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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ <<< THE FUTURE CREW INFORMATION PACKAGE >>> │ │ │ │ Version 1.21 │ │ │ │ 27-DEC-1993 │ │ │ │ │ │ This file contains general information about the Future │ │ Crew and our demos. It also includes frequently asked │ │ questions we often receive by mail and instructions on │ │ how to contact us best. │ │ │ │ We will update this file as things change, and if the │ │ above date is rather old, you can get the most recent │ │ version of this file either by E-Mail from Internet or │ │ from our distribution sites. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ CONTENTS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 1: Opening words 2: Demos for Commercial Purposes 3: The Distribution and Use of Our Demos 4: The Current Memberstatus 5: International Demo Competitions 6: Official Assembly'93 Competition Results 7: Quick Information on The Party 3 8: How to Contact Future Crew 9: Frequently Asked Questions 10: Creativity Demo Net Information 11: Official Distribution Site BBS List 12: How to Become a Distribution Site 13: The Brief History of The Future Crew 14: Answers to rumors 15: Sonic Dreams is NOT a Future Crew demo 16: Final Words ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │1: OPENING WORDS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Welcome to the FCINFO.TXT file version 1.2 ! This textfile is a update to FCINFO10.TXT (version 1.0). The updated parts are section 13 and the release list. In addition, voting form has been removed. This textfile was written to tell you about Future Crew, to give you answers to most of the things you would probably like to ask us, and to tell you how to get more demos. If you are interested in us making a demo for you, please, start reading from the next paragraph in this file. The things discussed in this textfile are mainly aimed to those people who have not seen much demos before, but are very interested in learning more about them and about the whole demo scene (=demo world) in general. In the future versions there will be changes and additions taking into account what has happened since the last information package. Signed, GORE ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │2: DEMOS FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you find our demos interesting and would like us to make you one for commercial purposes, do not hesitate to contact us. When contacting us, please, include a short explanation of what kind of a demo you are interested in. That would greatly help us in evaluating the size of the project. Kindly include, for example, these kinds of information: - What kinds of demo effects would you be interested in - Should there be any colorful still-pictures (logos, etc.) - If the demo should have sound, which sound cards would you like to be supported, what type of music should be played, etc. - How big the demo could be in kilobytes and for how long should the demo run in minutes approximately. - Where would the demo be used and how soon would you like the demo to be finished. We would like you to understand that our demos are not animations. This means that nearly everything you see on the screen is being real-time calculated. The speed of the movement is usually dependant to the speed of the VGA card and the speed of the processor. When contacting us, you should realise that we are all rather young and thus still studying in various schools. This is why our time is usually quite limited. And it is very likely that we might already be involved in another project. You should also know that we do not make demos for Microsoft Windows due to its limitations from an assembly language programming point of view. Since normal mail is quite a slow way to communicate, we would prefer the communication be made through e-mail or fax. You can find our contact information from this file. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │3: THE DISTRIBUTION AND USE OF OUR DEMOS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ All our demos, except the ones which we have created for different companies, are freeware. This means that you can copy and distribute them freely as long as you make no modifications to them. Also, no money can be charged for copying them. If you are a PD distributor, please contact us before including our products in your collection. In general, all commercial utilization of our demos without our permission is forbidden. This includes selling disks containing our demos. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │4: THE CURRENT MEMBERSTATUS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Alias: Real name: Age: Main responsibility: -------------------------------------------------------------- GORE Samuli Syvahuoko 20 Organizer Psi Sami Tammilehto 20 Coder Trug Mika Tuomi 21 Coder Wildfire Arto Vuori 18 Coder Purple Motion Jonne Valtonen 17 Musician Skaven Peter Hajba 18 Musician Marvel Aki Maatta 18 Graphics Artist Pixel Mikko Iho 18 Graphics Artist Abyss Jussi Laakkonen 18 BBS Coordinator FC Internet Division: Henchman Markus Maki - Thanks for helping with the e-mail Jake Jarkko Heinonen - Thanks for providing the e-mail address ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │5: INTERNATIONAL DEMO COMPETITIONS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ For those who have no idea what the above are, I will explain. Demo competitions (= parties) are international events where the demo scene people go to meet each other and to compete in the many competitions that are being held. These competitions (= compos) are the demo, intro (= a demo sized under 100kb), music and graphics. There are often different compos for different machines (PC, Amiga, Atari ST and C-64). There are also prizes in each compo (cash or computer hardware & software). The cash prizes are usually the money people pay as the entrance fee (usually about $20 US) and the possible computer hardware & software has usually been sponsored by various computer companies. All contributions are being experienced on a big screen (many meters wide) and with the aid of a powerful audio system. After this all the people or a selected jury vote and decide which contributions are the best. After this the prizes are being given out and the party is over. In the