Start.of.DemoNews.132.........................................................

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                          DemoNews #132 - 19 Oct 1996

                                                          Subscribers  :  2565
 DemoNews is produced by Hornet.                            Change     :   +65
 The Hornet Archive is at ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos         Archive Size : 3441M

==[Contents]===================================================================

           Calendar
           Sites
           Top Downloads
           Uploads
           Articles
             Introduction................................Snowman
             Life Before Demos - Part 2 / 2..............Trixter
             You Know You Play Too Much Quake When.......Maverick
             TMDC Update.................................Sol
           Closing

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

 Date      Event       Location  Concact Points
 --------- ----------- --------- ---------------------------------------------
 30 Sep 96 Coven       Australia redhaze@student.adelaide.edu.au
                                 student.adelaide.edu.au/~ed

                                      * <-- YOU ARE HERE

 01 Nov 96 Wired       Belgium   darkness@genesis.be
                                 hagar.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/~sdog/wired
 ?? Nov 96 Demobit     Slovakia  demobit@elf.stuba.sk
                                 internet.sk/demobit/english.htm
 18 Jan 97 Tesko       UK        party@tesko.demon.co.uk
 21 Mar 97 Mekka       Germany   amable@aol.com
 22 Aug 97 AntIQ       Hungary   aboy@ttk.jpte.hu
                                 www.jpte.hu/~aboy

==[Sites]======================================================================

 Category       Location  Contact Points
 -------------- --------- ----------------------------------------------------
 Hornet Archive USA       ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos

 HA Mirrors     Sweden    ftp.luth.se/pub/msdos/demos
                S. Africa ftp.sun.ac.za/pub/msdos/demos
                USA (FL)  ftp.uwp.edu/pub/msdos/demos
                USA (PA)  ftp.co.iup.edu/code  (from /demos/code)

 Other Archives Belgium   hagar.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/demos
                Sweden    ftp.arosnet.se/demo
                Spain     ftp.siapi.es/blastersound/demos/incoming
                Finland   ftp.fm.org
                Holland   sdc.wtm.tudelft.nl/pub/music

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

 Category    Times File
 -------- -- ----- -----------------------------------------------------------
 Demos    01 00175 /demos/1996/m/machines.a02
          02 00172 /demos/1996/m/machines.a01
          03 00171 /demos/1996/m/machines.arj
          04 00156 /demos/1996/a/ai_strok.zip
          05 00148 /demos/1996/c/ctststp1.zip
          06 00144 /demos/1996/m/machifix.zip
          07 00135 /demos/1996/c/ctststp2.zip
          08 00107 /demos/1996/b/babylon.zip
          09 00096 /demos/1996/p/pure.zip
          10 00094 /demos/1993/0-9/2ndreal1.lzh

 Music    01 00500 /music/programs/players/cp16.zip
          02 00402 /music/programs/players/m4w230sx.zip
          03 00346 /music/programs/players/cp17.zip
          04 00311 /music/programs/trackers/scrmt321.zip
          05 00307 /music/programs/players/m4w230sl.zip
          06 00229 /music/programs/trackers/ft206.zip
          07 00198 /music/programs/players/cpxml17d.zip
          08 00183 /music/programs/players/play230b.zip
          09 00158 /music/programs/players/cpitl17e.zip
          10 00137 /music/programs/players/cpawe17c.zip

 Graphics 01 00022 /graphics/images/1996/a/airwar.zip
          02 00015 /graphics/images/1996/a/ai_nyomo.zip
          03 00014 /graphics/images/1996/a/ai_cuccc.zip
          04 00013 /graphics/images/1996/a/abc_guar.zip
          05 00012 /graphics/programs/vector/veced300.zip
          06 00012 /graphics/programs/vector/3dedb09.lzh
          07 00011 /graphics/images/1996/g/girl3.zip
          08 00010 /graphics/images/1996/b/bye_eden.zip
          09 00010 /graphics/images/1996/b/babylona.zip
          10 00009 /graphics/images/1996/v/voyeur.zip

 Code     01 00084 /code/effects/3dtext.arj
          02 00065 /code/effects/stargate.zip
          03 00063 /code/effects/dunesrc.zip
          04 00061 /code/effects/firewall.zip
          05 00060 /code/effects/flame184.zip
          06 00059 /code/effects/mphong.zip
          07 00059 /code/effects/blobs.zip
          08 00058 /code/effects/firetiny.zip
          09 00058 /code/effects/araidsrc.zip
          10 00057 /code/effects/voxeltut.zip

 Incoming 01 00134 /incoming/music/programs/it206.zip
          02 00117 /incoming/music/programs/cp17u.zip
          03 00081 /incoming/demos/ctstoast.zip
          04 00080 /incoming/demos/devotion.arj
          05 00080 /incoming/demos/devotion.a01
          06 00068 /incoming/demos/mtn-gene.zip
          07 00068 /incoming/SKE96/demo/clx_rebe.zip
          08 00061 /incoming/demos/3dstuff.zip
          09 00060 /incoming/music/programs/itpr102.zip
          10 00048 /incoming/demos/hypnotic.arj

 Total files downloaded   :      68,161
 Size of files downloaded :  24,838,873k

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

 All ratings are subjective.

=---------------------------------------------------------------------(demos)-=
/pub/demos/demos        Size Rated Description
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
/1995/g/greetro_.zip     330 **+   MOV95:demo:EE: Greetro by Fatal Justice
/1995/p/posintro.arj      59 *+    Posadas Intro by Iguana
/1995/w/w95spcod.zip      27       WIR95::: Wired '95 Surprise Coding Entries
/1996/0-9/244bytes.zip     0 *     ENL96:in8k:06: 244 Bytes by Sands
/1996/0-9/64.zip          76 **+   BIZ96:in64:02: 64 by Inopia, Anomaly, Cygnus
/1996/a/abc_farm.zip       6 ****  Farmer by Absence
/1996/a/abc_geys.zip     458 +     Geys by Absence
/1996/a/abc_glzd.zip       6 *     Glizda by Absence
/1996/a/abc_scrs.zip       6 ***   Scars by Absence
/1996/a/agja.zip          67 **+   BIZ96:in64:08: ??? by Trybit
/1996/a/an_dea.zip       705 ***+  BIZ96:demo:03: Dea by Analogue
/1996/b/bagger.zip       329 *+    BIZ96:demo:08: Bagger by XL
/1996/b/bloempje.zip      45 **+   BIZ96:in64:09: Bloempjes & Bytes by Maroon
/1996/b/bm.zip            11 **+   ENL96:in8k:03: Brilliant Move by Future
                                   | Hackers
/1996/b/bulll.a01       1298 ****  [2/2] BIZ96:demo:01: Bulll by Trepaan
/1996/b/bulll.arj       1422 ****  [1/2] BIZ96:demo:01: Bulll by Trepaan
/1996/c/chipari.zip       14 **    BIZ96:in4k:03: Chiparitus by The Watcher of
                                   | Fatal Vision
/1996/c/cnx_hope.zip      61 ***   BIZ96:in64:03: Hopeless by Cronix
/1996/d/ddt-drms.zip    2520 ***   ENL96:demo:03: Dreams by DDT
/1996/d/dream_.zip         3 *+    ENL96:in8k:05: Dream by Cobra of PI Software
/1996/d/dummies.zip     1339 **    BIZ96:demo:04: Demos For Dummies by
                                   | Dimension X
/1996/e/efc_fz.zip        69 **+   BIZ96:in64:05: FZ by Excessive Force
/1996/e/embraced.zip      67 **    BIZ96:in64:07: Embraced by Circle of Tyrants
/1996/e/etlife.zip       964 *     ENL96:demo:05: Eternal Life by Eternal
/1996/e/experien.zip     685 **+   ENL96:demo:04: Experience by Virtual
                                   | Illusions
/1996/f/firewat.zip        5 **+   ENL96:in8k:02: Fire & Water by Fidel Ink of
                                   | Digital Cascade
/1996/f/fmotion.zip     2099 ***+  BIZ96:demo:02: Full Motion by Spirit New
                                   | Style
/1996/g/gluk2.zip          5 *+    ENL96:in8k:04: Gluk2 by PaR of Future
                                   | Hackers
/1996/h/hellizer.zip    1483 **+   ENL96:demo:02: Hellizer by Queue Members
                                   | Group AD
/1996/h/hlx-extr.zip     560 **    GAR96:demo:03: Holy Extracts by Helix
/1996/k/khalis.zip      1349 **+   Khalis by Dark Face of the Moon
/1996/l/logik.zip         67 ***   BIZ96:in64:06: Die Logik by Weird Magic
/1996/m/macarona.zip     211 *     GAR96:demo:EE: Macarona by Peus
/1996/n/nm_mistk.zip      21 **    NAID96::: The Mistake by Nuclear Meltdown
/1996/n/noname.zip        36 **+   BIZ96:in4k:01: No Name by Excalibur of Fatal
                                   | Vision
/1996/n/noname00.zip     114 *+    BIZ96:demo:09: No Name by Rubba Design
/1996/n/nosf.zip        1526 ***   ENL96:demo:01: Nosferatu by Nephilims
/1996/o/orx-osfp.zip     292 *     GAR96:demo:EE: OSFP by Orthodox
/1996/o/otherone.zip    1562 ***+  BIZ96:demo:05: The Other One by Cheese Team
/1996/p/percptio.zip    1926 ***   BIZ96:demo:06: Perception by Quad
/1996/p/pls_cntc.zip    2945 ***+  Contact by Pulse
/1996/p/polynomi.zip      38 **    Polynomial by Contortion
/1996/r/ravage.zip       582 *+    BIZ96:demo:10: Ravage by TBE
/1996/r/realsux.zip       39 **+   ENL96:in64:02: Real Sux by DDT
/1996/r/ripoff.zip       583 *     BIZ96:demo:07: Ripoff by Acne
/1996/r/rptoasty.zip     928 **    GAR96:demo:06: Toasty by Red Power
/1996/s/skata.zip         62 *+    GAR96:demo:07: Skatalous by Who Knows
/1996/s/sp_slam.zip       63 ***   BIZ96:in64:04: Slam by S!P
/1996/s/space.zip         14 ***   BIZ96:in4k:04: Space by Laserdance of
                                   | Nostalgia
/1996/s/state.zip         54 ***   BIZ96:in64:01: State by Spirit New Style
/1996/t/tbeweird.zip      27 *+    BIZ96:in64:10: Weird by TBE
/1996/t/trx-fgh.zip       63 ***   ENL96:in8k:01: Faugh by Agent Orange of
                                   | T-Rex
/1996/v/vi_disto.zip      63 **+   ENL96:in64:01: Distorted by Virtual
                                   | Illusions
/1996/w/weird.zip        400 ***   GAR96:demo:02: Weird by Demaniacs
/1996/z/zwemband.zip      15 ***   BIZ96:in4k:02: Zwemband by Fyr, Sentinel of
                                   | Image, Infuse

