Altparty 2024

The ceremony's about to begin

I probably shouldn't make a party report before the party has ended, but hey, it's alt, it's different!

I confess I added Alt Party (11-13 October 2024, Helsinki, Museum of Technology) to the year's party roster because I just couldn't avoid going to a demoparty so near. No hotels, no badly slept nights, no stressing about the contents of my bag.

Not been to Alt Party before, there was considerable "party shyness" on my part. Even if I had some more time on my hands lately, not so sure if I would have dared to contribute to a demoparty I know so little of, and that prides on doing things differently.

Perhaps many others felt like it too, as the number of entries in compos were rather low, not in proportion to the amount of people I saw in the audience.

AI music compo starting

I was impressed by the music compos, because in some parties it becomes something of a chore. But here the low number of entries was beneficial, so the obscure music compo stayed fresh and not tiresome. 

At some point of AI music compo I could have started wondering why I need to listen to this, but then it was already over. I feel we also witnessed some reverse cheating, as at least one of the songs didn't sound like it was only a result of a prompt (and no prompt was given).

Alt Party might be a little flexible in how the compo rules are interpreted, but it may also be they needed take "all in" to have at least a number of works.

Ultimately the demo compos were fine, and the "dynamic demo" is an interesting category, having to prove that your demo has a realtime element in that it plays a little differently each time – it's not an animation or a music video. I expected having to view the demo twice would be boring, but it was in fact quite intriguing. Certainly some succeeded better in making a re-watchable demo than others.

What was dubbed as the "Temple" for this weekend

The milieu of the Museum of Technology, and the exhibition itself is worth visiting. The party organizers had gone through the effort of integrating demo culture in some of the permanent exhibition, and I felt this was a good idea. 

Esko

I'd not been there before so overall the weekend was of high value. The normal exhibition features things like old TVs, radios, computers, industrial control equipment, but also vehicles and tools. This is a very suitable environment for a demoparty.

They put a färjan in a färjan

Skrolli magazine was again present, with a Commodore 128 running Super Mario, Spike on a Vectrex, and some obscure Japanese(?) computer I already forgot. This time did 292 with the "speden spelit" speed challenge, trying a two hand approach. Apparently someone had broken 400+.

For me, the most interesting single piece of hardware on display was the Canon Cat, in working condition and you could type and try the LEAP-based text navigation. A couple of Forth-based entries were present in the 256-byte compos. I forgot who brought the Cat there, but will add that information later.

Canon Cat

Prof. Nick Montfort gave a remote presentation, going through the generative text art angle he has been exploring, mostly in the context of WWW and in the frame of collaboration. Although the "10 PRINT" work is legendary and there was ample contextualization, the presentation might have rubbed a part of the audience wrong way.

At least one person opined it was "shit" (!) and comparable to BASIC hobbyist stuff of early 1980s. The latter evaluation is perhaps not wrong, as Montfort can just as well align himself with the demoscene, Brian Eno or David Ahl's book of Basic Computer Games.

Montfort has done a consistent body of work at the uneasy intersection of demoscene, computer history, art and the study of language. Perhaps Montfort doesn't even need the demoscene, but I feel the demoscene needs people like Montfort.

Nick Montfort

It may be that going to a demoparty so near removes some of the excitement of visiting an "other" place. It became rather easy to just jump in at a convenient point of the schedule, and then leave when it looked like nothing was happening any more.

As often happens with these things, "if only I had known" I could have cobbled together some filler entries. Maybe I will be wiser the next time, if there's another Alt Party.

River Vantaa

No Man's Sky (Linux Proton)

Fixing the broken ship is one of the first tasks

With Proton, I could get No Man's Sky to work easily on Linux/Steam. And no wonder, it's about eight years old and a major release. Back then it got lukewarm reviews at best, but famously the game got a lot of upgrades and now it's supposedly very good. But is it?

After some 10 hours of play, I feel a little uncertain if I will continue far with it.

Coming from 8-bit Elite and 16-bit Frontier, at first I have to say the focus is of course much more on planetary exploration.

