InfoFile v1.2           ╓───────────────────────╖         By: ProKrastinator

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Section #                                              What it's About

1 ....................................................... Introduction       (A few rumor corrections)
2 ................................................ System Requirements       (What you need)
3 ............................................... Members of Info-Tech       (That's us)
4 ........................................... A Note about the Effects       (The inside stuff, almost)
5 ............................................. A Note about the Music       (By Noluck)

8 .................................................... Don't Be Fooled       (Don't Be Fooled)
9 ................. (Long and detailed) ... Our Experience at NAiD '96       (Long and detailed. Please read)
10 .............................................. That's All She Wrote       (That's all I wrote)

We  are INFO-TECH.  A Canadian demo group that emerged from out of nowhere
for  the  release of our premier production:  ONE-TIME.  The submission of  ONE-
TIME  was  right  as the clock struck midnight on Friday, May  31st,  1996,  the
deadline (for intros) at NAiD '96.

A few notes to clear up rumors before anything else is said:

-  The  intro crashed on the first run because the GUS WAS NOT INITIALIZED  on
boot  up  via ULTRINIT.EXE.  The compo machine WAS NOT READY,  and  no  one
prepared  us  for  that.   Telling me that you guys screwed  up  afterwards
doesn't fix anything.  It should have been tested beforehand.
-  The  intro DID NOT intentionally play DEMODEMO.MOD from DemoVT.   This  was
caused by an error during resubmission due to a bad disk.  (To find out the
exact  details of how a mistake like this could possibly happen,  read  the
EXPERIENCE  AT  NAiD  section.  As with the rest of the  things  that  went
wrong, we had a little help.)
-  The intro DID NOT use an external copy of PKZIP for file extraction.  (That
goes to the guys who were trying to DQ us.)
-  The  intro  was  within  the  100K limit.  This INCLUDES  the  software  to
uncompress the files.
-  During  the rerun, the extra files which extended the intro's size to  over
200K  were the result of the system crash of the first run (due to the fact
the GUS was not initialized), as the program didn't have a chance to delete
them.  If you noticed, the intro was back under 100K after the proper files
were deleted.
-  The  NAiD organizers (Mr. Khan, in particular) said it was PERFECTLY  LEGAL
to uncompress files to the hard drive.
-  The  intro  crashed on it's second running after the second effect  (reason
still  unknown;  suspected bug has been fixed).  The flash/drop-off  effect
was  not the intentional ending, as it appeared to be.  Nobody at NAiD  '96
(except us) seen the entire intro.

A  lot of you are posting to the newsgroups about how great NAiD was  and
how  great  a  job  the  organizers  did.  Well,  prepare  yourself  for  a  new
perspective  viewed  from  somebody else's eyes.  I don't  care  what  everybody
thinks, I call the shots the way I see them.  There are a lot of others who feel
the  same  way we do, just read some of the demo's info files.  There is  NOBODY
who attended NAiD '96 who can say that there were not some *major* overlooked  /
careless mistakes made.  Our case is a bit extreme, though, as everything seemed
to  be  against us.  Maybe we're not giving everybody enough credit,  but  after
what  they did to us, that was the last thing on our mind.  This text was  typed
up  directly  after our experience at NAiD.  So if it sounds  a  bit  harsh,  it
because  we're still pissed off.  I hope everybody reads the EXPERIENCE AT  NAiD
section  to understand what we actually went through.  Quite an introduction  to
demo parties, to say the least.

To  run the demo, simply run the RUNME batch file.  It automatically  runs
the  SETUP program, if the ONE-TIME.VTO sound configuration file doesn't  exist.
Run SETUP later at any time to reconfigure your sound card.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

- 486+ Processor (sorry for you 386 owners)
- Math Co-processor (sorry for you SX owners)
- Gravis UltraSound / Sound Blaster / Pro Audio Spectrum (optional)
- An XMS driver (HIMEM.SYS is fine)
- 3  Megabytes of XMS Memory (better if you have more, as it will use all that's
available.   The  voxel  takes up the first 2 megs that's  available,  leaving
whatever's left for the other effects, until the voxel effect ends.)

This  demo  runs in flat mode.  That means your EMM driver should  not  be
loaded.   You'll get a "Cannot run in virtual environment" or similar  error  if
there's an EMM driver loaded, or if you're shelled from Windows.  The demo  runs
fine  with just HIMEM.SYS loaded, on my machine, anyways.  Oops, wait a  second,
YOU  HAVE TO INITIALIZE YOUR SOUND CARD, TOO!  I did not know there were  people
who booted up their system without initializing their sound cards, but obviously
it  only  takes one.  Bad luck for us that it happened to be the compo  machine.
Too bad ONE-TIME wasn't tested on the compo machine beforehand, as I was told it
would be months before NAiD ever started.  Guess it truly was ONE TIME.

You  may  notice that the demo is not under 100K, which was the limit  for
intros  at the NAiD demo party.  Well, it WAS under 100K during the party.   The
reason it's not now is because:

1)   The  intro is not compressed anymore.  This is because a batch file handled
compression/decompression  of the SELF extracting  data  files,  which  was
really  shitty.  It couldn't handle any errors if the program  crashed,  as
everyone at NAiD seen.  Too bad I hadn't heard of EXE zippers beforehand.
2)   Extra  code has been added so that the intro runs properly on all machines,
not  just  on the Pentium 100 at NAiD.  And also, extra code was  added  to
allow  the  user  to  quit or skip parts of the intro  at  any  time.   See
VERSION.TXT for more info on user keys.
3)   The SETUP.EXE program was added so that you didn't have to modify the sound
configuration  file  manually.  The configuration file  at  NAiD  was  pre-
programmed for the GUS's configuration on the Pentium.

This  final post-release was released a month after NAiD '96, on July 1st, 1996,
Canada Day!

We  currently consist of only two members.  Although we are looking for  a
graphician  for our upcoming megademo.  Give us a shout if think you're  up  for
it.   By  the  way,  that  E-mail  address is  not  ours,  although  we  use  it
occasionally.

Alias:       ProKrastinator
Occupation:  Lead Programmer / Designer / Musician
E-Mail:      nstn4108@fox.nstn.ca

Alias:       NoLuck
Occupation:  Demo Music Composition / Programmer
E-Mail:      nstn4108@fox.nstn.ca

#4 ├─────────────────── A NOTE ABOUT THE EFFECTS

To  be  honest, we arrived at NAiD with the full intention of coming  home
with first prize in the intro category.  The reasoning behind this thought, were
the  extremely poor (and I mean EXTREMELY poor) intros entered at NAiD '95  last
year.  The effects in this intro surpass most of the effects in last year's demo
compo  (and  that's  no  joke),  and considering  that  the  winning  entry  had
absolutely  nothing for effects whatsoever, I had figured that this would  be  a
breeze.   I  knew that there were probably other people with the same  thoughts,
but  I didn't think that the American scene had what it took.  After finding out
the  deadline  was  WAY  sooner than we had first realized,  we  got  the  intro
finished,  but  not finished good enough to have our name on it.   But  I  still
thought  we could come home with first or second prize.  After the intro crashed
the  first time, I was trying to find the source of error throughout the  entire
intro  compo.  Anyway, I only seen bits and pieces of the other intros.   Flower
obviously kicked ass with just it's one effect (which I couldn't have missed, as
everyone  in the place was cheering), but I still honestly think it  would  have
been  the  only  intro better than ours.  But now, after seeing  the  unofficial
results,  I  cannot believe Flower didn't win.  I'd like to know how they  judge
these  things.   I guess design and crowd response means everything.   I  always
look  at things from a coder's perspective, since I'm the programmer.  I was  in
the  judge's  room  after the intro compo, as I wanted to tell  them  that  they
didn't  see  the entire intro, and that the song they heard was not intentional.
As  I  was sitting there talking to the other people who had come along to  NAiD
with  us  (not  all  Info-Tech group members), I overheard the judge's  thoughts
about Flower's great effect (not exact quote, by the way):  "The code is no  big
deal.   It's  basically another map that says there's this much perpetration  to
the  left here and that much perpetration to right here.  I gave it full  points
for originality, though."

EFFECT #1: 3D FRACTAL

Although rotating points on the screen is definitely not anything  new  to
the  demo scene, the 3D version of Sierpinski Triangle is something I have never
seen  before,  and probably neither have you.  A 3D fractal is an  entirely  new
concept.   It's not a 3D *representation* of a 2D fractal, it is an a actual  3D
fractal  defined in three dimensional space, created via chaos (random numbers).
If you cannot understand the difference from the above two definitions, then you
probably won't find it that impressive.
The  delay dots were added the day before NAiD, since they were  extremely
easy  to  do.  The effect supports any number of frames for the delay  to  last,
limited only by memory and the number of available palette colors (255 for  VGA,
obviously).
The  P-100 at NAiD '96 was drawing 5,000 points with 8 faded delay  frames
behind.   5,000  points was a bit too many.  I should have only  put  4,500.   I
factored in that the Pentium's "Svga Diamond Stealth 64 Serie 2001 1Meg RAM" (as
described in the NAiD info file) video card would be a *little* bit faster  than
my S3.  But I later learned (during the compo) that the P-100 only had an S3, as
I watched the machine boot up.
The  effect  in  this post-release adjusts the number  of  points  to  the
computer, so that the effect runs at approximately 70 fps.  And it has 32  delay
frames behind.

