Atariada 2000

My preparation for the Atariáda meeting was pretty long this year. It was all started at the previous Atariáda a year ago, when I tried (together with Olda Rezler) to organise a tournament in playing the game "Maze of AGDAgon'. That's a pretty old Shareware game from the USA, working on up to 8 Atari 8-bit computers connected together. My hardware worked perfectly, but the software was crashing very often - so that we never reached a legal "game over'. I did a decision immediately: To show a better network-game at the next Atariáda Unfortunately, I was talking about this decision (and even writing in letters) during the next months, so finally there was no choice: I simply must write that game.

In the January 2000, I did the first step: I've bought a second computer. (I've found an advert in some newspaper - it would be quite difficult to debug a network-game with only one System... unfortunately, the computer was BOOXE "Made in China", so that the TV-displaying was quite bad. The game-writing was stopped for a month, and I was making an upgrade to fix the video output. At least, there was another thing to show at Atariáda, in addition to the already finished "BTC".

So, the work on my game was finally started at the end of February. At the same time, my Telephone rang - and Zdengk Burian (the organiser) told me the shocking message, that the Atariáda will not be the last Saturday of April (as always) it'11 be the FIRST Saturday of April this year! Since it was quite difficult to calculate how long time will be necessary to finish my game, 1 was forced to the maximum speed: Every day till 23:00. I was painting the graphics with ST-mouse - It was good. I was creating fonts and game-rules - It was a bit worse. I was coding the game-routines - I was getting mad (Why are the green men so stupid, when there's over 2kB of code behind them?!'?) I was coding the serial-bus communications - I had enough of that work. I was writing the menu and texts - I almost didn't know why am I doing so. I was testing the whole game - and that was a big Problem: How to test a game for 8 computers, when there are only 3 systems available (one belongs to Olda), with only 2 monitors, and only one player (in addition non-objective - that was me)? It took a week of heavy telephone-talking until Olda appeared to my home (my family is out of play, as for testing a game). and when he was here - he said: 'I've only half a hour left, and we must talk about the details of our trip. Record your game to a floppy-disk, and I'll examine it later at home." That time, also the music was finished already (written during three evenings - together with the code, because it must play only on two channels).

Well, finally I somehow managed to finish the game in time there were even a few days left for recording disks (to reduce the time spent by copying at the Party), pack all the hardware, and to fix Problems with the SynFile database. (The printout of MY software-list needed two days, and about 2cm high pile of polluted paper - not to mention the ink-ribbon in my printer just because SynFile is madly printing one database-entry in endless loop at a certain length of the index-file (re-index operation takes about 2 hours). That crazy program also copied the ABBUC Magazine 60 at many different places in the database, ignoring the alphabetical order.)

The room was far away from being empty, and many other persons were still appearing. I was happy to see, that most of the 8-bit systems were located together on some tables close to door (thanks to Zden4k) - my networking-hardware length is of course limited. Previous year, we were forced to make a connection over the whole room - we even didn't reach a few systems because of cable-length. (23m might look to be enough, but there are always only 3m from a computer to the next one - only the last piece of cable was replaced to 3m this year, because the old cable was so thick, that it was throwing down smaller hardware from the table, like a spring :).

We unpacked our two systems (quite a large 8-bit configuration In the car, we had two monitors, several Packs and boxes, and also one large clothes-basket full of hardware). We've placed the "main" monitor at the top of a box (so that people will see it also from larger distance); at the top of this device, between two antennas (in fact it was a TV), we installed a relatively large board with our, "names" (BEWESOFT, and Atari Club of Prague), and a short description of our offers. I think that all visitors of such meetings should do the same! As far as I remember, I haven't seen any other table with such a visible "identificator" in the room. (At the Czech "Atariáda" meetings, we're always in hurry - especially because some people are leaving after only a few hours - so it's sometimes quite difficult to discover who is the owner of a certain computer, and which interesting things are available.)