process people of course get to know each other better and exchange a lot of new ideas. All contributions are usually being released at the party itself, but sometimes the PC demos are not. This is very unfortunate, and will probably change in the future. The reason why this is allowed to happen is becouse most demos haven't been beta-tested well enough before the party and might not work on most machines. So, the groups are being allowed to finish their demos after the party and then release them when they so see fit. Parties usually last for three days (a weekend) and are usually organized by bigger demo groups. There are a few big demo parties being held annually. These include the following: The Party in Denmark at Christmas- time, The Gathering in Norway around Easter, The Computer Crossroad in Sweden before the summer and Assembly in Finland in the end of Summer. The biggest of these is The Party, which is being held for the third time this Christmas. And the most recent party was Assembly'93, which was held for the second time. A few months before the party, the organizing demo groups usually release special invitation demos to advertise their parties. At Assembly'93 there were a total of 1500 attenders from which 550 were PC people. About half of them had come from outside Finland (Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, USA, Israel, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, etc...). Only PC people were allowed to vote on PC compos. The overall quality of the contributions exceeded all expectations. It was very cool to see how much the PC scene had developed since last year. The party itself went quite smoothly, except for a few bumps, but what would a demo party be without them... :-) Also the prizes were very good in all PC compos. The total value of all the prizes on the PC was about $7800 US. Next we would like to thank all the companies which sponsored most of the PC side prizes at Assembly'93: Advanced Gravis, Canada Epic MegaGames, USA The Waite Group Press, USA Terton, Finland HiCompu, Finland Toptronics, Finland Pro Component, Finland Lan Vision, Finland Data Fellows, Finland The thanks to all the sponsoring companies are also in the end scroller of the demo. We hope to see you also next year! And to all you people out there: Don't forget to attend Assembly'94 next summer ! ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │6: OFFICIAL ASSEMBLY'93 COMPETITION RESULTS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Here we have the final and true results of the PC compos at Assembly'93. Ignore all the anonymous 'result' files circulating lately around BBS'es. Assembly'93 party results for PC. Votes were calculated by giving five points for the first place, four for the second place and so on. Up to five contributions could be voted for. A total of 130 votes were cast. PC Demos Top Ten ----------------------------------------------------------------- Place: Votes: #: Group: Demo: 1. 472 10. Future Crew Second Reality 2. 403 9. Silents Optic Nerve 3. 242 3. Xography Elements 4. 126 2. Dust Saga 5. 78 6. Extreme Extermination 6. 51 5. Virtual Visions Fruits of Indolence 7. 31 7. Paranoids Wasted Time 8. 26 4. Alphaforce Phenomenon 9. 17 8. Black Rain Obsession PC Intros Top Ten ----------------------------------------------------------------- Place: Votes: #: Group: Intro: 1. 378 8. EMF Eclipse 2. 196 5. Epical Tangle 3. 165 9. Darkzone Debut 4. 163 7. Onyx Locomotion 5. 125 10. Avalanche Motion 6. 115 15. Sonic-PC Plan-B 7. 106 6. Doomsday prod. Vanity & Apathy 8. 48 4. Jeskola prod. Dieetti-Intro 9. 43 3. Surprise! prod. Stardream 10. 12 1. RatCompany Fraust PC Multichannel Music Top Ten ----------------------------------------------------------------- Place: Votes: #: Composer: Tune: 1. 219 7. Skaven / Future Crew Ice Frontier 2. 178 4. Marvel / Future Crew Can't remember you 3. 164 1. Purple Motion / Future Crew Starshine 4. 153 5. Leinad / Avalanche Atomic II 5. 147 6. Silent Mode / Pentagon Inferno 6. 86 2. Tonedeaf / Extreme Heartbeat 7. 69 10. Prism / Wish Time running out 8. 59 3. Mikki / Epical Opossumi 9. 56 9. Funk't'ion / Paranoids Deepness 10. 29 8. Bloodsoaker / Wapy Shout PC 4-channel Music Top Ten ----------------------------------------------------------------- Place: Votes: #: Composer: Tune: 1. 133 19. Purple Motion / Future Crew Sundance 2. 98 13. Leinad / Avalanche Teaspoon 3. 90 6. Cybelius / Sonic-PC Schwinging the Swing 4. 60 9. Tonedeaf / Extreme Sounds of War 5. 59 8. Executioner Pork Chop 6. 53 17. Blizzard / Epical Hidden Shadows 7. 51 21. JayJay / Progress Phantoms 8. 47 5. Mellow-D / Sonic-PC Fast Changer II 9. 45 10. Gibson / Extreme Blackbird 10. 43 16. Mistake / Darkzone Michael Jackson sez hi! PC Graphics Top Ten ----------------------------------------------------------------- Place: Votes: #: Artist: Picture: 1. 176 8. Marvel / Future Crew Ice Kingdom 2. 144 2. Delsion / Cascada Eevi 3. 106 9. Zenjuga / Black Mind A3 4. 88 10. Pixel / Future Crew Troll 5. 44 11. Giems / Dark Zone Escaping from the Raytracer 6. 42 14. Ranx / Sonic-PC Invintro 7. 29 13. PCA / Painkiller W2 8. 22 7. Kapsu / Epical Assyroad 22 15. Mahlzahn / Pentagon Dungeon 10. 19 12. Leinad / Avalanche Korvmack ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │7: QUICK INFORMATION ON THE PARTY 3 │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ As said before, The Party 3 will be the next big party. And as usual, it will be held in Denmark. But this time it will be held in Herning, the biggest exhibition centre in scandinavia. There will of course be competitions for Amiga, PC and C-64. The PC side is organized by ACCESS DENIED. For more information, get your hands on the official PC scene invitation intro (by Access Denied). The filename is ADPARTY.ZIP. