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                                                      | Subscribers  :  1894
       DemoNews Issue #113 - January 22, 1996         |   Last Week  :  1863
                    -------------                     |   Change     :   +31
     DemoNews is a newsletter for the demo scene.     | Archive Size : 1718M
 It is produced by Hornet at the site ftp.cdrom.com.  |   Last Week  : 1628M
    Our demo archive is located under /pub/demos.     |   Remaining  : 1237M
                                                      |
==[Contents]===================================================================

   Line    Section
 ------    -------------------------------------------------------------------
     33    Calendar
     56    Top Downloads
    111    Uploads
    278    Articles
    280      Introduction................................Snowman
    366      The Party 1995 Review by Hornet.............Stony
    651      Applied VESA................................JsNO
    994      Review of Impulse Tracker...................GD
   1126      The Party 1995 Intros Reviewed..............Phoenix
   1316    Subscribing
   1331    Closing


==[Calendar]===================================================================

 Date      Event                   Location  Description
 --------- ----------------------- --------- ---------------------------------
 28 Jan 96 General Probe 2 Party   Poland    info: /party/1996/GP96
                                             mail: s146630@ire.pw.edu.pl

  1 Feb 96 8086 Compo Deadline     [n/a]     info: /hornet/8086
                                             mail: trixter@ftp.cdrom.com

 17 Feb 96 Awakening               U.S.A.    mail: norg@cyberspace.com
                                 --CANCELED--

 29 Mar 96 Mekka                   Germany   mail: PV80090@PH80090.HH.eunet.de
                                             www : www.xs4all.nl
                                                   /~blahh/RAW/Parties
                                                   /Invitations/Mekka.html

 31 May 96 Naid                    Canada    mail: naid@autoroute.net

 More information is at http://hagar.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/~sdog/party.html


==[Top Downloads]==============================================================

 Welcome to a new section in DemoNews, entitled "Top Downloads."  Dan used
 to produce such a list clear back in 1993.  In perspective, our archive was
 getting about 0.5 gigs downloaded a month, whereas now we get around 50-60
 gigs.  How times change.  The perl script generating this list may not be
 providing completely correct statistics.  I'd tell you why, but that would
 be boring.

 Please note that the files listed below do not include the path.  If you
 use our archive enough, you'll know the two places to look.  Please don't
 write me asking where to get these at... maybe it's time for you to use a
 handy search function on our ALLFILES.TXT?

 Times  File          Description
 -----  ------------  --------------------------------------------------------
   132  acdu0196.zip  NO NO NO!  Our top downloaded file was an ANSI pack!  :(
    96  caero.zip     Caero, a TP95 demo from EMF and Plant (demo)
    93  luminati.zip  Lumination by Tran and Baseheaed (demo)
    86  dragon.zip    Dragon by GooRoo and Khyron (demo)
    85  nooon_st.zip  Stars by Noon (demo)
    84  ft204.zip     Fast Tracker v2.04 (music)
    81  cp16.zip      Cubic Player v1.6 (music)
    77  ftj_ymca.zip  Caero, (final version) by EMF and Plant (demo)
    45  scrmt321.zip  Scream Tracker 3.21 (music)

 Phear ST3 and FT2 being downloaded 130 times together.  Ever more evidence
 of the music scene's growth.  How many of those 84 FT2 downloaders do you
 think will register?  Notice that if you put the old and final versions of
 Caero together, it is our number 1 download this week.

 What I have just presented to you is completely false, but interesting.
 Below is the actual top 10 download list for the week.

 Times  File                                 Description
 -----  -----------------------------------  ---------------------------------
   312 /ALLFILES.ZIP                         Our good friend  :)
   301 /00dir.txt                            A mistake, now removed
   248 /ALLFILES.TXT                         Our good friend's phat brother
   205 /music/programs/players/00index.txt   Looking for cmod30b3.zip? cp17?
   188 /00mags.txt                           A misplaced soul, since removed
   184 /music/programs/trackers/00index.txt  Velvet Tracker anyone?
   153 /incoming/demos/dragon.txt            I liked the demo better
   132 /incoming/ansi/acdu0196.zip           Doh!
    96 /alpha/1995/c/caero.zip               ftj_bonk.zip!
    93 /incoming/demos/luminati.zip          Non-satanic demo by Tran,Basehead

 Now you see why I presented the first list rather than the latter one.  In
 the future, I'll only present the legitimate downloads (no .txt files).  I
 also probably won't have much other textual information in here.

 Anyway, that's a little taste of what people around the world downloaded
 this week.


==[Uploads]====================================================================

=----------------------------------------------------------[File Information]-=

 All files listed below are on ftp.cdrom.com under /pub/demos.
 Please keep in mind that all ratings are subjective.

 If your file transfers are too slow, there are several alternatives:

   Use our European mirror at ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/pc-demos
   Try getting files from the web at http://www.cdrom.com/pub/demos
   See /hornet/demonews/101-120/demonews.102 for details about ftpmail.

 You may also wish to check out a couple of other good demo sites:

   ftp://ftp.arosnet.se/e:\demo maintained by Zodiak / Cascada
   ftp://hagar.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/demos maintained by Sleeping Dog / Natives

=-------------------------------------------------------------[Demos:General]-=
Location /demos/alpha             Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
/1995/s/serenity.zip                44 *+    Serenity by Immortal Syndicate
/1995/s/snowxmas.zip               190 **+   Xmas 1995 by Snow
/1995/x/xmas.zip                    40 **+   Merry Xmas by Mr. Skitzo and Narq

Enlight '95 Demos (ENL95:demo:)

/alpha/1995/g/glitchfx.zip         935 **    01: Glitch by Queue Members Group

Enlight '95 8k Intros (ENL95:in8k:)

/alpha/1995/r/remix2.zip             7 ***+  01: Remix 2 by Future Hackers
/alpha/1995/m/m_harm.zip             8 **    02: Mostly Harmless by TMA
/alpha/1995/p/pentium.zip            3 **    03: Pentium by DDT
/alpha/1995/0-9/6567.zip             9 **    04: 6567 by Roi

The Party '95 64k Intros (TP95:in64:)

/1995/c/ctslasse.zip                64 ****+ 01: Lasse Reinbong by Cubic Team
/1995/y/ydl_illu.zip                45 **+   02: Illumination by Yodel
/1995/c/cda_tp5i.zip                63 ***+  05: Intro by Cascada
/1995/t/tc_unr.zip                  77 ***+  08: Unreadable by The Coexistence
/1995/k/k-louise.zip                64 **+   13: Louise by Karma
/1995/c/charf.zip                   62 **+   17: Charity by Symptom
/1995/p/purmagic.zip                61 **+   19: Purple Magic by Qurex
/1995/j/just-ice.zip                60 ***   20: Just-Ice by Spirit
/1995/a/amb_lola.zip                66 ***   ??: Lola by Amable
/1995/m/maqcolor.zip                47 *     ??: 24-Bits Intro by Masqwe
/1995/n/nocomm.zip                  61 **+   ??: No Comment by Vic and Emzet
/1995/o/okean.zip                   63 ****  ??: Sea Robot of Love by Orange
/1995/p/poison.zip                  67 **+   ??: Poison by Stupid ASCII Slayers
/1995/r/royal.zip                   64 ***+  ??: The Royal Family by Orange

