Oldskooler Ramblings

the unlikely child born of the home computer wars

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Blogging on the move at Block Party 2009

Posted by Trixter on April 15, 2009

I’m headed off to Block Party 2009; hopefully I can see some of you there, and maybe meet some new sceners.  I am going to try to enter the oldskool demo compo, but no promises.  (I am a very slow coder, because I am overly paranoid careful.)  This year, I’m part of a four-man party bus with virt, necros, and Ubik — a #traxing good time should ensue.

This year, I’m going to join the 21st century and attempt some mobile blogging.  I recently got a Blackberry Curve, and it has this newfangled internet connectivity and positional stuff, so I’m going to try to use it.  I’ll be taking pictures (automatically geotagged, of course) and posting them to my Flickr photostream, and I’ll also be updating where I am and what I’m doing on hopefully a sub-hourly basis on my Twitter account.

So, let’s recap how to follow me:

MobyGamer’s photostream

MobyGamer’s twitter feed

God help me.

Posted in Demoscene, Vintage Computing | 4 Comments »

Learning to let go

Posted by Trixter on March 16, 2009

There’s a happy ending in here, so don’t cry for me Argentina.  Also, it rambles a bit.  These conditions should come as no surprise to those who know me.

For many collectors, librarians, and historians in the field of computer preservation, there is a line between “productive” and “OCD hoarding complex”.  I wouldn’t call it a fine line — it’s pretty broad — but a couple of measured steps in one direction and you can easily travel from museumland to crazyville.  My collection, for example, takes up about seven bookshelves (software) and about 700 cubic feet of space (computers/hardware in the basement and crawlspace).  I usually have three or four projects around me at a time, and so my work area is usually always quite cluttered.  For my current state of project completion, I consider myself right on the line:  If I acquire more stuff, it will progress from “cute little stockpile” to “life-threatening”.  If I let go of some stuff, it will migrate down to the happy state of “collection”.  But as a collector, it is against the fiber of my being to let go of… well, anything.

There are several things that tug at the heartstrings of a computer historian.  The most common is the occasional report of a large collection that was junked because the owner (or widow) didn’t know what they had.  Those are frequent enough (and geographically distant enough) that it’s easy to develop a callus.  Less common are when collections are offered directly to you, but you don’t have the space/money/time/permission/health/etc. to accept them.  Even less common are reports of collections that have been lost not due to negligence, but rather some sort of unexpected disaster (ie. fire, flood, etc.).  All of these royally suck ass, for lack of a more eloquent colloquial euphemism.  But the absolute worst is when you’ve done everything right — found assets, stored them properly, tagged and cataloged them — and circumstances dictate that it is you who needs to give them up before they have been fully processed.  And that time finally arrived for me.

I decided to let go of arguably the golden nugget of my collection:  My cache of Central Point Option Boards.  The personal aftermath of this decision surprised the hell out of me, as I actually feel… better about the entire experience.  (I lack the psychological knowledge to self-analyze why that is; suggestions welcome.) Why did I let them go?  So I could attend a demoparty.

Let’s talk about demoparties.

One of the things I look forward to most in life (other than family events, of course) is attending demoparties.  Europe is maggoty with demoparties (if you look hard enough, you will find at least one every weekend), but here in North America they are few and far-between.  The most amount of major NA demoparties we have had in a single year is two, and that was last year!  (And that won’t be repeated in 2009 because NVision will not occur this year.)  And because NA is so big, it can be a significant financial investment to get to one if you don’t live nearby.  Luckily, Jason Scott — probably at significant personal detriment — has committed to putting on no less than five annual large demoparties, which he both organizes and hosts.  This year is the third one, and although it isn’t as big as some Euro parties, it definitely has the correct vibe, which is a major accomplishment for being so far away from the demoscene nexus.  It’s got a room away from the convention that hosts it all decked out for coding, watching demos, meeting with sceners, listening to demo tunes, etc.  There are compos (including a true wild compo) in front of an audience of at least 200 people.  There are many scene in-jokes floating around.  There is booze of exotic varieties, ranging from home brews to salmiakkikossu (salmari) and a lot inbetween.  About the only thing missing is a bonfire — which is admittedly very difficult, since most NA demoparties are inside convention centers, hotels, or schools.

