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Showing news from 2003-01-01 to 2003-12-31
Showing 41 articles
Czuba-Tech has released new benchmarks with NemBench, Kronos and Zbench. Also the SDRAM has been extended to support 512MB modules.
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Damo of the Reservoir Gods have relased a Falcon version of the Grimey demo originally released at the Error In Line III party. The Falcon-fixed version runs with RGB PAL only.
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» Download Grimey Falcon version
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The only fakedemo shown at the Error In Line III have at long last been released.
The demo titled 'Bud teh Chud in Ascii Minor' is recomended to run on a Falcon, but should also work on ST/STe, but too slowly.
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» Download the Bud faker
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Earx of Lineout released a new version of QDSP assembler for the Falcon some days ago. Some of the changes are:
Now works again with dspdit. Please note that ofcourse includes and incbins won't work from within dspdit!
Warnings for pipeline stalls, instead of errors. This gave problems with error catching in dspdit.
Labels are now handled with a hashtable. This speeds up quite alot.
R:Y parallel move with absolute address was handled wrong. The second word wasn't output. Now corrected. Hi Mikro!
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» Download QDSP Assembler v0.13b
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Grazey have released a new pack of SNDH-files in the Grazeys Zak Hack #22. The new disk contains SNDH-files from the following composers:
Celtic, Damon Chaplin, Mike Chiltern, Chris Mad, Chrispy Noodle, Kevin Collier, Connor, Sean Connolly, Sean Conran, Mark Cooksey, Count Zero, Crawdaddy, Neil Crossley, Cube aka Guyer
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» Download Grazeys Zak Hack #22
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In the last few days before the CT60 ships, Czuba-Tech now unveils a new optiming trick they have invented for the CT60. The ST-Ram is now 25% faster on writing, even without overclocking the motherboard. Indeed very good news.
Below follows the Czuba-Tech announcement from today:
Hey, I just finished a modification & test to boost the ST-RAM write accesses. And it runs ! I just win 25% of access time on all ST-RAM write accesses !
Crazy, incredible !!
In 256 colors we go from 5.2 to 7.0 MB/s !
In 16 colors we go from 6.2 to 8.1 MB/s !
And that's only for a 16 MHz falcon, not a 20 or more !
In gembench, kronos or nembench, this gives some incredible results I will nextly put on my web pages !It is better than the Milan 040 + 1024*768 video card !!
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One and a half week after deadline, Cruor managed to release their Error In Line III Falcon demo. It's simply called 'Falcon Contribution' and should work with 4MB Falcs and RGB/VGA monitors.
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» Visit the EIL3 download page to get it
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This mail arrived a few seconds ago:
From: Rodolphe Czuba
Subject: CT60 pre-shipping alarm.
Regards,
The CT60 will be availble in few days now...
It's time for you to buy SDRAM and ATX tower (or ATX power supply alone) to fit the CT60.
See my web site for the SDRAM features.
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Checkpoint released their winning demo from Error In Line III a couple of hours ago.
The demo titled 'Posh' is as always a great show from Defjam, 505 and Modmate.
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» Visit the EIL3 download page to get it
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ACE Tracker recently got an update, including the following changes:
No noise if you run the program from Fast RAM
The 'Patch select' bug is hopefully fixed
the commands for setting patch parameters sometime set the parameters of other than the patch in the command, this is fixed
the 'reverb decay' parameter that was not updatedwhen loading a new module/work file, fixed
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» Download from New Beats homepage
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D-Bug released another menudisk a few days back. The new disk #178 features the games Starball and Trash Heap.
There's a brand new intro made for this disk as well, with graphics from Transbeauce demo2.
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» Download D-Bug 178
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Grazey of PHF has released a new disk of ripped music. Grazey is now converting the entire UMD-demo into Graz-hacks and with SNDH format.
#21 features rips from Whittaker, Wilson Walker etc. (see a patternt here?). The songs converted for the Graz Zak Hacks will also replace the YM-recordings currently int he SNDH-Archive, so lots of joy for the chiplovers out there will follow.
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» Download Grazeys Zak hack #21
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Some months ago there was an interview with Tao of Cream in the german ST-Computer magazine. The article has now been translated into english and published in the MyAtari magazine.
The interview features some interesting reading about the history of Tao and Cream. Quite sparse on technical questions which is a sad as Magic Synth is one of the technically most stunning YM-Synths.
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» Read the interview at MyAtari.net
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Follwing the release of the long awaited ACE Tracker a few weeks ago, New BEats opens an ACE Tracker competition.
