HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Phenomena egos??
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:55:36 PST
Organization: TAP

Quoted from <1dj1sqINNetk@gap.caltech.edu> by keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider):

> >The Amiga has probably the best downward-compatibility of any computer...
> 
> That's because so little has changed... besides, somehow I doubt that
> the demos (which emply many hardware tricks) will work so well on the
> A4000.  Many of them won't even run on my 3000...

    Er, you're talking about _upward_ compatibility.

> No, I'm just saying that most people are not programming in machine
> code any longer, due to the popularity and versatility of the Unix
> machines.

    Most people around here who program in C aren't doing it because
    of the popularity and versatility of the Unix machines. In fact,
    I think Unix sucks (well, it doesn't suck, it's just creaky) for
    many kinds of program development, unless you also happen to have
    access to a lot of tools, and I'm a C programmer (Unix, MS-DOS,
    Amiga).

> be made.  OF course, if you write in a high level language, you can port
> your program no matter what happens to the hardware (with a few
> modifications).

    And your program is less amazing. In the case of demos, there is
    no need to care about portability, so why bother? As long as you
    accept that, the rest of this argument about high level language
    programming is just wasted air, because assembler will always be
    necessary on the target platform for quality results. If you're
    willing to give up quality because of the portability myth,
    well...

> keith
--
*** John Bickers, TAP.                   jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
***    "Radioactivity - It's in the air, for you and me" - Kraftwerk    ***
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: west@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Bruce West)
Subject: LAST TIME!!! PLEASE RESPOND!  (Hardwired demo)
Organization: University of North Texas, Denton
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 12:48:27 GMT

   I just got my HardWaired demo -- "one of the best ever".  I have an
A3000/25 with all kinds of mem.  And I have the latest version of degrader.
I did max degrading (except for changing mem addresses, don't know what to
plug in).  I got THIS MESSAGE:


                        THIS DEMO DON'T LIKE AXEL  

   What the hell does this mean??!  I've heard of others with A600s with
2.04 getting this to work, so I guess it can't be my system software.
And I should be able to degrade my 030.  So what's the deal?  I also have
a 2000 with new agnus.  But that thing is sorta messed up right now so I
wouldn't trust it.



IDEAS??  Anyone get this to work?  And what are some *AWESOME* demos I can
get to run on my computer?  SOME must work on an A3000.



Please respond, thanks in advance.


Ciao.....


                                              - Jason

ps:  Respond here - not by mail, my account is messes up. ;) 
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: jms1086@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: Questions....
Reply-To: jms1086@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 06:11:52 GMT

Arson?!?! My god..They're still around?? One of thier old musicians 
lived near me... If fact, I'll probably call him over Thanksgiving...
Geesh... They are still around.... Man.. Thats cool....

					-Garion
From: olavka@ifi.uio.no (Olav Lur}s Kalgraf)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Date: 5 Nov 92 08:53:37 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Originator: olavka@sognsvann.ifi.uio.no


In article <1992Nov4.171353.19761@news2.cis.umn.edu>, schwamb@whale.micro.umn.edu (Peter William Schwamb) writes:
> In <1992Nov4.064022.13680@ntg.com> ewhac@ntg.com (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
> 
>   <much deleted>
> >	Anyway.  I want to learn.  If someone could direct me to examples of
> >filled vectors, copper plasma, starfields, et al, so I can craft my own
> >stuff, I'd greatly appreciate it.
> 
> Same here.  I don't want to 'cut and paste' it, just learn different
> techniques.
> 
> >	Many thanks.
> 

Hey you guys! You forget something.... Some of the fun with coding
is trying fo figure such things out by yourself(atleast I think so).
The satisfaction of seeing a demo work is so much higher if it is
actually your algorithms that do the job =).
(Or, if you are really stuck. Deassemble some other code.)
I mean, it's really too easy just copying other peoples work.

		-=Olav Kalgraf=-
From: Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Phenomena egos??
Distribution: world
Date: 9 Nov 92 02:36:01 CST
Organization: The Amiga GateWay BBS * New Orleans, La.

In a message dated Sat  7 Nov 92 19:56, Keith@cco.caltech.edu (keith Allan 
wrote:

 KA> Once you realize that portability and not size and speed optimization
 KA> is the emphasis, you will see why no one really bothers to write
 KA> demos anymore.  Again, what is the use writing such a thing (other
 KA> than to practice your machine code on a single machine) when it will
 KA> be useless in but a few years?
Aesthetic gratification?