=---------------------------------------------------------------------(music)-=
/pub/demos/music                 Size Rated Description
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
/songs/1996/it/e/encased.zip      598 ***   Encased in Glass by Mute
/songs/1996/it/e/equinox.zip      163 **    Summer Equinox by Jason Cunningham
/songs/1996/it/f/fish.zip         202 **+   Fish by Meat
/songs/1996/it/f/fl_blend.zip      97 *+    Premium Blend by Sabbath
/songs/1996/it/f/fl_wave.zip      200 *+    A New Wave by Sabbath
/songs/1996/it/f/for_dipi.zip     146 *     Drunki Punki by Fortune
/songs/1996/it/f/for_drea.zip     438 *+    Forbidden Dreams by Fortune
/songs/1996/it/f/for_imh.zip      327 **    In My House by Fortune
/songs/1996/it/f/for_peac.zip     343 **+   Peace by Fortune
/songs/1996/it/f/for_xgen.zip     284 **    We Are the X-Generation by Fortune
/songs/1996/it/f/forestki.zip     331 ***   King of the Rainforest by Toal Nkor
/songs/1996/it/f/frostjly.zip     763 **+   Frost in July by Mute
/songs/1996/it/g/g_bottle.zip     268 ***   Bottle Rocketeer by CD
/songs/1996/it/g/galajour.zip     250 ***   Galactic Journey by Toal Nkor,
                                            | Pollux
/songs/1996/it/g/gem-drea.zip     264 ***   Praying for a Dream by Dilvish
/songs/1996/it/g/gem-litt.zip     162 *     Little Things by Arclight
/songs/1996/it/g/gem-nihl.zip     263 *     Nihil Ad Rem by Arclight
/songs/1996/it/g/gem-ques.zip     227 ***   Questions by Dilvish
/songs/1996/it/g/gem-ties.zip     210 **+   Ties by Dilvish
/songs/1996/it/g/gfd2love.zip     176 ***   Desire to Love by Garfield
/songs/1996/it/g/gths-plc.zip     335 **+   My Place in Space (remix) by Graham
                                            | the Happy Scum
/songs/1996/it/g/gths-sbk.zip     296 *+    Stashun Breakdown by Graham the
                                            | Happy Scum
/songs/1996/it/h/hd-edirt.zip     516 ***   Eat Dirt 2 by Synapse
/songs/1996/it/m/m_think.zip      350 **+   Unthinkable Thoughts by Super
                                            | Slimer
/songs/1996/it/m/mik-awak.zip     442 ***   The Awakening by Mikpos
/songs/1996/it/m/mn_bwrld.zip     229 ***+  Blue World by Merlin
/songs/1996/it/m/mntamph8.zip     401 **+   Mentamorphosis (8 bit) by Tphenity
/songs/1996/it/m/mntamrph.zip    2041 **+   Mentamorphosis by Tphenity
/songs/1996/it/m/mo_line.zip      377 ***   Streamline by ChuckB
/songs/1996/it/m/mot-conc.zip     586 **    Concentration by Motion
/songs/1996/it/p/pf-myst.zip      338 ***   Mystic Dream by Pop Faktor
/songs/1996/it/p/piremix.zip      311 *+    Pi Remix by Wakko Warner, Lupin
/songs/1996/it/r/retro.zip        126 *+    Retro-Active (Tribute) by Maverick
/songs/1996/it/r/rm-dark.zip      197 **+   Heart of the Dark by Remnant
/songs/1996/it/r/rm-free.zip      151 **+   Freefall by Remnant
/songs/1996/it/r/rs_cured.zip      96 +     Cured by Rod Serling
/songs/1996/it/r/rs_letrp.zip     166 *     Let the Snares Rip by Rippin Snare
/songs/1996/it/r/rs_place.zip      49 *+    A Strange Place by Rod Serling
/songs/1996/it/r/rs_rvrgl.zip      63 *     Japanese Raver Girl by Rod Serling
/songs/1996/it/r/rs_unbld.zip     152 *+    Unblinded by Rod Serling
/songs/1996/it/s/s-return.zip     154 **    Return From the Wasteland by
                                            | Subliminal
/songs/1996/it/s/sahamigr.zip     210 ***   Sahara Migration by Mute
/songs/1996/it/s/sandsong.zip     285 **    Song of the Sands by Jeffrey Sawyer
/songs/1996/it/s/sf-vor.zip       216 ***   Vision of Rain by Catspaw
/songs/1996/it/s/sf-wlan.zip      544 *     Wackylan by Brokenheart
/songs/1996/it/s/sf-youc.zip      244 **    You Can't Save Yourselves by
                                            | Crackerjak
/songs/1996/it/s/sr_mungb.zip     468 *     Mungbean Groove by Sirreal
/songs/1996/it/s/sr_quant.zip      34 *     Quantum Foam by Sirreal
/songs/1996/it/s/sr_rimu.zip      203 *+    My Rimu Tree of the South by
                                            | Sirreal
/songs/1996/it/s/surplus.zip      138 *     Saccharin Surplus by Stein
/songs/1996/it/t/tc_night.zip     740 **    Tonight by Teecee
/songs/1996/it/t/tc_rain.zip      365 **    Rain Under the Trees by Teecee
/songs/1996/it/t/tek-mk.zip       418 ***   Mortal Kombat (Foolish Mix) by Tek
/songs/1996/it/t/tf-lunar.zip     238 ****  Lunar Lullaby by Stalker
/songs/1996/it/t/tinyfnd.zip      296 *     Tiny Foundation by Stein
/songs/1996/it/t/tl-soda.zip      571 ***   Club Soda by Ionian Mode
/songs/1996/mod/m/m_clear.zip     178 **+   Superclear by Supernao
/songs/1996/mod/m/m_near.zip      189 **+   Near to You by Mortimer Twang
/songs/1996/mod/m/m_reci.zip      281 ***   Reciprocator by Subi
/songs/1996/mod/m/m_three.zip     295 ***+  Three Days EP by The Fox II
/songs/1996/mod/p/phd_fin.zip     353 **    The Final Day by Pirat
/songs/1996/mod/p/phd_gang.zip    158 **+   Ganxta Flo by Juice
/songs/1996/mod/p/phd_xpr.zip     205 **    Xpr-Mental by Juice
/songs/1996/s3m/0-9/0broken.arj   307 *+    Broken (More Broken mix) by Benzel
/songs/1996/s3m/a/airborn.zip     222 **+   Airborn by Gamera, Stein
/songs/1996/s3m/a/ara_sgnl.zip    303 ****  Signal by Ara
/songs/1996/s3m/a/atheart.zip     335 *+    At the Heart of It All by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/a/away.zip        125 **    Away, At Last by Wolfgang
/songs/1996/s3m/b/bi-moon.zip     318 *+    What the Moon Brings by Bigod-20
/songs/1996/s3m/b/borracho.zip    242 ***   Borracho by Anpe
/songs/1996/s3m/b/brb_blnd.zip     66 *+    Blonde Spelling by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/b/brb_forg.zip    209 ***   Forget Me by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/b/brb_shad.zip    128 **+   Lightning Shadows by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/b/brb_tdrm.zip    233 ***+  That Dream by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/b/brb_undw.zip     62 ***+  Under Water by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/b/bvn-onon.zip    200 *+    On and On by Ned Funky
/songs/1996/s3m/b/bvs-5sid.zip    210 ***   Five Sides by Sklathill
/songs/1996/s3m/b/bvs-road.zip    298 ***+  Road to Tomorrow by Sklathill
/songs/1996/s3m/c/castles.arj      86 ***   Castles by Dead
/songs/1996/s3m/c/coming.zip      622 *     The Coming - Trilogy by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/c/cquest.zip        2 **+   Chip Quest by Barbatruc
/songs/1996/s3m/c/cr_ev.zip       210 *+    Elementary Venture by Crash Return
/songs/1996/s3m/c/ct-brute.zip    503 *+    Brute (Absolute Carnage Mix) by
                                            | Stein
/songs/1996/s3m/c/ct-cross.zip    158 **+   Crossing Hearts by Saxy
/songs/1996/s3m/c/ct-dance.zip    163 *+    Dancing Trumpet Madness by
                                            | SuperProz
/songs/1996/s3m/c/ct-sxp6r.zip    115 *+    Sounds of the Forest (remix) by
                                            | Black Monk
/songs/1996/s3m/d/deadsoul.zip    115 +     Dead Souls (cover) by Eternal Haze
/songs/1996/s3m/d/digdream.zip    206 ***   Digital Dreams by Wolfgang
/songs/1996/s3m/d/dtn-devo.zip    249 **    Devotion by The Peric
/songs/1996/s3m/d/dubu82.zip      249 **    Air Dance by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/s3m/d/dz_facad.zip    323 *+    Endless Facade by Syrinx
/songs/1996/s3m/d/dz_utop.zip     144 **    Envisioning Utopia by C. Ray C.
/songs/1996/s3m/e/emptmind.zip    663 ***+  Empty Mind by Edge
/songs/1996/s3m/f/fd-ring.zip     261 *+    Ring My Bell by Flash D
/songs/1996/s3m/f/fd-slow.zip     197 *+    Slowbreaker by Flash D
/songs/1996/s3m/f/flyinsky.zip    221 ***   Fly in Blue Sky by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/f/footdown.zip     88 *+    Footdown by Araelien
/songs/1996/s3m/f/funckygo.zip    196 ***   Funcky Go by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/f/funkadli.zip    131 ***   Moon in Water by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/f/fyk-btnh.zip     66 +     Beatz, Thugs, n' Harmony by Fayk
/songs/1996/s3m/g/gforce.zip      221 ***   G-Forces by Interphaze
/songs/1996/s3m/h/hlb-med.zip      67 **+   Meadows by Halberd
/songs/1996/s3m/h/hlb-rem.zip      37 *+    Remorse by Halberd
/songs/1996/s3m/i/io_lock.zip     264 ***   Locked Up by Discus
/songs/1996/s3m/j/j-ces.zip       188 *+    Cogito Ergo Sum by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/j/j-omega.zip     114 *     Omega by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_efe.zip       397 ***   Escape from Earth by Daedalus
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_elect2.zip    213 ***+  Technoelektrix II by B00mer
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_exalt.zip     119 ***+  Be Thou Exalted by Siren
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_gout.zip      337 ***+  Le Gout Qui Dit Tout by Floss
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_hope.zip      386 ****  Hope by Siren
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_john.zip      321 ***+  Seventh Heaven/Johnny Walker by
                                            | Phoenix
/songs/1996/s3m/k/k_malice.zip    252 ***+  Malice by Daedalus
/songs/1996/s3m/k/klausi.zip      226 **+   Night in the Forests by Klausi
/songs/1996/s3m/k/klausi2.zip      42 **    Klausi's New One by Klausi
/songs/1996/s3m/k/klausi3.zip      49 **    Nick's Piano by Klausi
/songs/1996/s3m/l/lnc-mist.zip    192 ***   Misty Morning by Linearic
/songs/1996/s3m/l/lnc-nght.zip     26 **+   Nighttime by Linearic
/songs/1996/s3m/m/m-gryde.zip     201 ***+  Grydemix by Mystical
/songs/1996/s3m/m/m-path.zip      155 ****  Path to Freedom by Mystical
/songs/1996/s3m/m/m-stomp.zip     401 ****  Stomping on Elephantus by Mystical
/songs/1996/s3m/m/madconc.arj     246 **+   Mad Concert for a Mad Family by
                                            | Dead
/songs/1996/s3m/m/mj-again.zip    363 **+   Again by Justin May, Mike Harrison
/songs/1996/s3m/m/mn_cmoon.zip    178 **+   Crescent Moon by Merlin
/songs/1996/s3m/m/mountain.zip    170 ***   Final Mountain on White Lake by
                                            | Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/m/mss-conq.zip    105 ***   Conquistador by Picman
/songs/1996/s3m/m/mss-near.zip    402 **+   Nearly There by Porus
/songs/1996/s3m/n/navigatr.arj    291 ***   Navigator by Dead
/songs/1996/s3m/n/ni-glen.zip     192 **    Tortuga Glen by Nimbus
/songs/1996/s3m/n/notsofar.zip    325 ***+  Not So Far Man! by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/n/nv-night.zip    305 ****  Escape from the Night by Nova
/songs/1996/s3m/o/obuk.zip         64 *     Obuk (Angst) by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/o/obuk2.zip       214 *+    Obuk (Laxed) by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/o/oldchild.arj    176 **+   Oldchild by Dead