EFFECT #2: ROAD SIMULATION

This effect was added because it is an effect that I have never seen in the
demo  scene  before.  It was originally programmed in GW-BASIC v3.2  on  my  old
Tandy 1000 SX, 8MHz 286 (and that was upgraded from the measly 4.77 MHz 8088  it
had  before)  when  I  was  in grade 8.  The BASIC program  was  12  lines  long
(multiple commands on each line, 255 character maximum), and generated one frame
every 15 seconds.  The program was converted to Turbo Pascal on my new 486-DX/50
once  I  found  info about mode 13h, and went approximately 20-25 fps,  which  I
couldn't believe, at the time.
The version you see is a slightly modified version of the above, which  is
synched  to  the retrace of the monitor, so a fast video card is important.   It
draws as much of the road as possible within each single vertical retrace of the
monitor (with a preset minimum, in case your video card can't handle it).   Mode
13h  has  been  replaced  by Mode X, but 98% of the  program  is  still  of  the
original.  The algorithm still contains the same floating point arithmetic  from
the BASIC version, without a fixed point integer in sight.  Although I knew that
this  was  going to be shown on a Pentium at NAiD '96 (which can pump out  those
floating  points like lightning), the program draws enough of the road  to  fill
the  screen  at  70  fps on my 486-66.  I promise to rewrite  the  program  from
scratch for my next demo to show off it's full potential, as it's horribly coded
in it's current state.
This  effect was not seen in the intro at NAiD '96, due to the  crash.   I
did, however, enter it in the Best FX compo, since I wanted to see how it looked
on the big screen.  The P-100 was drawing hills in the background that were over
4 times as far in the distance as my 486-66 normally draws.  I was impressed (by
the  Pentium).  Too bad the guy controlling the computer hit ESC before  any  of
the  cool shit came up, like more lanes, more speed, more curves and more hills.
The  Pentium  could have easily handled my 320x400 or 320x480  version  at  full
frame  rate  (I  have added a Pentium Mode for it; type ONE-TIME /?).   Although
these  higher  resolutions would have no effect on the  very  foggy/unclear  big
screen,  which I didn't expect.  To all you who have not been to a  demo  compo,
forget  about  synching to the retrace.  It looks great on  your  computer,  but
doesn't make a shit of difference when display on the big screen.  70 fps and 35
fps are the same unless your effect is REALLY changing the screen from frame  to
frame a lot.

EFFECT #3: EXPLOSION OF DOTS

Is 81,000+ pixels at 70 fps possible?  It is on my 486-66.  Probably twice
that when run on the P-100.  This effect calculates the maximum number of pixels
that can be drawn within 1/70th of a second for the current machine.  Every  one
of those pixels is actually being drawn, right from the start of the effect.  Of
course, it's optimized.  A simple circle was the original formation, but as  the
circle  grew,  it  became so large that straight lines became too  evident  (the
circle got so huge, that all the lines appeared straight and clustered), so  the
sinusoidal effect was added to prevent this.  This effect was chosen to be shown
simply  because  of  it's speed.  It takes full advantage  and  shows  the  full
potential of the computer's speed.  I've always liked the facts stated  on  some
older  demos,  like '5000 sinus points next'.  The last I seen was  HeartQuake's
"24,000 dots coming up".
This  effect was also not seen at NAiD '96 during the intro,  due  to  the
crash.   But  it was also entered in the Best FX compo (NoLuck coded this  one).
This  stand alone version did not know how many the computer could do at 70 fps,
as  it doesn't calculate it.  My 486-66 can do 81,920 pixels, so I figure the P-
100  could  do twice that (163,840 pixels).  So I put in 122,880 (a  compromised
average) to make sure it didn't just miss the retrace (reducing speed from  70Hz
to  35Hz).   The  effect  ended saying that 122,000 pixels  were  shown  (really
122,880, so I lied), but the guy at the computer hit ESC about 30-40% of the way
through.   In other words, the dots had only separated about 35% of  their  full
length,  thus only 122,880 * 35% = 43,000 dots were seen.  They were  EXPANDING!
(NoLuck  here:  The effect even asked, "How many dots @ 70fps?" and  then  said,
"Please  wait for answer".  Which meant *WAIT*, not press ESC.  Man,  the  whole
deal with the effect was the amount of dots, not the pretty expanding circle...)

NoLuck asks:        "Did you, by any chance, hit Escape?"
Buddy answers:      "Yeah, well, the road, ya know..."
NoLuck replies:     "(No,  I  don't know, WTF is he talking about?  Road?)   No,
I'm  talking about the dots.  (Ummm... You know, the  effect
that JUST played?!?)"
Buddy replies:      "Yeah, I may have."
NoLuck thinks:      "(Didn't the program tell you to WAIT for an answer?!?   The
whole  FX  compo took about 3 minutes.  What does  30  extra
seconds matter?)"

He  can't remember if he hit escape ten seconds ago?  Whatever.  I  should
have  made  the  speed  of separation greater (it didn't  self  adjust  in  this
version),  as  the Pentium was doing 50% more than what I was used  too,  but  I
forgot,  since I decided to enter it at 5:00 pm.  After looking at the  deadline
sheet,  I  found out that I had one hour to get this effect and the road  effect
done.  I got it passed it in 15 minutes before the deadline at 6:00 pm.  122,880
pixels is almost twice the number of actual pixels on the screen.  It would have
looked  awesome, too bad you didn't see it.  Better find a Pentium and run  this
post-release version.

EFFECT #4: FRACTAL TERRAIN

A.k.a.  voxel terrain.  Something not seen in an intro before.   Well,  it
has,  but not a full blown 2-meg color/height map as in commercial products  and
other  megademos.  The terrain was supposed to be calculated during  the  intro,
with  the effect shown at the end, but due to time limits (of the deadline),  it
had  to  be created at the start.  This generation took approximately 10 seconds
on  the  Pentium  (I  had expected 20 or more, actually), which  seems  like  an
eternity  when you're waiting the intro to start.  It was better than  make  the
viewers wait 10 seconds half-way through the intro.
This was cranking out 45 fps easily on the P-100.  It was actually too fast
(faster  than  it  had to be, I mean), because the big screen blurs  the  colors
anyways.   And  here I had the palette set for extremely smooth  transitions  to
avoid  flickering at all costs.  I could have increased the detail level without
losing smoothness.  The voxel movement code ran 90% the way I wanted it to on my
486,  but  it  flunked the test on the P-100 as the viewpoint  hung  around  the
mountain  peeks for all but one small pass.  Nice way to show off my engine.   I
promise to show it again (with a precalculated map and flight path) to show  off
it's potential.  Maybe.
This post-release has the height map changed so that the viewpoint will NOT
hang  around in the mountain tops.  I even tested it on different computer  CPUs
to ensure that it works on all computers.

#5 ├────────────── A NOTE ABOUT THE MUSIC (BY: NOLUCK)

Here  I'll  explain  why our demo ran using DemoVT's "DEMODEMO.MOD"  song.
About  2 weeks before NAiD started, I started looking for a sound system because
we decided to release an intro at NAiD.  I wanted a system that could be used in
Turbo Pascal.  DemoVT was the best system I found, and it was extremely easy  to
use, plus I already had it on my hard disk.  After composing my first .MOD ever,
I  noticed that DemoVT didn't play it right on my Sound Blaster Pro.  It  didn't
bother  me  much as I knew that this was a problem with DemoVT,  it  plays  some
songs  incorrectly on Sound Blasters.  I had already ordered a GUS-ACE and  knew
(or  at least thought I knew) that this would fix my sound problems.  I went  by
FT2's  playing of my .MOD (and not DemoVT's) as judgment on how low I could  re-
sample my samples (to reduce the size of my song).  Using FT2's interpolation as
a  guide  to  the soon to be GUS's interpolation, I could re-sample  quite  low,
knowing that the GUS would actually IMPROVE the sound of my shitty samples.  The
GUS finally came in, rather late, 2 days before NAiD.  (I live in Canada, Gravis
is  in  Canada, but I have to order from their product department in the  United
States?  Fix this Gravis!)  I also had a 16 hour (not counting breaks) drive  up
to NAiD to take up much of that 2 days.  Anyway, I was out of time.  I hooked up
the  ACE  and tested out my .MOD with DemoVT and my new GUS.  It played  EXACTLY
the  same  as  my  SB-PRO.   OH  NO!   It  played  slow,  muffled,  and  had  no
interpolation  (I think...)  My samples were shitty, what happen  to  the  GUS's
interpolation?!?  The song before the sample chop down was way too big  for  the
100k  limit.  I had no time to compose another song, (although looking  back  on
all of this, that would have been the smartest thing to do).  I just re-composed
a  song  already  made.  The final song was chopped down 85% in size  from  it's
original size.  That's why it sucks.  I had no real motivation to compose a  new
song.  READ THIS!--> To compose a song for DemoVT I had to setup up a batch file
to  go  to  the DemoVT directory after exiting FT2 so that I could work  on  the
song,  then  run DemoVT's "RUNTPAS.BAT" to test my song saved as "DEMODEMO.MOD",
(I  overwrote  my song on top of DemoVT's demo song to listen to my  song  using
DemoVT's demos.)  You see, FT2 didn't play the song the same way DemoVT did, and
you  can't  use  DemoVT alone to test a song.  So using DemoVT's demos  was  the
easiest  thing to do.  The song got it's final hackings at about  5  minutes  to
deadline,  and  as far as I was concerned, it was good enough.  I couldn't  have
been bothered to make a good song for DemoVT, the process of jumping in and  out
of  FT2  was just too laborious for me.  Anyway, the intro gets passed  in,  the
song  still named "DEMODEMO.MOD".  Figuring that we were done for good, I  moved
and  renamed my song back into my directory, and renamed "DEMODEM2.MOD" back  to
"DEMODEMO.MOD", DemoVT's original demo song.
AH HA!  HERE'S THE GOOD STUFF...  The next morning... the Intro Compo... 10
minutes  before  it  starts... I find out that our disk has  bad  sectors.   BAD
SECTORS?   That NEVER happens to me.  Should have used DOS VERIFY.   Get  a  new
disk!   Pro-K  and  Kato (not a member, a friend) run all  the  way  around  the
f***ing  building to the truck to get the computer setup, and I run to  find  an
extension  cord to plug our computer in our truck into the side of  the  school.
(Turns out we didn't need the extension cord, I'M SORRY, it didn't reach before,
there  WAS  a  car in the way.)  ANYWAY--> Pro-K runs his "CREATE.BAT"  file  to
recreate  the files for the intro to put on a new disk.  I was unaware of  that,
completely forgetting that ".../DEMOVT15/DEMODEMO.MOD" is no longer my song, but
DemoVT's demo song.  As of now, our intro had not been tested, we ran back in to
do  just that.  They wouldn't test it on their computers!!!  We never found  out
that  the songs were mixed.  I was going f***ing crazy at just the fact  that  I
didn't  know  if  the intro even ran.  The first testing was during  the  actual
compo.   Ours  was  the FIRST one run.  It crashed because of the  uninitialized
GUS,  (people  use GUS's without running "ULTRINIT.EXE"???  What is  this?!?   I
didn't  know "only HIMEM.SYS" meant "***ONLY*** HIMEM.SYS")  The second  testing
was  at  the end of the intro compo, where "DEMODEMO.MOD" played loudly  through
the  speakers.   "This  sounds  all right", I thought  at  first.   I  instantly
realized  what  was  wrong.   "WTF?!?", I thought, "Oh  shit.  Nooooo..."   Just
wondering  what everyone thinks of Info-Tech now.  And to top it all, only  HALF
of  the  intro played.  It still exited to the DOS prompt ok though...  strange.
At  least it didn't hang the computer up.  I then heard an applause... "Wow",  I
thought.  I couldn't believe it.  They applauded.