I find demos to be, when done well, a sort of computer art. I mean, you've
got graphics, you've got music, you've got slick algorithms producing
spiffy effects... It's a multimedia exTRAvaganza! And all done for, well,
for the hell of it.

 KA> So, you can have your machine code, making the neatest demos around.
 KA> But don't come screaming in here when you find that your demos aren't
 KA> compatible with the new chip set or another new hardware feature.
Who's bitching about demos dying on the AGA? Nobody in this thread...
People are only bitching about C= not releasing the info we'd need to push
the AGA as hard as the old chipset's been pushed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody writes in assembly. Portability is the wave of the
future. Everybody should write things that are useful. If it runs too slow,
just buy a heftier CPU.
You know... this kind of attitude is /completely/ in opposition to the
attitude of anyone who's going to be writing a demo. If you think demos are
a thing of the past, and are written with utterly wrong ideas about
programming methodologies... what the hell are you doing reading this
group?

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

- be zorch, daddi-o --------------- paul (raccoon) trauth ----------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet -> paul_trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US        \\\///\\\///\\\
Usenet   -> rex!agwbbs!paul_trauth                      \\\///\\\///\\\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  "eagles may fly, but a weasel will never get sucked into a jet engine"
From: Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Movie demos
Distribution: world
Date: 7 Nov 92 18:14:10 CST
Organization: The Amiga GateWay BBS * New Orleans, La.

In a message dated Sat  7 Nov 92 16:23, Clueless@bradley.edu (matthew Simmo
wrote:

 CS> Are there any demos out there which simulate what computers do in
 CS> movies? 
 CS> You know, like in Patriot Games, when they're in CIA HQ in Langley,
 CS> when the
 CS> computer sitting behind Jack is busily putting text and graphs and
 CS> maps on
 CS> the screen, generally looking busy and impressive, but in all
 CS> probability
 CS> doing nothing?
...Dig out The Director. One of the sample animations included was a
"do-nothing" like that... it included a pre-rendered rotating 3d object,
strange sounds, randomized graphics, etc.
Actually, several of the earlier Director animations are kind of in this
style. "Probe", "RGB Hazard", "Alien View", etc, are all "high-tech"
looking, in a twisted sort of way.

But i haven't seen a Eurodemo version of this sorta thing...

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

- be zorch, daddi-o --------------- paul (raccoon) trauth ----------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet -> paul_trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US        \\\///\\\///\\\
Usenet   -> rex!agwbbs!paul_trauth                      \\\///\\\///\\\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  "eagles may fly, but a weasel will never get sucked into a jet engine"
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: marvil@lysator.liu.se (Martin Vilcans)
Subject: Re: Writing a StarField. Which method is best?
Organization: Lysator Academic Computer Society, Linkoping University, Sweden
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 19:34:13 GMT

larshaug@ifi.uio.no (Lars Haugseth) writes:


>	move.l	a7,SAVEA7
>	lea	$1000.w,a7

Hey, DON'T DO THAT! You will probably destroy some OS structures or buffers.
If you really want to create your own stack for some reason, do it like this:

	move.l a7,savea7
	lea	stacke,a7
	.
	.
	.
	section stack,data
stack:
	ds.b	stacksize	;A few hundred bytes is more than enough for
				;assembler programs
stacke:
From: Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Phenomena egos??
Distribution: world
Date: 11 Nov 92 11:14:32 CST
Organization: The Amiga GateWay BBS * New Orleans, La.

In a message dated Tue 10 Nov 92 10:59, Browder@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (chip Bro
wrote:
 BB>   Where 6 and 7 will take a while to fill up. I'd be willing to bet
 BB> though
 BB>  that there are a lot of small, never heard from groups that just
 BB> haven't
 BB>  had enough motivation to actually create anything. Perhaps the AC
 BB> will
 BB>  help to force these guys out of the woodwork. Surely most of them do
 BB> not
 BB>  have internet access.
Quite true. I'm the artist of Ducksoft, a mostly theoretical programming
team. (2 musicians, 1 artist, everybody codes...) I've done a few fragments
of stuff, some of which has seeped out into the world, most of which stays
on my disks in unfinished, semi-buggy form. (like my blob routine...) We
also didn't exist back on the C64, for which i've got a couple 1541 disks
full of my strange source. (including what i called the 'bouncy scroll'.
KIND of like a sine scroll, but not quite.)
If we ever DO release anything (and something like a !Euro Chart just
/might/ help motivate us) it'll most likely be very silly, as we're all
silly people...

