                                           /\
                                          /· \
     _____ _____.        _____ _____.    //   \  ______
 .___\_   \_    |    .___\_   \_    |   //    .\/  _   \_
 |    |    |    |____|_  _|    |    |____|_   |    |    |
 |    |____|    ______/  \_    |    ______/   |    |    |
 ¯\____   \|    |____|    |    |    |____|    |    |____|
 |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |____.
 |·   |    |·   |    |·   |    |·   |    |    |·   |    |
 |:   |    |:   |    |:   |    |:   |    |    |:   |    |
 ||   |    ||   |    ||   |    ||_  |    |    ||   |    |
 |    |    |    |    |    |    | \  |    |    |    |    |
 ¯\_______/¯\_______/|____|    |  \_____/|    |\_______/¯
                       cRu|________\     |    |                   Issue #40
                                         |· __|__    /\   ____    ____
                                         |: \   / __/· \__\_  \___\_  \_ _.
 October, 2002                           ||    /  \ \__/   /   /   /___// |
 288 Subscribers World Wide              |    /___/  \    /   /   __/_ /  |
                                         |   /   /   /   /   /   /   //   |
                                         ¯\____ /___/___/   /¯\____ //____|
                                              \/       /___/      \/

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Table Of Contents
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Opening:
        Message From the Editor
        Letters From Our Readers
     Features:
        Party Report -- Assembly '02
        Using Impulse Tracker in Windows XP
        Coming Soon -- MindCandy, the DemoDVD
     Reviews:
        Music:
           In Tune -- Virt's "Witches"
           The Lineup -- Introduction: Help Wanted
        Demo:
           Screen Lit Vertigo -- Demos by Orion, Halcyon and Haujobb
           Alternative Review -- The TAP 256.htm Competitions
     Opinion / Commentary:
        Editorial -- Happy Returns
        Inside My Mind -- The Versatility of the Tracker
        Another View:
           "Creativity" by The Watcher
           "Pop Goes the Musician" by Colin D'Cruz
     Link List: Get Somewhere in the Scene
     Closing: Staff and Contact Information


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Message From the Editor
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     I would like to thank everyone for your patience and understanding
  over the last year.  I'm pretty sure that we will all agree that this
  has not been an ideal year for Static Line.  But that's all behind us
  now, and I'm finally glad to report that Static Line has returned to a
  full agenda.  There have been a lot of changes from what you, the
  faithful readers of Static Line, are used to.

     First of all, thanks to cRu for drawing up two very nice ASCII art
  titles for the magazine.  The larger of the two appears at the top of
  this issue.  Also thanks to Ghandy for getting these to me.  It seems
  very appropriate that we get a new look for Static Line's return.

     The format of the magazine has changed slightly as well.  In the past,
  all guest contributions became "feature articles" regardless of their
  focus.  To save a bit of confusion, we now categorize every article and
  place them where they belong.  Opinion and Commentary article submissions
  are common.  Therefore, guest contributions get filed under the column
  header "Another View".  These are often very thought provoking articles,
  and definately worth a read.

     You will also notice that our staff has changed as well.  Seven will
  continue to provide us with his monthly column as well as his regular
  party reports.  Tryhuk has sadly decided to move on.  While he will no
  longer carry a monthly column with us, he has assured me that he may
  contribute feature articles when he can.  But let us not forget our new
  staff members.  We welcome three new writers to the Static Line staff:
  Novus, Vill and The Watcher.

     Novus will be maintaining a monthly column called "The Lineup", which
  lists current music with a first impression rating.  A brief introduction
  of the concept appears in this month's column.  He'll be looking for
  additional help with this column.  So if you want to help contribute to
  this fine magazine, this may be your opportunity.

     Vill makes his Static Line debut with a column that I titled "Inside
  My Mind".  This is a last minute title, and it may change when Vill
  throws his complaints at me in the form of an e-mail typed with Caps
  Lock turned on.  Seriously though, his column is a commentary on
  creativity in the 'scene.  His thoughts might provoke some good debates.
  You'll want to read his debut, and keep an eye on him in the future.

     The Watcher comes to us with a couple of articles this month.
  First, he reviews some contributions to the TAP 256.htm Competitions in
  what I hope will become a regular review column about demos and related
  topics.  He also submitted an very nice opinion article about
  Creativity, everone's favorite stumbling block.  I hope we see more of
  The Watcher in the future, and I'm sure you will too.

     Well, it seems to me that we've got a pretty good return issue for
  you.  In fact, it is the largest issue we have released to date.  And
  it's jammed with quality articles.  As things are constantly changing,
  we always welcome your comments.  Feel free to send us your thoughts.

     Until Next time.

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Letters From Our Readers
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- A Message from Zito -=-
     This is Zito/1oo%^mOOdS^Reason^Scarab, maintainer of www.diskmag.de
  and main editor of "Jurassic Pack". While reading the latest issue of
  your Static Line, I had to notice, that not a single project I am
  involved in is listed in your link section. So I thought to recommend
  them to you with a little explaination:

  www.diskmag.de - a scene portal for various platforms, this should not
  be missed!

  www.jurassicpack.de.vu - website of the legendary amiga scene diskmag!

  Bye!

                --Zito

  -=- Reply From Coplan -=-
     Greetings Zito!

     Thanks for giving us the heads up about your projects and the web
  pages associated with them.  As you know, the 'scene is very vast, and
  there are probably a lot of sites we aren't aware of and havn't
  cataloged.  We're always looking for new links, and I appreciate  your
  contribution.  Both are now listed in our Link List.

     Thanks again.

                --Coplan


  -=- A Message from Christian Wirth -=-
     I was wondering when the next issue of Static Line was to be released?
  What type of articles do you look for, or is there a format?   :)

     Also, would you mind linking us in your Archives section of your
  publication, our archive is called "ACiD Artpacks Archive", url is
  "ftp://ftp.artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/" -- our files date from
  1990-2001.  We officially stopped taking uploads on 3/14/2001.

  Best Regards,

                --Christian Wirth

  -=- Reply from Coplan -=-
     Christian, I actually tried to contact you prior to our release, but
  was unable to reach you.

     As a general rule, Static Line will be released on the first Sunday
  of every month.  There will be some exceptions due to holidays or
  what-not. But for the most part, I will be able to hold to this
  schedule.  In general, I ask that article submissions get to me no later
  than the Friday immediately before release, but earlier is often better.
  Sometimes I hold articles for the following issue.  This happens pretty
  often, actually.  As far as article types?  I'm willing to publish any
  interesting article that has relationship to the scene.  The articles
  I'm looking for the most are technical articles or tips articles.  But
  again, there's no one particular type of article that I'm specifically
  looking for.

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Party Report
     Assembly '02
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Assembly! The famous Finnish demoparty! This is the party where
  legendary groups released the demos that became true classics. It is one
  of the oldest parties in existence, and yet it is still going strong.
  It's been said that every scener should visit the Assembly at least once
  in his lifetime, and this year I've finally managed to do exactly that.


  -=- Thursday, 1 August -=-

     Having arrived the day before by plane, I left the hotel at noon and
  walked to the party place. Assembly takes place in the Hartwall Arena, a
  huge covered hockey stadium build into a hillside in Helsinki. There
  were several entrances, one had only a few tens of people waiting in
  front of it, and two others had hundreds of visitors queueing up, with
  their hardware in small metal trolleys. I had ordered my oldskool
  ticket from the Assembly website. But due to revised postal fees,
  tickets are no longer sent outside Finland. After asking some gamers and
  a security guard to no avail, a fellow demoscener pointed me to the
  right queue (thank you Styx), which was the shortest one. Nice!

  -=- 13:04 -=-
     After having my possesions meticulously checked for alcohol, weapons
  and who knows what other forbidden substances, I proceeded to the ticket
  booth where a friendly lady *did* find an order form with my name on it;
  albeit only after searching twice. Hello heart attack! I told her I
  hadn't yet paid for the ticket, which she apparently found hard to
  believe.  But after some arguing she reluctantly accepted my 30 Euros
  (oldskool tickets are half the price of normal tickets).

     The oldskool area was a long, small and relatively empty hall. Only a
  few sceners had arrived at this point. At one end, a big screen was
  installed; so we did't have to run to the main hall to see the compos. I
  installed my laptop and got on the network without a problem. Looking
  around, the first person I met was no other than Phoenix/Hornet! I was
  surprised he still knew me since we've met only once before at
  Mekka/Symposium 2k1. He informed me that the DemoDVD project was going
  according to plan, although they *almost* lost all their work in a hard
  disk crash. But they were able to get it back, and the DVD should be
  ready  for release sometime in fall 2002. He gave also me a copy of the
  promotional videoCD and of the Demodulate CD. The videoCD is meant as a
  sample of what MindCandy (the title of the first DemoDVD) will contain,
  even though the quality is lower than that of a real DVD. Besides two
  trailers, it contains movies of X14/Orange, Gerbera/Moppi Productions,
  Panic/Future Crew, Kosmiset Avaruus Sienet/Haujobb, Toasted/Cubic Team &
  $een and Tesla/Sunflower. The oldies (X14, Panic, Toasted), especially,
  make me feel all nostalgic and fuzzy inside :) The Demodulate CD
  contains the soundtrack MOD/S3M/XM's of 380 Amiga and PC demos.

  -=--=--
  Editor's Note:  Phoenix has an article about MindCandy in Static Line
  this month.  You can find out more about it from that article.
  -=--=--

     After a while we went food shopping with Howler to last for the next
  few days. The fastfood they sell inside the arena has an
  amazingly high price:nutritiousness ratio. Later, I made a major faux pas
  by offering Phoenix some chocolate-covered nuts, not knowing he has an
  allergy to nuts :( Luckily he escaped without injury, and the rest of
  the party went by without accidental homicide attempts.

     Even though Assembly is one of the largest parties in existence (2700
  computers, 4500 visitors in 4 days), it has managed to keep the
  'scene feeling alive, mainly by concentrating most sceners in the
  oldskool area. That makes it much easier to get to know new people. One
  of the ALT-party orgos is selling little name tags sporting "official
  ALT-party supporter". Quite a few people are wearing them. I talk
  a bit with Unseen Fate/Dawning and Britelite/Decadence, whose group has
  made an impressive C64 demo. There should be at least one other C64 entry
  and several Vic-20 ones, so that should be an interesting compo.

     I also meet Preacher, who is making a 4K DOS intro with lots of
  effects (although they're almost all derived from the old tunnel-map
  effect) and a funny conversation between two gamers. My own attempt at
  making a 4K windows intro was aborted after I learned that entries were
  not allowed to write anything to disk. So it wasn't possible to use a
  "dropper", a small com-file that decompresses the windows exe file, which
  means I couldn't compress the 512-byte large PE header, which means I'd
  waste 12% of the 4K right away :( Guess I'll have to finish and submit it
  at another party.

