  ______/\__________________________      __  ________________ ___  /\_______
  \____   \  ________ _   _ ______  \    /  \|  \  ________   |   \/  ______/
  /   |    \  _)   \   \_/   \   |   \  /    \   \  _)   \    |    \______  \
 /    |     \       \   |     \  |    \/          \       \  / \    \    /   \
 \_____     /_______/___|     /_______/\____\_____/_______/_________/________/
     \_____/            |____/
                                                          Subscribers  : 2546
 DemoNews 143 - 23 February 1997                          Archive Size : 4147M

>------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents --

         Introduction
         Calendar
         Week In Review
         Top Downloads
         New Uploads
         Articles
           A Graphician's Tip Book - Part 11 ............. Shaithis
           How The Hornet Archive Works (part 4) ......... Snowman
           The Gathering '97 - Sneak Peak ................ Vegard Skjefstad
         General Information

>-------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction --

 Hello all, and welcome to DemoNews 143.

 _____Introduction

 This weekend I went skiing at Lake Tahoe, almost had a policeman stick a gun
 in my face, got criticism from Tom Christiansen ("Programming Perl" author
 from O'Reilly), had a nightmare about running out of shampoo, and cut up my
 chin in an unfortunate accident.  It was with much enthusiasm that I hid
 behind my computer this afternoon to work on DemoNews.

 _____669 Renaissance

 I've begun to start collecting old 669 files.  If you find any we don't have,
 kindly put them in /incoming/music/songs/669.  Thanks go out to Paul Medynski
 and Brad Spencer who inspired this.

 _____Email, Group, and Scene Links

 These web pages on our archive have been getting much bigger recently.  If
 you get bored some night, try browsing through some of the links... 'ya might
 be surprised.

 _____Out Of Space (Again!)

 It's been only 3 months since we moved some files from the Hornet Archive
 offline to CDROM.  Now we're out of room again.

 Originally I was going to move our archive to a larger drive.  However, we
 lost 2 of our mirrors recently because they couldn't support a 4gig+ and
 growing archive.  As a result, I have started to rethink our situation.
 Rather than lose any more mirrors, we are going to cap the archive at 4 gigs
 for a while.  This means it's time to move another 600 megs of files offline
 to CDROM.

 For this archive to continue functioning, it is _critical_ that you all be
 sensible uploaders.  We recently had to add a new /incoming policy:

   8. only allowed to upload 1 song per day

 You are still free to upload as many of your songs as you like, but there can
 no longer be mass-uploads of an entire collection at one time.  If you are a
 new musician, it is highly recommended that you be selective with what you
 upload... choose your few best tunes and upload those.  Don't use us as a
 massive repository to hold all your productions, but as a handy place to get
 your best stuff.

 _____Conclusion

 Sleep is good.

 Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@hornet.org

>------------------------------------------------------------------ Calendar --

 Date         Event               Location  Contact Points
 ------------ ------------------- --------- ----------------------------------
 31 Jan 1997  PC96                Brazil    x@wm.com.br
                                            wm.com.br/~x/pc96.html
 15 Feb 1997  General Probe 3     Poland    s146630@ire.pw.edu.pl
                                            neutron.elka.pw.edu.pl/~mszklano

                                       * <-- YOU ARE HERE

 02 Mar 1997  Invasion            Finland   invasion@xuq.nullnet.fi
                                            www.koillismaa.fi/invasion
 23 Mar 1997  Millennium          Israel    mlitvak@ort.org.il
 26 Mar 1997  The Gathering       Norway    www.gathering.org
                                            tg97@gathering.org
 28 Mar 1997  Mekka & Symposium   Germany   amable@aol.com
 28 Mar 1997  SiliConvention      Germany   www.siliconvention.com
 04 Apr 1997  X Takeover          Holland   x97take@dds.nl
 04 Apr 1997  Scenest             Hungary   melan@hungary.net
 05 Apr 1997  Spring Break        USA (CA)  whutchin@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
                                            sdcc13.ucsd.edu/~whutchin
 11 Apr 1997  The Trip            Italy     keyby@jnet.it
                                            www.logicom.it/trip
 13 Jun 1997  Scream              Canada    scream97.educ.infinit.net
                                            scream97@videotron.net
 22 Aug 1997  AntIQ               Hungary   aboy@ttk.jpte.hu
                                            www.jpte.hu/~aboy
 25 Aug 1997  The Place To Be 5   France    www.mygale.org/05/dadu

>------------------------------------------------------------ Week In Review --

 -- /demos ------------------------------------------------------------------>

 :: Phoenix / Hornet - phoenix@hornet.org

 _____New Demo Highlights

 "Broken Pipe" by Pulse - 1st place intro at GP3 - so far this is the most 3d
 I've seen packed into 64k.  It has two or three scenes, each containing
 multiple effects like rippling, feedback, etc.  The music is lightweight, I
 assume they saved the space for code.  Some nice logo work too.

  Code: 9  Music: 5  Graphics: 7  Overall: 8  (/incoming/GP97/in64/pls_bl.zip)

 "Wired '96 Party Report" by Imphobia & Legend Design - the most anticipated
 report project since, er, our NAID '96 report :), this one boasts over 70
 hicolor pictures, via another JPEG loader.  It also features tunes by three
 out of the Five Musicians.  It is fairly straightforward to use, you don't
 even have to run the report with the gfx/music-ripping option.  I had a
 couple problems about the report through.. I didn't see the point of the
 800x600 resolution when the pics themselves were only around 400x300 (my old
 monitor has a bit of trouble in 800x600 mode for some reason).  Also, it's
 rather big when packed (around 5 megs zipped, compare with 2 megs for the
 NAID report).. I sympathize with 14.4k modem users out there :).

  Code: 7  Music: 8  Graphics: 7  Overall: 7  (/party/reports/1997/w96_rep*)

 _____Descriptions

 I decided to take advantage of the description field for each archived file
 to enter demo hardware requirements, which some people have wanted to see
 listed on the archive.  For example, let's say you see a demo listed as
 follows:

    Bigdemo by Eleets: : P5,VESA,GUS/SB,8MB

  The latter part could be broken down like so:

  P5 - either a Pentium-class-CPU or better is strongly recommended or
       required.  Could also be 386, 486, etc.

  VESA - uses VESA to output hicolor or hires VGA.  You should either have a
         video card with built in VESA 2.0 support, or get SDD/UniVBE at
         ftp.scitechsoft.com.  Could also be SVGA.  VGA usually isn't
         mentioned, as it is assumed by default.

  GUS/SB - the soundcards supported by the demo.  They should be self-
           explanatory.  Note that I do not always list these if they not
           explicitly mentioned in an info file.  Also, most demos support no
           sound, so don't give up if you don't see your soundcard in this
           part.

  8MB - the minimum RAM required to run the demo, in this case 8 megs.

