1994 by GEnie ========================================================================== This file is brought to you by The Commodore 64/128 RoundTable on GEnie This file may be published or excerpted in User Group newsletters providing credit is given in this manner: "Copyright 1994 by GEnie From the Commodore 64/128 RoundTable File#:#####" This file maybe be distributed, if distributed whole and unaltered, on non-profit BBSs or non-profit networks. For more information on GEnie call by modem: 1-800-638-8369 (8-N-1 300/1200/2400) Enter: HHH Then reply: xtx99018,commrt Then enter: Commodore And enjoy! ========================================================================== Ok, tonight we have a double header... First up is Elwix from the demo goup Style After he is done,we will take a short break then move on the Coolhand for the Internet part of our conference Basically, we are going to do a demo-review for 1995. Approximatley how many demos (NTSC) were released in 1995? Well, pretty much, 25 I guess. Starting in early 95... there were Morbid/FOE - great, big megademo; Canadian Bacon - really cool effect, plasma-inside logo is best way to describe it; Guilty/Arcane - nice art! Animated (slightly) pic of Lance Ito, a bit funny Moving on a bit into the year, I could say, Gold/Style was well received, not really hardcore, but at least very funny ;) lesse... Tears '95 was quite good. Maybe you can call it the 'sleeper demo' of 95. You really need to see it, but it's a nice different approach to demos. I really enjoyed that one. I think it may appeal to a wider audience than the 'typical' demo! Lets see... Martyr/Time was pretty decent; Vengeance/FOE was also a great demo; another megademo (there are hardly any megademos these days, but FOE deleivered so well in 95) I believe those were the major standouts. If you only watch a 2 or 3 demos, pick from those, but ya oughta watch all of them anyway ;) Were there many NTSC Fixed demos released in 95? Yep, but the only ones doing this were Style. Lesse I think maybe 10 or so. That's demos, and a couple tools I think. Little note - fixing is a much needed job! There's still SOOO many european demos released, or euro tools that would be worthwile having NTSC users use so if anyone wanted to try it, your could really help the scene ;) Are there any current fixes you're working on? I fixed a couple little things at the end of 95. I got 2 or 3 parties worth (Euro parties that's meant) disks full of winning gfx entries, maybe 10 or 12 pictures in all, in IFLI (beautiful gfx format !). I'd suggest people view these two, since the gfx resolution is amazing for a c64. You'll be shocked if you havn't seen these before! Finally, what can we expect from Style in the next couple months? Well, I just released the demo coding tool Wix Bouncer v5.0. In a month perhaps we'll release our version of Turbo Macro Assembler for the REU, what ought to be the very best version of Turbo made yet. (I use it to code, myself) Finally, we are working on a music demo, or two, one of which will feature tunes with digi-samples mixed in. And there's always one or two demos we're working on. It's hard finished stuff these days. We just move a bit slower :/ but those will get out sooner or later this year! Buff Phoon, our resident clown, has a question. What is/are these "demos" that you are talking about? Some of us may not know exactly what is being discussed here, like me! Well, a demo, is basically (my words here) an expression of creativity, something artistic I think. Well technically, just a collection of gfx, music, and visual effects that run on your c64 If you look at the c64 'underground' scene, you might classify the old software houses (Epyx, ECA) as the big business corporation, the pirates as the organized mafia and the demo makers as the rockstars on the c64 world ;) All the 64 Demos on Genie are in library #18, take a look after the conference! Demos are kind of the equivilant of computer rock videos, some show off many unrelated but still eye-pleasing effects. Some others concentrate with one small effect, they are music or gfx collections (usually slideshow like formats) And there are diskmagazines - basically, the 'mass media'. Like Driven + collection of articles, editorial, news, and all around scene information. Demos are basically art and entertainment.. but there is sometimes a message too.. like Tears '95 yeah - some demos can certainly approach for a deeper meaning. Demos are also a means for coders and artists to show there skills and to demonstrate new techniques for the 64. Idaho Doug has a question. What is NTSC? Alright, NTSC is some acronym for (I think) Northamerican Television Standard or something. NTSC basically means the video output of our monitors here in North/South America. PAL is the counterpart format used in Europe. What this means to us, is that c64 softwre really runs different on PAL and NTSC machines the timing is a little bit off; different. And this causes many problems with critically timed demo effects. So if you've ever downloaded something from europe, and there's flicker, or it crashes, or the music sounds slower than it should, that's because the European, coded his software for PAL machines. Running that software under NTSC, causes the problems NTSC fixing is the 'art' of changing the software to work properly on NTSC machines. Basically the first part is just a quick review. If anyone has a lot of demo related questions, check in library #33 for our last demo conference, which explains this stuff in basic terms. Ok..I'm going to open the floor, we'll take a short break, and the internet part of our conference will begin shortly... Is any special software needed to run these demos? Buff - no, the demos run on their own... they just load and run off the disk Where is WIX BOUNCE V5 and does it have doc's? The Wix Bouncer hasn't been released here yet, look for it in a few days. Has anyone here seen demos, or