=-------------------------------------------------------------[Music:General]-=
Location /demos/music             Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
Digital Symposium '95 Music (DS95:mmul:)

/songs/1995/mod/p/pugwash.zip       59 *+    02: Pugwash by Babbage
/songs/1995/mod/h/hw-djan.zip      214 **    03: Django by Hollywood
/songs/1995/mod/r/remembnc.zip     166 ***   04: Rememberance by Elfman
/songs/1995/mod/s/suburbia.zip      81 ***+  04: Suburbia by Screech
/songs/1995/mod/r/rustyjnk.zip     282 ***   05: Rusty Junk Box by Aquafresh
/songs/1995/s3m/s/speed-up.zip     216 ***+  06: Speed-Up by Witchunter
/songs/1995/mod/k/kickback.zip     243 **    06: Kick Back by Dooba
/songs/1995/mod/f/funkyt.zip       126 ***+  06: Funky Trousers by Style
/songs/1995/mod/d/datacity.zip     145 **+   07: Data City by Stuart Collier
/songs/1995/mod/g/grasshop.zip     219 **    07: Grashopers are Green by Reflex
/songs/1995/xm/h/heartach.zip      129 ***   ??: Heartache by DD
/songs/1995/xm/b/brdr_rmx.zip      122 ***   ??: Border of Insanity by Popz

=--------------------------------------------------------[Music:Non-Reviewed]-=
Location /demos/music             Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/programs/misc/awefxw11.zip         23 AWE32 FX Workshop v1.1
/programs/misc/awereset.zip          8 AWE32 Reset for Cubic Player 1.6
/programs/players/pp.zip            22 PolyPlay PTM player
/programs/players/wzone1.zip       745 [1/2] WildZone v1.0
/programs/players/wzone2.zip       857 [2/2] WildZone v1.0

=----------------------------------------------------------[Graphics:General]-=
Location /demos/graphics          Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
/disks/1995/msqpp1.arj            1406 ****+ P&P Gfx disk by Masque [1/2]
/disks/1995/msqpp2.arj             529 ****+ P&P Gfx disk by Masque [2/2]
/disks/1995/ppfix.zip               40 [n/a] P&P Gfx disk by Masque FIX
/images/1995/j/jh-ozone.zip        138 *     Ozone Logo by Joe Hova
/images/1995/m/mk-ritua.zip        422 ***   Ritual Emag ad by Mr. Krinkle
/images/1995/n/natqueen.zip        109 *+    Queen of Rain by Balex-T/Natives
/images/1995/s/ss-smp.zip          936 **+   Various images by Schizosynth
/images/1995/s/ss-smp1.zip         692 **+   Various images by Schizosynth
 
Digital Symposium '95 Graphics (DS95:grfx:)

/images/1995/b/babbage.lha         202 **    03: Babbage by Nerve Axis
/images/1995/d/darkdcs.lha          38 **+   04: Dark by DCS
/images/1995/c/cyanide.lha          49 *+    05: Cyanide by Maniacs
/images/1995/m/maffia.lha          192 **    06: Maffia by Nerve Axis
/images/1995/b/bliss.lha            22 **+   07: Bliss by Nerve Axis

Odyssey 1995 Graphics (OD95:grfx:)
 
/images/1995/o/oddy.zip            233 ***+  ??: Atrophy by Schizosynth
 
Summer Encounter 1995 Graphics (SE95:grfx:)
 
/images/1995/n/nogravit.zip        197 **+   ??: No Gravity by Vivaldee
/images/1995/r/robozone.zip         76 **    ??: Robozone by Ziax

=-----------------------------------------------------[Graphics:Non-Reviewed]-=
Location /demos/graphics          Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/people/z/zapper.gif                74 Zapper / Force 10
/programs/convert/alch162.zip      405 Image Alchemy v1.62 by Handmade Software
/programs/convert/crop.lzh          35 Image Cropper by Skip Sauls
/programs/convert/emailasc.zip     174 ASCII Art Maker by Don Kreusberg
/programs/convert/slpcxraw.zip      43 Pcx2Raw conversion by Jinx
/programs/drivers/sck-v203.zip      12 SVGA driver by Cyberdancer
/programs/editors/akm-md36.zip     162 Master Draw v3.6 by Arkham
/programs/editors/anim8_11.zip     174 ANIM8 v1.1 sprite editor by Majestick
/programs/editors/icspred1.lzh      47 32x32x256 sprite editor by YC
/programs/editors/mdraw.zip         50 MDraw sprite editor by Matt Miller
/programs/editors/ripaint.zip     2192 Rip Paint Editor by Telegrafix
/programs/editors/sam001.zip        34 Sprite Animator v0.01 by Sliq
/programs/editors/spriv103.zip      24 Spriter v1.03 by Discordis
/programs/editors/winplasd.zip     340 WinPlas v2.0 demo by ?
/programs/fractal/dst_frac.zip      12 Fractal Trace Version 1.0 by Gougoutt
/programs/mode/dp400.zip             1 320x400x256 DP2e patch by Pelusa
/programs/mode/dpx11.zip            15 Any X-mode DP2e patch by BArtist
/programs/mode/dpxt102.zip           5 Some X-modes DP2e patch by Eclipse
/programs/mode/squash.zip            6 TSR makes 1:1 aspect by Shayde/Reality
/programs/players/disp187.zip      836 Display v1.87 image viewer/convertor
/programs/players/e_fast22.zip     346 Fast FLI/FLC player by Eclipse
/programs/players/fastlite.zip      25 Fastlite FLI/FLC player by Eclipse
/programs/players/formula3.zip    1340 Multimedia designer by Harrow Software
/programs/players/vpic61e.zip      251 VPic image viewer by Bob Montgomery
/programs/vector/3dedb09.lzh       133 3D polygon editor by ?
/programs/vector/akm-mm10.zip       85 Master Modeler 1.0 by Arkham
/programs/vector/veced300.zip      330 3D vector editor by Grey Cat/Core

