         How a Main Organizer saw FLaG

If  I  would  start  to  write all what happened
before  and  during  FLaG, it would fill a book.
Well,  the  organizing  part  was  pretty  easy,
though  it  needed tiring days of running around
to find sponsors. You know, talking lame company
directors  is not really fun. Well, forget it...
let's see, how I saw the largest party ever held
in Hungary.

Two days before the party we arranged the tables
on  the school's corridors, and set up the compo
room  -  which  is  normally  the PE hall - with
sitting  benches.  It  was  cool,  but  when the
manager  of  the  school arrived, he asked us to
put  all back, because of some aerobic training,
which  was  held there later that evening... you
may imagine how glad we were. Next day we set up
the  audio equipment, and spent the night in the
building with some "smaller" organizers - Jahno,
Alpha,  and  other guys from Gy“r. Next day we -
me   and  Gaf  -  appeared  at  IBM  Hungary  to
discuss  the  final  scheduling,  then - this is
something  I can't understand how we did it - we
managed   to  talk  with  someone  at  Microsoft
Hungary, who was not on holiday, not busy making
business,  and was able to talk us personally! I
will  never  believe  it  could  happen.  But it
happened!  And  from  this  moment,  we  had the
IBM-Microsoft  chatter  on  the  way. Yeah! Then
we  had  some other businesses: we took over the
party  T-shirts  from  the  manufacturer, bought
some  paint spray for graffity purposes :-), and
headed  back  to  the  school  to  see all is OK
there.  Ah,  btw.,  we  also purchased the lying
matraces for the sleeping room. Well, imagine me
dragging  a  ton  of  PVC foam sheet through the
city, through an entire metro line, the suburban
railway, and some other mass transport vehicles,
in the largest peak traffic. Real fun, try it...
:-)  After  all  of  these,  we went back to IBM
again,  to  get  OS/2  Warp  posters  and  other
advertising  stuff.  No doubt, how well we slept
after all of these.

And  Friday  came...  The party started! Well...
not  for  us.  First we eagerly waited the entry
tickets  to arrive - Wolf brought them - because
they  was  intended to be finished on Wednesday,
but  this  became  Friday,  and we got them just
hours before their urgent need. Jahno and I went
for  the  projector.  If you know what is Polski
Fiat  126p,  you  can  have an impression of two
people    sitting   in   it,   equipped   with a
professional  Sony projector, and a three meters
long  projecting sheet. Luckily, the front right
seat  was  removed  from  the car, so I had some
room to sit somewhere... :-) OK, we arrived back
at  about  three o'clock. Although officially we
only  opened at four, we already had about three
hundred  attenders  in the building. OK, that is
good  business,  but where is the compo machine?
Ah,  I  see,  some  smart  guy  put  it  on  the
reception    as   a   registration   computer...
AAAARGH!! I could only get it in the night, when
the  siege  of  the  gates paused for a while...
Until  then  we  registered about 500 attenders,
but  some  lamer stepped on the computer's power
cable,  so the machine fucked up, destroying the
data...  :-(  Btw. some asked us, why we measure
the  weight  of  every  people.  The  answer  is
because  we  were  stupid  enough to be eager to
know  the  overall  weight of all the attenders.
The  first  day passed without notable problems,
not  counting what I forgot to tell before, that
me  and  Dale  waited  three hours in the Keleti
railway station for Terminal Storm from Croatia,
who  never arrived. >:-( This loss of time later
forced me a hard rush in the organizing.

I  think  the  first  night  of FLaG was not too
good.  Since we had no programmes for that time,
I  think  the attenders were a bit bored. But at
midnight, it came: the DOOM compo! Led by Deka -
the  author of the finals' level - and me. After
having   serious   problems   with   the   compo
machines, you know, no network, DOOM do not want
to  start, no network again, broken wire, and so
on,   we   brought   four   computers  from  the
school's computer room, and after two hours work
done  by Achos, three of them worked! Wow! So at
two  o'clock  in  the  night,  DOOM started with
three machines. DOOM 2. was running OK, but DOOM
1.  refused  to work on the net. Fuck you, DOOM,
we  won't  play you! We only played DOOM 2. This
compo  was  real  fun, and after about two hours
playing,  we  had  the three competitors for the
finals:  RAS,  Robymus, and Tetris. I brought my
GUS  to  make  some  music  for this round - the
level  Deka  created  had  new,  and really fine
music  - but the Gravis was also against us - it
worked  only in silence mode, or else it freezed
the machine. Fuck you, GUS, we will play without
you!   OK,   the  last  turn  started.  Here  we
experienced our biggest problem: Our players' IQ
was  not  high  enough  to  understand  a  level
different  from  DOOM  2.'s  first  level!  Very
cultured  'f*ck  yer  b*tch  m*ther',  and other
phrases flew in the air according to the creator
of the level, and all the organizers, especially
when   someone  found  it  difficult  to  find a
door,  or  such.  At  last Tetris reached twenty
frags first, thus winning the compo, but I swear
we  won't  hold  any  DOOM,  Duke Nukem, or such
compos  in  the  next  FLaG.  (And btw. I send a
gigantic   fuck  to  Senator,  who  promised  to
compete in DOOM, but he wasn't even able to come
to the party!)