The rules (snipped from New Beats homepage):
The modules should be created using ACE Tracker.
Maximum size is 1 Mb per module.
Maximum tracks allowed are 8 for modules using samples/waves and 12 for modules using waves only. The reason for this is that also standard Falcon030 computers should be able to play the modules.
The contestor is allowed to contribute with a maximum of two modules per competition.
Modules should be sent to newbeat@atari.org with information about the composer's name and e-mail address.
Last date for sending in modules is July 1, 2003.
Modules that do not fulfill rules 1-6 above will be disqualified.
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» Check New Beats site for latest info about voting etc
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Some new and positive information about the CT60 progress was released to public today by Czuba-Tech.
Read the Statement below:
I'm very proud to announce you that I just find the last known bug on CT60 ! The Blitter and the SDMA now run fine with the CT60. The arbitration is correct.
I have some things to tests and maybe increase like the ST-ram write timing (just an idea to improve the Videl video accesses !).
Here is the planning for the next days :
test for 66 MHz with the F08 buffer on the GAL U63 (many Falcon are like this to correct the 'SDMA clock bug')
test for 72 MHz with and without F08.
test for Falcon boost at 20 MHz (instead of 16).
complete and verify the fitting documentation.
shipping of the CT60 for the developpers.
15 days delays for developpers tests !
shipping for everybody !
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It has now been over two weeks since the Error In Line party ended, and the competition entries should be released. So far we've seen all the Reservoir Gods stuff released, which is a huge effort. There has been alot of stuff from them, we only missed some Falcon-prod in all those releases. Very stunning. The DHS stuff is out, our combined effort with New Beat and Evolution was only minutes from breaking the deadline this monday, but eventually made it.
Music and graphics have mostly landed, though some tracked music still not released. On tuesday night Escape released their winning Falcon demo called 'Underscore' (or just '_').
Missing so far are alot of ST-demos, in fact the entire line-up except the DHS and Reservoir Gods prods are missing. Same thing with the Falcon demos, only the Escape one has made it so far.
Hopefully we should expect a number of demos the following days, including 'Posh' from Checkpoint, 'Beams' from .tSCc., Sprell from Creators, 'Fantasia' from Dune and the Falcon demo by Cruor.
Let's cross our fingers that these demos really do arrive in a sensible time..
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» Visit the Error In Line download page
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The Atari XL/XE music crew Grayscale arranged a music compo for 8-bit Atari earlier this spring, now the entries are collected and it's time to vote! You can download the songs and votesheet at the URL below.
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Exceptionally early, already in July last year it was confirmed thatthe Error In Line would be held a third time. Knowing the previous parties major success, making another one which lives up to the nearly mythical state of EIL'99 and EIL'01 is close to hopeless.
But the Dresden guys fear no previous records or even the lack of their previous party house. So the hype is up, and more and more people announce that they will be going.
The swedish gang, a bit smaller than usual (12 persons this year) teamed up in Gothenburg during thursday. Some were coming via airplane from Stockholm and England and others with car or bus. We were all in place about 17.30 at NoCrew's place (gosh they have alot of junk there!!) and we went down tot he ferry and checked in.
The trip over to Kiel in germany went smoothly, and so did most of the 600+ kilometers of autobahn, we even found the party house relatively easy! When we got there around 17.00, quite some people had already arrived. We first see our favourite party-organising-musican Nils and tells him hello. He shows us our places which is at the same room as the bar (I wonder if that's a tactical thing!) and we found the friendly chaps of YesCrew already taking place there.
Went around looking at the new house, it's clear that they managed to keep a cool athmosphere, even if this new house have large practical benefits from the old one. Higher ceiling giving a somewhat better air, even if we would have wished for more ventilation.. I just can't figure out how ppl could survive in the smokers room! The house was an old officers messe as I understood and seemed to have been a rather high-status building once upon a time. The sleeping hall and showers were perfect.. a BIG hall and I think 4-5 showers, fresh toilets at the party place were also a good plus.
As time went by, the place got really crowded with people, alot of frenchies showed up this time, speaking some very strange languange. But it was great to finally meet those mysterious ones which have missed the previous EIL's :)
EIL went on and we had gotten this bad idea to try coding a 96k intro during the party. Thomas of New Beat promised to do his best to code a ACE Tracker replayrout for the intro. To tell the truth, Thomas did a much better job than the rest of us and was finished long before. In the end we got soemthing that worked and put it into the compo. But it was a marathon coding, which is somethign we perhaps should have done at home and spent more time talking to the other visitors.. But what the hell, it's a coding party so let's code :)
Around sunday it's obvious that 4-5 persons in the swedish gang have gotten some weird flu-like thing from RobertK (who had it with him!) and one by one went down. Luckily Thomas was finished with his ACE Tracker code before he went to coma for a few days..