After all of this I'd like to make it clear that:

I  *CAN'T* believe some people ACTUALLY believed that I tried to get  away
with playing DemoVT's "DEMODEMO.MOD" as my song *on purpose* and pretend that  I
composed it "to be cool" in front of a crowd of computer freaks, and try to  get
away  with it.  I DIDN'T.  IT WAS A MISTAKE.  Please understand this.  They told
me  that  they'd announce that for me, (thanks!), so you may have already  heard
about this.

Yeah...  I  almost got away with it though... but sure enough,  some  girl
caught  on to me, went up to the judges and said, "That's the song from DemoVT."
Oh shit, they caught me...  Whatever!  That's NOT what happened!

I am currently working on a new sound system for our final release, but I'm
running  to  compile  problems with Tiny GUS player  and  MIDAS  040a  in  Turbo
Pascal...  "NoLuck" lives on...

NoLuck Greetings go to:

Mr.Z /ETERNAL Project
Thingy/iSOLATiON

Sorry  guys,  the end credits never played at NAID, (along  with  the
whole 2nd half of the intro due to a crash), but thanks for your help though.

I  met  them  on  #coders the ONE-TIME that I went there, for  EXE  packer
information.  No EXE packer was used in this demo due to the fact that I  didn't
know they existed until the night before I left for NAiD, and we already had the
OK on using a batch file with a self extracting .EXE.  Why the DQ shit at NAiD?

NoLuck's NAiD Suggestions:  (and STOP reading my typing as if I'm pissed off,  I
mean nothing bad by any of this.  I've done this to HELP.)

1)  Vote  for top 3, not just the winner, so that "groupers"  (people  who
belong to groups, whatever they are called) actually vote for other groups  too.
Plus  what  if  one  entry kicks ass?  Second and Third  placers  don't  have  a
"correct"  vote.   The 2nd placer will be the one who has the most  voters  that
know them personally, all the unbiased people vote for the ass-kicking entry.

2)  5 minutes late equals DQ?  (BTW, this was NOT us.)  Cut a little slack
for  someone.  If it's still in your hands in plenty of time, then there  should
be  no DQ.  I do realize that there has to be some limits though.  The line must
be  drawn somewhere.  But if the entry table is still open, and there's still  a
line up of people entering, let them wait at the end of the line and accept  the
entry.

3)  Cutting buddy's song half way through wasn't right.  Making a  "I'm  a
lamer joke" doesn't make the guy feel any better.  How often does your song  get
played  on  speakers  like that, with a crowd like that?   Come  on,  show  some
respect.   Why wasn't unpause pressed?  Let it play until the song hits  a  stop
command,  (or wait 3 or 4 seconds to be sure, it's not THAT long of  a  wait  to
make sure the song is done).  Or wait until it loops around even...  Another guy
got  his  first  couple  of seconds cut off, that song could  have  easily  been
stopped and started again.  Also I heard that many complained about the  top  20
choices.   In my opinion, I've heard some songs that were better than  the  ones
played,  but  that's only my opinion.  Because your song sounds better  on  your
computer  than  a top-20 does on the big speakers, doesn't mean that  your  song
would  sound  better on the big speakers.  I find that only certain songs  sound
good  on  those speakers.  But who knows?  Some songs sound better  on  the  big
speakers, and some worst.  And the choices weren't made while listening to  them
on the big speakers, so maybe the songs sounded better on a `normal' system.

4) Free-For-All-Compo in main Demo-Compo time slot?  It wasn't fair for the
Free-For-Allers.  There was sure to be some people in the crowd thinking,  "What
the  f*** is this?", and not caring to see rapping, magic shows, or anything but
demos.   Before  the Free-For-All-Compo started, it should have  been  announced
that that's what it was.  My guess would be that the animation/demo won (I don't
actually know who won), because I'm guessing that most of the people there  were
expecting to see demos and the animation was probably the most impressive  thing
to  the  crowd.  ANNOUNCE what we are watching BEFORE it starts when  there's  a
change.  Thanks!

No disrespects intended.

I  give  a  BIG shout out to EVERYBODY who made a Demo Party possible  in  North
America.   Try  again  for NAiD 97 please.  I have to  say  that  I  was  really
impressed by the top 3 demos that I seen.  I wasn't expecting anything like that
at all from North American groups.  NAiD `97!!!  NoLuck, Singing off...

- NoLuck / Info-Tech

The entire SCP class of '95 (in alphabetical [scp#] order):

Jane  Fitzgerald,  Tom Gilks, Frank  Gummett,  Gregory
Kenny, Michael Kirby, Allan Malinen, Mike Mullen, Matt
Reeves, and Raymond Towse.

Well,  we actually / finally made it through those two years of total  and
complete hell.  Some of us came through a little better than others...  Ha,  ha!
Anyways, give me a shout if you are reading this.  I have no idea where  any  of
you are, or what you're doing (except for a few).  I'd like to hear from you.

Got to shout out to all the others who attended that shit hole:

Steve  Deveau,  Neil  LeBlanc,  Jamie Gray  (designated  driver),  Clifton
Saulnier (a.k.a. Bass C), Dare Devil Dave (stunt man), and all the surveyors who
took the shit for everybody.

Other shout outs to:

JCAB / Iguana:  Despite our problems with DemoVT, we would have had no chance of
even entering without it.  Thanks!

Jare / Iguana:  Thanks  for  the  helpful suggestions about demos and  the  demo
scene,  and  for  helping us with the  sound  system.   It  is
appreciated.

Marauder / Synergy:   Haven't  heard from you in a while, what's up?  I  thought
your group was going to be at NAiD.  Maybe they were,  and
I  just  didn't notice.  I was so pissed off at the  whole
place,  I  had  to  leave.  I didn't  even  stay  for  the
awards; I left right after the demo compo.

Kris Arndt:  I  think we lost contact with each other after the change of e-mail
addresses.   Well,  I  finally made it  to  NAiD,  and  managed  to
squeeze  in  my  fractal terrain engine.  Although, it  looks  like
hell  with  that  fractally calculated map.  Take  a  look  at  it.
How's your project coming along, anyway?

Herman Dullink:   Thanks   for   the  flat  mode  information.   Working   well.
Although  it crashes on my friend's system that has a  network
card  on  it.   I  wasn't there, so I  could  try  to  find  a
solution  to  the  problem.   The  first  ES:[EDX]  addressing
command halts the system.

Ethan Rohrer:   For  the high resolution system timer information.  It was never
actually used at NAiD, though, as I ran out of time.  This post-
release  version  uses  it to time the effects  to  run  on  any
system, though.  Good stuff!

Michael Tischer:  For  the EMS information, although no longer used. :)   Helped
me  through another annoying assignment at COGS, though.  Good
enough for a shout out.

Mark Feldman:    For  The  PC  Games  Programmers  Encyclopedia.   That's  where
WaitRefresh  procedure comes from!  It's  too  bad  you  didn't
stay to complete the second version...

Triton:  For  Fast  Tracker 2.04 (better mixing than FT2.06 for our SB-Pro)  and
FT2.06   I wish you had a MOD mode in it, where it would play in stereo
like  a  MOD.   Great job.  (Has any GUS owners/FT2 users noticed  that
FT2  doesn't play the song right, where PMP does?  It seems that  if  I
play  the  same sample, at the same time, but in one completely  panned
to  the  left, the other to the right, they will not play in synch  all
the  time,  just sometimes, where PMP plays them in perfect synch.   Is
this just my system/GUS/or what?)

Denthor / Ashpxia:  For  the  tweaked VGA information.  I hated mode X, until  I
realized  it's simplicity.  Some pretty neat shit.   People
don't  realize that mode 13h isn't faster than mode  X  for
everything...

Stone / Dust:  I  agree, I hate people who copy code.  I've been waiting to  say
that  for a LONG time.  All the effects code is mine, mine only,
and  mine originally!  The flat mode and timer handler  are  the
only  things  that  aren't originally  mine.   Note  the  greets
above.

Epic MegaGames:     For  helping us plow a certain institution's BS out  of  our
way.   We never did get our Co-op done, sadly.  Man, I  have
*so* much to thank COGS for...

Michael Livesay / Livesay Technologies Inc.:     For  information on the  ACTUAL
real world.  (BTW, our COGS co-
op   never  did  get  off   the
ground.    They   ruined    two
fantastic contacts for us.)

John Paul D'India / D'India Software:  Remember  me?   Our co-op never  did  get
done  for  the  third time.   Oh,  well.
Anyways, how's the game coming along?

Much thought was put into these comments before they were blurted out,  as
you  can see for yourself.  In fact, this is quite a regular occurrance  at  the
College  of Geographical Sciences.  You can make your own conclusions about  the
intelligence of the persons quoted below.  I'm just stating the facts.

(When asked if it was possible to program something in the area of networks  for
a co-op.)
"Nobody programs networks, they are unimportant" - Roger Mosher

Right  on the button, Roger.  Networks have nothing to do with the  wave  of
the future.

(Just a general comment made during a class.)
"Games are easy to write, anybody can do it." - Roger Mosher

Well said, Roger Mosher.  Anybody can do it, that's why it's a measly multi-
billion dollar market.

(Another general comment.)
"Good programmers don't write games." - Roger Mosher

Of course, the bad ones do.  Anyone can program Doom.

(After  telling us that graphics programming is simple, and informed us that  it
once took him 6 days to figure out a single recursive procedure.)
"Now that's REAL programming." - Bill Power

*SIX* days?  Get a life.  (WTF is REAL programming, anyways?  Why don't you
just stamp LOSER on your forehead?)

(Near  the  start  of the year, after it was already apparent  that  his  entire
teaching  method consisted of opening the textbook, and reading it to us.   Even
though  we  had  already  been instructed to read that same  chapter  the  night
before.)
"Actually,  if  you can read, you don't  need  me.   But
don't  tell  the  front office that. (laughs)"  -  Roger
Mosher

Oh, ha, funny.  You can laugh now.  Don't worry, you soon won't be.

(When a student asked if it was possible to program a game for a co-op.)
"Programming games is a waste of your talent." - Roger Mosher

Your existence is a waste of oxygen.