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │8: HOW TO CONTACT THE FUTURE CREW │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Note that our mailing address has changed! The new one is: Our home BBS is: Abyss / Future Crew StarPort - FC WHQ BBS (c/o Jussi Laakkonen) +358-0-804 4626, 14.4k Sepetlahdentie 2 E 36 +358-0-804 1133, 14.4k 02230 Espoo SysOp: Abyss FINLAND PLEASE NOTE THAT THE STARPORT'S #2 NODE NUMBER WAS _INCORRECT_ IN FCINFO10.TXT !! DO NOT CALL THAT NUMBER ANYMORE !! You can also e-mail us or send a fax: Internet: jtheinon@kruuna.helsinki.fi (GORE & Jake) Fax: +358-0-420 8620 (at GORE's place) We receive a lot of mail and simply can't answer all of it. Comments and opinions are always appreciated, but if you also have questions, consider first if you might find the answers elsewhere, for example from the Frequently Asked Questions section inside this file. However, if you include questions in your mail, please enclose a return envelope ready with your address and an international mail coupon. This would help us a lot. The best and the fastest way to contact us is through e-mail. So, if you really want to chat with us alot, you should find a way to use e-mail. From internet you can also find lots of demos and be able to e-mail other demo groups as well. We get a LOT of e-mail so you may have to wait for our reply for a while. We TRY to answer every e-mail we get but please, write your e-mail address into your message. A very good anonymous ftp site where you can find lots of demos is ftp.uwp.edu. Our demos can be found in the directory: pub/msdos/demos/groups/future.crew. You can also call our many BBSes around the world. You can find the list of these BBSes in this textfile. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │9: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE CREW │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Here we have compiled a list of questions along with the answers (in random order) which are being asked in about 95% of all the letters we receive. Hopefully you will find the answers to your questions from here and save us and yourself from some unneeded paperwork. Q: Where can I get your and other groups' demos? A: There are several ways to get demos. The best way (if you have a modem) is to call an FC distribution site near you. They have all of our productions online and you can download them freely. Also many normal BBSes carry our productions and other groups' demos. If you don't have a modem, then getting our demos is a lot harder. We don't have a mailswapping system. So, if you have a friend who has a modem, why not try to get him to call one of our distribution sites. Another VERY good way to get demos is from the INTERNET. A very good demo site is ftp.uwp.edu which carries probably the best demo collection on internet. Q: When is the musicdisk coming out ? A: We will probably release a sort of musicdisk at TheParty '93. It will feature a long-awaited MOD/S3M-player for GUS/SB/SBPro and a nice pile of Skaven's and Purple Motion's best S3M songs. Q: When is Scream Tracker 3.0 going to be out? A: Scream Tracker 3.0 is a product which might or might not ever be out. This is very ambiguous, but the problem is that ST3 is not a high priority project. The coder, Psi, is studying at a university, coding demos, doing commercial software and trying to spend some freetime. So at the moment there is no time to finish ST3 and no set release date. Q: When is Worldcharts issue #2 coming out? A: Since there are a lot of other groups publishing all kinds of magazines today and our main directive is to make demos, and that Worldcharts #1 wasn't as good a success as we wanted it to be, we see no real sense in in continuing to publish it anymore. Also as you might have guessed our time has become too limited for these kinds of projects. In a nutshell, at this time there is no real reason for you to send in your votes or articles. If we change our minds about this, you can be sure that we'll let you know. Thanks to everyone who supported us by sending us votes and articles. Q: What programming books would you recommend to learn assembler and VGA? A: This is a hard question, and a general answer is, that any book will do. You can get the basics from a book and books are a great reference, but when it comes to creating something new, you can't just read it from a book. We have all learned to code the hard way (a lot of miscellaneous books and a lot of experimenting). Anyway, here are some of the books we often find handy (there are undoutedly newer prints, so check them out): Mastering Turbo Assembler, Tom Swan Hayden Books 1989, ISBN 0-672-48435-8 PC System Programming, Michael Tischer Abacus 1990, ISBN 1-55755-036-0 The Programmers PC Sourcebook, Thom Hogan Microsoft Press 1988, ISBN 1-55615-118-7 Programming the 80386, John H. Crawford and Patrick P. Gelsinger Sybex 1987, ISBN 0-89588-381-3 Programmers guide to EGA and VGA cards, Richard F. Ferraro Addison Wesley 1989, ISBN 0-201-12692-3 Also, most up to date are many software 'books', such as interrupt lists from bbs'es and such. We have also found a lot of valuable information in articles and such. In short, there is no magic way of learning to code, it really does take hard work. Q: Are you going to make games in the future ? A: Why not. It all depends if we have the time. We have a few game ideas cooking, but they are far from being completed. But we will let you all know when we have a game coming, don't you worry! Q: What do the members of Future Crew do besides computers ? A: Most of us study in various schools; universities, high schools and colleges. In real life most of us are quite normal(?) human beings. Our hobbies are for example, sci-fi, movies, weight-lifting, techno, hi-fi, etc, etc. And most of us have or has had a girlfriend. Q: What sound cards will you support? A: At the moment our productions support the following sound cards: Gravis UltraSound - for it's programming advantages Sound Blaster Pro - for being a standard Sound Blaster - same here Support to other sound cards is always possible, but right now we don't see enough demand to support any other cards. Q: Why do your demos require a 386 or higher to run? A: There are several reasons for the requirement; For example, 386 has many new assembler commands, 32bit registers, and of course more processing power. There isn't simply enough processing power in 286 to run a full ledged demo. And besides, 286-based machines are a dying breed. Q: How did you learn to code as you do now? A: Learning to code demos is a long and very very difficult process. It takes years to learn to code demos very well. A good way to start is some high level language like Pascal or C and then started to experiment with assembler. It takes a lot of time and experimenting to get better, and there are no shortcuts (for book recommendations, see