Here, docking isn't difficult. Or even necessary.

The basic game play is smooth, I have had no problems or crashes. WASD and mouse your way around, use the raygun to mine away rocks and plants and receive raw materials. Then craft and research and craft and build some more. And then you get past the initial survivalist and tutorial-like phases, and you can choose to fly elsewhere and trade with aliens and build bases and whatnot.

There are occasional reminders of past games. Apart from the obvious Elite comparisons, flying in space reminded me of the hilariously compact universe in Starglider 2. I had some vague Ultima/Space Rogue vibes especially when visiting the space station. But if this was Ultima, I'd already have a more coherent idea of the world and its purposes. I don't expect a linear story—best Ultimas really didn't—but there is some kind of heart missing.

Gaming went through a phase where crafting, upgrading and building had to be added to nearly all games. No Man's Sky is practically built on the entire premise. I'm guessing many are now sick of the excessive crafting and tinkering, and want more straightforward experiences. I know I do.

One of the numerous alien creatures you'll encounter

This is not to say the game doesn't have its moments. But the exceptional events also often amount to nothing, or result in the same humdrum actions you can do anyway. For example, after I built a base a trader landed with its ship to the premises, enabling me to discuss and trade. This felt nice, but I actually had very little to gain from this encounter.

The same could be said with the sudden discovery of a trading post on the planet I was exploring. It was refreshing after the rather repetitive landscapes. A bustle of activity, ships landing and taking off, persons to meet, language to learn, items to trade and ships to buy.

Yet, in the end the characters don't have even the dimensions of the hand-written short keyword dialogues of, say, Ultima IV. Granted, I've not yet learnt much of the Gek language, but it already looks like they have little to say.

Guess we're now spoiled, in 1990s small events such as these would have felt mega.

A trader appears. The Teleport in the background.

I could perhaps look even past all this vagueness, if the game's relation to space was more disciplined. And with this I mean the teleportation, and some details concerning with terrain manipulation.

The game encourages you to build a base and a teleport. After the teleport is built, you can visit the space station you have previously found, and teleport between them. Not only do you teleport, but your spaceship teleports too.

And I'm then left wondering what is the point of the spaceship logistics after all. Ok, after finding more planets you don't immediately have a teleport and a base, but discovering space stations does produce new teleport locations.

This also means the trading and upgrades aren't a minor satisfying prize after a successful journey (like in Elite). You teleport to the station, find you didn't grind enough materials on the surface, then teleport back.

Gee whizz, yet another planet and some crystals to mine

Secondly, the planets mostly provide a repetitive sandbox where everything you materially need is usually found within reasonable distance.

Well, some planets have a decent amount of macro-structure, such as oceans and subterranean caverns. Yet large wrecks, outposts, settlements tend to be the similar and also offer similar activities.

Another thing is the landscape. On first sight it offers obstacles to overcome, but if you insist you can dig a staircase through a mountain with the mining beam. The same item that enables Minecraft-esque manipulation of environment, also tends to trivialize the whole idea of the "landscape". If there's nothing that blocks your way, are you really in a credible environment?

Some happenings in the obligatory all-too-dense asteroid field

I sort of get that if the player can't move fast and teleport between systems, it could make traveling boring. But it's a game design and scale issue to solve. The exploration would be more meaningful and memorable, if it was a little more grounded.

After hitting on something that looks like might be some kind of major quest in the game, things might  begin to improve. The game is also quite good at hinting at future possibilities, such as a wheeled vehicle and different types of spaceships.

It's just sometimes there appears to be so much to do and so many threads to follow, I feel like I can't be bothered with any of them.

Despite all the missions, trading, quests, expeditions, activities and building, I can't somehow shake the feeling this is some kind of gigantic, glorified Farmville, where my next task is simply defined by what I happened to activate previously.

My base, resembling a 1970s detached house. Soon to extend underground.

I can't say the old games always solved these things much better. How Elite got around this was the fact the planets were not genuinely that different, so it didn't matter much where in the universe you were. But it at least used a simple but effective RPG fight/reward structures. 

