Shareware Universe - The Gold Collection/Shareware Universe The Gold Collection.iso/demos/act1/act1.go

Text File | 1996-04-19 | 16.1 KB | 375 lines

ACT1
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                 Information File
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────



           ██████████      ██████████   ██████████      ██
           ██      ██      ██               ██          ██
           ██      ██      ██               ██          ██
          ████████████    ███              ███         ███
         ████      ████  ████             ████        ████
         ████      ████  ████             ████        ████
         ▀███      ███▀  ▀███████████     ▀███        ▀███


                 by  Psychic Link


───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    This information file tells you everything you ever wanted to know about
the making of ACT-ONE by Psychic Link.

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Contents of this file:
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Amongst the waffle and pretentious ravings in this text file,  you can find
information on the following topics,  in roughly this order:

 ■ Legal stuff regarding distribution of the demo.
 ■ Hardware requirements for running the demo.
 ■ Problem Solving / Help on getting the demo to run.
 ■ Why we didn't enter ACT1 in a Demo Competition.
 ■ The command-line options you can use to run ACT1.
 ■ Detailed Credits.
 ■ How to contact us.

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════


    Once upon a time there were three blokes.  Their exams had just finished,
and an interminably long holiday stretched out before them....

    "Hey,  this sucks.  What are we going to do for 8 weeks,  Dude?"  asked
one of them,  who was known as Statix.
    "Write a demo." said the second bloke,  who was called S-Cubed.
    "Bogus." said the third,  who was named Skywalker.


    And so ACT-ONE was born...  well,  it wasn't quite as simple as that.



═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Demo and its distribution.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    This Demo is solely the work of the members of Psychic Link:  Statix,
S-Cubed and Skywalker.

    It is a stand-alone program which aims to do nothing more than entertain,
intrigue and inspire those people who watch/hear it.

    The Demo may be freely distributed provided it is distributed complete,
unmodified and there is no charge for doing so.  The following files must
accompany the demo wherever it is distributed:

    ACT1    .EXE   1646268 bytes    The Demo itself.
    FILE_ID .DIZ       322 bytes    The file description.
    ACT1    .NFO     17312 bytes    ACT1 information file.
    PL94    .NFO      9852 bytes    Psychic Link Information file.
    ROLLACT1.BAT       223 bytes    Batch file to run ACT1 on a loop.


    This program is provided "as is".  There is no warranty of any kind either
express or implied.  In no event shall Psychic Link or any of its members be
liable for any damages,  including any lost profits,  lost savings,  lost
time,  or other indirect or consequential damages,  or for any claim by any
other party that results from the use of this program.  The entire risk as to
the quality and performance of the program is with you.  This agreement cannot
and shall not be modified by purchase orders,  advertising or other
representations by anyone,  and may only be modified by a written amendment or
express permission given by the members of Psychic Link.  Running the program
indicates your agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

    Well,  I must admit I don't see how ACT1 could cause any damage to
anything,  but we have to include this to be on the safe side...  :-)


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Hardware Requirements + Problem Solving
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    The demo requires the following hardware to run:

 ■ A VGA or compatible graphics system.
 ■ A 386/486/Pentium processor
 ■ 2MB RAM

    The demo is unlikely to run from Microsoft Windows,  and we wouldn't
recommend trying it under a LAN network,  or on an on-line file-server...

    If you have problems getting the demo to run,  then you could try taking
the following steps:

 ■ Remove all memory-resident software (e.g. Keyboard buffer extensions, Mouse
   drivers) from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files,  and then reset the
   system (a cold boot).

 ■ Remove any EMM/QEMM type memory managers and HIMEM.SYS,  and do a cold
   boot.  (The demo does NOT require HIMEM.SYS to run)

 ■ Set the music device option to None when running the demo.

 ■ If your memory problems are borderline,  and you are running with SB/SBPro
   music selected,  you might find that selecting MONO rather than STEREO and
   choosing the lowest possible music frequency (8kHz) will enable you to run
   the demo with music.  This happens on S-Cubed's machine,  which only has
   2MB of RAM... :-)   (What do you mean "only"? - S-Cubed... B-) )

 ■ If you suspect that parts of the demo will work,  while others do not,
   you can try running it from different points...  see the info on command
   line options elsewhere in this file.