I mention the demoscene stuff because it is one of my first loves — and the Option Board is another.  In fact, my involvement with the Option Board (is this starting to sound dirty?) goes as far back as 1987.  I became so intimate with it (yeah, this is starting to sound dirty; my apologies) that I began to develop a sense for what settings to give the software based on the publisher of the game I was trying to copy before I even looked at the disk.  Even today, I use Option Boards in my hobby work, sometimes even transferring difficult disk images to overseas colleages who are more adept at cracking than I am, so that they can be dismantled and released into the wild.

So.  I love demoparties and I love my collection of Option Boards.  I lacked the money to go to Block Party this year.  I could sell the Option Boards, to get the money, but I hadn’t properly archived them yet (meaning, put up a web page about them, describe them and their usage, trivia, etc.), which is something I usually spend months doing — because I am anal about stuff like that.  I was stuck.

So how did I resolve these two diametrically-opposed objectives?  I cheated. I decided to perform a best effort at a quick documentation and archival process, and then sell them.  For a single weekend, every spare moment of time was spent scanning manuals and other materials, copying software, taking photos, and writing up a small history of the boards and how to use them.  All of this was organized into the Option Board Archive, which is now available for your leeching pleasure.  In an age where the DMCA is used for repeated abuse, the Option Board is a historical curiousity: A product marketed specifically to break the law (if you used it inappropriately), so I am glad to have had the chance to make my contribution to the world of Option Board history.  And as for the boards themselves, they are on their way to their new owners.  Two of them are going to a computer history museum in Germany; another is going to the KEEP project in France; the other three are going to private collectors with an active interest in using them to further their vintage computing hobby.

I can’t see a downside to this:

  • I get to go to Block Party, on my own terms (I’m paying my own way — my attendance is not conditional on any obligations.  That means a lot to me.)
  • I got the damn things archived and documented
  • I get to see other vintage computing hobbyists enjoying the boards
  • My family gets to see some more clutter go out the door

Life is good.

So does this mean I’m going to start liquidating everything I have, to achieve a zen-like state of higher conciousness?  Um, hell no — at least, not before I’ve had a chance to archive it all properly.  2010 will be the year of the soundcard museum, mark my words.  Now where did I put those Interwave cards…

PS:  I saved two boards for myself.  I’m not that crazy.

Posted in Demoscene, Software Piracy, Vintage Computing | 6 Comments »

Editing HD On a Budget: Cost of Entry

Posted by Trixter on March 3, 2009

Blu-Ray Disc (BD) is expensive to produce.  As previously ranted by a good friend of mine, the minimum cost to produce a BD is a whopping $4600 — $3000 for some licensing cost that goes who-knows-where, and $1600 for a sanity-defying mandatory AACS encryption procedure.  And this is before you press a single disc.  (If you’re wondering why content producers were rooting for HD-DVD to win the format war, it’s partially because of licensing fees like this, plus lower manufacturing costs.  The cost of entry was much lower compared to BD.)  Needless to say, we have to be very careful how we produce MindCandy 3, because these licensing costs automatically take a giant chunk out of the resources we have available.

And what are those resources?  I’ll describe our budget thusly:  Dan and myself put up the initial capital in 2000, with the hope that we would at least make it back, as well as some extra that would fund a second volume.  That second volume would sell, which would make just enough for the third volume, etc.  The goal from the beginning was to try to have the project generate the money it needed to keep going for as many volumes as possible.  When we found ourselves with a little extra, we donated it to scene.org, or sponsored some demoparties.  When we found ourselves a little short, we did everything we could to keep costs down.  This is no different than the reasons why people organize demoparties, really;  for example, Scamp wants Breakpoint to be successful enough so that, instead of losing 10,000 euros, he can break even and put on another party next year.  The goal is equilibrium.  For the first two volumes, we achieved it.   Now, with BD having such a giant up-front cost, that equilibrium is in jeopardy and forces us to look at alternative ways of producing volume 3 so that we don’t run out of money before it’s ready!

