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INFORMATION FILE

Welcome to the official N.A.I.D. 96 Info-file. Please feel free to
look around. Comments can be sent to our E-Mail adress.

This is version 2.3, updated May 10th 1996.

NEw! NEw! NEw! "Frequently Asked Questions" Page!

INDEX

A "*" means that there have been modifications made to this section
since the previous version of the info-file.

INTRODUCTION

* General Information.
* Party Features.

THE EVENT

* Activity Schedule
* *Competitions
+ Prize packages.
+ General information.
+ Competing at NAID 96.
+ *Rules and regulations. *(Changes in Music and VgaCard)*
+ The selection process.
+ Distribution.
* The Sponsors
+ Sponsors list and info.
+ Friends-of-Naid list.
* The Organization
+ Organizers list.
+ Compo supervisors and judges list.
+ How to be part of the Naid 96 crew.

GETTING TO NAID 96

* Directions
* Planned bus trips from various cities

ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

* What you wanted to know.
* Last minute news & rumors.
* *How to contact us. *TEL#*

INTRODUCTION

GENERAL INFORMATION

You are reading the official invitation text-file to the North
American International Demo Festival's 2nd edition, still held
at Edouard-Montpetit College in Longueuil, still 15 minutes
from the well known city of Montreal, in the province of
Quebec, Canada.

Well, to summ it up, we think your gonna like what we have in
store for you this year. More activities, prizes, games,
compos, the works! And even better, you still don't have to
cross one of the major oceans to get there. Phear it, something
this fun comes only once a year! =)

The event will last 3 days, from the 31rst of may to june the
2nd.

Ticket costs will be :

20$ for the 3 day pass

8$ for a 1 day visit

(Canadian funds)

If you like to, you will also be able to rent your room on the
party place itself, so prepare with your group a total of 25$
can. for the whole group in the room. You will also be asked
for a 20$ deposit (in order to pay the key if you guys run away
with it after naid like people did last year). :) You should
bring some money too for souvenirs like the many happy CD-Roms
poping around at naid.

Please note that the 3 day pass is needed to have access to the
dorm and to be a contestant in the competitions.

Places are limited to 1400-1800 people, so buy your tickets
today! (20 canadian bucks? Close to nothing for something this
fun. Dare to compare! =)

PARTY FEATURES

There will be on-site at the festival:
* Demo competition.
* Intro competition.
* Music competition.
* Gfx competition.
* Lim-0-naid Music & GFX compo.
* 42*10^-1 kb Intro compo.
* 3 Channel chiptune compo.
* Best new effect compo.
* Disk, keyboard and font throwing compos.
* Free-for-all compo.

* HUMONGOUS Dolby Surround sound system. Nothing impresses the crowd
like a swooping baba-cool surround effect in a demo. Just tought
I'd mention it. =)
* HUMONGOUS screen, latest technology. Specs will be included in a
future info-file. Watch for them, don't get caught by a slow mode
switch that ruins your demo. We've been told big screen technology
has improved quite a big deal since last year, so prepare to be
dazzled.
* HUMONGOUS professionnal-quality stage light setup.
* On-site Olympic size pool. Bring your bathing suit!
* Multiplayer network games
* Free Internet access on-site.
* 2nd edition of the dinosaur museum. Bigger and better! You can
sell/swap/show-off your PC Junior, XT, C64, Apple IIe, Sinclair,
etc... We are also looking for brave souls who'd like to
demonstrate their programming abilities with these machines, so if
your'e interested, contact us and we'll set something up.

* Space and free electricity! Bring your computers, stoves,
cappucino machine, whatever! (Reservations possible for early
ticket buyers. Yet another reason to bring your computer. But if
it gets decapitated, trampled on, or simply thrown into the
olympic sized pool, well... JUST TOO BAD ! :)) The organizers are
not responsible for your equipment)
* Easy access to water, bathrooms, showers.
* Security guards on service 24h/day
* First-Aid available on the site 24h/day
* Lots of comfortable and quiet sleeping places (Bring your own
sleeping bags). Classrooms (where people will sleep) can be locked
to ensure luggage safety. You can reserve classrooms in advance if
you are a group. Contact us! This year, a fee of 25$(Can.) per
-classroom- will be charged. (No Matter how many people you want
to be in that particular room. (Covers those pesky cleaning costs)
This covers the whole 3 days of the party for one room.
* Lots of Parking space
* NAID 96 t-shirts, posters and such, the perfect show-off momentoes
for your buddies back home =)
* The Party-place is close to every luxury this civilisation can
provide (transportation, restaurants, bars, malls, etc.)