  -=- 18:30 -=-
     The opening ceremony is over! It started with a short clip of the
  previous Assembly, followed by a speech by Abyss. He urged the gamers and
  the sceners to have some respect for each other (there were some
  incidents last year), and to have fun at the best Assembly ever. There
  are more oldskool places, more PC places and more visitors than ever. The
  prize money is an amazing 40,000 euros, and there are lots of seminars
  about console or mobile programming, overclocking, computer music and
  more. I'm pleasantly surprised at Abyss: I'd expect a certain amount of
  routine or burn-out after organizing this hugely complex party for the
  umpteenth time for a bunch of ungrateful nerds, but he's still genuinely
  enthusiastic about Assembly and the demoscene. Kudos to him!

     The slides on the bigscreen urge everyone to register themselves with
  the Zepo system, so you can vote, fill in an poll etc. But no URL is
  given, and I search the intranet website in vain until Phoenix has the
  brilliant idea to go ask the infodesk. A tad later, the URL is added to
  the bigscreen-slide, which proves the feedback between the various parts
  of the organizer team works better than at certain other parties I've
  been to (Hi Ambience 2k1 Orgos).

     Still unhappy about not having anything to enter in the compos, I
  took a look at the surprise compos, but the only coding compo is the
  Nokia 24-hours compo. There's a 500 MB large development kit available
  to test your code on a PC, but it requires Visual Studio 6, and I don't
  want to tempt the gods by trying to install that beast on a Pentium 75
  laptop.

     When I walk around in the main hall, checking out what people are
  doing (mostly gaming, of course), people react a bit strange to my
  presence. I can't quite put my finger on it, until a finnish gamer
  meekly ask a question. When I tell him I don't understand Finnish, he
  takes a questioning glance at my T-shirt and nametag, and leaves. In the
  sparse illumination of the main hall, the combination of my dark blue
  Buenzli T-shirt and the ALT-nametag vaguely looks like the outfit of the
  security people, which explains the number of people who swiftly close
  their file-sharing programs when I walk past :)

  -=- 20:18 -=-
     Back in the oldkool area, a guy (wearing a white t-shirt with the
  "crying alien"-logo from Gateways/Trauma) asked if I had seen Phoenix.
  He was Sol/Trauma, nowadays in tAAt, although he didn't contribute to
  any tAAt-release at the Assembly this year. He had some questions about
  the DemoDVD, but Phoenix was doing jury duty. Since Sol had to leave
  later that night, and would not return until sunday, I promised to keep
  an eye open and inform him if I saw Phoenix.

     If you didn't know, Assembly has a two-stage voting process. A jury
  of volunteers sifts through the entries to separate the good ones from
  the junk, and only the pre-selected entries are shown on the bigscreen.
  Then the audience can vote on what they like best.

     The next familiar face I see is Unlock, who just arrived. We didn't
  know about each other going to Assembly, despite the fact that we're
  both on the Pain mailing-list. Shame on us :) We walked to the fast-food
  selling part of the Hartwall complex to test the pizza. Judgement: it
  tastes good, but expensive. I learned that PS/Calodox should be here
  too, but he's probably at Boozembly. After that Unlock goes clubbing
  somewhere in Helsinki. Phoenix is back in the oldskool area, but now Sol
  is nowhere to be found. Thanks to the wonder of mobile communications, a
  randomly button holed tAAt member called him, and five minutes later a
  historical meeting takes place. Sol works for Fathammer now, and
  they're interested in buying a batch of DemoDVDs. In case you don't know
  Fathammer, they're a bunch of ex-sceners who are making a software 3D
  engine optimized for mobile color devices such as the PocketPC or the
  latest mobile phones. They have some impressive screenshots on their
  homepage (www.fathammer.com), check them out! <insert rant about blatant
  commercialism in party reports>

  -=- 22:49 -=-
     Nectarine, the one and only demoscene internet radio, has a relay for
  400 listeners at Assembly, and it works beautifully. The official FTP
  site, on the other hand, is still completely empty. There's a demoshow
  on AsmTV, with a panel of sceners giving a commentary after each demo,
  and it is shown on the big screen; so I decided to watch it. AsmTV is a
  4-day long TV program created mostly live at the party place. It is
  actually broadcasted over cable in the Helsinki city area, so people can
  watch the compos, the demoshows, the interviews and so on right in the
  comfort of their own home. The rest of the world can watch it over the
  internet, if have a fast connection. You can watch it at the
  party place on some scattered TVs. But occasionally parts are shown on
  the big screens too.


  -=- Friday, 2 August -=-

  -=- 0:10 -=-
     The game compo is over, and tAAt is sure to win :) They've created a
  little game that, if it ever gets widespread recognition, will result in
  men in white coats knocking on their doors to put them in a
  straight-jacket...for their own safety of course. "Porrasturvat", which
  means "Stair Dismount", is the simplest game I've ever seen. You have to
  push someone down the stairs. Just select the body part you want to hit,
  the direction and force of the blow, and watch him tumble. I see tAAt a
  bit as a joke-group, with higher quality than Rectum Cauda but less than
  the average demogroup. But this game is technically quite impressive:
  there's a physics engine that calculates how the force of the initial
  blow is passed on to the other body parts, how the body is impacted
  while tumbling down, and how much damage each body part receives. You
  can change the camera position, the user interface is very intuitive,
  you can submit your high scores online to compare it to other people.
  And the music and nifty sound effects can be switched on and off
  separately. Another remarkable game was "Blockofighter", a 3-D
  everything-is-allowed fight between two little lego men. Unfortunately,
  the battle arena is quite small and suspended in a void. So half of the
  games are won by the person who can avoid jumping accidently over the
  railing :)

  -=- 2:04 -=-
     Another demoshow, "Demo Legends", is shown on the bigscreen. But I
  start to get too tired to enjoy it. Since there will be three more days
  of demopartying, I call it a day and go unroll my sleeping bag.

  -=- 6:49 -=-
     I'm awake again, and the Oldskool area is a bit more full. More
  people have arrived, but the overall activity level is pretty low. There
  won't be many compos until this evening when the fast music and the
  various oldskool compos are shown. I haven't registered for any of the
  seminars, so I'll have to find something else to keep me busy.

  -=- 13:06 -=-
     Oops! I forgot this report :) Not much is happening. The gamers are
  gaming, the sceners are working on their productions, and I've been
  reading Iczelion's excellent win32 asm tutorials -- until Phoenix seizes
  control of my laptop to check his e-mail. There are already over 500
  people who want to be warned when the DemoDVD is finished, and the
  promotional trailer plus an interview with Phoenix will be shown at AsmTV
  at 18:00.

  -=- 17:49 -=-
     After some talk with Preacher about his 4K, I went to Boozembly with
  Fred, Unlock and another Calodox dude. I asked them how Calodox was
  going, since there were rumours it was dead. They confirmed that it was,
  indeed, 100% completely dead. There weren't many people at Boozembly, and
  nobody I knew. When we went back, the Calodox guys wanted to go to the
  city, and Fred gave me his mobile number so I could call him if the
  organizers announced a problem with one of the Calodox compo-entries.
  100% completely dead must be a relative measure :)

     Phoenix is again mailing and updating his website on my laptop, so I
  go sight-seeing in the main hall. There's a certain geeky kind of
  aesthetic appeal in a darkened hall with literally thousands of computer
  screens flashing in addition to the rotating lights, christmas
  decorations and other lightshow stuff people have brought. I don't have
  a camera with me, but I ask a girl whose PC is showing a slideshow of
  party pictures if I can get a copy of an overview of the hall.  I
  installed that image as background on my laptop.

     One of the sponsors of Assembly is AMD, and a couple of crazy Fins are
  showing on AsmTV how to overclock one of the newest AMD processors to an
  amazing 4029 Mhz using nothing but a paper fan, some duct tape and a
  large amount of liquid oxygen (OK, maybe I missed some other ingredients,
  didn't follow the whole program).

  -=- 21:30 -=-
     The surprise music compo is over. It was quite good, but I find it
  hard to stay awake again. Maybe I'm getting old, but I really need to
  sleep a bit. I've been keeping an eye on the big screen, but I haven't
  seen the DemoDVD announcement. Later Phoenix tells met it was only shown
  on the TVs, not on the bigscreen. So I missed it :(

     The oldskool music has a lot of variation in it, especially since PC
  4-channel mods are now considered oldskool too. Some people are saying
  this is unfair for the C64 and Gameboy musicians who have to compete
  against those, but what is the alternative? There are already 4 music
  compos, are we going to split them in even more?

     While we're waiting for the oldskool graphics compo to start, Unseen
  Fate, another guy and I discuss the efforts of the Asm orgos to keep the
  party scene-friendly. We agree they're really doing an effort for us. The
  oldskool graphics are OK: there's only one
  vote-for-me-cause-i-ve-drawn-lesbian-chicks image.  The "Last Battle"
  and "Gawd bless America" pics are really very good.

  -=- 22:20 -=-
     An excellent oldskool compo featured 3 C64 and 3 Vic-20 demos. My
  favourite is the PWP entry, bringing us a message of world domination by
  mind control. Those pesky Vic-20 users, I've always said you can't trust
  them! The C64 demo of Haujobb and Decadence is impressive too, with
  voxel-like 3D and even the classic duck.3DS !


  -=- Saturday, 3 August -=-

  -=- 0:50 -=-
     This is phoenix invading this report!

     I stopped by Boozembly, and got more done there for the dvd than the
  actual party. Well, now I know where to find the sceners I'm looking
  for.  Saw Crankshaft (Yolk/CNCD) and Jugi "live". Well, they mostly just
  played back recorded music.  But damn, how cool!  I recognized a  few
  tunes from demos like Codename Chinadoll and Horizontal Cool, but the
  treat was Jugi playing a piano solo, which lead into an all-new version
  of "Onward, the Dope theme!"  So I'm taking a break now, but will try to
  be back for Machinae Supremacy (known for their Giana Sisters cover).
  This concert is probably the best idea to come to ASM since the Oldskool
  area I'm typing this in right now.

  -=- 2:58 -=-
     Seven typing again.

     The concert is over, and it was great. It started with CNCD, then came
  Crankshaft featuring Jugi, then Tero, and it ended with Machinae
  Supremacy, unfortunately without Rob Hubbard because it was already too
  late so he was sleeping :) The wide passageway in which the concert took
  place was packed, and Abyss had to ask several times to leave a small
  corridor open (due to fire regulations). He also handed out earplugs
  during the Machinae Supremacy gig, who were playing much more aggresive
  than in the songs on their website. Tragically, they had to stop due to a
  casualty: a string on a guitar didn't survive the concert, so they
  couldn't play encores :( Anyway, if you like a mix of rock, metal and
  SID-tunes, and you have the chance to see them, jump on it!

     Some guy is snoring (as in: LOUD), and people retaliate by testing how
  much junk they can put on top of him before he wakes up. That turns out
  to be quite a lot :) Anyway, I guess I'll follow his example, minus the
  snoring...

  -=- 8:29 -=-
     Back awake because someone dropped a glass nearby. The main hall is
  even quieter than yesterday morning. I'm afraid to imagine how it will be
  tomorrow :) One of the advantages of having a demoparty in an ice hockey
  hall is that there's no shortage of showers. After refreshment, I notice
  there are some video clips from AsmTV available on the FTP, but not the
  ones from the demoDVD. Guess I'll have to wait till I'm home to enjoy
  the trailers.