There are many places where money goes in the production of any end-user product, but they tend to fall into the following buckets:

  1. Development
  2. Pre-Production
  3. Production
  4. Post-Production
  5. Distribution

Luckily for us, some of these buckets have no cost other than our personal time.  Development and Pre-Production are all organizing and research, which we do for free because we like doing it.  Thanks to the demoscene community, Production also has no cost as long as we get permission from the authors.  Post-Production involves a hardware and software cost (storing, editing, mastering, and authoring the footage onto media), and Distribution is a setup fee, a per-item manufacturing cost, and shipping costs.  (We also budget for the free copies we set aside to everyone who authorized their demo to be included, provided commentary, donated time or materials, or helped us out in some other way.)

The Distribution cost, thanks to the ass-tastic licensing I mentioned previously, is relatively fixed.  The Post-Production costs, however, are not, and this is where demoscene sensibility comes into play:  How can we make the best of what we’ve got?  What can we pull off, given the limited resources available to us?  It’s time to make a demo — using budgets!  A budgetro, if you will.

In a later post, I’ll start diving into the gritty details of how we’re able to edit HD footage at less than 1/100th the cost of how production companies normally edit HD footage.  Stay tuned.

Posted in Digital Video, MindCandy | 12 Comments »

The Next Big Thing

Posted by Trixter on January 12, 2009

As some followers of a certain thread on pouet might have guessed, the MindCandy crew has started production on MindCandy 3.  This time around we’re mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar:  We’re revisiting the PC — specifically Windows  — but unlike any other demoscene project, we’re doing it all in HD.  That’s right:  MindCandy 3 will be Blu-Ray.

Oh, we’re going to make a DVD available as well, don’t worry.  In fact, we’re tossing around the idea of including the DVD in with the BD, so that there’s only one package to get and you can enjoy the BD when you eventually upgrade your hardware.  Nobody gets left in the cold, and the demos get the proper treatment they deserve.  And it’s one hell of a treatment; thanks to kkapture, we’re able to get clean and pure video from most demos, 60 frames per second, at 720p.  For those who hate interlacing artifacts, this is the fastest progressive video specification HD supports. For some demos (like Into The Pink), the video exceeds what most 2008 machines are capable of.

Work on MindCandy 3 actually began before MindCandy 2 was finished.  In mid-2003, a good friend of the project, Steinar H. Gunderson, worked with us to create “demorender”, which did exactly what it said it did:  Hooked DirectX 8 and 9 calls to grab the data from a frame, dump it through a VFW codec, and then continue, all the while faking the timer so that the demo would be fed a constant timebase.  We were able to capture around 50% of the demos out there when ryg announced kkapture in 2006 and we found that, right off the bat, kkapture did everything our tool did.  We weren’t ready to begin MC3 at that time — and farbrausch is, well, farbrausch — so Steinar contributed the source code of demorender to ryg to fill in a hole or two in kkapture (I believe it was in .wav writing or something but I’d have to check the sources to be sure).

Fast-forward to 2008, and we start to get the MindCandy bug again.  We were in the middle of tossing around ideas to cover, when Blu-Ray finally won the HD format war, and we took that as a sign that that’s what we should target.  The first MindCandy, which was in production from 2000 to 2002, came right at the cusp of the DVD revolution; it was the right product at the right time, and as a result, it did well and the demoscene gained some new converts.  We’re at another cusp:  HD video.  We’re excited to work in that medium and we hope that we can live up to the standards set by MC1 and 2.