With Frontier I felt it would be genuinely interesting to visit some distant star system, and you needed to make at least some effort to get there.

Maybe I'm envisioning a perfect space exploration game somewhere in the middle of a triangle made up from Elite Dangerous, Everspace and No Man's Sky:

From Elite Dangerous, I'd take something of the realistic nature of the universe. No instant teleports between star systems, unless as a very rare stargate-type event.

I'm not sure 3rd person walking elements should be part of the game. At least visiting space stations is exciting enough to justify it. No Man's Sky planetary exploration is I guess almost good enough as it is, but as said it could benefit more from planetary macro-structures, unevenly distributed resources and less options for manipulating the environment.

Everspace provided an enjoyable combat system and ship upgrades. Fighting against larger ships was an interesting challenge and sometimes even tremendous fun. Also the derelict ships, space stations and large asteroids were nice environments for exploring.

Exploring an underground cavern

Granted, I haven't yet seen much of what No Man's Sky has to offer, but it quite doesn't yet have the pull on me. It's a little weird that I got most Elite-vibes from Everspace, even if it's not very open. Or perhaps just because.

Thumbs up to No Man's Sky as a huge Proton-enabled game.

Dex part 2

The exploration of the Samsung Dex desk environment warranted a second look, as I purchased yet one more Bluetooth keyboard and a mouse to go with it. 

Moving the windows around certainly improved and text editing in Google Docs became easier. 

Even if I admit the mouse button has some slippy quality, it looks like the environment is not as well designed as it first appeared to be. Tiny glitches are not uncommon, and there is maybe some vestige of the touch screen interface in the way the UI buttons work.

Apps generally play more nicely with the large screen format than I expected, although it's not universal.

Sublime Text mobile version didn't quite convince me on the small screen and didn't quite win me over on the full screen either.

The focused writing app Iawriter was nice, but I find it hard to justify it as Docs works now so well. It could work better on the small screen, as there's less clutter.

When using mostly one application, such as the Docs, the system works nicely.

I didn't do a huge survey of mice and keyboards, but did some quick choices based on size, weight and portability.

The mouse is Jlab GO Charge, which can be recharged with USB-C style connector. The mouse can be set with 2.4GHz or Bluetooth interface, and there's a dongle for the 2.4-style connection. The dongle can be carried in a slot within the mouse, so it's unlikely to get lost if stored this way.

The keyboard is Logitech Keys-to-Go 2, a relatively new and not too cheap keyboard. It felt light enough with normal size keys and a standard layout.

The keyboard is powered by CR2032 batteries, which is not a huge plus, but contributes to the flatness and lightness. The 36 month battery life sounds like the usual bogus, but let's hope I don't have to switch them more than once a year. (I'm looking at you Apple Mini BT keyboard!)

At least there is a power switch to prevent accidental current draw. The Keys-to-Go 2 doesn't even weigh much more than my earlier Voxicon foldable block, 222 grams against Voxicon's 166. The shape is better for sliding into a bag compartment.

The arrow keys are tiny and the presence of the function key row might be questioned, but all in all the layout is a proper one and not a compromise like in the Voxicon. The ; : _ - are where they are supposed to be. The key feel is good but not quite as firm as in the Apple Mini.

The non-removable cover flap was a major attraction and feels worth it when traveling. I just couldn't bother with a separate box or bag for keyboard.

The flap is supposed to go under the keys when typing, there's even a magnet to help keep it in place. To me this didn't work well at first, as the keyboard "jumps" a little while typing on the mushy hinge. Another magnet near the back might have helped.

But it looks like the hinge part might become a little more loose over time, which should improve the situation.

Wolfcraft flip-bit system

The flip-bit attached

Sometimes I just see something and know that eventually I'm going to buy it. A flip-bit system for power drills. More toys.

The idea here is that you can attach two bits, drills and such to the flip-bit and then it should become handy to switch between the two. Two flip-bits can have four functions at hand. If this sounds a little silly, well, it kind of is and isn't. Read on...