/songs/1996/s3m/o/oq-peace.zip     82 **+   Flower Power by Octoque
/songs/1996/s3m/o/orx-hdtc.zip     89 *     Hard Touch by Orthodox
/songs/1996/s3m/o/orx-sfai.zip    229 +     System's Failure by Orthodox
/songs/1996/s3m/o/orx-sndr.zip    107 *     Sleep and Dream by Orthodox
/songs/1996/s3m/o/orx-tams.zip     72 +     The Ambient Source by Orthodox
/songs/1996/s3m/o/orx-tfou.zip     75 +     The Fade Out by Orthodox
/songs/1996/s3m/p/pg_gfuji.zip    146 *+    Gabba Mt. Fuji by Jea
/songs/1996/s3m/p/pg_landm.zip    119 **    Frohlicher Landmann by Jea
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psycho.zip      172 **+   Psychopet's Night Out by Phanatik
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psypack4.arj     66 *     Get Legalized by Psychotron
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psypack5.arj     87 *     Piracy by Psychotron
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psypack6.arj     69 *     Apfelsaf for the Bong by Psychotron
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psypack7.arj     61 +     Bestial Bass Terror by Psychotron
/songs/1996/s3m/p/psypack8.arj     88 *     Acid Break by Psychotron
/songs/1996/s3m/r/remembme.zip    233 **+   Remember Me by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/s3m/s/seahawk.zip     336 ***   Sea Hawk - The Barrier Reef by
                                            | G-Force
/songs/1996/s3m/s/sikk.zip         75 +     Sikklike This by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/s/skinakem.zip    132 *     Skinakem / Mekaniks by Obuk
/songs/1996/s3m/s/smi_shim.zip    322 +     Shimi Party by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/s/smi_sttr.zip    246 +     Street Trance by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/s/smi_t4m.zip     207 +     Trance-4-Mation by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/s/smi_zmbi.zip    271 *     Zombie (remix) by Joker
/songs/1996/s3m/s/sunset.zip       39 *+    Sunset (cover) by Tuffe Wahlstrom
/songs/1996/s3m/t/tcod.zip        435 **+   The Coming of Dawn by G-Force
/songs/1996/s3m/t/twin.zip         61 *+    Twin Peaks (cover) by Tuffe
                                            | Wahlstrom
/songs/1996/s3m/v/vin_pos.zip      70 **    Positive Feedback by Vindicator
/songs/1996/s3m/x/x_depre2.zip    193 **    Depression by XCEL
/songs/1996/s3m/z/za-boost.zip    304 *+    Bio Boosted by Zarathos
/songs/1996/s3m/z/zombies.zip     165 *+    When Zombies Walk the Earth by
                                            | Lazarus
/songs/1996/s3m/z/zyz-cold.zip    181 *     Cold as Hell by Muhahah
/songs/1996/xm/0-9/007.zip        415 ***   Agent 007 by MC Dreamer
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab-clan.zip      182 *+    Puerto Rican Clan by DJ Psyko
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_amb.zip       224 ***   Just in Time by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_clavi.zip     124 ***   Variations by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_disco.zip     105 ***   Raining Again by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_loslo.zip     108 **+   Los Lobos by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_piano.zip     143 **+   Piano Orchestral by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/ab_victo.zip     116 **+   Feeling of Victory by Oto Rajnic
/songs/1996/xm/a/abagaba.zip      264 *     Abba Gabba Megamix by Bezerk
/songs/1996/xm/a/aero.zip         119 ***   Aerobotic by Akbar
/songs/1996/xm/a/agn-b20v.zip     722 *+    Vendetta (Abused 909 remix) by
                                            | Assign
/songs/1996/xm/a/agn-esca.zip     993 **    Escaping Categories by Assign
/songs/1996/xm/a/agn-heav.zip     945 **+   Heavenly Love by Assign
/songs/1996/xm/a/an_hvnlv.zip     710 **    Heavenly Love (remix) by Animal
/songs/1996/xm/a/anotsept.zip     270 *+    Another September by Emulsifyer
/songs/1996/xm/a/axis_md2.zip     204 ***   Utopic Dreams by Axis
/songs/1996/xm/b/bb-gashd.zip     262 *     Gashead 7 by B0b
/songs/1996/xm/b/bbrownie.zip      47 *+    Barry's Brownie by Tronster
/songs/1996/xm/b/beat.zip         128 +     Beat+Beat=Boom by Ruud
/songs/1996/xm/b/bumpers.zip      225 *     Get the Big Bass by Gabriel Ilardi
/songs/1996/xm/c/carbon.zip      1636 ***   Carbon by Akbar
/songs/1996/xm/c/careful.zip      249 **    Careful! Cool Dream! by Heatseeker
/songs/1996/xm/c/cb-blind.arj      16 *+    Mental Blindness by Guy
/songs/1996/xm/c/cb-take.arj      625 **+   Take a Second of Me by Pedro
/songs/1996/xm/c/cb-tntf.arj      313 *+    The Need to Feed by Logos
/songs/1996/xm/c/cgs-aggr.zip      48 **+   Aggressive Thoughts by Cygnes
/songs/1996/xm/c/cgs-conv.zip      17 ***   Convulsive by Cygnes
/songs/1996/xm/c/cgs-hell.zip      15 **+   Lost in Hell by Cygnes
/songs/1996/xm/c/cgs-nota.zip     370 ***   No Taste by Cygnes
/songs/1996/xm/c/cgs-nvr.zip      348 **+   Never Say Goodbye by Cygnes
/songs/1996/xm/c/chaosmet.zip     113 +     Chaos Metal by Jonymal
/songs/1996/xm/c/childply.zip     500 ***   Child's Play by Noiseman
/songs/1996/xm/c/china.zip        448 ***   Southern China by The Passengers
/songs/1996/xm/c/concert1.zip     226 ***   Little Concert Opus 1 by Dead
/songs/1996/xm/c/cowboys.zip      156 *     Cowboys by Gabriel Ilardi
/songs/1996/xm/c/ct-funk.zip      129 *     Funky by Embrittlement
/songs/1996/xm/d/divine.zip       231 +     Divine Intervention by Belgarion
/songs/1996/xm/d/dixie.zip        126 *     Dixie by Lupin
/songs/1996/xm/d/dope.zip          39 +     Dope by Ruud
/songs/1996/xm/d/ds-fadeb.zip     138 **+   Fadeback by Pix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dtn-danc.zip     205 **+   Dancing Together by Tragos
/songs/1996/xm/d/dtn-floa.zip     158 **+   Floating by Dynamix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dtn-life.zip     372 **    Life Anthem by Dynamix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu83.zip       426 **    Little World by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu84.zip       442 **    Pleasure by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu85.zip       655 **    Kosmic Dance by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu86.zip       234 **    Heaven Voices by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu87.zip       290 *+    Etern by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu88.zip       318 *+    Party Time by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dubu89.zip       320 **    Dream Rithm by DJ Kike
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx-fairy.zip     227 *+    Fairytale of You and Me by Datrix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx-godsn.zip     637 *+    Godsend by Deus Ex
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx-letgo.zip     200 *+    You Can't Let Her Go (remix) by
                                            | Datrix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx-never.zip      58 **    Never Trust a Klingon (remix) by
                                            | Datrix
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx_303.zip       588 *+    DX-303 by Defex
/songs/1996/xm/d/dx_atom.zip      644 *+    Atomic Cafe by Defex
/songs/1996/xm/d/dz_live.zip      229 **+   Live by White Lightning
/songs/1996/xm/d/dz_rvntn.zip     560 *+    Rave Nation by Xaos
/songs/1996/xm/e/ef-olymp.zip     118 *+    Olympico '96 by El Futplex
/songs/1996/xm/e/ef-rawka.zip     320 *+    Raw Kata by El Futplex
/songs/1996/xm/e/ef-rio.zip       212 *+    Rio Mondo by Graham the Happy Scum
/songs/1996/xm/f/flashrem.zip     174 *+    What a Feeling (cover) by Acidic
                                            | Sunshine
/songs/1996/xm/f/flp-mm02.zip      48 *     Ode to Summer by Madmax
/songs/1996/xm/f/flp-mm03.zip     151 *+    Superwired by Madmax
/songs/1996/xm/g/gl-mind.zip      473 ***   Mind Drain by Glitch
/songs/1996/xm/g/gl-mort.zip      533 ****  Mortal Fascination by Glitch
/songs/1996/xm/g/gl-no55.zip      805 ****  No Fifty-Five by Glitch
/songs/1996/xm/g/goguit.zip       230 **+   Go Guitar by Decker
/songs/1996/xm/h/hnz-erro.zip     165 ***+  Error 666 by Hunz
/songs/1996/xm/h/hnz-tamp.zip     296 ****  Tampon Theory by Hunz
/songs/1996/xm/h/houseit.zip       98 *     House It by Tiamat
/songs/1996/xm/h/housfunk.zip     258 *+    House Funk by Tiamat
/songs/1996/xm/m/m_ugb.zip         79 **+   Underground Bliss by Super Slimer
/songs/1996/xm/m/megamix.zip      412 **    Technotronic Megamix by Gabriel
/songs/1996/xm/m/mm-manta.arj     173 **    Manta by Mike Mueller
/songs/1996/xm/m/mnkroots.zip     514 ***+  Mankind Roots by Soundmaster
/songs/1996/xm/m/ms_dfm.zip        37 ***   Don't Forget Me by Miss Saigon
/songs/1996/xm/m/mu_embr.zip      599 ****  Embance the Light by Darkwolf,
                                            | Peach
/songs/1996/xm/m/mx-wheni.zip     134 ***   When I Was by Mordecai X
/songs/1996/xm/n/newage8b.zip     297 **+   Realms of the New Age by Cosmic
                                            | Eclipse
/songs/1996/xm/n/noiseles.zip     167 ***+  Dawn of a New Man by Chris Meland
/songs/1996/xm/p/pg_fujis.zip     414 **+   Toki-Gaba (Fujisaki) by Tanigon
/songs/1996/xm/p/pt-battl.zip     152 ***   The Battle Goes On by P-Tec
/songs/1996/xm/p/px-horiz.zip     140 ***   Horizon by The Hiocheer
/songs/1996/xm/r/rm-3thms.zip     193 *+    Three Themes by Rimbo
/songs/1996/xm/r/rm-hyper.zip     422 **+   Hyperactif by Rimbo
/songs/1996/xm/r/rsd-feel.zip     303 ***   The Feel by Resound
/songs/1996/xm/s/s_ravnit.zip     149 **+   Rave Night (Uh Yeah) by Synthetic
                                            | Minds
/songs/1996/xm/s/sc-blue.zip      341 ***+  Blue by Screamager
/songs/1996/xm/s/sc-mono.zip      298 ***   Monotoniq by Screamager
/songs/1996/xm/s/science.zip      223 *     Science by Tiamat
/songs/1996/xm/s/sky_eyth.zip     274 **    Eye Tech by DJ Yoyo
/songs/1996/xm/s/sm-angui.zip     223 ***   Anguish by Slightly Magic
/songs/1996/xm/s/sm-magic.zip     200 ***   Magic Summer by Slightly Magic
/songs/1996/xm/s/sq_cheez.zip      51 ****  Cheesemobile by Sequencer
/songs/1996/xm/s/sq_towrs.zip     275 ***+  Towers by Sequencer
/songs/1996/xm/t/tb-wihy.zip      651 ***   When I Hold You (Dance Style) by
                                            | The Borg
/songs/1996/xm/t/tears.zip         88 ***   Tears by Jaben
/songs/1996/xm/t/techsped.zip     161 +     Techno Speed by Tiamat
/songs/1996/xm/t/thetrip.zip      306 *+    The Trip by b0b
/songs/1996/xm/t/together.zip     185 **+   Together With You by Puffin
/songs/1996/xm/t/tr-rembr.zip     421 ***   Remembrance by Tracktor