While the www.demodvd.org website will remain and start to get updated as we get rolling, I’m moving the Developer’s Blog over here, because this space is an actual blog and not some Python code I slapped together.  I’ll tag them appropriately, for those who want to follow only MindCandy development.

Because part of capturing HD material is making sure you have an HD monitor, I have one now.  Unfortunately, I can’t stand how my 1920-wide window displays a 640-wide skinny little blog in the center, so I will be checking wordpress.com every week to see if they have a theme available with a flexible width that doesn’t royally suck.

Posted in Demoscene, Digital Video, Entertainment, MindCandy | 12 Comments »

Parsing Life

Posted by Trixter on January 8, 2009

Not a lot of information from me lately, mainly because I’m working on The Next Big Thing (formal announcement in a few weeks, although if you’re familiar with some of my more public past work, you already know what it is) which is taking up all my hobby time, and also because I’m having a difficult time dealing with life at the moment.  Life itself is doing quite well — it’s me who is having trouble parsing the input properly.

I don’t have it in me this time to pick a single topic and expand on it, so here are loosely random thoughts and observations.  They’re personal, so at least I can say this is a true “log” entry.  Those with better things to do, leave now.

Block Party 2009 is all systems go, and I have tentatively scheduled a road trip with two ‘scene acquaintances.  If it works out, I will essentially be in a state of shock and awe the entire trip, as I idolize these guys.  Because of The Next Big Thing taking up my time, I was illogically concerned that there would be pressure on me to deliver something at the next Party even though I would have no time to prepare for it.  I have been reassured by various people that, yes, it really is okay to just sit back and enjoy the party.  I haven’t done that at any demoparty — every party I’ve been to, I’ve either given a talk, entered a compo, or helped run the thing (in one party’s case, done all three).

I may still set up a machine and start coding, but this time it will be to relax.  I suppose it is a sign of our times that true relaxation can be obtained creating technology, as opposed to merely interacting with it.

(topic change!)

I joined Weight Watchers December 1st 2008, and in the 5+ weeks that have gone by I’ve lost around eight pounds so far.  I am trying to lose 10% of my starting weight by the time Block Party rolls around, and another 10% by the time my 20th-year high school reunion rolls around.  I don’t know which god I pissed off to gain this double chin, but I hope to appease him/her/they/it before I have to venture out in public.

(topic change!)

My parents are currently on a trip to Egypt, their first time, and they have visited the pyramids, the Sphynx, and rode
camels.  This is a lifelong dream vacation destination for them, and while I have rolled my eyes at previous destinations (for example, middle-eastern destinations in the middle of, how should I put this, *uncertain political climate*), I have to say I’m really happy for them this time.  They’ve gone to more conventional places too (UK, Germany, France, Belgium, etc.) but this trip is the quintessential “I’ve always wanted to do that” vacation.

(topic change!)

I am, amongst other professions, a Solaris administrator.  Not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but I’m a pretty damn good one; I may not be ready for Sun’s kernel group, but I understand the big picture (of all *nixes, not just Solaris) and can pick stuff up pretty easily.  Not to break the other arm, but I am also a fairly nice guy who likes to help and teach people.  Most of the time this results in a clean conscience and no worry lines on my face.  Unfortunately, it also means I leave myself open to being the departmental crutch.

Case in point:  Yesterday a fellow Solaris administrator came up to me, handed me a CD with Solaris bits on it, and asked me to mount it somewhere so he could read it.  I stared for a few seconds and just blinked, suppresing the rising urge to say something caustic.  Let’s review:  He is a Solaris admin.  He administers Solaris servers.  Every Solaris server comes with a CD/DVD drive.  And yet he just barged into my area, and told me to mount a CD somewhere so that he could read it.  When I regained the ability to speak politely, I asked him why on earth he was coming to me with this request.  He replied, looking somewhat irritated, that he doesn’t have a sun workstation under his desk to read the CD with.  Ignoring the fact that I don’t either, let’s continue:

“You’re a Solaris admin.” I replied.  He stared blankly.

