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_\\__T_A_T_I_C___L_I_N_E________________________________________ March, 2001
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\\//__ Monthly Scene E-Zine ________________________________ 205 Subscribers
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  Table Of Contents
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     Opening:
           Message From the Editor
           Letters From Our Readers
     Features:
        ZTracker Review - A MIDI Tracker
     Columns:
        Music:
           In tune -- Wayfinder's "Resurection (The Race Part IV)"
           The Listener -- Music from Hellven, Park
           Retro Tunage -- Dust to Dust by Leviathan
        Demo:
           Screen Lit Vertigo -- Amiga Demos
           Intro Watch -- "256b.com" and "Metazlo"
        General:
           Scene Sense: -- Round 2 - The Battle of the OS
           Editorial -- Rebuttle to PsiTron
           Link List -- Get Somewhere in the Scene
        Closing:
           Credits

--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Message From the Editor
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     It seems as though I forgot this part when I e-mailed it.  I
  appologize for all of those who got the e-mail without the Message from
  the Editor.  I've been a bit abscent minded lately.  I'm sure you all
  don't mind.  

     Anyhow, this is a pretty full issue, as we got all columns accounted
  for this month.  I think hell might freeze over, as I am reviewing an
  MP3 this month.  Then, Seven went nuts with his new high-speed internet
  connection, and reviewed a bunch of old-skool amiga demos.  Then, Gekko
  introduces us to 128 byte (yes, 128 byte) intros.  Setec comes back for
  a brief article about ZTracker, a midi-tracking program for those with
  great sound hardware, and a need to use a tracker.  Then, Tryhuk brings
  us plenty of music to listen to, including his monthly selection of
  classic tunage.  Finally, PsiTron and I duke it out over the OS issue.  

     Until next month, enjoy!

                --Coplan


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  Letters From Our Readers
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  -=- Letter from DarkFury -=-
     I saw much response and people's talk about OS usage. I'm assuming it
  was at least somewhat in response to Psitron's article in Static Line
  #29. I'd like to say, I'm glad to see proponents of more than
  windows/linux/ect just bashing each other. Dilvish's discussion on what
  is required for a useful OS design was a good overview of just what is
  needed for a good platform (See "Letters" issue #30).

     As you mentioned in your conclusion to SL #30 was that we can't
  exclude those who simply spread demos or give ideas to
  trackers/coders/artists because they do contribute. We used to have a
  scene designation for people that distributed demos (ie. couriers)
  although i remember that being a diskette and bbs thing, i see many
  people today who share demos with there friends in similar ways. CDs and
  home viewings are much easier today, but that doesnt mean the job has
  changed. Also, I've seen a good deal of credits for 'design' or 'ideas'
  in demos recently, this doesnt really take anything but creativity and
  good design sense. Second, I agree, we should encourage the growth of
  the scene, but we can't limit it only to the most popular platforms. The
  changeover from amiga to pc wasnt just a one step deal, and currently
  while we may still have the same essential architecture, windows is
  heavily reliant on APIs and not much else, while some parts of the
  abstraction inherent in this design are great for support and
  compatibility, they do incur a good deal of performance decrease. There
  are many ways to get around this though, for anyone who cares, it's not
  easy but i'd say as a real performance freak that it's worth it. The
  problem I really see today is the lack of actual enthusiasm about the
  scene. example - In NA more than anywhere else, we have a huge lack of
  demo parties for how many sceners there are (or atleast were). So as
  I've thought for a long time now, the answer isnt to chose the scene's
  OS/software/hardware/motto but to encourage everyone to do their part.

     The real problem is simply narrow-mindedness that's keeping many from
  doing all the amazing things that are possible. We have 1+ GHz
  processors and we're still seeing the same old stuff... I'm seeing
  better grafix on 3d accelerators, but not nessacerily on faster
  systems... assuming everyone is a gamer or a video editor so they must
  have the newest card is NOT the way to go, it does give some really
  impressive things to those that do have that, but we need to keep that
  whole 'availabilty to the masses' idea in mind as well.

                --DarkFury of Nutropik


  -=- Letter from Cmicali -=-
     I saw there is a list of new and old trackers in the latest static
  line... i  was wondering if you could get someone to do a review, or at
  least mention a  tracker i am developing.  It started as a tool for
  myself, but there was  enough interest from others that i developed it
  publicly.  I wanted to move  to MIDI and real hardware, but i hate
  regular sequencers, and i love Impulse  Tracker, so i made a win32/dx
  version of impulse tracker that is midi only.   it's called zt, and it's
  available at http://ztracker.sourceforge.net/  ..  it's open source and
  still in development, but it is very useable and many  people are
  already using it.  You can check some tracks made with just zt at  that
  site.  Thanks! :)

                --C.micali (aka zephyr)


  -=> Reply from Coplan:
     I know it took a while, but we have been playing around with ztracker
  a bit since it came out.  Setec has agreed to write a brief review of
  the program for us, and you can find it in this issue of Static Line.
  It's an interesting program, and the review is worth checking out.

                --Coplan


  -=- Letter from SagaCity -=-
     A small excerpt from an article in the last issue of static line:

        It is clear to many that Windows lacks that real-time support and
        stability to provide a good home for the demo (or video game)
        community.