read Driven? I've seen some demos. I've seen some demo's and was always amazed how they were made. I've always wondered if they could be used in another program for special effects. By the way, I get the impressionn "demos" aren't demonstrations despite the term "demos. "Why are they called "demos"? Tim - yeah good question... well, I guess the roots were in demonstration. Perhaps the same time demos were rsing the term demo became also well used for commercial demonstration software. Demos might better be called computer videos... or multimedia art! ;) I've noticed that commercial demos are now called previews Is Driven in the libraries? How/Where does one get Driven? Buff Phoon, they are in library #18. Issues 1-10 are there. #11 will be shortly Idaho - demos themselves aren't real usable. or reusable, they stand alone unless maybe you can get the source code with the demos. Then you could reuse the effects to some extent Or of a group's collective skill. I think 'demo' may have first meant a demonstration of a coder's skill. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are now starting our Internet part of this conference. Here is our C= internet expert, Coolhand. hmmm :-) hehe we're in trouble now... :-) Ok..first off - Can a C= users 'surf the net'? Sure he can.. You think the C= machines are incapable or something? With a C= one can experience and participate in a great deal of the net. This includes using search engines, transferring files, and visiting Web sites (minus the graphics on the pages). What is the best term. program for accesing the net with a 64? I use Novaterm 9.5 from Nick Rossi. It gives you 80 columns, vt102 emulation, and a choice of MANY file xfer protocols (including z- modem receive). Aceterm (part of Craig Bruces's excellent ACE package) is also very nice I am told, although I have never tried it myself. In addition to the term program, a baud rate greater than 2400 is useful, but not required. I see all this SLIP/PPP/IP/SHELL accounts. What type of account should a C= user get? Generally, the C= user should look for a shell account, since there is very little software for the C= to work with a SLIP/PPP account (such a Net Browsers for other machines use). But believe it or not, there is NOW a demo package of software to implement a PPP process on a c64 which includes Telnet and IRC! Although the package is preliminary at this time, it IS usable and is likely to expand in its functionality in the future. What is a shell account? A shell account is basically a text-based account where you type commands at a prompt. A variation of this is a menu-driven account that gives you access to various Internet functions by in some way selecting from choices provided. Many ISPs offer a mix or choice of commands or menus. How can I download files from the internet? Using the common net utility FTP, available on ANY net site, you can xfer files from an FTP site anywhere in the world to your local net provider. From there you must use one of the protocols available on both your site and your local term program to d/l the file(s) from your site to your own C= machine. This protocol could be X-modem, Y-modem, or even Kermit. Novaterm 9.5 even includes Z-modem receive. What is a FTP site? Well, an FTP site is a particular "node" (address or location) on the Internet that has a collection of files that may be xfered to your own Internet site. It may be run by a University, a commercial company, or any of several other organizations for various reasons. A site that offers files to the public will use what is called "anonymous" FTP, which allows net users to 'log on" to a site by just using his local email address as his password. No previous application or set-up is required to access files from an "anonymous" FTP site. EDITORS NOTE: FTP Stands for - File Tranfer Protocol About how many FTP sites have C= software? Wow - hard to say. Quite a few in total.. maybe 6-8 really big ones that make frequent additions to their file collections. More sites are being added all the time. Many of these sites are beginning to replace regular BBSs as the usual means of "releasing" new C= software. (Yes, there really is NEW C= software still being written. :-) There is a list posted frequently on the Computer Systems CBM (C.S.C) Usenet newsgroup of all the known C= FTP sites. Can you list a few of the more popular ones? ftp.eskimo.com in (tilde)tpinfo/ !!! Here are some that I think have some of the best collections. I may have forgotten or not be aware of some, and I certainly apologize if I have: utopia.hacktic.nl /pub/c64 dhp.com /pub/c64 nic.funet.fi /pub/cbm ccnga.uwaterloo.ca /pub/cbm bbs.cc.uniud.it /pub/c64 ftp.giga.or.at /pub/c64 ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de /pub/c64 EDITORS NOTE: The "/" means directory What is the World Wide Web? Very briefly, the World Wide Web is a portion of the Internet - even a feature of it, one might say - which as been organized into "http addresses" referred to as "pages". Each address may consist of one or more pages. A page is a logical grouping of information, which may consist of text, graphics, possibly even music, and usually includes references (or "links") to other pages, either at the same site, or at other sites. It is the links to other pages that really create the "web" topology in the WWW context. Can a C= user view full color graphic pages? To my knowledge, there are no Web "browsers", to use the usual term for the program that looks at Web pages, for the c64 that allow the transfer of the graphics portion of a page. There is a utility available at most Unix provider sites that allows a user to retrieve the text portion of pages, including the links to other pages. This utility is called "Lynx", not to be confused with the utility that handles .lnx files on the C=. Thus, with Lynx the C= user has access to all the core data on web sites, even if he does miss some of the glamour that graphics