    If none of it works at all,  then we are sorry,  but there is nothing you
can do - short of taking the program to a friend who has a faster computer or
one with more memory...  We have tested it on as many machines as possible,
and have endeavoured to make it error-free and as hardware tolerant as
possible,  but this is difficult,  as we do not have access to many PCs other
than our own,  and those owned by our friends.

    If the program does not run properly on your machine,  there is little we
can do about it.  Please don't write to us just to complain,  or to seek
advice in the event of the program seeming faulty,  as it will have no effect
except to make us very depressed.



═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Why we didn't enter ACT1 in a Demo Competition
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    Because:

1.  We only have 386s,  and live in England  (a long way from demo parties/
    other good demo groups).
2.  We were going to try for ASM94,  but we ran out of time (also see 1. )
3.  We only create demos for the intellectual challenge,  not interested in
    empty pleasures such as winning trophys/large amounts of cash,  it's the
    making of the demo which stimulates us,  blah blah blah... etc...
    (Yeah right...)

    This demo would have been released earlier (i.e. September) but several
bugs turned up when we tested the demo on fast computers (like P90s....)
But now we hope that it is pretty much bug-free... Many thanks to Steve Jones,
sysop of our WHQ BBS, for the many hours he spent beta testing this demo, and
for the encouragement he gave us to get it finished!


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Command Line Options
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    ACT1 tries to AutoDetect your soundcard. If you wish to override this,
the following command line options can be used:

 /Cx - Select SoundCard where "x" is one of: 0=none, 1=SB, 2=SBPro, 3=GUS
 /Bx - Set SoundCard base address to 2x0
 /Ix - Set SoundCard IRQ number to x (SB/SBPro Cards only)
 /Mx - Set Mixrate where "x" is one of: 0=8kHz, 1=12kHz, 2=16kHz, 3=22kHz
       (N.B.  the mixrate only affects the SB and SBPro cards)

    There are also some other command line options,  which are these:

 /? or /H - Displays a help screen instead of executing the demo.

       /S - Skips the setup screen,  using the autodetected soundcard info,
        and any of the above override command line options,  so that the
        demo starts straight away.  This is useful if you want to run
        the demo on a loop from a batch file.

 /0 to /9 - This will start the demo at the screen specified,  missing out the
        screens that come before it.  The screens you can start the demo
        from are as follows:

         /0 - Start with the Starship Vector.
         /1 - Start with the Psychic Link Logo.
         /2 - Start with the Teddy Bender.
         /3 - Start with the Mandelbrot Zoom.
         /4 - Start with the Psychic Link Mania Screen.
         /5 - Start with the Teapot Vector.
         /6 - Start with the Solid Tunnel.
         /7 - Start with the Landscape.
         /8 - Start with the Curtain Scroll.
         /9 - Start with the Credits.

    So,  for example,  if you were to type:    ACT1 /c2 /b2 /i7 /m2 /s /5

    this would select SBPro music,  set the soundcard base address to 220h and
the IRQ number to 7,  select a mixing frequency of 16kHz,  skip the setup
screen,  and start with the Teapot Vector Screen.


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Screens
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    ACT1 was written in 100% assembler, and runs under a customised version of
Tran's P-Mode - so thanks to him. It took us about 3 solid months to code,
plus several months of planning and less intensive coding (we only have access
to our PCs during weekends and school holidays :-( ) There is almost 1MB of
source code, which was assembled with TASM 3.2 and MASM 6.11, and linked with
Microsoft's LINK. We also use BorlandPascal 7 for odd jobs (such as trackers).

    For most of the screens,  the credits are simply as given in the Demo
itself,  but there are a few where it's a little more complicated than that,
and here is where it's all explained.  You may be thinking that as you've
already read the credits,  you already know what follows,  but you would be
wrong...   It also gives some technical info about the screens that you might
be interested in.


─────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Setup Screen       │
  Act1 Zoomer        │
  Teddy Bender       │
  Teapot Vector      │
  Curtain Scroll     │   by Statix.
  Credits            │
  P-Mode Environment │
  File Handling      │
  Music Routines     │
─────────────────────┘


P-mode Environment:   This is based on Tran's P-Mode setup,  because it's the
              best we've been able to find.  Thanks, Tran... :-)

Teapot Vector:   In case you're wondering,  Statix didn't design the whole
         teapot himself,  although he did have to re-do the lid,  as
         the original one didn't fit...   However,  he did design the
         blue bouncy thing himself,  using only a pencil, a piece of
         paper and a calculator.   The teapot consists of around 600
         polygons,  while the blue thing is made from 96 polygons.