  -=- 11:33 -=-
     There was another demoshow on bigscreen; mainly the very famous 94-95
  demos that won at The Party, Assembly etc. The PC demos I've already
  seen too often. But they also showed Amiga and C64 stuff. Next, they
  showed various wild demos from '98, but the Legoland wild demo that won
  The Gathering crashed in the middle :(

     Hmm, there's someone sleeping under my table, oblivious to the
  danger of myself inadvertedly stepping on him. It is not a bad idea to
  accumulate sleep, as today is the day when most of the compos will be
  held.

  -=- 14:28 -=-
     The instrumental music compo is over, and I'm 99% sure of which song
  is going to win: "Return of the Goblin". To prevent name voting, no names
  were shown in the solo competitions (music and graphics), but everyone
  with a notion of oldskool music knew, both from the title and the style,
  that Skaven had made a sequel to "Catch that goblin!" Most of the other
  14 pre-selected songs are ambient or orchestral. There's nothing else that
  really jumps out (after listening once, at least), but the quality is OK.

  -=- 14:40 -=-
     The raytraced graphics compo also contained 15 preselected entries,
  the quality was IMHO very good. There was one image of which the idea (2
  fish playing baseball in a damaged fishbowl) is ripped from a Gary Larson
  cartoon.

  -=- 15:33 -=-
     The Flash demo compo is over, and while I liked several of the 11
  entries, I lack the knowledge to judge them on their technical merits.
  Simple 3D objects seems to be a major accomplishment, and rotating cubes
  with fuzzy edges are all the rage.

  -=- 15:46 -=-
     I had to jump through some hoops to start voting: first you need to
  register with the Zepo system, which mails you a password with which you
  can actually log in. Then you need to tell which table you're sitting
  at. This info is compared with the voting key you've been given, and so
  on.

  -=- 19:29 -=-
     The vocal music compo was a bit strange in the sense that several
  songs didn't have any vocals at all (that Drunk Piano tune, for
  example). Besides, I'm not a fan of vocals in demoscene music. They
  sound too amateur-like most of the time. The drawn graphics were OK.  At
  least it had some very nice pics ("Final Lap" is my favorite), but I fear
  the typical images with half-naked chicks will get most of the votes.
  The 4K intro compo had a few screw-ups. One intro was announced as being
  an Amiga intro but it was on PC, and two ros had to be re-shown at the
  end because the music didn't play the first time. Overall, they were
  enjoyable. But there weren't any mind-bending intros as at
  Mekka/Symposium this year.

     The neighbor on my right side, a guy who was running Linux on a
  Playstation 2, has moved and his place is taken up by a guy by the
  alias: Bemmu.  Bemmu is an Anime fan, judging from the movies he's
  playing. I like to watch Anime too, and we get into a discussion about
  our favourite series. Meanwhile the Alt party organizers have been
  organizing some weird surprise compos: Such compos as the "live music"
  compo, the short stories compo and the ascii-logo-on-paper compo :)

  -=- 23:16 -=-
     The 64K intro had some real gems! The best one in the compo is also
  the best 64K I've ever seen: Squish by AND. It has reminds me of the
  Farbrausch intros because it has great music and lots of 3D scenes. But
  unlike "The Product" or "Poem To A Horse", it has also several effects
  plus some 3D objects (the monstrous alien f.e.) that are clearly not
  generated but modeled. One of the first intros was a java entry with
  lots of yellowish photos. The code is probably quite simple; but it
  looked good on the bigscreen. There was a cool software-rendered entry
  from noice with pencil-rendering, and some intros (Neuroosiverkko/tAAt
  f.e.) even had voice synthesis!


  -=- Sunday 4 august -=-

  -=- 0:25 -=-
     The next compo was for mobile platforms such as the GameBoy Advance,
  PocketPC, the Yopi (a Linux handheld), various GSMs from Nokia, Siemens
  and a TI-82 calculator. The vast differences in platforms made it hard
  to compare the 13 entries: the PocketPC has a 240*320 colorscreen, a
  200Mhz CPU, and +16 MB of RAM; while the TI-82 has 94*82 black&white
  screen, a 6Mhz Z80 CPU and 28 KB RAM. One of the best entries was Limbo
  by Byterapers and Doomsday. It really looked like an oldskool demo:
  voxel spacing, software rendered 3D objects, a water effect, etc. On the
  other side of the spectrum was Perkele Plus, a funny black-and-red entry
  for a GSM, with a definition of tunnel effect, a 1-bit plasma, and a
  wobbling picture of Rob Hubbard.

     The first part of the prize ceremony, for the solo competitions, was
  Saturday evening. I think it's a great idea: there are 25 compos (the
  game compos included), so it could easily take an hour to announce all
  the winners at once, and nobody wants to wait that long on the last day.
  Nothing really surprizing happened, except when the first prize of the
  oldskool music compo was announced. The prize would be given by Rob
  Hubbard himself. But Jamie, the winner, didn't appear on the podium. When
  someone finally climbed the stairs everybody applauded, but it was a
  friend of Jamie who came to tell that Jamie had left the partyplace to
  watch a movie :)

  -=- 1:49 -=-
     Phoenix had warned me the Wild compo wasn't very good (he's a jury for
  that one too), but I thought it was entertaining: there were spoofs of
  StarWars and Lord of the Rings. Yodel had made a gangsta music video, and
  Project Kazama Hunt was so amateurish it became funny. (Then again, my
  tiredness may be influencing my sense of humor). The only "serious" entry
  was "We Have The Way Out", showing a coder becoming so frustrated about
  his crashing demo he starts to see demo effects everywhere in real life.
  I can relate to that.

     I'm glad the thoughtfull organizers have put a gap in the schedule so
  we can go to sleep without missing anything, but I already curse them
  beforehand for starting the animation compo at 8 o'clock.

  -=- 5:06 -=-
     I wake up without knowing how late it is, but when Unseen Fate asks me
  something about Boozembly and I can't understand the question, I
  realize I need more sleep.

  -=- 7:05 -=-
     Awake, second attempt. Still feeling drowsy but I don't want to miss
  the animation compo...

  -=- 8:45 -=-
     The animations weren't as good as I expected: there was no Mass entry
  (Mass has been winning Assembly animations like Hybris/Nemesis has been
  doing at The Party), a few of the entries were clearly unfinished, and
  others were plain weird. The Wisky and Martini entry was my favourite,
  with Project Kerosine a close second.

  -=- 10:40 -=-
     And the final compo has finished. At first I thought the demo compo
  would be rather mediocre, but I'm glad the demos from Haujobb, Moppi
  Productions and Critical Mass have proven me wrong. Reviews will be
  coming in to a diskmag near you :) One new impressive effect is fur
  rendering, but I'm not sure which demo(s?) showed it. Two demos had to be
  re-shown at the end after increasing the projectors' brightness because
  they were too dark. But apart from that there were no technical
  problems.

     Now all we can do (after voting, of course), is wait for the prize
  ceremony. I go outside to get some fresh air, the weather is really
  nice, and I join PS, UncleX/MFX, Phoenix, Smash/Fairlight,
  Dixan/Spinning Kids and a few other people who are sitting on the warm
  asphalt in front of the Arena. The topic of discussion: why were the
  Halcyon and MFX demos not selected for the big screen? Is it proof the
  jury doesn't do name voting? Or are they biased in favor of "normal"
  demos? PS would prefer parties without any voting at all, while Phoenix
  thinks people have no right to complain if they're too lazy to do jury
  duty. The Russian coder AND, who made the amazing 64K intro: "Squish,"
  sits down with the group too. His English isn't exactly fluent, but it's
  good enough to answer some questions about Squish. He's been working on
  that intro for a year, and he has done it completely by himself: code,
  music and modelling. Hats off for such dedication! I'm glad to hear it
  should work on an ATI Radeon too.

     At last, the prize ceremony begins, and most results are as expected.
  The winners are announced; they get on stage and say something stupid
  and/or funny in the microphone (often in finnish). AND makes a short but
  touching speech in bad english, saying that we are all very lucky to
  have such an amazing party in Europe, and the audience gives him a
  thunderous applause. Yodel, who won second place in the wild compo with
  their gangsta immitation promises to come back next year as a boy band.
  Abyss announces that due to the high quality in the mobile compo, and
  due to the large amount of prize money, they have decided to award the
  top 5 instead of the top 3 entries. Great!

  -=- 16:38 -=-
     The closing ceremony is over, and everyone starts to clean up. In the
  rush, the organizers disconnect the switch in the oldskool area, which
  is really stupid because the entries of the compos are only available on
  the FTP server. Guess I'll have to download the wild and animation
  entries at home. I say goodbye to the people in the oldskool area, and
  then I am on my way to the hotel.


  -=- Back Home -=-
     In the days after the parties, several changes are made to the
  results. Whisky & Martini (2nd at animation) is disqualified because it
  has been released before, and something similar happens to Yodel's
  "What's up in the gangsta hood". Also the results of the 4K compo are
  shuffled a bit because some win32 intros did use the file dropper
  technique, which was forbidden.

     In closing, I must say I really enjoyed Assembly. I met a lot of
  interesting people plus some old friends, and I hope to be there again
  next year. Kudos to the organizers for making such a great party!

                --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Using Impulse Tracker in Windows XP
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- Introduction -=-
     Recently, I had to bite the bullet and switch to Windows XP.  Sadly,
  the operating system is based on the Windows NT kernel.  Therefore,
  "True DOS" doesn't exist in Windows XP.  There is a Command Prompt, but
  it is limited in what it can do with legacy DOS programs like my
  favorite tracker, Impulse Tracker.  So finding out that I couldn't use
  it in Windows XP (natively, at least) caused some turmoil in my mind.
  Hoping that maybe everyone else was ignorant, I tried to run IT.  It
  ran, and I saw the sound detection program.  It picked up my sound card,
  and I got a big grin on my face.  I loaded a song and two things became
  apparent immediately.  First, I had very limited Memory.  Second, the
  sound was poorly timed, the song skipped, and my processor was going
  nuts trying to keep up with the song.  This is no environment to track
  within.  Microsoft apparently tried, but failed, at supporting legacy
  DOS programs.  I guess they never had reason to think people might want
  to run oldskool games and media software.  So I grew more upset.

     For a while, I was dual booting between Windows XP and Windows 98.
  But as we all know, that gets old after a while.  And honestly, there's
  no reason to have that much hard drive space dedicated entirely to a
  tracking program.  But alas, there is a way to run Impulse Tracker (as
  well as other multimedia DOS programs) in windows XP.  This article will
  focus on how to get IT working.  These instructions could very easily be
  adapted for other programs as well.  Honestly, though, I have only
  tested this with Doom and Impulse Tracker.  Your results may vary.