a question before this). The main thing is trying to understand what you do, then trying to change the program to see what you get, and gain wisdom in what's the best way of doing things. Learning to code well requires a lot of patience, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of time. It is not easy. Q: What programs do you use to do your demos? A: We use the following programs to do our demos; For code we use Borland C++, Microsoft C, Borland Pascal and of course TASM (Turbo Assembler). For graphics we use Deluxe Paint 2 Enchanded (and 3D Studio 2.0). For making the music we use Scream Tracker 3.0 beta, and for digitizing the samples for our songs we use Advanced DigiPlayer 2.5 beta. Scream Tracker 3.0 and Advanced DigiPlayer are our own programs made by Psi, and they are not available to the public at this time. In addition to all these, we of course have a big collection of utilities we have crafted to our need during the years. Q: I'm a beginner programmer. I wonder if you could help me learn demo coding? A: To help beginners learn the secrets of democoding we have released the full source of our Mental Surgery demo. This source code is spread along with our STMIK (Scream Tracker Music Interface Kit), which is a 4 channel music player, which you can link into your own programs. You can find these from our distribution sites, under the name STMIK020.ZIP (be sure to grab STMIKFIX.ZIP too, which fixes one nasty bug). Do not try to ask us send you some of our unreleased source code. If you are reading this file, you probably know already that we have released a new source code pack which includes the full, documented ASM source code of our new StarPort intro II. There's always the possibility that we will release some other source code in the future as well, but at this time there are no immediate plans for such an event. Q: What is the complete list of your released productions with release dates? A: To date, we have released the following productions: Filename Size Released A Short Description -------- ---- -------- ------------------- YO!.ZIP 32 kb 2-24-89 YO! intro, VGA textmode/PC-speaker GR8.ZIP 31 kb 7-12-89 GR8 intro, EGA/No sound FC-SLIDE.ZIP 350 kb 7-23-90 Slideshow I, a graphics collection, SB ST224.ZIP 130 kb 2-22-91 Scream Tracker 2.24 shareware version, SB MENTAL.ZIP 90 kb 7-02-91 Mental Surgery demo, SB/Covox/PC-speaker STMIK020.ZIP 170 kb 8-10-91 Scream Tracker Music Interface Kit 0.20 FISHTRO.ZIP 230 kb 4-08-92 Assembly'92 invitation intro, SB STMIKFIX.ZIP 10 kb 7-14-92 A Bugfix to STMIK UNREAL.ZIP 1350 kb 8-06-92 Unreal megademo, SB/SBp STARPRT2.EXE 6 kb 9-13-92 StarPort BBS intro, VGA/AdLib THEPARTY.ZIP 165 kb 10-02-92 The Party II invitation intro, SB/SBp PANIC.ZIP 950 kb 2-04-93 Panic trackdemo, SB/SBp ASM-93.ZIP 400 kb 6-15-93 Assembly'93 invitation intro, SB/SBp/GUS WCHARTS.ZIP 680 kb 6-26-93 Worldcharts magazine issue #1, SB/SBp/GUS SOULOMAT.ZIP 100 kb 7-10-93 A song by Purple Motion ICEKNGDM.LBM 65 kb 8-01-93 Winner of PC graphics compo at Asm'93 ICEFRONT.ZIP 180 kb 8-01-93 The winner of PC multichnl compo at Asm'93 CAN'T.ZIP 125 kb 8-01-93 The second in PC multichnl compo at Asm'93 STRSHINE.ZIP 225 kb 8-01-93 The third in PC multichnl compo at Asm'93 TROLL.LBM 85 kb 8-01-93 The fourth in PC graphics compo at Asm'93 SUNDANCE.ZIP 235 kb 8-10-93 The winner of PC 4chnl compo at Asm'93 2NDREAL1.ZIP 1250 kb 10-07-93 Second Reality, Asm'93 winner, SB/SBp/GUS 2NDREAL2.ZIP 790 kb 10-07-93 Second part of the Second Reality demo 2NDR_MS.ZIP 280 kb 11-01-93 Skaven's songs from Second Reality SYMPHONY.ZIP 260 kb 11-01-93 Symphony by Skaven PMFRACT.ZIP 210 kb 11-05-93 The winner of Megaleif ST/PC music compo BUSMATKA.ZIP 75 kb 11-09-93 Finnish invitation to Party3 bussymatka STARPORT.ZIP 4522 byt 11-21-93 StarPort BBS intro II, VGA/Adlib SP2SRC.ZIP 30 kb 12-02-93 StarPort BBS intro II sources UNREAL11.ZIP 1335 kb 12-28-93 Unreal version 1.1 for Gravis UltraSound JOURNEY1.ZIP 867 kb 12-28-93 First Music Disc by Purple Motion JOURNEY2.ZIP 1015 kb 12-28-93 Second Music Disc by Purple Motion You SHOULD be able to find all of the above from our Distribution Sites. Q: Exactly where do FC members study and what? A: Many of us study in high school or in university. Here is the complete list: Psi - Turku university, major informatics Trug - finished his studies WildFire - last year in high school Purple Motion - second year in high school Skaven - not studying at the moment Pixel - last year in high school Marvel - last year in high school Abyss - last year in high school GORE - studying in business school Q: How long does it take to make a demo like Second Reality? A: The complete time that it takes to make such demo can't really be counted. Most of our knowledge is based on years of hard work and on our previous works. All of us do little experiments on their freetime and when a "critical mass" is achieved the making of a demo begins more seriously. From this point to a final demo (in the case of a major production like Second Reality) it takes around three to six months. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │10: CREATIVITY DEMO NET (CDN) INFORMATION │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Creativity Demo Net or shortly CDN is nowadays quite a common sight among BBS'es that are oriented towards demos. But what exactly is CDN? The idea behind The Creativity Demo Net(work) is now about 2 years old. I had been dreaming about having a way to communicate electronically between different demogroups. When we (Future Crew) attended Megaleif Easter Party'92 last year in Uppsala, Sweden, I was positively surprised when I found out that Mirage / Cascada had also been thinking about the same thing. We both thought that it was a good idea and began developing it. But it didn't work out as we intended. There were a lot of difficulties, in Sweden and here in Finland. At first we tried to spread the net via FidoNet, but soon it came clear to us that demogroups needed their own net. The same time I had been also talking with Trojaner (SysOp of Skull's Southern Germany HQ) and he was also inspired by this idea. We decided that Skull and Future Crew wouldn't be enough to start a new net with, so I contacted Arjan Pool (who had relations with DCE) and he also thought that the idea was just great. And we got underway. At