Curtain Scroll:   Coding and Design: Statix
                   Font: S-Cubed
          All three of us contributed to the scroll text.



─────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Starship Vector    │
  Psychic Link Logo  │
  Mandelbrot Zoom    │   by S-Cubed.
  Psychic Link Mania │
  Solid Tunnel       │
─────────────────────┘


Starship Vector:   This screen was thought up by S-Cubed and Statix together,
           but S-Cubed took over for the actual coding,  because only
           he was crazy enough to want to design the Starship without
           an object designer.  He designed it using only a pencil,  a
           piece of paper and a calculator.  It contains over 500
           points, 350 polygons and 60 clusters.  The next program he
           wants to write is an object designer... :-)
           The screen uses a Filled Polygon routine by Statix.

Mandelbrot Zoom:   If you've seen the Mandelbrot Zoom in Crystal Dream II by
           Triton,  you may think that this one is rather slow and
           doesn't have enough iterations.  The difference is that in
           this one,  the Fractal calculations are done realtime.
           What you see is a realtime zoom on 161 x 161 pixels of the
           mandelbrot set,  each calculated to a maximum of 64
           iterations.  If you don't believe it's realtime,  then
           think again - when the demo is run it chooses from one of
           eight possible points to zoom in on.  If all eight zooms
           were stored as animations,  the resulting file would be
           bigger than the size of the whole demo compressed.

Psychic Link Mania:   This screen also uses Statix's filled polygon routine.


─────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Plasma             │   by Skywalker.
  Landscape          │
─────────────────────┘

Plasma:            A fairly boring plasma but running in a higher resolution
           than most, and smoothly on a 386 ;-) ...

Landscape:         Thanks to S-Cubed for the cloud generator. This started
           life as a starwars scroller, but then progressed into what
           you see now... The checkerboard is shaded so that it gets
           darker in the distance. If you do not have enough memory
           then some of the darker shades will be sacrificed and the
           screen will not look so good - if this is the case try
           running with music off or at a lower mixing rate.

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Music
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    The Music which is played from the start of the demo up to and including
the Psychic Link Mania screen was written by S-Cubed.

    The Music which is played from the Teapot Vector screen until the end of
the demo was written by Skywalker.

    The demo is accompanied by an 8-channel soundtrack throughout.  The music
was written using DisorderTracker,  written by Statix,  who also wrote the
music playing routines for the demo.  He is going to start work on
DisorderTracker v2.0 shortly,  and it will be released if and when he
completes it...


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Graphics
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    There are hardly any graphics in this demo,  because we do not have a
graphics artist.  If you are a graphics artist who is not a member of any
other demo group,  and would like to join Psychic Link,  please contact us.
We would prefer someone who is fairly fluent in English,  has a PC with VGA
graphics capabilities,  and a permanent address at which they can be
contacted,  but even if you don't think you meet these specifications,  don't
hesitate to get in touch.


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Group
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

    To find out more about Psychic Link,  take a look at the PL94.NFO text
file that accompanies the demo.  If that's not enough and you want to know
more,  then you could log on to our WHQ BBS,  and download the latest Psychic
Link information file from there,  or contact us in any of the following ways:


   WHQ BBS:  ProActive Logic  [phone]
         "Statix" and "S-Cubed" are both users on this BBS,  and you can
         also leave messages for "Psychic Link".

    BBS II:  Active Logic  [phone]
         This is ProActive Logic's sister BBS,  and you can message
         "Statix" and "S-Cubed" on here too...

   FidoNet:  Psychic Link  -at-  2:257/119.1

  Internet:  S-Cubed       -at-  [e-mail] (most reliable)
         Psychic Link  -at-  [e-mail] (less reliable)

       Fax:  S-Cubed / PL  -on-  [phone]

Snail Mail:  Statix / PL              Skywalker / PL
         6, Dungarvan Avenue,     15, Daylesford Avenue,
         London.                  London
         SW15 5QU                 SW15 5QR
         ENGLAND                  ENGLAND


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
                End of File
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════