 _____Etc.

 I think I've managed to finally clear out all the 1996 demos from /incoming!
 Now we can really put that year behind us. :)

 The two /demos/1997 files so far (crs_mlw.zip and kd_dream.zip) have been
 getting a LOT of downloads this week.  This surprised me since other TP6
 demos like Megablast and Mental Debug were rated higher.  I guess newer stuff
 is more popular :) (mind you, Mellow and Dreams are pretty good too).

>------------------------------------------------------------- Top Downloads --

 Total files downloaded   :     118,141
 Size of files downloaded :  21,345,386k

 Times File                             Description
 ----- -------------------------------- --------------------------------------

 -- /demos ------------------------------------------------------------------>

   153  /1997/c/crs-mlw.zip             Mellow (final) by Cryonics
   127  /1995/a/animate.zip             Animate by Schwartz
   124  /1993/u/unreal11.zip            Unreal v1.1 by Future Crew
   112  /1993/0-9/2ndreal1.lzh          Second Reality by Future Crew [1/2]
   109  /1995/n/nooon_st.zip            Stars (bugfixed) by Nooon
   104  /1993/0-9/2ndreal2.lzh          Second Reality by Future Crew [2/2]
   101  /1997/k/kd_dream.zip            Dreams by Kosmic
    98  /1993/s/symbolog.zip            Symbology by Admire
    89  /1995/c/countdwn.zip            Countdown by Realtech
    80  /1996/c/clx_rebe.zip            Rebel (As Perceived) by Complex

 -- /music ------------------------------------------------------------------>

    77  /songs/1997/mod/dm-under.zip    Underwater (remix) by Vox
    71  /songs/1997/mod/m_ambi.zip      L'Ambient by Iso, The FoxII
    66  /songs/1997/xm/m/mcd-rain.zip   Rain by MC Dreamer
    65  /songs/1995/s3m/a/aryx.zip      Aryx by K. Koch
    63  /songs/1996/s3m/a/athought.zip  Another Night of Thought by Zastar
    62  /songs/1996/s3m/i/im_empir.zip  The Hidden Empire by Karsten Koch
    59  /songs/1996/s3m/i/im_chron.zip  Chronologie Part 4 (remix) by Karsten
    49  /songs/1997/xm/j/jt_deadl.zip   Deadline by Wave
    46  /songs/1996/s3m/f/fa-bung.zip   Animated Bunghole Power by Future Assa
    44  /songs/1996/xm/e/elw-swee.zip   Sweet Dreams by Elwood

 -- /graphics --------------------------------------------------------------->

    20  /images/1994/i/incest5.zip      Incest by Pentalysion
    16  /programs/editors/gfx2b93.zip   Grafx 2.00 Beta 93 by Sunset Design
    12  /images/1996/a/aa_gargo.zip     The Gargoyle by Coolhand
    11  /images/1996/a/airwar.zip       Air War by Grape
    11  /images/1996/a/abc_land.zip     Landing by Storm
    10  /images/1996/v/voyeur.zip       Voyeur by Visualize
    10  /images/1996/h/hardcore.zip      by Boss
    10  /images/1996/a/abc_pien.zip     Pani Pienkowa by Grass
    10  /images/1996/0-9/3dots.zip      Three Dots by Shape
     9  /programs/editors/fedit11.zip   Font Editor v1.1 by PiCoder

 -- /code ------------------------------------------------------------------->

    45  /3ds/3dsrdr12.zip               3D Studio .3DS File Reader v1.2 by Jar
    44  /effects/water/water.zip        Water by De-Phassed
    44  /3d/docs/3d_math.zip            3d math by Lithium of VLA
    42  /tutorials/denthor/tut01new.zip Tutorial 1 in C by Snowman of Hornet
    41  /effects/fire/burn.zip          burn by Frank Paxti
    40  /tutorials/denthor/tut05new.zip Tutorial 5 in C by Snowman of Hornet
    37  /tutorials/denthor/tut04new.zip Tutorial 4 in C by Snowman of Hornet
    36  /tutorials/denthor/tut07new.zip Tutorial 7 in C by Snowman of Hornet
    36  /tutorials/denthor/tut03new.zip Tutorial 3 in C by Snowman of Hornet
    36  /effects/rotozoom/pasroto.zip   Cache Optimized Roto-Zoomer by Pascal

 -- /incoming --------------------------------------------------------------->

   133  /code/vgophong.zip
   104  /code/tunnel.zip
   102  /code/blaze.zip
    93  /code/3dsrdr13.zip
    67  /GP97/in64/pls_bp.zip
    54  /GP97/in64/bmbm.zip
    53  /GP97/in64/swl_bof.zip
    50  /GP97/in64/tower.zip
    49  /GP97/in4k/hc_shock.zip
    48  /code/newvox.zip

>--------------------------------------------------------------- New Uploads --

 All ratings are subjective.

