FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21ST 1990
"The First Day"
PART I
The contributions in all parts of this real-time article were
written by the following beings (in order of appearance):
Richard of the Amazing Cracking Conspiracy, Tanis of The
CareBears (Coprophagic Necrocannibal Eviscerator of Alcoholica),
Sammy Joe of The Lost Boys, Manikin of The Lost Boys, Spaz of
The Lost Boys (Toxic Foetus Eater of Alcoholica), Stefan
(Digital Insanity of The Lost Boys), Mit of NEXT, Chris of The
Garlic Eaters, Red of Omega, Bluestar of Sync, Eric, Zae of
Next, Perceval of Zuul of The Pact, Fury of Legacy, Chaos Inc.
of Delta Force, New Mode of Delta Force, CIA of Galtan Six,
Cugel of Silents, The Flying Egg of Omega, Acco of The Garlic
Eaters, Crystar of the Pendragons, Dogue de Mauve from the
Overlanders, Flynn from Hysteria, Mopy of Ghost Genius of
Hysteria Alliance, Furyo of the Overlanders, Silver of the
Pendragons of Triton Development, Psychoreal of Hysteria, Klaus
of ST Connexion, Mega Cribb, Ian 'Dave Clone' of the Watchmen,
Rob Povey, The Fate of The Unlimited Matrix, Gunstick of The
Unlimited Matrix, Robert (RX2 of MPH), Steve (Miz of MPH), An
Cool of The Carebears, IKI of Hysteria, Vantage, Ford Perfect,
Thor of the Black Monolith Team, Genital Grinder of Alcoholica
(previously Sprog of The Lost Boys), Chris of the Watchmen, Paul
(Zeus of Teknique), Vomited Anal Tract of Alcoholica (though he
may be mentioned earlier already under another name - there's no
way to be sure), HAQ of Omega, Martijn (Lucifer of The Spirits
of Doom), Roland (TS of the Spirits of Doom), Marlon of ST
Connexion, The Nutty Snake of Aenigmatica, Phil of MPH, Relayer
of the Quartermass Experiment of Aenigmatica, Crush, Zokathra,
Terence of the Pendragons, Nemrod of the Pendragons, Fishbone
from the Vegetables, Doclands of the Overlanders, STWARS of
Next, Ziggy Stardust of the Overlanders, Tyrem of the De-
spectacled Testicles (er....The Respectables actually), Gudul
and Adso (that's 62 people, of which one may have been mentioned
twice).
Everybody is responsible for what he has written, and the ST
NEWS editorial staff does not accept any responsibility for what
has been written anywhere - except for the bits written by
themselves.
It is our duty to inform you, dear reader, of the fact that
large parts of this text may be considered 'shocking' or even
'obscene'.
Sorry. We decided to use no censorship.
*****
00:02
Yeah - the party has officially begun. Well, in theory anyway.
Pooh what's that smell?
Manikin
00:05
An overly disappointed Stefan has returned just now, and it
turns out that he has failed to find a resort for the Frenchies
to stay the night: The hotel is full (sounds a bit like Christmas
at Bethlehem).
So now, as I wrote earlier, we're in for some 'deep
improvisation'. Of the deepest conceivable kind.
Richard
00:07
They seem to be going anyway. Another hotel in the southern part
of Holland, I guess. But I leave the details up to Stefan, who
will no doubt get another go at this keyboard somewhere along the
line.
I really feel that I am writing a bit too much here, but you
have to do something don't you?
What?
Should I better go and do something else?
Well, buncha thanks for that!
Richard
00:13
At the moment I am being atacked by two coders for some
graphixx, but of course they're so thick they have not noticed I
don't have an ST...
Spaz
00:15
Well, I found a hotel for the French guys (who turned out to be
some members of Next), but when Gerrit Jan came back he
volunteered once again to have these people at his house too. A
smile formed on my weary face and like so many times before I am
indebted to somebody. I'm happy now!! (But I would love to get
to bed though...)
