Assembly 2000!! Eh? Aah well.
Just got an e-mail from Random/CC. Seems that he's helping out on the Spectrum front with regards Assembly 2000, and he's given me some news. It seems likely that "this won't be a compo, but just a SHOW of the best demos/introz of all times". Well, it's better than nothing and who knows, if it goes down well, there may be a full Spectrum section next year.
<RANT>Hell, if nothing else, it's a good chance to show the PeeCee community how to code. "Oh look, I can code a 3d scene with some lens-flares on my 500MHz P-III and GeForce card". I'm only impressed if it looks as good with software rendering on my old 486!</RANT>
Ahem. Sorry for that. My only concern with the plans so far is... who gets to choose which demos are shown? Will it be voted for? ...but I'll leave that for the organisers to decide.

More news on Forever 2e3. Gasman has posted a report on the party, along with a few photos, over at Demotopia. Go check it out.

Thanks go to LaesQ for this link to some photos from Forever 2e3 party. They're scanned by Tick, and you can see the rest of his site here. So, go spot anyone you know. But it won't be easy, as there's no captions on the images.

Just spotted over at Demotopia some party news. Of coz there's some info about Paradox 2000, which is being held in May, and ZX-Party 2000 in August, details of which are few, but the name indicates it's Speccy-specific. But (but but), there are rumours that Assembly 2000, the 9th "episode" of probably the most famous party, will have a Speccy Section. Damn fine! I'll be keeping tabs on this, and let you know what's the deal as soon as I find out.

Heh. I'm hardly back a few hours, and it seems Random/CC has been busy. He's released two new versions of vbAY. Both versions (for DOS and Windows) fix a problem with the AZX player, and improve anti-aliasing and clicking. The Windows version (v2.1) reduces the processor-load to just 5%, and fixes a classic LaesQ-bug. He managed to crash the previous version with stupid amounts of pumelling his mouse (oo-er).

I'm about to disappear for the weekend (celebrating my birthday and getting extremely drunk, since you ask), so it's just as well that I did a quick check over at Chaosite. Random has released version 2.0 of vbAY, his AY emulator. The changelog reports only one alteration to this update... it's a Windows version. Sweet. The DOS version is staying at v1.6, but should be downloaded if you want to output your AY tunes to .WAVs. Yet another app to add to the download queue, but this ones worth a boost to the front <g>.

Just a quick update to point out that we have a new affiliate... Chaosite. Random and I have been in discussions, and although we won't see any major changes on either site for a while, we hope that this will be one of the big steps in bringing the Russian scene and the Europe/Rest-of-World scenes together.

Well, Gasman is back from his trip to the Forever 2e3 party in Slovakia, and he brought with him some results from the competitions. Here's a rundown of the top 3 in each category:

<font size="-1"> 1k Intro
1 - Artifice - Serzh
2 - Madrielle - Gasman / Raww Arse
3 - Mathricks - Baze / 3SC

Music
1 - Titanas - Darkman + Justinas / Constellation
2 - Dispazio - Baze / 3SC
3 - New Generation - L.A.Esq / Raww Arse

Graphics
1 - Don't Pass - GAS13
2 - Robin - Agyagos
3 - Alone - Diver / 4th Dimension </font>

Well, two shiny medalions to Gasman and L.A.Esq of Raww Arse. Nice to see <g>.
You've probably noticed that there's no demo competition. Alas, it seems there was only one demo released at the party, Bobering 2000 by Syndrome. Still, I hear it's a good demo to see, so mebbe it would have won anyway.
I've not yet checked, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Gasman hasn't already updated Demotopia with the full party details and downloads.

Just noticed over at Chaosite that vbAY, the AY-3-8912 sound emulator has had a version update. 1.6 brings with it a couple bug-fixes and now has some support for the .AZX format. Sweet. Go get it.

Acchkc! How could I miss it. Mebbe I should spend more time surfing <g>. Or of coz, people could mail me about these things. What things?? An update to RealSpectrum of coz. Not much to note in this release, as it's mainly a bug-fix. There's joystick support now, tho', and "Digital Integration FlashLoading". Hmm. Well, I've got the files queued up for download, I suggest you all do the same.