* And probably a few other suprise events as well! Look for the
N.A.I.D. 96 Intro. Keep looking at this page to get upgrades...

THE EVENT

ACTIVITY SCHEDULE

Rather "incomplete" at the moment.

+ Friday :
+ 19h00 Doors open for good! (Nobody allowed before that hour)
+ Sunday :
+ 19h00 Doors are closed for N96.
+ (Helpers can stay if they like (we adore that!),
+ but we can't give anybody access for the night this year,
+ since there is classes on the monday morning...). :(

COMPETITION

Prizes packages

Prizes will be composed of cash and hardware. All numbers
and prizes are subject to change, but it is unlikely they
will. All the following are in canadian funds.

Cash prizes are as follows

Per category RankingDemoIntroMusicGraphicsTotal 1rst
Place1500$900$600$500$ 2nd Place1000$600$400$350$ 3rd
Place500$300$200$150$ Total3000$1800$1200$1000$7000$

Plus many many other little prices for smaller compos.

Hardware prize packages info is unavailable for now.

General information

Well, the competition rules have seen some changes since
the last edition of NAID. The reason is simple.
Experience. We have much better idea of what to expect
and the issues we have to adress. (Well, atleast we like
to think so :) Since we have a pretty good idea of how it
must feel to see your entry disqualified after weeks and
weeks of work, we cannot urge you strongly enough to read
them carefully and not take chances. So be forewarned,
these rules will now be strongly enforced.

Every entry must meet the requirements below or face
elimination. Reasons for not meeting these requirements
are non-existant. We don't care if disks sponstaneously
combust, your brother died or your luggage got ran over
by a truck. The NAID organizers are not inclined to give
slack this year, no matter how nice you where last year

Deadlines will 99.9% sure be followed this year. In case
of a major catastrophy, (Earthquake, martians, media
frenzy, killer bees nest found in the compo computer, the
coming of the antechrist, etc...), and that the deadline
just HAS to move, a public announcement will be made to
that effect, and then periodically repeated. Late entries
will be disqualified. Don't say we did'nt warn you.

Each compo will have a maximum number of competing
entries. If we get more entries than available air-time,
a pre-selection process by judges will decide wich
entries qualify.

And concerning the playing platforms we use, contestants
have limited choice this year. The reason for this is
simply time. We do not have the luxury to have a good
compo and change the hardware/software for each piece. We
believe the options we offer are sufficient to do
anything one might want to do. If you disagree, or think
we missed something, please tell us and if the demand is
there, we might be able to add a couple of elements you
think are missing from our list.

Competing at NAID 96

Application must be filled in at our submission booth
on-site at NAID 96. (See the distribution section of this
document for more details.)

It is also possible, yet again, to get your stuff
screened at NAID if we have time. Even if you can't be
there. But, participation in the official compos still
requires, on site, a member who contributed to the piece.
(Otherwise you obviously cannot win prizes and such.)

Rules and regulations

Demo Compo :

o The Demo's runtime size must not exceed 3072k.
o Maximum running time is 20 minutes.

Intro Compo :

o The intro's runtime size must not exceed 102400 bytes.
o Maximum running time is 10 minutes.

*Music Compo :

o You must chose 1 of the 5 players in our list. (See
available specs for more detail)
o Maximum uncompressed size is 1024k.
o Song length cannot exceed *5* minutes.
o Limit one song per person. (Including co-op tunes)

Graphics Compo :

o All graphics must be "hand drawn" (so to speak).
o No ray-traced, ripped or scanned images.
o Maximum resolution is 640x480x256.
o The latest version of CSHOW will be used to display the
pics.
o No less than 3 pictures of the work in progress are
needed to qualify.
o The given pics must clearly show the progress of the
work from first draft to final version.
o The burden of proof is on the author.
o We discard every entry that does'nt respect all of these
requirements.
o Limit one pic per person.

Lim-0-naid Music :

o 10 minutes run length time to track the music.
o The samples (there shall be six of them) are provided,
and may be altered within the possibilities of the
tracker used, but one competitor may not take any
external sources for samples but for the ones provided.
o No other rule. You do the best you can, in the number of
channels/patterns you wish. You don't have to use all
the samples, and you can do whatever you want to track
your tune.
o Please note that the (six) samples provided will prolly
be the six worst samples you've heard in your entire
life =).
o Provided trackers will be Impulse Tracker, Scream
Tracker 3, and Fast Tracker 2.

Lim-0-naid GFX Compo :

o 10 minutes to do the drawing.
o 320x200 format is to be used by all participants.
o The palette given may not be altered in any way by the
competitors, there will be 6 colors provided (6 horrible
colours of course) that the participants must use to do
their drawing.