first the net was called just plainly DemoNet, but it was almost immediately changed to Creativity Demo Net. Anyway, at first it was planned that StarPort would become the World HQ, but as Arjan wanted to take the job and all the big responsibilities, Arco BBS became the WHQ (and still is). Much of the coming success of CDN was based on Arjan's continuing hard work for CDN. The net started working in August 1992, four months after the first idea about a demonet had come to me. And after that the net has spread like a wildfire! At first CDN spanned only 3 countries (Finland, Holland and Germany) but soon Sweden joined in, and then country after country and bbs after bbs joined in. To this date CDN spans the following countries: Finland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, England, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Canada, USA, France, Hungary, Brazil, Austria and Australia. THAT'S 18 COUNTRIES! And there are about 140 nodes in CDN, all BBS's that are demogroup's BBS'es. Considering the small amount of demogroup BBS'es, I would estimate that about 75% of all demogroup BBSes are connected to CDN and all of the biggest groups like FC, Triton, Renaissance, Cascada, etc... are connected to the net. So what kind of echoes does CDN carry? Well here is the complete list of echomail areas: * 1. CDN.4ALL The area for everyone in CDN * 2. CDN.ANNOUNCE Made a new demo ? announce it overhere. * 3. CDN.DISKMAG All information about diskmagazines % 4. CDN.CHAT All chatting with other members % 5. CDN.PROGRAMMING For help with programming problems % 6. CDN.GFX For all graphics makers % 7. CDN.MUSIC MIDI/MOD/MUSIC help and questions S 8. CDN.TEST Test area ! 9. CDN.INTERGROUP For selected groups within CDN S 10. CDN.SYSOP Sysops CDN only H 11. CDN.HQ_HOST For mail between HOSTS versus HQ * - for everyone who gets connected to a BBS % - for registered persons (demogroup members) S - only for CDN sysops H - only hosts and HQ ! - for special selected groups CDN has areas for relaxed talk between people (and it gets QUITE relaxed sometimes, and QUITE weird =), but it's just fun!), and for serious purposes such as programming. And what does CDN require from a BBS? Well, the first and MOST important requirement is that the BBS is some demogroups (preferably an active one) BBS. That is rule that there are only few exceptions from. But otherwise, you just have to: - place the completed files of the CDN on his/her BBS that everyone can download them - use the CDN nodelist and it's updates - connect to every area available to them Not too many rules... And that is because we want CDN to be fun, not some playground for idiots with a lawbook for brains. Also, there are ABSOLUTELY no charges in CDN, so the only costs you have to pay are your own phonebills. You can FREQ more info about from for example the WHQ under the magic name CDNINFO. So, get more info now if you are interested in joining in! =ABYSS- / Future Crew ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │11: OFFICIAL FUTURE CREW DISTRIBUTION SITES │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌──────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────────────┬──────────────────┐ │Country │BBS name │BBS number(s) │SysOp / Other info│ ├──────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼──────────────────┤ │Finland │StarPort - FC WHQ │+358-0-804-4626 HST/V32b│=ABYSS- / FC │ │ │ │+358-0-804-1133 V32bis │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Australia │Tequila Sunrise │+61-7-801-4446 V32bis │Bartender │ │ │ │ │ │ │Austria │Polymorph LIGHTS │+43-1-596-9026 V32b&HST│Gery │ │ │ │ │ │ │Belgium │Genesis │+32-2-2453498 16.8k │McGarret&MadFlight│ │ │ │ │ │ │Belgium │Point Break │+32-11436925 16.8k │Lord Cyrix & │ │ │Access Denied WHQ │ │Jumping Jack Flash│ │ │ │ │ │ │Brazil │Warmboot BBS │+55-19426-5112 V32b │Carlos Cantu │ │ │ │ │ │ │Canada │Spasm-o-Tron │+1-514-744-5718 V32bis │Snibble / HiTS │ │ │ │ │ │ │Canada │The Basement Breweries│+1-905-527-3469 V32bis │Wizard │ │ │ │ │ │ │Denmark │Crack Central BBS │+45-981.10096 19.2k │Executioner │ │ │ │ │ │ │England │Sound & Vision BBS │+44-932-252323 V32bis │Rob Barth │ │ │ │ │ │ │Germany │The BitBlasters BBS │+49-851-83994 16.8k │BitBlaster │ │ │ │ │ │ │Germany │The Continental BBS │+49-711-548501 16.8k │Trojaner │ │ │ │ │ │ │Holland │The Consultation BBS │+31-1170-54987 V32bis │Preceptor │ │ │ │ │ │ │Hungary │Dune II │+36-62-342-793 V32bis │TSC / Phantom │ │ │ │open: workdays 14-07 CET│weekends: 24h │ │ │ │ │ │ │Iceland │Mori BBS │+354-1-677020 V32bis │Arni Eggertsson │ │ │ │ │ │ │Israel │The Bureaucratic BBS │+972-9-984173 V32bis │Shachar Cafri │ │ │ │+92-9-426657 V22bis │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Norway │Romeo November │+47-4-536698 V32bis │Stinger │ │ │ │+47-4-536797 19.2k │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Singapore │MultiMedia GS │+65-252-1220 V32b │WildCat │ │ │ │ │ │ │Spain │Dracker BBS │+34-3-385-3393 16.8k │Gvyt / ENiAC │ │ │ │ │ │ │Sweden │Illusion │+46-18-260565 V32bis │ZED / FAiC │ │ │ │ │ │ │Switzerlan│Wonderland │+41-64-47-3046 16.8k │PfUsuUS │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, NY │The Sound Barrier │+1-718-979-6629 HST V32b│Daredevil / REN │ │ │Renaissance WHQ │+1-718-979-9406 V22bis │Charles Scheffold │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, ND │Quantum Accelerator │+1-701-258-0319 V32bis │Chris Zimman │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, TX │Programmer's Oasis │+1-214-328-6142 V32bis │Daniel Potter / │ │ │ │ │Digital Infinity │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, SC │The End of Time │+1-803-855-0783 V32bis │Holy Water and │ │ │ │ │The Hit Man │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, KY │Eleutheria │+1-606-223 1853 V32bis │Soul Rebel / │ │ │ │ │Avalanche │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, MO │Red Sector │+1-816-792 3821 16.8k │Lion Heart │ │ │ │+1-816-792 2029 HST │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, D.C. │Data Connection BBS │+1-703-506 8598 16.8kHST│Ryan / Renaissance│ │ │ │ │ │ │USA, FL │The Power Grid │+1-813-481-6539 16.8k │Grid Runner & │ │ │HQ for many groups │ │Syntax Error / iCE│ └──────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────────────────┴──────────────────┘ In addition, you can get our demos from internet where a very good anonymous ftp demo site is ftp.uwp.edu. Our demos can be found in the directory: /pub/msdos/demos/groups/future.crew. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │12: HOW TO BECOME A FUTURE CREW DISTRIBUTION SITE │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ We are looking for distribution sites around the world. We are looking for demo-oriented BBS'es that are interested in becoming part of FC's growing number of BBS'es. So, what does it take to become an FC distsite? In fact, it's not easy, we require a lot, but before giving up, take a look at the following list: - Your BBS MUST have every single one production FC or any member of FC has ever RELEASED - Your BBS has to call StarPort (FC WHQ) at least twice a month, and keep in contact with the FC - Your BBS also has to be a voting place for our possibly continuing Worldcharts diskmag (voting door) - Your BBS has to be absolutely DEMO-ORIENTED, NOT some gigantic all-around BBS. YOU yourself have to be very interested about demos and the PC demo scene in general - Your BBS should join the Creativity Demo Net, if by any means possible - Your BBS would also be a Future Crew information forum. You would have to answer questions concerning FC and our production, and help people who have problems with our software - Your BBS should be operated on a PC compatible, with at least a 14400 BPS modem and 300 megabytes of diskspace for demos, and the BBS should be open 24 hours a day, and 365 days / year So what do you get in exchange? Well, these things we can guarantee: - Your BBS will be mentioned in every FC production in the distsite BBS list - You have a chance to get all FC's future productions first hand - You will get some FC inner circle information What we can't guarantee, but what is likely to happen, is that your BBS will become more and more popular and it's quality will improve dramatically. Remember that we already have BBSes in most of the european countries (check out the BBS list), but there are still some gaps left which we'd like to fill out. In the USA and Canada, we are accepting one BBS per state. Please read the above rules carefully and think twice before sending in the application below: -----8<------8<------8<------8<---cut-here------8<------8<------8<------8<----- THE FUTURE CREW DISTRIBUTION SITE APPLICATION FORM ================================================== Copy this application to it's own file, fill it out and give the file the name of your BBS. Then send it to StarPort or e-mail it. Do NOT fax it or send it by normal mail! BBS name :______________________________________ BBS phonumber(s) :______________________________________ :______________________________________ :______________________________________ :______________________________________ BBS modem(s) :______________________________________ :______________________________________ Modem speeds supported : [ ] 1200 [ ] 2400 [ ] 9600 (V32) (place X on appropriate : [ ] 14.4k (V32bis) [ ] 16.8k box) : [ ] MNP [ ] V42bis BBS net address(es) :______________________________________ List networks you are in :______________________________________ :______________________________________ Would you be willing to join the Creativity Demo Net if you aren't yet in? : (Yes / No) If necessary would you be willing to become a Host / Hub for The Creativity Demo Net? : (Yes / No) BBS software :______________________________________ Mailer software :______________________________________ Is your board any other group's distsite or member board: (Yes/No) If yes, please list them :______________________________________ :______________________________________ :______________________________________ How many lines/nodes does your system have :____________ How many users does your system have :__________________ How large (in MB's) is your system :__________________ Is your BBS very demo-oriented : (Yes / No) In what country do you live :___________________________________ SysOp alias / group :______________________________________ SysOp real name :______________________________________ SysOp voice phone number :______________________________________ SysOp e-mail address :______________________________________ SysOp age :___ SysOp full mail address :______________________________________ :______________________________________ :______________________________________ :______________________________________ Anything special we should be aware of?: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ -----8<------8<------8<------8<---cut-here------8<------8<------8<------8<----- P.S. Filling up this form doesn't mean that you will automatically become an FC distribution site! We'll check the form and get back to you! ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │13: THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FUTURE CREW │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ by Abyss and Gore / Future Crew - 1986-1987 - Future Crew (FC) was founded in the year 1986 on the C-64. And only one member has been in the group for the whole time - Psi. FC did two demos on the C-64 before changing into the PC scene in the year 1988. - 1988 - FC's first PC demo was a CGA sinus -scroller called GR8. At that time the members were HAL, JPM, SS (Psi) and SIDDER. And DARK POWER was FC's BBS. - 1989 - Then there came YO! which was quite popular for a while. It used one of the VGA's textmodes and included 'nice' PC-speaker music. It had many scrollers, a sinusing YO!