     And after that the author rambles on about how we need a new OS and
  all that. This kind of talk is utterly pointless. It is completely
  pointless to develop a new 'demo-only' OS. It is completely pointless to
  try supporting the hundreds (thousands) of different videocards and
  soundcards. It is completely pointless to try making it compatible with
  other OS-ses.

     Why? Windows does all that.

                --SagaCity



--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  ZTracker Review
     A MIDI Tracker
  By:  Setec
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

   -=- Introduction -=-

     About two years ago, I went out and spent a fortune on a synthesizer
  module and a MIDI keyboard to go with it. I felt like taking my music
  one step further and got into the MIDI part of musicmaking. So having
  brought home this newly aquired gear I loaded Cubase and expected music
  to come pouring out of me ...to this day I have still not completed a
  tune in Cubase! Or any other topnotch sequencer for that matter.

     I realized that I was craving for a tracker interface. Whenever I
  tried to make something, I kept longing for that extremely precise
  control you have in trackers. The intuitive layout of things, the
  ability to easily handle multiple tracks at once. None of these things
  seemed simple in Cubase. Making small riffs had me going nuts, it was so
  impractical. So much work to get something that I could have easily
  cooked up in five secs in ft2.

     So here comes salvation it seems: ZTracker.

     ZTracker is basically Impulse Tracker ripped of all sample facilities
  and, instead, blessed with full MIDI implementation. So instead of a
  sample and an instrument page you get a single instrument page that
  allows you to link each instrument to a specific MIDI out port and
  channel. My prayers have been heard!


  -=- Interface and features -=-

     As hinted, the overall interface is very much the same as that of IT,
  so if you are used to Impulse Tracker you shouldn't have too much
  trouble switching to ZTracker. The pattern editor is almost a complete
  replicate of IT's, and it seems like all hotkeys are kept the same as
  well. The only major difference here is the fact that each note entry,
  in place of the usual effect column, has a "note lenth" column. This
  specifies - obviously - a length in ticks until a note off message is
  sent. I personally really disliked this approach at first, until I
  emailed Christopher (the ZTracker developer) and realized that the good
  old note off command was also available. Somehow this usual approach
  seems more natural to me, but I can see how the ability to specify an
  exact note length can come in handy at times. Anyway, having both
  options sure cannot hurt!

     The note length column does have one side effect though; there is no
  effect column in the standard viewmode. To access the effects you need
  to switch to a view that allows you only three tracks visible at a time.
  For me personally, this is a bit of a letdown. Especially when you look
  at how well MIDI effects are implement. A simple Sxxyy command allows
  you to send any CC messages you wish. Marvelous for making filter sweeps
  and any other realtime effects you might want. Your synthesizer really
  sets the limit here. Whatever it will do, ZTracker will allow you to
  tell it to. This all just makes it that much more regretable that the
  effects column has been hidden this well. The option to exchange the -
  for me, rarely used - note length column with effects would have been
  wonderful.

     Block functions are also nearly identical to IT. Copying, Pasting,
  interpolating volume and effect data, transposing are all implemeted.
  But it doesn't stop at that. ZTracker introduces an absolutely marvelous
  way to enter volume and effect data. Pressing shift-` presents you with
  mousedrawing mode, something I have never seen in a tracker before. This
  is extremely useful for any sweeps of volume or effect data. Just hold
  down left mouse button and drag it down the track. The horizontal
  position of the mouse will set the effect data for the corresponding row
  of the track. It really cannot be any simpler than this.

     The earlier mentioned note length option also adds a few block
  commands. One really useful command is ctrl-` which sets all note
  lengths in the selected block to the length betweens consecutive notes.
  This implies that note off messages are not automatically send on new
  note entires. This is one thing you really need to remember. Awful
  harmonics when i first tried to sequence a small string section. :)

     The order list is identical to IT, so no surprises here. The obvious
  differences are the instrument pages. Basically the idea of instruments
  are the same as those in any standard tracker. Only now instead of
  supplying each instrument with a number of samples you link it to a
  specific MIDI channel on a specfic MIDI out port. Each instruments has
  the following variables: bank, patch, default volume, default length,
  global volume, transpose and channel. Worth noting is that the global
  volume setting - one thing that really tends to make mixing easier - is
  still available. Also the possibility to send bank and patch settings to
  your MIDI module is great, if you don't want to setup performances for
  each tune (this is actually how I do it, but nevermind that). There is
  an update device command that sends bank and patch data to the
  corresponding channel so it seems all options are covered. Visually this
  all looks a lot like the instrument editor in IT, so the interface is
  the same, the options just differ. There are no volume or panning
  envelope pages though, so any such settings need to be made externally
  on your module. No hassle, though it would have been marvellous if such
  envelopes were available. This is dreaming though, and it would probably
  be pretty hard to implement. Plus the amount of midi messages nescessary
  would probably clutter the device quite rapidly.


  -=- Chatting with the outside world -=-

     I experienced absolutely no problems with ZTracker and my MIDI
  modules. Everything was peachy, timing was acurate and all messages
  seemed to work perfectly. Also, it seems quite stable. My windows
  usually seems to die quite often but after thorough testing I didn't
  manage to kill ZTracker one single time. Always impressive for a windows
  application. :)

     It is also worth noting that ZTracker happily loads .IT files, which
  is marvelous if you - like me - fancy trying to remake some of your old
  work with external hardware. It loads patterns and order lists and just
  whipes the samples so you are free to link each instrument with any
  channel you want. Speaking of samples, it is worth mentioning that
  ZTracker in NO Way supports samples! There is simply no sample playback
  facility so if you want that option you need to use a software sampler
  that is linkable via midi. It is a shame, really. Sample possibilities
  would really ensure that ZTracker would be the ONLY tracker I ever used
  from now on. As things are - software sampler being as unstable as I
  think they are - I am afraid I won't really be able to make a complete
  tune in ZTracker. Still, it might very well turn out to be the backbone
  of all riffs and chord progressions.


