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Demo News 135
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Subscribers : 2596
DemoNews 135 - 01 December 1996 Archive Size : 3672M
>------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents --
Introduction
Calendar
Top Downloads
New Uploads
Articles
Quickie Music Compos ........................ GD
How The Hornet Archive Works (part 1) ....... Snowman
Scene Predictions for 1997 .................. GD
General Information
>-------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction --
Hello all, and welcome to DemoNews.135.
_____Introduction
As you can probably tell already, I have modernized the format of this
newsletter a bit. Phoenix will probably be irritated (broke his DemoNews
reader again). However, I will not let this newsletter's expected
consistency stifle its creative enhancement.
This week I'm faced with a ton of little annoying problems. Imphobia
diskmags won't download correctly because of the '#' in the filenames.
Searching for ****+ and then changing detail levels breaks the output. The
/code directory still looks like crap (but getting better).
_____Yellow Alert
And then the problem that is not so little. We are running out of space,
much quicker than expected. Over the past week, we've averaged 15 megs of
new uploads per day. We have 64 megs free. Next weekend is going to be a
rather tense one I'm predicting.
Another drive failed on wcarchive (the one that held Windows '95 shareware).
There is no room left anywhere else on wcarchive for us to grow into. If you
use the Hornet Archive, this problem will affect you soon. I am declaring a
YELLOW ALERT!
Several options are now under consideration... action will be taken this week
so if you have any suggestions/opinions, voice them now.
_____Current Status
We need to free up at least several hundred megs in order to be effective.
Please note that the /music tree occupies more than 2/3rds of the entire
archive and is the prime target for reduction.
Files Average
Subdirectory Megs Cataloged Size
---------------------------------- --------- --------- ---------
/music 2333 7251 321k
/music/songs 1401 5936 236k
/music/songs (rated ** or lower) 537 2428 -
/music/songs (rated **+ or lower) 854 3621 -
/music/disks 614 513 1196k
/music/disks (rated ** or lower) 191 160 -
/music/disks (rated **+ or lower) 299 250 -
/ (total archive) 3657 10488 348k
Now here's a pretty number to look at : 29,262,912,000. That the number of
bits currently in use by HA. But I digress... (isn't it good to see that
I'm not totally depressed despite eminent doom?) :D
_____Action
Before we talk about _what_ files we're going to work with, let's first
discuss possible actions.
Action CDROM - Back up files offline to CDROM. Add a new tag in our database
that says "OFFLINE". Give users a chance to request offline files and post
them to a special directory every week or so. The initial workload for me
would be heavy but manageable. Assuming we could get a larger drive in the
future, files could be moved back online without too much difficulty.
Internally, the complexity of the archive will increase moderately.
Action Alternate - Create alternate storage locations on other archives
(probably on one or more of our mirrors). Add a new flag in our database
that changes references for files on different machines. Users could
continue to access all files on ftp.cdrom.com and the change, for the most
part, would be transparent.
New accounts would have to be created on the machines and the system
administrators might not be happy about the excessive storage they are
dedicating to us. We will be dependent on multiple machines and can not fix
problems nearly as easily when they occur. Internally, the complexity of the
archive will increase significantly.
Action Reassignment - Ask one of our mirrors to stop being a copy of our site
and give us that space for extended storage. This is the action we took last
time we ran out of room. It is also how we ended up at ftp.cdrom.com. In
practice, this will be nearly identical to Action Alternate.
Action Delete - This action is nonexistent. I will _not_ delete files. For
those of you who are old enough to remember, a travesty was committed in 1994
by taking this action.
_____Target
Fact : some files must be moved. There's nothing we can do about that.
Targeting music /disks and /songs rated ** and less would free up 728 megs.
Including files rated **+ would mean an additional 425 megs (for a total of
1153). Right now those are _very_ juicy numbers.
I know that not everyone is a big supporter of our ratings. I know that they
aren't always accurate. However, I think it's safe to say that a song is at
least within * or *+ of the real value... meaning that a song rated ** might
actually be **+, ***, or even ***+. But songs rated ** that really should be
**** are few and far between.
Unless I hear a better argument, we are going to target music disks and songs
rated ** and under, cataloged at least 2 months ago.