When coming to COGS Open Houses, please:

Do  not  be impressed by Gore, Psi, Trug, Wildfire, Purple Motion, Skaven,
Marvel,  Pixel  nor Abyss.  Be impressed by the CPT/SCP geniuses who  downloaded
the  Assembly  '93  International Demo Competition winner, Second  Reality,  and
displayed  it at the COGS OPEN HOUSE (whose purpose, we were told, was  to  show
off what the students can do), thus demonstrating their wide ranged knowledge in
the world of computer programming.

Do not be impressed by the designers and programmers of the software.   Do
not  be  impressed  by  the user of the software to create  several  ray  traced
images.   Be  impressed by the students' teacher's ability  to  copy  the  image
files,  as well as the executable EXE file itself, to an International  Business
Machines  PC clone, then instruct the disk operating system's loader to  execute
the program, which in turn displays the animation of the pre-stored images.  And
therefore be impressed by the students.  And therefore waste $26,000  to  go  to
COGS to learn this amazing crap like we did.

#9 ├─────────────────── OUR EXPERIENCE AT NAID '96

By: ProKrastinator / Info-Tech
(censored version)

--------- DECISION TO ENTER ---------

The  decision to enter NAiD '96 was made on May 9th, 1996, 22 days  before
NAiD.  I programmed the text scrolling and fade-in for the start up credits, and
convinced  myself  that I was actually going to do this.  On May  13,  1996,  we
decided  to  use  the DemoVT sound system, as we did not have  a  sound  system.
Little did I know that we would run into WAY too many problems, but would end up
using it anyway.
On  May 15, 1996, I read that ticket orders cannot be made after the first
week  of  May  (which had already passed) and that credit card  orders  are  not
accepted after the 15th.  So I decided then, for sure, that I was going to NAiD,
as I faxed them $40 for the two tickets.  No turning back now.

--------- FINDING A SOUND SYSTEM ---------

After reading the information file about DemoVT 1.5, it seemed REALLY easy
to use.  I had never used someone else's music system before, so I had not known
what  to  expect.  Upon testing DemoVT, it seemed as though it worked perfectly.
Perfectly, for every MOD we had except the one we were going to use.  It  played
our  MOD  too  slowly,  and some instruments like hi-hats  were  played  at  the
incorrect frequency.  I talked to Jare and JCAB via e-mail, and they said  that,
yes,  there were problems with DemoVT and SoundBlaster.  At this point we had  a
SoundBlaster Pro, but a GUS was on its way here.  Knowing that the GUS does  all
the dirty work through hardware, I assumed that we could ignore the speed errors
of  DemoVT  on our SoundBlaster, as it would play correctly on a GUS.   Well,  I
assumed wrong.  The GUS came in two days before NAiD, and it sounded the same as
the  SoundBlaster Pro.  It's a good thing I did not wait until the actual  compo
(like I would have, had the GUS not arrived) to discover this; although it could
not have been much worse than what actually did happen.
We did not have any time at this point to get a new sound system, so NoLuck
had  to start making his song sound correctly through DemoVT, regardless of what
it  sounded like in FastTracker.  This was an EXTREME PAIN IN THE ASS as  NoLuck
had  to  compose the song in FT2, (ST3 plays the song the same  as  FT2,  so  it
didn't matter which tracker he used), and then go to DOS and run DemoVT to  test
out what it sounds like.  Instruments had to be changed to play at the incorrect
frequency in FT2, so that they would play at the right frequency in DemoVT.  Can
you  imagine  quitting  to DOS to check to see what you have  been  doing  every
time!?!?   As  he could not test how the song sounded in our intro  (DemoVT  was
implemented,  but  the  intro  was still being coded),  NoLuck  decided  to  use
DemoVT's  sample test program to play the song.  So the easiest way for  NoLuck,
was  to  simply  modify  his  song under the DEMODEMO.MOD  name  in  the  DemoVT
directory, so that DemoVT's demos would run NoLuck's song, instead.  As we found
out later, this was definitely NOT a good idea.

--------- TRIP TO QUEBEC ---------

I skipped off work (permission was given :) on Thursday, May 30, at noon to
get a head start on my 16 hour drive to NAiD, with the intention of stopping  at
a  friend's house for the night, and then continuing the rest of the way in  the
morning.   Plans changed, and we decided to drive as much of the way as possible
that night, and then we'd continue in the morning.  Plans changed again, and  we
decided  to  drive  NON-STOP  ALL NIGHT until we got  there!   Nevertheless,  we
arrived at NAiD at 8:43 in the morning.  Wait a second, we passed through a time
zone  on the way and never changed our clocks... It's 7:43 Quebec time!  We have
a  full  12  hours  before NAiD even starts!  We met a  NAiD  organizer  in  the
cafeteria, and we were told that we could not get a classroom until  8  pm  that
night.  That sucked.  I didn't know what the big deal was.  We're here, so  give
us  our  classroom.   We  had to get to work to finish  our  totally  unfinished
intro... We actually contemplated about getting a hotel room for a few hours (if
that's  even possible) just to work on our intro.  We went out to eat first,  as
we  had  not ate all night, and when we got back to NAiD, everybody was  setting
things  up.   Finally, after scurrying around and some major panicking,  another
NAiD  organizer got us a room that we could stay in until 8 o'clock that  night,
when we would get ourselves a private room.  Pretty nice of him, I thought.  But
then he also told us we could not buy a room from him anytime soon.  In fact, we
would have to wait in a line at 8 pm to buy one, with the chance of not being in
line early enough.  I was getting my first clues about how unorganized the whole
thing was.

--------- SETTING UP AT NAiD ---------

After  setting up our computer, I went back to our truck to get a sleeping
bag  so that I could sleep on top of a few desks right in the classroom.  I  was
the  driver who drove 80% during nighttime, regardless that I was totally  awake
while  the  others  had drove.  Right at the point that  I  was  getting  on  my
sleeping  bag, the door opened.  The NAiD people led two other people  into  the
room  that we had thought we had for ourselves only.  They were two members from
the  group Xi, also known as, ≡ (that's ALT-240, the equivalence symbol), or the
group formally known as Divine, as they told us.  I guess my sleep would have to
wait.   We  started talking, and they hooked their portable hard  drives  to  my
computer  to copy some shit onto their floppies, and also gave me a  copy  of...
er...  lent  me a copy of... some program that will remain nameless as  I  can't
remember it's name, and which I have since erased from my hard drive as  I  have
never used it (and will never use it, because it's gone).  We were talking about
how  our  MOD  was sounding awful on our sound system, and they said  they  were
trying to finish up their own sound player.
After a few minutes/hours/whatever of talking about how last years'  demos
sucked (even though I was in for a surprise this year) and how awful this  place
is  organized,  we  heard a rumor that the intro compo was  due  that  night  at
Midnight!   I  got NoLuck to check for confirmation, which he  did.   "Oh  shit!
There's no time!"  It's 1 pm now, and 11 hours until dead line!  The song is too
big, the intro is over 100K, the effects are not finished, the effects are still
stand alone modules, and we only have ONE COMPUTER!!!

--------- DEADLINE IS IN ELEVEN HOURS! ---------

Sleep was completely out of the question at this point in time, even though
I  only  had one hour of sleep the night before (I drove from 10:54 pm Thursday,
to  4:55  am  Friday  morning.  I have every stop on record.)   Once  I  started
coding, I realized that there was no way in hell we were going to get this thing
done.  I had planned on coding the fractal terrain land generator today, to show
off  my  voxel engine, but I realized that I had to settle for an already  coded
fractal/plasma generator, the type of which I'm sure you have all  seen  before.
It  makes  extremely  awful terrain/color maps, and eliminates  my  thoughts  of
including a preprogrammed flight path.  The height would have to be stuck at the
maximum  terrain  height, with the hope that the viewpoint  doesn't  stay  stuck
inside some mountain top (which would totally ruin the effect).

--------- SCREW THIS, WE CAN'T DO IT ---------

We decided at this point to not release the intro.  We did not want anybody
to see a production of this quality coming from our names.  Then I thought about
my  parents, who let me take their 4Runner for the 1500 km trip, and I was  also
missing 2½ days of work on my job that I had started that Monday!  We decided to
enter  it  under fictionous names.  I had to at least try something,  because  I
figure I could still place in the top three on the effects alone, especially  by
last  year's standards, although I knew there must be more people with the  same
thoughts.

--------- YEAH, WE CAN DO IT... IT'LL BE SHITTY, THOUGH. ---------

I suggested the name Info-Tech, as it was our previous group name (of which
only  I,  not NoLuck, was a previous member off, with two other unnamed people).
Info-Tech has no releases, as we changed our name from Info-Tech once  we  found
out that it was already being used by some company.  I didn't like the name Info-
Tech,  anyways.   Besides, WTF does Information Technologies  have  to  do  with
demos?    NoLuck  suggested  my  name,  the  ProKrastinator,  as  it  has   some
similarities to my real alias, and also fits my style perfectly.  It took me two
hours of roaming around to realize that I have to start some serious coding NOW,
and  not four hours from now.  Yet, I kept walking around saying how this  place
sucks  shit.  It was only 3 or 4 pm at this point.  NAiD sucks shit,  and  there
was still four hours before it even starts!