We immediately started to connect all the 8-bits in the room together, using my networking-hardware. (There was only 7 eight-bit systems that moment; one of these was even installed in a quite strange way: We forced a certain guy to unpack his second XE (for sale), and then we added an old TV (provided by the organiser), and some cables/joysticks from our own hardware-basket - we had several unnecessary things like that, because it wasn't sure that everyone own a SIO-cable and a joystick to be used with our network (we expected tape-recorder users, but finally we had to connect rather XL-ST-Link users with these cables - they didn't carry their floppies to the Party). 1 was really happy to discover that my game works without of heavy Problems. We discovered only a few quite small bugs: With a big number of players, there are not enough objects to pick up, it's rather difficult to destroy other players with bombs (with few players the main danger are the crazy green men, but the amount of these is reduced with more players), and the interlaced graphics mode is flickering on most monitors much more than on my TV. Some people also tried to send text messages, or re-login during the game-begin, when the Master system doesn't support these things anymore, so that two times there was a computer "disconnected" from the game. But all the other players were playing without of problems, and later, in the afternoon we've even "tested" the case that one player simply switched off, disconnected all his cables, and left the Party - also this didn't affect the others' game. But that happened much later. Oh, maybe that I forgot to write the name of my game MULTI DASH. (It should be available on the XL/XE scene already, together with the hardware-description'- at the party, I gave about 14 copies to everyone who supplied an empty DD disk, and other copies will be sent by Post later. I've no patience to change the program again - if you'11 play it with more computers, better first login all the systems, then send text-messages, and after all that start the game. And maybe you can try to cooperate in destroying other players - what about placing more bombs around a player somewhere in a corner?)

That morning, we did two rounds of playing my game. First one was just training, but the second round was a competition for a prize. (But this description of the two rounds is not exact after the training round, some joysticks came into someone other's hands. I think that even the winner of our competition didn't play in the first round.) To improve the attractivity of our game, 1 offered the prize for winner - to tell the truth, it was just some old and unnecessary hardware from my collection but in the other hand, they were allowed to choose from more things! It took quite a long time until they've selected the right price - Zden6k (the organiser) had quite a big Problem to get the free table we've stolen for this purpose (there was another group of guys waiting for that table - they've just appeared). The selected prize was the "ACTION!" cartridge (without of a box - just the board with chips, covered with disk-labels), but later in the afternoon the winner changed his selection, so that finally he got the cartridge "KABOOM!" (a game).

After all that, we've disconnected the network - but the two guys who played at the extra system (the "for sale" Computer even bought by someone already, but that didn't change anything at the moment) came with an interesting idea: To connect two Computers for the whole day. They probably wanted just to play a bit more, but for me the idea was really good. We've connected "their" system with an 80OXE on my table (unused at that moment anyway), so that my game was presented for the whole day (besides the board placed on my TV) by two very enthusiastic players.

For the rest of day, I was endlessly talking, explaining, answering, etc.; the function of my hardware-upgrade in the XE was shown possibly 10 times (I had to "lend" my own 80OXE from the two enthusiastic players, because there was that upgrade done inside). The only thing that 1 had almost no time for that was walking around the room, and looking at the other tables. I've seen an unfinished new issue of the FLOP magazine, some interesting stuff was also presented at the table of David Spilka and his friends (they were right beside my table, so I thought that I'll visit them later - what a big mistake: They did leave the party before that... ), and also some other things were present.

In the afternoon, we've connected the network again, to allow also the new appearing people to see it. Unfortunately, we've discovered that all new appeared people did leave the meeting already, so that there was the same 7 computers like in the morning. Finally, we've found one more XE far away in the ST-oriented part of the room (that's the result of connections between different platforms... ), and Olda successfully forced the owner to move his system to the XL/XE corner for a while so that we've played with the full configuration of 8 systems for a while. (Unfortunately, that moved XE was disconnected quite soon, because the owner was leaving the party - as I've said earlier.) The game-Playing with 8 systems was very important for me, because in fact it was the final Phase of the software testing - I was measuring the relation between game-speed and the number of systems right at the party (using some hidden routines - try to find that secret 3-keys combination ;-). (The result with 8 computers was on the average 15.4 (maximum 24) frames per one game-phase - that's about 78 (min. 50) percent of a standard game-speed. Acceptable...