=----------------------------------------------------------------------[Code]-=
Location /demos/code              Size Rated Lang Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---- ----------------------------=
/graph/copper/copper.zip            15 +     ---P Simple Copper Bars 
/graph/examples/presamp.zip         85 ***   A--- Creating optimial palette
/graph/library/mpvga10.zip          84 ***   A-C- linear 320x200 w/pages
/graph/tutor/tut20.zip              19 ***+  A--P Denthor's VGA Tutorial #20
/graph/water/water.zip              14 ***   A--- ASM vers. of Iguana's water
/hardware/cputest2.zip              10 ***   A--P Identify CPU type
/sound/m32pre3.zip                 611 ****  --C- MIDAS v0.50 pre-release #3
/sound/mikxmas.zip                 267 ****  --C- Mikmod 2.10 Watcom fixes
/sound/mxmp10.zip                   69 ****  A-C- 6K .XM GUS player (Cubic)
/tutorial/kmagv2.zip                54 **    ---P King Mag #2 (demos and TPas)

=----------------------------------------------------[Miscellaneous:Reviewed]-=
Location /demos                   Size Rated Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ----- ---------------------------------=
/mags/1995/cntrs003.zip           1448 ****+ Contrast #3
/mags/1995/insight1.zip           1082 ***+  Insight #1

=------------------------------------------------[Miscellaneous:Non-Reviewed]-=
Location /demos                   Size Description
=-------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------------------=
/hornet/demonews/demonews.111       45 DemoNews 111
/info/traxw/traxweek.039            25 TraxWeekly 39


==[Articles]===================================================================

=---------------------------------------------------[Introduction]--[Snowman]-=

 Hello all, and welcome to DemoNews issue 113.

 Boy it feels good to be writing one of these again.  It's been over a month
 since my last DemoNews introduction.  Plentiful thank you's fly to Diablo
 for filling in with an issue during the interim.  I've moved from Ohio to
 California and have had a bit of difficulty "getting back into the groove."
 I am now officially employed by Walnut Creek CDROM, who own and maintain
 the ftp.cdrom.com server.

 Attention, this is a Hornet production.  Time to wake up...

 By now you've all heard about The Party 5.  The rave band in the sleeping
 hall, the unshown demos and intros, the spontaneous unannounced graphics
 compo, etc.  This week, Hornet (Stony / Hornet to be exact) presents his
 review of this party.  I don't plan on including many more articles about
 this party in future issues.  It's a dead issue now.

 ftp.cdrom.com has undergone a massive upgrade.  The system is now running
 with a P6, 256 megs of ram, and 72 gigs online storage.  Our own /demos
 archive has been moved to a more vacant mount and so we have a little more
 breathing room.  Watching 500 users online with the processor 50% idle is a
 rather awe-inspiring experience.  I actually got to see the new server
 before it went in, and got to actually touch the old server as it was being
 dragged out... hehehe..

 Hornet is now going to officially produce the NAID '96 CD.  Walnut Creek
 has unseated Gravis as the primary sponsor of this party, and I for one am
 happy to be a part of the whole thing.  We hope to have a /demo CD of some
 sort ready to go before this party starts.

 I had the opportunity to watch David Greenman, principal architect of
 FreeBSD, install the operating system on my computer last week.  FreeBSD is
 a PC unix-based operating system somewhat like Linux.  As to which is
 better, you'd just have to watch my coworkers fight about it.  :)  BTW: My
 coworkers laugh at me for using DOS/4DOS, except for Matt (coder of WadEdit
 and a 4DOS user himself).

 Jason Nunn, coder for the Music Contest 3 intro, developer of the
 FunkTracker and Unis669 trackers, and contributor to DemoNews, is leaving.
 He still might write a bloody article now and then, but other duties in his
 life call.  On a related note, welcome KiwiDog / Hornet.  KD (Chris
 Hargrove) comes to us from the Terraformers and will be helping to manage
 the ever-increasing workload our site seems to generate.

 Recently I spent two days at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, vending
 Walnut Creek warez. Even though it was a Mac show (training mission for
 yours truly), I got the chance to see some PC-related stuff.  I spoke to a
 man from Intel for about 15 minutes who claimed to have a couple P7
 prototypes in his lab. Iomega was the buzzing company and I sat through a
 goofy presentation.  The woman giving it was from the deep south and kept
 saying "Use our new Jazz drive, 'cause its 'yer stuuuuff!"  The MacHeads
 found her amusing.

 I also got to talk to the author of "Tricks of the Mac Game Programming
 Gurus" (anyone remember "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" for PC?).
 Anyway, I said (oh so confidently) "Do you have stuff in there about
 gouraud and phong shading?"  He said "No, graphics resource gathering is in
 the second book."  I didn't understand.  We went through about 3 identical
 question/answer sessions like this one until I finally figured it out...
 the guy couldn't comprehend that someone had actually approximated phong
 shading real-time, not as still-frame.  Doh!  I also spoke to a former
 student of Ellie Quigley's (author of "Perl by Example", a book I swear
 by).  But enough of that... :)

 I went to a party last week with some people from Sun MicroSystems, a
 gentleman who was responsible for fixing bugs in the Solaris OS, and a guy
 who writes 3D simulators for NASA.  California certainly is a much more
 active area than Ohio and I hope to get a first-hand glimpse of technology
 that might shape the future demo scene.

 On a side note, Diablo's team of reviewers have been naughty lately and he
 is looking to expand by a couple more.  As long as you haven't recently
 written for TraxWeekly, feel free to mail us at the address below.

 Hornet now welcomes you to a new year in the demo scene.  Remember,
 ftp.cdrom.com is your warm fuzzy home, DemoNews your irregular e-tome of
 info..fo..fo-MATION, and our group an ever-friendly collection of people
 who would like to get greeted more in demos.

 Take care.

 Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@ftp.cdrom.com


=----------------------------------[The Party 1995 Review by Hornet]--[Stony]-=

 [NOTE: In order for this report to fit DemoNews, it had to be reformatted
 a bit.  The original can be found at /party/1995/TP95/report.zip]

 Review of The Party 5
 27-29 December 1995
 (this time a short review done by Stony / Hornet)

 _____Tuesday, 26 December (The Beginning)

 This time the report is done by Stony since Meriadoc decided to skip this
 party since he has too many things to do for school.

 After having brunch with my family and girlfriend I packed all my stuff
 together and went to TyZM with whom I leave to Denmark. This year we,
 of course, went with Reality (including Lowlife/Axis, Raver/Effect PC and
 Dope/Spaceballs) again as we did last year. We left at TyZM's place at
 16:30.

 _____Wednesday, 27 December (The Arrival)

 We arrived at 06:45 in Frederica (Denmark) after a long night of fun and
 without sleep.  We entered the Partyplace at 08:00 since they asked $15
 more if we entered before... sounds commercial to me.

 After putting up a small network we are now playing a bit and of course
 typing this small report.  I have had several power-downs now since some
 people wanna hit the switch...

 I have seen some familiar faces... more should arrive later since some
 groups do leave [for the party] today.