-logo, a little bouncing ball and a 2D-starfield. At this time ICE joined and so FC had another BBS - SILICON DRAGON. - 1990 - In the year 1990 there was only one demo release from us, the Slideshow I. It was the first PC demo which included 4 voice SoundBlaster music. It didn't include any other special code for it was a VGA picture slideshow. And at this time there were a lot of members in FC: Psi, ICE, HAL, JPM, SID, BIG, DAC, MAC and SEBU. - 1990 - And only shortly after Slideshow I, Psi released his ScreamTracker 2.0 - a 4 voice music editing program inspired by the Amiga SoundTracker. ST 2.0 was a real success. But of course, it didn't take much time when a pirated version was on the move. This was in the year 1990. - 1991 - In summer 1991, FC released a demo called Mental Surgery. It had a big scroller on the top of the screen, 3D-starfield, a nice writer, music scopes and of course 4 voice SoundBlaster music. This was the last FC demo that worked on a 286 machine. At this time the members were: Psi, ICE, Dr.Venkman and Purple Motion. And only a while after this I (GORE) joined FC and ICE lost the interest to demos and left FC along with his BBS. And Dr.Venkman went crazy by selling his computer and retired for a while. - 1992 - So, FC lived quietly for about half a year. But when the year 1992 came Trug, Pixel, Skaven and Abyss joined FC. And as Abyss joined, FC had a BBS again, namely StarPort. So, in the beginning of the year 1992 FC had the following members: 1. Psi --- Main coder 2. Trug --- Asst. coder 3. GORE --- Organizer/asst. GFX-man 4. Pixel --- Main GFX-man 5. Abyss --- BBS support/utilities 6. Skaven --- Musician/asst. GFX-man 7. Purple Motion --- Musician It was at this time that we had begun making UNREAL. Our first plan was to release it at MEGA-Leif Convention - An Atari ST/PC party held in Uppsala, Sweden. But about a month before MEGA-Leif, MeeGosh/Rebels (Amiga) called me and told me about ASSEMBLY'92 and that it would be cool to have also the PC scene there. So, he asked us to do an invitation intro for the PC scene about this mega-event. We agreed and so, UNREAL was put to rest as Psi got the idea of making something different - namely the Fishtro. It took us about two weeks to create Fishtro from nothing, but when we went to MEGA-Leif Convention, we still had little bugs in it and therefore we couldn't release it until a week after MEGA-Leif. We also competed with Fishtro in the MEGA-Leif PC demo compo, but we were never told who came second. As the people who were at MEGA-Leif remember, the belgian Raiders Brothers won the demo compo, but they have not released their winning demo to this date (13.7.92). After we came back from MEGA-Leif, we started on making UNREAL again. And Dr.Venkman came back from his retirement. - 1992 - Then Unreal was released. Unreal was the first really big megademo for PC and it hit the top of the charts immediately. - 1992 - Then we were contacted by the organizers of a BIG Amiga/C64/PC party, called The Party 1992. They asked us to organize the PC demo compo there and make again an Invitation Intro for it's PC side. So The Party 1992 Invitation Intro was made. At that time we had the following members: Psi - Code Trug - Code WildFire - Code Pixel - GFX Purple Motion - Music Skaven - Music & GFX GORE - Organizer Abyss - BBS support The Party 1992 Inv. Intro was mostly coded by Psi and WildFire. WildFire was our new coder who joined us in autumn 1992. He had before been active on the Atari ST scene. - 1992 - Then it was the time for another big demo. The making of Panic! began. It was the normal process of making demos with blood and sweat and annoying deadlines. WildFire was the one to assemble the demo together, but lots of code was also done by Psi and Trug. Then it was the time for The Party 1992. As we thought that it would really nice to get as many people as possible to The Party as cheaply as possible, we decided to organize a bus trip there with the amiga people. So we managed to load two buses full of computer freaks and take our leave towards The Party. At that time The Party 1992 was the biggest computer party ever. There were about 2500 computer freaks of which around 400 were PC dudes. There we entered the demo compo with Panic, and to our surprise we came second. Witans Facts of Life had won the demo compo. We were quite disappointed by this, because there was absolutely no voting. The voting system on Amiga just didn't work. And then some organizer just asked the last remaining PC organizer "What do you think were the best demos" without telling him that these were going to be the official results. And without thinking he just said "Witans, FCs and Sonics". Anyway, The Party 1992 was a big success. - 1993 - After The Party 1992 we lived quietly for awhile. The only big change was that Marvel (formerly from Sonic-PC) joined us. So we now have two gfx artists. Then we began thinking of making a diskmag. At first nobody really wanted to code it, so we thought that we would make it as a co-operation with Stone (a finnish demogroup). But after some co-operation troubles we began making it 100% by ourselves. We tried to make it the best diskmag on the PC and according to many opinions, we succeeded quite well. What we tried to do, was to set an example on how well you can do diskmags if you really try. The diskmag was coded by Psi and the GFX were done by Pixel and the musics by Purple Motion and C.C.Catch from Renaissance. - 1993 - Then it was the time for Assembly'93. Once again we were the PC organizers and we made an invitation intro for it. It's name is quite easy to guess, it's Assembly'93 Invitation Intro (hard one! =)). It was coded by Trug, the GFX were done by Marvel and the musics by Purple Motion. It fulfilled its purpose (to get as many people as possible to Asm'93) very well. Assembly'93 was the biggest ever summer demo party. There were about 1300 people on the party place of which around 450 were PC demo freaks. Asm'93 was also a big advancement on the PC side. For the first time we also had a intro, music (4 channel and multichannel) and graphic compos. Our biggest production yet, the Second Reality won the PC demo competition. You have most probably also seen it, so I won't (again) go into detail in trying to describe its effects. At the moment we are looking ahead to The Party III: The Ultimate. We are again organizing a bustrip to Herning (were the party is to take place). We really recommend this party because we feel that The Party III is going to be the biggest and coolest demo party for PC ever. So be there or be square! ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │14: ANSWERS TO RUMORS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Rumors: - The computer was changed to a faster one to run Second Reality. - An additional GUS was added to machine. - The VGA card was changed to a faster one. - Marvel scanned his picture (Ice Kingdom) - Marvel didn't compose his tune "Can't remember you" - FC did something to the tunes, because they sounded so weird. - FC used dirty tricks in the The Party II - FC skipped some parts of other groups demos to hurt their score - FC conducted a ballot-stuffing (fake voting) Question 1) Was the computer changed? Answer 1) No. All the competitions (music,gfx,intro and demo) were run on the same 486/33mhz 64kb cache GUS 1mb and ET4000 1mb machine with 4mb of RAM. This machine belongs to me (Abyss) and is the very same machine (except for the GUS) which was used to display the demos at The Party II. Question 2) Did you change the VGA card? Answer 2) No we didn't. The same ET4000 1MB VGA card was used all the time. Question 3) Was a second GUS card added to the machine? Answer 3) At first few months before the Asm'93 we thought that Dolby Surround Pro Logic was only possible to make if you had 2 GUSes. Then we found out that it is very easy and possible to do with only one GUS card. So no second GUS card was added. Question 4) Why is Marvels Ice Kingdom so like BEAR1.GIF? Answer 4) Let me explain at first about the background. Most of you arent familiar with the Amiga scene. On the amiga scene it is forbidden to scan a picture, but it is ok to use a existing picture as a model from which to draw. What this means is that many of pictures made are not ORIGINALLY created by the author (for example, EEVI which came second at Asm'93 is originally by H. Giger (the guy who did the gfx for Alien (I-III) for example)). What Marvel did was, that he draw the outlines from the BEAR1.GIF and the proceeded on his own with the most difficult task. If you compare BEAR1.GIF and ICEKNGDM.LBM 1) they are in different resolutions 2) there is no wall in the ICEKNGDM.LBM 3) if you zoom in the picture you will see that the colouring (dithering) of the picture is completely different than in Marvels picture. 4) BEAR1.GIF looks scanned, it looks helluva good and it looks very different than Marvels picture. Question 6) Did Marvel compose the tune "Can't remember you" Answer 6) Yes, he did. Among his other talents, Marvel is a quite good composer. He has made around 5-6 tunes during his amiga career (though not too famous songs). He composed the "Can't remember you" using ST ]I[ beta. Question 7) Did you refuse to use any other player than ST3? Answer 7) No we didn't. Most of the songs were supplied to us as plain MOD files. No player was included with them. Only one song had it's own player, and that player was used to play it. In the Assembly'93 text file there was a notion:"Bring your own player" (about the PC multichannel competition). Because no player was supplied with most of the MODs/multichannel files, we used the best player we know of, the ST3 beta. It is also claimed by people who have never used nor seen ST3 that ST3 has still serious bugs in its .MOD capabilities. This can't be more wrong as ST3 is one of the very few composers that really play all Amiga commands really correctly, not like many PC composers. So it's more likely that composer used to create the tune wasn't enough Amiga MOD compatible than ST3 to have bugs in it's MOD playing module. Question 8) Did you do something to the tunes to make them sound so weird? Answer 8) No, we didn't. The PA system broke down. The left speaker broke and didn't play most of the middle-sounds. We are very sorry for this, but it's very rare that this kind of things happen. Question 9) Did you use dirty little tricks in The Party II? Answer 9) Rick Dangerous / S!P has claimed that we used the following dirty trick in The Party II: ∙ First telling everyone there'll be no demo from them ∙ then, all of a sudden, at the END of the compo Gore shouted (you know in this certain style) And Now! The new demo by the Future Crew.... (all other things were anounced like uhh.. hmm yes.. copper? by humm... surbrisse..?...) ∙ and finally they turned the volume up to give the sound a special boost... 1) We telled nobody of our demo (Panic) because we feared that it would scare off people. The almightyFC is gonna do a new demo, we can't win, so why compete? We thought we could this way get a lot better compo. 2) Gore shouted? In fact the man who announced ALL the competitions (Amiga, PC and C64) was some of the Amiga- organizers. We didn't even know him. In fact Gore was nowhere near the compo room, only I and Wildfire were (of FC) at the compo room. 3) We couldn't have boosted the volume because PA system was operated by two other guys. They controlled the volume during all the compos. Not us. Question 10) Did FC skip parts of other groups demos? Answer 10) Yes. Some parts were skipped because the demo run just for too long displaying the same effects all over again. If the audience began almost to die of borement because of looking at the same boring screen for 3-4 minutes it was the time to skip to next part. This could have not hurted the group, because people already were bored with the screen. Boring them more would affected the groups score even more. Question 11) Did FC conduct a fake voting? Answer 11) The counting of votes was an open happening. Anybody could have joined us to help with the counting. We invited everybody to join us. We made every attempt to make the voting as reliable as possible and it's our opinion that the votes were counted as correctly as possible. What comes to faking votes, it is a complete lie. No votes were forged. The results of the music competitions might have been surprises, but for those surprises only the voters can be blamed. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │15: SONIC DREAMS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Two files which have claimed to be a demo from us under the name of Sonic Dreams have been circulating boards around Europe. These files: FCSONIC1.ZIP and FCSONIC2.ZIP A*R*E F*A*K*E*S*! We don't know the maker of these files nor the purpose of them. Under our tests we have not found any viruses nor troijans in those files. Those files are composed of PCX pictures with some simple C source code. Please delete the files when encountered. We (the Future Crew) are not the makers of these files. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │16: FINAL WORDS │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This is the second revision of this file. In the first version there was a a little "bug". The number to StarPorts' second node was incorrect. Please, don't call that number! The number goes to some Finnish home. Thank you for reading this file. Signed, Abyss, GORE & Henchman / Future Crew