 -- /demos ------------------------------------------------------------------>

 /1995/m/mfx_tgr.zip               52 ****  Transgression by MFX -
                                            | AGR95:i128:02:
 /1996/0-9/1sttime.zip            508 **+   1st Time by Plutonic -
                                            | TP96:demo:06:
 /1996/a/adrift.zip                64 ***+  Adrift by Wild Light -
                                            | TP96:in64:11: : 486DX,GUS/SB
 /1996/a/alive.zip                 59 ***   Alive by Orca - TP96:in64:10: :
                                            | 386,GUS
 /1996/a/alto.zip                1190 ***+  Alto Knallo by Free Electric Band
                                            | - TP96:demo:01: : GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/a/amb_juni.zip              73 ***+  Junior by Amable - TP96:in64:02:
 /1996/b/bdb-gar.zip               24 **    BBS The Garage by Brains Don't
                                            | Bounce
 /1996/b/birthro.zip              144 *+    Arjan's Birthtro by Escape
 /1996/c/c-vision.zip              59 ***   Vision by Coral - TP96:in64:21: :
                                            | 486,GUS
 /1996/c/ce-xmas.zip               90 *+    Xmas 96 by CuteElf : P5
 /1996/c/certtest.zip             555 **    Certified & Tested by Jezz -
                                            | TP96:demo:29:
 /1996/c/coma_ash.zip              69 ***   Ashes by COMA - TP96:in64:03:
 /1996/c/compost.zip              930 ***   Compost by Orange - TP96:demo:07:
 /1996/c/cotxmas.zip               49 **    XMas Greetings by Circle of
                                            | Tyrants : VGA,GUS
 /1996/c/csa.zip                   61 ***+  Cosmic Space Arabi by TPOLM -
                                            | TP96:in64:04:
 /1996/c/ctslrw95.zip             121 ****  Lasse Reinbong (re-release) by
                                            | Cubic Team, $een : Windows 95
 /1996/d/d-test.zip                49 **+   D-Test by Mazout - TP96:in64:19:
 /1996/d/deesbab.zip               68 ***+  Deesbab by Orange - TP96:in64:01:
                                            | : 486DX
 /1996/d/diamint.zip               48 **+   Diamint by Smash Designs -
                                            | TP96:in64:16:
 /1996/d/downtown.zip            1003 ***+  Downtown by Abyss - TP96:demo:16:
                                            | : P5,VESA,GUS/SB,2MB
 /1996/e/emp_fnal.zip            1149 ***+  Empire (final) by TPOLM -
                                            | TP96:demo:05: : 486,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/e/euforia.zip              233 **    Triology by Euforia -
                                            | TP96:demo:18: : 386,SB,1MB
 /1996/f/fcy_lvtt.zip            2515 ***   Levitations by Faculty -
                                            | TP96:demo:17: : P5,VESA,GUS.8MB
 /1996/f/fdg_ucla.zip            1638 ****  Venus by Fudge - TP96:demo:03: :
                                            | P5,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/f/frs_tone.zip            1258 [n/a] Tone by Eufrosyne - TP96:demo:15:
 /1996/f/ftjamour.zip            4039 **    Helsinki Mon Amour by Plant -
                                            | TP96:demo:08:
 /1996/g/g10-mles.zip             962 *     Min Lada Ar Sne by Goto 10 -
                                            | TP96:demo:09:
 /1996/h/h-crowd.zip               65 [n/a] Huge Crowd by Nooon, Orange -
                                            | TP96:in64:06:
 /1996/h/h-shoong.zip            1147 ***   Shoong by Hatha - TP96:demo:31: :
                                            | 486,GUS,8MB
 /1996/h/h8.zip                    49 *     H8 by Primativos - TP96:in64:22:
 /1996/h/hlx-slp.zip               81 *+    Sleepless In Sevillia by Helix :
                                            | 486,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/h/hny-1997.zip              30 *+    Happy New Year Intro 1997 by
                                            | Spyral : 386,SB
 /1996/i/iday.zip                  63 **    Independence Day by Dominetrix -
                                            | TP96:in64:12: : SB
 /1996/i/is.zip                    15 +     Is by Azzrael - TP96:in64:20:
 /1996/i/ita-xmas.zip             775 **    Christmas Sing-Along by Intra :
                                            | 386,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/j/jumble.zip               439 **    Jumble by G&G Demoswarez :
                                            | 386,VGA,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/k/k_evade.zip               69 **    Evade by Kloon - TP96:in64:XX:
 /1996/m/m_tume.zip               158 **    Tume by Mass : 5 seconds long!
 /1996/m/megademo.zip            2897 ****  Megablast by Orange -
                                            | TP96:demo:02: : GUS/SB/PAS,8+MB
 /1996/m/mental.a01               997 ****  Mental Debug by Dead Beef [2/2] -
                                            | TP96:demo:04:
 /1996/m/mental.arj              1422 ****  Mental Debug by Dead Beef [1/2] -
                                            | TP96:demo:04:
 /1996/m/mundane.zip              899 [n/a] Mundane by Nowadays -
                                            | TP96:demo:28:
 /1996/n/nct_x.zip                 64 ***   X by Nocturnal - TP96:in64:18:
 /1996/n/niilu.zip                140 **    Niilu by Deck Blasters :
                                            | GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/p/prdto64k.zip              65 **+   Produktio 64k by Vandals -
                                            | TP96:in64:23: : P5,GUS,8MB
 /1996/p/psychass.zip             888 **+   Psychadelic Assignment by Opium -
                                            | TP96:demo:23: : GUS
 /1996/p/pyromani.zip             484 *+    Pyromania by Factor X -
                                            | TP96:demo:24:
 /1996/r/rc-sand3.zip             901 *+    Sand 3 by Rectum Cauda -
                                            | TP96:demo:26:
 /1996/r/rle_xs96.zip             130 *+    XMas 96 by RelE
 /1996/s/sallad.zip              1188 *     Sallad by Tisprut Prods. -
                                            | TP96:demo:19:
 /1996/s/sck_jade.zip              68 ***+  Jade by Shock - TP96:in64:07: :
                                            | P5,GUS
 /1996/s/smp-natu.zip            1030 ***   Natural by Sympathy -
                                            | TP96:demo:22: :
                                            | 486DX4,VESA.GUS/SB,4MB
 /1996/s/starfuck.zip             460 *     Star Fucker by BadSector -
                                            | TP96:demo:27: : SB
 /1996/s/subper.zip               544 **+   Subliminal Perception by Noware -
                                            | TP96:demo:25: : GUS
 /1996/t/tarra.zip               1273 **+   Tarrogona by Whatcom -
                                            | TP96:demo:21: :
                                            | 50hzVGA,GUS/SB/PAS
 /1996/t/tat.zip                   63 ***+  The Astonishing Tribe by Yodel -
                                            | TP96:in64:05:
 /1996/t/thefake6.zip            2159 *     The Fake 6 by Titan Crew -
                                            | TP96:demo:12:
 /1996/t/thixmas.zip               15 *+    XMas 96 Intro by THI
 /1996/u/u8-daze.zip               66 ***+  Daze by Urinate - TP96:in64:08: :
                                            | 386,GUS
 /1996/v/velvet3.zip               69 ***   Velvet 3 by Fatal Justice -
                                            | TP96:in64:13: : 486DX4,GUS/SB
 /1996/w/wnxmas.zip               392 **+   Xmas by ActionForce : Windows '95
 /1996/x/x-file2.zip               69 ***   X-File 2 by Trilogy -
                                            | TP96:in64:18: : GUS
 /1996/x/xamen.zip                576 ***   Xamen by Solid - TP96:demo:32:
 /1996/x/xmas3.zip                 90 *+    XMas 3 by Rodent, Ravian, Hunz
 /1996/x/xmess.zip                 68 ***   X-Mess by Sin - TP96:in64:15:
 /1996/y/yalnyi.zip               208 *     Yalnyi '97 by Epilogue
 /1996/z/zap_.zip                  62 **+   Zap by Loop - TP96:in64:17:
 /1996/z/zerograv.a01             572 ***+  Zero Gravity by Blasphemy [2/2] -
                                            | TP96:demo:13: :
                                            | P5,GUS/SB/PAS,4MB
 /1996/z/zerograv.arj            1422 ***+  Zero Gravity by Blasphemy [1/2] -
                                            | TP96:demo:13: :
                                            | P5,GUS/SB/PAS,4MB
 /1997/c/crs-mlw.zip             1731 ***+  Mellow (final) by Cryonics -
                                            | TP96:demo:14: : P5,SB
 /1997/k/kd_dream.zip            1294 ***   Dreams by Kosmic - TP96:demo:20: :
                                            | 486,GUS/SB