By the way, I'd better explain what Nick and Fabian are coding
at the moment since Richard's tiny brain is not able to cope with
it. It is supposed to be a 2 screens high scrolline (four planes)
that bounces along, overlapped by a 3 screen high TLB/TCB logo
that moves up and down. All in 16 colors, fully masked and
everything, with a digi sound player and in 1 VBL. Sync
scrolling, preprogramming etc. etc. Andreas (Jas) just suggested
that they probably wouldn't be able to do it, but knowing Nick
and Fabian, it will work at some time...
Stefan
00:25
Well at long fucking last I finally got Spaz to do some bloody
graphics for me, not bad - it only took 7 hours to persuade him
this time and if he says that he did not have a computer then he
is bullshitting because he certainly had one for a very long
period of time earlier in the evening. Grafix artists, who
fucking needs them..!!!!
(A programmer maybe? ED.)
Manikin
00:46
It's the German again.
Manikin and Zae are just having an immensely funny argument !
They are still talking about whether Zae will have a screen from
the Lost Boys for their "Phaleon Demo" or not, but I can tell
you now already, that they will not get the screen as Manikin
has made up his mind a long time ago, but there are other coders
in TLB, who are very very busy. Spaz baby is occupying my
harddisk plus computer so I can't do any work for "Maggie" (the
disk magazine of TLB, ED.), which results in me writing for this
other great disc magazine called ST NEWS (great mag !), but
hopefully we will finish "Maggie" in time still.
INTERRUPT
PRINT " BURP, BUUUUUUURP"
RTE
This was the immensly bold Richard being a pain in the arse
making funny noises across on the other table. Rob finally
managed (after about 5 hours hard work) to get the monitor lead
working (I just wonder for how long!). Delta Force is still
trying to work out how this dreaded machine called an Amiga
works! I just hope that he will work it out for his sake; it is
not too good for the health of an ST user to spend too much time
on this piece of lame....
I was just told by Richard to FUCK OFF, so I'll better leave
you.
Michael S.
01:01
So it's the Richster again on ze keez. Stefan and Gerrit Jan are
now preparing to leave, taking selected persons with them for
some serious napping.
Time is surely not being soft on us, and I was kinda startled to
notice that it was this late already. We (or at least I) have to
drive back to Stefan's place to do some sleeping and tomorrow
(later today, actually) there will be the rest (of the party).
There's lots of things we still have to do before we can start
off...
Richard
11:34
Phoow.
So I guess the ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention
has now officially started.
Approximately thirty people are now present here, in an office
of ITC (SPC Training, the educational division of SPCC where
Stefan works) in Oss. It is slightly hectic, but I think I can
tell you just about who I have seen here today.
First, of course, there's the people that were here yesterday
already. Added to that, I think I have spotted Sync and Omega
(about six or seven people who are at the moment getting their
computers over here, who are all Swedish), TGE (who are sitting
next to me I'm afraid), Michael B. (TNT-Crew), Erik (ES of TEX),
Karsten (Unicorn or something)...I even thing I saw some more
people, but the general hectic of it all doesn't make sure I'm
certain about anything.
Stefan and Next are now dragging a bit of Coke up here - I guess
we'll be needing those before the day is over.
Before I do anything else, I should maybe mention what happened
after the previous entry, which was conceived at one past one
last night.
Well, Stefan helped Gerrit Jan to get some of the Frenchies and
TLB over to his place, and I went directly for Stefan's place
with Fabian, Phil(ip) and Thorsten. Stefan was to follow later
with The CareBeings. I slept amazingly well, and I even had some
breakfast before I headed towards the ITC office - where this
entry was started (so the rest is history).
I guess I'd better piss off now. Maybe someone else can have a
go at the keys. First, I have to organise paper and a marker pen
to write lotsa stuff on and hang around. Wow.
Richard
11:40
Hi, here is MIT of NeXT, we (the French guys) are very
interested by this country, because there are many (many!)
lovely girls. And all the good looking girls smile at us, just
because we are speaking in French.