 The big screen... well better say small... people back in the hall can
 hardly see it. The hall is also much smaller than it was last year in
 Herning.  Hope we can follow all compos well enough.  Groups who haven't
 reserved probably don't have a place left for them.  TNT also arrived at
 about 10 'o clock.  It is snowing outside.  Phone is expensive, strange
 thing.

 (16:43)

 Well.. we are playing network Command & Conquer, quite a nice game, lost
 two times already :(.  Nothing special going on, we are waiting for a
 compo.  The weather is very nice outside so I'll take a look this eve.
 Most of the people from the bus are asleep or are somewhere in town.

 (19:00)

 Going to get some Pizza this eve.  Too much light in the hall to see good
 quality on the big screen.  Most of the people are in now as far as I can
 see (well... The Raver/Effect PC, noticed that New Order still hasn't
 arrived).

 No films are shown this time, at least I haven't seen anything of it.

 (22:48)

 Just returned from the Pizza Man... pwoaak.. this was the most horrible
 Pizza I have ever eaten (actually half). Now they are showing a short film
 about Somewhere in Holland as it was held in Roosendaal (Holland) last
 year.  Still too much light and too much playing of Command & Conquer :).

 _____Thursday, 28 December

 (02:15)

 The 4 Channel Music Compo just started, I can't hear a thing since a lot of
 noise is coming from everywhere.  At the moment a rave party is going on so
 people had to move out of the sleeping hall since the rave party is being
 held there... weird too..

 (10:04)

 I just woke up since I have been to bed for 6 hours, nothing special has
 happened.  Most people are waiting for the compos to begin.  I hope some
 nice demos (and of course intros) will show up.

 (11:30)

 The fast intro compo just started, they don't announce it, it just starts.
 Still too much light everywhere so you must be in front of the screen or
 else you won't see a thing.

 (13:20)

 We just noticed that the graphics compo started, sh*t why can't they
 announce it ?!? I missed the first 8, what I have seen till now is quite
 good, also some rendered are present. About 75 graphics have been shown.
 The gfx compo will be shown again tonight because of the daylight.
    
 The graphics I'll vote for:
    
 1) 55) Wooooooww!! Two ladies with tattoos... a winner! Danny Rules!
 2) 36) A woman turning her head around towards to the viewer by Angelo/Axis.
 3) 50) Lady with blue hair, nice one!
    
 A funny one to mention is Pamela Anderson a.k.a. Silicon Valley :)

 Lots of ladies are in the pictures this Party.

 (19:00)

 Just returned from the McDonalds, one of the main sponsors of this party.
 We had some fun, Dutch people aren't allowed anymore now :)  The C64 compo
 just started, lot of people running to the big screen to see what the good
 old C64 still can do.  The demos are really good!  If people are as
 enthusiastic as they are with these demos then we have good demos for a
 change!

 (21:00)

 The wild compo is started and the animation are really great, some
 animations done by PC are a bit sturdy... too bad... maybe there should
 have been a better player for the PC.  Amiga animations are really great.

 (23:00)

 Went to the toilet a few minutes ago... well.. too bad that some people
 don't know how to behave.  All walls are under graffiti and stickers.  And
 those guys who do that keep complaining about entrance ?! Party 4 CD is
 also available ($35) and is full of stuff, not bad.
 
 _____Friday, 29 December
    
 (00:45)

 The PC demo compo... A lot of entries...

 Wooooowww.... d/l those demos!! There are really good demos showing lots of
 really fast effects and nice 3D views!  Seems that after a long period of
 bad stuff the good stuff is coming... complete 3D 'animations' showing very
 fast!!

 Not all demos have been shown!!  Demos from Acme and Logic Design for
 example, seems as if the dutch are being boycotted...
    
 (04:30)

 Dutch sceners are mad!  Why you think?!  Because a lot of Dutch productions
 haven't been shown, lot of trouble with the organizers. A list has been
 made for signing for 'The Party 5 Suxx', lot of people have signed.  Hope
 things will be solved.  Too bad that this all ruins the party.

 (10:25)

 Well.. the Party is almost at its end, lot of people are going home
 already, I don't know what time we'll leave.

 (14:00)

 The party has ended, the results are in... Danny/Spaceballs won the
 gfx-compo.  EMF won the PC demo-compo for the results of the other get on
 to our FTP site.

 _____Other People's Opinions (Villain / Reality,TST,TPG,TUE,HSE,NO,???...)

 Well, so here we are, at the great 'Party 5' in Denmark.  This is my first
 Party (Denmark that is), and so far I think it isn't really worth the long
 trip over here.  We were driving all night to be here in time and when we
 came here, we had to pay an extra 25 Guilders for entering the party-
 place, which we (of course, Dutch as we are) didn't do.

 This was the first of many disappointments for me. But then again there is
 always a bright side to things.  I met (again) a lot of new people here,
 and I finally got the change to defeat Stony in Command&Conquer (loser ;)

 Well, so far so good, we will sit out this party, but it isn't quite what I
 expected it to be (I didn't even get a *REAL* Party bracelet, instead we
 got some paper thingie *SNIF*). Ok, this will do for me for now, I hereby
 give the keyboard to this guy (read: Raver) next to me with his PlayStation
 Logo behind his Windows'95 (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA).

 Greets, stuph, enzo,

 _____Other People's Opinions (The Raver / Effect PC)

 I hope I can type something here because I have gotten no chance yet to
 sleep, and will not get any the next hours because some *sswipes (read
 organization) decided to keep the Rave party in the sleeping hall. (Well,
 at least The Fox 2 will do some music at it!)

 We are going to eat some real food soon, the cheese I have taken with me is
 getting some weird color! aaaaargh. (it smells they say!!) I would also
 like to say something about the whristbands!  they s*ck. It is some paper
 thing taped around my whrist and it's annoying me!  ok enough talk.  cya

 _____Other People's Opinions (Dope / Spaceballs, Organizer of SIH '96)

 My feet hurt. My eyelids are heavy. The walls under my eyes have reached
 the bottom part of my chin...

 I WANNA SLEEP!

 But I can't because some nerd (read: organizer) has placed a RAVE party in
 the sleeping hall :-(... Picture that: you want to sleep and the hall is
 constantly filled with at least 150 decibells.  I spoke with the
 organization today for about 1.5 hours and they couldn't give another
 explanation then that the rave party was supposed to be in another hall. I
 don't care...

 My feet hurt!

 _____Other People's Opinions (Harmony)

 Hello Dope, are you having fun...........?

 So... this is supposed to be the party... I'm having a really good time. I
 wish that we had more days than just 2.5. It is so crowded!  Again, lots of
 people I know and lots of people I met.  It's a pity that the screen isn't
 as big as expected.

