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Assembly '03
An anonymous reader writes "The world's biggest festival for computer enthusiasts, Assembly '03 starts off today. Four days of coding, compos, music, games and other geeky stuff. See press release (rtf) for more..."
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WOW! I bet there's gonna be tons of hot chicks at the nerd fest! I better get some push-ups in, it's gonna be a hot night at the Hartwall arena!
When I first saw the title, I thought this was a new version of the assembly language...
See press release (rtf) for more...
i'll rtf press release!
We appear to have disassembled their webserver :)
They claim to be a gathering of geeks, yet they are /.'ed before 8 comments are posted.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
I am currently ircing on grand stand with WLAN equipment. The view is awesome, thousands of computers filling the partyplace. Assembly is awesome party and I recommend it to everyone.
Ten years since Second Reality, and it still sets the benchmark for what could be accomplished on a 486. Ironically, the Future Crew members pretty much got what they wanted, a shot at games programming. I seem to recall Epic Pinball being one of their works, and Max Payne sports a number of ex-FC members in the credits list.
Assembly is a great party, there are alot of talented demo people there back in the day - m68k to the max! I just hope that it hasn't turned into "yer next lan party" with untalented fraggers filling the rooms!
Well - last time I checked, The Gathering in Norway is bigger - over 5000 visitors, while the Assembly had a measly 4500 visitors. Oh well. ;)
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File not found. Fake it? (Y/N) _
Bah, Assembly'03 is nothing compared to what the real old-school people are up to: The world's first C64 LAN party! At the LCP2003 party arranged in Sweden this summer, Adam Dunkels showcased his Commodore 64 Contiki OS on a bunch of C64s connected in a LAN using specially built Ethernet cards. The three C64:s connected to a LAN made this event the world's first C64-only LAN party!
The original and the soundtrack: download away
Here it is in divx, in case you've thrown away your old computer: misc_fc-2ndreality-divx.avi
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
You are NOT allowed to bring with you
- weapons of any kind
- edged weapons such as knives, pocket knives Leathermans or similar tools with knives
- explosives or fireworks
- alcohol or any illegal drugs
- laser pointers, laser pens etc
- smoke machines
It goes on to say you can't: get drunk, sleep in cars, play loud music or (and here's the kicker!) "connect any kitchen equipment to the electricity plugs " ... Oh yeah, there is no public viewing of porn allowed.
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
Having recently visited Skaven of FutureCrew's site, which linked to assembly.org - Is there a place to find the results of previous years' compos? assembly.org seems to have nothing but info on this years' event. :(
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Second Realty by Future Crew was entered at this event (Assembly'93). I always thought it would be cool to have a 10 year anniversary redo of that classic demo. Keep all the same routines, just beef them up to todays capabilities. :)
I once went to a festival of geekdom that lasted 4 years. We sat around and did nothing but play games, code, and blow shit up.
I miss college.
Actually, it is far from the world's largest. It is surpassed by The Gathering in Norway with 5100 people (plus guests, of course) and Dreamhack in Sweden with about 5000 people (including guests, if I remember correctly). If I remember correctly, Assembly has about 4000 people, but it sure is amongst the world's largest :-)
Note that all three events I listed are Computer Parties, not to mistaken as Lan (Parties). What's the difference? At computer parties, the organizers try to encourage lots of other events other than gaming like creative competitions - coding of demos, graphics, music, etc. There are often also lectures/conferences on development, linux/unix, security, etc. For more information: The Gathering Tech:Server Crew - Why TG is not a LAN page.
To conclude, check out this way cool panorama picture of The Gathering 99 (only with about 4200 people then, but.. yeah, cool): Panorama of TG99
Note: I'm not neutral in my writing in this case since I'm the leader of the Tech:Server (former Tech:Linux) crew at The Gathering since 1999. And yes, it's without pay.. just loads of fun and experience :-)
Linux IS user friendly, it's just choosy of who it's friends are.
Mikrobitti (A Finnish computer magazine) has it's own Assembly 2003 site partly translated to English.
Pictures from the party can be seen here (Finnish only). There is not very much stuff yet, but there should be more soon. :)
I demand the Cone of Silence!
I hate to be the proverbial terd in the punch bowl, but Assembly has been going on for more than 10 years. If it is the "The world's biggest festival for computer enthusiasts", then why has Slashdot neglected to post notification of it in previous years?
Assembly used to be very cutting edge. Back when a 386 could barely run Windows 3.11, coding groups such as Future Crew were making beautiful, fullscreen graphics demos by combining 2D media playback with 3D rendering. The results were of much greater caliber than the graphics of games in that era.
Nowadays, you have DirectX9 and multi-billion dollar companies pushing the envelope of what can be done with current hardware. So the thrill of Assembly demonstrations are not quite what they used to be. Especially since many of the demos were written for very specific hardware configurations.
On a side note, I made the local Best Buy stop playing Future Crew demos a long time ago by informing them that the copyright restricts public display for commercial purposes (ie, product demonstration) without permission.
You're right, I'm going to start my own Geek gathering, with blackjack, and hookers! In fact, forget the geek gathering!
Getting into the demo scene has had profound effects on my online life and it is always a fond memory thinking back how I discovered the demo scene through a Waite Group Press's book+CD where they had Future Crew's Unreal and 2nd Reality in it back in 1994. I simply fell off my chair after the unreal experience.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
For those interested, slengpung will be updated with pictures later.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Agreed.. still the Amiga demos with lot's of 3d is very impressive considering the relative amount of processing power. People like Offa, Rubberduck and Kalms of TBL, Juliet&Case of CNCD, Antibyte of Scoopex etc. really pushed those poor m68k's for every last cycle.
But still, the most enjoyable demos today are those golden oldies like Enigma by Phenomena (Azatoth was my hero), Mental Hangover by Scoopex, Voyage by Razor 1911 and Hardwired by The Silents DK and Crionics.
Oh, the memories :)
Check out Back to the roots for some nice Amiga demoscene nostalgia. Pouet.net is also a nice resource for demoscene information.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Actually, second reality ran on a 386SX/25. Pretty amazing stuff. It was pretty much the breaktrough into the demoscene for the PC.
The Assembly convo may not be the biggest LAN party, or the best, but it's certainly one of the most historically significant. The IBM demoscene didn't really reach maturity until Future Crew released "Unreal" at ASM'92.
Has it really been ten years since Second Reality? Oy, I got old somehow.
And then there's this C64 port of Second Reality. Wow.
During early 90's Purple Motion played keyboards in a band called 'Decoryah', who managed to release two full length albums. Some information can be found here : Unofficial Decoryah page. There seems to be his more recent work at mp3.com too : Jonne Valtonen
:)
Some other FC members are/were working at Remedy Entertainment, creating Max Payne among other things. Some others were involved with Bitboys, a small company designing 3d-hardware, and topic of a couple of articles here in Slashdot too over the past few years
Google also helpfully provided a semi-outdated History of Future Crew page.