 -- /music ------------------------------------------------------------------>

 /songs/1993/669/poundit.zip       32 *+    Pound & Knead by ??? : (669)
                                            | 2unlimited only slower
 /songs/1995/mod/p/primitiv.zip   261 ***+  Primitive 42 Pulse by Heatbeat :
                                            | strange techno, lots of variety
 /songs/1995/xm/j/jt_hyp95.zip    229 ****  Hypnosis 3D Demo by Wave
 /songs/1996/it/f/for_dr3m.zip    419 **    Forbidden Dreams by Alex Simouline
                                            | - ENL96:mmul:09:
 /songs/1996/it/p/p-lstslt.zip    368 ****  Last Straylight by Paso : nice
                                            | ambient jungle tune, weird
 /songs/1996/it/p/pf-7thdm.zip    840 ***   The 7th Dimension by Pop Faktor :
                                            | boom-tsk-boom-tsk, not bad
 /songs/1996/it/p/pf-wantu.zip    444 ***+  I Want U by Pop Faktor : fast
                                            | dance music with vocals
 /songs/1996/it/p/phr-acid.zip    529 **    low by Pharoah : jungle, sometimes
                                            | interesting
 /songs/1996/it/p/phr-cher.zip    567 ***   cherub by Pharoah : strange techno
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-gangs.zip    295 *+    Gang Violence by PowerMike :
                                            | techno/heavy metal, bad samples
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-hvysl.zip    291 ***   Heavy Sleep by PowerMike :
                                            | techno/rock with nice drums
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-laspa.zip    214 *     I'm going to this Party by
                                            | PowerMike : thump-thump-thump-
                                            | thump..etc.
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-nice1.zip    252 **    Nice One by PowerMike : heavy
                                            | metal, needs good samples
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-tiw.zip      128 *+    Take it West by PowerMike : short
                                            | techno/metal song
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-tufy.zip     445 *+    Tufy Techno by PowerMike : heavy
                                            | jungle techno
 /songs/1996/it/p/pm-wick.zip     225 *     Wick by PowerMike : heavy metal,
                                            | bad samples
 /songs/1996/it/p/pn-xmas.zip     127 ***+  Xmas Greetings by Pinion : jazzy
                                            | blend of 2 songs, nice
 /songs/1996/it/p/proad.zip       597 **+   The Road to Hope by Pubert : boom-
                                            | boom, a bit underdeveloped
 /songs/1996/it/s/skydance.zip    141 ***   Sky Dance by Xfaktor, Supahfly of
                                            | 4Y - WIR96:mmul:17:
 /songs/1996/it/v/vo-ill.zip      257 **+   The Last Illusion by Voider -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:25:
 /songs/1996/mod/b/bill.zip         2 +     ?? by ?? - P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/mod/f/fakehero.zip   281 **+   Burned Up by Zooley of Spacehawks
                                            | - PS96:m4ch:03:
 /songs/1996/mod/k/kos.zip          1 *     Kos by ?? - P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/mod/n/nba.zip        232 *     NBA by EVA - ENL96:mmul:27:
 /songs/1996/mod/n/next.zip         0 *     Sans Titre by Next -
                                            | P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/paravoka.zip    41 **    Paravoka by ??? : somewhat melodic
                                            | happy synthpop
 /songs/1996/mod/p/phd_e115.zip   141 ***+  Elesium 115 by Juice : laid back
                                            | triphop
 /songs/1996/mod/p/phd_feel.zip   298 ****  Feels are Changin by Pirat : great
                                            | mellow-ish ambient jungle
 /songs/1996/mod/p/phd_verb.zip   284 **+   Happy Verbs by G.looymans : fast
                                            | jungle tune
 /songs/1996/mod/p/pmb-hapy.zip     7 +     Happy Birthday fx by SNES : happy
                                            | birthday chiptune
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m01.zip   437 **    Le Nougat by Plug - P2B96:m4ch:01:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m02.zip   198 **    Coolwarm by Tex - P2B96:m4ch:02:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m03.zip   121 **+   After the Storm by Kana-X -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:03:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m04.zip   239 **    Cherry Coke by DJ Sly -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:04:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m05.zip   223 **+   8 Like A Poke by Kana-X -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:05:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m06.zip    94 **    Rave Island by Kana-X -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:06:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m07.zip    88 **    Big Bad Loser by Pymfyd -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:07:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m08.zip   201 **    Le Bip-Bip Du Robot by Pymfyd -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:08:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m09.zip    76 *+    Activator 3 Revenge by TMX -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:09:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m10.zip   125 *     Yell by ?? - P2B96:m4ch:10:
 /songs/1996/mod/p/ptb4_m11.zip   184 **    Mega by Lord - P2B96:m4ch:11:
 /songs/1996/mod/r/revolut.zip    127 **+   Ravolution by Wave -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:DD:
 /songs/1996/mod/s/skyman_p.zip     3 +     ?? by ?? - P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/mod/t/thunder.zip    489 **    Cyber Test by Thunder -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:DD:
 /songs/1996/mod/t/tmx_bee.zip      4 +     Beeh by TMX - P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/mod/t/txv.zip        186 ***   Trance-X Vibes by Xpeh -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:DD:
 /songs/1996/other/digitald.zip    90 [n/a] Digital Dreams by Stas -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:29: : MED
 /songs/1996/other/noicem.zip     285 [n/a] Noice Motion by Popirin Denis -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:28: : MED
 /songs/1996/s3m/b/ballligh.zip   356 ***+  Ball Lightning by Slightly Magic -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:04:
 /songs/1996/s3m/f/fakelove.zip   130 **+   Fake Love by IMP - ENL96:mmul:22:
 /songs/1996/s3m/f/fathers.zip     88 **    Fathers by Rony Kilometers -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:18:
 /songs/1996/s3m/f/flc_vich.zip   287 *+    Vichy St Yorre 96 by ?? -
                                            | WIR96:mmul:XX:
 /songs/1996/s3m/f/funsun.zip     343 ***   Fun In the Sun by Toalnkor, Mythos
                                            | of Realtech, Real Time -
                                            | WIR96:mmul:XX:
 /songs/1996/s3m/h/hicky.zip      114 **+   Madness by Gray Engine -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:25:
 /songs/1996/s3m/i/innocent.zip   307 **+   She Was Innocent by Manwe -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:03:
 /songs/1996/s3m/i/island.zip      91 ***   The Island by Grom -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:21:
 /songs/1996/s3m/l/life_und.zip   200 *+    Life Underground by Hi-Jack -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:26:
 /songs/1996/s3m/m/memories.zip   175 ***   Memories by Fill Mars -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:01:
 /songs/1996/s3m/m/must.zip       113 **    Must by Andrey Malyev -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:20:
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/pe_daed.zip    495 ***   Peripheral Evolution by Daedalus :
                                            | synthpop/techno
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/peyote.zip     374 ***   Dance of the Peyote People by
                                            | Daedalus : synthpop, heavy on
                                            | the siners
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/pg-doyou.zip   282 *     Do You by Project Gabbangelion :
                                            | somewhat annoying gabber tune
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/post.zip       260 **+   Post by Vanapoo - ENL96:mmul:15:
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/prim-had.zip   141 **+   Primadonna by that happy guy Hadji
                                            | : decent thump-thump (fast)
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/pscatman.zip   516 **+   Scat Man's Piu by Impression :
                                            | endless thump
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/ptb4_m12.zip   254 **+   Day of the Dogs by Insanity -
                                            | P2B96:m4ch:12:
 /songs/1996/s3m/p/ptb4_m4.zip    125 **    The Eternal Halls by Insanity -
                                            | P2B96:mmul:04:
 /songs/1996/s3m/r/rave5.zip      388 *+    Holo Drance 2 by Mad Wild -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:24:
 /songs/1996/s3m/s/sck-hrny.zip   136 **    Horny Beats by ATX of Shock -
                                            | PS96:m4ch:02:
 /songs/1996/s3m/s/sck-refu.zip    78 ***   Refusal by ATX of Shock -
                                            | PS96:mmul:01:
 /songs/1996/s3m/t/to65.zip       182 **+   Motion by Thundergod -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:16:
 /songs/1996/s3m/v/vobbcomp.zip   201 **+   Valley of the Blindbirds by Rogers
                                            | - ENL96:mmul:14:
 /songs/1996/xm/a/amb_poem.zip    496 ***+  Raspberry Poem by Ambient Move of
                                            | Amable - WIR96:mmul:06:
 /songs/1996/xm/b/beyond.zip       56 **    Beyond the Calmness by Dying Breed
                                            | - ENL96:mmul:13:
