Read Between The Lin
es
the ACiD news ...
n
e
w
unsane
Issue No.12 An Official ACiD Productions
tm Public Update June 1996
This newsletter serves many useful and utilit
arian roles in the art scene.
It acts as a cultural bastion, a constant beacon which can
always act as a
guiding light through the next season of turmoil and inconsta
ncy in the fickle-
ness of the scene. It is a common point of reference throu
gh which every in-
dividual in the art scene may be, however peripherally, conn
ected. It gives a few lucky writers and artists cha
nces to practice their skills at sounding
official and pretentious. Oh yes, and it also tells you wh
at happened within the past three months.
By RaD Man
and Hack
A new chapter has been written in the ever-turbulent s
aga concerning the
art scenes involvement with Walnut Creeks FTP site, ft
p.cdrom.com. On March
9th, 1996, the Hornet demogroup unanimously decided to remove
the incoming ansi
directory for a multitude of reasons. This in turn caused a
n outrage of sorts
from various followers of the art scene, and the heart of
the scene itself.
ACiD, serving as one of the scenes leading groups, took a
step forward and did something about it.
Soon after the expunging of the much relied upon head
quarters for art
packs, ACiD members and the art scene as a whole united and w
raught out ways to
ensure its reinstatement. One of the individuals responsibl
e for the original
instatement of the demo archive and honorary Hornet member,
Pallbearer pub-
lisher of Freedom CD, received a phone call from RaD Man. P
allbearer believed
that they should keep the ansi archive, and would request
such. Calls were then made to Hornet members Snowman
and the now opprobrious Trixter, who also
promised to put in a positive word. Unfortunately, the call
s didnt keep the directory, and the Hornet groups d
ecision remained unchanged.
As the once popular directory began to be a fading memo
ry, the scene con-
tinued to show disappointment by mailing Hornets public
relations liason,
Trixter, with thousands of messages in protest. Determined
to find someone
with an open mind, RaD Man scheduled an in person, face-to-fa
ce meeting between
Snowman, Prisonernumberone, and
himself. On April 7th, they
met. The meeting was
held over dinner at a fine
Italian restuarant in Concord,
California. After extensive, in
depth discussion, many real-
izations about how alike the
demo scene and the art scene are
were made by all parties. You
could say everyone had a better
awareness about what really goes
into it all. Both groups endure
the same hardships and experien- Unfortunately
for Snowman, the Italian
ces, and there is a finer gray restaurant at
which they dined did not
line between the two types than have their a
ir conditioning working.
some may have thought. After-
wards a gentlemans agreement was
made ACiD and Fire would take ownership of what was once
thought to be the
lost directory of ftp.cdrom.com. Did our superb negotiat
ing skills shine through, or did they merely serve g
ood linguini? We may never know, however, the resul
ts remain to be seen as win-win conditions for ever
yone across the board.
As of June 15th, 1996, the directory has been re-op
ened under a new,
more appropriate name on the massive 100Mbps site at ftp
.cdrom.com,
/pub/artpacks. Presently, ACiD has full responsibili
ty of overseeing and main-
taining the artpacks archive. To further the quality and eas
e of upkeep, Fire
member prisonernumberone will also be cooperatively helping o
ut. We would like
to thank everyone who spoke up and sent messages to the Horne
t group expressing
their concerns. Thanks to each and everyone who did, this
directory is now
back. The benefits of this new archive seem to be never en
ding, as it serves
as a home for distribution for the many up-and-coming art
groups without the
benefit of their own FTP site.
By Cthulu
The North American International Demoparty was held in
Longueil, Quebec,
Canada on the weekend of Friday, May 31st through Sunday
, June 2nd, 1996.
Though ACiD was present at last years competition, and eve
n won prizes, our
presence this year was greatly bolstered and felt by all.
Current and former
ACiD members at this years party included Blue Gravit
y, Evolution, Future As
sassin, Kosh, Mind Bender, Ren
der-
Use
less, Sinned Soul, Soul Assass-
in, Tasmaniac, Vibrance
, the matched
pair of RaD Man and RaD Woman
Malcolm X, Twisted Terrorist, and
Ir
onman, the Champion of the
keyboard-throwing competition.