We are in a very cool place, but we've got a problem: We've
got an ST but no monitors left... The demo competition has
begun, but without an ST we can't code!!
Richard is writing the rules of the demo competion on a board
on the wall. Hum... 3.5 Kbytes on disk...it must be finished on
Sunday at 17:00...arf... let's go.
MIT
12:02
Coke yeah! So here we are! The real Garlic Eaters from the real
Black Forest. We (Chris, Nick and Acco) arrived here in Oss this
morning at 9:00 am. So now we are sitting around here on the
second floor of a building somewhere in this lovely town full of
so much nice and beautiful girls. It's strange - for me, they
look all the same, so far! I think Sammy Joe, Zae and me will
make some great connections this evening and I think we'll also
be real pissed of...
But don't worry - we're used to it, I can tell you... So I'm
out of ideas now. Bye, bye, ...
Chris of TGE
12:28
So. The first day of the convention has started! Sod! A lot of
Swedes has arrived, but then, who gives a fuck. All Swedish crews
except TCB are anal intrusions! May they die wanking!
Whatabout doing some serious work now...
Coprophagic Necrocannibal Eviscerator.
12:35
Last night was completely shit as we had to sleep with some
smelly French gits who smelt like they had garlic and onions
stuck up there fucking dicks, and now there are even more
fuckin' French, German, Swedish and Dutch lame arseholes here.
At the moment there is a fat neo nazi Dutchman standing next to
me and it looks like a dog with pus oozing from his anal muscle
has just vomited on his head, his name is Dick..........
Toxic Foetus Eater......
12:40
It looks like some of the younger persons present in this room
are being slightly obnoxious and are writing extremely silly
things in this wonderful real time article. I think I have to
whack a few heads together and squeeze some pitiful necks until
their little eyeballs pop out. As a matter of fact, one of the
more rancid of the two is now urging me to piss off so he can
spill forth some more of his atrocious brain-vomit.
Stefan
12:45
Actually stefan was wrong as I also think that the stuff that
was written before was very childish and stupid so I think it
should stop...
Spaz
12:47
Fuckin poofter......
Toxic
12:49
Oh dear. Spaztic's spelling really sucks! How come an ordinary
Englishman can't spell properly? May all assholes be lacerated
and left to bleed on the.... Got to stop, Spaztic wants to write
something.
INTERRUPT
Slightly angry editor note: These spelling mistakes (like
'there' in the bit written at 12:35, which should of course be
'their') are really shit because A) They're made by an English
person, and B) They are referred to later, which makes sure I
have to de-spell them after having correcting them already!!
RTE
Tanister
12:50
TLB has just got a new name: It is Total Laceration of Bears so
I'm just off to mutilate Tanis' Body.....
Spaz
12:51
ÖÖÖÖÖÖRK!
TFE
12:55
THE TERRIBLE OMEGA has arrived after a menacing 12 hours in our
fucking rented car.
Red
13:00
Just now, the Galtan Six dudes have arrived. There are three of
them, but only two of them are, like, really staying over until
the hard core hours of fun and (even more) fun arrive. They are
Diederik (CIA), Servé and someone who calls himself the
Obliterator of the Powerslaves (that's an Amiga freak, actually,
and thus very probably not even one of the aforemeant Galtan Six
dudes - sorry).
So it's slowly getting busier and busier here, and that also
means that we're slowly getting in some entrance money that makes
sure that we can buy more Coke and FOOD.
Yeah.
The Coke bottles that we fetched not too long ago have now
already been consumed for more than half. I surely hope we'll
survive all this...
Erik, Karsten and Thorsten are not here now. They left about an
hour ago to find themselves some junk nourishment. Well....if
that's what they want...
"Death by Cholesterol!"
Mucky Pup quote (they're not here, but it's appropriate)
Richard
13:05
The terrible SYNC has also arrived (as a matter of fact we came
in the same rented car as "Omega"). Yeah!