 /songs/1996/xm/c/ceedee.zip      221 ***   Street Agression by Snork -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:05:
 /songs/1996/xm/c/cosmic.zip      487 ****  Cosmic Outflow by Falcon of Pulse
                                            | - WIR96:mmul:02:
 /songs/1996/xm/e/emotions.zip    240 **+   The Music Is Our Emotions by
                                            | Master Koff - ENL96:mmul:23:
 /songs/1996/xm/f/frigo.zip        59 *     Capitaine Flan by ?? -
                                            | P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jd-never.zip    197 **+   Never Ending Story by Jay Dee -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:10:
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_boom.zip      11 *     Boom by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_breez.zip    276 ****+ Mountain Breeze by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_smily.zip     60 ****  Smiley by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_strng.zip      4 ****  Stranglehold by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_trace.zip    182 ****  Track Tracer by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_travl.zip    191 ****+ The Traveller by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/j/jt_wstar.zip     92 ****  War Stars by Wave
 /songs/1996/xm/m/mor-hymn.zip    119 **+   Hymn by Morpheus - ENL96:mmul:19:
 /songs/1996/xm/m/mrc-rs.zip      343 ***   Rogue Ship by Mercure -
                                            | WIR96:mmul:XX:
 /songs/1996/xm/n/neus.zip         44 **+   The Neus by Leo - ENL96:mmul:08:
 /songs/1996/xm/o/oops.zip        247 **+   Ooops by Lav - ENL96:mmul:06:
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pahconfu.zip    171 ****  Confusion by Pah : fast techo
                                            | demotune, very nice
 /songs/1996/xm/p/party.zip        44 **    Party Time by ??? : medium paced
                                            | synthpop w/guitar
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pg-gion.zip     452 **    Come to Gion by Tanigon :
                                            | interesting gabber, well done
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pg-katud.zip    684 *     Katudon by Vicson : really fast
                                            | bewm-tsk-bewm-tsk
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pg-rhau.zip      51 +     Rhauau by Vicson : and yet more
                                            | boom-tsk-boom-tsk
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pht-int.zip     470 ***+  Integration (cosmix) by Phorte :
                                            | strange demo/house music
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pls_cosm.zip    490 ****+ Cosmic Outflow by Falcon : awesome
                                            | dark techno, laid back
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pmb-roll.zip    407 **+   Roll over the sat by Pepito : nice
                                            | tune, needs better mixing
 /songs/1996/xm/p/power.zip         3 **+   The Power of FT2 by Noiseman :
                                            | nice chiptune
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-aut.zip     92 **+   Autumn by Prizrak : short, mellow,
                                            | bad samples
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-ref.zip     64 **+   Reflection by Prizrak : uneventful
                                            | flute ballad
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-sd.zip     391 **+   Space Dreams by Prizrak :
                                            | synthpop, needs better samples
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-si.zip     179 *+    Space Illusion by Prizrak :
                                            | synthpop, melody from Nova by PM
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-sky.zip    102 ***   Sky's by Prizrak : fast synthpop,
                                            | bad mixing
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-spr.zip    133 **+   Spring by Prizrak : nice mellow
                                            | tune, bad samples
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-sum.zip     75 **+   Summer by Prizrak : uneventful
                                            | demotune, fast paced
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-sut.zip    306 ***   Sky Travel by Prizrak : dark
                                            | demotune, bad samples
 /songs/1996/xm/p/priz-win.zip    141 **+   Winter by Prizrak : Skaven
                                            | wannabe...
 /songs/1996/xm/p/ptb4_m1.zip     628 **+   Light 'N Night by Cals'n -
                                            | P2B96:mmul:01:
 /songs/1996/xm/p/ptb4_m2.zip     335 ***   Ne Pas Lire Ce Texte by Hermes -
                                            | P2B96:mmul:02:
 /songs/1996/xm/p/ptb4_m3.zip     265 **    Mega Zick by DJ Sly -
                                            | P2B96:mmul:03:
 /songs/1996/xm/p/puff_eve.zip    351 **+   Every Time Again by Puffin : good
                                            | instruments bad progression
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pv-kesh.zip     176 **+   Kesh-50 by Pieter van der veen :
                                            | decent boom-tsk with piano
 /songs/1996/xm/p/pv-spher.zip    179 ***   Sphere by Pieter van der veen :
                                            | fast techno, good instruments
 /songs/1996/xm/s/sck-gnre.zip    413 ***+  Genere by Trajic of Shock -
                                            | PS96:mmul:03:
 /songs/1996/xm/s/sh-burn.zip     447 ***+  Fake Hero by Sly Spy of United
                                            | Force - PS96:m4ch:01:
 /songs/1996/xm/s/slash1.zip      173 ***   Slash by Slash - ENL96:mmul:07:
 /songs/1996/xm/s/smile.zip       408 *+    Stupid Smiler's Club by Mav -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:15:
 /songs/1996/xm/s/starworx.zip      2 +     ?? by ?? - P2B96:mfst:??:
 /songs/1996/xm/s/suanm01.zip     193 **+   Suanmia by Kirshe - ENL96:mmul:07:
 /songs/1996/xm/t/tan-mfog.zip    465 ***+  The Moscow Fog by Tangerine -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:11:
 /songs/1996/xm/t/thunder.zip     780 ***+  Thunder by Plasmablade of
                                            | Murmidones - PS96:mmul:02:
 /songs/1996/xm/v/victory.zip      61 **+   Victory by Madminder -
                                            | ENL96:mmul:02:
 /songs/1996/it/f/fm-diys.zip     450 ****  Diamond In Your Soul by Basehead
                                            | of Five Musicians : Judicious
                                            | use of pitch-shifting and
                                            | chordal inversion, along with a
                                            | crisp 135bpm trance groove,
                                            | bodes well for the success of
                                            | this piece.  Look to order 0x28h
                                            | and beyond for some nice
                                            | polychordal sequences. 'Tis k-
                                            | rad shit.
 /songs/1997/it/j/jc_tekno.zip    604 **    Under Our Power by Jackal
 /songs/1997/it/p/p_insomn.zip    471 ***+  Insomniac by Zinc : strange
                                            | progressive techno
 /songs/1997/it/p/pal_hdex.zip    109 **+   Hypnotic Dream (remix) by Paladin
                                            | : decent boom-tsk-boom-tsk
 /songs/1997/it/p/pal_hdrm.zip     86 **    Hypnotic Dream by Paladin : slow
                                            | thump-thump-thump..etc.
 /songs/1997/mod/m_ambi.zip       183 **+   L'Ambient by Iso, The FoxII
 /songs/1997/s3m/k/knwledg.zip    312 *+    Street Knowledge by Obuk
 /songs/1997/s3m/l/lk-come.zip    123 **+   When I Come Around by Lost Kluster
 /songs/1997/s3m/l/lk-dont.zip    253 **+   Don't Feel Sorry by Lost Kluster
 /songs/1997/s3m/l/lk-path.zip     46 **+   Path to Truth by Lost Kluster
 /songs/1997/s3m/l/lk-simpl.zip   102 **+   Simply by Lost Kluster
 /songs/1997/s3m/p/pg-kirch.zip   206 +     Mokum Kore by Jea : endless boom-
                                            | tsk-boom-tsk
 /songs/1997/s3m/p/pg-lolhy.zip   494 **    Lolit Hyper by Project
                                            | Gabbangelion : decent thump-
                                            | thump-thump-thump
 /songs/1997/xm/j/jt_deadl.zip    155 ****  Deadline by Wave
 /songs/1997/xm/j/jt_hello.zip    238 ****  Hello 1997 by Wave
 /songs/1997/xm/j/jwab.zip        434 *+    Great Fox by J.W.A.B
 /songs/1997/xm/m/m_bdeath.zip    599 *     Black Death by Super Slimer
 /songs/1997/xm/m/mrc-sst.zip       5 ***   Sexy Schtroumpfette by Mercure
 /songs/1997/xm/n/nenjolz.zip     115 *+    Nenjolz by Butcher
 /songs/1997/xm/n/nmood.zip        76 **    Night Mood by Keefa Z
 /songs/1997/xm/n/no-itv1.zip     248 **    In the Valley by Benoit C.
 /songs/1997/xm/n/ntx_tcma.zip    130 *+    Turbo Coma by Neurotix
 /songs/1997/xm/n/ntx_twmd.zip    171 *+    Talking With My Dog by Neurotix
 /songs/1997/xm/p/partyfll.zip    394 ***   A Party Feeling by Monz : 80's-ish
                                            | dance techno
 /songs/1997/xm/p/pb_etern.zip    528 **+   Eternity by Point Blank :
                                            | interesting democheez/techno
 /songs/1997/xm/p/pix-wsun.zip    480 ***   Waiting for the sun by pix :
                                            | interesting guitar song
 /songs/1997/xm/p/pknk4sol.zip    260 ***   A Picnic for the Soul by Panduh :
                                            | dance techno
 /songs/1997/xm/p/ploff_vi.zip    386 ****  Visions by Ploffer : very good
                                            | fast dance tune
 /songs/1997/xm/p/priz-bal.zip    164 **+   Ballad by Prizrak : short and
                                            | somewhat uneventful
 /songs/1997/xm/p/priz-bok.zip    205 ***   Blade of Knife by Prizrak : slow
                                            | epic synthpop
 /songs/1997/xm/p/pt-relat.zip    352 **+   Relativity by P-Tec : really fast
                                            | thump-thump techno