  -=- Conclusion -=-

     This is a wonderful tracker. The implementation of midi is thorough
  and flawless. Every possible aspect I could think of seems to be there,
  and the interface is as straightforward as any other tracker. The
  transition from an ordinary tracker is as easy as can be.

     I cannot help feeling that it is a bit of a shame about the lack of
  sample playback facilities. Christopher - the developer - makes it
  pretty clear in the readme that something like that will never be a part
  of ZTracker and I can understand that it would add a huge workload to
  what is probably already a big project. I just wish he could somehow
  team up with Pulse and merge Impulse Tracker and ZTracker. Having all
  those features available in one tracker would certainly make it the
  center of all my music production. I would probably never see a need for
  any high-end sequencer again, except perhaps for final mastering. An
  application that blended the two trackers would be a godsend.

     The only other issues I have are minor ones. Including a help function
  that simply listed the commands and such would be nice, and I would like
  the ability to set a default pattern length as well (it uses 128 lines
  now, which seems a little long to me).

     I love this tracker. I have been looking for something like this for a
  very long time and when I finally found it, I would have never thought
  it to be this complete. I have stated it a lot already, but the
  implementation of midi is sooo flawless. If you have the need to control
  external gear via midi, and you are a little tired of working with
  Cubase or a similar sequencer, well then this is exactly what you need!
  ZTracker efficiently brings external gear into the world of tracking.
  You will love it!


  -=- Notes -=-

     ZTracker - developed by Christopher Micali (micali@concentric.net)

     This program is 100% Free and is available for download at:
     http://ztracker.sourceforge.net

     The application was tested using Windows 98 and an external Roland
  USB MIDI interface as well as a Terratec EWS64xl soundcard. Neither had
  any problems at all working with ZTracker. The SoundBlaster Live is
  supposed to work perfectly with ZTracker as well.

                --Setec


--=--=--
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  In Tune
     Wayfinder's "Resurection (The Race Part IV)"
  By:  Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--
     It's a cold day in hell.

     Coplan (the guy who likes to refer to himself in third person) is
  reviewing an MP3.  I have reasons.  For one, most of my favorite groups
  and trackers are now releasing mostly in MP3 format.  Next is the fact
  that I fell in love with trance lately, and I have been doing some tunes
  offered in both MP3 and IT (mind you, the MP3 sounds better
  cross-platform).  Then, I realized that soundcards are still far from an
  exact science, especially while using an old tracker like IT, or Fast
  Tracker (mind you, I can't actually get Fast Tracker working).  I went
  around visiting some of my favorite sites two weeks ago, and I started
  collecting scene MP3s.  Some of which are very good, and with some of
  the post-processing that I assume is being done makes the tunes sound
  very professional.  This month, I'm going to review yet another
  Wayfinder song.  I know it seems as though I review his music a lot, but
  I think he deserves it.  It just goes to show that he's a tracker that
  has found a groove, and can release one successful song after another
  without fading.  I admire that, and I'm a bit jeleous.  Since it is an
  MP3, I will have to go about things differently.

     The song opens kinda quiet, with nothing but a simple little base
  line.  Then the drums start to kick in, specifically the base drum.  In
  a more traditional style song, I would pick on the percussion, as it is
  very monotonous (base drum, synth-claps, hi-hat, crashes).  But this is
  a trance tune, and there is no such thing as a trance tune without this
  monotonous beat.  If you're composing within a certain style, know the
  style's definition, and make sure you follow most of the requirements
  before you claim it to be of the said style.  Anyhow, i'm drifting
  again.

     What makes this song for me is the piano and the high pitched
  trance-pads.  The piano work reminds me of a Robert Miles song
  (commercial artist from a couple years back, famous for songs like
  "Children" and so on).  Yes, it's a bit repetative, and it's a simple
  riff, but somehow, I'm pulled into the song for this reason.  Then, in
  comes the trance pads.  If played flat, I think the pads would be pretty
  boring.  But since Wayfinder has done lots of post-processing, adding
  lots of echos and effects, the pads sound truly mesmerizing.

     Something a lot of people will overlook in a song like this is the
  fact that there is a rigid chord progression in effect.  In some parts
  of the song, you will hear some low strings in the background.  At
  other parts, the strings raise an octave, and carry out the chord
  progression at the higher octave.  The chord progression remains almost
  unchanged throughout the song (no key changes or anything).  If I had a
  modular version of this song, I'd be willing to bet that if I were to
  mute those string channels, the song would come off as very obtuse with
  very little depth what-so-ever.  It's these little things that can make
  or break a song.  If someone tells you that they don't like a song, but
  they aren't sure why...9 out of 10 times, it's for something simple
  like that.