_____One Option That Won't Work
Some of you are probably thinking, "Why not just buy another drive for
wcarchive?" This is what would be required:
- 3.5" Quantum Atlas-2 Ultra Wide SCSI-3 hard drive (we're out of drive
slots and must go to higher capacity). These are currently $1650 and
won't even be available for another 2 weeks.
- Airplane ticket for David Greenman to fly down from Oregon and install the
drive.
Now unless one of you is willing to donate $2000, adding a new drive is not
an option.
_____Conclusion
So there you have it. The problem. Several possible solutions. Tune in
next week for the exciting conclusion. T-64 megs and counting...
Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@hornet.org
>------------------------------------------------------------------ Calendar --
Date Event Location Contact Points
------------ ------------ --------- -----------------------------------------
09 Nov 1996 Gravity Poland losiu@p26.f8.n484.z2.fidonet.org
22 Nov 1996 Demolition2 Finland mpiirone@lut.fi
www.hut.fi/~jhheinon/demolition.html
CANCELED! Demobit Slovakia demobit@elf.stuba.sk
internet.sk/demobit/english.htm
CANCELED! Tesko UK party@tesko.demon.co.uk
* <-- YOU ARE HERE
09 Dec 1996 Movement Israel civax@kinneret.com
27 Dec 1996 The Party 6 Denmark theparty@vip.cybercity.dk
www.theparty.dk
21 Mar 1997 Mekka Germany amable@aol.com
22 Aug 1997 AntIQ Hungary aboy@ttk.jpte.hu
www.jpte.hu/~aboy
>------------------------------------------------------------- Top Downloads --
This represents combined ftp/http transfers for the last 7 days.
Total files downloaded : 166,446
Size of files downloaded : 27,120,396k
Times File Description
----- -------------------------------- --------------------------------------
-- /demos ------------------------------------------------------------------>
200 /1995/a/animate.zip ASM95:in4k:01: Animate by Schwartz
183 /1995/n/nooon_st.zip ASM95:demo:01: Stars (bugfixed) by
| Nooon
153 /1993/s/symbolog.zip TP93::: Symbology by Admire
150 /1993/0-9/2ndreal1.lzh [1/2] ASM93:demo:01: Second Reality by
| Future Crew
141 /1993/0-9/2ndreal2.lzh [2/2] ASM93:demo:01: Second Reality by
| Future Crew
139 /1993/u/unreal11.zip Unreal v1.1 by Future Crew
124 /1996/a/ai_strok.zip ASM96:in4k:04: Stroke by Ionic of
| Astroidea
122 /1996/m/machines.a01 [2/3] ASM96:demo:01: Machines of
| Madness by Dubius
119 /1996/m/machines.a02 [3/3] ASM96:demo:01: Machines of
| Madness by Dubius
118 /1996/m/machines.arj [1/3] ASM96:demo:01: Machines of
| Madness by Dubius
-- /music ------------------------------------------------------------------>
75 /disks/1996/f/fc-trib1.zip [1/2] Future Crew Tribute by Various
| Artists
70 /disks/1996/f/fc-trib2.zip [2/2] Future Crew Tribute by Various
| Artists
70 /songs/1995/s3m/a/aryx.zip Aryx by K. Koch
61 /songs/1996/xm/r/rdx-sars.zip Sarsippus' Ark by Radix
60 /songs/1996/xm/r/rdx-peek.zip Peekaboo by Radix
57 /songs/1996/s3m/a/athought.zip Another Night of Thought by Zastar
54 /songs/1995/s3m/c/ctgoblin.zip ASM95:mmul:01: Catch That Goblin by
| Skaven
52 /songs/1994/s3m/chariot.zip Chariots of Fire by HMW
52 /songs/1991/mod/florence.zip Florence by Audiomonster
51 /songs/1992/mod/beyond.zip Beyond Music by Captain
-- /graphics --------------------------------------------------------------->
28 /images/1996/a/abc_land.zip Landing by Storm
19 /images/1996/i/impcybor.zip MEK96:grfx:01: Cyborg by BenJ
19 /images/1996/a/abc_pien.zip Pani Pienkowa by Grass
19 /images/1994/i/incest5.zip ASM94:grfx:XX: Incest by Pentalysion
18 /images/1996/a/airwar.zip OZ96:grfx:02: Air War by Grape
17 /images/1996/m/mystic.zip SAT96B:grtc:??: Mystical by Madman
16 /programs/vector/akm-mm10.zip Master Modeler 1.0 by Arkham
15 /programs/vector/3dedb09.lzh 3D Polygon Editor
15 /images/1996/a/alienba.zip PS96:grtc:03: Alien Base by Mado
15 /images/1996/a/aa_image.zip PS96:grfx:XX: GetImage by EdoUno
-- /code ------------------------------------------------------------------->
180 /effects/3d/3dtext.arj Pr Textmode Texture Mapping,Plasma,
| and 3D by Joker of Crusaders
127 /effects/blobs/blobs.zip Ar Dancing Blobs Effect by TH : Just a
| random effect, poor code.