Sunday night: The time everyone had been waiting for.. DEMO COMPOS.
I had seen the list of things the staff had to record, and WOW.. that was one big list. I won't try to comment on each production, but each cathegory had some good contributions, really good ones. This is EIL1 and EIL2 all over again. Intro after intro, demo after demo, better and better stuff. All kind of styles, from the very newskool d&b ST-demo to oldskool overscan stuff. Something for all tastes (luckily my taste is wide so I liked it all!).
Getting the final bits of sleep, and then heading home on monday. Buerk! All of us are sick! Happy happy joy joy long driving with fever.. Well shit happens, we did get home in the end even if it mostly sucked to go all that way being sick.
Now, a day after the party it's hard to say wether it lived up to EIL1/2's myth.. But I think it did. In a bit different way, but it did get there! Excellent arrangement by the Esc/Checkpoint crew as always. Breakfast in the mornings, pizza ordering 12 hours a day. And yes, the pizzas were still 600x400 mm large!! We just needed a larger dining table.. ;-)
Over and out and THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT GREAT EVENT!
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No this isn't another april fools joke! New Beat has recently released ACE Tracker v0.99. In contrast to what has been previously told, ACE Tracker will be free of charge!
ACE Tracker features the same sound routines as found in ACE Midi, which means awesome synthesizer and sample mixing audio. Reverb, echo, filters, multiple waveforms.. All waiting to be explored.
This is one hell of a program, and can be downloaded right away from New Beats homepage. So what are you waiting for?
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» New Beat webpage
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It's been rumouring for a while, that a swedish party would take up the competition with Error In Line.
NoCrew now makes it official, the NoCrew Convention 2003 will take place from April 18 to April 21.
NoCrew explains: "We think it's time for a real party again, with a lot of price money, as the best true coders always come out when there's some serious money to win."
"We also have a gigantic hall booked up for the event, which will have room for over a thousand persons and computers. We believe that the entire Atari-scene from the late 80's to the current state will arrive." explains NoNick of NoCrew and ends the session with "See you in Gothenburg where the real spirit and scene is!"
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The never-ending story of the CT60 got a news update from Czuba-Tech a couple of days ago. Some good news, some bad (no CT60 for Error In Line..).
The Czuba-Tech mail:
A long time I didn't send a mailing to everybody...
But I was working far from my house and had not enough time the week end to write to you. Didier wrote several time for me on NGs, but it seems that some of you don't read the NGs. To resume the last events, I decided to buy a LOGIC ANALYSER 200 MHz/ 16 chanels to kill the last bugs that can't be located with Didier's ASM tests + my analog oscilloscope. And 2 days after I received this nice and small material, the SDRAM bug was solved !So, it's a very powerfull tool that allows me to see all what happens onto the 060 busses. I analysed too the flash boot and all is good.
There is a problem on asynchronous transfers between the CT and F30 and it may be the cause for both the SCC and DSP problems we have since a long time.
I did an analyse and I will finish the examen of the records the next week.
And the best for the end :
I stop working in switzerland and will now work again 100% on CT60 and not only 1 or 2 hours the evening from monday to friday. I may not spend a long time because I'm sure the last problems will be solved easely with the logic analyser.
So, you may receive your CT60 in May.
Regards.
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Time is flying by like never before, and the Error In Line III party is coming scary near (at least for coders who's trying to finish stuff in time!). Reservoir Gods have been a bit silent the last few months, if you disregard Mr.Pinks never-ending Atari-sessions at the Nectarine radio.
We heard reports of a british PRE-EIL party taking place a week ago, with Reservoir Gods participating. So, we decided it was about time we asked the brits about what's cooking!
DHS: The Error In Line party is coming near, and we hear rumors of possible Reservoir Gods contributions to the compos. Could you tell us more about this? What are you planning and for what system?
Mr.Pink: well, i don't want to give everything away, but we are planning a little production for the ST. it's not going to be anything brainblasting, so don't expect too much! we did enjoy the previous EIL parties tremendously and want to do all we can to support the guys behind this great event, so making a little contribution to their demo compo is the least we can do.