=----------------------------------------------------------------------(code)-=
/pub/demos/code         Size Rated Description
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
/compress/lz_asm.arj       9 ****  Ar LZ asm sources by Tom Pfau : lz
                                   | compression/decompression, good for a .gif
                                   | viewer, macro library
/compress/lz_c.arj        17 ***   C LZ C sources by Haruhiko Okumura :
                                   | compression routines for arithmetic,
                                   | huffman and string search, few comments
/effects/zed3d095.zip    686 ****+ T Zed3D v0.95 - 3D Graphics Reference by Zed
                                   | : Phong, Gouraud, Textures, etc.
/graph/vbe20-11.exe      540 ****  T Official VESA VBE 2.0 Specification
/graph/wgt51_r2.zip     1722 ****  CA Wordup Graphics Toolkit v5.1 by Chris
                                   | Egerter
/pmode/dos32b35.zip      462 ****  CA DOS32 v3.5 Beta by Adam Seychell : 32bit
                                   | DOS Extender
/pmode/pmw124.zip        133 ****  CA PMODE/W v1.24 by Daredevil, Tran : DOS
                                   | Extender For WATCOM C/C++

=----------------------------------------------------------------------(mags)-=
/pub/demos/mags     Size Rated Description
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
/1995/bistro.zip     488 ***   Bistro by Mindprobe
/1996/infy1.zip     1048 **    Infinity #1 by Realm of Darkness BBS : Portugal
                               | Diskmag
/1996/infy2.zip     1299 **    Infinity #2 by Infinity Network : Portugal
                               | Diskmag
/1996/luna-001.zip  1022 ***   Luna #1 by Moon Hunters : Israeli Scene Mag

