=========================================================================== *Introduction *Introduction *Introduction =========================================================================== We invite you to the Symposium '96, a demo scene party involving all the platforms which are important in the guild of the demomakers, namely Amiga, PC, C-64, Archimedes and the Atari ST/Falcon. Think twice before missing it! This event is held by three of the most experienced party-organizer teams in Germany: the people behind the 680XX-Convention (1993), the Black Box Symposium (1995) and the Fried Bits. For the Symposium '96, which we plan to become the best German party so far, these three teams fusioned for not standing in competition to each other but joining forces and making everything better than ever! We, the organizers, observed that the amount of poorly organized and too commercial parties increased during the last years, even outside of Germany. Our country has always been well known for low-standard parties, but 1995 has been the most disappointing year. We (and probably the rest of the scene, too) felt that it was time for a party where you could have fun again, a party that would be well organized, and NOT a party at which you feel that not you is what counts, but the money. We don't want to rent huge congress centres, we don't want to organize a party with hundreds of super-duper hyper interactive virtual multimedia features, we don't want to make money - we all just want a party where you are welcome to have a nice time; which is, after all, what a party is ought to be. Groups involved are: Polka Brothers, Lego, Phantasm (for Amiga), Cubic Team (for PC), Avena, Absence (for Atari) and Oxyron (for C-64). =========================================================================== *Where & When *Where & When *Where & When =========================================================================== The Symposium '96 will take place on Easter 1996, that is from 5th April (1200 CET) to 8th April (1200 CET) - four days of fun and experience. The entrace fee amounts to 35DM. We will not accept foreign currencies. The place is a nice convention center called "Veranstaltungszentrum Burg Seevetal", which is located in the very near south of Hamburg, Germany. It offers place for about 1000 people including computers, a really big screen and surround sound. You don't have to be afraid of 24h of loud music, though... You can reach it via everything. If you're going to come by train, you first have to reach Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (main station) and take the S3 or S31 (on Gleis 4, HVV price 4DM) to "Harburg", where we will pick you up with the Symposium shuttle service. Alternatively, you can use of the hourly public busses to "Seevetal". Coming by plane, you will use the bus shuttle service to the station "Ohlsdorf", wait for the U1, get out at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and, again, take the S3/S31 to reach "Harburg". If you arrive by ship, then you'll have to take the U3 at "Landungsbrücken" to reach the Hauptbahnhof. If you come by spaceship, there is a big area on the other side of the Symposium convention center; please try to land it there (parking is of course free). For the case that you own a car, you have two possibilities to arrive: The A1 ("Autobahn 1") and the A7. Coming from the north or south via A7/B4, you have to leave at Abfahrt "Fleestedt". Then roll down the "Hittfelder Landstraáe" (part of the B4) southwards and follow the sign "Veranstaltungszentrum". Coming from east or west via A1, take the Abfahrt "Hittfeld" and follow the signs. =========================================================================== *Competitions & Rules *Competitions & Rules *Competitions & Rules =========================================================================== These competitions will take place: Graphics, ProTracker Module, Music, Coding, Intro, Demo, Video, Wild. The prizes will entirely consist of sponsored hardware and software, as was the case at the former Symposiums. Since we had stuff valued about $15.000, you can expect us to have at least one thing which you might need! *** Very general remarks *** Contributions containing racist or pornographic material or otherwise violating existing laws (especially the Copyright!) will be sorted out by the organizers. In the case of too many contributions for one competition, we will sort out the clearly worse ones. Besides that, we have the right to refuse any contribution without giving reasons. *** General remarks *** Your contribution must not have been released before. Your contribution can be spread immediately after the competitions via BBSes, the Internet and, of course, on the Symposium itself. We may even put it on a compilation CD-ROM after the party. Every competition has a deadline. You may give us bugfixes or improved versions of your contribution even after that deadline! We will show the "pre-deadline" version, but spread the very latest one! It is absolutely impossible to take back your contribution or change the info file after the deadline. 1 KByte (KB) is 1024 Bytes. 