TITLE:Why the poor hardware standard at competitions? PALETTE:0113 0989 0789 0aa8 3 WE ARE LIMITING OURSELVES The AMIGA-scene always had strong preferences towards COMMODORE int. - this wasn't even helped out by the fact that C= didn't care a shit about the needs of the users. Everywhere they went, the scene followed every trend. The only exception maybe that the scene didn't go into liquidation, but that might be due to the somewhat more complex holding fragmentation of the scene... 3C= gave the CDTV - be sure that sceners bought it. 1(* For what? *) 3C= gave the AGA - everyone needed it. 1(* Was about time *) 3C= gave the CD32 - an absolute must! 1(* Naaaaaw! *) 3C= limited the AMIGA's possibilities (has something to do with the way they 3tried to get rid of themselves) - Is there any question, the sceners followed 3again? The best example here are of course competitions. It's unbelievable how we still try to stay behind our possibilities with all those limitations! Everyone has at least 2MB RAM these days. This are 2.097.152 bytes. The ProTracker needs not much more than 100.000 bytes. This leaves at least 1.900.000 bytes for pure samples and songinfo. 2The ProTracker itself is an extraordinarily BAD program. 1It limits the user in multiple ways when it comes to pattern- and positionnumbers, samplelength and numbers of samples. Musicians really have to fight to make the best possible out of this misere. Normally it would be bad enough to see that such an uncomfortable program is the chosen replayer in a competition (I won't moan as it is standard). Still, we are limiting ourselves even more: Taking 31 samples with maximum length of 65.534 bytes each, 2we get a theoretical maximum of 2.031.554 bytes 1for samples plus songdata. How much were the participators supposed to use? 390.000 bytes (plus some miserable ones)... I can see a gap there. Ok, it in fact IS unrealistic to say we should try to fill up 1.5 MB in a competitiontune that only lasts for 3:00 minutes, but where do you see the problem with a tune that packed fills one entire disk? Approximately 900.000 bytes that is... 2It's like telling a e-guitarist that he might not use an amplifier plus boxes 2while his performance on stage as he could have advantages by using 2extra-equipment. Well, this is only one part of the story. Could you think that PC-competitions would ever run without harddisk-use? On the AMIGA it's called "optional" - we could also call it exceptional... The PC-competition runs on a 486DX2 at 66 Mhz - because that's a standard equipment. On AMIGA the standard equipment is an A1200 with 2MB chip and 2MB fast plus 120MB harddisk - Why should we get that into competition? No, we take an A1200 with 2MB chip plus ONE floppy. If it wouldn't be so sad, one could laugh about it. In my opinion, 2competitions should always run on the best 2compatible standard configuration available1, means on an A4000 at 25Mhz! Oh, I can hear the A500 dudes crying that it is unfair because they don't have AGA. Well, mateys: The C64 does also not have AGA do they moan? C64 is as far from the A500 as A500 from the A1200. You are gone. And ain't this the A1200-owners without FastRAM who demand to have the competition on a standard A1200? FastRAM is as much standard as the OS2.0 is. Non-AGA competitions in ancient times also used 1MB chip although the A500 (which was surely standard) only got originally delivered with 512 kbytes. So shut up, too. Don't come and tell me that in that special case, demos would only be produced for a minority of all sceners (A1200 plus FastMem, A4000/030 and A4000/040). That ain't neccessarily the case when regarding that demos from the PC-competition must also run on a 368! 2UNION 1also got that way with their 2BEYOND THE FUTURE 1from this year's party. It runs perfectly on an A1200 without FastMem, but how much better does it look on a A4000? Much better, let me tell you that. So, pitty them that the full beauty of their demo wasn't shown at the competition, but lucky us reasonable users - we get it all. Get yourself FastMem, folks. It's worth it.