--------- THE CODING BEGINS ---------

The four effects that were to be put in the intro were known at this time.
They  were  the  DOT  EXPLOSION, ROTATING 3D FRACTAL, ROAD SIMULATION,  and  the
finale, the VOXEL TERRAIN.  At this point, all of the effects were coded, it was
just  that  they were engines and nothing more.  They didn't move on their  own,
and the voxel terrain required a precalculated height/color map to show off it's
potential.  I knew that I'd have to use the shitty fractal map generator for the
voxel effect, as I knew there just wasn't any time!  I hated that, as it totally
ruins  the  best  effect  (by far) in the intro.  This thing  was  going  to  be
cranking out 45+ frames a second on the P-100.
The  rotating  points code was started on May 14th, 1996, 17  days  before
NAiD.   It was the first time I had ever used fixed point code for 3D rotations,
even though I had used them all along in other effects like texture-mapping, and
voxels.  I decided to code them at this point, because I wanted everybody to see
that the 3D fractal was real.  The more points I could draw, the fuller it would
be.   I  had  finished converted all of my real mode assembly code to flat  mode
assembly (required to directly access more than 640K of memory) the two previous
days before our trip on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week.  Of course, I had to
waste  my  time  coding the "delay dots" (as someone referring to  them  as)  on
Wednesday night, even though I knew everybody is tired of seeing this shit (It's
the first time I've ever tried it, and I couldn't believe how easy it was to  do
it without losing hardly any speed).
I  had  first planned on morphing the 2D Sierpinski Triangle into  the  3D
version  as  an indication that it is actually REAL, but there was no  time  for
small details like that.  A plain set of dots rotating on the screen would  have
to  do.   Hopefully enough dots can be shown so that people could  tell  it  was
real.  One effect done.
The dot explosion effect was complete, but it didn't have the code to check
how many it could do at 70 fps.  I would have to guess.  As I stated in the NOTE
ABOUT THE EFFECTS section, my 486-66 could do 20 * 4096 dots, so I set the value
at  25  *  4096, assuming this would be nothing for the Pentium as it should  be
able  to  do 40 * 4096  (I later found out in the Best FX compo that the Pentium
could at least handle 30 * 4096, for sure).  Two effects done.
The road effect was done, but it didn't move without instructions from the
user.  I screwed around with different road positions for the view point to take
during  turns, and different acceleration and deceleration rates, and it  looked
like  complete  shit.  The fact that it went 70 fps didn't matter,  because  the
viewpoint  was  too still.  All you could see was the smooth flickering  of  the
dotted lines.  I added code to make the viewpoint approach the point of where it
should  be, but never actually get there (go ½ of the distance remaining,  every
step, type thing), and it worked just like I wanted it.  Three effects done.
The voxel code was done, but it didn't have a map.  Have to use the shitty
plasma fractal generator.  I figured I'd set the random number seed to a certain
value, so that the same map would be generated every time.  Once I found a  good
number  (one  that generated terrain without a lot of mountains), I'd  leave  it
like  that.   I  picked 74501 as the number, as each digit of the five  was  the
closest to correlating with the corresponding letter of my real name (what's  my
real  name?  E-mail me if you can figure it out!), and the terrain generated  as
perfect  as  I'd ever have expected it to be (even though it still  looked  like
shit).   "YES!",  I  was  thinking, "This is gonna work."   Have  to  make  some
movement  code,  and that's it.  The movement code consists of  1)  turning,  2)
strafing  (sideways  movement)  and  3)  forward  motion.   All  three  changing
according  to  unsynched  sin  waves.  Fast, but shitty.   The  sin  values  are
modified  by  the FRAME NUMBER, but the voxel code calculates the current  frame
rate, and moves proportionally to the FRAME RATE.  So the same animation was NOT
going  to be played on my 486-66 as on the P-100.  "Who cares?", I figured.   It
looks  good on my computer, which is totally random (as I didn't plan the random
flight  path),  so it should look good on the Pentium.  Also, knowing  that  the
Pentium would crank out a frame rate off at least twice that of my computer (18-
19 fps minimum), I cranked up the movement rate constant (But I forgot to modify
how  many frames it would draw before dropping off for the next effect  to  come
on.  I later remembered, but it was a FATAL mistake to change it at that point).
All four effects done!

--------- THE EFFECTS CODE IS FINISHED! ---------

The  time  now  was past 9:30 pm.  I had little over two hours  until  the
deadline,  and the effects were still as stand alone units!  I had never  merged
code  of  this size together before, and I had two hours to do it for  my  first
time.   Talk about deadlines!  Knowing that I had no time, I immediately started
changing each of the effects into their own unit (library) with the unit's  only
procedure  being  that  of the effect.  This would give  each  effect  it's  own
program  space and data segment, knowing that Turbo Pascal only allows  64K  for
one data segment.  That's real mode, for ya!
The  effects  libraries  were being linked into the  main  running  module
extremely  easy.   I couldn't believe it was working so easy.  Then  hell  broke
loose after I added the last effect.  The program absolutely refused to compile.

Error 49: Data segment too large.

"SHIT!"  I didn't come this far to find out that Turbo Pascal compiles all
of  the  units'  data segments together in one.  I had always  thought  that  it
compiled the units with their own 64K data segment, so that you could compile as
many units as you wanted as long as each individual unit was within it's own 64K
limit.  But it wasn't working.  I couldn't believe that I spent all of this time
creating an intro that isn't even possible to create with the tools that I  had.
Then  I  remember  that when I converted my road code to draw as  much  road  as
possible  until the retrace starts, I expanding an array to handle  really  fast
computers  that may require more road data.  I had the code to handle  the  rare
case  that  may happen if the computer runs out of data in this extremely  large
array,  so I could minimize the size of the array if I wanted to (as the program
would  not  crash  if  it runs out of data).  So I change my ridiculously  large
15,000 element array to a more reasonable 1,000, and it compiled (my 486-66 uses
about 300, I guessed the Pentium would take anywhere from 600 [cuz the CPU  goes
twice  as  fast] to 1,500 [cuz it calculates floating points 5 times  as  fast],
probably around 1,000, though).  And it compiled!  At that moment was the  first
time  the  entire intro would compile all together, with each effect  shown  one
after the other.  "Yeah!  It works!"

--------- IT COMPILES! ---------

But  my  work  was not done, the voxel terrain effect generates  the  data
before the effect starts, which takes over half a minute on my 486-66.  This  is
WAY  too long.  If the audience absolutely has to wait this long, it must happen
at the start of the intro, not during it.  I could make the terrain be generated
throughout  the intro, as it does know, but I had no time.  There was  under  an
hour left.

--------- YOU GUYS CAN'T STAY HERE ----------

Right  when  I  was about to start coding this, the clock hits  11:12  and
somebody comes in our classroom, telling us that we have to leave. (It  was  the
same  guy  so  got  us  into the classroom.)  I couldn't believe  it!   Are  you
serious!?!?  We have 45 minutes to get this thing done!  The music has yet to be
implemented  and the god damn song is 15K too large!  Are you F***KING  SERIOUS?
We  argued with him at first, but as he didn't back down right away, I  realized
that  we would lose more time arguing than we would moving to another classroom.
The  three of us (NoLuck, Kato [our friend], and I) grabbed everything we  could
carry,  and got the computer into the new room (which was on the other  side  of
the  building, incidentally), and knowing our luck, we couldn't find  a  outlet!
They  were all being used!  F*** this shit!  We gotta use one of them.  I almost
unplugged someone's computer by accident (I don't remember if would have been by
accident,  or if I was meaning to make it look like an accident :), when  NoLuck
said  to  use  his power bar.  Good idea!  We plugged our power  bar  into  his,
pulled up a few desks, and started hacking at 11:15.  We were pretty nervous  at
this point.
The terrain generation code was ripped out of the stand alone unit and put
in the main program.  Recompiling told me which variables that I had missed (the
variables which were required to be copied from the stand alone unit to the main
module).   If Turbo Pascal didn't compile instantly, as it does, I'd  have  been
screwed.  I consistently type repeated periods (like `.........') when  I  leave
my coding spot to search or change something somewheres else.  Recompiling finds
the  syntax  error caused by the periods and returns me instantly  to  my  spot.
Thank  God for Turbo Pascal!!  All of this code rearrangement was begin done  30
minutes  before  the deadline, with the NoLuck looking over my shoulder  knowing
that once I was done, he had under 30 minutes (minus the time that I was taking)
left to shorten his MOD by 10 compressed K (about 15-20 actual K of his song) to
fit  within  the 100K NAiD limit.  Jesus Christ, this was nerve wrecking.   Only
ONE  computer.   While one of us worked, the other could only  watch  and  wait,
knowing  that we had no time.  I took a quick look at Kato, while  I  took  a  ¼
second  break from coding.  I think he was more nervous than both of us just  by
watching!

--------- CODE IS DONE! MUSIC COMPRESSION TIME ---------

I  finally  finished my voxel code at 11:35 pm.  NoLuck had 25 minutes  to
compress  his song by 10K.  That was 10 compressed K, too.  (NoLuck  here:   I'd
was shortening the song by 10K, and it would only be saving 1K in the compressed
version!!!)   We  had  a  batch  file  that  quickly  extracted  the  6   or   7
data/executable/music  files from their various storage positions  on  our  hard
disk, and compressed them via PKZIP (with maximum compression on!) and then  via
ZIP2EXE  which adds the 3K of decompression code into the .ZIP (That's  for  you
guys  who though we used an external version of PKZIP on the disk.  How the hell
would we have known the PKZIP would be on the compo machine?  Think about it you
stupid lamers!)  This batch file automatically added the DEMODEMO.MOD song  from
the DemoVT directory, which was NoLuck's song while he made it (remember, he had
to  quickly quit to DOS and run DemoVT's sample programs to test to see  how  it
really  sounds,  which  proved fatal later).  Using this batch  file,  we  could
quickly  see how much space we had to get rid off.  Because the actual  song  is
reduced by 10K, it doesn't mean the zipped version will be 10K smaller.
NoLuck converted a large sample down like crazy, and final size of the zip
file  changed  from  something like 109,9XX bytes to 109,5XX  bytes.   The  song
wasn't  getting  any smaller because it was being zipped!  We  have  20  minutes
left!   I'm sitting here watching, just then realizing that I have to  add  some
code  in to inform the NAiD people that the demo runs an initialization sequence
for about a half-minute before the demo starts.  I don't want people to stare at
a  blank  screen while it initializes.  What if the demo crashes?  How would  we
know?  I was pacing the floor back and forth at this time saying out loud, "This
is too close.  This is too close."
NoLuck  continued to decrease the size of the song, which already  sounded
shitty due to the low quality of the samples, and DemoVT made it sound even more
horrible  as  it  didn't play the song correctly.  Finally on  one  more  sample
reduction size, and size of the zip changed from 103,XXX to 99,XXX bytes!  "YES!
We're  in!"  The time is 11:52 pm.  We have 8 minutes to add some initialization
code and run the thing to the submission booth!
I  quickly  added two writeln statements to the code (actual  code  shown,
copyright (c) 1996 Info-Tech, Ha ha!):

writeln(`Please wait...init...');
for k := 1 to 2 do
begin
plasmamapptr := mapptr+(k-1);
plasma(0,0,1024,1024); {creates 1 meg image map}
writeln(`.......');
end

to  show that it was actually doing something as it creates the 2 megs worth  of
data.   I recompiled the entire program which takes about 2 seconds, and ran  my
batch  file  that automatically creates the zipped data files.  The  files  were
copied  to  floppy and NoLuck was sent off running with the disk.  The  time  is
11:56 pm!  "YEAH!  WE DID IT!"