DHS: A while ago, Griff of Electronic Images (Inner Circle) joined the Reservoir Gods, what is his plans for Reservoir Gods? He must have alot of previously not released demo screens lying around (anyone who remember all the talk about the Decade demo follow-up double-disk demo might have an idea).
Mr.Pink: over the last year we have enlisted a bunch of new coders. it's not just griff, we also have aegir, damo and even stratagem does a bit of coding. griff did a lot of work on a megademo that was never released, since joining RG he has been ressurecting some of these routs. griff also bought a new falcon recently, and we have been discussing ideas for falcon fx. whilst none of the falcon stuff will be ready for EIL, its certainly an area we will be working on in the future.
the other project that me and griff have been working on is the falcon emulator 'falcon powder'. this is a very part time project that is done in quiet hours during work. unfortunately, as our work is generally very busy we haven't had that much time to dedicate to this project.
DHS: The CT60 accelerator seems to be a never-ending story. But, against all odds, if the thing would eventually be released, would Reservoir Gods be supporting it? Reading on the Czuba-Tech site yourself is on the developers list. If so, what would be the most likely type of program Reservoir Gods would do for Falcon-060 ?
Mr.Pink: the CT60 is certainly a very interesting piece of hardware, especially if used in conjunction with nature's supervidel card. we could make some amazing games with this combination of CPU and GPU. our first task when receiving this hardware will be to update our libraries and ensure all our productions work with it. we will then consider making enhanced version of certain prods.
a CT60 demo would be a fun prod to work on, as would a game specifically designed to utilise this hardware. i would like to write a little 3D engine for this, the FPU starts to become quite usable on such a machine.
we haven't really got any specific plans yet because of all the delays in release dates, we don't want to commit time and resources to vapourware. but i do think that when the CT60 does eventually arrive, it will be a very exciting time for the atari scene :)
DHS.NU greatfully thanks Mr.Pink of the Reservoir Gods for answering these few questions, now we can only await the Error In Line III and the CT60!
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In the long days of waiting for a CT60, which seems to be stuck forever (not any updates for weeks and weeks) there seems to be a new light on the horizon for those who'd like to expand their Falcon.
A couple of days ago a very interesting (german) post was made about a prototype ColdFire accelerator board for the Falcon. So far it would seem (my german is rusty) like there are some bus-timing issues, which might be solved in the near future.
There is a homepage planned for the project, but until it's ready, you can follow the (german) discussions at the link below. Now I just wonder, who will be the first finished board, this new ColdFire or the years-old CT60 ?
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Cosmo of the Construct Crew have released their second game-menu.
This time featureing Thalions A320 Airbus flight simulator and Grav.
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» Download Construct Crew disk #2
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A new small demo from MJJ-Prod was released at the Iradium Party in middle february. It was hiding in some obscure forum with an Iraq topic. Yep really the place to look for a new ST-demo. What's next, new ST-demo to be found in Mr.Husseins bedroom? ;-)
The demo begins with a nice screen, cool graphics by C-Rem and finally some 'bombing' with Iraq and American presidents.
Well why not an anti-war demo, it's not gonna be heard anywhere, but why not..
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» Download Iradium by MJJ Prod
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Music from the ATARI-scene is going in it's seventh round. Listen to over 400 tunes from the following atari scene musicians:
Akira / The Chaos Engine
Beast / The Syndicate
Blue Tiger / Spider
Bummtschak
Connor / The Naughty Bytes
Tim Conrardy
Crawdaddy / Chronicle
Drus / Redlite
Energy / The Chaos Engine
Essence aka Anasazi / Imagina
Fabounio
FFT / NeXT
Gargamel / Dead Hackers Society
Goldy / Therapy
Gozer / Flash^Kruz
Greg / Aids^Bitbusters
Gregfeel
Gulligull / Dead Hackers Society
Jean-Luc
Jedi / Sector One
Jora / Black Monolith Team
LynXX
Laurent Malet
Pegase / Adrenaline
Phoenix / The Chaos Engine
Pinokio / Allegresse
Paul Slocum
Solo / New Generation^Apocalipse riders
ST Mixes / PoSiTiViTy
Thomas aka Split / New Beat Development
Tinker / Teenage
Zigo / EXA^Adrenaline^Arsenic^The Fat Mamoth
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We're developing a graphics card for the CT60 accelerator. For you who haven't heard of this project before the following points will give you a rough idea:
Resolutions of up to 1600x1200x30bit @85Hz
64MB DDR SDRAM graphics memory accessible directly by the CPU just like the STRAM and FastRAM.
