Topic: General news

Lesson 1 in keeping a news site is simple : if you're going away, let people know beforehand. Well, I've just returned from a week away, but luckily (!?) there hasn't been much to report on anyway. So I'll fit what there is into a single news-shot. I'd do more, but I'm off out to a stag-night soon. Hoorah! Beer-a-plenty!
So first things first, Gasman over at Demotopia reported that the recently finished Radwar 2000 party, well... isn't. Seems that there weren't enough entries for the competition to take place, but hell, you can read about all that on the party-page, right?
Also, on the subject of Demotopia, the host, UK Online, had a hardware failure so the site may be a bit "odd". Right now, it jumps straight to the party-page when I go there. Hope Gasman doesn't have too much work to do uploading all those demos again.
I also got an email from TDM of demogroup K3L. The cybernet.cz url to access the K3L site won't be updated soon, as the team are moving over to a newer, faster server. You can find the site at http://perseus.zlin.vutbr.cz/~tdm_k3l/.
That's it I think. In case anyone cares, I was up in London all week, with the focal point of my trip being a Porcupine Tree concert. And damned fine it was too. Hmm. C'ya.

Some good news regarding the SpeccyAL project. Seems that a guy by the name of Richard Nash has stepped forward to continue work on the emulator. There's no extra details yet on the homepage, but I'll keep and eye on it and let you all know of developments.

Well, not quite all change, but there's been an update to the rules of the CAFe 2000 party being held in July. Frankly I'm not too certain what the actual changes are, but you can check them out at the official party-site. There's also the addition of a guestbook to the site, where you can go and, uhm... sign it!

Thanks go to Gasman over at Demotopia for pointing me to a post on X-Agon's Message Board regarding the replacement for this years missing Doxycon. Alas, the post is all in Czech (natch!) but the details we can make out are that Kaplicon 00/2, as it's called, will be held from the 4th to the 6th of August, nicely overlapping uber-party, Assembly 2000. Looks to be 100% Speccy-based, much like ZX-Party 2000 being held later that month in Poland.
Hmm, August looks like being a damned busy month. My only/main concern is, with all these parties, the entries into the competitions will probably "thin out", and Spectrum-based attendance could well be low. Surely it'd be better to have, say, two BIG parties a year, about 6 months apart. Just my opinion.

Well, after another quiet period, we have some news. Spotted an update over at Demotopia talking about a (new) demoparty, the upcoming 2 Alternative.
2 Alternative claims to be the "black sheep of computer parties", and the first seems to have been a haven of obscure and retro machines, and this will probably be no different. It's basically anti-PC. Hell, the demo competition has only two rules... size must be less than 5Mb, and it can run on any machine - except a PC above a 386! Other competitions include the "Source Code Graphics" compo, where working source-code must, essentially, look nice (!!).
It's certainly an interesting idea, and I think it's ideal for lovers of Speccies (and other retro machines -- hehe, should spark off some wars - "waddya mean the C64 is better than the Speccy???" <g>).
The party's to be held in Helsinki, Finland from the 7th to 9th of July, and there's a list of international contacts on the party-page.

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As an aside, and not totally speccy-oriented, if you're interested in retro-machines and gaming, then I heartilly advise a purchase of the latest issue (83) of PC Gamer. It'll set you back a fiver (or whatever it costs elsewhere), but is worth the money for the free book by Jon Smith, "Contruction Complete?", a complete history of gaming. It includes references to, among others, the humble Speccy, and the parts it/they played in making PC gaming what it is today. Makes for enthralling reading if you're a geek like me. (for non-UK people, check that you actually will get the book before you part with your cash, eh?!).

Couple little news-chunks tonight. First, I've added a link to the homepage of Extreme demogroup (thanks Mac Buster).
... and there's an update over at Demotopia. Gasman has added another 8 demos, mainly party-releases, tho' there's a release from way back in 1998. Seems that there are still demos lurking under rocks that Gasman doesn't have yet <g>. He's also updated his party-pages with info on the recently held Paradox 2000 and Millennium.
Finally, as a break from demo-land, I've included a link in my parties list (to your right) to the brainchild of Hellboj, BeerEver 2e3. Basically, it's a chance for regulars (and irregulars, eh?!) to #z80 to meet up and, well, get very drunk! Alas the page in all in Czech, but if you contact Hellboj, I'm sure he can help you out.

Ops, mebbe there's more news this evening after all. I've just seen a post on X-Agon's Message Board that ZeroTeam now have a new website. Nice, simple design, go check it out.

Only a small bit of (sad) news this evening. Just seen this update over at the SpeccyAL site:
"I have some bad news for you, Speccyal lovers ... I have decided to focus on my social life instead of programming, for many reasons. [snip] My wish would be that someone would continue my project. Any candidate (if you do so, drop me a line) ?"
Well, it's a shame that this project isn't being directly continued, but the source code is there for people to grab, so maybe someone will take up the gauntlet. I'm tempted to myself, but with all my other projects... hmm...

Damn. I was just about to go to bed when in my final check, the results for the Millenium party appeared over at Virtual TRD. So here's a quick rundown:

<font size="-1"> ZX Game Compo
1 - Stagger - Fenomen
2 - Hamon IV - Minisoft

ZX Graphics
1 - Butterfly - RMG / RMG
2 - !!! - !!! (check the file)
3 - Girl at Work - Jorg / Selected Realms

AY Music
1 - Light Future - DJ-SerG / ACL
2 - Still Alive - Flyer/R-Age/Psycho
3 - Zemphira - Mast / FreeArt

ZX 4k Intro
1 - Frost - Fenomen
2 - Mylene - Demiurge Ash
3 - Fatal Error - Serious Ravers </font>

You can check out the full results by clicking here. Time for bed.

Well, Paradox 2000 finished a while ago, but checking the offifial site, there's been no releases of Speccy demos (or have I missed something). So, with a little of my help, Gasman set about finding and converting some of the demos. I've not noticed an update on Demotopia, so instead I'll put up some files here:

Zool 4k Intro/FS/DHG

Whim 16k/Accept and Nature 16k/FS/DHG
So far, this is all we've converted to friendly .TAP files, although I have the music in some obscure Russian-clone-format (well, it's obscure to me <g>). If anyone wants it, I'll be happy to send it on, tho' it's probably safer to wait until it's been converted.
Enjoy.