Bluestar
13:10
Some of my esteemed colleagues have just dropped in to admire
all the computer freaks around here. Linda sure made her
entrance, a lot of male-computer-freak-eyes sortof swivelled
around when she came in. Rob is standing behind me now,
sheepishly laughing after I took over from him (he typed in the
time of this entry). Apparently, his inspiration left him as
soon as he sat down behind the keyboard to give his first
impression.
Stefan
13:15
I just wondered what the average life time expectancy of a
Coke-bottle is around here.
"Probably 1.34 nanoseconds..."
Stefan quote
Eric
13:18
Stefan failed to mention the fact (did I now? Stefan quote)
that just now we had the entry of the first agreeable female
(you can't really count the older women we had gazing into the
room earlier). She's called Linda and you must have heard her
name before as she is one of Stefan's esteemed colleagues. She
brings a fresh tinge to the...
Interrupt: I have shit in my eyes. He did mention her. But
nonetheless.
...air that is filled with second-hand oxygen and assorted
smells arising from the feet of those who have taken the liberty
of taking off their shoes. I don't know which brand it is, but I
have to make a mental note not to forget to ask her one day, as
I guess this scent would match my girlfriend too.
Richard
13:35
I have the idea that it will be quite busy here soon. I heard
something about Maxi and Dom of The Replicants coming - and
Stefan nor me seem to recall having invited them. Maxi would
come here as a coder (not a cracker) and Dom would be here as
(you'll never believe it) a publisher.
My God - what are we up to when crackers go and publish? But
maybe I shouldn't say anything about this...
Good. I surely hope more people will write here (hint hint).
Richard
13:47
Pfuiii! Believe me or not, it was a fuckin' dangerous night we
had: Sleeping near Sammy Joe (without his shoes on...), and
Sprog farting all the night is an experience that makes a man
know what life really is. A lot of people are here now. One can
meet various people walking around here: Sync, Omega, TLB, TCB,
Aenigmatica, Thalion's guys and some others...
By the way: it took us (ZAE, Manikin and Alexis) 2 hours to
walk nearly 100 metres (from the SPCC castle to the ITC office).
Now you know what happens when you start following girls in a
town you don't know - you get lost!
The Lost Boys really deserve their name...
INTERRUPTION: FRENCHIES ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!
Zae
14:07
Indeed, indeed, as Zae aptly noticed. Twenty-fucking-two of 'em
and they're all armed to the teeth with various parts of
computer equipment, brabbling French all the time. I think I saw
various Overlanders, Fury (Fabrice, the man with the unfeasibly
smelly socks) and some more (Pendragons). I really lost track in
the amount of people and the incredible smell of garlic and
stuff like that (or was it my imagination?).
Well. First, we've got to get them seated somewhere. We just got
control of a third room here, and they'll be going there. French
territory from now on, ruled by the guillotine and all that shit.
I'm beginning to talk bullshit now so I'd better quit (Oh gosh
that was a bit of rhyme but I will not start being poetic just
now).
Richard
14:20
Well finally we reached Holland after two days travelling by
train. It was quite hard because of Fury's smwelling socks, but
we got here. There's:
Overlanders 7
Pendragons 4 or 5
Legacy 1 (already too much)
Zuul ! 1 (me)
Next 1
Tool 8 1
M Coder 1
Well there's two kinds of people: Coders who are speaking about
coding and the others having a good time. Well, here are some
charts:
Most noisy man Sammy Joe
Sleeping man Ziggy (he almost missed the train because he
wanted to finish the "European Demos" at
home but there were bugs everywhere, no
screens are working, etc. etc. Well perhaps
today we will see "Syntax Terror", another
demo that is supposed to be finished here by
the Delta Force)
Well so long; I'm tired of this German keyboard.
Perceval
14:26
Puh, I'm (Chris of TGE) back on the keys again. We just visited
the town a bit and found some great record shops (one single CD
for only 3,-- Dutch guilders. Great isn't it?). So, you have to
know that I'm totally finished coz I saw lotsa nice girls and I
just came out of the swimming-pool that I visited just now. It's
just about 200 meters from here, but I think that I'm the only
one who went there... So...