109 /effects/tunnel/araidsrc.zip APr Source for Tunnel Effect by
| PlastiikkiPaketti of
| Skraappa!Skruuppi : used in
| Stars/Nooon and Paimen/Coma, Doesn't
| explain the algorithm, not very
| optimized, low resolution
81 /demosrc/pumpsrc.arj CPA Pump by Iguana
79 /demosrc/plp_smth.zip A Smooth Motion 4KB Intro by Kimmy of
| Pulp
74 /demosrc/dfc-3src.zip A Hallucinogen BBS Intro III by Remdy
59 /graph/t1-svga1.zip
57 /graph/fh-3dt18.zip
57 /demosrc/free_src.zip CA The Freedom CD Intro (source) by
| Kneebiter of Threesome
54 /demosrc/hobb1src.zip A Hobbit BBS Intro by Master of
| Darkness of Deathstar
-- /incoming --------------------------------------------------------------->
142 /code/azr_bump.zip
102 /WIR96/in64/paper.zip
81 /WIR96/demo/rox_rf.zip
77 /CAC96B/demo/ai_mutha.zip
72 /code/pmw131.zip
71 /music/songs/xm/1forever.zip
71 /demos/faith.zip
65 /demos/elf-drmf.zip
64 /demos/o_solex.zip
64 /SAT96B/in64/cob.zip
>--------------------------------------------------------------- New Uploads --
All ratings are subjective.
Filename Size Rated Description
------------------------------- ---- ----- ----------------------------------
-- /code ------------------------------------------------------------------->
/demosrc/asciisrc.zip 64 **** AC Source for Text-Mode Demo
/demosrc/chiparus.zip 12 **+ A Chiparus BBS Intro
/demosrc/itp_src.zip 689 ***+ P Into The Pentagram
/demosrc/tdm-code.zip 59 *** A Tedium by Oxygen
-- /music ------------------------------------------------------------------>
/songs/1994/s3m/infinity.zip 137 *** ASM94:mmul:??: Infinity by Necros,
| Khyron
/songs/1995/s3m/d/december.zip 292 **** December by Necros
-- /party ------------------------------------------------------------------>
/pictures/mek96pix.zip 2986 MEK96::: Mekka '96 Pictures
>------------------------------------------------------------------ Articles --
---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
:: "Quickie Music Compos"
:: GD / Hornet - gd@hornet.org
_____Introduction
Ever since the fall 1995 emergence of "20mc" (20-minute chipcompo) on IRC
channel #trax, QMCs (quickie music compos) are springing up all the time.
This would be more logical if each new compo were somehow better than the one
that came before it, but that's not even the case.
Since "20mc," there have been QMCs like the Zyzzx compo, Impromptu compo, The
Trackering, Cruelization, Crap compo, and AnotherCompo, as well as all the
others I've thankfully forgotten about.
These compos typically have a very bad set of samples which all entrants must
use, and a time limit for composing of anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 weeks.