=---------------------------------------------------------------------(party)-=
/pub/demos/party            Size Rated Description
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
/invites/1996/ai_phobe.zip   475 ***+  SCE96::: Astrophobia (Scenest '96
                                       | Invitation Intro) by Astroidea
/invites/1996/sn96i109.zip     8       SCE96::: Scenest '96 Invitation Text
/invites/1996/tg96inv2.zip   165 ***   TG96::: The Gathering '96 Invitation
                                       | Intro by Proxima
/invites/1996/tg96pc.zip      16       TG96::: The Gathering '96 Invitation
                                       | Text
/misc/biz96ans.zip           188       BIZ96::: Bizarre '96 Ansi Compo Entries
/pictures/biz96pix.zip        60       BIZ96::: Bizarre '96 Pictures
/pictures/jun01-03.txt         5       NAID96::: NAID '96 Picture Descriptions
/pictures/jun01_a.zip        878       [1/5] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures
/pictures/jun01_b.zip        930       [2/5] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures
/pictures/jun01_c.zip        854       [3/5] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures
/pictures/jun01_d.zip       1011       [4/5] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures
/pictures/jun01_e.zip        295       [5/5] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures
/pictures/jun01_x.zip       1108       NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 1 Pictures -
                                       | Contact Sheets
/pictures/jun02_a.zip        852       [1/2] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 2 Pictures
/pictures/jun02_b.zip        751       [2/2] NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 2 Pictures
/pictures/jun02_x.zip        413       NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 2 Pictures -
                                       | Contact Sheets
/pictures/jun03_a.zip        878       NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 3 Pictures
/pictures/jun03_x.zip        226       NAID96::: NAID '96 Day 3 Pictures -
                                       | Contact Sheet
/reports/1996/hossos-3.txt    23       BIZ96::: Bizarre '96 Text Party Report
                                       | by MSW
/results/1996/biz96res.txt     2       BIZ96::: Bizarre '96 Results
/results/1996/n96pres.zip      1       NAID96::: NAID '96 Preliminary Results
/results/1996/rage96.res       5       RAGE96::: Rage '96 Results
/results/1996/tg96res.zip      8       TG96::: The Gathering '96 Results

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

=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=

 :: "Introduction"
 :: Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@cdrom.com

 Necros Fixation.  The phrase is meaningless but it sounds cool.

 _____The WWW

 I have made many changes to the web-side of our archive in the past 2.5
 weeks.  Here's a breakdown...

 Top Downloads: I'm gonna be taking /music/programs out of the top downloads.
 Also, next week the http transfer logs will be included in the results.  You
 should also check out the new look of the "Top Daily Downloads" page at:

   http://www.cdrom.com/pub/demos/ha/pages/top_day.html

 /incoming HTML: You might notice that a few of the /incoming directories now
 have experimental index.html files.  These pages would look a lot better if
 people weren't still using high-ascii in their file_id.diz's.  Here's a tip;
 you want your file description to look nice on the web, stick to A-Z, a-z,
 and standard punctuation.

 CGML: Frustrated by some of HTML's limitations, I am going to be creating my
 own html hybrid named "CGML".  This language will contain more general tags
 than HTML and be preprocessed with a global config file so that all pages on
 a site can instantly change to a new color/formatting scheme easily and
 quickly.  It will also give YOU the ability to make new plug-in color schemes
 and graphics for the Hornet Archive.