  -=- First:  The Facts -=-
     There are some important technical facts that must be mentioned
  before you continue.  First is the fact that the file systems are
  different.  Classic DOS utilized a FAT (File Allocation Table) file
  system.  With the advent of Windows 95 came FAT32 and with Windows 98
  came VFAT, a 64 bit file system.  The nice thing is that all these were
  backwards compatible, so running DOS programs wasn't a problem.  But
  remember that Windows XP is based on the NT line of kernels.  These use
  the NTFS standard, which isn't very compatible with the FAT line at all.
  DOS programs simply won't work very well.  Fortunately, Windows XP reads
  both NTFS and FAT-like file systems.  Purely for performance issues,
  it's recommended that your system partition of your hard drive be
  formatted as NTFS.  But if you're like me, you have multiple partitions.
  This is really the best way to run things anyhow.  If you're still
  running your massive drives as one partition, you should definately
  consider repartitioning your drives.  But that's a different column all
  together, and I won't cover the reasons here.  Basically, I recommend
  maintaining your primary system drive as NTFS, but having at least one
  additional partition formatted as VFAT.  If you want to run DOS programs
  in Windows XP, they must exist in a VFAT formatted partition.  I'll
  leave the configuration and placement up to you.  But you'll need to
  copy Impulse Tracker to a partition formatted as VFAT.  Again, it will
  not run on the NTFS formatted partition.

     The other thing you have to be aware of isn't so well known.  On a
  classic DOS or Windows 9x system, you can actually get more than 16MB of
  EMS memory useable for Impulse Tracker.  I was not aware of this until
  it was pointed out by a fellow tracker.  Most people don't work in
  Impulse Tracker with more than 16MB of samples, but there are a few of
  you that will be affected by such a limit. Unfortunately, Impulse
  Tracker was never written for a Windows OS.  So, since Windows XP
  doesn't have True DOS, you will be limited to 16MB. Fortunately, 16MB
  will be enough in most cases.


  -=- Getting the Sound Working -=-
     As I said, audio does technically work in the Command Prompt, but it
  doesn't work well, and sound quality is pretty terrible.  This is a
  Windows XP limitation, but there is a way around it.

     You will want to grab VDMSound, an open source legacy audio
  application driver.  You can get it from the greatest host of Open
  Source projects:  Source Forge.  Specifically, you can grab VDMSound at
  the following URL:

     http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

     I don't know why, but when I downloaded the application, the file
  became an EXE file.  It's actually an MSI file.  You may or may not
  have to rename the file so that it ends in ".msi".  Double clicking
  that MSI file will install the program pretty painlessly.  Read the
  documentation with the application, if you wish.  There are a lot of
  things you can do with it.  But again, I won't go into too much detail
  about that.  All I need to say is that the command line to load
  VDMSound is "dosdrv".  That's it.  Please be aware, if you do not have
  a Sound Blaster card, you will need to read the documentation and
  configure a few things.  It's not too difficult though, so it shouldn't
  really be a problem.

     Once you know that VDMSound is working properly, you will need to
  create a batch file.  This will be a very simple batch file, but it's
  essential for memory management which I will cover later.  The batch
  file really only needs to contain two lines.  My batch file is
  definately very simple (the greater than sign indicates a new line):

     > dosdrv
     > it s4

     You will need to change the IT command line to fit your sound card
  and load the driver that you need.  If you type "it /h" at the command
  prompt, it should help you figure out what argument to specify.  It is
  important that you specify your driver, as it doesn't always autodetect
  in Windows XP.


  -=- Memory and Usability Issues -=-
     If you were to run your batch file from the command prompt now,
  you'll be able to load Impulse Tracker, and you may even be able to
  load and play a very small song.  But two problems still exist.  First
  is the fact that IT doesn't window very well; it needs to be in full
  screen mode.  Pressing "Alt-Enter" fixes this, but that's annoying, and
  sometimes Impulse Tracker doesn't redraw properly.  The other issue is
  that ever lingering issue of available Memory.  Alas, this isn't Windows
  9x, so appending commands to your config.sys file doesn't work here.  So
  how do we solve this problem?  We have to trick windows a bit.

     Windows XP, apparently, has two types of Shortcuts.  If you try to
  make a shortcut to a batch file, you have a limited set of properties
  that are able to be modified when you edit the shortcut's properties.
  With programs, however, you can tweak and modify much more.  So, lets do
  that.  You will need to create a shortcut to any EXE file.  I created a
  shortcut to IT.EXE (Impulse Tracker's executable), but as you will see
  in a minute, it doesn't matter.  Now, right-click (secondary click) the
  shortcut and select the Properties option.  You will get a dialog box
  containing tabls for GENERAL, PROGRAM, FONT, MEMORY, SCREEN, MISC and
  COMPATIBILITY.  If you don't have all of these tabs, you likely have a
  batch file shortcut.  Anyhow, change any of the information that you
  wish, like the shortcut's name, and so on.  But there are a few
  essential modifications that you will need to make.

  Program tab:  Change the command line so that it points to the batch
  file you created (mine was it.bat).  If you feel the need, you can
  change the working directory as well...but that's not all that
  important, as you set paths in Impulse Tracker.  Now the shortcut is
  linked to the batch file, but Windows still thinks it's an executable
  shortcut.  Thank Bill Gates for that loophole.

     Memory Tab:  This doesn't work quite as well as you'd like.  In
  Win95/98, you could change it EMS, XMS and DPMI to "Auto" and everything
  worked fine.  You could even get more than 16MB of EMS.  But this is
  Windows XP, so EMS doesn't quite work the same way.  You should,
  instead, change everything so that the highest memory size is selected
  (16384).  If you don't, you'll only get 4 MB in IT.  For me, that's
  fine.  But for you high quality, large sample guys, 4MB probably isn't
  enough.

     Screen Tab:  Might be obvious, but you'll want to change the Usage to
  "Full Screen" so that IT renders correctly.

     Contrary to what you might think, you don't need to do anything in the
  Compatibility tab.  Changing options here doesn't really seem to make
  any difference.

  -=- Get Tracking -=-
     Well, that should just about do it.  You might want to make a fancier
  Batch file, or tweak some more settings in the shortcut properties.  You
  may even want to tweak VDMSound as well, but again, the defaults are
  usually more than sufficient for most people.  But this should be enough
  to get IT working smoothly with 16MB of memory.  Again, if you don't
  have a Sound Blaster card, you will likely need to modify the INI file
  in the VDMSound directory so that it reflects the settings of your sound
  card.

     So that's it.  I've been running Impulse Tracker in Windows XP now
  for a couple of months, and I have yet to find any problems.  Again,
  your results may vary, but everyone who has tried this so far hasn't
  had any problems.  If you discover any problems, please let me know so
  that I can inform the public.

     Happy Tracking!

                --Coplan


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Coming Soon
     MindCandy, the DemoDVD
  By:  Phoenix
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     One of the most ambitious scene projects to date is finally near
  completion. Beginning life in 2000 as the "DemoDVD Project", it is now
  officially known as "MindCandy vol. 1: PC Demos".  For the past two
  years, several members of the former Hornet demo/archive crew and Fusecon
  (publisher of the Audiophonik CD), with a huge outpouring of help, have
  compiled an anthology of demos from the past 12 years onto a double-sided
  DVD.  Not only to preserve the classics for die-hard sceners, but to
  finally put you or your friend's expensive home theater system to good
  use. ;)

     As you can tell from the title, this first (of hopefully several)
  volume focusing on our savoir faire, PC demos.  The disc is split into
  two sides. The first side, "Transcendental Vistas", features the latest
  and greatest Windows demos from 1999-2001, providing ample entertainment
  for the masses. Enjoy the colorful world of "Tesla", trip out to "604",
  and get chills by the end with "Kasparov".  The second side, aptly
  titled "Kickin' It Oldschool", is for the historians out there,
  showcasing DOS demos from 1990-1998.  See how it all began on the PC in
  "Megademo", jam out to "Show", and see how demos like "Paimen" and
  "Megablast" pioneered modern demo design.  Oh yeah, and "Second
  Reality"?  It's on there. :)

     So what else can you expect on MindCandy vol. 1?

        - Over 40 demos, lasting 4 hours - far longer than most other DVDs,
        but no visual artifacts!  Go Trixter, go Trixter. :) Use chapter
        menus to select your demo of choice, or just let them all play
        while you chill.

        - A 16-minute long featurette, entitled "DemoGraphics", produced by
        Jeremy Williams of Blue7 Media (he's also known for the "PC Demo
        Fan Club" website). Watch for some exclusive demoparty footage,
        interviews, and the ultimate behind-the-scenes look for
        oldschoolers (we won't spoil *all* the surprises!).

        - A multi-page, full color booklet, with an introduction and
        listings for all demos.

        - Intro and menu music from The Alpha Conspiracy, Virgill, Milan
        Kolarovic, and more.

        - Mindblowing cover art by Fthr/TPOLM.

        - Technical info, demo glossary, and hidden "easter eggs" (what
        would a DVD be without them?).

     For the hungry, we created some promotional VideoCDs, not so much to
  show off quality (DVD quality is a vast improvement), as to simply get a
  few demos out there on your DVD player.  The first was released at Coma3
  in Montreal last November, the second at Assembly 2002 in Helsinki.
  Those few who actually got their hands on one are encouraged to make
  copies and spread them like wildfire!

     The DVD is expected to be completed in late October and available in
  late November.  So by the time you read this article, it might already be
  available.  If not, be patient!  We anticipate it will be worth the wait,
  and we're doing our best to ensure it will be in your hands by the
  holidays. :)

     For more information, visit the project site at: www.demodvd.org. The
  official MindCandy DVD site will soon be online at: www.mindcandydvd.com.
  You can also email the crew at trixter@oldskool.org or
  phoenix@hornet.org.

     To be informed by email when the DVD is available, sign up on the
  reservation list at www.demodvd.org/reservations.  We'll give you all the
  ordering information you'll need.

     Thanks to the whole demoscene (whatever platform you are on) for
  inspiring and encouraging us to make this project happen.

                --Phoenix / DemoDVD team


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  In Tune
     Virt's "Witches"
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- Introduction -=-
     So I was kicking around the 'net to find a song to review for the
  return issue of Static Line, when I rediscovered the Hellven website.
  They're apparently redoing the site, so I was redirected to Scene.org.
  No big deal, they had all the releases there, and I started
  downloading.  I found a song from Virt.  The last time I listened to
  anything by Virt, it was a song by the name of "The Great Revolt".  So
  I will admit, I'm not exactly one who knows Virt's music very well.
  I'm starting to wish I kept up with it.  Well, the first addition to my
  Virt collection is a song called "Witches", which is an entirely
  different style from "The Great Revolt".

  -=- "Witches" by Virt -=-
     Unlike "The Great Revolt", this tune is definately not an orchestral
  epic tune.  This is a pretty hard-core cross between Drum 'n Base and
  Jungle.  The breakbeats alone have much more relation to Jungle.  But as
  I always say, classification has always been fuzzy between the
  electronic styles.  The important thing is that you enjoy it.  And Virt
  gives us plenty to enjoy here.