--------- INTRO COMPILES! SUBMISSION TIME! ---------

Breathing a great sigh of relief, I ran the entire demo for the first time
WITH  sound.  Kato listened through the headphones (we had no speakers), and  he
said something that made my heart sink.
He said simply, "I hear no sound."
"WHAT!?", I yelled, my mind racing to think of the reason.
"There's no sound.", he said.
"SHIT!"  The problem then instantly popped into my head.  The DemoVT system
doesn't  work  if  you run your .EXE file directly, it must be run  through  the
DEMOVT.EXE  file.   Of course, Turbo Pascal runs the file directly,  so  I  must
disable  DemoVT  while  I write the actual code.  I HAVE DEMOVT  COMMENTED  OUT!
What a f***ing nightmare!  How could I forget!?  Quickly recompiling the code, I
copied  the new files, and handed the disk to Kato, who takes off running.   The
time  was 11:58 pm, now.  NoLuck was waiting in line, so they swapped the  disks
and our intro is in!  Kato returns to tell me the good news.
Again,  Kato and I start up the demo to watch and listen to it  the  final
version for the first time.
"Can you hear anything?", I said.
"Yes", responds Kato.
"Yeah!"
We  sit and watch the intro credits and demo title.  The first effect that
pops  up is the 3D fractal, except that it's going about 150 fps when it  should
be  going  about  30!  This isn't good news, it's bad news!   I  had  previously
lowered the number of points so that I could run it on my computer, but  it  has
to  be  raised  to  run properly on the Pentium.  It looked like  it  was  going
haywire  on my 486-66, I can just imagine what it would look like on the  P-100!
I  change  the number quickly from 500 to 5,000 (knowing that my 486 runs  2,200
dots fine, figuring the Pentium should be able to handle 5,000).  I recompile  a
third  time,  zip  up the files, and send Kato out at 2 or 3  minutes  past  the
deadline!!   Kato takes off so fast that he tripped on the cord  that  connected
the computer to the power bar.  He didn't fall on his face, or anything, but  it
did rip the cord from BOTH the computer and the power bar completely, sending it
across the floor.  The computer box was jerked out from underneath our amplifier
(needed  to  for  the  use of our stupid GUS) sending it to  the  floor,  BANG!,
breaking  off  one of the tape lids.  Kato, hearing the crash  and  thinking  he
broke  the  computer, but knowing his priorities, looked back for only  a  split
second, and kept running!!  "This is too close", I was saying out loud.   A  few
minutes  later, Kato comes back and says that we got in!!!  "YES!!   BABY!!   WE
DID IT!"
We  watched the real final version of the intro at 12:10 am.  The  fractal
part  had 5,000 points (it had enough memory to run on my system, even though  I
thought it was going to crash), but the song was playing extremely slow.  All we
could do is hope that the Pentium runs fast enough to overcome this problem.   I
couldn't  believe the player slows down even on a GUS!?  It shouldn't  be  using
the  CPU  for  the  timing!  What the hell is wrong?  My fractal  code  contains
segments where interrupts are turned off temporarily, but it shouldn't be  doing
this to the GUS.  (Or should it?)
The thought that we may still actually win something crosses my mind.  Our
first  production ever.  What an experience.  Now I know what  it's  like.   One
last big sigh of relief...
I  had  other thoughts of the intro in the next few moments.  I remembered
that  the voxel terrain ends upon a frame count, not a timer count.  The  effect
would  end WAY too early on the P-100, as the frames are cranked out at  over  2
times the speed of my 486.  But it was too late, now.  The worrying is over,  as
nothing could be done now.  Our work here is done.  We have nothing left  to  do
but chill out.

--------- THE INTRO IS IN! STRESS IS NOW OVER! ---------

Being  stuck  in a classroom with no windows, we decide to  sleep  in  our
4Runner  outside, where we could leave all the windows open.   The  weather  was
beautiful;  you could wear shorts at night time and not be cold.   There  was  a
full  moon,  so  there was no darkness.  But I didn't want to  risk  leaving  my
computer in the building as I didn't know the people around very well.   I  knew
that  nobody would do anything, but the thought of facing my parents when I came
home  saying, "Uhhh... our computer sort of got lost..." was enough to pack  `er
up and store her in the truck.
We  were  in  the  room with "The Surrounders" written on the  chalkboard.
There  was  another logo of some sort on the wall to the left of the Surrounders
name, which I also seen on a person's shirt, but I didn't know what it was,  and
I  didn't  feel like associating with people at this time.  One member from  the
Surrounders team approached us at this point, wanting to add our names in  their
credits, as we were in the same classroom.  I didn't know whether or not to  say
Info-Tech, or to use our real aliases.  I ended up saying nothing, thinking that
credits  shouldn't be given to someone that you don't even know, though I  could
personally care less, myself.  I just needed sleep at this point.  With just one
hour  of sleep in the past 41 hours, and I wasn't going to sleep in some  stuffy
classroom.  NoLuck had just paid $9 for three of us to use that classroom for 45
minutes.  Thanks.

--------- SATURDAY MORNING ---------

After finally getting some sleep, we wake up at 10:00 am in the morning and
head for the showers.  After a refreshing shower, as we had none the entire  day
before, we walked around awaiting the intro compo at 12 noon that day.   As  the
NAiD  people were playing other demos, I noticed the port and IRQ settings  they
used  when  one of the demos asked for them.  They were 220 and 5.  I remembered
that  I  would have to tell the people at NAiD to modify one of the  text  files
(1STOFF.003 to be exact) to accommodate the required GUS settings, as our  intro
expected 260 and 11.
At 11:50 am, ten minutes remaining, waiting for the compo to begin.  The PA
system  announces,  "A  note to XXXXX XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (our  real
names), your disks has bad sectors on it."
"JESUS F***ING CHRIST!!!"  The compo is in ten minutes and our computer is
packed in our truck outside (as we packed it up last night).  Not only that, the
only  exit to the entire building that we were allowed to use is on the opposite
side  of the building that our truck is parked (we were parked in the shade next
to  the cafeteria, where we originally parked when someone told us to go there).
Quickly  thinking, NoLuck races to find an extension cord so  we  can  plug  the
system  to  the outlet on the outside of the building.  We had no  time  to  run
around the entire building, get all the computer equipment, and run back around,
and  find  an outlet not being used inside some classroom.  Kato and I raced  to
the  truck  and  parked  it next to the nearest outlet  and  start  hooking  the
computer together.  We had no idea of whether or not NoLuck was even coming with
an  extension cord or not.  There was no way we could tell.  What if it took him
twenty  minutes to get one?  Luckily NoLuck and some NAiD guy shows up,  and  we
hook the thing together.
As  I  was attaching the cords to the computer, I recalled that the  voxel
terrain effect would end too soon on the Pentium.  I had it set at a frame count
of  500  for 486-66.  Once the computer booted up, I quickly loaded the program,
changed the number 500 to 700, and recompiled (500 lasted a bit too long  on  my
486-66, so I didn't double the number to 1,000.  700 sounded good).  I also took
this moment to enter the correct GUS port and IRQ settings.
I exited to DOS and ran my batch program which grabbed all of the required
files  and  zipped them up.  WRONG MOVE.  I should have just copied the  already
made files to the new disk, instead of changing the voxel settings and rezipping
the  entire thing.  Little did I know, the night before, NoLuck had thought that
he  was finally finished with his song, so he moved it from the DemoVT directory
to  his  own  directory, and moved the original DEMODEMO.MOD song  back  to  the
DemoVT directory.  When I ran my batch program, it grabbed the DEMODEMO.MOD  out
of  the  DemoVT directory, which was no longer NoLuck's tune, but the repetitive
example song that comes with DemoVT.
The zipped files were copied and sent off, as Kato packed the computer back
up.  It didn't even cross NoLuck's mind that the wrong song was now there, as he
had  no  idea  that the files had even been zipped up again.  The  stupid  thing
about  it, is that I noticed that the zip file was only 87K instead of  99K  (or
whatever the original size was), but nothing clicked.  I had under 2 minutes  to
get  that  disk to the NAiD people, and that's all that mattered.  I  must  have
thought  NoLuck compressed the song even more, as I couldn't remember the  exact
zip file size, anyways.  Stupid.  This was nail number one in ONE-TIME's coffin,
and  one  nail would be all that was required.  Everybody must know of  DemoVT's
song, and nobody likes a lamer.  Our chances of winning were completely gone  at
this point, yet no who knew about it.  We were up for a rude awakening.
Yet, this COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED as the demo compo started 20 minutes late
and  the NAiD guys absolutely refused to test the intro!  I couldn't believe it!
Thanks,  guys.  I had no time to run the disk to the other side of the  building
(to  get  to the doors) and run around the entire building (to get to my  truck)
just to test it out, and then run it back in.  They had a computer sitting right
in  front  of  them!  Why couldn't they have tested it?  But, no!  I frantically
looked  for  a computer around to test it on, but there were none.   None  could
boot with just HIMEM.SYS to run flat mode properly, and I doubt any of them  had
GUSes,  anyway.  If I had known at the time that the compo was going  to  be  20
minutes  late,  we could have brought our computer in.  It would  have  taken  2
seconds  to fix this mistake (A simple file copy and batch file run.   How  long
does  that  take?).  What the hell was so important that you guys couldn't  test
it!?  Thanks, once again.

--------- THE INTRO COMPO BEGINS! ---------

After all of the rushing to get a new copy of our intro, we are all sitting
around waiting for it to start.  Like all of the other compos/events at NAiD, it
started late.  About fifteen or twenty minutes late, but we didn't know that  we
had that much time while we waited.
Finally,  the  compo starts, and lo and behold, they  choose  ours  to  be
displayed  first.  I was standing behind the entire audience, when I  remembered
that  the  intro must be run with just HIMEM.SYS loaded.  If an  EMM  driver  is
loaded,  the intro won't work.  I didn't think it would've hung, but all  you'll
see  is  a black screen, and then the DOS prompt again.  The guy at the keyboard
was  already in the right directory with the name typed at the prompt, ready  to
hit  Enter.  I ran around the crowd and told him it must be run under  HIMEM.SYS
only!   I  also  asked  him how much memory the computer has,  since  the  intro
requires more than 4 megs of XMS memory.  The guy runs a MEM command and asks if
that's enough.  Totally ignoring his response, I asked "How many Megs?!  Does it
have 16?!"  He said, "yeah, I think so"  Boy, was I nervous at this time.