42*10^-1 kb Intro Compo :

o The intro's runtime size must not exceed 4301 bytes.
o Maximum running time is 3 minutes.

3 Channel chiptune Compo :

o You must chose 1 of the 5 players in our list. (See
available specs for more detail)
o Maximum uncompressed size is 32(16?)k.
o Song length cannot exceed 2 minutes.
o Limit one song per person. (Including co-op tunes)

Best new effect Compo : Winners are determined by jury
only. Can be a variation on an older effect, but 30 to
40% of the score is given for originality. Thanks to
OS2/Man and the #coders crowd for help and hints in
creating this compo.

o The effect's runtime size must not exceed 32k.
o Maximum running time is 1 minute 30 seconds.
o Must be 100% original code.

Disk, Keyboard, CDs and Font throwing Compos : A good old
throwing compo. Nuff said! And no, we won't tell you what
the font throwing is all about :)

o Chunks also count in the distance evaluation :)

Free-for-all Compo : You have 5 minutes on stage, and the
basic compo equipement plus anything that you brought
along is allowed. Winners are determined by vote, thus
the contestant with the most impressive display of
-whatever you want- wins. Prepare something or just
watch.

o Must be legal in Canada.
o Maximum time allowed is 5 minutes.
o Must be 100% safe if you use any of our equipment.
(Consult us early if you think you'll need our stuff.)
o Must not require anything above 2 minutes setup time on
our part.

Deadlines : All deadlines are during the actual party.
Exact time will be found in the next version of this
info-file.

Equipment available

The computer used for the compos will be :

o INTEL TRITON II Pentium 100 with 16 Megs of RAM 256k
pipeline cache
o Svga Diamond Stealth 64 Serie 2001 1Meg RAM
o And a Gravis Ultrasound, 1Meg
o No Keyboard (Kiddin') :)

Software supported:

o ST3 v.???
o FT2 v.???
o Impulse tracker v.???
o Capamod v.???
o Cubic player v.???
o CShow v.???

Basic available configurations :

o We use a standard DOS 6.2 environment with additionnal
system files relevant to the hardware present in the
machine. We will only be using standard DOS 6.2
configuration options, with the relevent soundcard
drivers. (I.e. No QEMM memory managers.) The contestants
will have 3-4 basic configurations to choose from,
ranging from plain vanilla HIMEM only to the whole
EMM386/SMARTDRV (yuck :) package usually only needed
when running windows.
o Now, being aware that this might cause problems in some
cases, it might be a good idea for contestants in the
demo and intro competitions to take some precautions to
make sure their demo :
1. Doesn't exclusively work on their own home
computer. :)
2. Is a tidbit flexible when it comes to running with
your standard/typical memory configuration.
o A copy of the competition computer's CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT will be available on the party site, so our
competitors will also have the chance to make possible
last minutes adjustements to their entries, just in
case. We will also be open to suggestions as to add some
choices we might have overlooked, within the boundaries
of the available options. (I.e. Again, no QEMM memory
managers. Only "standard" DOS memory config options.)
o Don't worry, our goal isn't to force anyone into using
memory managers or any fixed configuration, but needless
to say we encourage our contestants to have productions
wich are as flexible as possible. The demo scene in
general can only profit if coders take some care to make
their productions a little more versatile, not forcing
the "users" to rewrite their whole configuration files
from scratch every time they want to run the piece in
question.

The judging process.

Entries will be judged following a point system. Public
votes will be given a certain importance (30-40%) to
attribute a final 'grade'. Details concerning other
criterias judged will be released as soon as they are
available. In case of a tie, the public vote percentage
will determine our winner. (In the unlikely case of a tie
at that level, the judges will take a tiebreaking vote
themselves.)

Distribution.

The distribution system this year is different. First
off, every entry at NAID must be shareware. (I.e.
Distribution of the entry for non-profit purposes must be
authorized by the author(s).) Furthermore, a NAID 96
CD-ROM is now in the works. Thus, while keeping the
entries shareware, the author(s) will also have to give
the right to Walnut Creek to use their entries on the CD.

Basically, what this means is that for all intents and
purposes, you still own the rights to your entries. If
anyone wishes to put your entries on any CD besides the
NAID 96 CD Walnut Creek will be publishing, they still
have to come to you and make a deal to get further
distribution rights.

Now, maybe some of you are thinking 'Okay, that's all
fine and dandy, but what do *I* get out of this?'. Well,
that's a perfectly justifiable question, and here's the
explanation. Walnut Creek would earn the distribution
rights as they will be shelling out 100% of the prize
money. Yup, you heard right. Furthermore, every
contestant would also get a copy of the NAID 96 CD. (At
the very least those who qualify for the compos, which
means something between 20-30 per compo, and 1 for every
entry if we don't get something like 100+ entries in
every compo category. In any case, it will be specified
in the application form/contract you will have to sign at
the party.)