     The lead starts from the very beginning, if you would call it a lead.
  It's repetative; it's very true to style.  The song is, instead, shaped
  mostly by the base and percussion throughout the song as well as the
  whispy mid-range instruments.  One of the faults I find in most music
  that uses a breakbeat is the fact that the artist doesn't manipulate the
  breakbeat at all.  Virt cuts, clips, crops, shifts and does whatever
  else you could possibly do to a breakbeat to form it into the beautiful
  percussive dream that he has created here.  Contrary to what you might
  think, I'm not commending Virt for this.  Albeit, he did a very good job
  with it.  But it is my opinion that clean, tight percussion is a
  requirement of such a style.  If you don't have that working for you,
  then you have it working against you.  I likely won't give your tune too
  much thought if you don't do at least this.  For the most part, however,
  Virt doesn't do anything particularly fancy with his breakbeat.  It is,
  however, a clean breakbeat.  I wish I had the tracker file for this
  song, as I would love to see what kind of samples he was using.  There
  are several different elements to his percussion, and I would like to
  know if they're all layered in by his hand, or sampled that way.  Either
  way, very clean work, some of the best I've seen.

     So what sets this song apart from all the rest?  It's the stuff you
  can  barely hear.  I suggest grabbing yourself a good set of headphones
  (they  should be in reach.  If not, you should go buy a set if you plan
  on doing some serious music mixing anyhow).  Plug those headphones in,
  and listen to the tune loud enough so that you can hear what's really
  going on.  There are a lot of things going on in the background.  Some
  acids, which are much more prominent, a couple of wind effects, some
  chirping sounds, and some effects that basically give you the idea that
  you're listening to this performance in the sewage systems.  These are
  the elements that you barely notice, but add such depth to the song.

     Another thing I miss about having the tracker files (a reminder, this
  is an MP3) is the fact that I cannot learn very much about the samples.
  I would love to know the types of manipulation Virt did to the vocal
  samples (spoken word).  I would like to know if he did this in the song,
  or if he manipulated these with a wav editor or a sampler.  These are
  the things that I'd like to learn about when I listen to music like
  this.  All I can say with what I have is that the vocal samples are
  quite interesting.  They have been filtered and modified in such a way
  as to give them an industrial feel.  They definately have a huge impact
  on the song.

     The song is entertaining, and at least worth the download.  It is
  nothing spectacular, but it is clean and tight.  Anyone with interest in
  this style of music will definately have appreciation for the song.
  Many of you will really like it.  You will all feel like moving a bit.
  But I've heard better from Virt and Hellven.  It's a good tune, but
  likely won't make my year-in-review.

  Song Information:
     Title:  Witches
     Author:  Virst
     Release date:  6 June, 2002
     Length:  4:29
     File Size:  4.1 MB
     Source:  http://www.hellven.org
              http://www.scene.org

                --Coplan

     "In Tune" is a regular column dedicated to the review of original and
  singular works by fellow trackers.  It is to be used as a tool to expand
  your listening and writing horizons, but should not be used as a general
  rating system.  Coplan's opinions are not the opinions of the Static
  Line Staff.

     If you have heard a song you would like to recommend (either your own,
  or another person's), We can be contacted through e-mail useing the
  addresses found in the closing notes.  Please do not send files attached
  to e-mail without first contacting us.  Thank you!


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  The Lineup
     Introduction:  Help Wanted
  By:  Novus
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  Starting with next month's issue, Static Line will begin featuring "The
  Lineup": an ambitious project to screen through all the new tracked
  releases each month and highlight the best tracks for your listening
  enjoyment. But we need your help to pull this off in as fair a manner as
  possible, so that all genres and the fans of those genres are
  represented. Please e-mail Novus at vince_young@hotmail.com if you're
  interested in helping out or to get more information about The Lineup.

                --Novus


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Screen Lit Vertigo
     Demos by Orion, Halcyon and Haujobb
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- "Amour" by Orion -=-
  (final version)

  Found at http://orion.planet-d.net/amour.htm
  1st place at the Buenzli 11 democompo.

  System Requirements:
     16.5 MB HD, PIII 700, 256MB, TNT2 Class 3Dcard, Windows 9x2k

  Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64, Win98

  The Credits:
     Code:  Jaylee, Niakool
     3D:    Danube, Shi, Splif
     Gfx:   Splif
     Music: Willbe, Chaosnet
     Voice: Sear

  The Demo:
     The info file of Amour says "Sur l'autoroute de la vie, l'amour c'est
  le p‚age", meaning "On the highway of life, love is the tollgate".
  Indeed, Orion has moved on in life, leaving the mutilation of cute fuzzy
  animals (see their previous demo, Easter Egg) to others, and has created
  a touching tale of the search for love by a young man who is in pain,
  depressed and more than a little bit confused.

     As we've grown to expect from Orion, the 3-D models and animation are
  very good. The movements and facial expressions of our protagonist are
  very realistic. The dark, gothic 3-D scenes alternate with  sickening,
  cute cartoon-like images with way too many little pink hearts. There are
  also a few 2-D effects thrown in (for example: radial blur, a plasma, a
  water effect and so on) at the start and at the end. Amour is a very
  polished demo. Look at the beautiful start menu, or the insects flying
  around the lamps, or the name on the battleship.

     The music starts as an orchestral piece, then changes into something
  more DNB-ish, and is repeatedly interrupted by a short love-theme until
  it goes into full soap opera mode near the end. It fits the demo very
  well, and the syncing is excellent. The only bad point is the very
  noticable french accent of the voice at the start. During the credits, a
  jazz tune is played, nothing really special IMHO.

  Overall:
     Amour is a story demo, and we all know that story demos look less
  appealing at home than on the big screen. And it becomes boring too
  quickly and so on. Shut up already! Orion stood with head and shoulders
  above the competition at Buenzli, and Amour certainly deserved to win. I
  recommend everyone with a sense of humor to watch it at least once.
  People with ATI cards beware, make sure you get the final version (see
  URL above) or else a lot of textures disappear.


  -=- "Chimera" by Halcyon -=-
  (party-version)

  Found at Assembly'02 partynet, now available at a scene.org mirror near
  you.
  Not selected for the bigscreen at the democompo.

  System Requirements:
       3.2 MB HD, Windows. Doesn't mention anything, but I guess almost any
  3D card, 64 MB and a CPU 400 Mhz or better should be enough.

  Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98

  The Credits:
     Code: Ren
     3D, design: Shrine
     Music: Crkr

  The Demo:
     At Buenzli 11, I was caught in a crossfire between PS/Calodox and
  Ile/Aardbei. PS thought Chimera was a superb demo and considered it a
  scandal that it wasn't pre-selected at Assembly. Ile thought it was a
  piece of junk that no-one in their right mind would call a great demo.
  They wanted to know what a certain demo reviewer (me, that is) thought
  about it. As a blessing in disguise, my PC had died when I came back
  from Assembly, so I did't get a chance to watch the entries that weren't
  pre-selected. Thus I could invoke ignorance, and avoid the discussion
  without being beaten up by either side. But my curiosity was piqued,
  so I decided to check it out.

     On first sight, and after a black screen for the first 15 seconds,
  Chimera shows nothing but extremely slow moving black cubes on a red
  background. On second sight, this impression is fully confirmed. It's
  only if you look really really carefully that you'll see a few other
  things. (Spoiler alert: don't read if you want to find the effects for
  yourself). While the demo starts with 100% contrast, the edges of the
  silhouettes gather different tints of red until the assembly of cubes
  seems to emerge from a red mist. A particle fountain sprays small red
  flares on some surfaces, and narrow black lines start to grow from the
  cubes: first only a few, but near the end the cubes look almost like
  hedgehogs, and finally fall apart. The whole process takes 5 and a half
  minutes.

     The music starts with a slow, resonating tone, that continues all
  throughout the demo. Other sounds join and fade away: a heartbeat-like
  bass, or little twittering noises that remind me of the fast-forwarded
  sound of water flowing or screeching seagulls. While it's not my style
  of music, it fits the slow visuals nicely.

  Overall:
     I think the assembly jury made the right decision: the subtle effects
  would have been lost on the low-contrast bigscreen and the sleepy
  public. Even at home, Chimera is not a very understandable demo, and
  most people will find it extremely boring. If you want to try it anyway,
  the best you can do is to watch it like you would watch a sunrise: don't
  expect anything spectacular to happen, just enjoy the slow changes and
  the ambient sounds.


  -=- "Liquid... wen?" by Haujobb -=-
  (bugfixed-version)

  Found at http://haujobb.scene.org
  1st place at the Assembly'02 democompo

  System Requirements:
     12.4 MB HD, Windows, a Geforce 3 or better 3D card with OpenGL support

  Test Machine: PIII 900 640MB, SB1024, Radeon 8500 LE 64MB, Win98

  The Credits:
     Code: Cynic, Droid
     Music: Vic, Kimmo S.
     Graphics: Visualice

  The Demo:
     After Mekka/Symposium2k2, Haujobb announced they would stop creating
  demos. In their own words: "Our demos suck. We stop coding. We continue
  boozing." But barely four months later, they've already changed their
  mind (except about the boozing), and they won the Assembly democompo
  convincingly with their comeback demo "Liquid... wen?"

     After a very fancy load screen with waving clocks -- that are entirely
  useless for knowing how long the loading will take -- the demo starts in
  monochrome mode with the well-known Haujobb logo. As with all Haujobb
  demos, most 3D objects are abstract: a morphing chrome blob, a group of
  bars moving through a tunnel, a tangle of pipes,... The only recognisable
  object is a heart, which also comes back in some of the images. Some nice
  effects are parallel moving pictures used to fake 3-D, and the hundreds of
  swaying sine waves at the start, which almost look like lightning.

     The gray visuals add to the dark atmosphere evoked by the music: It
  starts slowly with an ambient lead, which is joined by powerfull
  percussion and a very distorted voice. Some lyrics are displayed on
  screen, such as "Disconnect me" or "I'd rather be nothing". Together with
  the sad poem at the start, and the image of a desolate tower in a
  wasteland at the end, it gives a gloomy impression.

     And then, after 4 minutes of grayness, when you'd expected the demo
  to end, a second part starts which is, in my humble opinion, much more
  impressive than the first part. The code is a very original mix of 2-D
  and 3-D. I think they rendered the 3-D stuff on a rectangular mesh of
  polygons, which is deformed using traditional framebuffer effects. There
  are blurs, water-effects (using fixed circular deformations), and some
  heightmap-based effects. On the 3D side there are two very impressive
  alien lovers holding each other, a double transparant tunnel effect and
  some beautiful objects made from chrome and transparant lights. Overall
  the second part has a much happier feeling. It's colorful and the
  designed text-styles are more interesting. The music is ambient and
  dreamy, the two lead instruments are a slow sweeping synth and a
  repeating (almost echoing) short beep that reminds me of waterdrops
  falling. The demo ends with the message "We were _never_ gone".

  Overall:
     "Liquid... wen?" is an amazing comeback-demo, and probably symbolizes
  the changes within Haujobb itself: they've dropped their old style and
  started over with a fresh approach. The new effects are really great, and
  there's IMHO a more coherent design. They also tried to get as close as
  possible to the allowed limits in the Assembly compo: The duration is
  close to the maximum 10 minutes, and the size was just inside the 10 MB.
  In fact the size difference between the party and final versions is
  entirely due to the music of the second part, which was a 64Kbps MP3 in
  the party release, and 128Kbps for the final. Unfortunately they also
  pushed the requirements: not every scener has a Geforce 3 or better to
  enjoy this gem. Another minor gripe is that there's no menu to change
  the resolution; so you're stuck in 640x480. But if your hardware can
  manage that, make sure to get this one: it's definately worth it.