In the end the compos produce a collection of poorly written music.
_____Entering
To enter one of these compos, a person first gets the compo rules. These
rules will tell about the samples which are used, when the compo is, what
IRC channel it is held on, and so on. After the samples are passed out,
participants race off to track whatever they possibly can before the
deadline.
They submit their tunes. Often, entering also requires voting. The person
hosting the compo releases a "vote pack." Voters then download the vote pack
and vote on the songs.
_____Voting
Now, since these songs were slapped together in a limited amount of time,
they're certainly nothing spectacular. Bad samples, noisy loops, unpolished
tracking, and sometimes intentionally annoying entries are the rule instead
of the exception. Save for a few gems entered by scene veterans, these songs
will give any sane person a feeling not unlike a hangover.
Regardless of the overall quality, the voters listen to these songs, write
their votes, and send them in.
_____The Problem
Ok, here's where the big problem comes in. This whole QMC sort of thing is
fine. And, it can even be fun. But these compos happen almost every week.
As a result, people are tracking bad music, listening to bad music, and
pretty soon, it's all they do. Either they only enter these compos, or when
they try tracking a song for something else, it's garbage.
Pretty soon, they're into a groove. Get the samples, track as quickly as
possible, enter their song, vote, repeat process. This is very unproductive
for the music scene. I designate such actions with a large "L" - and I
think that explains itself.
Some people write songs, upload them, and complain when they get low ratings.
Often, these songs have been thrown together in a very short time, perhaps
three hours or less. That's simply not enough time to write a decent song.
These people have been disillusioned by the QMC way!
This whole notion of "fast" composing has undoubtedly been spawned by these
quickie compos. Did you know that Necros spent over 40 hours on just *one*
song for his "Progression" musicdisk? And it shows.
_____The Cure
A cure for this? It's not likely anyone will listen, but I do have an idea.
Entering such a compo is not a bad thing. However, most people enter them
far too often and base their entire scene existence around it. People even
*upload* some of their QMC songs to ftp sites! What a waste of resources.
I would suggest entering one of these compos only every few months at the
most. Get a taste of the rest of the scene sometime. The rest of the time,
track some music that you can spend some quality time working on. And don't
listen to QMC music all the time. Listen to other tracked music, as well
as real-life music (you know, the kind that comes on tapes or CDs).
So, you track a QMC song. Fine, but once the compo is over, delete it!
Otherwise, you will develop bad tracking habits and your music will suffer.
Just think of all the Five Musicians or Jeroen Tel music you could have on
your hard drive instead. :D
_____Conclusion
In my opinion, frequent IRC tracking compos are unproductive and detrimental
to the scene. This causes some musicians to wonder why they are rated so
poorly.
Anyone can write a song in one hour, and just about everyone does. Try
doing something different for a change. You may even be surprised at the
results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
:: "How The Hornet Archive Works (part 1)"
:: Snowman / Hornet - r3cgm@hornet.org
_____Introduction
Many people have asked me how the Hornet Archive really works. This is a
topic I find utterly fascinating and have been known to ramble on at length
about (as other Hornet members will testify).
Some of you out there are probably just content to know that the archive
works... don't care how... and that's ok! Keep using the archive for what it
was intended and ignore the mechanics.
But for those who want the gory details, read on! This series should satisfy
your curiosity. Let the rambling begin. :)
_____Hornet Archive - Why?
The Hornet Archive is a centralized location of files and information for the
collective community we call the "demo scene". The term "demo scene" in this
context includes all principal subsets: music, graphics, code, and
organization.
There are those who would put forth the notion that the music subset of the
scene is now its own separate entity. I do not believe this propaganda. If
you track, you're a part of the demo scene. Even if you _only_ track and
couldn't give a rat's ass about demos, you're still part of the demo scene. I
could write an entire editorial on this alone, but it's a topic for another
day.
In a nutshell, the scene needs a place to put stuff. We provide it.