 Last night I almost didn't get any sleep, there was a rave-party goin' on
 in the sleeping hall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I woke up after half an hour
 finding my fingers in my ears! That was horrible.

 I found out that Denmark looks lovely being covered with snow...
 I haven't seen that much snow in a very long time.

 Well...I liked the compo's that I've already seen.  I think that that
 cola-crash was quite a mess and the wild was wonderful!  Well, as you see
 I'm not so tired as my brother, though I didn't get much more sleep as he
 did. I leave yo'all here, 'cause I have some things to do. I wish you all a
 very happy new year and see you at SIH '96 !!!
   
 _____Other People's Opinions (Walyx / TNT)

 Well, this is the first time at a party outside of Holland.  Seems to be
 that there were a lot of groups to have a demo ready, but weren't shown on
 the big screen.  I don't know, but I think that they deserved to be shown
 on the screen too.  About the screen, it was a little dark and not that
 big, furthermore the screen could be placed a little bit higher.  And after
 all, in the beginning, the first night, there was a great RAVE party, for
 those who like it, I didn't!  I wanted to sleep.

 _____Other People's Opinions (Twynn / TNT)

 Hello...  well, don't expect too much text here, because I'm quite sleepy..
 I think this wasn't a really great party.. I mean, I also visited the
 Party '92 and it was much much better then.. They hadn't got silly
 rave-parties in sleeping-halls till about 04.00 am.. I really can't imagine
 that somebody can think of organizing this.  But I guess that the whole
 organization sucked!!  I mean.. why were all the dutch demo's
 disqualified?? (well, maybe analogue came through but that's maybe because
 they are not completely Dutch!).  Well, that's it for now...

 _____Saturday, 30 December (back to Stony)
   
 (16:45)

 Here I am sitting behind my new keyboard since my party keyboard is broken,
 I went in a rush to the nearest computer shop to get myself a new one.

 I arrived back home at 04:00 this morning after a 12 hour trip with a lot
 of fun and without sleep.  I was in the same bus with The Wizz / Reality,
 Dope / Spaceballs, 'God', Harmony / Ind, The Raver / Effect PC, Lowlife /
 Axis and Tyzm / Ind.  The Raver, Harmony, Tyzm and I stayed awake with
 Turbo and Red Bull, some powerdrinks.  We had a lot of fun and were totally
 broken when we arrived back home.

 _____Conclusion

 I have had a lot of fun during the Party 5, too bad that the organization
 this year wasn't quite well.  Last year the Party was much better. I hope
 these guys do better next year.

 Most releases for the compos were very good, the productions are worth the
 d/l so get on to Hornet FTP now !

 _____Last Word

 I want to thank The Wizz for organizing the bus-trip again, thanks to all
 other people present in the busses for the fun we had. See ya guys in
 February on our Party meeting. Take care dudes.

 This report is quite different from the last ones, no reviewing has been
 done on any productions.

 For any remarks just mail me.

 With regards.
  
 Stony / Hornet and Trance - pvanmun0@pi.net


=------------------------------------------------------[Applied VESA]--[JsNO]-=

 _____Introduction

 With the advent of faster machines, and succession of VESA standards, demos
 written for VESA modes are now very much viable. This article will be
 discussing how you would go about making a VESA demo and to provide you
 with some code that I used in my Oz96 entry.

 If you are a Real Mode coder, then read no further. The code I am providing
 is writing for 386 P-mode. If you intend on applying following ideas in
 real-mode, then I send my best wishes to you, but adhere to this warning.
 You are now creating a demo that will require approximately 6-8 times the
 resources both in memory and in CPU (assuming a 640x480 demo). Implementing
 a P-mode demo for VESA will be far less painless.

 _____How VESA Came About

 The IBM VGA standard was made by the one company - IBM. This made life very
 simple, as hardware communication was standard across different brands. You
 could code a demo for your machine, and you know it will work on every
 other machine that had an IBM VGA card.

 When the SVGA extension flowered, many companies took it upon themselves to
 create their very own hardware standards. I'm not really sure on the finer
 details of how SVGA developed, and why IBM never took the initiative of
 designing the initial SVGA extension, or why companies were even given the
 opportunity to develop SVGA in the first place, but these companies did.
 The result was many brands of SVGA cards, all with their own special port
 layouts.

 There developed a problem here, as the application designer now had to
 write code to talk to a whole range of SVGA cards on the market. The
 solution was to make a common standard. However, instead of an expensive
 (and possibly disastrous) hardware reform, it took place as a software
 reform.

 The VESA standard describes a set of functions (implemented in software)
 that an application program will use in order to get the graphics card to
 do desired tasks. Each company would make their own VESA driver that
 offered the above common functions. An application now would be much more
 simpler, as it only had to talk to a VESA driver, which all had common
 interfaces. It is the VESA driver that converts the common VESA
 communication to the diverse hardware that is out on the market. The
 complexity is removed from our program and is placed into the driver.
 Hence, a brilliant software solution to a complex hardware problem.

 Also, could you image having to support all the different cards on the
 market?. Imagine having to buy all the different type of cards, and then
 writing code for all those of them. It would be a nightmare, not to mention
 the endless debugging you would have to for each card. If the VESA standard
 hadn't come along, I would have never considered writing a demo in
 640x480x256c.

 _____Implementation

 The implementation I am going to describe is for 640x480 256 colour. You
 can go for higher modes, but I don't think we have the computing power
 these days to do it. We might have to wait another 2 years or so before
 1024x768 (or truecolour 640x480) fully animated demos come out.

 So anyway, the implementation I came up with is to first allocate a
 640x480 buffer of memory.

   mov    edx,SCREEN_X*SCREEN_Y
   mov    eax,0EE42h
   int    31h
   mov    [Rendbuff],edx

 This buffer of memory is where the painting/blittering/rendering code will
 do all of it's writing. Once rendering has finished, the data from this
 buffer would then be copied to the visible screen.

 The logic around this comes in two forms:

 a) video memory is very slow. Therefore is a far quicker to do all your
 fiddly rendering to a memory buffer first.

 b) If you are operating in a Banking type mode, then your rendering
 algorithms will be a lot simpler, as they won't have to take into account
 the bank positions of the screen. Also, far less port communication will be
 done, as copying will be done in a single blow.

 So, now we have a rendered buffer, we now have to communicate this to the
 screen. So now do we do this?. Well, for a start, we must understand the
 way VESA operates, and what features we actually have available to us.

