MONDAY, DECEMBER 24TH 1990
"The Fourth 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.
*****
00:31
It's already well into this fourth day, and up to me is the
joyous task of describing what has happened in the recent two
hours or so.
Immediately after the 3.5 Kb competition results (which are to
be read in the last bit of the real time article about "The Third
Day"), everybody slowly started packing their things. Many of
them then left for the ITC office (where we have been virtually
all Friday), and many of them left to head for home.
The 'goodbyes' were sometimes emotional. Friends that we will
not see for a very long time, friends that we would not mind
having around another day, etc.
I know it must sound slightly exaggerated, but these computer
freaks are really like one big family and it showed that nobody
actually wanted to go away.
My colleagues at Thalion suddenly looked at me with a different
gleam in their eyes. "There is something good in this chap all
right," I could almost read behind their pupils.
It was a mass Exodus that was bigger than the Friday one. Now,
all people were actually leaving, and they must have been
approximately 120 or so. I guess that about half of them are now
here. ULM is trying to finish their megademo, which among others
features Tim's award-winning entry in the 'ordinary demo'
programming competition.
Never will I forget the applause Bittner got for his 3.5 Kb
screen. Or the one Stefan the Master Editor got when I told
everybody what he had done and what a terrific pal he actually
is.
Douge de Mauve (NFDDM: my name is D-O-G-U-E, not DOUGE!!!) of
the Overlanders gave this Best Of Master Editor And Convention
Organisers a bottle of white Bacardi rum, and TNS of Aenigmatica
give him a completely unexpected (and very spontaneous) hip flask
of Plantiac, the Divine Fluid.
I could see he was touched.
Chris (of the Watchmen) clapped.
Then the whole office needed to be emptied, cleaned, and tidied
up to look like its original state. This meant that all 430
bottles of Coke, a hundred bottles of beer and various other
assorted bottles had to be cleared away. Then there were enormous
amounts of empty crisp bags, cartons, and even more.
But lotsa people actually helped: NEXT (I was amazed at this),
The Rectal Erectables, some ST Connexion people, TNS and various
other people that really deserve to be mentioned honourably but
that have actually been forgotten by me.
Sorry.
I helped as well, of course, and Gerrit Jan of SPCC also came
later.
I am going to quit writing now, because:
A) I am slightly getting out of inspiration.
B) I am getting tired.
C) Other people want to write.
D) Roland just farted terribly (ough).
Richard
01:11
Well well well.
When coding is too hard, when you're too lazy to open your
suitcase to get your "brigable" bed and having a sleep, when
"Kick Off" becomes too intellectual a game for you, when you're
about to make a big mistake or to kill yourself, there's only
one hope:
(Oppresive muzic background) It is ST NEWS stupid real time
(not precalculating) article...........
So here I am.
First of all I've to say that you are very courageous, because
you read lotsa Kb of stupid bullshit article to reach this
one...
Well at his kind of writing you may analyse a man: For example,
Richard is always speaking of burping, toilet and so on
(disgusting animal); there are also the one who really got
nothing to say (me!) and The Nutty Snake who has monopolysed
this chair for hours, sleeping on it because he was afraid of an
hypothetic guy who would type bullshit instead of him (I've got
to admit he's really good at that !!!!).
Well, in front of me, a white "black board" is standing with a
lot of things writing on it speaking about SEX.
Well here are Doclands from OVR and STWARS from NEXT asking me
which journal this article was made for and why it is for.
Metaphysical question, after have spending 4 days here (note
from Doclands, he's lucky, I haven't got any gun to kill
him.....).
Some people are understanding quite quickly.
Well, Mit from NEXT asked me to greet him, so I'll do it (poor
Mit, he's unknowm (I'm pissed off of ZAE too)), but let me
describe Mit: It is an athletic two meters tall typical Swedish
playboy, who is really good at coding and cracking. It is the
one, THE ONLY ONE who brought the really nice "Maggie" charts,
and the ultimate and fastest cracker and swapper in the
universe.
Well let's say it is EXACTLY the contrary of what I told you.
Here is DOCLANDS behind me trying to understand the deep and
philosophical senses of what I'm saying........
It's becoming more and more stupid.........
I leave you.
GOD ON THE UNIVERSE: Ziggy (ooouuuuupppsssss).
The ultimate burper: Perceval from Zuul signing the stupidest
ST NEWS till Doclands will type one.
01:45
Yo eveybody ! Here is Doclands, the musician of the
Overlanders. AAARrgh, stupid keyboqrd...
