Well we're settling in nicely to a bi-annual update pattern here! I really must try harder, or more often perhaps?
The big news this time around, it has been mentioned more than once, in various parts of the site, but now I've FINALLY got it! I'm typing these words on a CT60 powered Falcon at last! I might add, that thus far, the burning-in has been the least traumatic of my Atari boosting attempts. Good job too, as this looks like the definitive and most powerful, unless someone comes up with a PPC add-on?!
In other news, not too much really, There's another Alt Party coming up real soon, watch out for a little 'participation' there! We're back to the Y2k state of limbo on the girlfriend front, but no hard feelings at all there, but I am open for fresh offers (grin!) It will soon be the fourth birthday of this webshite in April, so I think I'll try to get back in these pages before then!
There are a few recent updates around the place, just pick your way around....
*Sigh!*
Well I have been kind of busy until now, and when I haven't been busy, I've been feeling a little bit lazy as well. I'll try to keep the info-overload down at this point in time. Here goes.....
DEMO PARTIES, two, both good ones, reminds me I must get the Alt Party page updated sometime soon; HOLIDAY, done that already, Crete, it was bastard hot! DEMO SCENE, a more interesting year than what passed for an apology of last year; PRODUCTIONS, another issue of the Alive diskmag. It's online now as well, cool or what! Also, a "group of friends" managed to produce their very own fake demo, in ASCII! I was an "innocent" bystander! CATS, one deceased in May, but there were two more gained last weekend, they are settling in nicely; NICKY, still going, that girl hasn't yet learned the english words to say "Bog off!"
There should be some more updates to various pages swirling around the place, I'll leave you to find them. And I'll try to be back sooner next time (hollow laughter..)
This does not look too good, does it.
You take your eye off your webshite for just one moment, and months pass. I have been here and doing things all this time, mainly for the 'Alive!' diskmag. Things like life and relationships are about where they were, the last time I did this, and apart from some very minor updating of things like links, I haven't even had any new ideas for the site. Still, after a disappointing and largely static year, I think things are finally picking up at last, and 2003 will really be a year to remember!
Coming soon(ish), an update to the Alt Party page, as there is another one of those coming up in about a couple of weeks from now. In the meantime, merry new year to you all!
Yet another erratic update to the laziest and slowest Blog in the world. Interesting thing, blogging has now become known to the mainstream, just when it becomes naff and unfashionable for the internet cognosti to maintain the habit. Unless you are doing it in a coolly disinterested, tres hip and very occasional manner, like me!
Bi-monthly updates rule!
Of the people and things I care about; The next generation of parties is coming up for early next year. Assuming it isn't under water by then, the fabled Error in Line makes a welcome return to Dresden for Easter, the Alt Party reconvenes next January, with the possibility of a guest star to top Amiga designer R.J.Michal. I might tentatively mention one Jeff 'Llama' Minter at this point?? I'm personally looking forward to a drunken twat-free sleeping area, myself.
In the very much nearer future, three days from now to be precise, the island of Malta is going to be greeted with my lukewarm presence, and that of the lovely Nicky. Others will be occupied by the Unconventional party coming up 'somewhere in Germany' next weekend. Hopefully, this will break the activity drought the Atari scene has been going through recently. (Gawd, I hate August!) Seeyawll next time kids!
July? JULY?! Do you not think that additions to this page are getting more than a little bit tardy here? So I'll try to keep this as brief as possible.
Mekka Symposium, utter stench of failure, I enjoyed this party a whole lot less than usual, some of this due to the aftermath and journey back. Alive! Mag, this continues to thrive, we've got issue five out, and that is where the majority of my time has gone until recently. The site has gained a new page (The Nigerian Scam page), additions to ASCII-Nation, and a revamped links page.
Stuff to look forward to include another holiday with the lovely Nicky, and in the slightly longer term, a return of the ALT Party next January, and a reconvening of the famous Error in Line party next Easter. That's it for now, I will be back sooner for the next time on here. ;-)
*Two* updates in the space of a month?! What's going on??
