),
so that electricity is 100% guaranteed.
You may also need coffeine, sugar, sunglasses, towels, earplugs, etc.
Bring stylish/funny/interesting banners, posters and T-shirts which say
who you are so that other people will recognize you and your group.
A special prize will be given to the person/group that manages to impress
or shock organizers with their unique clothing (or maybe nudity?!?).

If there is time, interest and resources, we will arrange more special
competitions (we're open to suggestions).

You are supposed to have a lot of good time and so on, but at the party-
place you should not...
   o  break anything. If you cause damage, you pay for it.
   o  possess/use drugs, alcohol, weapons (not even waterpistols, guys!).
   o  smoke. Outside there will be a special place for smokers.
   o  sell hardware without organizers' permission.
   o  sell/distribute "warez".

We don't forbid all the fun stuff just because we are arseholes, but be-
cause most of it is against Finnish law and our insurance company's and
sponsors' will.
There are no exceptions. If you break these rules we may take your ticket
away and throw you out - even without warning you (if you really fuc* up).

We've had a lot of problems deciding what kind of machines we should as
competition machines. Some prefer Pentium, some 486. And we know that no
matter how we decide, somebody always disagrees with us. So, we arranged a
voting. The easiest way to vote is to fill out the form which can be found
on Abduction'96 homepage (the URL is below). If you don't have a possibi-
lity to visit the homepage, you can email/mail/fax/call (contact informa-
tion is below) us and tell what you think. The final results can be seen
in the second invitation.
[Note that you don't have to attend Abduction'96 in order to vote.]

PC will be equipped with DOS 6.2, 8 Megabytes of RAM, fast videocard (PCI
or VLB, at least 1 MB) and Gravis Ultrasound (1 MB) / Sound Blaster Pro
2.0.

Amiga organizer has given us the following information about A1200 (you
will need it if the competition machine will be A1200):
   A1200 is equipped with AmigaOS 3.1, 68060/50 MHz, 2 Megs chip +
   16 Megs fast.
   Since we are using brand new A1200 from Amiga Technologies, note
   this: one of the hardware features, the DSKRDY line, which was
   present on all previous drives used in the A1200, is not supported
   by the mechanism used in new machines. So, programmers take note:
   do NOT try to use calls to DSKRDY anymore.

Abduction'96 homepage will be updated constantly. You can find the latest
information always from there. If you register (use the WWW form or con-
tact us) and give us your Email address, you will be added to our mailing
list and informed about major changes concerning the party and especially
competition rules. Homepage also contains all kind of bullshit and past
results.

In every competition a jury will decide which contributions make their way
to the finals. The minimum number of entries shown/played in the finals is
fifteen (15).

In order to attend a music or graphics competition, the author(s) of contri-
bution must be present at the partyplace. What comes to the demo and intro
competitions, at least one member of the group must be present at the
partyplace.

All productions (demos too!) that compete must be ready for distribution.
We will upload productions into all popular demo sites/boards as the party
is over.

By entering any competition you give us a permission to include your pro-
duct on Abduction'96 CD-ROM (if CD-ROM will ever be made, who knows).
Royalties will be paid to the authors of best productions (Top 3?). All
the profit (if any) will be used to make Abduction'97 even cooler party.

You don't have to support both Gravis Ultrasound and Soundblaster, but
it is highly recommended. Real coders don't have problems with that.

Organizers reserve a right to change the rules if necessary. Organizers
also reserve a right to disqualify a contribution if it's either previ-
ously released or contains material that may upset other people (e.g.
racism).

   PC demo competition rules:
     o  the maximum size of demo in executable form is 4096 Kilobytes
     o  VESA 2.0 modes (up to 640x480x16,7M) are allowed, but 100% VGA
        register compatible videomode(s) must be supported
     o  pure animation files are not allowed
     o  demo must not save anything on the hard disk
     o  demo must work without any kind of interaction (except setup)
     o  only the first 10 minutes of the demo will be shown
     o  one must be able to quit demo by pressing ESC
     o  demo must work without sound / a sound card, too

   Amiga demo competition rules:
     o  the maximum size of demo in executable form is 4096 Kilobytes
     o  demo must not save anything on the disk
     o  pure animation files are not allowed
     o  demo must be hard disk installable
     o  demo must work without any kind of interaction (except setup)
     o  only the first 10 minutes of the demo will be shown
     o  one must be able to quit demo by clicking the mouse

   PC intro competition rules:
     o  the maximum size of intro in an executable form is 64 Kilobytes
     o  VESA 2.0 modes (up to 640x480x16,7M) are allowed, but 100% VGA
        register compatible videomode(s) must be supported
     o  pure animation files are not allowed
     o  intro must work without sound / a sound card, too
     o  intro must work without any kind of interaction (except setup)
     o  one must be able to quit intro by pressing ESC
     o  only the first 10 minutes of the intro will be shown

   Graphics competition rules:
     o  maximum resolution is 640x480, 256 colors out of 16,7 Million
     o  pictures will have to be in standard LBM, PCX, TGA or GIF format
     o  scanned, raytraced or ripped pictures are not allowed
     o  submit two versions of the picture (one with your signature,
        one without it)
     o  only one picture from one artist

   Music competition rules:
     o  both 4-channel and multichannel modules compete in this category
     o  all standard formats are allowed (such as s3m, xm and mod)
     o  maximum number of channels is 32
     o  only the first 4 minutes of the song will be played
     o  only one song from one artist
     o  Amiga modules will be played using Amiga (ProTracker v2.x);
        PC modules will be played using PC equipped with Gravis Ultra-
        sound MAX (1 MB)
     o  no MIDI songs
     o  maximum size of the module is 1024 Kilobytes

If you have questions or comments about Amiga competitions, contact the
Amiga organizer, Karpow/Scoopex. He knows more about Amiga stuff than we
do.

Mail:  Seppo Seppal„
       Korpikylantie 245
       61980 Pantane
       Finland

Email: karpow@kauhajoki.fi

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                         Abduction Organizing ry

 Mail:             Phones (home):              Phones (cellular):
 c/o Ilkka Jauho   +358-(9)60-393902/Ilkka     +358-(9)40-5404704/Ilkka
 Urputie 17        (Ilkka has a FAX machine)   +358-(9)40-5530503/Ari
 96190 Rovaniemi   +358-(9)60-393954/Ari       +358-(9)40-5502719/Markus
 Finland

 Email:      makrus@iki.fi  or  synapse@triplex.fipnet.fi

 Homepage:   http://www.hut.fi/~maurala/abduction.html
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Probably the fastest way to get a respond is to send some email to me,
Makrus. And if you want to call us, please, try cellulars because we don't
have a chance to spend too much time at home.

Abduction Organizing ry is a society which consists of people who are in-
volved in this project. The Finnish law forbids Abduction Organizing ry
and its members to gain any profit; all the money/hardware we manage to
raise will be given away as competition prices (of course we pay the rent
and insurance fees first).

Abduction'96 is sponsored by the following companies:
  o Pomi center Laatumikro Oy (The main sponsor)
  o Novell Finland
  o Telecom Finland
Support them, because they make organizing a party possible!

We thank you for reading this text. See you all at Abduction'96.


Signed,

   Makrus