Well, I haven't got anything interesting to tell you... So,
enjoy the "European Demos"!!
Just before, you read Perceval; What he said is absolutely
false: God is not ZIGGY, it's ME! (arf arf!)
That's all... May the force be with you...(I mean, FORCE MAUVE,
you know, DOGUE DE MAUVE!).
Bye...
Doclands
02:00
Hi there , here is Mit from NEXT (you remember?), so the
Convention has now finished, and I can see (near me): Manikin who
is playing "Golden Axe" (lousy game), some guys of Aenigmatica,
Zuul, and a Swedish crew is watching Manikin.
We (STWARS & MIT) want to go out to find some beautiful girls
to fill the end of this night, but Zae doesn't want to join (you
know he's got some medical problem). I think we will go to the
pub anyway (or somewhere we can find 'free-girls'). I especially
want to tell you something about this nice country.
There are many girls, but not like in the others countries: 1%
very nice girls, 9% nice girls, 20% not so bad girls, 50% just
girls, 10% bad girls, 10% it doesn't look like girls.But here are
99% nice girls....
So bye... Someone will type & STWARS will correct my bad
English (no he won't, it was me, ED.)
Seen you soon in another message (no you won't. You're crap,
ED.).
Mit (Monstrously Imbecile Typescrewer, ED.)
02:14
There's nothing as cool as cleaning four bearded loos filled to
the brim with piss, Coke and shit. And that's what I have just
done.
Yeah. I have been back to the little castle just now, and helped
Stefan the Posthuman, Chris of the Watchmen and Marc (Genital
thingy).
It was really bad. I was thoroughly disgusted most of the time.
Thoroughly in a very thorough way, that is.
It nearly made me violently ill.
Richard
02:32
I just corrected the bit written by Mit, just up here. It was so
bad that I temporarily lost control of rudimentary subtleness.
Sorry Mit but you should write anything but English (this is
nothing personal)!
My God. It's awful.
My neck is starting to ache a bit as well, as this table is not
exactly at the right height. And I'm getting to be very tired.
Oh. I forgot to mention that we had a visit of The Law just
after I arrived here for the first time. There were two coppers
armed to the teeth, and they thought it was kinda strange that
there were lights in this office, where there normally weren't
any (at least not on Sunday night).
I explained everything to them and they disappeared. They had
disappointed looks on their faces: No shooting today (at least
not for them).
Richard
02:35
By the way. Asking for the way I spoke with one of the often
mentioned beautiful Dutch girls. Her name was "Manon" and I
should call her when I lose my way the next time (Tel. 04120-
xxxxx (this has been censored, ED. If you want to puzzle: The
numbers in this are 23461 in the wrong order). Perhaps she will
help U too?
Acco of TGE
02:41
Warning!! I just heard that Martijn is mentally preparing
himself for a considerable amount of bullshit that needs to be
written in here, according to him. So if you're not really into
slap gelul (that's Dutch for bullshit) skip the next few pages.
Roland
02:44
Yezzz. I'm back!!! Now I could see the glance in your eyes
showing a tiny amount of hope that I would have been gone or
something. OK, let's get on with it.
First of all I want to say that I'm extremely happy because Tim
has greeted us (the S.O.D.) in the new demoscreen "Twiddle
screen" coded by Tim and Fabian (Oxygene) and with graphics by
Dave.
Wow.
There have been some French guys typing a lot of shit somewhere
above and thus disabling me to write here. After that, Richard
(some weirdo) and Roland wished to write some small things and
finally it's my turn. I'm getting pretty used to this f.cking
keyboard. Shit!
Now I have the opportunity to write in this amazing-and-most-of-
all very-long-real-time-article and now I don't know any more
crap to write. Let's ask Roland.
Roland pointed towards Dave and Genital Grinder so I guess I'll
inform you that they are playing "Speedball II". GG doesn't like
the ball in the game. He wants to kill the enemy and not score.
Richard is going to bed. I will follow his splendid example
within a few minutes. Alex is asking me for the tapes of the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to listen to them until nine
o'clock AM. I think this convention was just a little too much
for him. Poor guy. OK. Now let's go ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Martijn
03:05
As the noontime of Monday the 23rd of December draws closer, the
saga of the ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention
comes closer to its end. Almost 100 hours of sheer bliss have
passed this mind. And not without leaving its deep impression.
(by the muse, I write this now, because I don't know if I will
be able to write all these feelings down later) (see, I just got
interrupted by Snake, and now they're gone..... Maybe later).
