IntroChronoPhobia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  This was Sentience's NAID '95 intro entry. Okay, we were all young and
  stupid back then. I hope this doesn't disappoint you too much :-).

  Believe it or not, this one actually managed to steal one of the awards.
  (People's choice or 4th place or something... Got a joystick out of
  it. Cool.)  No, I don't know what the judges were thinking... *grin*.

  It was a few years ago now, but let's see if I can get the story right...

  Them: Hey, Sentience guy! Let's see your intro!
  Me: We don't have one.
  Them: How long do you think it would take to do one?
  Me: Ummm... I dunno. *thinks about swiping routines from NeuroToxin*
      An hour or two?
  Them: Good. I'll get started on the music. You do the intro. It'll be done
        in time for the intro deadline.
  Me: Errm... We only have the one computer here.  *historical note: A 386sx*
  Them: That's okay. We'll call you when we have the music done.
  *time passes*
  Them: The music's not done yet...
  Me: Let's hear what you've got so far, then.
    *listens to part of neat-o song. Waitaminute... almost too good.*
  Me: Um. The entire intro has to fit in 100k, not just the music.
  Them: Oh. Ahhh... I guess this 300k set of samples is no good, then?
  Me: Make it smaller. Like less than 20k, if possible...
  *more time passes*.
  Me: Out. My turn to play with the computer.
  Them: But we're not done yet!
  Me: Is it smaller than 20k?
  Them: Well, yes. But we don't like it!
  Me: I don't care. The deadline is in less than an hour. And I still need to
      write the blasted thing...

   ... and thus an intro was born ...

  I was (still am) too lazy to write anything in 16-bit, so (of course) I
  wrote to DOS4/GW. And linked with Tran's awesome PMODE/W extender. (You
  mean PMODE/W is smaller than the DOS4/GW _loader_? And I can lose a ~300k
  file? Right, then.) PMODE/W with compression didn't come out until later,
  or I might have tried to pack more into the intro :-).

  I know, I know, all _real_ intros are written in pure assembly. I just
  didn't have the time. Which gives me an idea... I wonder how small it
  could be if it were? Maybe when I get a spare weekend... Nah. I've got
  more interesting things to waste my time on :-). If anyone else is
  interested, just write me an e-mail, and I'll make the C code available
  to you.  [looking over source... wow. An amazing lack of any sort of
  comments. heh. I actually wrote this stuff? Ick. And why are there parts
  of an Othello AI in this directory?]


  If you absolutely have to contact a member of Sentience, try
  ix42@hotmail.com ... Sentience has released a wide number of e-mail
  addresses over the year. All of them are now hopelessly out of date, and
  will bounce your mail (or send it to the wrong person. Ugh.) Hopefully
  this one will stay current a little bit longer than the others have...