Wolfcraft 3086

I confess I somehow thought the bits would flip magically while in place, but that would be far too magical. You yank the flip-bit out of the locking position, pull it out, turn around and turn to lock.

At first the flip-bit didn't seem fast and I felt I had paid for things I already owned.

Also, this is more for garden bench type tasks, perhaps for someone who doesn't have many tools to begin with.

For these reasons, my first impressions were not all that great, but after using the set a few times I started warming to it.

The flip-bit pieces, with bits attached

The bit that does a drill hole and the countersink hole in one pass, is already of some value in itself. The short drill bits act as they have a built-in depth limiter, and these have their uses too. 

Although I must also point out there are situations where the drills might not reach deep enough. Another downside is you're stuck with the 2,3 and 4 mm drills as normal drills are too long and can't be attached to the system.

The flip bit gimmick requires some more forethought than I usually do, but that can only be a good thing.

I have to figure out what I need for the task, for example attach the countersink+drill into the other flip-bit, tighten it, then insert the relevant screw driver bit to the other side.

Countersink tools and a bit for e.g. screw hooks.

The sides are not symmetric, so you can't attach two drills to the same flip-bit. The driver bits are attached magnetically, while the other side needs to be tightened using a hex key.

After drilling the holes I turn the flip-bit over and re-insert it.

This isn't so much about speed. You can learn to switch bits quickly by holding the drill chuck and using the motor to remove/attach them. At least I don't have to fear dropping and losing small parts.

The whole kit

Usually, a second power drill comes in handy when doing multi-step tasks such as countersinks. But the flip-bit largely removes this need, and there's less to carry around.

The positive sides outweigh the few constraints. The flip action isn't perhaps all that great in and of itself, but the set brings together some order and intelligence. It would be wise to keep these trinkets together in the box they came in and not mix them with other gear.

Samsung Dex desktop

A theme I occasionally return to: what's a nice light-weight solution for a computer desktop or writing environment?

The obvious answer is "use a small laptop, dummy", but apparently I have been looking for something else.

My last Samsung phone could already provide a Google Docs environment for emergency note-taking, and now that I got an excuse to buy a newer phone, there's an added dimension.

Samsung S23FE has the Dex ("DeX") function which does not only mirror the screen to a larger display, but provides a desktop-like environment with all the support for a mouse and keyboard you'd expect.

For me the most basic way to do this is to use an USB-C to HDMI cable. A hub would work, but at least for now I think carrying a larger block around might work against the concept. I'll get yet another Bluetooth keyboard and a mouse and suffer the recharging carousel.

Fujitsu, Exibel, Belkin

After I bought one adapter, I found I already own two previously, and I don't quite get why as I believe my previous phone did not do any display mirroring. So I have a Belkin, Exibel and a Fujitsu adapters. Exibel and Fujitsu are on a short cable whereas the Belkin has an integrated 2m cable.

At least I could discover these are not all equal, as the Belkin one did not work with my HP Elite display at home. The Fujitsu and Exibel worked just fine.

The HP Elite display was a little disappointing, only offering one possible resolution which scaled poorly with the native resolution. Swapping the overscan options in the display itself, did not help.

At the office, the Fujitsu B27-9-TS-QHD display fared better, enabling a "Full HD" of 1920 x 1080. This display also accepted all the three adapters. The way the display is set up as a USB hub requires a weird cable, so I couldn't check if it would have acted as a hub for the phone.

The display and the phone react quite fast to the connection, the slightly older HP took a few more seconds to align itself.

Multiple windows open on desk

The phone touch screen can act as a trackpad, but sadly when the saver turns the screen off, it has to be turned on again to function. It may also deplete the battery quicker, despite being very low-key.

Basic pointer navigation and panning content worked rather well with the screenpad, pinching and selecting text less so.

Moving and resizing windows I felt was unresponsive, more due to design than the touch screen.

A couple of times I felt the virtual keyboard failed to respond, which was surprising as I would expect it to be a robust function. A physical keyboard would be preferable anyway.