The evening was about to come, and the amount of people in the room started to decrease, Shortly after 18:00 we were going to pack our hardware and leave, but then a new stage appeared. Several people came from some "previously unseen" corner in the room, and they wanted to see my news, and to talk with us. I haven't any exact information, but I guess that all these people probably spent the whole day at their own tables (like me), or maybe they were sitting somewhere in the ST-section. Anyway, the idea of packing hardware was quickly cancelled, and my upgraded XE was shown three times more. During the discussions, also some interesting things came out - for example, Radek Sterba was very amazed, when I show him his own programs on the latest ABBUC magazine. His programs are published on that magazine for a certain time, but he didn't know anything about that!

I did also show one picture in the RIP format on my TV-screen (VISAGE 2.4, FIGHT.RIP), and it caused an unexpected reaction in the room (never mind the initial Problems with transferring files from a Syzygy floppy-disk via BiboD0S). Some people wondered how it's possible, that Olda's 800XL can display that picture without of any peripherals - and they wondered even more, when we explained that there's a i2OMB hard disk inside that 800XL but most of the people were shocked by the picture itself. My TV gives an extremely low flickering even in interlaced modes, and in addition, quite a low brightness was used that almost dark evening - so the picture looked like a colour-Print from a magazine, It was funny to see the reaction of ST-users (they were carrying their packed hardware to the door, which was close to our table): Such a man just looked at our monitor - and his lower Jaw suddenly came down because of amazement.' The picture was displayed for about 1/4 of a hour, with several people standing around, they were taking Photos, and I think that even a video-camera was present. Also the whole table was examined carefully, because some people thought that there must be a hidden PC or ST somewhere.

After a short refresh, we started our way back to Prague about 21@30 - but that's not the end of interesting things. Previous year, some other guys had Problems with the engine of their almost new car - this year, the bad luck affected our cat. Half a hour later, about 30km from Prostejov (still about 230km from Prague), in the speed of 90km/h (almost maximum for that old car), the right-back wheel disappeared from the car. The car was suddenly somehow low and noisy, and this year's Atariáda was finished (Zdengk didn't know) with some fireworks, in the form of sparks behind the car's bottom running directly on the highway surface - it was almost a bright day on that empty highway in the night. When we finally stopped at the right side of the road, the lost wheel passed um (on the right - and that's illegal, you know!), painted a black rubber "good bye" onto the right side of our car and disappeared into the darkness of the night. After about 1/2 sec. it was out of the reach of our headlights, and according to Olda, it was about to leave the road's edge, and continue with the trip to Brno and Prague as an independent vehicle - even with a load: That hated wheel took our brake-drum with it - but I don't know how far it finally travelled (there was about 2km long road down before us, in the straight direction). Anyway, we haven't seen that wheel anymore, never mind that Olda tried to find it somewhere aside using a flash-lamp, during his 0.5km long walk forwards (he was searching for the nearest small yellow board with the km-count, because we needed to specify our exact Position to the tow-away service using Olda's GSM Telephone). But that was later - first I did look at the place, where the wheel originally was. At the begin it wasn't easy, because it was pretty dark, Olda with his flash-lamp left to the back direction with the warning triangle, and 1 had no lamp. That lamp was inside a pack of tools, in the engine section of the car, and it wasn't easy to get it out without of a lamp (even the moon was hidden behind some clouds). After Olda's return (with his lamp), it was much easier, and so I discovered that the shaft is broken (fatigue), and so there's nothing we can do (we had quite a lot of tools and spare parts, but this was quite too much).

So, half a hour later, our car full of Atari hardware was lifted onto an older tow-away car from Brno, and the way to Prague continued (4 people on 3 seats in the tow-away car). The first part of the way was done slowly, with all kinds of lights to all directions, but with no success - the wheel was lost. (At least, it wasn't on the road - we were afraid of this a bit, while looking at the fast passing cars.) So, finally we reached Prague at about 3:30, and our way was not only longer, but also much more expensive (9544,- Kc - that's over 250$, but here in Czech we get less money than the workers in the U.S. fortunately I had a credit-card in my bag. When I add the price for reparation of the car, it would be maybe cheaper to buy an other car of the same age... But it was necessary to remove the car from the highway quickly, all services were closed that weekend-night, and besides all that: Would you leave a pile of Atari hardware in an old car at the other end of your country?)

Atariada 2000 & Multidash