                --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Alternative Review
     The TAP 256.htm Competitions
  By: The Watcher
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     I happen to like extreme coding-exercises, and what could be more
  extreme than trying to fit a little demo into 256 bytes? In the past it
  has been shown over and over again that, using assembler and machine
  opcodes, skilled and determined coders could squeeze tiny pieces of art
  into this cramped space. The TAP 256b.htm contest however, shows us that
  not only it is possible to do the same in good old html, but also that
  now and then in doing so quite nice results emerge!

     The submission phase for the second edition of this wonderful contest
  took place from 2002-08-01 to 2002-09-01, and was hosted at
  http://wildmag.de/compo. I'll give a mini review (although some reviews
  are actually larger then the entries themselves) of all entries, trying
  to take a look at both the visual effect itself AND the actual code
  behind it. Next to that, I'll provide the rating I gave all entries on
  the voting sheet. If you don't agree, feel free to discuss. I didn't
  review any entries that wouldn't run on my version of IE5, just because
  (1) I think the authors should've taken the average user, i.e. me, into
  consideration and (2) I am a lazy bastard.

  "Huemore Consoles" by 23JUL: Doesn't work on my IE5. Looking at the
  code, it seems to be all about some glowing/flickering background of a
  text area while you type. Alas.

  "To Move Consoles" by 23JUL: Nice looking text area that wraps text
  around from start to end whenever the mouse moves. Funny, but not too
  spectacular. 6.

  "Amiga Scroller" - AXELF: Bouncing bar nicely waving colors and
  AMIGA-text on it, almost a tribute to the oldskool horizontal copperbar
  effect. I like this one! 8.

  "make IT easy" by boatman: Just a scaled little mini-GIF of a house with
  the text "make IT easy" next to it. The only impressive thing about this
  one is the fact that there is an 58-byte GIF involved. Big deal. 4.

  "Fake Plasmalines" by Delax: Uses the browser refresh and current time to
  produce a colored block of X's in a sinusoid color pattern. Nothing too
  fancy, but pretty interesting. 6.

  "Galaxies" by Delax: Uses the IE5+ light-filter and sine-functions to
  produce some funky rotating particle-like lights, moving around in a
  pattern vaguely galaxy-shaped. 8.

  "AutoShapes" by FPS: Enumerates all built-in VML structures. If you've
  never heard of nor seen VML (like me), this is a nice learning
  experience, otherwise pretty boring. 6.

  "ColorChooser" by FPS: Little script resulting in three sliders acting as
  a color picker. Not very interesting from a demoscene point-of-view, but
  decent. 7.

  "RubyStar" by FPS: Cool little script resulting in a red semi-3d VML STAR
  on the screen, rotatable using the arrow-keys. Both the effect and the
  script are good. 8.

  "Sinuszoom" by Gargaj: Just some characters (1-9) scaling up-down in a
  sine wave. Average, as the author says: "I had no better idea...". Too
  bad. 5.

  "Trajectory" by Gargaj: A little tracer-worm moving on the screen.
  Average, but I like it better than sinuszoom. 7.

  "Ugly 2.0" by Gargaj: Shows a colorful pattern of hash-characters on the
  screen, refreshing every mouse-click. The pattern is generated by simply
  squaring random numbers, resulting in an effect not quite as ugly as the
  author states. The script itself is pretty simple. 7.

  "Flowers" by mados: Arty! When you move the mouse-cursor, a very slowly
  updating mouse-tracer of random-sized plum-colored asterisks is drawn,
  resulting in a flower-bed-like pattern. Lovely! 8.

  "Jumpy" by mados: Funny effect, a red bouncing 'ball' (huge dot) with
  shadow seen from above, that slowly comes to a full stop, but jumps up
  when you position the mouse over it. Original idea. 8.

  "Plasma" by mados: SVG plugin required, it says. As I don't have the
  plugin, no demo for me. Alas.

  "Line Art" by midcoast: Extremely simple script, using marquee, resulting
  in horizontal lines moving (and fading) in a (considering the simplicity
  of the script) unexpected complex pattern. Great work. 8.

  "The Psycho Button" by midcoast: Upwards moving rectangles-in-rectangles.
  Quite simple, but ok. I would give it a 7.

  "The Wormhole" by midcoast: And yet another marquee effect showing
  colorful horizontal line-segments moving from right to left in a oldskool
  starfield-like manner, refreshing the background-color every 5 segments.
  Although this is the author's favorite, I slightly prefer "Line Art". 8.

  "Entropy" by milov: Groovy script showing some almost plasma-like scaling
  effect of a lot of squares (dashed borders). Nice effect, nice script. 8.

  "Keyboard Racer" by milov: An actual multiplayer game(!), where you have
  to repeatedly hit the key of your choice as fast as possible (that is,
  faster than any of your opponents) to win. Original idea, nice scripting.
  8.

  "Snowflake Generator" by milov: Every time you refresh this script
  generates a new snowflake-pattern. Again a very good (be it a bit
  straightforward) scripting job, implementing an original idea. 8.

  "News" by Mips: Eek, this entry tries to involve some active-x object
  (class-id: 99B42120-6EC7-11CF-A6C7-00AA00A47DD2) I don't seem to have.
  Bummer.

  "Scrolling of feathery string" by Mips: Horizontal scroller, using a
  color-fading font, 'feathered' using the glow-filter. Slow, not very
  advanced or fancy. 6.

  "Scrolling of meandering string" by Mips: Another horizontal scroller,
  this time using the 'wave'-filter giving it a wavering-flag like
  appearance. Really, really slow on my machine, and the script is pretty
  simple. 7

  "Diy" by nelius: Errrr... an inputbox and an eval() of that input. The
  author expects the user to type in his/hers own demo-effect code.
  Joke-entry. 2.

  "Epitrochoid" by nelius: A nice static pattern drawn by kinda standard
  scripting. Ok, but nothing special. 6.

  "Wannabee 3D-Drop" by nelius: Definitely the best entry by Nelius, an
  arty red-blue drop-of-water-like shape made of dots. I give it an 8,
  because it is stylish.

  "Langton's Virtual Ant": An .swf file (requires flash 6/mx) showing a
  little block drawing a pattern (I take it Langton is some mathematician
  and this is a famous pattern). Nice, but not amazing. 7.

  "Ribbon" by nowak: An .swf file (requires flash 6/mx) showing a thinning
  line-tracer following the mouse-cursor. I have no idea how hard it is to
  make something this small in flash 6, with the new mx compression
  techniques involved, but the effect is just average. 6.

  "Simple cellular growth": A really minimalistic .swf file (requires flash
  6/mx) showing a cool effect, where a softly vibrating cloud of blocks
  grows in a cellular-like matter. Cool. 8.

  "Bricks" by poi: Awesome, this simple yet ingenious script allows you to
  drag-and-drop a construction using an unlimited supply of lego-bricks. A
  well-deserved 9.

  "Clouds" by poi: And again Poi's work is stunning, using a very elegant
  script, the alpha-filter and some cpu-time he manages to draw a
  realistic-looking cloud on my screen! 9.

  "Ski" by poi: This poi guy is getting scary! This more complex script
  accounts for a downhill-skiing game, very slick use of the webdings
  character-set! So there is Poi's third 9 in a row.

  "Glowing Cross" by rowan: A fairly advanced (read: obfuscated) script
  resulting in a stylish glowing cross being drawn, surrounded by smaller
  crosses. A nice 8.

  "The Sixth Hour" by rowan: Cool, an even more stylish glowing cross
  (grave?) on a starry-night background. Definitely an 8, if not a 9.

  "Dancing Lights" by r:type: By heavily overusing the light-filter, a load
  of colored glowing blob-like lights is drawn. Nice idea, but really,
  really slow unless you have some heavyweight hardware. 7.

  "Space Milk" by r:type: Another script by r:type using way too many
  pointlights (or is it light-points?) of the light-filter, resulting in
  something that looks like a bunch of white 2d-metablobs. Sluggish ones.
  8.

  "SimpleZoom" by Sid: Simple effect zoomfading the name of the author. Not
  bad for a first attempt. 6.

  "The Bouncer" by Sid: The character "o" bouncing around the screen. The
  code seems overly complex for the job, and the effect is not very
  original. 5.

  "Fraktal1" by uzec: Rather simple script, creating a nice blocky
  "fractal" (I would personally call it a plasma). 8.

  "Fraktal2" by uzec: Same idea as Fraktal1, but now in a vertical column
  in the middle of the screen. I really like the little colored blocks. 8.

  "noName" by uzec: Multicolor block plasma-kinda thingy. The script is
  rather simple, the effect is rather ugly. 6.

  "St. Patrick's Day" by wolfman: Draws a whole bunch of random-sized,
  randomly green colored clovers on the screen. The script is ok, the
  effect is pretty arty. A 7.

  And that wraps it up. I think I made it clear that in my opinion, the
  productions by Poi were definitely the best, but that might just be a
  matter of opinion. For those readers who are still with me, I hope
  reading these reviews inspired you to create your own mini-productions
  (or, if you are one of the authors, create some more). Let's forget about
  bloating products like frontpage (ugh) and dreamweaver, and miniaturize
  the web!

                --The Watcher

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Editorial
     Happy Returns
  By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Coplan is many things.  You know him as the guy who edits and (for
  lack of a better term) publishes Static Line.  Some of you know him as a
  music writer.  A few of you are aware of his ability to play a couple of
  random music instruments.  By now, most of you are surely aware of the
  fact that he likes to talk about himself in third person.  But Coplan is
  one who has been active in the Demoscene for many years.

     Okay, I'll stop the third person bit now.

     I entered the 'scene back in 1994.  Historically, the 'scene was
  pretty mature, and gaining popularity as a direct result of the
  popularity of the Internet.  To make a long story short, I observed for
  a little while and fell in love with the people and the products being
  released to the public from the Demoscene.  I could've never imagined my
  life without the Demoscene.

     But then the worst happened.

     As you all are well aware of by now, these past two years were quite
  a test of my faith and my ability to carry on.  I lost a job.  I lost a
  girlfriend.  Sadly, I lost a mother as well.  The Demoscene would have
  to wait for me.  SceneSpot development came to a halt.  Static Line
  suffered in quality, and eventually came to a halt.  I lost touch with a
  couple of sceners.  The group that was to be formed among a couple of my
  buddies never happened.  And my music sounded unrefined.  And I didn't
  have the patience to do any of it.  Realistically, I was starting to
  think that I never would've returned.

     But one day out of the blue a good old friend of mine, Setec, sent me
  a new tune.  What I experienced when I listened to that tune was not
  inspiration, unfortunately.  But what I felt was clarity.  It was once
  again clear to me why I was here in the first place.  It was people
  sharing their ideas, their expression and their experiences.  It is
  music and art that is a bit rough around the edges, but has a bite that
  won't let go.  It is the beginning of a dream.  It is solitude.  It is a
  membership in a very large fraternity.

     This is the Demoscene.