_____Hornet Archive - What?
Hornet Archive resides on a machine known as wcarchive.cdrom.com. This
machine is owned by Walnut Creek CDROM. Wcarchive has many other archives,
including: Simtel DOS/WIN, Hobbes OS/2, iD Games, Project Gutenberg, CICA,
Povray, Sunsite, Slackware Linux, FreeBSD, etc.
Wcarchive is a P6-150 with 512Mb of RAM and 72Gb of disk space running
FreeBSD 2.1.6.1-RELEASE. Bandwidth-wise, wcarchive uses 2.5 T3's. If it had
to, it could sustain a transfer rate of 13500k/sec. Compare that to 3k/s of
a normal modem or even 180k/s of a T1.
HA is plagued by Sprint and MCI. Although we have tremendous bandwidth, many
outbound routes are very slow due to S&M's total lameness. If you want to see
just how bad your connection is, try typing "traceroute wcarchive.cdrom.com"
from any standard Unix OS prompt. Chances are that the slowdown occurs at
some intermediate point, not at our site.
Another challenge facing HA is a faulty dual-PCI-channel motherboard. This
causes the system to lock and reboot at random times (not a good thing). A
replacement motherboard is scheduled to be installed late this year or early
next.
Wcarchive can easily accommodate 1200 simultaneous ftp users. This is
because we are running FreeBSD and not a Windows variant. Windows networking
performance (even under NT 4.0) is just embarrassing against a similar
machine running a Unix-based OS.
David Greenman is directly responsible for the general health of wcarchive.
He is the principal architect of FreeBSD (meaning he's the head coder).
Without a doubt, he is one of the most technically proficient Unix guru's I
have ever met. He is also owner of the domain "root.com".
_____Hornet Archive - Where?
Hornet Archive is located in sunny San Francisco, California, United States
of America. It is kept downtown in a high security building. How high is
that security? You must call a day ahead of time and make an appointment to
have an escort meet you at the door and remain with you the entire time you
are there.
A few times a year, David flies down from Oregon and works directly on
wcarchive (replacing hardware, etc). I once accompanied him. That was the
first and only time I have actually seen wcarchive.
Physically wcarchive is a lonely machine, kept on the floor in an otherwise
empty room. The tower that houses wcarchive would probably crush your
desktop if you attempted to put it there. Next to the tower is a rack where
two rows of drives are mounted (16 of them if I remember correctly). On the
bottom row, third from the left, is the Hornet Archive. Seems kind of funny
when you think about it that way, huh?
_____Hornet Archive - Who?
Hornet the _group_ maintains the Hornet Archive. 5 of our 8 members work
directly with the archive.
Snowman / Hornet - I am officially in charge of the archive. My roles
include development and maintenance of the interface (both ftp and http),
fixing file permissions and problems, and releasing this newsletter. On rare
occasions, I review and move files myself. I have been doing this, in one
form or another, since 21 January 1994 (DemoNews.028 time period).
My involvement with the demo scene led to my employment at Walnut Creek CDROM
in January of 1995, owners of wcarchive. I live in Concord, California
(about 1 hour drive from San Francisco) and have a T1 directly to the
archive.
Phoenix / Hornet - Phoenix is in charge of demos and parties. He is
responsible for the timely creation and removal of all /incoming party
directories. Phoenix joined Hornet at NAID earlier this year specifically
for this role. He currently resides in New York.
Jtown / Hornet - Jtown is in charge of music. This is difficult task
considering the tremendous amount of activity the music section of our
archive gets. He has a dedicated team of music reviewers that help get files
rated. Jtown is the most recent addition to our group, having joined only a
couple of months ago. He currently resides in New York and attends the same
University as Phoenix.
GD / Hornet - GD is in charge of both graphics and diskmags. He is also one
of the Music Contest organizers, an active writer for this newsletter, and a
general purpose work-machine for all other sorts of tasks. GD joined Hornet
in January of 1995 and currently resides in New York.
Stony / Hornet - Stony is in charge of graphics for the web-interface of our
archive. He also occasionally writes party reports for DemoNews. Stony
joined Hornet in 1994 to help with the cover art for our Escape CD. He
currently resides in Holland.