 What's In a Log?: The merger of both ftp and html transfer logs into the "Top
 Downloads" was not an extremely easy thing to do.  I had to create a uniform
 log file format that both types of logs could be converted into.  From there,
 my scripts could work.  Cubic Player uses the same strategy for playing music
 BTW.

 Restructured Database: Our search engine was slowing down.  I had to do
 something.  I ended up doing two somethings.  First, our database contained
 "/archive/pub/demos" for each file entry.  This was removed.  Second, all
 filenames are now stored backward in the database (example:
 /demos/1993/0-9/2ndreal.lzh is now stored as hzl.laerdn2/9-0/3991/somed/).
 For reasons I won't even begin to get into, this provides an additional
 10-20% speed boost in searches.  Woohoo!  :)

 File size 0k: A bug was introduced when I restructured the database.  All new
 database entries in the past week cataloged files at 0 bytes.  Doh! This bug
 has been fixed and the files corrected.

 Author/Group Pages: In another month or so, I'll begin work on the
 author/group pages.  These will be pages containing author and group names
 for every file that we have on the archive.  Some work will be required
 on your end.  For example, "Liam" would be noted as a different author
 than "Liam the Lemming", even though they are the same person.  This is due
 to inconsistent author/group naming in our database.  It will be up to you
 to fix that.  :)  On a final note, the reason I won't start work on this
 for another month is because I'm not yet happy with the state of the archive.

 _____Conclusion

 Q: Who killed Snap, Crackle, and Pop?

=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=

 :: "Life Before Demos - Part 2 / 2"
 :: Trixter / Hornet - trixter@ftp.cdrom.com

 _____If You Want Something Done, You Have To Do It Yourself

 Demosceners are familiar with speeding up graphics with cute math and
 hardware tricks.  But what do you do when the machine is simply too slow?
 Speed up your hardware.  It sounds silly, but there were actually several
 ways to make the machine run faster -- via software -- by modifying certain
 bits of hardware.

 For example, the CPU spent time refreshing early DRAM so that the RAM
 wouldn't lose its contents.  This refresh rate was adjustable and usually
 done way too often, so you could usually lower it a bit and gain more speed
 for your programs.  Speed increases of 5% to 10% were not uncommon; I got a
 15% increase by lowering the DRAM refresh rate gradually until the computer
 locked up. :-) I then used the last setting that didn't lock up the computer.
 Handy thing to have in your autoexec.bat, that.

 But probably the most common method that game programmers used to speed up
 the computer was to go for the guts and bypass the operating system in a big
 way -- by creating self-booting programs.  This solved several problems at
 the same time:

   * Disk access and loading times were much faster. If you wanted data and
     knew where you put it, you seek directly to the track and load the entire
     track to somewhere in memory.  If you were a real hotshot, you could
     trackload "manually" by not using the BIOS and instead using DMA.  Very
     quick.

   * You had more RAM.  The operating system took up at least 32K of ram,
     which your program could have used. (Hey, PCs came with only 128K of RAM
     until around 1985, so you really needed to save RAM.) So, make your
     entire program fit into 64K and write a little 446-byte bootloader and
     you gain that RAM back.

   * The machine was empty. There was no operating system to get in your way,
     so you could reprogram timers, write obscene self-modifying code, store
     data in unused portions of the BIOS (or vector table -- ACK!), whatever
     you wanted to do. If the computer were a parking lot, it would be an
     empty parking lot -- you could drive like a maniac for hours and not hit
     a thing.

 Of course, you had to be a damn fine coder to do this. Being merely
 proficient in assembler programming wasn't enough -- remember all those
 friendly DOS services you use?  Gone.  So, you'd better be prepared to write
 your own mini-DOS when you needed one.

 Sometimes self-booting programs were mandatory; it was the only way to have
 any decent form of copy-protection.  Stuff like that was really hard to
 crack. In fact, I don't think anyone in today's world would have the stomach
 to attempt it.  Not only does the game boot (hel-LO!), but it then proceeds
 to stomp all over memory, usually obliterating the debugger.  Your only
 chance is to dump the boot sector and attempt to disassemble it manually.

 (While the game programmers were tough back then, so were the crackers, so it
 got done somehow.)  The most common programs that come to mind are the early
 Accolade and Electronic Arts games; Pinball Construction Set and Music
 Construction Set (forever classics), for example.  Of course, the classic
 Wizardry did this as well, although it took them two tries to get it right:
 The first version of Wizardry was not very friendly to non-perfect-100% IBM
 compatibles, so the more you played the game, the less successful the disk
 reads were.  Odd...  The second version played just fine, however.  They even
 took the time to improve the graphics.

 _____Don't Copy That Floppy

 Let's sidetrack for a minute or so on copy-protection schemes.  Although they
 had nothing to do with graphics or sound explicitly, I still found them
 absolutely fascinating, since they were also very hardware-intensive.

 Copy-protection, for those too young to remember, was a method of doing
 something to the diskette the game came on that made writing a perfect
 duplicate impossible, which in turn prevented you from coping the disk and
 giving it to all your friends, robbing the software company of potential
 sales.

 A typical method of checking went something like this: When the game started,
 it checked to see if it was running on the original diskette by looking for a
 specific piece of data stored in an extra sector hidden in a specially
 formatted track.  If it didn't find that data, it aborted.  This way, you
 could only make the program run by running it off of its original diskette.
 (Nowadays, "copy-protection" is usually as simple as the program asking you
 to look up a word on a certain page in your software manual and type it in,
 or for CDROM games, checking to see if it is running on the CDROM device.)

 Copy-protection used to be included on everything, from games to business
 software, simply because software was extremely expensive back then, and a
 couple hundred copies of a program could actually make or break a software
 company (no, I'm not kidding).  People just didn't buy software all the time
 because a typical game (for example) was $50.  That's normal in 1996, but
 very expensive for 1984. (Think about it: $50 in 1984 is like $95 today due
 to inflation. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to pay $95 for a
 computer game.)

 I wasn't any good at cracking back in 1984 (I barely knew general
 programming, let alone assembler), so I had to become good at figuring out
 the copy protection scheme instead if I wanted to duplicate the program.
 While many crackers learned DEBUG inside and out, I learned protection
 schemes and how to duplicate diskettes. Here's some of the more interesting
 methods that programmers used to prevent you from copying that floppy with
 DOS's standard DISKCOPY:

   * Simple trickery. Format a diskette as single-sided, but then store the
     secret copy-protection information on a track formatted on the second
     side. DISKCOPY would read the boot sector, determine that the disk was
     single-sided, and only bother copying the first side.

   * User stupidity. The program would simply try writing a dummy file to the
     disk. Since most commercial software came on write-protected disks, the
     write would fail, and the program would continue.  But if you'd just made
     a copy, chances were high that you'd forget to write-protect the disk
     when you were finished, and the write would succeed, which then aborted
     the program.

   * Secret hardware information. Most disk drives could actually seek beyond
     track 40; usually to 41. Some software companies formatted that extra
     track (DISKCOPY didn't go that high) and stored secret info in it.

   * Wacko disk formats.  This is when you go slightly beyond the obvious,
     like formatting a normal 9-sector track with 10 or 11 sectors (or less,
     like 4 or 5).  DISKCOPY didn't know how to handle stuff outside the norm
     like this, so you usually needed a special program like CopyIIPC or
     CopyWrite to analyze the diskette thoroughly, then attempt to duplicate
     the format.  This was about 66% successful; the other 33% you had to do
     yourself, usually.  Electronic Arts had one of the best schemes in the
     early 80's; I couldn't figure it out until about 1985. They formatted
     track 15 with over 90 sectors! :-D

   * Damage.  The most expensive method of copy protection was also the most
     effective: Physically damage the disk.  Using a laser, it was possible to
     burn a small hole in the disk surface, and then all the program had to do
     was check to see if there was a read error in that particular sector, and
     if so, continue running the program. If you turned the disk surface
     manually by grabbing the inside ring, you could actually see a tiny hole
     in the disk surface!

 If it was so easy (relatively speaking) to figure out these formats, then why
 didn't everybody just write bitcopy or nibbler programs to analyze the
 diskette and make perfect copies of everything (except the laser hole, of
 course)?