     This is the same place to which I returned because I missed it.  I
  missed editing for this magazine.  I'll be the first to admit, I rarely
  get thanks for such a publication.  Albeit, I know there is always room
  for improvement.  But this is my world.  This is my demoscene.  And this
  is my contribution and my choosing.  Every time I sit down at my
  keyboard in front of my aged (and probably obsolete) version of Aurora
  text editor, I make sure I do better than I have ever done before.

     I write these editorials after I've read all the contributions to the
  magazine.  While I was reading the party report for Assembly, '02 (by
  our best Party Reporter, Seven, no less) I realized one very important
  fact:  We all have our own defining qualities...and nothing can take
  that away from us.  As I type this right now, my girlfriend is in the
  other room sleeping.  But that's no matter.  The people I love (other
  than my family and my girlfriend) are the people I'm speaking to right
  now.  The people I share a special time with are the people that will
  read this once I send it out to the public.  With no one else can I
  share the idea of free music and free art.  We're are talking about the
  ability for each and every one of you to share your moment, to share
  your skills, and to share your thoughts and creations with each other.
  And you choose to share them with each other for free.  You choose to
  spread your contributions to the world with no cost to another.  And you
  do it not because you have some need to inflate your ego.  It is not
  because you want to get some record contract down the line or because
  you want to land some job with iD software or Pixar.  You do it because
  you have a love for the medium.  You have a love for the art.  And most
  of all, you have a love for the Scene.  And come the day that you do get
  that dream job, or that record contract, you will get the support of
  fellow scene members without any doubt.

     As a side note:  My girlfriend has offered to help me in the editing
  of this issue of the magazine.  That means a lot to me for a couple of
  reasons.  The first is purely romantic, and I find appreciation for the
  fact that she takes interest in what I do.  But the part that really
  affects you is the pure and simple fact that I want to expose more
  people to the 'scene.  I want people to realize what this is about. They
  don't have to contribute, they don't even have to download stuff all the
  time.  But once they see what really exists here, they'll see a lot.
  They'll see a unified world that focuses on art rather than politics.
  They'll see a world that centralizes around ideas as opposed to war.
  This world sees no color, no race and no culture.  This world only sees
  talent, skill and dedication.  This world sees you, the artist, the
  creator, the ambasador to peace.

     There are people in this world who have experienced such an existance
  as the scene.  There are people like Purple Motion who now work
  professionally creating  music left and right.  And there are people who
  have been lucky in landing that ideal job.  But those people will never
  forget their time in the Computer Based Demoscene.  I don't care what
  'scene you were in.  Amiga, PC, GFX, Trax, MIDI, Code or what-have-you.
  I don't care if you worked on a 486 dx2 33 Mhz or a 2.4 Gig. Pentium 4.
  There's an art about you.  There's a skill about you.  But most of all,
  there is a love about you.  You exist because you want to learn.  You
  continue to learn because you want to show what you can do.  There's a
  great deal of pride in what you do.  There is a great quality in what
  you do.  And what you do is what others look at and say "I wish I could
  do that". Welcome to the world in which I belong.  Welcome to the world
  in which I know I should be contributing.  This is the world where I
  reside, write, edit, and publish.  This is the world where I feel most
  at home. And it all has to do with you.  The public.  The artists.  The
  musicians.  The  Demoscene.

     So I decided to pick up my roots and see what connections I still had
  left.  It has only been several months, I should still have some
  connections.  I was quite surprised to find out how wrong I was.  Save
  for a couple of expired e-mail addresses, most of the people I tried to
  get in touch with not only responded, but were very glad to hear from
  me. It was as if the Scene HAD waited for me.  This is obviously not the
  case, as I had a lot of new music and demos to download.  But I was
  quite impressed to see the support that I recieved when I returned to my
  place in the 'scene.  And to think that I get this much caring from
  people who most likely have never met me in person.  There are a lot of
  people in this world that could severely benefit from the lessons taught
  by the scene.

     Thank you, fellow sceners, for making my stay enjoyable.

                --Coplan

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Inside My Mind
     The Versatility of the Tracker
  By:  Vill
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Greetings, I am Vill, I live in New York City, and I have been
  tracking for about six years. My columns will focus on creativity and
  imagination.

     Remember the whole FT2 vs IT battle back in the day? Was it more about
  the programs or the egos? I am not going to settle this argument (because
  everyone knows IT rocks your house down) but I will say something as to
  stubbonness in the scene in regards to creativity: it sucks the life out
  of anything. "I'll never use IT/FT2/Buzz/Psycle/Renoise because..." How
  many times have we staunchly uttered these foolish phrases. Although it
  may be a blessing to have all these new trackers and mediums for creating
  music available, everyone who uses computers knows the pain of learning a
  new program. There you are, a Super 31337 Guru in your favorite tracker.
  You can strike down a killer beat effortlessly and quickly. Being a good
  scener, you drink your Ojuice, and you come across the Next Big Thing.
  You sigh, download the program, and fire it up. Well, it's a tracker
  allright, it has lines and bars and some technical looking things, but
  you are out of your element. After bumbling around for a while you
  expertly determine that the new proggy SUCKS and you go flame it all over
  creation.

     I know just about every time I have done this (minus the flaming part,
  I have kept my mouth shut in the scene until now) I have been wrong. It
  seems to be a theme in my life, IT Sucks! wrong; Buzz sucks! wrong; She
  won't cheat on me again! wrong. Anyway, my point is, as a musician or
  anyone involved in computers, you have to take the time to learn the new
  things. You stand stubbornly by an outdated program and you inhibit your
  creativity.

     Sure, sometimes there are programs out there that aren't right for
  you. If you want full control over your samples there's Buzz, if you want
  a more pure tracker there's Renoise, and if you want a hybrid there's
  Psycle. Trying these trackers, as well as the numerous others I have
  excluded, will give you an idea on what you need and what you like. An
  open mind will allow you to expand, and it will also prevent you from
  getting trapped in a rut.

     "I am a techno artist. I will write techno forever. Regardless on what
  is going on in my life, techno will reflect my creativity. Techno is
  life, I worship thee Techno." It's about limitation this time. I'm
  talking about turning the boundries upside down and crashing through the
  walls of your imagination. Think outside the box? Set the box on fire and
  kick it around the room.

     We all have musical identities. For example, I write jaded ambient
  beats with mellow melodies. I listen to old school hip-hop, electronic,
  jazz, and rock. However, when I sit down to write, compose, or
  what-have-you, I clear the slate and do what comes to mind.

     I recently heard the song "Boom boom boom" by the Venga Boys. For
  those unaware, the Venga Boys are a disgustingly-commercial
  sugar-dance-teenage-girl kind of group. However, I admit it, I love that
  song. It doesn't make me less cool, less Matrix, or unpure as an artist.
  Download the song, it's catchy as hell. If you load the tracker everytime
  with your style in mind, you are limiting yourself. The self-heralded
  techno artist might be great at classical. The ambient sympathizer might
  have jungle d&b roots. You never know, so shake it up and smash your
  ideals.

     So go ahead and remix Old MacDonald. Sometimes you just need to get
  things out of your system and let the beats fall where they may.
  Obviously, your every musical attempt in the tracker should be fined
  tuned and then the best ones polished and released. Writing whatever you
  feel, regardless of your musical identity is a great way to overcome
  "tracker's block". Peace out.

                --Vill

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Another View
     Creativity
  By:  The Watcher
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Saturday morning, 7:05 p.m.: Waking up next to my girlfriend (who is
  still fast asleep), my head boiling with ideas. Not being able to waste
  another minute I jump out of bed -- very carefully so as not to wake her
  up. I sneak out of the bedroom, into the "holiest of chambers": the
  computer-room, and switch on my computer. What might posses anyone to
  leave a warm bed (after way too few hours of sleep), occupied by a warm
  and lovely girl this early in the morning? I'll tell you what it is:
  creativity!

     Sometimes it takes hours to gain it, watching demos, listening to
  scene-music, trying whatever I can to get a hint of inspiration.
  Sometimes it just hit me in the face, when I am walking outside, taking a
  shower, or even while visiting the men's room at work. A million ideas at
  once seem to pop up in my head, chasing one another inside my mind,
  alongside with the overwhelming urge to implement at least some of those
  ideas. It might be the implementation of a never-seen-before grand new
  effect, some overall design for a complete demo or game, or even a lead
  for a tune (like every coder I have the secret desire to amaze all you
  trackheads out there by tracking the ultimate tune for my productions all
  by myself).

     Very often I find myself in a situation where I have no immediate
  outlet for the inspiration that just hinted in. Real life (or r/l for
  short) has it's ways of putting all kind of obstacles in my way (work,
  relationship, house, social-events, family etc.), sometimes leaving me
  quite frustrated and irritable. Of course I could just write all ideas
  down and implement them when (if ever) I find the time, but it doesn't
  work that way: when the moment is gone, it's gone. This early on a
  Saturday morning though, there is nothing to hold me back, so now is my
  chance. Although I might come to regret the lack of sleep in the course
  of the day.

     So that is why, at 7:15 p.m., I find myself immersed in hundreds of
  lines of gba-code, trying to get a new effect for my gameboy advance demo
  running. The thing might never actually get finished, or end up really
  ugly and looked down upon by everyone including myself, but all that
  doesn't matter. This is my incentive, my "drive", this is what got me
  into the demoscene in the first place.

     And I still love it.

                --The Watcher


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Another View
     Pop Goes the Musician
  By:  Colin D'Cruz
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Todays popular sound of music has dealt a knockout punch to a lot of
  musicians who play musical instruments. Well, what else do musicians play?
  Lots! The scene these days is all about musicians who play turntables,
  groove boxes, floppy drives and whatever it is that creates todays hip
  sounds of popular music. Take the case of my talented musician friend
  Earnie the songster. He's been hit by himself! Earnie was among the
  first few guitar players who switched over to keyboards with automatic
  bass/drums/chords, starting a 'one man band' trend that rendered his
  fellow band members redundant. The one man band scene ruled and why not?
  Earnie had a family to support, playing in a band could only pay half
  his bills, 'being' the band paid all his bills. Few years down the line
  the popular one man band trend has given way to the 'no man band'. One
  does not necessarily have to be a musician to create todays cool sounds
  of popular music.

     DJ'ing, programing, sequencing, sampling is where it's at baby. Today
  a DJ or a computer programmer creates the cool sounds that spearheads
  popular music evolution. So what does my friend Earnie do now? You've
  guessed right!  Alright peeps in the house, please welcome DJ Earnie
  who's gonna spin some mean disc while scratching the shit out of them
  vinyl frisbees!

     And by the way, DJ'ing these days pays even next
  years bills!