Well the promised rebuild of the ALT Party page has taken place, with all the lengthy ex-Maggie and Alive Mag party reports uploaded in text form. Also, some other bits were done, thumbnail images to the 'cats' page, a few updates, tweaks, and bugfixes of stupid bugs to some of the rest. Did you know there was a new emulator out there? Yes, Oliver 'Paranoid' Heun is fancying his chances at making a Commodore C16/Plus 4 emulator. Crazy guy! Anyway,this first phase of refurbishing the 'CiH HQ' site is now complete. I've managed to drag my webmaking techniques into the latter half of the 1990's! (grin!)
I am toying with one or two new ideas, apart from updating the Maggie Pages, which will be a pretty big undertaking, and adding to the ASCII-Nation page. We'll have to see if we make any headway at the Mekka Symposium Party.
Mekka is only a few days away now, and the fairly exciting prospects of Atari demo scene activity seem to be turning into a vague mist of non-happening, speculation, and the disheartening sounds of mass shying away from the event. I hope there is some partial effort here, as it is a long way, and rather a lot of cash just to go and see PeeCee demos! Still, I'll let you know how that one went afterwards.
One last little bit of news, whilst I'm still waiting for my CT60, I'll be getting an Acorn Risc PC from John 'Asteroid' Hayward after Easter. Mainly to play on, it has a lot of nice looking demo's, and some neat emulation proggies. Now if I mention M.A.M.E!!?
Now I've gone on for far too long, back soon.
Yayyyhayy! It's the first update to these pages for the year 2002!
So you've got an internet connection back CiH? Yes, well, sort of.. And I've not had to sign up to any telecom account yet (grin!) So you're asking what has gone in in the last few months since these pages saw fresh movement. Well, not a lot in some areas, work and relationships remain stable, but we did get to go on an awesomely interesting ALT Party trip to wintry Finland, back in January, and I'm down to go to the Easter 'Mekka Symposium' party, at a funny little place called Fallingbostel in Northern Germany.
All this six years, after we vowed "Never Again!" following the traumatic 1996 Symposium party! Still, we've been given assurances that the drunk thieving arseholes, that plagued the event, have been given the (jack?)boot for good. It is also likely to be the only major venue for this year, where fellow Atari enthusiasts can really strut their stuff, and I understand, there will be some major strutting going on there! Worth putting up with the hundreds of PeeCee sceners and their half-hearted attempts to set the place ablaze then.
Also, I have managed to freshen up large parts of the 'CiH HQ', and there is more to come!
So far done, is the index page, now with an elegantly minimalist aspect, the emulation page has had a much needed rebuild, and looks a lot more sensible. Also, the very tatty 'Thanks' page has been revamped to include a small personal biography, the links page has been updated, with more links added. And the 'ZX-Porno' page has grown, with more related links added (hem!)
Soon to come, is an expanded ALT Party page, with photo archive and text material from all three parties. The ASCII-Nation site has got some new material coming its way soon. The really big news, is that the very old and faded Maggie pages have been taken offline completely. A major rebuild, which reflects the status of this fine publication will follow slightly later. Keep an eye out for the period shortly after Easter?
Okay, all for now, things to do!
Surprise update time! Don't get too excited though, this is it for the time being. A chance weekend left alone and I've been able to get one of my Falcys linked to my Zetnet account. What a nightmare of uncancelled mailing lists. For all the good that 'UNSUBSCRIBE' did for the Alternative Party lists, I might as well pack a large hammer in order to have a "quiet" word with their server, when I get out there in January.
Yes, I should be booked for this Finnish freezing fun taking place in the early part of next year! Other stuff? Nicky still going okay, she is suffering kitchen renewal traumas at the moment. Another issue of Alive! mag got released, I'm slowly working towards doing stuff for the next one. Apart from that, not a lot else doing, just the inevitable wind-down towards Xmas...