--------- THE ENTER KEY IS PRESSED! ---------

So  I  step out of the way, and the Enter key is pressed.  The first thing
you see on the screen is:

Please wait...init...

and  I'm  thinking, "Oh, great.  The exact thing the audience feels like  seeing
after  they  waited 20 minutes for the stupid thing to begin."  But the  Pentium
cranked out the first meg of memory in about 5-8 seconds, and the second line of
dots appeared:

"Yeah",  I'm thinking, "At least it's going fast".  I probably should have  said
that  it was calculating 2 megs of memory to at least indicate how much junk  it
was calculating.
I continued to wait.  The screen wasn't clearing, though.  The two lines of
dots  should  have appeared within the same amount of time from each  other  (in
rythm), but the screen wasn't clearing.  It was obvious to me that it had  hung,
but I didn't want to admit it.  It took me a few seconds to convince myself that
it  didn't  work, and I ran over and told the guys at the computer that  it  had
hung.  He rebooted the computer, and the audience started clapping, as expected.
He  told  me that he'd try again at the end of the compo.  All I could hear  was
people  clapping.  I knew it was expected, as they clapped or cheered  at  every
little thing that happened on the big screen, but I was pissed at this time.   I
felt  like grabbing one of those stupid geeks and slamming their head through  a
computer screen.
"What  could have possibly gone wrong?", I asked myself.  My computer  was
back  in the truck, and I know that I definitely didn't have any time to go  get
it.   I  doubt that they'd accept another copy, anyways.  "What could have  gone
wrong?"
Once I calmed down a bit, and starting thinking, I realized that the  demo
hung  before  graphics  mode was initialized, and after the  voxel  terrain  was
complete.   The only thing the demo does at this point is initialize DemoVT  and
start playing the tune.  It was DemoVT that hung up.  Either that or the GUS was
not  working  properly.  There was nothing I could do.  The demo simply  doesn't
work  on  the  Pentium.   Thanks a lot guys, you told me that  you  checked  all
contributions prior to their viewing on the big screen, but obviously not in  my
case,  as  you  told me 10 minutes before the thing started that  the  disk  was
bad...
I  tried to find a computer that I could use, but there were none  around.
None  of those stupid french school machines were in DOS mode!  I finally  found
one,  and  looked  at the text file with the information for  the  DemoVT  sound
system.   I  knew I had nothing wrong, but yet I kept looking to  see  what  was
wrong.   While I tried to find a problem, all I could tell NoLuck and  Kato  was
that  there is nothing I can do.  Not a god damn thing.  I continued  to  search
for a problem, anyways, though, catching glimpses of the other intros.
As one of the intros was about to start, they asked the audience about the
ULTRINIT.EXE file (18K in size) in the directory of the demo, which put it  over
the limit.  The audience agreed that it wasn't a problem.  I had just gotten  my
GUS (and had never ever seen or heard one before this point) two days before the
NAiD, and NoLuck was the only one who looked at it.  I didn't have a clue how it
worked,  but something popped into my head.  I had noticed earlier at  how  fast
the  machine booted up in "HIMEM.SYS ONLY" configuration.  I took a  hunch  that
perhaps  the  GUS was not initialized on boot up and that maybe the ULTRINIT.EXE
file  initializes  it.   I run over to the table during the  break  between  two
intros  and  ask the guy if the GUS is initialized on boot up.  Of course,  they
didn't  have a clue.  I couldn't believe it!  I was 90% sure that this  was  the
problem.   I  told  them that the GUS has to be INITIALIZED  TO  RUN  THE  INTRO
PROPERLY!   When it was finally time to try my demo again, they asked  me  if  I
wanted to run the ULTRINIT.EXE file from the demo that was just run, and I said,
"Yeah, I guess.  RUN WHATEVER IS NEEDED TO INITIALIZE THE GUS!".  So buddy  runs
the  other guy's ULTRINIT.EXE to try my intro one more time.  I don't think they
even  had  the  sound card software on the machine.  What if buddy  didn't  have
ULTRINIT.EXE in his intro?
Upon entry into the directory, and intro's data files are clustered in with
the  uncompressed data files that had been written on the previous run.  The guy
quickly  types 1STOFF, ready to press Enter.  Knowing that this will  crash  the
intro  again  (actually, the unzipping asks for confirmation  to  overwrite  the
already present files, but you can't see it because I took the precaution(?)  to
blank  the screen so that nobody can see the extraction), I yell, "WAIT!  DELETE
THE  FILES  FIRST!"  Immediately after I hear some guy from the  crowd  yelling,
"It's 200K!".  I quickly tell the guy to delete all files that didn't start with
1STOFF  (1STOFF  is  the  abbreviation of our  original  intro  name).   But  he
hesitates  to  get confirmation from the other NAiD guys, as well  as  from  the
audience.  He loads up the batch file that runs the intro (unzipping/deleting as
well) to show the audience so that they can decide.  Because the batch file  was
littered  with  crap,  it looked extremely complicated, when  in  actuality,  it
wasn't.  Everybody starts yelling, "Ooooooh!" (sort of like a boo).  I told  the
guy  that those files are not needed, so delete them.  Finally the guy does, and
the  files are back to normal.  The intro is ready to be run.  At this point,  I
was  still  not  100%  sure that it was the uninitialized GUS  that  caused  the
problem.

--------- THE ENTER KEY IS PRESSED... AGAIN ---------

Buddy  hits Enter, and the initialization dots come up.  Again,  my  heart
sinks,  because  I know that this is the last thing that the audience  wants  to
see.   But it goes quickly.  Before I could even realize that the initialization
was  about  to  end, the screen clears and the drums start!   "YES!  BABY!  IT'S
WORKING!"   My first thought was that the beat was sounding awesome through  the
big  speakers.  It was the first time I had ever seen/heard anything of ours  on
the  big  screen  or  even on a really good stereo system.  It  was  an  awesome
feeling.
As  we watched the introduction credits, I was thinking about how fast the
beat  had come in.  I thought NoLuck had made the song start out slowly for  the
credits.  I had still never heard the song in it's entirety at this point.  Then
I  noticed  an  awful repetition, which was weird because I wasn't  even  really
listening  to the music.  I'm the coder, and I wanted to see what my shit  looks
like the 100 megahertz beast.  But, nevertheless, I noticed it.
I  don't know if I figured it out first, or if NoLuck did (I think it  was
NoLuck),  but  we  realized the intro was playing DEMODEMO.MOD sample  MOD  from
DemoVT.  It's an all right sounding tune, but it only has two patterns!  One  is
a  ½ second intro, and the second pattern repeats itself after that!  It sucked!
"Jesus  Christ!!  How the hell did that happen".  Then it dawned on NoLuck  that
he  had moved his song.  He didn't even know that I rezipped the files.   And  I
didn't  know  that  I had rezipped the wrong files.  "JESUS F***ING  CHRIST!   I
CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING!"
The  only  thing we could do it this point was hope the effects would  run
good enough to impress the audience/judges.  The 3D fractal that was made up  of
5,000 delayed dots didn't look as impressive on the screen as I thought it would
be.   A simple zoom to look closely at the fractal looked cooler than this!  You
couldn't even tell that their were so many points, the fractal was almost solid.
It  must  have  been because of the "delay dots" or whatever  the  hell  they're
called.  No one probably noticed that it was even a real 3D fractal.  The effect
was hanging too long on the screen.  I had it set up to drop off after a certain
frame  count.  "Drop! Man, Drop!", I was saying out load, "It's staying  up  too
long!"  Finally it dropped off, and the voxel terrain faded in immediately.
The voxel started moving around, but it was sticking in the mountain peaks.
The  exact  thing that I had dreaded.  There was only one little pass where  you
could actually see a large portion of the map.  The colors had been set to blend
smoothly  together to prevent flicker, so that you couldn't detect a slow  frame
rate.   But  that  didn't  matter, as the big screen fades  everything  together
anyways, and the Pentium was running the effect at 50-60 fps (I know this, as my
486-66  goes  25-30  fps  when the mountain tops  go  off  of  the  top  of  the
screen...an very effective optimized portion of the drawing algorithm [that  I'm
not  going  to  explain] causes this increase in speed).  I could  have  had  it
zooming  by  mountains and valleys at nearly the refresh  rate,  but  NO!   This
wasn't gonna happen.
The  voxel  flashes,  and then drops and fade out simultaneously  off  the
bottom  of the screen.  At this point, the road simulation was supposed to  fade
in  immediately, and the viewpoint slides sideways to the center  of  the  road.
But  it  DIDN'T.   After the voxel dropped off, the DOS prompt quickly  appeared
with  an  abrupt ending of the music.  Thanks.  I still have no idea  what  went
wrong.  I know what it is.  It just wasn't my fucking day.
The audience clapped at this point, which surprised me more than anything.
Everybody  thought that that was the way intro was supposed to end.   I  was  so
mad,  I  felt like going on a total demolition of the entire place.   That  sure
would have relieved some stress.  I can't remember the last time that I was this
mad.

--------- IT'S ALL OVER ---------

Everybody left the big screen to fill out their votes for the best  intro,
and  I  was  so pissed of at the entire place, I didn't even vote.  Actually,  I
didn't  bother to vote for any of the different compos.  As if I cared  at  this
point, anyway.
We  talked  to judges afterwards, to tell them that they hadn't  seen  the
entire intro, and if it would be possible to play it again, even if it was  just
to  them  on  a  regular  computer.  But they said that they  had  been  "pretty
lenient"  on letting us show it twice.  "Most compos, if you crash once,  that's
it".   Oh,  excuse me.  Considering that it was YOUR FAULT that  it  crashed,  I
would  hope  that  you'd  let me run it again.  If you also  testing  the  thing
beforehand,  like  you  said you would, it wouldn't have crashed  in  the  first
place.

--------- PROBLEMS AT NAiD THAT SHOULD BE FIXED ---------

There are many.  TOO many...  WAY TOO MANY.  Just read.  If you're planning
on having a party next year, you may want to note a few of these:

1)  I  was told that the computers and expensive equipment were tagged, so  that
no  one  could  leave the building without being the owner of the  computer.
Well,  this wasn't true, as I found out a few hours after arrival.   Thanks.
Do  you really think I was going to leave my shit in some room with a  bunch
of  people I don't know?  I doubt a bunch of computer geeks would have  done
anything,  but one lesson I've learned in my life is that you  cannot  trust
anybody.   The group Xi trusted us to watch their stuff while they  left  to
grab  a  bite to eat, but I would have been reluctant to let them watch  our
stuff.   The opportunity never arose, so I don't know if I would  have  done
it  or not.  I probably would have, considering it would have been extremely
difficult  for  them to do something or steal something without  us  finding
them.   All I know, is that I was so pissed off the entire time I was there,
I  could  have very easily damaged something.  And there was not a  sole  in
the place who even knew my name.  I know a lot of friends who, if put in  my
position,  would  have  demolished something  without  consideration.   That
would kind of put a dampering on things.  Think about it.