     A friend of mine, who's a DJ, loves to come to me every so often and
  ask  for all the MP3s that I have along the dance/trance/club/etc.
  genres.  I'm going to set this one aside for him.  He will burn it to
  CD, and using his new Pro-Scratch 1 (http://www.americandj.com), he'll
  be mixing between CDs.  This song is pretty easy to mix into another
  song, as there is a very long time at the end for the DJ to blend in
  the next song.  I know it's nothing that was intended by Wayfinder (or
  maybe it was), but it's something I thought I should point out.

     BTW, for you DJ's out there, you really should check out that
  Pro-Scratch 1.

     Anyhow, the tune is among my favorite trance tunes, especially from
  Azure (http://www.azure-music.com).  If you havn't visted their site
  yet, you should.  It's good tunes to load into your favorite MP3 player.

                --Coplan

  Song Information:
     Title:  Resurrection (The Race Part IV)
     Author:  Wayfinder of Azure
     Filename: az-17.mp3
     File Size:  9.5 MB
     Source:  http://www.azure-music.com

     "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 Listener
    Music from Hellven, Park
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Another month gone and once again I'm writing reviews in the last
  minute. This is the reason why I will take it a bit faster, but I
  believe it will be enough to point you on some of the interesting music
  that came out during last month.

  "Urbanism" - is a new musicdisk by hellven featuring altemark and
  alphaconspiracy as guest stars. I got to say that I like their tracks
  best. Altemark came up with industrial "gospel", a song with an unusual
  sound that combines heavy industrial sound with very rhytmic percussion,
  embosomed with sharp rusty sounds. This track is definitely worth
  listening, especially because of its strong dictating tempo.  Necros
  came of course with "electronic style", a remix of depeche mode. Also a
  well done and interesting song. Of course there are also other
  interesting tracks, like "looking out - cityscape" by virt, a typical
  demoscenish ambient flight with blippish sounds, in the second part
  slipping off to pop. And I can't forget to mention a co-op of members
  of oldskoolers night55, xerxes and scirocco. Their "roughcut" is
  directing to a new down-tempo synth based electronic style and with
  success.

     http://urbanism.hellven.org/


  Charity Ep - easy album with no potential hits, but with calming,
  enjoyable music. I would like to point here only one: "goodnight kiss"
  by nagz. It is that kind of meditative, floating, moody track we used to
  hear from dune and with a significant influence from blade  runner. I
  think it's most enjoyable track out of this months selection  and my
  personal pick - don't miss it.

     http://www.parkstudios.net/


  TDR releases - tokyo didn't sleep and released a bunch of good
  songs. Among best of them belong "move on (d-soul mix)" by josef
  saddler, a bit moby like mix of house and soul, a dreamy "fais moi
  fremir" with  nice female vocals and sensitive saxophone or kriis "blunt
  times" signed as rhytmic soul, but again succesfully balancing on the
  edge of styles.  All of the tracks are on that high level that they
  can't be described, they have to be heard and I'm afraid that more
  detailed selection is a matter of your personal taste.

     http://www.tokyodawn.org

  Theralite features Xhale "in collaboration with frode kloevtveit and
  roger langvik  on trumpet and bass. again with the claustrophobic
  confined dark atmosphere  and the minimalistic breaks but this time on a
  more tripped out  downbeat side" (i stole this definition from their
  website. perfect things don't have to be improved)

     http://theralite.avalon.hr/releases/thera013.html


  OF course I wanted to mention "ddd" by fun tourist and "halfmoon" by
  esem, but both tracks are reviewed at goodstuff, so go there for a
  review. Just a note - both tracks are superb.

     http://konsumer.de/goodstuff/


  And fot those who are disgusted by large mp3 releases, here is a great
  chip  musicdisk "merry christmas" from fairlight members:

  ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fairlight/flt_012-merry_christmas.zip


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Retro Tunage
    Dust to Dust by Leviathan
  By:  Tryhuk
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     It makes me sad when I realize how much does the scene forget on the
  people who were really good at the time, but they just didn't release
  enough crap to have it laying on every ftp. Among them belongs
  Leviathan. I still remember his "Dust to Dust" as one of the best
  tracked songs I ever heard. It opens with a nice bass and a slow
  tambourine that dictates the tempo. In the background is an organ
  and in a moment song bass catches the tempo and the song starts to
  gather percussion. This slowly grades to first strong moment where some
  of lead instruments appear. I intentionaly say some, because one of the
  strongest points on this tune is how the leads are handled. But I'd like
  to mention bassline first, because it is in this track often played
  almost on the  place of lead and it is handled really well. I remember I
  read somewhere that  A.Dvorak (czech composer) said once that from the
  bass you can recognize the  composer. Although he meant rather a bass
  note in the chord progression, this song brought me to remind this
  citation. As the leads Leviathan uses an organ, which is also often used
  as a background instrument. Next it is an electric guitar and of course
  a piano. Melody is very good (more, it is lovely) in the whole track at
  all, but when I forget the melody, I like a lot how the instruments in
  the lead cooperate - organ plays the melody and guitar repeats it. They
  go on with  the melody - organ plays and guitar repeats.  I feel that
  this is a right point to stop this review. All I have to say is that it
  is a damned good song that flows really well and it is one of best
  tracked guitar tunes. And one more thing. It has full five hornet stars.