1 MByte (MB) is 1024 KB, which is 1048576 Bytes. *** The contribution disks *** We accept DD and HD AmigaOS or MS-DOS formatted disks, as well as 5.25" C64 disks. Don't format HD disks as DD. Don't put more than one contribution on one disk. The contribution disk(s) may only contain the necessary files, that is the main data, icon files, installers and explanatory texts. Your contribution must not be archived. Exception: Demo-Competition (hard disk demos) We will keep all disks and video cassettes. In case you find your disk more valuable than what it contains: You don't have to contribute... The only thing we give back is Wild Competition stuff. *** The information file *** With every contribution, you must supply an information file: It describes your production. You can get a copy of an empty form at the information desk. Trackmos and C64 entries need an additional disk. Don't rename the file. The info file contains space for a short block of text. This text will be displayed directly before your contribution in a non-proportional font. In the case of anonymous competitions, the text must not give a hint to who the author is. *** Technical rules for executables *** Your production must run without interaction. The only type of interaction may be disk changes. Every production must consist of one file, startable directly from disk. It must return correctly to the working environment, too. This is of course not valid for Demos. For PC executables you can choose between two configurations: One without anything and one with memory manager, mouse driver, sound driver and VESA graphics driver. PC executables may only output VGA graphics and use the VESA BIOS extensions. If you want your production to be visible on the big screen, please take care of these rules: Maximum resolution is 800x600 at 72Hz or just plain PAL. *** Configurations *** Amiga executables: Must run on an A1200/020 with 4MB of fast memory, but will be shown on an A1200/030 50MHz. PC executables: Must run on a 486 with 8MB, but will be shown on a P75. You can choose between Soundblaster 16bit and GUS 1MB. For C64 executables you can choose between old and new SID chip. Archimedes: Acorn Risc PC 600. Atari Falcon: Standard configuration. *** Graphics Competition *** "Who designs the best picture and realizes it on the computer?" This competition is anonymous. The picture must not contain a hint to who the author is. A second version (with handle tag) may be on the disk, which will be the spread version. Raytracing is allowed. C64 users may use scrolling. Maximum resolution is 640x512. You can use Overscan (736x566), but we can't guarantee visibility of the display corners. Color depth is not limited. The only allowed formats are IFF(-24), PNG and JPEG. It's also allowed to give us C64 executables. The file must not be longer than 1.4MB. Executables must be one file. *** ProTracker Module Competition *** "Who composes the best music using the limited ProTracker format?" This competition is anonymous. Of course you can fill the sample names with your handle, since they won't be shown; but take care of the info text! We won't play the module for more than 3 minutes. Don't crunch the module. It must not be longer than 1MB. We will play the module on an Amiga using ProTracker 2.2a. *** Music Competition *** "Who composes the best music and realizes it on the computer?" This competition is anonymous. We won't play the music for more than 3 minutes. The file must not be longer than 1.4MB. Your contribution must be an executable or a file playable by Cubic Player 1.6. *** Coding Competition *** "Who creates the technically most stunning effect?" This competition is anonymous. We won't show your code for more than 2 minutes. No Music Only one effect (or Multiscreen) Length is 4KB max. *** Intro Competition *** "Which group succeeds in combining music, graphics and code to the most impressive work, while being very limited in memory usage?" Length is limited to 40KB Amiga, 64KB PC and 96KB Falcon. We won't show the intro for more than 5 minutes. Falcon intros must not use the PSG sound chip directly. *** Demo Competition *** "Which group succeeds in combining music, graphics and code to the most impressive work?" Amiga Trackmos must not be longer than 4 DD disks. C64 Demos must not be longer than one double-sided disk. Hard disk demos must not be longer than 4MB. Installation must not require Assigns, environment variables or even files copied to completely different locations on the hard disk. Just depack the archives into one directory and start the demo. Most PC demos want the user to state what sound card he has and in which slot it is. Though this can be avoided, we don't forbid it. We won't show the demo for more than 15 minutes (C64 demos 7 minutes). *** Video Competition *** "Who creates the best work using Video equipment?" You must provide a VHS or S-VHS cassette in PAL format. We won't show the video for more than 10 minutes. If you have made an animation, this is the right place for you. *** Wild Competition *** "Who does the coolest things with his hardware?" You must describe the hardware you used. If your work tends to be just a Video, we will put your contribution into the Video competition. Code should be an important aspect of your contribution unless most work was developing special hardware. Your work will be shown for 10 minutes max. *** Most compatible Amiga demo *** A jury will have a look at all the good Amiga demos and will select the most compatible one. No "Degraders" will be used... *** Voting *** The competitions' winners will be voted by the audience. The special price for the most compatible Amiga demo will be given by a jury. =========================================================================== *Addresses & Info *Addresses & Info *Addresses & Info =========================================================================== Address of the party place: Burg Seevetal Am Goehlenbach 11 21218 Seevetal GERMANY Address of the main organizer: Frank Schliefer Am Musterplatz 27 21220 Seevetal GERMANY Symposium '96 World Wide Web Page: http://193.59.3.15/~rawstyle/Sym96/ Organizers with e-mail address: gandalf@blackbox.shnet.org (Gandalf/Phantasm) rawstyle@online.fire.dbn.dinet.com (Raw Style/Lego) chaos@blackbox.shnet.org (Chaos) crashpolka@aol.com (Crash/Polka Brothers) decca@people-x.people.de (Decca/Lego) takeoff@blackbox.shnet.org (Takeoff/Phantasm) doj@tecs.de (DOJ/Cubic Team) The Black Box BBS: +49 4105 84619 (v34) +49 4105 84914 (ZyXel + FAX) +49 4105 669012 (USR) +49 4105 669011 (ISDN) =========================================================================== *Map *Map *Map =========================================================================== see sym96map.gif