 -- /graphics --------------------------------------------------------------->

 /images/1996/a/ai_space.zip       96 ****+ Spaceship by Beast - TP96:grfx:??:
 /images/1996/a/ai_sweet.zip      176 ****  Sweetheart by Rendal -
                                            | TP96:grfx:04:
 /images/1996/e/eden377.zip        32 ***   Eden 377 by Made - TP96:grfx:02:
 /images/1996/m/multidoo.zip       27 ***+  "Multidoodle" by Mazor -
                                            | TP96:grfx:01:

 -- /party ------------------------------------------------------------------>

 /reports/1997/rpg96rep.zip       924 **+   Gardening '96 Report v1.2 by Red
                                            | Power - GAR96::: :
                                            | VGA,GUS/SB/PAS
 /reports/1997/w96_rep1.zip      1399 ***+  Wired '96 Party Report by
                                            | Imphobia, Legend Design [1/4] -
                                            | WIR96::: :
                                            | 486,VESA,GUS/SB/PAS,6MB
 /reports/1997/w96_rep2.zip      1400 ***+  Wired '96 Party Report by
                                            | Imphobia, Legend Design [2/4] -
                                            | WIR96::: :
                                            | 486,VESA,GUS/SB/PAS,6MB
 /reports/1997/w96_rep3.zip      1400 ***+  Wired '96 Party Report by
                                            | Imphobia, Legend Design [3/4] -
                                            | WIR96::: :
                                            | 486,VESA,GUS/SB/PAS,6MB
 /reports/1997/w96_rep4.zip       747 ***+  Wired '96 Party Report by
                                            | Imphobia, Legend Design [4/4] -
                                            | WIR96::: :
                                            | 486,VESA,GUS/SB/PAS,6MB
 /results/1996/tp96res.zip          7       The Party 6 Results - TP96:::

>------------------------------------------------------------------ Articles --

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------->

 :: "A Graphician's Tip Book - Part 11"
 :: Shaithis / Immortal Coil - shaithis@buffnet.net

 _____Introduction

 Last time we left off with dpain't anti-aliasing, and a brief look at
 selection methods.  This article is going to deal with the various sections
 of the "Tool Options" window.  Don't expect me to get to every single little
 check box and slide-meter.  I'll leave that to the photoshop hand-book and to
 your playing around with the program, but I will at least cover the basics of
 the tool options.

 _____The Wizard's Touch

 Alright, for now, double click on the "Magic Wand" icon.  A small window
 should pop up.  In that window are a variety of adjustable options.  Let's
 take a look at them one by one (remember, these are options solely for the
 magic wand, and won't effect any other tool).

 Here's a really Crappy Ascii Diagram:

    .------------------------------------------------.
    |                                        | - | X | <--- Top Line
    |------------------------------------------------|
    | |Navigat|In|Magic Wand Options     \       | > | <--- Flags
    |------------------------------------------------|
    | Tolerance : 32                #  Anti Aliased  | <--- Options
    |------------------------------------------------|
    | # Sample Merged                                | <--- More Options
    |------------------------------------------------|
    |                                                | <--- Even More Options
    |------------------------------------------------|       (unused)
    |                                                | <--- Yet More Options
    `------------------------------------------------'       (unused)


 1. Top line -  This simply has the standard Win95 "Minimize/maximize" and
                "close" buttons. Nothing new here, I hope.

 2. Tabs     -  These are various windows you can switch to.  Personally, I
                rarely use anything other than the options, but feel free to
                play around with the other two.