I think I'm going to listen to some 6 hours of Hitchhikers Guide
tapes now. I'll see you later.
TNS
03:19
Roland back for some more of that good shit, the shit you just
can't fuck with!!
Marc and Dave are currently playing "Golden Axe" which I think
is one of the most crappiest conversions I've ever encountered.
It doesn't look at all like its arcade parent. The only nice
thing about it is that if you beat down a female sprite she dies
with this real horny scream, falls down and spreads her legs.
I'll just have a sip of Coke now....
Alex is now trying to get his walkman working so that he can
listen to some Hitchhiker comic stuff. Tim is coding and I think
coding is absolutely shit compared to graphic painting. Martijn
is looking over his shoulder at the code Tim is working on and
judging by the look at his face he doesn't understand shit of it.
Perceval wants to write something, but he isn't allowed to write
cause he makes too many faults in his English grammar. Richard
has spent hours debugging his previous bits in this article. Marc
wants Perceval to burp, but he refuses to do so, I wonder what
Marc will do to him. He doesn't do anything!! He's a coward
bastard!! Why should he be afraid of some French lamer who
doesn't even know how to code?!!
Roland
03:32
Well I refused to burp because if I would, I would have made a
smelling pizza on the floor. What else! Well, the fucking bastard
called Roland is well placed to speak about lamers; he is the
world's lamest leader. Well, Shadow from the Dynamic Duo is now
sleeping, and he's not so bloody dynamic.
Perceval from Zuul: The Ultimate Burper
03:48
Hi, this is now STWARS of NEXT on keyboard.
We just went out for a while, but Oss is quite boring at this
evening, and we had no car for tonight, so we're back.
Well, I don't know exactly what to write, cause I don't like
bullshitting.
I think Holland is a very nice country: Lots of very nice
looking girls there; we've been in a big disco yesterday and met
lots of them...
I would like to go back to Holland just for that.
Well, except for that, I code when I've got some time (that's
why some people say I am a lazy man, cause I don't touch too much
ST (there are better things to feel !)).
OK, that is all for this time...
See you in another text...
P.S.: THERE SHOULD NOT BE ANY FAULTS IN THIS SHORT MESSAGE !!
(Yes there were, ED.)
STWARS
04:20
Tim just came into the room saying that we should go to the
opposite room and so we did. A guy had fallen asleep with his
head on his arms. Another guy had drawn a dick and a sun on his
cheek with a black marker pen. Immediately pictures were made. I
can't wait till he wakes up. I wanna hear his reaction. Bet he'll
be real pissed off.
Right. The way things are going now I probably won't get any
sleep this night. I'll just have to see 'bout that when I get
home.
Home....
It still seems miles away. Within 8 or 9 hours I'll be back and
my parents and my brother will start asking the usual questions
like "How was it?", "Did you have a good time?" and "Oh shit! Are
you back already?" and the usual answers will follow:
"Great", "Yes, of course" and "Tough shit".
Martijn
04:34
After some small consideration, I am now again behind the
keyboard. Yes, The Nutty Snake is here again to fill the lonely
spaces in this file with strings of meaningful (sometimes)
characters. Since we swapped buidings, let me first describe my
surroundings:
- The room is about 5 x 10 metres large, and 3 metres high.
Walls are made of dreary gray wood, or boring old brick.
- The doors are painted red. This must be to show the
architect's awareness of the dreary construction of the rooms
themselves, and shows that he is totally incapable of planning
nice constructions.
- On one wall there is a so called 'White-board', which gives us
a clue to the original purpose of this room. But let us
investigate further.
- The ceiling has 8 large recesses with TL-tubes in them. This
proves that we are inside a classroom. This is reason enough to
stop further dwelling on this point.
Some remarks written on the white-board:
"If labour is the answer, it must have been a pretty silly
question"
"Sex is like a game of cards. if you have a good hand, you don't
need a partner"
"Q: How many idiots does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Lightbulb? what is a lightbulb?"
"Sex is lethal... die happy"
Oh bollocks. I Want to see ST NEWS Volume 5 Issue 2 before I go
to sleep, but the color ST next to me is occupied. I will
therefore interrupt this session to look at it on this ST. Bye!
TNS
ANOTHER BITTOF A LEAP IN TIME DUE TO A CERTAIN CRAZY REPTILE
TURNING OFF "FIRST WORD PLUS" AND HIS SEQUENTIAL INABILITY TO
FIND A NEW COPY OF IT ANYWHERE.