Something more interesting the next time, eh!
On the other hand, it will make my internet access, in the shorter term at least, a lot harder to predict, as I am giving up my present phone line, but not my internet provider. So this website will continue, but I'm not sure when it will next be updated. I will be maintaining email, setting up the present 'cih@atari.org' address as a webmail address for the time being.
See you back here, whenever...
Watch this space for developments real soon now, and I mean it this time!!
The interesting little distraction of the month has been a GEM-compliant conversion of the classic space trader and combat game 'Elite'. This really needs a higher end TOS machine to do its stuff with any convincing speed. My CT2 Falcy is *just about* adequate for the task, in fact pretty playable in 2 colour mono. It is also notable as being a game which demands an 800 x 600 pixel screen mode as compulsory! Looks kind of cool and moody in hi-res mono though. It looks very pretty in 16 or 256 colour mode, but tends to s-l-o-o-o-w down a hell of a lot. There are also some crucial bits still missing. I can live without a docking computer for the time being, but GET THE SCANNER FIXED! It helps a lot to be able to see where the bad guys are coming from!!
Ok, that's enough from me for this time around...
Well I've been working on a new one-off production called 'ASCII-Nation', which is a kind of diskmag featuring lots of ASCII-cartoon styled graphics. This has taken up a lot of my free computer or 'scene' time, leaving me none to update this lot. In addition, one or two annoying personal things happened on the way, again preoccupying me to the extent that this website got left severely alone. Finally I have just been to a great demo party in Dresden (The second Error in Line party), and I've getting all excited about that too, in fact I've only just got back from there.
There will be a bit more said on the Error in Line party shortly, but it is reasonable to say that it lived up to the success of the first EIL, back in 1999. As for the ASCII-Nation concept, in addition to the well-understood Atarian disk magazine format, it will also get a more generally accessible Web-version, on this very site, at some point shortly. Just don't hassle me!
More later folks...
The site in general is getting a little bit of an update. You will have spotted the garish looking front-end by now. There is also a new sub-site to be added shortly. This being arguably more "useful" in content than some of my other previous offerings. Some of the other pages are looking a bit tatty and old, and will be gradually renovated as well. Like I said before, no breath-holding!
The ST News International Coding Christmas Coding Convention (STNICCC) turned out to be a pretty damn good party in the end. Maggie wasn't the only release, as we also saw an STe stunner from Oxygene, and nearly finished demos from Dune and Sector One combining forces, and a nearly completed intro from The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Also, the Ultimate music demo, all seven disks of it, will be with us shortly!
A full report on this event, along with the realtime article that was produced by various people there, will be available shortly, in the next edition of Alive! magazine.
I should be seeing some people at the AMS Show in Stafford, next Saturday. I'm sharing a stand with Chris Crosskey, the mad Robot Wars bloke. Wish me luck!
Still, there has been steady rather than spectacular progress on the Maggie front, we are almost at the stage where we can start to call in external contributions and any favours owing. Watch this space...
Oh, by the way, look out for an update to the rather out of date ALT Party page shortly...
There wasn't any softsynth, but I did manage the dizzy heights of third place (out of five proper entries) in the Obscure Music Competition. There was also a nice Falcon '030 production from up and coming local demo coders 'Fit'. Shame we didn't see anything new from the MSX/Spectravideo scene.
Here's a couple of quickly grabbed demo screenshots for your viewing pleasure!
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Interesting competition will be posed by Draco's EmuXL in the longer run, which is a lot quicker, but still very incomplete at this time...
If you've got a CT2, Afterburner, or fast Atari clone, then it may be worth checking out these sites.
Just one final question, any English language diskmags for the 8-bitter out there? I can't read Polish or any other East European languages very well at all!
A full report for the party has been written, but won't see daylight until the release of the 10th anniversary issue of Maggie. This may be some time later than the planned original, faithful to the 5th birthday, August release date.