_____Hornet Archive - How?
That will be the topic of following articles in this series.
_____Conclusion
That's a brief overview of the Hornet Archive. I didn't get to talk about
how this thing actually works but at least you got some of the background
info down.
Next edition I'll talk about what exactly happens to files once you upload
them to /incoming. Stay tuned!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
:: "Scene Predictions for 1997"
:: GD / Hornet - gd@hornet.org
_____Introduction
As the scene prepares for its last big demoparty of the year, TP96, one could
look back and try to summarize all that has happened in the scene over the
past year. However, I prefer to think about what might be ahead.
_____Demos
File space is currently very limited on the demo archive. However, the
influx of uploads is sure to continue. While dangerous and highly illegal,
it may be appropriate to hire a "hitman" to "take care of" some frequent
uploaders, particularly those that think 5-megabyte XMs are "the best."
Non-party demos will become less spectacular, while party demos will get
better. And maybe we'll start seeing more original effects too! Music in
demos will be about the same quality or even worse in the coming year.
_____Music
A DOS-based module player will be released or updated with strong support of
the .IT module format. Scream Tracker and the .S3M format will gradually
become more obsolete.
Modules will of course continue to grow individually in size, but I certainly
hope there are less frequent 2+mb songs uploaded. I mean, do the composers
of these huge-ass songs honestly think their songs will be downloaded by more
than, say, two people? (One of which is a music reviewer.)
A new tracking program will be largely publicized and released, but it won't
gain much support from the scene. A majority of the music scene will already
be comfortable on one side of the Impulse Tracker vs. Fast Tracker issue.
People will talk frequently about trackers for windows and linux platforms.
Some such programs may even emerge and become marginally popular.
_____The Net
With AOL's new flat rate service, it is now easy and cheap for anyone to get
on the internet. Will the major internet backbones have more bandwidth?
Hopefully. Will the popular demoscene IRC channels become too active for
anyone to enjoy them? Perhaps, if you don't think that such is true already.
Java programming will continue to grow in popularity. A larger number of
demo coders will experiment with this "new" language. But where would Java
be without Netscape? ...Or MS Internet Explorer. Or Netscape! (Hey, what
about Sun Microsystems?...) Yes, the browser wars will continue, although
one of these browsers will have a large sustained victory in the coming year.
With the demoscene becoming gradually more interested in the web, this
browser war will be a hot topic for a while. Not that software debates are
very productive; they only tend to bring more voices out of the woodwork.
_____Operating Systems
A few years ago, there was no PC demoscene OS debate. Now, everyone is split
among DOS, Windows, OS/2, Linux, etc. This trend will continue. No wonder
the C64 scene was (and still is) so tight.
Many people now have more RAM in one system than most small nations have
collectively. This is because of the more complex and "multitasking"
operating systems people are using. This could result in demos coming out
over the next year to require up to 16mb of RAM, which eventually some will
even call "the new standard."
_____Comebacks
Future Crew? I wouldn't wager much on it.
Triton? Perhaps.
Space Pigs? Err...
_____Conclusion
These are just my predictions of things to come. You may not agree with any
of these views, and I may even be wrong on every point. But my objective
here is to get you thinking about the future. What do you see? I'd be
interested to know.
>------------------------------------------------------- General Information --
_____The Hornet Archive
Master Site : USA (California) - (ftp|www).hornet.org/pub/demos
Mirrors : Portugal - ftp.telepac.pt/pub/demos
Sweden - ftp.luth.se/pub/msdos/demos
South Africa - ftp.sun.ac.za/pub/msdos/demos
USA (Wisconsin) - ftp.uwp.edu/pub/demos
USA (Pennsylvania) - ftp.co.iup.edu/code (from /demos/code)
_____DemoNews
New issues are posted to /incoming/info.
Old issues are in /info/demonews.
Supplemental files are in /info/dn_other.
How to subscribe:
Mail - listserver@unseen.aztec.co.za
Body - subscribe demuan-list FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME _or_
Body - subscribe demuan-list HANDLE
DemoNews is sent to your e-mail's "Reply-To" field.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EODN