 3. Options  -  This is your first line of options.  Here we have the
                Tolerance setting, and the Anti-alias option. Tolerance
                determines how much is selected when you use the magic wand
                option.  When a tolerance of 0 is set, the magic wand will
                select the pixel you are clicking on, and any that _Directly
                Touch It_ that are the _Exact_ same color. As you increase the
                tolerance, the wand becomes more forgiving about the
                similarity of color.  At maximum tolerance of 255, the wand
                will select anything marginally close to the same color within
                the drawing.

                Anti-aliasing has already been explained. That switch just
                turns it off an on.  If the box is empty, it's off.  If the
                box has a check in it, it's on.

 4. Options2  - These are more options that are available (For this particular
                tool, the last one).  To be fully honest, and expose myself as
                not the master of all graphics programs (which if you thought
                I was you really haven't been paying attention ;)  I will say
                that I have absolutely no idea what "Sample merged" even does.
                So I guess it's safe to say I still have quite a bit of
                playing around left to do.

 I think just by looking at that window, you'll probably get a good idea of
 how to use the Tool Options.

 _____Paintbrush

 Still, let's move to a more complicated tool. I'll spare you the horrible
 ascii picture and just go by the same numbers I used above.  Let's look at
 the "paintbrush" tool.

 1. Top line - Same old Same old. Min/Max and Close.
 2. Tabs     - Again, same tabs as the magic wand
 3. Options  - Here we have some differences:

               *The little window that says "normal" can be clicked on to find
                a variety of new options, such as making the paintbrush change
                only the hue, or the saturation of what it's painting on,
                "spattering" the paint with dissolve, and many others. With
                these I give you my standard advice: Play with them, they're
                neat. ;)

               *The opacity slide is exactly what it says.  Lower it to lower
                the opacity of your "paint".  Raise it to raise the opacity.

 4. Options2 - *Fading can create some nice effects.  What this command lets
                you do, is force the paintbrush to fade your paint stroke. You
                can define how many "steps" (I'm assuming this means
                vertical/horizontal pixels), and whether to fade to
                transparent or the background color.  Then, as soon as you
                click on your drawing and drag the paintbrush, your stroke
                will fade.  Once it has faded, you have to let go of the mouse
                button and re-click to start a nice line. I'd recommend trying
                this as seeing it visually makes it a lot easier to
                understand. ;)

 5. Options3 - *Stylus pressure I believe is for people who have those
                wonderful art pads that I can't afford.  It lets you choose
                whether an increase in pressure alters the size, color depth,
                opacity, or any combination thereof.

 6. Options4 - *Wet Edges makes your brush stroke darken towards the edges,
                giving it a "wet" look.

 _____Conclusion

 Now that you've read all this, I'd suggest going and playing with the various
 tool options.  There's a lot to be learned, most of it very useful. I'm going
 to wrap this article up here, as the next one goes directly into filters, and
 this kind of creates a nice divide.  A few words on my upcoming articles: The
 next one will be, of course, on filters.  Following that I plan to do an
 article on Kai's power tools, and then I'm going to deviate for a few
 articles.

 I want to discuss some subjects that have cropped up recently, spurred by a
 few discussions over email, and my recent letter to TraxWeekly.  I'll not
 give you the entire gist of the articles now (what would be the fun in that?
 ;)  But I will leave you with a few things to hopefully think over:

 Dpaint      Composition          "Art"                My views
 Photoshop   The Rule of Thirds   "Pictures"           Others Views
 Theme       Color Theory         The Demoscene        Your personal Views
 Color       Pixelation           Structure            And probably a whole
 Contrast    Rendering            The Learning Curve   bunch of other topics

 (Most of which may get me some hate mail, but also hopefully some support
 mail :)  It's my hope that, at very least, the next few articles will be
 informative for us graphicians, and the ones after that may be worth reading
 even to those of us who don't spend all of their time drawing. :)

 (Oooh...a cliffhanger ending)

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------->

 :: "How The Hornet Archive Works (part 4)"
 :: Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@hornet.org

 _____Introduction

 Welcome back to another exciting edition of "How The Hornet Archive Works".

 Today we're gonna hammer down some concepts.  In part 3 of this series, I
 talked about the structure and purpose of SDDs.  At the end of that article,
 I gave a few examples of SDDs.  Then you were left hanging with suspense as I
 noted that a few things seemed odd.  Today we shall unoddify the dark
 mysteries of SDD Exceptions!

 _____Reprinting Relevance

 Here is the section I'll be referring to from part 3 (DemoNews 138):

   Now I'll bet you want to see a few SDD's, right?  Here 'ya go:

   /demos/1993/0-9/2ndreal2.lzh;836095591;802958;Second Reality;;Future Crew;
   ;*****;ASM93;demo;01;;2/2;*

   /code/audio/players/mdss040a.zip;852969453;1400325;Midas v.040a;Petteri
   Kangaslampi+Jarno Paananen;;Midas music system - A full music system
   (almost) with support for compiling with tasm, BP, BC, and Watcom.;
   ****;;;;CAPpr;;*

   /music/songs/1995/s3m/f/fm-riff.zip;843018872;359939;Search For The Lost
   Riff;Necros+Basehead;;;****+;;;;;;*

   /music/songs/1996/s3m/s/sxpr50.zip;843438148;100924;Sound Expression 5;
   Lord Shakath Jei;;#-1;*+;;;;;;*

   For the astute reader, you'll note that four things seem out of place:

     1. The DATEs listed are : 836095591, 852969453, 843018872, 843438148.
        What kind of sense does that make?
     2. The second example has a language of 'CAPpr'.  What the heck?
     3. Each SDD ends in an '*'.
     4. There seems to be an odd little '#-1' string in the forth example.

   Oh ho!  Not quite as simple as you thought, eh?

 In this article I'll explain each of these one by one.

 _____Terms To Know

 "scripts" - Programs I write for the Hornet Archive that perform such tasks
 as: cataloging files, checking /incoming for bad uploads, and doing the grunt
 work for our web-based search engine.

 "Perl" - Wonderful UNIX scripting language that I write scripts in.

 _____Your Watch Is Wrong

 One of the things we track on the Hornet Archive is when a file is cataloged.
 This allows us to do things like "Click here for a list of files cataloged in
 the past week.", "DemoNews New Uploads", and updating 00_index.txt/index.cgml
 indicies each night.  Catalog times are pretty darn useful.

 But in order to understand how we record a "catalog time", you have to really
 sit back and think about time from a wider perspective.

 Take a look at your watch.  Shout the time out loud.  You might get a few odd
 stares but no one is gonna tell you that you're wrong.

 Take a look at your watch.  Hop on IRC and tell everyone what time it is.
 Here you might get a few people saying that your watch is wrong.  Hmm... they
 must live in different time zones.

 So what time is it really?  Right now, it's 04:54 for me.  And you know what?
 It's also 04:54 for you, for people in Japan, South Africa, Finland, and
 Texas.  That's because it's not _local_ time, it's Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)!
 GMT is universal time, based on the local time of Greenwich, England.  No
 matter where in the world you are, your GMT is the same as mine.