Then came the second day.
In  the  morning,  when  we  tried  to  set  the
projector  on,  it came to light that we have no
video  cable  for it. Cool... And anyway, the PE
room  was a fuckin' bright place, the sun shined
through  the  windows  all  time,  so  we had an
unusable  projector  in an unsuitable place. And
the first company having presentation was on the
arrive.  Great.  Luckily, they had a 21" monitor
in   their  car,  so  they  used  that  for  the
programme.  It  was  enough  for  those, about a
hundred  people, who were interested in the Miro
video-digitizer  system.  At  least, the company
was  satisfacted  with  the party, so we hope we
will  see  them  also the next year. (With their
support, of course... :-)

In  the  middle  of  the day the nostalgia compo
begun.  For  those,  who  didn't  read the compo
rules  in  the  invitation: it was a game compo,
played  on a 286; we played Prince of Persia and
Stunts.  But  what  a 286! An AT manufactured in
1989,   with  onboard  integrated  VGA  and  IDE
drivers,  a  40  MB hard disk, a 3,5" DD floppy,
all  these  in  a  slim  house,  and looked like
completely new! The monitor was a CGA. The compo
became a bit longer than I expected, so we broke
it  at  the  next company presentation, and done
the  finals next day; it was Reptile / Astroidea
who won the race, thus the compo machine.

During  the  last  turn  of  the compo got I the
news, that Microsoft's representatives have just
arrived,  and  waiting  me  at  the reception. I
headed  there,  and  found  two dudes - an about
40-year old sucker, and a 20-year-old little boy
-  wearing  Microsoft  T-shirts  and  carrying a
Windows 95 box. "We arrived..." - said the elder
one,  no  greetings,  or  such... well, they are
Microsoft!  I showed them around the party while
the  others  set up the PE hall for the discuss.
They  scared  at  someone  busy  in coding for a
while, than they said:

-  Well, I don't think, that any of these people
here  in  this  building can be such a brilliant
coder like Bill Gates.

OK, I didn't punch them, they are guests...
These  two  peasants  took  some  rounds  in the
building,  then  went  down  to the buffet for a
coffee, where I left them alone because IBM also
arrived.  But  what a difference! There were IBM
Hungary  Ltd.'s  general director, the marketing
manager,  their  OS/2 Team, a couple of workers,
and a lorry stuffed with computers, Thinkpads, a
projector,  an  exhibition  pavilon,  what  they
built  up before the discuss, and where everyone
could  try Warp and Merlin, and of course, their
two representative were prepared for the battle!
And  this  was  within sight during the chatter.
First  of  all,  they  brought  a  Thinkpad  for
Microsoft also.

And  then,  when  also  the  press and the crowd
arrived,  we begun the talk. It took a form like
a  talk  show:  I  sat  on  a  chair, facing the
talkers,  and they all four sat on a long bench,
facing  the  audience. Two Thinkpads were placed
on  a  table,  running  Windows 95 and Warp. The
projector  was switched between the machines. My
first  question  was:  "Please,  introduce  your
operating system."

Microsoft  begun.  The  little boy stood up, and
started  to play with the computer, in a visible
petrification  of  public  speech.  He told some
uninteresting  stuff about buttons, windows, and
the Start button, then stopped blabbing, and sat
back  with  a  boiled-lobster  red  face. It was
ridiculous. Then IBM came...

"OK,  let's  see  Warp!"  Switch,  the projector
shows  the  other  machine. Warp boots up. "As I
told,  it is completely multitask. Let's start a
program  in this task." It runs. "And another in
the  another  task."  Starts  another. "And what
about Doom?" Started Doom in the third task. "No
slowdown  yet. Let's see some multimedia..." and
an  AVI  started  to run in the forth window. He
put  it  on full screen, but it still not slowed
down.  "What about this?" he showed the mouse to
Windows under OS/2. "Let's start it." He started
Windows 3.1 in an OS/2 task. "Oh, here comes the
familiar    hourglass.   But   OS/2   knows   no
hourglasses!    Let's    close    this   slowing
application."  And  while  clicking on the close
button,  he  turned  to  Microsoft with a smile.
"Sorry, pals..."

Then  we  learned  some  interesting features of
Windows  95,  for example, the MS representative
told us about Plug and Play. "Windows 95 detects
hardware by sending signals to the IRQ." After a
big,   horrified  silence,  he  got  a  frenetic
thunder  of applause. And he even bowed himself!
What  a  lamer!  A  short  video  clip about the
discuss  is  also  included  on  the  party  CD,
containing another interesting talking moment.