  Song Information:
    Title:  Dust to Dust
    Author:  Leviathan
    Release date:  1995
    Length:  3m40s
    Filename (zipped/unzipped):  k-dust.zip/k-dust.s3m
    File Size (zipped/unzipped):  257k/400k
    Source:  hornet archive
       ftp://us.hornet.org/pub/demos/music/songs/1995/k/k-dust.zip

                --Tryhuk


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Screen Lit Vertigo
     Amiga Demos
  By:  Seven
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Finally I've internet access at home (cable of course), so I should
  never have to mess around with diskettes anymore to get new demos.
  You've no idea how easily disks can go defective if you've got to
  transport them by bike during the winter from work to your home, forcing
  you to go back after working hours and try to copy it again, and
  again... Needless to say, one of the first sites I visited was
  scene.org, looking for the latest productions. Alas, we're in february,
  everybody is hibernating and the few small parties that have happened
  since last month didn't bring us any high-quality releases :(
  Performance 2001 is ending today but its demos haven't been uploaded yet
  and the SL deadline is today). Then I read on Orange Juice that a number
  of Amiga demos from '94-95 had been converted to mpg's for a videoCD
  project. Aha, that's something to test my bandwidth on... Half a
  gigabyte of mpgs later, I decided to do a quick review of these oldskool
  gems, because some of them are really great. Of course I can't comment
  on the technical side, since I've never owned an amiga myself.

     You can find all these mpgs at http://www.byterapers.com/~sivu/amiga


  So, here we go:

  Name/Group: Nexus 7/Andromeda
  Year: 1995
  Size: 61 MB
  Duration: 6 min
  Comments:
     This seems to be a technical showoff, no story, just well-synced
  fullscreen effects like landscapes, a 3D discoball, motion blur and
  original parts named "gouraud pulse", "shade cluster" and "plasma zoom".
  Our friend the Luxo lamp is in there too, albeit a little bit more
  primitive than f.e. in Spot/Exceed. Instead of greetings, they send
  insults to some other amiga scener. Oldskool attitude, yes.


  Name/Group: Deep/CNCD & Parallax
  Year: 1995
  Size: 37 MB
  Duration: 3 min 30
  Comments:
     Some great pictures in here, sometimes used in effects like polar
  distortion or as the background of a transparent refracting cube. Two
  tunnel-variants are shown, one textured with a 3D landscape, the other
  intersecting with a cube. There's one 3D part with totaly psychotic
  colors and too much motionblur (and the mpg artifacts don't help
  either), but the rest is OK.


  Name/Group: Deep (Psilocybin mix)/CNCD & Parallax
  Year: 1995
  Size: 42 MB
  Duration: 4 min
  Comments:
     Basically an heavy upgrade of Deep: more colorful parts, more complex
  objects, a lot of very weird texts, and female body parts sprinkled
  through the demo. The 3D plasma landcape and the rubber pilar at the end
  look great too. If you don't want to download both Deep and Psilocybin
  mix, choose this one.


  Name/Group: Baygon/Melon Design
  Year: ?
  Size: 40 MB
  Duration: 4 min
  Comments:
     Has some Danish design but without the high resolution: a 2-color twirl
  effect, wireframe 3D objects, b/w graphics, space invader monsters,
  50 % of the soundtrack is made of a "back to school" sample, which got a
  bit on my nerves. 1/3th of the demo is text shown at the end (no
  scroller, just static).


  Name/Group: Booo 2/Melon Design
  Year: ?
  Size: 22 MB
  Duration: 2 min
  Comments:
     A short jokedemo. After a short fakir-intro with sitar music, some
  flashing b/w effects are shown with a house tune. The message at the end
  is very oldskool too: "256 colors bring no talent", followed by a fine
  32-color picture.


  Name/Group: Ninja /Melon Design
  Year: 1994
  Size: 22 MB
  Duration: 2 min
  Comments:
     A cartoon-style demo about a ninja slicing someones head off. No
  effects, little story, just 100% graphics. The movie-style music really
  fits with it. Halfway there's a 1-second stall, but maybe that's a
  download error.


  Name/Group: Planet M. /Melon Design
  Year: ?
  Size: 46 MB
  Duration: 4 min 30
  Comments:
     This demo doesn't really fit in any category. It starts with some gray
  low-res animations of girl faces, followed by a really ugly spiral in
  contrasting colors. The melon logo is used in a lot of effects, it's for
  example projected in 3d on a 2d naked body. An original part is the 3D
  cube that moves to the screen and "hits" it, causing the corners to be
  flattened. The music starts very gently, but changes quickly to a 100%
  beats tune.


  Name/Group: Mina Omistan /Movement
  Year: ?
  Size: 25 MB
  Duration: 2 min 10
  Comments:
     A videodemo with a very low-fi soundtrack: some screamed vocals over
  a drum and a guitar sample. The mono-color video fragments show an asian
  putting on sunglasses, a drummer, someone playing a guitar,... The
  dancing tuaregs don't really fit in, but they're funny :)


  Name/Group: Zif / Parallax
  Year: 1995
  Size: 62 MB
  Duration: 6 min
  Comments:
     A heavy 3D demo, with lots of phong/metal shaded objects inside:
  a face, a car, the letters of the credits,... Sometimes the framerate
  slows down noticeably :/ The start and end logos are great, and there are
  some more handdrawn pictures too. I don't really like the music: 50% beats,
  50% more beats.