The party li
ved up to its name
as there was a
large showing of both
Americans and
Canadians, and even a
confused trickle of Finns, A
ussies
ACiD artists chartered their own
and Englishmen were present. Those
private jet to fly to the NAID party in
from out of town faced three alter-
Canada. Look, you can see RaD Man.
natives: spending the night in a re-
vamped
classroom on the premises
themselves, renting a room at a REAL
hotel in the city proper, or, and this was the most comm
on choice, simply
staying up for the entire 36 hours of the party. There w
as a fourth option
actually, but only possible for those who attempted the thi
rd while being ill
prepared - several people passed out during the party.
ACiDs graphics department took first place for the se
cond year running,
with Blue Gravity continuing where Visigoth left off last
year. His amazing
piece of high resolution artwork entitled You Too Can Be A
Gfx Dude! can be viewed in the June 1996 Acquisition
under the filename BG-NAID1.GIF. Both Soul
Assassin and Kosh of ACiD also placed in the top twenty a
nd had their works
shown on the big screen at the party! Soul Assassins gra
phic has been made into an advertisement, and can be
found in our pack as SA-DEMNC.GIF. Koshs e
ntry entitled Count Zero Interrupt is included as
KO-NAID1.GIF as well.
But we have been found to be nearly as pleasing to the
ear as to the eyes
as well... Future Assassin took the 3rd prize in the music co
mpetition, and his
song, Demons Pride remix, can be heard in the June 1996 pH
luid Music disk as
FA-PRIDE.IT.
Evolution, a new recruit from Toronto, also shook up
the party with his
bombastic and bassy module called U MAKE ME WEAK which rank
ed in tenth place.
After it was played, the ACiD crew did the wave. Hey, we
put the party in
demoparty. His tune can be found in this months pHluid d
isk as well, under
the name of EN-UMAKE.XM.
Other features of the party
aside from the accolades of ACiD
members included wading through the
sea of trackers and the numerous
volunteers to play Virtua Fighter 2
and Duke Nukem 3D on the massive
LCD screen, visiting the museum of
Dinosaurs C-64s, XTs, etc., and
playing Pong and Lode Runner, wait-
ing a half hour for the judges to
show up before realizing that the
judges hadnt been picked yet, NAID is but
a foggy memory for those who
throwing various articles of attended, du
e to the gargantuous amounts
defunct hardware in the name of of alcohol
available at the party.
competition, breakdancing, smoking,
smoking, getting your car towed,
and embarking on various excursion to the seamy underbelly
of jovial Canadian society. That, and the consumpti
on of eigth 4-litre pitchers of alchohol
and 500 chicken wings at one sitting by the ACiD crew at the
Peel Pub.
By Hack
ACiD now has at its disposal the use of two new FTP s
ites running at T1
bandwidth. This is quite an improvement over our past cap
abilities of only
57.6k. The first of these is our primary site, link1.mc
master.ca /acid, which
is graciously donated by the insightful staff at McMaster Uni
versity. The site
is run by Wolfie, who is also
the system administrator of acid.org,
and who takes over the role
that was previously held by
Wonder Monkey. The second of
these FTP sites was contributed by
Pacific Coast Micro, and can be found at
pcmicro.com /acid. This is our secondary
site which serves as a
mirror for link1, just in case
worst happens and Wolfie gets run
over by a garbage truck while
skiing with RaD Man, Somms and
Beastie. Five tons o putty is delivered
monthly to the ACiD FTP site.
By Cthulu
Bedlam, after leaving ACiD for Mop, once ma
de the astute observation
that artists, after leaving ACiD to pursue other groups in t
he scene may go on
but never do they return back to ACiD. With that thought i
n mind, we would
like to introduce the summer line-up of returning ACiD member
Descending to ACiD finally is Final Descendant.
No wait, hes ascending.
ACiD is a step up from wherever he was, after all. Joining
him in the upward
climb of ANSI ecstasy is Sinister X, formerly of Fire
Returning to ACiD is a legendary character from the pa
st - a former ACiD
American Coordinator - and the co-founder of some of the sti
ffest competition
we had seen recently. But once again Somms is back
working on our side.
Spirit of Illusion and Grateful Dead re
turn to ACiD from Dark and Legend,
respectively, and hope to stick around for a while this time.
As well as those old friends who are returning into our e
mbrace, there are
those who have not as of yet had the fortune to beco
me one with ACiD.
Everyones gotta have a first time, so the following are
now officially no
longer ACiD virgins.
