
Techstronics On-line Democompo     July'96     256-byte Compo

        Welcome to the Techstronics On-Line Democompo (T.O.L.D.), July
1996 edition. The goal of the compo is to make the best 256-byte demo
possible.

        As of July 19th, 1996, midnight, you are allowed to upload your
entries on Techstronics. Read the part about uploading.

Rules for the participants:

        The program must be a .COM file runnable under MS DOS, DR DOS,
and other compatibles. The size of the file must not exceed 256 bytes,
but it may be under. No negative file lengths please 8-) .. You are
allowed to make .EXE files for the compo. However, this is not to your
advantage, because an EXE header wastes lots of useful bytes.

        Your program must not open other files. It must not make any
assumptions on the initial state of registers except CS DS ES SS IP SP,
and the usual flags. It must not use SVGA. 386 instructions are the
maximum allowed: no 486 instructions. It should be made for that basic
configuration: PC compatible, 1 meg RAM, AT BIOS, 386/486/586/686,
standard VGA, AdLib, PC Speaker, SB, GUS, one floppy drive (if you ever
use it!?), 101/102-key keyboard, and NOTHING ELSE.

        When preparing your entry, please find a good original
filename. Don't call it "256compo.com" or something like that. Make a
single documentation file of the same name with extension .TXT. Please
zip it using the same filename for the .ZIP. Please keep the
accompanying documentation small enough.

        Upload your entry on Techstronics between July 19th, midnight,
and July 25th, 23:59. Upload this in the "New" area, even though the
sysop is considered dead and that regular upload dir is considered
bigger than the Milky Way. Give an appropriate description... at least,
write it's for the TOLDcompo. (again, TOLD = Techstronics On-Line
Democompo)

        All people are allowed to participate, even two programmers of
the same demogroup. Each programmer may post TWO entries. (Super-Duper
Two-in-One Democompo).. You're allowed to only post one if you want to,
obviously. You are not allowed to plagiarize. We don't want viruses
or trojans either. (!)

Rules for the judging:

        Anybody can sign in as a judge, but the judges are not allowed
to participate. Every judge must see all demos shortly after the
deadline, and rate them in a specific scheme. Every demo must get rated
from 0% (very poor shit) to 100% (excellent). Thus if there are 4 judges a
demo may score anywhere from 0% to 400%. The judges are asked not to vote
the same thing on every damn demo: there are 101 numbers from 0% thru
100% -- use them!.. but not too much: reserve extreme numbers for
extreme demos (like extremely hot, or extremely crappy).

        Judges must make a comment on each demo. Tell what's nice,
what's bad. Comment on complexity, originality, performance - these are
the three criterias you should use, even though you must give a single
score per demo. Please also give general comments on how the next compo
should be, and feel free to make comparisons between demos - that's why
they're competing, anyway.

        Judges must wait for my signal (i.e. a msg in this area on July
26th) before posting their report sheets. All judges must have posted
their ratings in this echo before August 1st, 23:59.

If less than 3 judges show up, all the participants will be allowed to
judge. Sorry, but next time I'll do my compos on FidoNet and Internet
too (in addition of Techstronics of course)

Rules for Post-Compo:

        There are no prizes involved. Prizes are irrelevant: they're
not the point of the compo. We're supposed to make great demos, that's
all. Making a good 256-byte demo is a pleasure by itself.

        A *REAL* report will be posted shortly (about 1 week) after the
compo. It's not gonna be like NAID'96. :+) Well, if there is any delay,
I will blame it on the judges. :)

        All the entries will be distributed on the internet and
elsewhere. I will put them on my site (www.comnet.ca/~galois/matju/) in
the Trimaje section, and I will also send it at ftp.cdrom.com. in
/pub/demos/ and I will try to put something in DemoNews about it
(maybe). I will make the final package for distribution, so don't
upload them before I release the official package in the first days of
August. I will include the finalists, FULL rankings, ratings, judge
sheets with complete comments, among other things.

===

Up to now there are 4-8 participants and 3-4 judges - these are
approximate figures.. Anyway, Good luck everybody!!

Mathieu Bouchard
(Matju/Trimaje)
galois@comnet.ca
FidoNet 1:243/68.1