  Name/Group: Gevalia / Polka brothers
  Year: ?
  Size: 23 MB
  Duration: 2 min 10
  Comments:
     Very fast-paced demo, with some great effects: weird wireframe
  tunnels, a 2D animated crocodile, more fast anims seen through a dot
  filter, a fast tunnel made of xor-ed b/w polys... Add to this a good
  picture of a demon, plus that jazz-on-speed music... wow! A pity it's so
  short, and some texts are non-english :/


  Name/Group: Prey / Polka brothers
  Year: 1994
  Size: 53 MB
  Duration: 5 min 10
  Comments:
     At the start, there's some kind of "feeling-buildup": scary texts, a
  drawing of a man and a woman fighting with a knife, and horror- style
  music. But after that, Prey becomes a full-screen-effects-with-
  pulsating-music type demo: polar effects, 2 intersecting sine surfaces,
  a texture mapped tunnel in ugly colors (are those amiga coders
  colorblind, or is it just very hard to do that? I guess the latter).
  There's an excellent picture at the end of a monster having catched a
  little boy, I suppose the demo's name originates from that.


  Name/Group: Twisted / Polka brothers
  Year: 1994
  Size: 59 MB
  Duration: 5 min 40
  Comments:
     My favourite of the pack: perfect syncing on a stirring soundtrack
  that switches between rock, house and pure demostyle, great design
  (those cubes turning into TV-screens! The poems you just can't read
  completely in time!) and lots of splendid visuals: fractal, wireframe
  and solid tunnels, long dotfilter animations, a fire effect, several
  short movie fragments... If this was the normal level of the amiga scene
  in 1994, I can understand that they looked down upon the PC scene.


  Name/Group: Faktory / Virtual Dreams & Fairlight
  Year: ?
  Size: 25 MB
  Duration: 2 min 20
  Comments:
     A short weird demo, with a "man VS machine: who's in control" theme.
  The effects include twisting tunnels and a bumpmapped morphing
  metal-surface, the pictures that are shown allong are mostly
  photo-based. There are few 3D objects, but that screen with a robot-hand
  looked cool :)


  Name/Group: Sumea / Virtual Dreams & Fairlight
  Year: 1996
  Size: 31 MB
  Duration: 3 min
  Comments:
     This demo has the most advanced 3D of all: it starts with a ride
  through a sewer tunnel, till we bump into a TV showing a
  ball-with-holes-and- a-lightsource-within. Some balls jumping through
  hoops are very motionblurred, I prefer the part where balls fall on the
  floor, breaking in hundreds of pieces (good physics!). There's one very
  colorful picture of a man standing, the music is house/goa with
  distorted voice samples in it.


     Sorry to the cable-deprived part of the scene for reviewing such
  large productions, I truly hope next month will bring us many good &
  small PC demos :)

                --Seven


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Intro Watch
     "256b.com" and "Metazlo"
  By:  Gekko
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

  -=- http://www.256b.com -=-

     I would bet most coders out there have been to at least one demo party
  in their life. And while at that party, they probably watched all the 4k
  and 64k demos, and listend and watched all the music and gfx. But at
  more than one point were there another compo at that party. One that
  wasn't announced that much. More kept behind the "Big boys". The secret
  number no one ever mentioned was a compilation of three digits 2,5 and 6
  and included the character 'b'. Together they formed the word '256b'.

     When was the first time anyone ever came up with the idea for a
  256byte compo? I don't know. I am however sure that back in 1995, Steve
  Havelka organized the '256Byte Game Contest' on internet for a small
  numer of coders. The idea was, as the name suggests, to write the
  funniest and best game in only 256 bytes, and the winner was awarded $5.

     Today, there have been numerous 256b compos, and they have been in
  all kinds of shapes and categories. Demos have contained some of the
  most profound coding instructions ever seen, and have featured stuff
  like phong toruses, tunnel effects, bumpmapping and etcetera. However,
  this wasn't the case back in the middle 90's when plasmas were still
  trendy, and would make you win any compo. Until the increasing usage of
  the FPU (math co-processor), doing 3-D in 256 byes was something people
  thought impossible. There were however the psuedo ones, such as
  'Sqwerz3' by Matju/Trimaje and 'SukaForte' by PaN/Spinning Kids, both in
  '96, but nothing that was 'true' 3-D with the rest of the demoscene. I
  wasn't until at Coven '97 when Fysx presented his demo called 'Sputnik'
  that the world realised what could be done in what people called "A
  ridiculous size". Sputnik featured the worlds first phong torus in 256
  bytes. After that the barriers had ben broken. 3-D seemed like easy when
  implementing the FPU. And some weirdo even did it in 128 bytes!

     'Til a couple of days ago I did not have the slightest clue why
  people were so obsessed with the '256 byte' size limit. But when going
  through an old and discarded hard drive I found the answer in one of the
  info files for the 256b Game Contest back in '95. The file said that the
  inspiration came from Steve Wozniak, who appearently wrote an entire
  machine language monitor in under 256 bytes on the Altair 8800.
  Ofcourse, back then in 1975, the RAM of the 8800 was, yeah you guessed
  right, 256 bytes.

     Gotten hungry to see what people have made in this tiny size? Check
  out www.256b.com and see for yourself.