 _____Banking Communication

 Back in the dim dark days of VESA 1.x, the only way we could talk to any
 graphics card was by Banked calls. The idea around banked talking is that
 the screen is split up into so called "banks". To paint graphics to a given
 part of a the screen, one would select a bank, and then paint graphics to
 the usual A00000h video area. The reason for this is simple. In Real mode,
 we only have conventional memory, in which we only have the common old 64k
 (A000:0000) screen memory available to us. Banked mode allows us to talk to
 the entire range of screen addresses with a single 64k chunk of memory.

   mov    edx,BANK_WE_WANT_TO_SELECT     ;copy part of render buffer
   mov    esi,[Rendbuff]                 ;to bank X
   mov    edi,[VideoPtr]
   mov    ecx,10000h/4
   rep    movsd

 This was a very elegant solution to get around the "Real mode" thing.
 But-of-course, this idea is nothing new. Similar ideas are implemented with
 VGA 640x480x16 and various CGA modes.

 To set a bank, we set the following registers and perform the following INT
 call:

   edx = BANK_WE_WANT_TO_SELECT

   mov    edx,[edx*4+BankSetTable]
   xor    ebx,ebx
   mov    eax,4f05h
   int    10h

 The BankSetTable reference you see in the above code is just a table that
 provides a quick look up. From card to card, the values in this table are
 different and quite intensive to calculate. To calculate the table
 contents, we apply the following algorithm:

 BankSetTable          dd 128 dup (?)

   movzx  eax,[esi+ModeInfoBlock.WinSize]
   movzx
 ebx,[esi+ModeInfoBlock.WinGranularity]
   xor    edx,edx
   div    ebx
   xor    edx,edx
   xor    ecx,ecx
 @@loop02:
   mov    [ecx*4+BankSetTable],edx
   add    edx,eax
   inc    ecx
   cmp    ecx,length BankSetTable
   jb     @@loop02

 In English, we feed the algo two factors, The Window (or Bank) size in
 kilobytes (ie 64k) and the Window granularity (a better word would be
 alignment) which tells the way in which the banking is positioned on the
 screen.

 To calculate our bank factor we perform a simple divide:

 BANK_FACTOR = WINDOW_SIZE / WINDOW_GRADULARITY

 Each bank X 's value, will be X * BANK_FACTOR. We simply then put these
 values into a table.

 For quiche eaters in mind, a less confusing (but slower) version of the
 above concept would come in the form of:

 procedure set_bank(bank : word);
 var
   bank_factor         : word;
 begin
   bank_factor := bank * (ModeInfoBlock.WinSize /
                    ModeInfoBlock.WinGranularity);
   asm
     mov    dx,[bank_factor]
     xor    bx,bx
     mov    ax,4f05h
     int    10h
   end;
 end;

 As we tend to do lots of bank calls when using this mode, you can
 understand why I prefer to put the bank values into a small table.

 _____Linear Communication

 With VESA 2.00 standard and above, we can perform linear communication.
 This method is dead easy. The VESA driver supplies the video memory
 address, and you just copy the data straight to that address area. Easy,
 fast, convenient, no mess, no worries. ;) You could even blit directly to
 that address and bypass buffering, but I seriously wouldn't recommend it.

 _____Applying Page Flipping

 Just like you're normal run-of-the-mill MODEX demos, we need to perform
 page flipping in order to make our graphics glitter free. We do this by
 writing a Interrupt Service routine (ISR), to keep track of when we can
 "flip" to a fleshly updated invisible page.

 I won't bore you with the details on how to do this. This was an area
 covered by Trixter in Demonews #111. So i refer you to that article on how
 it's done. All I want to discuss here is how to set the screen offset
 address through the VESA driver. As follows:

 edx = THE START ADDRESS AT LINE X

   xor    ecx,ecx
   xor    ebx,ebx
   mov    eax,4f07h
   int    10h

 So if you want the start the screen to begin on line X, you set EDX to this
 line number.

 _____VESA 2.0 (Vbe2.0) P-mode Calling

 VESA 2.00 also offers direct P-mode calling. Conventionally, communication
 to the VESA driver was done through the INT 10h interrupt service (as
 you're probably already have seen). What VESA 2.0 allows you to do is call
 the various VESA functions directly when in P-mode. As the VESA driver is
 running in real mode, it will cost you a state switch, plus the usual
 interrupt overhead maintenance. Interrupt calling from a real mode program
 to a real mode service isn't so bad. But from a P-mode program it can
 become quite costly, and will chronically degrade your demo's performance.

 To use this service, you can read the address positions of each function
 provided by the VESA information block, then call those functions directly,
 with the same parameters as with their INT counterparts...

 Well, almost the same.

 There is a difference in parameters of the Real mode VESA "set offset
 address" function, and the P-mode "set offset address" function (Funct.
 4707h).

 The INT version sets the start offset by line values and pixel positions
 (X,Y type thing). CX should contain the desired pixel position in a given
 scan line, hence giving you sideways movement, and DX should contain the
 first displayed scan line giving you up/down movement.

   mov    ecx, X movement in pixels
   mov    edx, Y movement in pixels
   xor    ebx,ebx
   mov    eax,4f07h
   int    10h

 With the P-mode function however, we have to set up the DX:CX as an actual
 offset. For standardisation purposes, My code communicates the INT
 parameter type. When we want to use the P-mode services, the parameters are
 converted from the INT type to the new P-mode type. Hence:

 SCREEN_X = 640 (in our case)
 CX = X
 DX = Y     ----converted to--->      DX:CX
 offset

   mov    eax,SCREEN_X/4
   mul    edx
   mov    ecx,eax
   mov    edx,eax
   and    ecx,0ffffh
   shr    edx,16

 The stepping isn't byte by byte, rather double word shifts. As a result we
 have to divide SCREEN_X by 4. I can't seem to find an attribute in the VESA
 information block that would define such a factor. The VESA 2.0
 documentation points to a "colour depth" value??, but, this area was very
 poorly documented and left a lot of unanswered questions..

 For now though, 4 seems to be a universal memory alignment, and seems to
 work across all computer/cards. Whether or not this value varies around
 computers I don't know.. but this is the best I can come up with for now.

 _____Using the Code

 The code i'll show you is a combination of Adam Seychells VBE2.0 library,
 my initial VBE1.2 library and a bit of code generously donated by Tran's
 "Hell" demo. I merged them all to get this current code. The following text
 describes this code:

 The first piece of code you'll need is..

   mov    bl,00b
   call   CheckVbeMode
   jc     @@init_error

 This function will return CF=N if your card supports the 101h
 (640x480x256c) mode. It also accepts two bits in the BL register. Now you
 don't really have to know much about this, as you would normally set BL to
 0. I've put this is here for debugging reasons, so that I can override
 Linear mode and P-mode calling detection.