08:58
Well, nearly time to leave now. Most of the freaks already left
and it seems that in a few hours Karsmy will be able to type
"THE END" down this article. To my opinion it was a great party,
some problems time to time at the beginning but they were all
solved by either the (bloody efficient) organising team or the
freaks themselves. This convention is different from the one we
had in Marseille on many points: There are much more people
here, the organisation is nearly perfect, and both places here
were quite big. The point is that I think our Summer Convention
was more a holiday than a real convention, as everybody spent
more time going to the sea and hunting girls than coding
hardware scrollers...
Anyway, I learned a lot for setting up a convention and it'll
probably help me a lot in planning the NEXT/Replicants Summer
Convention part II. Well, it seems that I must leave now but
before I quit I want to say thank you and good bye to everybody
I know on the ST scene as I now stop all activities, you can now
consider that Zae is dead (please don't cry before reading the
whole text) and I'll just come back to life time to time to bore
you a bit with this bullshit you so much like...
Last message: A new software label is gonna hit the scene, the
story goes on...
Zae of Next
09:23
Awake again. Stefan is bringing the Watchmen to Schiphol
("Well, if they would have been assholes I would not but as they
aren't I will").
Tim just walked through this room, and it would be a cliche to
tell you he looks like a zombie but unfortunately he does.
Mit is sitting next to me. I just came into this room and he
welcomed me with curses because he had read the bit way up (at
about 2 or 3 it was written) and had thus read what I had
thought of him when I corrected his "English".
"Oh shit. I'm soooo tired."
Tim quote
I suppose I'd better go and wash my face, as I think I am not
entirely unlike a zombie myself at the moment.
Richard
Morning (something like 10.00) (It was actually 09:30, ED)
Well, please don't spread my word but Richard does actually
look like a zombie at the moment (a blond one with short hair
and glasses). So I guess I can forgive him for not mentioning my
incredibly good performance in the graphix contest (I began my
piccy two minutes after the contest was over). I keep on saying
that I should have won the first price but these lazy bastards
of graphix men didn't want to admit that a coder (even a GFA
one!) could be better than they are...
Anyway, I think that GOGO's picture wasn't too bad, even if he
forgot a few anti-alias effects. SPAZ' drawing is also quite good
(but he uses too much colors, not like me) and I guess that RED
is not exactly what you'd call a bad artist...
OK, it was just megalomania again! Sorry, I couldn't help...
I would actually like to thank the judges that gave me a prize
(very cool calendar and perhaps a video tape) 'coz my picture is
anything ("nasty", "ugly", "disgusting") but brilliant. By the
way, the real men to congratulate in this contest are the guys
from Delta Force. They managed something I didn't think was
possible (is that english, Richard???) (Yes it is, ED.): A fully
playable "Archon" game with nice graphix and animation. Bloody
impressive!!!
The little shoot-'em-up from Michael Bittner (who was
disqualified because of two hours of lateness) is even better,
with great graphix and even a musak (actually not, Dogue, for he
deleted some stuff to do it in 3.5. It was pretty damn good
nonetheless, ED.). All this in 3.5Kb, of course! Hell, what CAN
stop such a programmer? Nothing, I guess (or perhaps a
fullscreen competition in less than 100 bytes)...
A bit of text about Stefan Posthuma as well. He was offered
some tasty alcohol by all of us. A way to thank him for the
generally great organisation (such a party would have been
nearly impossible in France).
I also forgot to mention the demo contest, which was won by
Manikin (and Oxygene, ED.) for his (their, ED.) bloody good
twiddle scroller (full of professionalism). LEM from NeXT and
Dynamic Duo also won a prize but I still haven't seen their
demos.
What else? Well, the convention is now ending (the official end
is for 17:00) and lotsa people are leaving. We (froggies) are
going to quit at 15:00 but I would have liked it to be longer
(it was too short and we couldn't talk with all guys we intended
to meet - especially because of the f....g "European Demos" we
had to finish!)
Let's hope we'll be able to go to the next convention and meet
all guys outta there again (and some nice guys should visit us
in Paris during their European Tour this summer).
OK. I think that's all for today. I don't know if I will ever
write anything there again. So, I send my best greetings and
christmas wishes to all guys outta here...
May the Mauve be with them all!
P.S.: and a special "Hi!" to Richard who actually reads and
corrects everything in this text. Believe me, that's the total
opposite of easy work (especially when you see how bad at
"clean-writing" some people are - and using this strange Dutch
keyboard does not make the things easier!).
(It's....er....well....German, actually....sigh.... ED.)
Dogue de Mauve from OVR
The end of part eight.
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
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll
texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.