Internal Flames, formerly of Mop, comes from Ru
ssia with love. Love for
drawing ANSI, that is. Reanimator, formerly of Flavor
, on the other hand, comes
from Finland. What with? Well, with all of those quaint Sca
ndinavian accents,
of course.
Tomppa1 also comes to us from Finland via Flavo
r, but this 7-year veteran
of the Amiga scene draws high resolution art. So does
Tosh10, formerly of
Teklordz and former founder of the defunct Error Art, but
he comes from the
other side of the border in Sweden.
While were on the topic of founders, we
may as well mention that
Necromancer, co-founder of the now non-existant Rem
orse ASCII, has come to us
to coordinate ACiDs ASCII division. O-Tron, himse
lf the founder of Fists of
Steel and former Art Coordinator of Teklordz, joins up
in an unsurpris-
ing ANSI drawing role.
Shaolin has founded nothing, but he comes to us
from Fire to draw RIPscrip
art. Rotting Christ brushes away the flies every on
e in a while to draw ANSI,
especially now that hes left BDP in Belgium, and the fantast
ical Borian leaves
Ice to come to us after corporate-style persecution for what
he considers to be
a hobby. However, that doesnt mean that he wont startle yo
u with his Geiger-
esque works of high-resolution nightmare.
In an attempt to develop other art formats and b
ecome truely multimedia we
have recruited the following six musical gentlemen into our
pHluid division to appeal to your sense of hearing.
Arclight
makes his scene debut just ahead of
Evo
lution, who placed in 10th at NAID and inspired
the wave. While there is dou
btlessly more to say
about him, that wi
ll remain his greatest accomp-
lishment to date
for some time. Vibrance is
formerly of Adment and Dark and hope
s that his
vibrances and resonations
will end in a somewhat
appealing configuration of waves.
Sikos is from
Israel and still uses the .S3M format! APPLAUSE
A traditionalist, you see
. We could tell you about
Taurus, but itd all be a loa
d of bull. You can
all rest easy, because
Rexazy has joined pHluid
from Fuel, Ices European div
ision.
Our coding staff undergoes a sin
gle addition
this season -
Mind Bender, a master of Pascal, C,
and Assembler, steps into line after servi
ng time
in TDD and DWA. I
ronically enough, while his
Taurus, a contemporary handle wa
s inspired by a run-in with some acid
ambient musician, cites three year
s ago, ACiD is inspired by our encounter
John Tesh as a hero. with him n
ow.
In this ever-changing age of technology and
pre-packaged foods, we find that there is a gap that needs
to be filled. That
gap is filled by Wolfie, who runs ACiDs Official FTP
site at link1.mcmaster.ca
and Thrasher, who runs the mirror of the official FT
P site at pcmicro.com. We welcome
them both to ACiDs AIS Division.
ACiDiC, our BBS modification
division, gains five talented individuals
as well in this reporting period -
Demaxxus maxes out, EWheat whos neat,
Redemption is absolved of past offenses,
Spatula makes pancakes, and Code Zero
handles the zeros. I guess they get
someone else to put in the ones.
Wolfie is seen
moments before
getting tranquilized, dragged out
of its habitat and forced to work
under arduous conditions for ACiD.
By Cthulu
What goes up, must come down. What goes around comes
around. You cant
lead a horse to water, but you... no, that one isnt approp
riate. East come,
easy go. Will we let them go? Bis-mi-la... er... yes. Yes
, unfortunately if
Beelzebub has his sights on them theres not a lot we can do
to those who stone
us and spit in our eyes.
Anubis
weighed the Feather of Truth against
hi
s heart, and went with the path of true
enlightenment to return as leader of
Force, an
Australian ANSI group.
Diocese was expelled from
the ACiD community
after doubts were cast as to the integr
ity of his
artistic inspirations. Remember, read between t
he
lines, folks.
Grifter just dis
appeared and grifted away one
day. No one ever heard from him again.
Inner Visio
n, in pursuit of yet another
Diocese wears a paper bag vision on
ly he could see, left ACiD to join Ice
over his head to hide his of all gr
oups.
embarrassment, as he was
kicked out for ripping.
Mr. Schizophrenia wanted to stay in ACiD, but
the other voices
wanted to try other groups.
After he laid off the medication, he really
didnt have much to say in the
matter.