(So?! ED.)
Chris of TGE
14:35
Hi there! So here is the unforgettable Fury and his mega smelly
feet (God knows why they all complain?). Anyway, I changed shoes
so I won't be smelling anymore. The journey to the STNICCC was
quite long - 11 hours in a train is always long I guess.
I've got nothing else to tell ya except that I'm anxiously
awaiting the arival of ULM ('You A Lame')
See ya in a next message...
Fury signing off (by the way, I'm no more a Replicant member; I
left the crew and made mine: Legacy)... Bye...
14:47
Now it starts: Delta Force has arrived. Here is Chaos, Inc.
penetrating the keyboard. I'm desperately seeking for some German
guys, because my English is not the best. There are already a lot
of guys around here, mainly speaking English. But now enough for
today. Maybe I'm continuing later.
Tonight the "Syntax Terror" demo will be released, and so a
Great Work is ended. Enough of this shit-talking...
CU.
Chaos, Inc. (DF)
14:58
The only problem here is the lack of an ST!!
Nothing to code or type except this computer.
Overlanders and Delta Force are now working, labouring, to
finish their demos!
They will be great.
Perceval
15:07
You have no concept, dear reader, of the amount of work that is
involved in the creating of a decent piece of text like
Perceval's up here. When it's still in its raw form, it looks
like a couple of words added together is a strange way, with
comma's where they don't belong and lacking semicolons where they
should. Also, the English is pukably abhorrent as you can
imagine. English must be very unimportant down in France, and it
shows.
I really hope that more capable people will have a go at the
keyboard, too. Like Chris of TGE, or even a couple of English.
The good thing about the Frenchies writing, however, is that they
have a totally different perspective (or scope or whatever) of
writing and that adds to the appeal of this article.
But scheiße on that. I'd better sign off again as I have an idea
that I can convince our dear mister Master Editor (Undead) to
write a bit now.
Richard
15:13
DEEP SIGH.
This stuff is surely draining my life force. So many people
around, hacking away on their computers, hanging around, talking
in all sorts of languages. There is a constant murmur in the air,
various fragments of computerized talk drift through the air, the
languages get intertwined in one large mass of Babylonic
confusion.
I am surrounded by empty coke bottles, Mark (The Genital
Grinder) keeps jumping Richard. Overlanders, Lost Boys, Delta
Forcers, CareBears, Overlanders, Pendragons, Garlic Eathers,
Omegas, Syncs, Texers, Black Monolithians, Nexters, all moving
around like bees in a hive. It's good fun really.
I set up a little corner of my own with a mattress and a pillow
in it and soon I will retreat to it, I think. I just realized
that in all the commotion, I forgot one little thing: Myself.
No fresh T-shirt, no soap, no toothbrush, no nothing. This means
that I have to go to Den Bosch somewhere along the line to get
all that. Damn.
Stefan
15:28
It is one of the most ultimately hard things currently
conceivable, but I will go and try to describe who is doing what
here.
I don't know if someone mentioned this before (and I am too lazy
to find out by scrolling up and down through this article again)
but the Dynamic Duo (from England) have arrived too. They are
doing some coding now. Michael S. (Sammy Joe/Jo) is coding
something for TLB's "Disk Maggie" (now thought to be called
"Disk Major" or something), Genital Grinder is eating crisps and
listening to a rather spiffin' Entombed CD ("Left Hand Path"),
Rob is sitting around with a glazy look in his eye, ES is
looking Gogo over the shoulder who seems to be doing some Amiga
(?!) artwork. Michael of TNT Crew is busy coding a 3.5 Kb demo
screen involving a non-line-A polygon routine, the Delta Force
members (Slime, Chaos and New Mode, that is) are standing around
Galtan Six looking at something I can't see, and Questlord of
TDF is playing "Tetris" on the Gameboy with Karsten (Unicorn).