 GMT is very handy to work with in Perl.  But Perl doesn't think about GMT the
 same way we do.  Just a minute ago, I told you it was 04:54 GMT.  That is to
 say, 4 hours and 54 minutes of the current day have passed in Greenwich
 England.  Although Perl does base GMT off Greenwich England, it doesn't do it
 from the current day.  To Perl, GMT means "The number of seconds that have
 passed since 00:00 GMT, 01 January 1970."

 "Why on earth" I hear you ask, "does Perl base time from January 1970?"  The
 official reason is that it's the start of the current epoch.  Practically
 though, it's a groovy way of representing time.  For any moment since 1970,
 you have a single number representing it:

   Human-readable Time    Single Handy Number  Comments
   ---------------------  -------------------  ---------------------------
   01 Jan  1970 00:00:00                    0  when time began
   01 Jan  1970 00:16:40                 1000
   02 Jan  1970 03:46:40               100000
   26 Apr  1970 17:46:40             10000000
   03 Mar  1973 09:46:40            100000000
   24 Sep  1992 02:00:00            717300000  DemoNews starts
   07 Oct  1993 05:46:50            749972810  Second Reality released
   24 Feb  1997 05:01:40            856760500  <-- you are here
   31 Dec  1999 23:59:59            946684799  big parties everywhere
   01 Jan 19100 00:00:00            946684800  the world ends

 [note: Some scripts are gonna bust-a-move in 2000, but that fact is
 irrelevant to this article.]

 Which is older, DemoNews.001 or Second Reality?  Easy question, right?
 24 Sep 1992 (DemoNews) came before 07 Oct 1993 (Second Reality) so obviously
 DemoNews is older.

 Now look at it again from a Perl point of view...

 Which is older, DemoNews.001 or Second Reality?  07 Oct 1993 came before
 24 Sep 1992 (since "07" is less than "24") so obviously Second Reality is
 older.  Doh!

 Now are you starting to see just how handy Perl's way of looking at GMT is?

   $time_demonews       = 717300000;
   $time_second_reality = 749972810;

   if ($time_demonews < $time_second_reality) {
     print "DemoNews is older than Second Reality!";
   }

   [note: "<" means "less than"]

 Another example:

   if ($time_of_random_file < ($CURRENT_TIME - $SECONDS_IN_ONE_WEEK)) {
     print "File is older than one week.";
   }
   else {
     print "File is less than one week old.";
   }

 Now you know _how_ and _why_ we record file catalog dates in GMT.

 _____I Can Code CAP

 Above, I gave an example of an SDD that makes use of the code-language field:

   /code/audio/players/mdss040a.zip;852969453;1400325;Midas v.040a;Petteri
   Kangaslampi+Jarno Paananen;;Midas music system - A full music system
   (almost) with support for compiling with tasm, BP, BC, and Watcom.;
   ****;;;;CAPpr;;*

 The language in this case is "CAPpr".  Trust me folks, this one's easy to
 explain.

 Instead of storing bulky words like "Assembler, protected-mode, Basic, etc."
 in an SDD, we abbreviate each of them with a single letter.  These are
 expanded right before you see them in DemoNews or on our web pages.  Using a
 single letter for each language makes it easier for code reviewers to record
 SDDs accurately and also keeps the size of our database down a bit.

 For the example above, it would be "C, Assembler, Pascal, in both real- and
 protected-mode".

 _____Ass As An Asterisk

 Each SDD ends in a '*' (asterisk).  Think of this as simply a way for my
 scripts to verify that an SDD has been read correctly.  If the ass of an SDD
 isn't an asterisk then something is wrong.

 _____Hindsight Is Unique (virtually speaking)

 When the SDD format was originally designed, we didn't plan ahead for future
 improvements.  We foolishly assumed that the SDD format would cover all types
 of information that ever needed to be recorded.

 About 3 months ago, the Hornet Archive ran out of room... we had to move some
 files offline.  The entire operation ran fairly smoothly, with one notable
 exception.  I have a script that runs each night, checking to make sure that
 all files cataloged in the SDD database _actually_ exist on the archive.  The
 day after I took the files offline, my script went bonkers when it realized
 that over 2000 files had suddenly disappeared.

 My scripts needed to tell if a file was physically present on the archive or
 offline on CDROM.  We needed something unique that would distinguish between
 the two types.  I decided on using "#-1" in the SDD description field...
 planning ahead for a "#-2" if the need arose.

 Observe:

   /music/songs/1996/s3m/s/sxpr50.zip;843438148;100924;Sound Expression 5;
   Lord Shakath Jei;;#-1;*+;;;;;;*

 Now my scripts look through this SDD, see a "#-1", and don't panic when they
 realize the file isn't on the archive.

 _____Conclusion

 Whew!  That took longer to explain than I thought it would.  Hopefully you're
 starting to get a feel for what types of things we have to worry about on the
 archive.

 Now that you've mastered the SDD structure, it's time to get down and
 dirty.  Next week we'll be talking about how SDDs are actually _used_.
 That's when the real fun begins.  :)

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------->

 :: "The Gathering '97 - Sneak Peak"
 :: Vegard Skjefstad / The Gathering Organizer

 Here are some reasons you should come to The Gathering this year!

 1. Bjoern Lynne aka. Dr. Awesome/Crusader will release his newest CD at TG97.

 2. The same goes for Andrew Barnabas aka. Nightshade / Crusaders.

 3. BeBox Corporation will host a symposium workshop at TG97.

 4. All gaming compos will have an Nintendo 64 as the main prize (the N64 is
    yet to be released in Norway until March 1st).

 5. 24-hr realtime radio show on the party network and internet connectivity
    will be provided for everyone.

 6. The network will have TWICE the density of last years.  Half the number of
    users on each segment and room for 2500 simultaneous users inside the
    network and 4096 users from the outside.

 7. Live entertainment from scenebands/groups and other normal bands will be
    hosted every night on the mainstage.

 We are confident that this party will be one of the best in 1997, in terms of
 productions quality, organizers friendliness :), and fun!

 Be sure to come!

>------------------------------------------------------- General Information --

 _____The Hornet Archive

 Master Site : USA (California)   - (ftp|www).hornet.org/pub/demos
 Mirrors     : Portugal           - ftp.telepac.pt/pub/demos
               Sweden             - ftp.luth.se/pub/msdos/demos
               USA (Wisconsin)    - ftp.uwp.edu/pub/demos
               USA (Pennsylvania) - ftp.co.iup.edu/code (from /demos/code)

 _____DemoNews

 New issues - /incoming/info
 Old issues - /info/demonews
 Supplemental files - /info/dn_other

 How to subscribe:  Mail - listserver@unseen.aztec.co.za
                    Body - subscribe demuan-list FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME   _or_
                    Body - subscribe demuan-list HANDLE

                    DemoNews is sent to your e-mail's "Reply-To" field.

 How to unsubscribe:  Mail - listserver@unseen.aztec.co.za
                      Body - unsubscribe demuan-list

 _____Contact Address

 questions@hornet.org

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EODN