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

- be zorch, daddi-o --------------- paul (raccoon) trauth ----------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet -> paul_trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US        \\\///\\\///\\\
Usenet   -> rex!agwbbs!paul_trauth                      \\\///\\\///\\\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  "eagles may fly, but a weasel will never get sucked into a jet engine"
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: pjunold@daimi.aau.dk (Peter Joachim Unold)
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 14:26:12 GMT

mknip@niksula.hut.fi (Mats Anders Knip) writes:

>   >> For example - let's imagine you have got a 1000-pixel wide bitmap that
>   >> you want to scroll from left to right. On the PC, each frame you copy
>   >> 200*320 (= 64k) bytes from memory to the graphics-handler (right?),
>   >> which takes a LOT of CPU time. You can't even make a 50hz scroll on a 
>   >> slower PC. (the C64 could do that...poor work, PC-designers!)

>  >Ah, but the C64 could only do it on a character mapped screen.
>  >Try it with the bitmap mode!


>So? That's exactly what I was trying to explain. When scrolling a
>c64-char-screen there are 1000 bytes to be moved, on the VGA there are
>64000. Besides, if scrolling at 1pix/frame the moves only had to
>be made every 8th frame on the c64 because of the (surprise)
>finescroll register. The PC has no finescroll register -> scrolling
>is a pain in the ass. If it had, everybody would be happy.

Not true. You can easily do smooth scrolling under VGA using pixel panning.
No prob at all. Coding a 8-way scroller under PC can be done too, without you
having to update/move the whole screen. Only few PC coders know it, coz they 
are still accessing the hardware thru lame highlevel libraries/languages. I
guess it's time for some amiga freaks to takeover in the PC world.


 -peter unold
   pjunold@daimi.aau.dk
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: shogun@DIALix.oz.au (Matthew Fitzgerald)
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Organization: DIALix Services, Perth, Western Australia
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 92 01:02:59 GMT

Mahoney & Kaktus are my heroes!!  God they make me laugh!


Matt (Onodi/Epsilon)
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: Phenomena egos??
Date: 11 Nov 1992 22:03:34 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth) writes:

>In a message dated Sat  7 Nov 92 19:56, Keith@cco.caltech.edu (keith Allan 
>wrote:

That's Keith Allan SCHNEIDER, by the way...

> KA> Once you realize that portability and not size and speed optimization
> KA> is the emphasis, you will see why no one really bothers to write
> KA> demos anymore.  Again, what is the use writing such a thing (other
> KA> than to practice your machine code on a single machine) when it will
> KA> be useless in but a few years?

>Aesthetic gratification?

>I find demos to be, when done well, a sort of computer art. I mean, you've
>got graphics, you've got music, you've got slick algorithms producing
>spiffy effects... It's a multimedia exTRAvaganza! And all done for, well,
>for the hell of it.

> KA> So, you can have your machine code, making the neatest demos around.
> KA> But don't come screaming in here when you find that your demos aren't
> KA> compatible with the new chip set or another new hardware feature.

>Who's bitching about demos dying on the AGA? Nobody in this thread...
>People are only bitching about C= not releasing the info we'd need to push
>the AGA as hard as the old chipset's been pushed.

>Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody writes in assembly. Portability is the wave of the
>future. Everybody should write things that are useful. If it runs too slow,
>just buy a heftier CPU.
>You know... this kind of attitude is /completely/ in opposition to the
>attitude of anyone who's going to be writing a demo. If you think demos are
>a thing of the past, and are written with utterly wrong ideas about
>programming methodologies... what the hell are you doing reading this
>group?

What?  I think the demos are great.  I just wouldn't want to write one.
My whole point was to defend the fact that no Americans write these demos.
My points were (1) there are very few Amigas in the US and (2) very few
people write in machine language anymore.  The demos that are written
tend to be for multiple platforms (such as QuickTime things).