 If CF=N, we can then put the card into hires 640x480x256c mode and initiate
 the background screen flipping code:

   call   setvbemode
   call   set_IRQ00

 Once we have done this, we can how begin our demo.

   call   my_main_demo_routine

 For our purposes, your demo routine may look something like this:

 proc my_main_demo_routine
 @@paint:

 <put you're graphics routines in there
 that will paint data to "[Rendbuff]">

   call   [sync_screen]
   call   key_pressed2
   jnc    @@paint
   call   get_key
   ret
 endp

 This would be a typical "scene" in your demo that would do some sort of
 animation or rendering to the [RendBuff] buffer (For example, it could be
 the initial logo screen, or a 3D mapper etc). Once you have finished all
 rendering, the [sync_screen] routine will then be called. This will copy
 the data in the [RendBuff] buffer to the current invisible screen (if isn't
 making any sense, then refer to Trixters article on page flipping DM#111).

 In between, traces, there are time windows where we can flip without
 causing glitching to appear. The flag [byte sync_screen_flag] will go low
 every time a window is current. When this happens, the [sync_screen]
 routine will flip the screen, making the invisible part (the screen we just
 updated) visible.

 There will be occasions when you want to paint a static image on to the
 screen.  Applying this image in a timed manner may not be necessary.
 Therefore you can use this routine.

   call   [update_screen]

 This routine is the same as the last, except it's not timed.  There are no
 [byte sync_screen_flag] wait code in this routine.

 To, exit out of hires mode, and to halt our background flipper, do:

   call   reset_IRQ00
   mov    eax,3
   int    10h

 and that's all there is to it. My R2SR demo source code, it provides an
 excellent example on how to do a SVGA demo (NB/ the code will only be
 available after the Oz96 results are released). You may also like to have a
 look at some of the bit blitters and 3D mappers i have in there. It's a
 good resource for linear blitting.

 See ya later.

 Jason Nunn - jsno@topend.org.au


=-------------------------------------------[Review of Impulse Tracker]--[GD]-=

 _____Introduction

 Impulse Tracker has been called "Scream Tracker 4" by many people, and for
 many reasons. The similarities in appearance and operation are what make
 this tracker very similar to the well-known tracking program from Psi of
 Future Crew. However, its advanced features make it more than just a clone.

 Impulse Tracker's most interesting feature is the use of 'New Note Actions'
 which allow a composer to manipulate 'overwritten' notes. It also adds the
 power of Volume Envelopes while maintaining its mouse-free interface.

 The coder, Jeffrey Lim, wanted to produce a tracker that people would use,
 so he maintained the Scream Tracker interface instead of inventing a new
 one, while adding some excellent features of his own.

 _____Features

 New Note Actions let a composer do more than interrupt a note by playing a
 new note in the same channel. The previously played note in a channel can
 be faded, cut off, or even continued as if nothing had happened in the
 channel. This is done using the New Note Actions and virtual channels.

 The program supports 64 actual channels (but only 32 on a Gravis family
 soundcard) and up to 256 virtual channels. These virtual channels can not
 be written to with sample and effect data as regular channels can, but they
 are used to handle the New Note Actions (NNAs). Notes that are to be faded
 or continued depending on the NNA used, are swapped out to the virtual
 channels.

 Volume envelopes are also offered in this program. The volume envelope
 editing window is on the Instrument Page (F4), on the lower right. When in
 edit mode, volume points can be raised or lowered, and shifted left and
 right along the graph. Envelope points can also be added or deleted as
 desired.

 Impulse Tracker also has a Global Volume setting for each sample.
 Therefore, if a user wants to replace a sample after having entered many
 different volumes throughout the song, the volume can easily be adjusted by
 lowering the global volume to match the previous sample's volume.

 Pattern length is selectable as well, with a default of 64 rows, and a
 range of between 32 and 200 rows per pattern. This is a nice alternative to
 using the old Cxx (pattern break) effect, especially when composing in an
 odd time signature requiring an alternate pattern length.

 _____Interface

 The author has attempted to recreate the Scream Tracker 3 interface that is
 preferred by many die-hard Scream Tracker users. This allows for a smooth
 transition between the programs. Even the colors can be matched from the
 Palette Editing Page (CTRL-F12) by selecting the 'Gold' color scheme.

 The pattern editor is like that of Scream Trackers, allowing for fast and
 easy operation. Being that this is the section of the program where
 composers will spend their most time, ease of use is of great importance.

 The sample page is a bit different compared to the Scream Tracker layout.
 The note tuning column (C4SPD in Scream Tracker) has been moved from its
 original location next to the sampletext, to the editing window for loop
 and sustain points. This makes tuning samples more difficult than in Scream
 Tracker. The tuning value represents the pitch at C-5 (note C, 5th octave).
 The full range of notes allowed in Impulse Tracker is C-0 to B-9 .

 Also, with the new interface on the sample page, it is not possible to play
 multiple samples at once. This was useful for doing things such as voicing
 chords before tracking, and tuning samples.

 _____Online Help

 A scrolling window containing help text is a feature that moves away from
 the boring multi-screen help section in Scream Tracker. Cursor arrow keys
 will scroll the help window vertically. The 'global' key for the help
 screen is F1, unlike Scream Tracker's F10 key.

 However, some sort of indicator should be displayed to let the user know
 that there is more information and to use the cursor keys to scroll.

 _____Sound Features

 Impulse Tracker will work with any SoundBlaster or Gravis family soundcard.
 It also can play on the PC speaker, for those who don't own a soundcard.

 Surround sound is supported on the SoundBlaster Pro and SoundBlaster 16
 soundcards. It is not available on Gravis soundcards.

 Stereo panning is controlled visually instead of with hex-characters to
 indicate pan position. Small blocks are used to mark the pan position of
 each channel. They can easily be shifted to Left, Middle, Right, or
 Surround by using the L, M, R, and S keys, respectively. The pan positions
 can also be adjusted using the cursor arrow keys.

 _____Module Support

 If you want to develop routines for playing .IT modules in your sound
 library, you can refer to the included file ITTECH.DOC which explains the
 different file formats associated with Impulse Tracker. This file is very
 similar in layout to the TECH.DOC provided with Scream Tracker 3.

 In case you're switching from another tracker, and hate to waste all those
 unfinished songs you were working on, don't let compatibility stop you.
 Impulse Tracker can import songs in the MOD, S3M, and MTM formats.

 The newest version of Impulse Tracker now saves in .S3M provided the user
 doesn't use any non-compatible Impulse Tracker features, such as
 instruments, ping-pong loops, etc. There is a section in the documentation
 explaining what features are not compatible with the S3M saving option.

 _____Conclusion

 Impulse Tracker is a program which underwent many hours of conception,
 design, and implementation. The author continues to improve it, with the
 help of users' bug reports and ideas.

 With the number of users interested in using Impulse Tracker to develop
 their music, it should only be a matter of time before the format is widely
 supported.