                --Colin D'Cruz



--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Link List
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  Portals:

      SceneSpot (Home of Static Line).......http://www.scenespot.org
      CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
      Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
      Danish Scene..............................http://demo-scene.dk
      Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
      Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
  <*> Diskmag.de...................................http://diskmag.de
      Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
      Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
      ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
      Norwegian Scene........................http://www.demoscene.no
      Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
      Planet Zeus..........................http://www.planetzeus.net
      Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
      Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
      Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
      Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
      Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
      Spanish Scene............................http://www.escena.org
      Swiss Scene..............................http://www.chscene.ch

  Archives:

      Acid2.....................................ftp://acid2.stack.nl
      Amber.......................................ftp://amber.bti.pl
      Cyberbox.....................................ftp://cyberbox.de
      Hornet (1992-1996)........................ftp://ftp.hornet.org
      Scene.org..................................ftp://ftp.scene.org
      Scene.org Austra........................ftp://ftp.au.scene.org
      Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.nl.scene.org
      Swiss Scene FTP...........................ftp://ftp.chscene.ch

  Demo Groups:

      3g Design..............................http://3gdesign.cjb.net
      3State...................................http://threestate.com
      7 Gods.........................................http://7gods.sk
      Aardbei.....................................http://aardbei.com
      Acid Rain..............................http://surf.to/acidrain
      Addict..................................http://addict.scene.pl
      Agravedict........................http://www.agravedict.art.pl
      Alien Prophets.....................http://www.alienprophets.dk
      Anakata..............................http://www.anakata.art.pl
      Astral..............................http://astral.scene-hu.com
      Astroidea........................http://astroidea.scene-hu.com
      BlaBla..............................http://blabla.planet-d.net
      Blasphemy..............................http://www.blasphemy.dk
      Bomb..................................http://bomb.planet-d.net
      Broncs..................................http://broncs.scene.cz
      Byterapers.....................http://www.byterapers.scene.org
      Bypass.................................http://bypass.scene.org
      Calodox.................................http://www.calodox.org
      Cocoon..............................http://cocoon.planet-d.net
      Confine.................................http://www.confine.org
      Damage...................................http://come.to/damage
      Dc5.........................................http://www.dc5.org
      Delirium..............................http://delirium.scene.pl
      Eclipse............................http://www.eclipse-game.com
      Elitegroup..........................http://elitegroup.demo.org
      Exceed...........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~exceed
      Fairlight.............................http://www.fairlight.com
      Fobia Design...........................http://www.fd.scene.org
      Freestyle............................http://www.freestylas.org
      Fresh! Mindworks...................http://kac.poliod.hu/~fresh
      Future Crew..........................http://www.futurecrew.org
      Fuzzion.................................http://www.fuzzion.org
      GODS...................................http://www.idf.net/gods
      Halcyon...........................http://www.halcyon.scene.org
      Haujobb..................................http://www.haujobb.de
      Hellcore............................http://www.hellcore.art.pl
      Infuse...................................http://www.infuse.org
      Kilobite...............................http://kilobite.cjb.net
      Kolor................................http://www.kaoz.org/kolor
      Komplex.................................http://www.komplex.org
      Kooma.....................................http://www.kooma.com
      Mandula.........................http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula
      Maturefurk...........................http://www.maturefurk.com
      Monar................ftp://amber.bti.pl/pub/scene/distro/monar
      MOVSD....................................http://movsd.scene.cz
      Nextempire...........................http://www.nextempire.com
      Noice.....................................http://www.noice.org
      Orange.................................http://orange.scene.org
      Orion................................http://orion.planet-d.net
      Outbreak................................http://www.outbreak.nu
      Popsy Team............................http://popsyteam.rtel.fr
      Prone................................http://www.prone.ninja.dk
      Purple....................................http://www.purple.dk
      Rage........................................http://www.rage.nu
      Replay.......................http://www.shine.scene.org/replay
      Retro A.C...........................http://www.retroac.cjb.net
      Sista Vip..........................http://www.sistavip.exit.de
      Skytech team............................http://www.skytech.org
      Spinning Kids......................http://www.spinningkids.org
      Sunflower.......................http://sunflower.opengl.org.pl
      Talent.............................http://talent.eurochart.org
      The Black Lotus.............................http://www.tbl.org
      The Digital Artists Wired Nation.http://digitalartists.cjb.net
      The Lost Souls...............................http://www.tls.no
      TPOLM.....................................http://www.tpolm.com
      Trauma.................................http://sauna.net/trauma
      T-Rex.....................................http://www.t-rex.org
      Unik........................................http://www.unik.de
      Universe..........................http://universe.planet-d.net
      Vantage..................................http://www.vantage.ch
      Wipe....................................http://www.wipe-fr.org

  Music Labels, Music Sites:

      Aisth.....................................http://www.aisth.com
      Aural Planet........................http://www.auralplanet.com
      Azure...................................http://azure-music.com
      Blacktron Music Production...........http://www.d-zign.com/bmp
      BrothomStates.............http://www.katastro.fi/brothomstates
      Chill..........................http://www.chillproductions.com
      Chippendales......................http://www.sunpoint.net/~cnd
      Chiptune...............................http://www.chiptune.com
      Da Jormas................................http://www.jormas.com
      Fabtrax......http://www.cyberverse.com/~boris/fabtrax/home.htm
      Fairlight Music.....................http://fairlight.scene.org
      Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
      Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
      Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
      Hellven.................................http://www.hellven.org
      Ignorance.............................http://www.ignorance.org
      Immortal Coil.............................http://www.ic.l7.net
      Intense...........................http://intense.ignorance.org
      Jecoute.................................http://jecoute.cjb.net
      Kosmic Free Music Foundation.............http://www.kosmic.org
      Lackluster.....................http://www.m3rck.net/lackluster
      Level-D.................................http://www.level-d.com
      Mah Music.............................http://come.to/mah.music
      Maniacs of noise...............http://home.worldonline.nl/~mon
      MAZ's sound homepage..................http://www.maz-sound.com
      Med.......................................http://www.med.fr.fm
      Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
      Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
      Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
      Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
      Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
      Moods.............................http://www.moodymusic.de.vu/
      Noise................................http://www.noisemusic.org
      Noerror.......................http://www.error-404.com/noerror
      One Touch Records......................http://otr.planet-d.net
      Park..................................http://park.planet-d.net
      pHluid..................................http://phluid.acid.org
      Radical Rhythms.....http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/merrelli/rr
      RBi Music.............................http://www.rbi-music.com
      Ruff Engine................http://members.xoom.com/ruff_engine
      SHR8M......................................http://1st.to/shr8m
      Sound Devotion................http://sugarbomb.x2o.net/soundev
      Soundstate.........................http://listen.to/soundstate
      Sunlikamelo-D...........http://www.error-404.com/sunlikamelo-d
      Suspect Records........................http://www.tande.com/sr
      Tequila........................http://www.defacto2.net/tequila
      Tempo................................http://tempomusic.cjb.net
      Tetris....................................http://msg.sk/tetris
      Theralite...........................http://theralite.avalon.hr
      Tokyo Dawn Records........................http://tokyodawn.org
      Triad's C64 music archive.............http://www.triad.c64.org
      UltraBeat.........................http://www.innerverse.com/ub
      Vibrants................................http://www.vibrants.dk
      Wiremaniacs.........................http://www.wiremaniacs.com
      Zen of Tracking.........................http://surf.to/the-imm

  Programming:

      Programming portal......................http://www.gamedev.net
      Programming portal.....................http://www.flipcode.com
      Game programming portal...............http://www.gamasutra.com
      3D programming portal.................http://www.3dgamedev.com
      Programming portal......................http://www.exaflop.org
      Programming portal............http://www.programmersheaven.com
      Programming portal.....................http://www.freecode.com
      NASM (free Assembly compiler)......http://www.cryogen.com/nasm
      LCC (free C compiler).........http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32
      PTC video engine.........................http://www.gaffer.org
      3D engines..........http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html
      Documents...............http://www.neutralzone.org/home/faqsys
      File format collection...................http://www.wotsit.org

  Magazines:

      Amber...............................http://amber.bti.pl/di_mag
      Amnesia...............http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com
      Demojournal....................http://demojournal.planet-d.net
      Eurochart.............................http://www.eurochart.org
      Heroin...................................http://www.heroin.net
      Hugi........................................http://www.hugi.de
      Music Massage......................http://www.scene.cz/massage
  <*> Jurassic Pack...........................www.jurassicpack.de.vu
      Pain..................................http://pain.planet-d.net
      Scenial...........................http://www.scenial.scene.org
      Shine...............................http://www.shine.scene.org
      Static Line................http://www.scenespot.org/staticline
      Sunray..............................http://sunray.planet-d.net
      TUHB.......................................http://www.tuhb.org
      WildMag..................................http://www.wildmag.de

  Parties:

      Assembly (Finland).....................http://www.assembly.org
      Ambience (The Netherlands)..............http://www.ambience.nl
      Dreamhack (Sweden)....................http://www.dreamhack.org
      Buenzli (Switzerland)......................http://www.buenz.li
      Gravity (Poland)............http://www.demoscena.cp.pl/gravity
      Mekka-Symposium (Germany)...................http://ms.demo.org
      Takeover (The Netherlands).............,http://www.takeover.nl
      The Party (Denmark).....................http://www.theparty.dk

  Others:

      Demo secret parts....http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/secret.txt
      Textmode Demo Archive.................http://tmda.planet-d.net
      Arf!Studios..........................http://www.arfstudios.org
      #coders..................................http://coderz.cjb.net
      Demonews Express.........http://www.teeselink.demon.nl/express
      Demo fanclub........................http://jerware.org/fanclub
      Digital Undergrounds.....................http://dug.iscool.net
      Doose charts...............................http://www.doose.dk
      Freax................................http://freax.scene-hu.com
      GfxZone............................http://gfxzone.planet-d.net
      PC-demos explained.....http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
      Pixel...................................http://pixel.scene.org
      #trax e-mail list.............................................
         .............http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/trax
      Underground Mine.............http://www.spinningkids.org/umine

  IRC Channels:

      Scene.........................................ircnet #thescene
      Programming.....................................ircnet #coders
      Programming....................................efnet #flipcode
      Graphics.........................................ircnet #pixel
      Music.............................................ircnet #trax
      Scene (French)..................................ircnet #demofr
      Programming (French)............................ircnet #codefr
      Graphics (French)..............................ircnet #pixelfr
      Scene (Hungarian)............................ircnet #demoscene
      Programming (Hungarian)......................ircnet #coders.hu
      Programming (German)........................ircnet #coders.ger


--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------

  -=- Staff -=-
  Editor:          Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
  Staff Writers:   Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
                    Dilvie / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
                    Novus / Vince Young / vince_young@hotmail.com
                    Psitron / Tim Soderstrom / tigerhawk@stic.net
                    Setec / Jesper Pederson / jesped@post.tele.dk
                    Seven / Stefaan VanNieuwenhuyze/ seven7@writeme.com
                    Tryhuk / Tryhuk Vojtech / vojtech.tryhuk@worldonline.cz
                    Vill / Brian Frank / darkvill@yahoo.com
                    The Watcher / Paul-Jan Pauptit / watcher@tuhb.org
  Tech Consultant: Ranger Rick / Ben Reed / ranger@scenespot.org

  Static Line on the Web:  http://www.scenespot.org/staticline

  Static Line Subscription Management:
     http://www.scenespot.org/mailman/listinfo/static_line


     If you would like to contribute an article to Static Line, be aware
  that we will format your article to 76 columns with two columns at the
  beginning of each line.  Please avoid foul language and high ascii
  characters.  Contributions (Plain Text) should be e-mailed to Coplan
  (coplan@scenespot.org) by the last Friday of each month.  New issues are
  released on the first Sunday of every month.

     See you next month!

-eof---=------=--=------=--=--