2)  The  place  was SO disorganized.  Is every demo party this disorganized?   I
certainly  hope not.  NAiD was terribly disorganized.  Yet,  they  were  not
going  to  accept  one  of the intro compo entries (not mine,  incidentally)
that  was being passed in five minutes late.  Come on, guys.  Why not accept
the  stupid entry?  Who cares if it's five minutes late.  I could see if  it
had  a  direct effect on something, like if the people were already  leaving
the  submission  place and they had to be somewhere soon or  else  something
would  blow up or something, but that wasn't the case.  I can't even believe
that  they even CONSIDERED not to accept it.  You guys only check the  disks
ten  minutes  before  the  thing starts anyways!   You  had  12  hours  from
submission  `till the show started.  12 hours to check 6 or 7 disks?!   Give
me  a  break!   "5 minutes late....sorry, buddy....that would  just  totally
screw  up  our  entire procedure that we've had planned out  5  months  ago.
Every  second is crucial." (that was sarcastic, in case you didn't  realize)
There  actually was a demo that they showed, but didn't allow a vote on  it,
because  it  was late.  Who cares?  You have it on the compo machine  before
the  compo.  It didn't slow ANYTHING down.  No one had to wait.  Just accept
it!   Why  be  so  strict?  One thing I've noticed is people who  have  been
inferior (a.k.a. losers) all their life always go on a power trip once  they
have  been  given just a little bit of authority.  Try to make  sure  you're
not one of them.

3)  Almost  none  of  the programs (like the image viewers and trackers)  worked
the  first  time.   Cubic Player didn't have DOS4GW.EXE, and  they  couldn't
even  get  a  copy  of  it themselves.  They had do  get  someone  from  the
audience  to  go get one (by giving away one of their Mountain  Dew  because
nobody  ran  right  away, and everybody in the place was  waiting).   Scream
Tracker  was always loaded up without an EMM driver (it requires EMS memory,
even  when loading samples into a GUS).  FastTracker couldn't be run because
they  didn't have a mouse driver.  Luckily for them, the authors  agreed  to
let  them  run  their  songs in Cubic Player.  Other problems  included  not
having  the proper initialization programs on boot up, such as ULTRINIT.EXE,
which  was the cause of our intro crash.  They actually agreed with me later
that  that  should  have  been standard.  I'm glad  someone  can  realize  a
problems that has occurred, anyways.  That's a plus (for the first  time,  I
might add).

4)  I  was  told that the demos at NAiD were all tested out on the compo machine
before  the actual show.  Well, that wasn't the case this year.   And  then,
someone  told  me it wasn't the case last year, either.  Why  did  you  guys
make  that up then?  Well, in any case, the demos should be tested.  I don't
know  about the deadline of the demo compo, as I wasn't around most  of  the
time,  but  they had a full twelve hours to test all 6 or 7  of  the  intros
that  were submitted.  Twelve hours is plenty of time to find out if a  disk
is  screwed up.  One of the NAiD guys told me that they had been calling  us
all  morning.  BULLSHIT.  I was in the building for a full two hours  before
the  intro compo, not even leaving anywhere to even take a piss.   The  only
announcement  I heard was precisely at 11:50, ten minutes before  the  compo
began.   Thanks, guys.  Another time, where some guy submitted a  disk  that
was  empty,  he was only notified about a half hour before the  compo.   Why
don't you guys test the entries as soon as you get them?  Is it really  that
hard?  Or does that make too much sense?

5)  They  asked the audience for confirmation for a lot of things.  Things  that
they  shouldn't have to ask.  Like asking if it's ok for the 103K  intro  to
be  accepted, because it's "ONLY" 3K.  (NoLuck here:  That 3K took A LOT  of
my  song  away.  But I still had to do it, because of the 100K  limit.)   If
you  have  rules, and the entry complies to the rules, then  it  has  to  be
accepted.   Otherwise, whatever says that it can't be accepted, should  have
been  told  beforehand.  Or if you're a bit unorganized, then cut  a  little
slack.   It's  really  that simple.  They asked the audience  if  our  intro
should  be  played again.  First of all, of course it should.  It  was  your
fault.   But  even  if it wasn't (which is what the audience  thought),  you
shouldn't  be  wasting time asking the audience.  Some guy in  the  audience
got  fed  up  after  a few minutes, and yelled, "Just play  it!"   And  he's
right.   (NoLuck here:  Really, who cares?  Just play it.)  You spent  twice
as  long arguing or contemplating or whatever you were doing, than it  would
have taken to play it.

6)  You  should  have smarter people controlling the computers.  Have  you  guys
ever  used DOS before?  I can't believe you thought I was using an  external
copy of PKZIP to extract the files.  The basis of this thought was that  one
of  the  files  reacted  to  PKUNZIP.   Have  you  ever  heard  of  ZIP2EXE?
Obviously  not.  Another case, which I just remembered,  was  when  the  guy
stopped  on  of  the songs when it was only 50% through.   FIFTY  percent!!!
Jesus Christ!  The song had a silent section for half a second, and the  guy
hits  stop.   LOOK  AT THE SCREEN!  At least he admitted it,  "yeah,  I'm  a
lamer".   You're  f***ing right you are.  Why didn't you just  continue  the
song from where it left off?  No, that would make sense.  Another time,  the
guy  had  the volume turned off at the start of the song, but didn't restart
it  anyways.  Maybe there was a cool intro sound to the song.  But, hey,  it
saved  5  seconds.  And every second is crucial to the NAiD  organizers.   5
seconds.   Demo  compo  was 1:10 minutes late = 70 minutes  =  4200  seconds
late.   What  the hell is FIVE SECONDS!?  They also had to ask the  audience
how to enable surround sound.  Why don't you figure it out beforehand?

7)  The  compos  should have been organized better.  They should be ready  15-30
minutes  BEFORE the thing is scheduled to start.  But NO... that would  make
sense.   They'd rather do more intelligent stuff, like playing  really  LOUD
music (real music, not tracked) directly before the music compo starts.   Do
you  have  any sense, or what?  Can't you think?  I'm surprised they  didn't
play  Second  Reality  or some raytraced animation before  the  demo  compo.
(NoLuck here:  I completely agree.  Playing very loud real music before  the
music  compo  makes no sense.  The songs won't sound better  than  they  did
because they are louder in big speakers, because the audience won't  be  use
to  the way the song sounds normally, they'll all be use to the loudness  of
the  music  beforehand.  The songs didn't sound loud, they sounded distorted
more  than anything from being so loud.  I'm sure every composer would agree
that  their  song  sounded better, crisper, or whatever by listening  to  it
with  the  equipment that they used to compose the song on compared  to  the
loud  speakers.  Well, unless they had a real shitty stereo.   It  would  be
the  same  as playing Second Reality right before a demo that wasn't  up  to
par  with  it.   The demo would look shittier than if played  alone.   Stuff
like  this matters.  Ask any designer of a good demo and he/she'll tell  you
that  some effects can't be placed in front of others, because they'll  make
a good effect look worse than it is.)

NAiD `96 Late Times (approximate):
Intro Compo was 20 minutes late.
Music Compo was 10-20 minutes late.
Best FX Compo was 45 minutes late.
Demo Compo was 1 hour 10 minutes late.
(Don't know of any of the others, as I wasn't around.)

8)  During  the  Best FX compo (which we entered the two effects that  were  not
seen  in  our intro), they stopped every effect after about 5 to 10 seconds.
Of  course this was because of the millions upon millions of entries had  to
be  crammed  into  one hour.  Let me spell it out for  you:   THERE  WERE  6
EFFECTS.   60 MINUTES divided by 6 EFFECTS = 10 MINUTES to prepare and  show
each  effect.  It said right in the info file that each effect could have  a
running  time of 90 seconds.  Could you have possibly waited 10 more seconds
on  each  effect?   Read  more about this in the A NOTE  ABOUT  THE  EFFECTS
section.

After the Best FX compo:

NoLuck:   "Did you, by any chance, hit Escape?"
NAiDer:   "Yeah, well, the road, ya know..."
NoLuck:   "I'm taking about the dots."
NAiDer:   "Yeah, I might have."

Oh.   You MIGHT have.  But you don't actually know.  Regardless of the  fact
that it was the last effect played, which was no more than 10 seconds ago.

NAiDer:   "Sorry."
NoLuck:   "(The  effect  SAID TO WAIT!!!  IT SAID, "PLEASE **WAIT**  FOR  AN
ANSWER!!!)"

9)  You  should  try  not to be biased towards certain people, just  because  of
their  handle  or  name of their group.  I know for a fact  that  a  certain
song,  that  was not supposed to be played, was played after  inquiry  by  a
certain  person.  Not surprisingly, this guy was well known for  his  songs.
And  I  can  truly say that all but 5 (maximum) of the songs really  sucked,
which  included buddy's song, incidentally.  We entered two songs that would
have  only  been beaten by (maybe) those 5 songs.  The rest of them  sucked.
HTF  did you guys pick the songs?  Did you even listen to them?  Or did  you
pick  the ones passed in on the nicest disks?  I realize it's hard  to  pick
the  songs  as you probably don't have the time to listen to the  full  song
for each one, but you guys did not do a very good job at all.

10) What  was  up with the showers, anyways?  Why so strict on the times?   Most
of  the  people  there  need more showers than they  probably  take.   Don't
restrict  them  even further.  It's bad enough to have to see  their  faces,
let alone smell them.

--------- ALL IN ALL ---------

Overall, the main thing about NAiD, was that the organization was horrible.
Anybody  could done whatever the hell the NAiD organizers were doing  (from  our
point of view, anyways).  They could at least have tested all the programs  that
were  to be run BEFORE they have the thing hooked up to the big screen.   Or  if
you don't, you can at least try to resist telling people that you will.  But you
should test them, anyways.  That's really what the whole party is about.  It's a
DEMO  PARTY.   Think about it.  That was terrible.  You're lucky that  the  demo
compo  went as smoothly as it did.  It surprised me how well it went,  actually.
Every compo/event was on average 30 to 35 minutes late.  Sometimes up to an hour
and  10 minutes late.  I hope you do better next year.  I certainly know what  I
have to do differently next time.  I hope you guys know, too.

Until next time, IF there's a next time....

signing off,  ProKrastinator / Info-Tech

Oh, yeah...  excuse our French.