Believe me, I think there is immense talent required to write these demos.
I've seen some that do amazing thins yet take up very little space (and
these together are the what everyone is trying to do--maximize functionality
vs. size (or whatever)).

However, given the fact that there are nearly equal numbers of Macs,
IMBs and Unix boxes here (with no Amigas to be seen), please don't 
wonder too hard or long why no Americans write Amiga demos.

keith

Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: judd@wilkinson.cs.colorado.edu (Stephen Judd)
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Organization: Universtiy of Coloardo, Boulder
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 00:49:42 GMT

In article <MKNIP.92Nov5110420@silver-surfer.hut.fi> mknip@niksula.hut.fi (Mats Anders Knip) writes:
>>	   More generally, has any source code to demos ever been released?
>
>
>> I'm particularly interested in filled vector demos.  The only code I've
>> successfully reverse-engineered was some starfield code from the group
>
>routine is a very complex thing, and nothing that should be disassembled
>by an absolute beginner. You wouldn't understand half of it. First get
>some experience of 3D programming by doing 3D-lines. To do filled
>vectors you must really understand 3D.
>
>>   Anyway.  I want to learn.  If someone could direct me to examples of
>>   filled vectors, copper plasma, starfields, et al, so I can craft my own
>>   stuff, I'd greatly appreciate it.
>
>Copper plasma and starfields are really easy to do. Try to get somebody
>who is more experienced than you to explain how they work, and then
>try to do the routines yourself. The hard way is always the best way
>in the beginning.
>Filled vectors are by no means difficult, but getting them fast is
>another thing. Still, filled vectors shouldn't perhaps be the first

This is of course not a flame, but are you aware of who you are talking to?
You are talking to Leo Schwab!  He is THE original Amiga hacker!  He wrote
a whole bunch of hacks you might have seen (like !esuom).  He wrote one of the
earliest Amiga demos I saw, a very funny thing called Marketroid.  I still
have it, and it still makes me laugh.  Finally, he is the one who wrote
the Disney Animation Studio.  He is one of my heros, along with Jim
Butterfield.

So I don't think you are talking to "an absolute beginner"! :-)

					-Steve

> *=-------------------------------------------------------=*=----------------=*
> *          E-Mail:   mknip@niksula.cs.hut.fi              *                  *
> *   Helsinki University of Technology /                   *                  *

--
judd@colorado.edu   //  FORTRAN is God's Language.
                  \X/
From: umage@mcl.ucsb.edu (Slender Fungus)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Re: stupid american question #1
Date: 6 Nov 92 19:28:28 GMT

In <Paul_Trauth.0yqx@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US> Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth) writes:
>And the American programmers often seem to be much
>more Serious Programmers -- you know, the kind of people who actually
>-enjoy- writing accounting software? :-)

	 
		YOU TAKE THAT BACK!   RIGHT NOW!!
 
	


	double :-)
--
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: gnort@daimi.aau.dk (Lars Balker Rasmussen)
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 20:31:39 GMT

marvil@lysator.liu.se (Martin Vilcans) writes:

>Just a note to everyone: Plasma is not the same thing on PC and Amiga.
>On the PC, plasma is a just a still picture (often with colour cycling),
>similar to fractals, not something real time animated. On the Amiga, plasma
>is a raster effect, changing the colours lots of times on the screen.

It is a historical note of interest of course, that the first plasma demo on
the Amiga (not too sure about the name, 'Plasma World' sounds correct) by
Danish group Humanoids' coder Alien, was in fact 'born' when he saw a fractal
colour cycle on a IBM PS/2 back when we were in high school together. He
thought it looked great and went home to see if it was possible to do some-
thing like that on the Amiga. Rather crude-looking by the end of that years
(1990... or 1989 ;) standards, but still a revolution. 

Gnort of Upfront

PS:  Just thought I'd remind you which group made the first smooth plasma ;)
     Of course we got a tendency to make too many of them per demo....
PPS: Alien has technically been a member of Upfront for somewhat close to two
     years, but he doesn't code anymore.
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: mjbrown@lonestar.utsa.edu (Marc J. Brown)
Subject: Re: Phenomena egos??
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 20:21:02 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.151927.21180@lth.se> d90mj@efd.lth.se (Maarten Johansson) writes:
>In article <1992Nov7.044209.25592@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> mjbrown@lonestar.utsa.edu (Marc J. Brown) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov6.093758.20621@lth.se> d90mj@efd.lth.se (Maarten Johansson) writes:
>
>A top-five chart is enough to produce an interest.
>There are few reasons why you code a demo:
>
>* To help yourself learning how to code,
>* To enter and maybe win a democompo,
>* To get some reaction from others in the demoworld,
>* To reach the top demos on the charts,

You forgot:
* Self-gratification
:)

>The Lame ones are important if you want to spread your
>things and to pay the entrancefees.