     Insomniac (webmaster of 256b.com)
     email: insomniac@256b.com
     url: http://www.256b.com


  -=- Metazlo -=-

  4k intro by Upi/Throb
  3rd place at Mindresources 2001, Russia

  Download:
      ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/incoming/MINDRESOURCES01/in4k/metazlo_f.zip
  Requirements: Windows, OpenGL, 3d video card, sound card

     There is a lack of activity on the scene in the beginning of the
  year, but now seems to have lasted even till the end of February. In the
  month, apart from this intro, I have not seen any outstanding release.
  This intro is for coders only. It can impress a programmer very much,
  but it would not qualify for a piece of art. It contains meta-balls and
  meta-toruses, which are very complex effects, especially in 4 kilobytes.
  On the other hand, there has been little effort invested in the design
  and objects appear to be blocky. There is music, but it is so repetitive
  that it gets on one's nerves after a few seconds. This is probably the
  reason why it did not win in the competition.

                --Gekko


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Scene Sense
     Round 2 - The Battle of the OS
  By: PsiTron
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     Last month, Smash wrote a rather in-depth article stating that he
  thought Windows was, in fact, a very viable location for the scene to
  be in. It is quite clear that our opinions differ, but if he intends on
  saying I am absolutely wrong, I intend on making my apparent wrongness
  quite clear. I do not intend on stepping on any toes, I respect his
  opinion as I hope he respects mine, but I think it is important to
  defend what I think is a very different interpretation of the scene. In
  actuality I believe this goes closer to the  heart of the matter: There
  are currently different ideas about what the scene is and how it should
  be run.

     A lot of commotion has been stirred in regards to allow anyone to
  access what the scene has. I have no problems with that, but should the
  scene go out of it's way to complete such a task. Should the scene
  simply stay on an operating system that even idiots can make fun of and
  ridicule? Should the scene merely go with whatever is  popular? I say
  no, because the scene is much more than eye candy for the average Joe.
  For Joe (and I'm sorry for anyone reading this named Joe =) is not going
  to much care about the hard work that went into it. He is not going to
  care about what a tracker is or perhaps even what assembly is. True, he
  might says something like "wow" or "cool", but he will not appreciate
  the culture involved in it.

  And yes, deny it or not, shrug it off if you wish, the scene has a
  culture. And that culture has a history. Is it a coincidence that
  before Windows the scene happened to be on the most powerful computers
  at the time? I think not, because the scene is not about saying some
  profound message in a demo. It originated in doing the impossible and
  while one could argue that one could do impossible things with Windows,
  one should not have to. Because the scene has also been committed to
  excellence, the elite (even by self-proclamation) have pushed the scene
  forward, not backward as the case I am seeing. Part of the reason
  Windows sucks so much (aside from the fact that a certain company made
  it) is that it is so damn user-friendly that, in trying to make it idiot
  proof, they sacrifice usability. If you think the scene ought to do the
  same, what is the point or purpose of a demo in the first place. Go and
  throw down with an MPEG made in 3D Studio MAX and tack some audio onto
  it if you'd rather. Why spend countless hours slaving over a computer
  tracking, coding, pixeling, whatever, if you drown it in the dirty swamp
  that infests our lives enough already? So people who are not going to
  understand the significance of it all merely have easier access to it?
  As a scener, I am not here for the average Joe near as much as I am
  here for myself, then for the scene.

     Having said that, if one wants exposure, it really does not matter
  what OS the scene may be on as long as it is on the Internet. If someone
  wants to watch a demo THAT bad, they will likely begin to use Linux,
  demOS or whatever. To say that Windows is the  one and only operating
  system for the scene is ludicrous. That is just undermining better
  alternatives for the betterment of all users. Why should the scene
  continue to use Windows because everyone else does (and for another
  statistic, 85% of all computers  have Windows on them, a tad bit more
  realistic than 99%).

     There are infinite possibilities and solutions to make the scene
  better, but if one is unwilling to change because the rest of the world
  is unwilling to change, well, no one's going to change. All we will all
  be stuck with the crap that most complain about every  day. Do we want
  that? Does the scene benefit from that?

     Of course not, and Linux is merely a possible solution that I rather
  enjoy. True, hardware support might be lacking (if you noticed I
  mentioned this in my last article), but Linux is very stable (hence
  instead of demos dying right in mid demo, they will just not work) and,
  consequently, most new hardware is present in new releases of the
  kernel.  True, 3D Hardware support is lacking slightly in Linux, but
  likewise there is not much demand for it, unfortunately. However, I
  must say that Unreal Tournament runs noticeably faster in Linux than it
  does in Windows. By no means am I saying Linux is perfect, few (if any)
  operating systems these days are, or even that change will happen
  instantly and overnight. The point I am simply trying to make is that
  the scene has  options and it is not just Windows.

     The bottom line however is that both the OS war and the war over
  Scene-Ideals are far from over. The only deciding factor will seem to
  be time because, like it or not, change takes time. But if it is
  anything I have learned about the scene is that it is, in fact, always
  changing - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. And, after
  having read this, you may think I am crazy and, well, stupid. But I
  give you my two cents,  nonetheless, on what I think it best for the
  scene, and while some may think it is worth  just that - two cents - I
  do it just so some may see another side of the same coin.

                --PsiTron


--=--=--
--=--=------=--=------=--=----
  Editorial
     Rebuttle to PsiTron
  By: Coplan
----=--=------=--=------=--=--

     It's not often that I'll jump into a mass argument, but this one is a
  hot one, and frankly, I'd like to put an end to it.  Plain and simple, I
  disagree with PsiTron on many things relative to his OS War.  I have
  asked him not to continue with this discussion next month.  But I will
  allow feedback, and I will carry out my side of the argument right here.