“You administer Solaris machines for a living.”  More blank stares.

“Walk to any of the nearly one hundred machines you administer and put the CD in.  Better yet, put it into the exact server that needs the data!”

This is one of the more egregious examples of simply not thinking.  Others (from multiple people, not just this admin)
include:

  • Asking me what the syntax for a unix command is (online documentation has been standard on every unix system for decades)
  • Asking me about basic networking (ie. netmasks) or security (ie. ssh) concepts that should have been a requirement for them to obtain their job in the first place
  • Requesting older/unsupported versions of drivers/patches/utilities when updated/supported versions are freely available

I don’t understand this phenominon, if it is one.  I can’t believe it’s just laziness because, in most instances, taking five
seconds to use your brain and do things properly takes the least amount of time!

(topic change!)

My wonderful wife Melissa just started her last semester in the radiography tech program she is in, and by mid-year, she will hopefully have her first job as an x-ray technician.  While she started down this path because we badly needed the money, she has found unexpected benefits in rejoining the workforce.  She has made new lifelong friends, gained
self-confidence, and generally reaffirmed her appreciation for life.  The last nine years of my career haven’t been that
rewarding in a while.  I’m envious, but very happy for her.

And hey, the extra money can’t hurt :-)  By this time next year, I hope to be going to demoparties under my own power for a change.

Posted in Demoscene, Family | 7 Comments »

NVScene 2008 Seminars Online

Posted by Trixter on November 19, 2008

After a few months of editing and collaboration with Temis / nVidia and Bunny / Demoscene.tv, I’m happy to announce that the footage I shot of the NVScene 2008 seminars is finally online.  Every one of them taught me new things about the demoscene and making demos, even though I’ve been following the scene on and off for nearly two decades.

Some of the highlights include Chaos and Navis debating whether or not scripting tools or pure code is better — in both Chaos’ talk and Navis’ talk! — and some of the “why didn’t I think of that!” forehead-smacking moments of iq’s talk on making 4ks.  There is a very high-quality showing + explanation + hidden parts of Linger in Shadows, the first interactive demo for PS3; and both pixtur and Preacher give interesting insight into how they design demos and where they get their ideas.

I’d like to thank many people for helping me accomplish all of this:

  • Jason Scott for getting me out there in the first place
  • Polaris and Radman for giving me places to sleep
  • iq for donating his Adobe CS3 prize to me (I edited the videos with it!)
  • Jeremy Williams for lending me his HD cam after it was clear my DV cam wasn’t going to cut it for the bigscreen presentations
  • Navis and the Demoscene.tv crew for both allowing and encouraging me to shoot in the partyplace
  • and OF COURSE temis, gargaj, gloom, steeler, and anyone else who had anything to do with creating NVScene in the first place — I will never forget it

My time at NVScene 2008 remains vivid in my brain and I don’t think I’ll forget it as long as I live.  I can’t thank everyone enough and I hope to see you all again, maybe even with a production of my own.

Posted in Demoscene | 3 Comments »

The Demoparty You Can Drive

Posted by Trixter on October 5, 2008

I’ve finished editing the NVScene seminar footage and am in the process of distributing it to those who get the six-month exclusive license for distribution (most likely demoscene.tv).  Until then, here’s a taste of RVScene, the party outside the party in an RV.  Yes, an RV.

It’s HD if your system/bandwidth can handle it, so be sure to click the “HD” button and then the little “zoom” icon at the bottom right.

Posted in Demoscene | 3 Comments »

I’ll save you the trouble

Posted by Trixter on September 20, 2008

As I edit the NVScene video that I shot for nVidia/Demoscene.tv (technically I own the rights to the footage, but out of professional courtesy I am giving them a six-month exclusive license to it), I find myself with a lot of free time, because creating .WMV files for previews requires rendering, and rendering 1920×1080 footage on my hardware takes a very long time.  So I’ve decided to pick another series I haven’t seen completely and watch every single episode in the downtime during the renders.  I did this previously with Star Trek: Voyager and DS9.  This time, I’ve chosen Mystery Science Theater 3000, including the early KTMA episodes.  With nearly 200 shows, at 1.5 hours per show (minus commercials), this will take a while.