 It wasn't quite that easy: While the IBM floppy controller could read all of
 these formats, it did not have the ability to write all of them.  A
 third-party company (usually the diskette duplication facility itself)
 specially prepared the diskettes using custom floppy controllers.  To this
 day I don't know if the read-all-but-not-write-all phenomenon was a decision
 made on purpose by IBM's engineers or just a hardware glitch that software
 companies took advantage of. (Probably a hardware glitch.)

 Either way, I eventually broke down in 1987 and bought a Copy ][ PC Option
 Board, which went between the floppy drive and controller, allowing me to
 write those special formats.  Trivia: To this day, there is only one diskette
 I have never been able to duplicate, even with the help of my Option Board: A
 Cops Copylock ][ demo diskette that I sent away for (Cops was a third-party
 copy-protection library you could purchase to copy-protect your own
 programs).  I never found any programs that actually used Cops as the copy
 protection scheme, which was fortunate, since I couldn't copy it. :-(

 _____Your Computer Is Too Damn Loud

 Ah, music.  Certainly one of the most interesting things done with computers
 today in the demoscene; in fact, at least twenty times more MOD/S3M/IT/XM
 music is being put out per year than demos, and that figure is steadily
 increasing.  Until Sami came out with Scream Tracker in 1990, there was no
 native digital/multi-channel composition program.  Heck, until 1986, there
 wasn't even any sound hardware you could hook up to your PC.  Sure, the PCjr
 and Tandy had their own 3-voice sound chip built in, but I didn't have a
 Tandy or PCjr.

 That didn't stop me. :-)  Or anyone else, for that matter.  People did the
 best with what they had, with surprising results for the time and hardware.
 Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the evolution of composed/tracked
 personal computer music hardware and techniques, from the point of a
 fledgling demoscener (which means I'll conveniently ignore MIDI):

 1981-1982

   The PC speaker, driven by a chip that could only produce a simple tone at a
   fixed volume, was the only thing that kept us company.  If it weren't for
   BASICA, we'd live in silence.  BASICA had a PLAY statement that took real
   notes and octaves; you could bang out a melody relatively quickly, although
   it was loud and harsh.

   You could fake a chord by quickly alternating between different notes at
   the same time (an arpeggio), but this sounded artificial and bubbly. (If
   you didn't have a love for computer music, it would quickly drive you
   crazy.)  Pianoman by Neil J. Rubenking was a music composition program that
   did this; you could compose each voice separately, and then combine them
   into an arpeggio. A gentler trick was to adjust the pitch up and down very
   finely, simulating vibrato. One voice, but at least it wasn't so harsh.

 1983

   The PCjr is released, and Tandy follows suit a year later with the Tandy
   1000, which was a clone of the PCjr.  One of the enhancements in the PCjr
   was the addition of a 3-voice sound chip that gave multiple channels, noise
   generation, tone envelopes, and volume control to the built-in speaker.
   Now we had something to play with. The BASICA that came with the PCjr and
   Tandy supported a 3-voice PLAY statement, which, if you played your cards
   right, could produce some fairly nice sound.  One thing I discovered was
   that the Tandy chip had a hidden strength in low chord layering.

 1984

   Music Construction Set, programmed by Will Harvey, came out for the PC in
   1984 from Electronic Arts.  It had a real staff, with treble and bass
   clefs, and had a neato "construction set" motif -- you could drag'n'drop
   notes onto the staff before "drag'n'drop" was a common catch phrase.

   Best of all, not only did it support the native sound chip of the
   PCjr/Tandy, but it could play four voices through the normal built-in
   speaker! (Granted, it was difficult to discern between the voices, but it
   was possible to hear the overall chord you were going for.)  You could even
   print out the staff on your printer, although it was one long staff down
   the side of the page, and not nicely formatted sheet music. :-)

 1986

   Mindscape publishes Bank Street Music Writer, the first program I ever
   bought that came with its own hardware if you didn't own a Tandy or PCjr.
   The "Mindscape Music Board" was a 6 voice sound card which turned out to be
   a sine or square wave generator with simple attack, sustain, and delay
   parameters.  Not exactly FastTracker 2 envelopes, but it was a start. :-)

   Plus, it attempted to print out real sheet music, and you could follow your
   voices on-screen as they played.  I went nuts with this board, sometimes
   spending hours arranging the tunes my school choir was practicing.
   Although it was very good at producing solid chords (it was a tone
   generator, right?), it never took off, because the price was a bit high
   ($110) and it did sound a bit... "plinky". (Come to think of it, Music
   Construction Set for the Apple supported a similar board called the
   Mockingboard, but that never took off either.)

   I'm fairly certain that I saw the Covox Speech Thing around this time as
   well. The Speech Thing was a simple digital-to-analog converter that you
   could connect to your parallel port to hear digitized sound.  It sold for
   about $70, even though the parts cost about $15 -- including the speaker.
   :-)

 1987

   Adlib. :-) This famous board used a chip from Yamaha that produced
   Frequency-Modulated (FM) sound synthesis through 2 operators and a variety
   of parameters.  You could utilize 9 melodic voices, or 6 melodic and 5
   percussion.

   Armed with the odd Visual Composer, you could compose on a piano roll
   instead of a musical staff.  It wasn't bad at all; in fact, it sounded
   pretty damn good.  If programmed correctly, it could layer voices well,
   produce decent bass, and fairly full sounds.  I still believe that the
   Adlib was (and still is) underused by the majority of people who composed
   for it.

   While I didn't purchase my Adlib until 1989, the board was actually selling
   in 1987, and games started supporting it in 1988.  Taito's arcade
   conversions done by Banana Development supported it passably, but it wasn't
   until 1990 that I heard simply beautiful music through it from a game
   called Continuum from Infogramme.  The game consisted of jumping from
   platform to platform to reach a certain object, but the music was so good
   that I booted it up just for the music. (It also supported the Tandy sound
   chip, but since the music was composed for the Adlib, it was nowhere near
   the same quality.)

   The great former C64 demogroup Vibrants also did some excellent music
   composed specifically for the Adlib board, but this wasn't until much
   later, in 1993, when they composed music for a few games.  Their
   composition program, Edlib, is still freely available.  Ever hear techno on
   an Adlib? :-) (Their true strength was jazz, which is what they usually
   composed.)

   IBM Music Feature Card. This board was released from IBM in 1987 in an
   effort to draw MIDI musicians and game programmers over to the IBM.  It
   cost about $250, and played 8 FM voices.  The quality of the FM was much
   better than the Adlib, presumably since it used a 4-operator FM chip (also
   from Yamaha) instead of Adlib's 2-operator chip, and had over 100 built-in
   instrument parameters. It also had a MIDI port, of course.  Trivia: You
   could put two of these boards in your PC at the same time to get a total of
   16 simultaneous voices.

 1988

   Creative Music Systems (the name they had before they changed it to
   Creative Labs) came out with the Game Blaster around this time, and it
   offered 12 channels, with each channel producing either a single sine wave
   of a given frequency and magnitude (in stereo), or noise.  The sound
   quality was obviously worse than the Adlib -- the board simply couldn't do
   much of anything.  You can still purchase CMS chips to put inside your
   Sound Blaster 1.x and 2.0, but it's really not worth it.  The only game I
   know of that supported the CMS Game Blaster with decent music was was Times
   of Lore by Origin.

   Digitized sound! Around this time, game companies had finally started to
   use digitized sound for music. (It had been used on the PC for sound
   effects as early as 1983, in Castle Wolfenstein / Beyond Castle
   Wolfenstein, and in 1987, in the PC version of Dark Castle.) While I had
   speculated that you could record bits of music and then rearrange them
   cleverly, a French game company called Loriciels beat me to it, with the
   excellent games Mach 3 (1987) and Space Racer (1988) (they also did a
   then-popular Pong/Breakout/Arkanoid clone called PopCorn).