Rza quietly packed up and joined the rank
s of inactive artists with
unpronounceable handles.
Sparr, fed up with never getting to keep ops
on kumquat, left the scene.
Little did he know that there was a netsplit two minutes a
fter he departed.
Splatt left ACiD with that dangerous startin
g a local group look in his
eyes. Consider yourselves forewarned.
Unsane took a vacation from the scene t
o unwind and reconcile his
psychiatrist and grammar teacher at last.
Zevo took a three month hiatus from his ri
gorus schedule of arranging
colored polygons. With any luck, we may see his return in t
he fall, though no
one really knows.
Krypto for reasons that were - you got it -
cryptic, he has decided to
neglect that most important portion of his life, the cyber
one. If you spot
him, be sure to yell board numbers and web addresses at him.
Psychoholic was a casualty in the difference
s between team leaders of
ACiDiC. It couldve been worse though... at least he wasn
t kept in a tiger
cage for three years.
By Cthulu and Hack
For various reasons, ACiD will be changing the format
under which its
released archives are named. The variable reasons vary varyin
gly. Do they vary
much? Very. On the release of our 50th pack, which we hav
e calculated to be
the September 1996 Acquisition, and henceforth, all ACiD pack
s will be released
in the format ACID-nn.ZIP, where nn is the number of
the pack released. This,
our first file format change since ACiDs inception, should
last well into the
next millenium, while the ACDUmmyy.ZIP format wou
ld get completely reduced to
gibberish around December 1999. Why are we changing it no
w? In September,
rather Well, 50 is a rather nice round number. Much more
so, than say, 90,
which would be the number of the first pack released in the n
ew age. The ideal year counting sytem
would of course mark year 1 at the release o
f the first ACiD Acquisition, but well have t
o bide our time before instituting such gros
s changes to the dating system. Well
have to settle for adding a new month - ACiDe
mber - inbetween
August and September. Then we can have the world-reknowne
d ACiDember ACiD
Member celebrations.
By Hack
Two years ago, ACiD set forth the standard for intern
et communications art groups by coming out w
ith its own domain. The debut of acid.exte
rn.ucsd.edu allowed ACiD to provide you with a wealth
of information through a then-amazing 57.6k connecti
on. As times change, so does the demand
for speed and so does ACiD. With the help of Wolfie, our se
cond AIS director,
we are now running acid.org at full T1 speed. This mean
s that files will
arrive to your ISP faster than ever, and continue to boast hi
gh transfer speeds
why supporting a ridiculously high amount o f simultaneous
logins on our web
pages. The transitioning from the old to the new enable
us to offer a new
and improved site. Add this one to your hotlist, as it pro
ves to be the best
the scene has to offer.
By Kosh
Now, straight from Late Night with Kosh Lette
rman, the official TOP TEN
list for WHY THE ACiD PACK ISNT OUT YET!
10. If you calculate it using evidence from the bible, the or
iginal Mayan
calendar, and the Hubble Telescope, its actually June 1s
t.
9. RaD Man is still recovering from his NAID hangover.
8. 12 year old lamers took over acid.
7. The ACiD newsletter is a full motion video ansimation.
6. The rest of the scene released their packs too late. ACiD
is actually early.
5. The whole scene decided to merge with ACiD.
4. Ice renamed everything with a *.ice extension and put it i
n their pack.
3. RaD Man only has a gig of hard drive space, and the pack i
s 2 gigs.
2. RaD Man is watching the I love Lucy marathon.
1. Cat has *only* 45 VGAs done for the pack so far.
With the end of the newsletter imminent, we feel
that it is an appropriate
time to announce ACiDs
Official Pets, both of which
are Albino Snow Corn
Snakes, RaD Mans Tempus Scales
APPLAUSE, and Necromancers
Al APPLAUSE.
ACiD continues to break new ground in the creation of new
artistic mediums,
in the validation of its scene-spanning triumphs
, and even in diplomacy. As the
innovations of yesterday b
ecome the standards of today,
we are given a
larger and larger base to rest on whi
le striving for even loftier pi
nnacles.
And, as always, we will be the first to deliver them to you.
ACiD 96 - Groovy.
ACiD Credits: Writers:
Cthulu, RaD Man, Hack Editor
: Necromancer ACiD
ACiD Special Thanks: Kosh
Photographer
: Nitnatsnoc ACiD