After  one  and  a  half hour discuss, while Gaf
gave  an  interview  to  a local TV channel, IBM
took  the place, and held a presentation of OS/2
Merlin,  the  next  generation  of  OS/2s.  They
rejected   asks   for   beta   version   copies.
Meanwhile our CD writing corner was busy copying
it...

Nearly  at  the  end of the day, we were waiting
for  the  laser  show  company  we ordered to be
there,  but  they didn't arrive. Then what about
the   promised   cyberdisco?  All  stuff,  smoke
machine,  lights,  stroboscope  were ready, only
the laser was missing. No problem, we solved it:
we  used  the projector to show demos during the
music.  There  weren't  a  lot  of people on the
programme,  and  they  were  satisfied even with
this.  I  used  this  time to sleep. As far as I
remember, it was the first case.

I  have  slept  about  three hours, I woke up at
about  nine  o'clock.  The feel of the party was
good  in the night, as I heard. Me, Dale and Gaf
left  for the sweets' shop to get the previously
ordered  prizes for the C-64 demo compos - three
gift  packs  -  and the prizes for the Fernandez
compo  -  five  litres  of wine, three litres of
wine,  and  one litre of wine. We got it, headed
back  to the partyplace, after I took some video
about  the  party  and the gladiator show, which
was  organized  by Achos and the RPG organizers,
and  held  by a gladiator school. I think it was
ridiculous.   The   "gladiators"  couldn't  even
simulate  the  real  fight. You may find another
video on the CD about it.

At  two  o'clock  we started the fun compo, here
named  Fernandez  compo,  after Fernandez, a bit
alcoholist  dude on the Hungarian scene, who was
also  present  and  helped me leading the compo.
The   only   problem   was  the  lack  of  audio
amplification,  so  I had to shout. My voice was
about  to  be  gone  at  the  end... Four groups
competed  on  the compo, each with four members.
First   they  had  a  difficult  task:  drinking
chocolate  pudding  with  a straw. (Well, it was
another  story  how  we  put  our hands on those
straws in a nearby drink bar...) Next task: beer
drinking! Four bottles of beer took place on the
table,  I counted three, and the players grabbed
one  and started to suck it. I say suck, because
what  we  didn't  tell, the beers were hot! >:-)
They  spent  six  hours in killing hot sunshine.
Surprisingly,  O-Man  /  Astroidea  didn't worry
about   this,   he   made  it  disappear  within
seconds...
The  next  task  was  to  write  one sentence as
brutal  as  the  group can write. But there were
problems  with  reading  those  up; only ATX was
able  to  talk loudly enough to let the audience
hear  their  sentence.  And  the last task... We
hide  ten  people  among  the  party  attenders,
having  a  point-worth note. The task was to get
those notes, as many as the group can. It took a
difficult  way  to  find them: the man only gave
this  paper,  if  the  group  rounded  him,  and
shouted:   "We   are  impotent!"  Well,  it  was
really  funny  watching them running around, and
shouting everyone, mostly unsuspecting, peaceful
attenders...  Some video clips show the victims'
reactions.   The   group   'Musicians'   -  ATX,
Minstrel,  Trajic  and  Shade  -  won the compo,
second  was  the  group of PC Ultra, and Digital
Creatures came third.

We  had  one  more  company  presentation  about
Pentium  Pro,  what  took  form  like  the  Miro
video-digitizer  because  of  the  lack  of  the
projector,  but  it was enough again, only a few
people watched it.

After  all  these,  the compos began! with a bit
delay, because we had more contributions than we
expected,  and  pre-jurying  took  a  lot of our
time.  Besides,  the left speaker went wrong, we
had  to  change  it. At least we were able to do
some  selecting in the music cathegories, but we
couldn't  take  care  about demos, graphics, and
others.  And  we  didn't  expect another serious
problem... Well, I won't type it again, read the
"Compos  sucked"  article  here,  in FLaGMaG. At
least  we  only  sucked  during  the ANSI compo,
and  we  showed  one  picture  twice  in the GFX
compo.  The  demos ran OK. Here say I thanks for
Bigfoot  and  Hanx  for  helping  me during this
sucking,  because my beloved group left me alone
to  lead  the  compos.  They  were  busy "making
security",  as they claimed. I was about to lose
conciousness  because of spending days awake and
organizing,  so it was Bigfoot again, who helped
me  to  evaluate  the  votes  using  EXE-Party's
evaluation  program. Thanx again. He finished it
within  three  hours,  so  at about five o'clock
we  could proclaim the final results. Me and Gaf
gave  the  prizes,  then  we  said  goodbye, and
Hungary's  largest  party  ended  for me. I only
woke  up  at  about  12 o'clock, when it was all
over.

After  all  we  counted  our income, and we were
about  to  dismantle  the  school, because about
200,000  forints  were missing! First most of us
thought  that  it was Varga L szl¢, the school's
manager,  who took it, but next day it was clear
he didn't do it. We still don't know who was it,
but  I  guess it was the security man James Baud
hired for us. At least he left enough for us not
to  stuck  in the shit: we lost only our profit,
but we did it not for the money!