100% videl hardware register compatibility. A small patch is all that has to be applied to programs, because Graphics Memory is an unknown concept to current OS's like TOS/MiNT/Magic. What needs to be patched is the type of memory that the program allocates for the screen, since the STRAM cannot be used for the screen anymore.
Because the Videl on the card is an FPGA, it can be reprogrammed at any time, and new functionality will be available in the future after the initial release of the card. Currently the functionality planned includes MPEG decoding, 3D polygon drawing/texturmapping, 'Super Blitter' and more.
We would like to see how many people are interested in this project. If you are, please send an email to us. For more information visit our homepage nature.atari.org, and visit sections 'Projects' and 'News'.
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» Visit Natures site
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The authors of the Grayscale Atari XL/XE music project have annouced an online music competition open to 4 and 8-channel Atari XE/XL musicans.
The deadline is April 30, and the organisers even promise prices for the winners.
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We're late with this (broken servers, much work etc), but worthwhile to mention anyway.
Cream has released a new plugin to their multi-format musicplayer for Sonic Arranger tunes. So if you have been wanting to hear the music from Thalion games on the Amiga which never arrived on ST, here's the chance (Ambermoon for example).
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» Dowload the Sonic Arranger plugin
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Today D-Bug released two new menus with games. One of the menu being a double-disker too!
On D-Bug 176 you will find 'Under pressure', 'Hero' and 'Pacific Assault+'. On the double-disk 177 you will find 'Premier Manager 2', ' Double Juggle Vegatabobble' and ' Brides of Dracula'.
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» Download D-Bug 176
» Download D-Bug 177a
» Download D-Bug 177b
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After the usual rubles and virtual email inbox on our BBS, a new issue of Chosneck has been released tonight.
The mag is larger than ever (in terms of articles) and has an astonishing look! This is miles ahead of any other Atari mags today when it comes to layout and graphics. Really original!
As usual we have a number of music tracks to select from, and two great Falcon intros come with the mag as well!
Now there isn't much more to say than download!
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» Download Chosneck #3
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D-Bug, the follow-up of Automation has released a new compact disk with games recently. Dbug now reaches menu 175, and we wonder if there is material for much more menus?
MJJ-Prod graphican C-Rem have been active drawing graphics for the intro.
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» Download D-bug #175
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Photographs from Alternative Party 4 was posted by Baggio / Evolution today.
29 pics of nice quality, and on the last picture (IMGP1170.JPG) everyones hero Jeff 'Yak' Minter is captured!
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» Download zipfile with all pics (9MB)
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It would seem like the YM-Rockerz idea is spreading. Not a long time ago we introduced you the AY-Riders music crew on Spectrum, and now a couple of the best Atari XL/XE musicans has joined together as 'Grayscale'. There's no full mp3-album to download yet, but some mp3-files, sap files and whole XL/XE productions.
The offcial pressrelease (from Atari.Org):
Grayscale Project
(...) pair of musicians, pair of friends... they met a long time ago: Greg - Grzegorz Kwiatek and X-Ray - Lukasz Sychowicz. Then, there was only one thing, which put them in touch - common feeling of love to 'Little' Atari Computers.
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A new, very long Falcon demo was released to public today. It's called 'Delta' and has been made by 'Lineout'.
Wot? A new crew? No it's the old heroes of FUN that seems to have changed name. Coding by Earx, graphics by Havoc, music by D-force, Earx, Laxical and Frequent of Ephidrena.
Lineout's 'first' demo is a really long one, and features effects seen long time ago combined with effects which have never been done on Falcon before. A big mixture which goes on and on.
The demo runs on any Falcon with 4MB or more. Something unique is that the complete sourcecode is included in the archive as well!
Have fun watching!
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» Download Lineouts Delta
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A slightly delayed christmas release of ASMA, the Atari Pokey music archive has been released today.
ASMA now features 93 new files giving a total of 1647 files.
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» Download ASMA v2.6
» Visit the ASMA site
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We're a few days late with bringing this up (IMParty, server crash..) but the fake/nofake (make your own assumption)-crew Coolgirls have released a new demo called 'Incoming'.
The demo shows animated christmas pictures in sync to a techno track.
The fears of commercial music being used in Falcon demos due to the horrifying mp2 player is now happening, fear fear. The demo seems to need 14MB ST-RAM to function, RGB/VGA both supported.
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» Download Incoming by Coolgirls
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