Now, I am told that the 'target audience' for that CD,
besides your usual demo-freaks, would be software
compagnies interested in recruiting talented young
artists/programmers. Thus, you might agree when we
consider this whole thing to be a win-win situation.
Maybe some of you still aren't convinced, but think of it
this way. In the music business, you usually have to pay
for that sort of publicity, and not the reverse. (The
music business comparison isn't so far fetched if you
think about it. I know a lot of similar contests taking
place in the music industry around montreal work this
way.)

I'm sure some of you will have some questions about this
whole question of distribution rights and so on, so feel
free to contact us at naid@autoroute.net and we'll do our
best to answer them.

THE SPONSORS

Current Official Sponsors :
* CollΦge ╔douard-Montpetit
* A.G.E.C.E.M.
* COOP Montpetit
* Fond de developpement ╔douard-Montpetit
* Internet provider Autoroute.net
* Mediatrix
* Walnut Creek
* Gandalf
* M-Link

CollΦge ╔douard-Montpetit and NAID.

CollΦge ╔douard-Montpetit is the biggest CEGEP (roughly a US
College equivalent) in the province of Quebec. CEM's
involvement with NAID gives a chance to it's computer science
students to come show what they are made of, and in the
process, opening it's doors to artists, musicians and computer
enthousiasts from all around the world.

NAID owes it's existance in good part to this fine
establishment. The organizers would like to send thanks to
everybody in the school administrative and student staff
involved with the event.

THE ORGANIZATION

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MAIN ORGANIZERS Mr. Khan╔tienne Caron MEd╔ric LagacΘSite Coordinator
StrukLaurent GauthierBusiness Coordinator

THE CO-ORGANIZERS TEAMS Main Organizers [Demo Compo] Main Organizers
[Intro Compo] Shawnm & Ara [Music Compo] ??? [Gfx Compo] Depth
[Lim0naid Compo(s)] France Viau [Site Decoration] Christian Mailloux
[Security Officer] Equipe Sante [First Aid]

Full credits will be given to the co-organizers in our post-NAID 96
report that is planned to be released x month/week (pref. 1 week :)
after the event, somewhere towards the 1rst week of july.

Getting to NAID 96

See the "Frequently Asked Questions" page.

Updated listing of bus trips to N.A.I.D. 96

Answers to frequently asked questions

WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW.

This section tries to answer the most common questions we
get about NAID 96. See also the link to "Frequently Asked
Questions" in the main page...

Q: I'd like to reserve a ticket. How does it work?

A: Well, it's simple really. Buy early. :) This entitles
you to a table for you and your group , plus a place in
the classrooms wich serve as dorms for the party. We'd
like to offer reservations like last year, but frankly we
found it was a rather inefficient way to work. So to keep
it fair for everyone if we ever run out of space, we have
to work like this. Don't worry, a counter with the number
of available tickets left will be put up if we ever hit
1000 in pre-party sales. The addresses and relevent info
(adresses and such) can be found at the bottom of this
nfo-file.

LAST MINUTE NEWS AND RUMORS.

-The rumors concerning the rad "GrEeN hAiR" discount are not
valid, Even tough it would be a great deal of fun to see
you all GrEeNd!

-It is true that there's going to be A LOT of kewl lights this
year.

-It seems that there will be tickets left at the door, but it's
only a rumor ! :)

-It seems that we might have europeans dropping-by this year.

-It seems that we might even have Australians dropping-by this
year! (woah!)

HOW TO CONTACT US

Internet:

E-Mail adress is naid@autoroute.net

World Wide Web:

Official NAID 96 Web Page
http://www.autoroute.net/~naid Or an alternative is

Thanks for the NAID 95 hawaii page go to Rhys/The
Elven Nation (TEN), Rhys/The Apollo Project (TAP)
aka Mr. Sunny Walker;
http://sunny.hawcc.hawaii.edu,
swalker@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu -->

Snail-Mail:
NAID / APRAXIA, Local A-19 College
Edouard-Montpetit 945, chemin de Chambly Longueuil
(Quebec), CANADA J4H 3M6

*Telephone:

(514) *679-2630*, extension 363 during normal
office hours.

We share this line with another school
organization. Ask to speak to a NAID organizer, if
we aren't there, please leave a message, and we'll
get back to you.

Don't hesitate to call / write for info!

To order tickets please check out our ticket ordering
forms, wich can be found either on our web page, or as a
file named order.nfo in our NAID 96 invtro package.

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