So, having gotten through 20 or so KTMA episodes and well into the first proper season, I am going to save you the trouble of watching the KTMA episodes:  Don’t.  Weinstein’s acting and riffing is just horrible, there is no invention exchange (my favorite part of the Joel episodes), and the movies aren’t bad enough to be funny, just bad.  Which makes the whole experience incredibly boring.  I watched them at night because I knew they would put me to sleep, which they did.

There are two KTMA episodes worth your time:  SST Death Flight (for all of the cameos) and Hangar 18, which is silly in the first hour but neat sci-fi in the last 30 minutes.  That’s right: I’m recommending those two episodes for the movies themselves.  Watch those.  Delete the others, and don’t look back.  Start with the proper Season One and just try to ignore Weinstein until he’s gone.

Yes, I am being unnecessarily unfair to Weinstein.

Posted in Demoscene, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Chock full of awesome

Posted by Trixter on August 27, 2008

NVScene was everything I had hoped for and much more.  Thanks to the money put behind the event by NVidia, the sound system and bigscreen was something to be in awe of:  1920×1080 on a screen about 30 feet tall.  North American sceners got the chance to meet some of the modern greats, with representatives from Farbrausch, ASD, Plastik, and more.

The talks were all outstanding, even the “history of the scene” talk we could all give in our sleep.  The demoscene.tv crew were busy running around doing interviews and live-cutting footage for your enjoyment, so they were understaffed for the actual talks and conferences.  I missed Mentor’s talk :-( :-( due to a misunderstanding on my part about the schedule, and then I may have irritated him by asking him for his slides during the Spore talk when he was busy, so that was a flub on my part… I hope he releases his slides because they looked really awesome and I’d really like to learn what he had to say.

I am in the airport waiting for my delayed flight to be undelayed, so I thought I’d put up a quick summary of what I learned at NVScene.  First, the obvious-to-Euros-but-not-Americans surprises:

  • Americans and Euros can get along wonderfully in the demoscene. (By association, there can indeed be two NA demoparties in a year without the space/time continuum imploding.)
  • Everybody has a chance to learn from each other, regardless of experience or skill.
  • Computer graphics techniques are so universal that you can hold a conversation with any demoscener, even if you can barely understand each other due to English not being your native language.

Here’s what I learned that surprised me, mainly because I don’t write demos for modern platforms, only follow them:

  • Realtime raytracing with fantastic quality is not only possible, but can be done entirely by the graphics card using pixel shaders (!).
  • Most demos (and some 4K intros!) use a scripting/build system, and each major group has their own tools.  One very interesting exception is ASD, whose coder writes all sections of the demo with the ability to render along any point in time (ie. f(x) where x is a float from 0 to 1 with 0 the start of the scene and 1 being the end).  He said he likes to “scrub” through his demo using the mouse, and doesn’t mind that his scenes are hard-coded because it only takes him 3 seconds to recompile and run.
  • Future of the scene for the next two years in two words:  Ambient Occlusion.

Polaris/ND and I tossed around a demo idea.  Not sure if NVScene will be around next year, but if not, Block Party will be.  So who knows.

I would like to publicly thank the organizers of Block Party for enabling me to attend NVScene.  And, of course, I would like to thank Gloom, Gargaj, Steeler, and Temis for making NVScene possible.

Posted in Demoscene | 2 Comments »

[N|R]VScene

Posted by Trixter on August 18, 2008

As the title says, I will be attending NVScene this year through RVScene (“The demoparty you can drive!”). I hope to see you there!

Posted in Demoscene | 2 Comments »

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