provides. Are there many C= web pages? There seem to be a multitude of C= pages, each specializing in some aspect of the C= community, and each with LOTS of links to other pages. Yes, many of the links are redundant, but, as I mentioned earlier, this is the "Web" nature of World Wide Web which carries through the "no single thread" nature of the Internet architecture. I was amazed when I started exploring the Web a couple months ago at not only the number of C= pages, but at the diversity and quality of the offerings. It's truly exciting to start with a page or two and then explore the links in any manner that interests you. Can you list a few of your favorites? As I said, I actually just started to explore the Web pages, but here are some of the useful addresses (or pages) that I have found so far: http://www.msen.com/>brain/cbmlinks.html http://www-und.ida.liu.se/>q95henra/links.html http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/>e9426444/sidlinks.html http://www.hut.fi/>msmakela/cbm/cbm-users.html http://stekt.oulu.fi/>mysti/thesharks http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/>poing/english/padua/index.html Remember, all the sites listed contain links to many other sites. Is there anything like this conference room on the net where I can talk to some of my friends? Oh, yes.. One of the most amazing and useful (in my opinion) aspects of the net is the feature called "Internet Relay Chat" or IRC for short. It is much like the "rooms" here, but IRC is made up of hundreds of "channels" (same as rooms) with many thousands of users (11,000 people on 4,000 channels the last time I was on). One added aspect of IRC is that it is WORLDWIDE, like the net. You can meet and get to know C= users from Finland and Russia down to Australia and New Zealand and almost everywhere in between. There is far too much about IRC to describe here; but I wrote an article on IRC for Issue 10 of C= Hacking (part of it was also in Driven), available here on Genie, which goes into much of the information that a new user might be interested in. Is there a place for C= users to meet? Sure.. the channel is called #c-64. All you have to do is type " /join #c-64 " and " /who #c-64 " to join the channel and see who is on. That channel has become the accepted meeting place for almost all C= users around the world. There are also other special channels that are formed from time to time for group discussions or special topics, but #c-64 is always there and almost always active. I think the #c-64 channel on IRC has been a BIG factor in the continued existence, and even re- growth, of the C= scene. What if I don't have an IRC client on my shell acount? Well, the source code for IRC-II (the most common IRC client for Unix) is available on ftp.cs.bu. It can be d/l and compiled on your site. Or you can find a public IRC server and telnet to it. I covered this topic in my article in C= Hacking #10 available here on Genie. Is there anything like the bulliten board on Genie on the net where I can get help from other C= users or post messages? Yes there is. It's called Usenet, available on almost all provider sites. Usenet has thousands of topics and threads on almost any subject you can think of. And again, it is worldwide. I believe that Usenet is also available on Genie. If not, or if Usenet is not available on your ISP, you can still post messages to it through email. I don't remember the exact site.. but email me if you need the name and I will find it for you. (coolhand@kaiwan.com) EDITORS NOTE: You can get to the USENET Newsgroups through Genie, via Lynx or Gopher. A news server is still being worked on and may be open to general use. Please check with the Internet Helpdesk on page 1405;2 - Open 7 days 9pm - ? If I remember the email site it is comp-sys-cbm@cs.utexas.edu or comp.sys.cbm@news.demon.co.uk Your right, Eddie.. thanks.. :-) EDITORS NOTE: You must use " - " instead of " . " when using an email site. Also - CS.UTEXAS.EDU is no longer taking email to newsgroups. Are there any newsgroups for C= users? The two most popular newgroups for C= users are comp.sys.cbm (the most widespread and read) and comp.emulators.cbm which has a wealth of information on C= emulators for various platforms. There is a LOT of information passed on these newsgroups. They are well, worth following. How can I read the messages on these newsgroups? very carefully... there are several news readers available on most sites. I use "tin". That is one of the most popular. There are help files on most sites. :-) Is there anything else a C= user should know about or be able to access on the net ? I'm sure there is.. The net seems to be popping with surprises all the time. C= people can, of course, access and d/l all the issues of Driven, which usually contain an article or two on some feature of the Net. :-) Most of the sites I mentioned above have the Driven editions, I think. Anyone is welcome to email me at coolhand@kaiwan.com also, and I will be glad to give you more information or email you some Drivens (end commercial). :-) Tim Phelps has a question I've read the Usenet post-by-e-mail has been discontinued. < Coolhand> at all sites? hmm I was not aware of that. well, all news reader allow you to post to the group OR send private email to the author of a post I'll have to look into that...any more questions? I'd like to thank Elwix and Coolhand for taking time out their busy schedules to join us here tonight. I hope that evereryone learned from the Inet info. thanks for asking me, Eddie... No problem, glad to spread the demo-mania ;) As I mentioned to you coolhand, the usenet post-by-emial at cs.utexas.edu has been shut down Anyone interested in seeing 'demos', they are available in library #18. Is the uk site still up, Tim? I haven't tried it. Eddie, good questions! Coolhand, thanks and I've "captured" all of this to print out and re-read. Thanks again to both of you. Where are the Driven's Eddie? In Library #18