Oh, I thought that "Lame," in this case, referred to people who only
complain about demos/incompatibilities [instead of forking overe the measly
$250 it takes to get an A500 with 100% compatibility].

>I'm SO SORRY that you americans out there didn't like my points in the
>beginning of this session. My idea was to start a discussion, not to
>make you upset.

Well, I'm not upset.  I personally like it when I see more then ten messages
to read in .amiga.demos :).

>I don't think it's arrogant to say that you never have made a mistake,
>because you don't have to make any it you are careful enough.

This is true...

>I have heard about a group called Enigma before and there exist people
>who find it very amusing to point out that Enigma has made a demo
>called Phenomena, which they never have.

Hmm...never heard of 'em.  Have they done anything worth watching? :)

 _____________  ________ __  ____  __  ______                                _
<__  _    _  //\\  __  // / / _  >/  \ \  ___> "Nan desu ka!? Kore.." -Ren_ //
   \ \\  // //  \\ \< << <_/ // __ <\ \_> >    mjbrown@lonestar.utsa.edu  \X/
 () \/ \/ \//____\\/ \/ \___/<_/  \_>\___/ ()  of M==E==G==A==W==A==T==T==S

Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: clueless@bradley.edu (Matthew Simmons)
Subject: Re: x-specs demos?
Organization: J. Random Misconfigured Site
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 20:53:50 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
X-Posted-From: cs1.bradley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Carsten S|rensen (u920659@daimi.aau.dk) wrote:
: clueless@bradley.edu (Matthew Simmons) writes:
: 
: >Boy Wonder (bubblz@ecst.csuchico.edu) wrote:
: >: Well, I can tell you where I got mine.  My roomates went to a 3-D Porno movie
: >: here in Chico, California, and the theatre was giving them out.  So, if you
: >: want to spend alot of $$$ to get a piece of cardboard and plastic, come on 
: >: down to Chico and watch a 3D Porno!!!  (Gives new meaning to the phrase
: >: "Cumming at you") :-)
: >Unfortunately, X-Specs are not just pieces of plastic and cardboard.  They
: >are goggles that fit over your eye, and have lcd shutters for each eye. 
: >The shutters oscillate between transparent and opaque 30 times a second, and
: >while the left one is opaque, the right is transparent... So all the software
: >has to do is alternate images 30 times/sec and provide the right images and
: >you'll see stuff in full color, flickery 3d.
: >
: >That's how it works in NTSC land, I'm assuming it would be every 25th of 
: >a second over in PAL.
: 
: Well the xspecs you need to watch the "3rd Dimension" is the ones made out of
: cardboard and plastic (red and green)
: 
: >: -Jason
: 
: Carsten
: 
Well, then they're not x-specs.... They're just plain 3d glasses....


						clueless@cs1.bradley.edu

Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Organization: University of Maine System
Date: Tuesday, 10 Nov 1992 09:22:12 EST
From: <IO92257@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
Subject: Need a Graphix man? Here he is!




Does any group out there need a decent graphics-man?
My brother does some pretty slick, future-art of
aliens, people, swords, all kinds of stuff! I've
seen some demos that could really USE a good bit
of art!  If anyone is interested, just tell me
where to FTP the files!
Sincerly,
Cutter
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.demos
From: mortene@Lise.Unit.NO (Morten Eriksen)
Subject: Re: Music and Code from Demos
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 09:02:07 GMT

>Mahoney & Kaktus are my heroes!!  God they make me laugh!
>Matt (Onodi/Epsilon)

Yeah, they're (was) my heroes too! Couldn't somebody upload their stuff on a ftp-
site, please? So far I've haven't seen anything except His Master's Noise and
Nitropac. (And I've even heard rumours about Kaktus; he's on the net somewhere!)

Morten