   These games had a really cool (for a PC at the time) musical intro at the
   beginning, which was pieced together from small sound snippets that were
   arranged on the fly to form a longer piece of music. (You can think of this
   as a .MOD file with only one channel and all instruments/samples played at
   C#3.) And it played through the PC speaker! Coming from a PC that had a
   simple tone generator as a sound device, this just blew me away. Crazy Cars
   by Titus also had a snippet of digitized sound at the beginning, but this
   was just a 64K sample that looped once. The same went for Wizball by
   Mindscape. (Wizball was a fabulous game, IMHO.) Finally, games like
   Bop'n'Wrestle used it for the counts and body-slamming noises.

 1989

   The Sound Blaster hits the scene, and game companies start supporting it.
   It's essentially an Adlib clone, but it has the ability to record and
   playback digitized sound, allowing for speech and decent sound effects.
   (This information was essentially provided for people who don't know what a
   Sound Blaster is. I probably shouldn't have even written this paragraph,
   since the (in)famous Sound Blaster doesn't need mentioning, but I've done
   it already, so... whatever). :-)

 1990

   True Mixing. While many remember TrakBlaster being the first program to
   play MOD files on the PC, a couple of people were mixing before then, most
   notably PSI / Future Crew. He had created and marketed Scream Tracker in
   1990 as shareware, and it could mix and play up to four voices in real-time
   on an 8MHz (or faster) computer.

   The early versions of Scream Tracker supported a mode of operation similar
   to the old SoundTracker on Amiga -- you could save the song data and
   instruments separately.  This allowed you to compose over 20 songs and fit
   them on the same disk, because you use the same set of instruments with
   each song.  EGA Megademo / SpacePigs did this -- they had four different
   songs that used the same instruments, so the whole thing fit onto a single
   360K disk.

 _____A Brief Early History of Demos

 This has been covered many times before, so I won't rehash The Beginning Of
 Demos excessively; however, a few tangible examples would probably serve to
 help you picture the transition.

 Pirating games led to the birth of the demo scene.  It's time everyone who is
 in deep denial about this fact comes out and accepts it.  You can see this in
 the early loaders for pirated games; as early as 1988 you can see some
 demo-like effects in small loaders.  The loader for Bad Street Brawler is a
 perfect example of this: The screen starts as static; then, like a TV pirate
 intercepting a TV channel, the screen flickers with the title graphic, until
 finally the title graphic is fully displayed.  The entire program was only 128
 bytes, and was tacked onto the front of a CGA screen dump.

 This "loader mentality" took a while to grow, but it eventually did.  Many
 early intros were simply one effect, but to be impressive, it had to be an
 effect never before seen on the PC. "Never before seen" meant one of two
 things, actually:

   * The effect was an Amiga or C64 effect that was translated to the PC
     (common), or
   * The effect was an entirely new effect (rare).

 Many of the early Brain Slayer intros were good examples of the
 Amiga-effect-to-PC trend, and until .MOD playing on the PC became popular,
 most early intros had no sound at all.

 _____Rose-colored Glasses

 Well, our look back has ended, and not a moment too soon, since I've taken up
 valuable time that you could've used to write the newest demos.  All I ask is
 that the next time you take a look at the demos today that contain incredibly
 complex 3D objects, particle systems, and multi-channel digital music, or the
 next time you compose music with 64 digital channels in Inertia Tracker, you
 think about what it used to be like in the old days.  Who knows... Maybe some
 of you will be as innovative as us old-timers needed to be in dealing with
 such limited, slow hardware.

 Then again, the driving force behind demos is that the hardware is only as
 limited as you think it is. ;-)

 _____Epilogue

 It just wouldn't be fair for me to end this article without a list of old
 demos that you should check out if you want to see the best of the best back
 in the old days (from 1990 to 1992). Keep in mind that these demos run at the
 full framerate on a 386 running at 16 MHz:

 Demo             Group       Video Sound Support
 ---------------- ----------- ----- -----------------------------------------
 Chronologia      Cascada     VGA   Sound Blaster, Internal speaker, LPT DAC
 Dragnet          DCE         VGA   Sound Blaster
 Putre Faction    Skull       VGA   Sound Blaster
 Unreal vers. 1.1 Future Crew VGA   Sound Blaster, Gravis Ultrasound, LPT DAC
 Vectdemo         Ultraforce  VGA   Sound Blaster
 Coldcut          Ultraforce  EGA   Sound Blaster
 EGA Megademo     SpacePigs   EGA   Internal speaker, LPT DAC

 And, as always, if you're interested about demos in general, please feel free
 to free to check out PC Demos Explained or download the PC Demos FAQ list.

 Written by Jim Leonard.  Completed September 25th, 1996.  Special thanks to
 Geoffrey Silverton for some low-level "lowres" information.

=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=

 :: "You Know You Play Too Much Quake When"
 :: Maverick - paul@sprintlink.co.za

 01. You wish you had a sniper macro for your right eye when watching a live
     game (or the girl across the road).
 02. You wonder why the guy on TV doesn't switch to his rocket launcher in a
     gun battle.
 03. Distant lightning makes you want to lob a grenade in that direction.
 04. You look furtively all around you when walking through a shopping mall.
 05. You reach for a keyboard when having to jump a low obstacle.
 06. You realize you can't hold your breath underwater for that long after
     all..
 07. You miss the moveup and movedown aliases when swimming.
 08. You mutter "bad guy rides Arnold's rocket" when watching the climax scene
     of True Lies.
 09. You propose to your boss that he converts the company Web server into a
     dedicated Quake server so you can access it from the LAN.
 10. Real gunfire makes you run for the nearest lift so you can join in.

=-----------------------------------------------------------------------------=

 :: "TMDC Update"
 :: Sol / DEE - jari.komppa@pcb.compart.fi

 Some things have changed since the last TMDC article in DemoNews.  The prize
 list and contact info has changed somewhat, and the invitation demo has been
 released. The deadline is still 11.11.96, but *please* send your
 contributions as soon as possible.

 _____Invitation demo?

 Go grab the TMDC invitation demo - it might change your opinion about
 textmode demos:

 ftp:ftp.cdrom.com//pub/demos/incoming/demos/tmdcinv.zip

 The zip also includes TMDC infofile 1.2.

 _____Contact info?

 The competition is held in the Internet, but you don't have
 to have internet access to contribute a demo. You may send your
 contributions to:

 email: MIMEd to joker@crusaders.no
        UUEncoded to jari.komppa@pcb.compart.fi
 IRC  : _TJ_  (#CODERS)
 BBS  : TRK +358-9-874-2789 28.8k (Dubius HQ/DEE HQ/Hysteria HQ)
            +358-9-857-4506 14.4k (node 2)

        Anon uploads are now possible; log on to either node as TMDC, password
        TMDC, and you'll get prompt to upload.

 Snailmail:

   Sol/DEE                 The Joker
   Laurintie 116           Stationsveien 56
   Vantaa  01400           2010 STROMMEN
   Finland,Europe          Norway, Europe

 Please include Self Addressed Envelope and International Reply Coupons if you
 want to have your disk(s) back.

 _____Prize list?

 1st place  - Full, registered version of Remedy
              Entertainment's Death Rally.
            - 1st pick from CD pile.
            - 386dx25 w/4MB RAM, 40MB HDD, VGA card.
              (doesn't include keyboard or monitor, tho..)
            - Assembly T-shirt.
 2nd place  - 2nd pick from CD pile.
            - same kind of 386dx25 as above.
            - Assembly T-shirt.
 3rd place  - 3rd pick from CD pile (if any choice).
            - Assembly T-shirt.
 4th place  - 4th pick from CD pile (if any choice).
            - Assembly T-shirt.
 5th place  - Whatever CD is left in the pile.
            - Assembly T-shirt.
 6-10 place - Assembly T-shirt.

 As for what CDs to pick from, you have two Imphobia 'Dreams' CDs, and three
 A.C.E Demos Collection CDs.

==[Closing]====================================================================

 _____DemoNews Subscribing

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 DemoNews is sent to your e-mail return address.

 _____DemoNews Back Issues

 Older issues of DemoNews can be located at /info/demonews
 Newly released issues of DemoNews are posted to /incoming/info

 _____Contacting Us

 For questions and comments, you can contact us at r3cgm@cdrom.com
 Your mail will be forwarded to the appropriate individual.

..........................................................End.of.DemoNews.132.