     Has the scene ever truly flocked towards power?  Possibly, back during
  the days of Amiga.  But that has nothing to do with Amiga being the most
  powerful OS at the time.  At the time, OS was hardware specific.  The
  fact that people used Amiga for the demoscene has to do with the fact
  that they could.  Mind you, tracking evolved from one simple fact that
  the Amiga could do it, and its competitors could not.

     So, lets stick with modern times.  What are the major OS's out there?
  You can't compare simple statistics.  The reality is that Mac OS (of any
  version) is installed on 12% of the machines out there, Linux on 8% and
  some Microsoft platform (NT, 2000, 98, DOS, etc) is installed on 69% of
  the computers out there.  That leaves another 11% to other operating
  systems including Unix, OS/2 and so on.  But that doesn't take into
  account the use of said computers.  What about the home market?  Well, I
  would hope that the majority of you don't do your demo and tracking work
  at your place of employment, you do it on your home computer.  Of the
  home market (and this is the important number), Mac OS is installed on
  10% of the computers, Linux on another 8%, Microsoft's OS's on 80%
  leaving only 4% for other alternatives.  Even still, of the small 8% of
  linux computers used at home, I'd be willing to say that most of them
  are used by geeks who have a lot invested in the internet.  Linux is
  great as a network machine.  But when it comes down to it, it sucks as a
  multimedia machine.

     Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of Linux and the OpenSource
  community.  I participate in it myself, and I do my best to promote it
  when I can -- and when it seems logical.  But for Linux, their time has
  yet to come.  Until the time comes that video cards come with two CDs
  (one for windows, one for linux), and sound cards get 100% support for
  linux (Creative offers drivers for their sound cards, but they aren't
  100% supported), Linux is no place for anyone willing to do things like
  music or demos.

     So this comes down to my point, again.  And I'll repeat it whenever
  I'm asked.  What is the best place for the demoscene and computer based
  music scene?  I'll simply respond with "Wherever the people are."  As I
  said in my column in issue #30, we cannot forget the average listener of
  your tunes and the average watcher of your demos.  You'd be surprised to
  find out that almost a 3rd of them don't write music or code.  Why the
  hell should the demoscene move if all our popular applications are
  meant for the Windows OS (or DOS)?  I'm not a huge fan of Windows, but I
  know that tracking is next to impossible in Linux.  When someone ports
  IT to linux, maybe I'll reconsider that fact.  But I boot to windows to
  track, and that's something that I have grown to accept.

     So, it seems as though PsiTron is a one-man army fighting a pointless
  cause.  The scene might jump to Linux one day, but it won't be until
  the OS is more widely recognized.  Even PsiTron himself has admitted
  that "85% of all computers  have Windows on them".  The statistic is
  grossly in-accurate, but even so....  Why shut out 85% of the computer
  users out there to stage a small revolution so only 15% of the people
  can enjoy the scene.  Of those 15%, how many actually use linux?  And of
  the Linux users, how many know how to track or code demos?  How many
  care?

     Like it or not, you are going to use Microsoft OS's for the scene for
  a while.  Might as well get used to it.

                    --Coplan



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

  Portals:

      Orange Juice.............................http://www.ojuice.net
      Scene.org.................................http://www.scene.org
      SceneSpot.............................http://www.scenespot.org
      CFXweb.......................................http://cfxweb.net
      Pouet.net.................................http://www.pouet.net
      Demoscene.org.........................http://www.demoscene.org
      Scenet....................................http://www.scenet.de
      Demo.org...................................http://www.demo.org
      Czech Scene................................http://www.scene.cz
      Hungarian Scene........................http://www.scene-hu.com
      Italian Scene...........................http://run.to/la_scena
      ModPlug Central Resources..........http://www.castlex.com/mods
      Norvegian Scene............http://www.neutralzone.org/scene.no
      Polish Scene...........................http://www.demoscena.pl
      Russian Scene..........................http://www.demoscene.ru
      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.nl.scene.org
      Scene.org Netherlands...................ftp://ftp.au.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://alienprophets.ninja.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
      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
      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
      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
  <U> 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.bentdesign.com/chill
      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
      Five Musicians.........................http://www.fm.scene.org
      Fusion Music Crew.................http://members.home.nl/cyrex
      Goodstuff..........................http://artloop.de/goodstuff
      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
      Miasmah.............................http://www.miasmah.cjb.net
      Milk.......................................http://milk.sgic.fi
      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
      Mo'playaz..........................http://ssmedion.de/moplayaz
      Mono211.................................http://www.mono211.com
      Morbid Minds..............http://www.raveordie.com/morbidminds
      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://tdr.scene.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
      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://wildmag.notrix.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

  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


--=--=--
----=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------=--=------
  Editor:          Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
  Columnists:      Coplan / D. Travis North / coplan@scenespot.org
                    Dilvish / Eric Hamilton / dilvie@yahoo.com
                    Gekko / Gergely Kutenich / mont@tar.hu
                    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
  Technical Consult: 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 with two spaces at the beginning and one
  space at the end of each line.  Please avoid foul language and high ascii
  characters.  Contributions should be mailed to Coplan
  (coplan@scenespot.org).

     See you next month!

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