Genital Grinder is softly banging his head, attracting the
attention of Spaz (or TFE or whatever) who (I guess) is doing
graphics.
Wait a moment.....I'm going over to room two...
(Pause while author walks to and fro room two)
...Sync and Omega (and a group called The Silents) are coding
something that they described as 'a game'.
Wait another moment...I'm going over to room three (the
Bastille)...
No I'm not. Spaz just put on Sepultura's "Beneath the Remains"
and that's REALLY FUCKING HEAVY!! AAARRGHH!
Now I'm checking out the Bastille...
(Pause while author walks to and fro room three)
...and I'm back.
It's quite a big room, and it's dipped in relative darkness as
none of the Frenchies seem to have discovered 'light' or the mere
concept of 'photons' or any other particles.
I was struck by the fact that about 25 persons were standing
around a computer system manned by M-Coder, who appears to have
written something revolutionary involving huge shapes of 3D
polygons (including round ones). Looked OK to me. Mr. Bee was
sitting forelorn coding something else, and it was the first time
I didn't see Ziggy coding today (he started immediately after he
arrived here).
The music that is shuddering us now here, I think, Entombed
again. Some really heavy stuff - believe me.
Richard
15:38
We don't wanna be called "TDF" again, coz we are DELTA FORCE
and not "THE DELTA FORCE" anymore.
New Mode
15:45
Well after a long time of me not writing anything I am going to
not write anything again.
Spaz
15:51
Ziggy Stardust and the M.Coder showed their amazing 3D screen
to Nick and Manikin...... They were amazed, but not as amazed as
I thought they would be.
M.Coder said it would be very hard or impossible to beat dis
because they were four to code this and it took 6 months!!!! Do
you remember the 3D screen in the "Delirious Demo II" or in the
"Union"??? This screen is beating them by a hundred times at
least.
Let's say if you begin learning assembly language today on
your own, it will take you at least 50 years to beat this.
So I asked the Overlanders to put one of Zuul's screens in the
"European Demos", the most beautiful one - but there was no disk
place left.....
Aren't you asleep?
So I lost my bet.....
Next time when Fury speaks once again about his bloody feet,
he'll do it (Er...what?! ED.).
Perceval
16:04
At the moment nothing is happening so I have decided to explain
what is happening. Well, Tanis is drawing an STNICCC logo as I
got pissed off with it, Batman and Robin are coding and so are
Manikin, Genital Grinder and Bittner B-B-B-Bit-Bittner.
I'm going now..........
Spaz
16:07
I am touched. My dearest of Master Editors just supplied me with
"The Deeper Meaning of Liff" by means of Christmas gift (I
returned the favour by giving him Adams' "Last Chance to
See..."). I was touched into the utmost marrow of my bones, and
tears were welling up inside of me, only being swallowed back
just in time to avoid me being embarassed.
Karsten supplied me with a DIY Brontosaurus model and Dave and
Tim gave me a Christmas card in which they apologised for
spoiling my summer (during which we did "A Prehistoric Tale" for
Thalion). As a matter of fact, I spoilt their summer but
whatever.
I am going down to a silent place to contemplate about my gifts
and the shuddering feeling of it almost being Christmas already.
Two people of Hotline just arrived (there will be more, they
say). These two are called Lotus and Joard (what a name).
Well.
Richard
16:13
I just had some food and I suddenly feel considerably better
than I did about 1 hour ago. Just now I saw a 3D demo by Ziggy
Stardust and M-Coder plus some other guy whose name I did not
catch. They were very proud of the demo, and rightly so. The
design and objects in it were really well thought out. The
routines were really fast too, but not that fast, they still
don't know a few tricks that I do and that I know Nick does too.
These alone would save quite a bit of processor time. The
routines of Niclas and also those of Chris Jungen are still
quite considerably faster.
I feel inspired perhaps I will code some more 3D after all.
After all if they say it takes 50 years to get as good as they
are then it must be right mustn't it???????
Manikin
The end of part one.
Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
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