 The latest version of Impulse Tracker is on ftp.cdrom.com in the directory
 /demos/music/programs/trackers . Updates of the program are uploaded to the
 directory /demos/incoming/music/programs . The filename will be it???.zip
 where ??? is the current version number. A worldwide web page will soon be
 available also.

 You can send email to the author of Impulse Tracker at the following
 address: pulse@smug.student.adelaide.edu.au . Write 'Impulse Tracker' as
 the subject.

 GD / Hornet - gd@ftp.cdrom.com


=---------------------------------[The Party 1995 Intros Reviewed]--[Phoenix]-=

 [This is part 2 of "The Party 1995 xxx Reviewed."  Refer to DemoNews.112
 for more information and a little disclaimer.]

 Name    : Lola                            Effects: **
 Group   : Amable                          Design : ***
 Filename: amb_lola.zip                    Music  : **+
 Country : Germany                         Overall: **+
 Place   : Not shown

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [x] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Don't quite know why this wasn't shown but.. has decent design, kind of
 Orange-inspired.  Not many effects, I like the pic of the happy African
 dude. :)
 
 Name    : Poison                          Effects: **
 Group   : Zden & Moshe                    Design : ***
 Filename: poison.zip                      Music  : ***
 Country : Slovakia                        Overall: **+
 Place   : Not shown?

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music (very much so!)
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 This is pretty much a techno-based intro.  It's in black and white, and
 very flashy with lots of fast-moving lines.  A must for hard techno-fans
 (those who were keeping up everyone try to sleep raving at the Party for
 instance :), otherwise probably not worth getting.
 
 Name    : Just-ice                        Effects: **
 Group   : Spirit                          Design : **
 Filename: just-ice.zip                    Music  : **
 Country : ?                               Overall: **
 Place   : 20th

 [x] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [ ] Techno music
 [x] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [x] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Amazingly, this is the first Spirit intro NOT to have any toruses. But it
 turns out they can't do much besides them. :)
 
 Name    : Louise                          Effects: **
 Group   : Karma                           Design : ***
 Filename: k-louise.zip                    Music  : **
 Country : France                          Overall: **+
 Place   : 13th

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Well, another Orange-wanna-be group forms on the scene, kludged from French
 groups Eclipse, Kloon, and Zuul Design.  They were the only group at TP5 to
 learn from Stars by Nooon that naked cartoon chicks = votes. So this intro
 has that, plus the techno music, plus a neat background, and some
 blurry-outlined vectors, hard to describe.  Nothing amazing but worth a
 peek.
 
 Name    : The Royal Family                Effects: **
 Group   : Orange                          Design : ***
 Filename: royal.zip                       Music  : **+
 Country : Finland                         Overall: ***
 Place   : 9th

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 I wonder about Postman Pat's infatuation with England.. anyway what's so
 unusual about this intro is the fact that it's all _video clips_, like
 Complex's "Message from the Cosmic Brothers".  Of course, to fit it in 64k,
 some changes had to be made, like mono-color, and very low resolution (less
 noticable because of a TV-snow fill method).  So I gave it 3 stars for what
 P.P. accomplished.
 
 Name    : Unreadable                      Effects: ***
 Group   : The Coexistence                 Design : **
 Filename: tc_unr.zip                      Music  : **
 Country : Germany                         Overall: **+
 Place   : 8th

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [x] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 It starts off saying "No donuts (LGM dejavu?), no ducks (phew), no
 optimization (of course not), not Just art (though I wish it would've been
 instead :)".  The best effect is a plasma zoom.  That's followed by an
 attempt to mimic the reflected cube & lit tunnel Cubic wurfel-modes.  They
 threw in a lemming for good sport, and at the end it says "intro finished -
 system crashed". Well, it doesn't hurt to be honest. :)
 
 Name    : TP5 Intro                       Effects: ***
 Group   : Cascada                         Design : **+
 Filename: cda_tp5i.zip                    Music  : ****
 Country : Sweden                          Overall: ***
 Place   : 5th

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [ ] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Yay, another all-blanks production.  Well, it was a real rush job so they
 didn't have time to include the usual demo effects, heh. But it's still not
 bad.  The music was made at the party by Zodiak and Necros, and The Edge's
 code includes a phong pillar scene and a flat shaded cube with full
 shadows.  Then the shadow becomes a bigger cube and they spin around, it
 actually looks nice.
 
 Name    : The Sea Robot of Love           Effects: ****+
 Group   : Orange                          Design : ****
 Filename: okean.zip                       Music  : **** (a P.O.V. thing :)
 Country : Finland                         Overall: ****
 Place   : 3rd

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [ ] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [ ] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [ ] Colorful tunnel                   [ ] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Wow, none of the blanks are filled.  The music by Dune is not quite the
 usual techno music.  As you could see by the stars, I _really_ liked this
 intro.  It was just snow-blurred enough to give it a TV-like feel
 (something Orange has been working on for a while now), and the whole thing
 is smooth and artistic, with mostly meshed vectors.
 
 Name    : Illumination                    Effects: ***+
 Group   : Yodel                           Design : ***
 Filename: ydl_illu.zip                    Music  : ***
 Country : Sweden                          Overall: ***
 Place   : 2nd

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [x] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [x] Lens flare                        [ ] chrmface.3ds
 [x] Colorful tunnel                   [x] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 This intro is quite short, but nice. It has faked 18-bit color through
 vertical bars rather than horizontal.  Features stuff checked in the boxes
 above plus some nice tetrahedral prisms.  IMO didn't quite deserve 2nd
 place.
 
 Name    : Lasse Reinbong                  Effects: ****
 Group   : Cubic Team & $een               Design : **+
 Filename: ctslasse.zip                    Music  : **
 Country : Germany                         Overall: ***
 Place   : 1st

 [ ] Low, booming intro music          [x] Phong blob
 [ ] Member names in intro             [x] Techno music
 [ ] Lens flare                        [x] chrmface.3ds
 [x] Colorful tunnel                   [x] duck.3ds or dolphin.3ds
 [ ] Group Logo in corner

 Well, this intro has all the standard effects, 3ds objects, plasma,
 rotations, rippling, etc.  What probably got it voted 1st place was
 the harming of the all-too-familiar 3d objects :).  

 _____Conclusion

 There you have it.  I hope my review of the TP5 demos and intros wasn't too
 cynical.  But one thing can be said: lack of originality.  I hope to see
 some more innovative ideas at Juhla 3 or even Oz96.  Until then, we can
 always flash back with the Freedom CDROM. :)

 Phoenix / Kosmic - vossa@rpi.edu


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-- 
Jim Leonard (Trixter / Hornet)                          Email: trixter@mcs.com
*THE* PC Demo WWW page:  http://www.cdrom.com/pub/demos/hornet/html/demos.html
The 8086 Compo is a reality! URL is http://www.cdrom.com/pub/demos/hornet/8086
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