Display resolution options appear limited

After connecting a Bluetooth keyboard, I think this is a better environment for Google Docs than a Raspberry Pi 4/400 on Raspbian.

Now it is clear the small Voxicon keyboard that was passable for writing notes on the tiny screen, is no longer qualified for typing on the big screen.

The Samsung Android phone with a desktop is quite funny experience, reminding me of how things were on Atari ST or early Mac.

It's weird that I tend to forget the whole phone ecosystem is there: browser, Facebook, maps, calendar, messaging, etc. and whatever you put into your phone are already in place, and as I have left them. Perhaps some part of my mind thinks this is a "computer" and hence a separate world from the phone.

A bunch of apps

This Samsung is at the low-end of Dex-capable phones, so it doesn't have the best processor or a lot of memory (8GB though). I wouldn't expect much from web browsing, for example scrolling news sites is probably better to do on the slick mobile screen.

Dex at least on this phone is not the route for watching Netflix or other streaming services full screen, as it does look a little choppy. Only in an emergency. Casting is far more preferable, but of course it needs a Chromecast dongle in the same network.

The Youtube app felt passable for watching a small video but I'm thinking the small screen might again be more forgiving for low bitrate videos.

It may be the more powerful Samsung phones can do video better and the overall experience could be smoother.

Looking more at third-party apps, it's clear not every app is maintained well enough to play nice with the Dex environment. For example, whereas the Blogger app might work for creating posts on the mobile screen, it was actually better to open Blogger inside the browser in Dex. The app seemed to make a mess out of the keyboard input.

There are hilarious details. Opening a Google service through browser can initiate the phone-based security check – on the exact same device.

At least on S23FE the Dex is hardly a replacement for an entire desktop computer, but it looks like surprisingly diverse tasks can be handled with it and they can benefit from the large screen format.

Akai EIE (not Pro)

Akai EIE

I never really had a solution for simultaneous multi-track recording on the computer, so it's high time I got to experiment with it. I got this old AKAI EIE for so cheap it doesn't much matter if it disintegrates tomorrow.

The EIE is from 2011 so it's a little long in the tooth. Technically, I can use the likewise old Fostex MR-8 to record four mono-tracks, but it is a cumbersome solution and I don't even really have the cables to do that.

By the way, it's easy to miss the distinction between the EIE and the EIE Pro version. They have the same interface, but the Pro version has higher sampling rates available. The pro has a silver panel, whereas this older EIE has a red panel. The mistake is easy to make, after all the word "professional" is stamped around the box about four times.

This is in a way fortunate because the ordinary EIE does not have any complications with drivers on Linux, and I could quite happily record 4 simultaneous tracks on Audacity on first try. But the quality remains at 16bit 44Khz.

The front panel

Before relating my experiences, I'll have a peep at the panels.

In front, there are the four inputs, combo XLR/TRS style, four gains and settings for guitar/line/mic levels and phantom power.

There are two round analog VU meters, which contribute to the somewhat naive styling of the box. The late 00's saw these weird retro aesthetics on synths and gear. Hence the analog amp look, replete with metal toggle switches. Usefully, the VUs flash violently red if peaking. In a dark room you'd probably see the flashes even if you weren't looking at the VUs.

Volume Unit meters

Some further knobs and switches adjust the headphone level and channel combinations. There's a toggle for stereo/mono which is useful when recording mono channels. You can also decide which channel pairs are shown in the VU, or if they indicate input or output.

At the back there are four outputs and inserts, and apparently the inserts can be used for external sound processing. Without a bus and level adjustments (it's not a mixer after all) I'm unsure what is their value. Perhaps the idea is to control the levels from the separate equipment itself. The short manual isn't much use here, apparently monitor speakers can be connected to the outputs.

The back panel

There's MIDI in and out, and the main USB connection between the EIE and the computer. An 1.1 USB doesn't sound much, but it should be enough for the 16-bit 44Khz traffic. The Pro version I suppose must have USB 2.0.

The EIE also works as an USB hub for three devices, but again with 1.1. so maybe only useful as a power source. Ok, it's possible to insert an USB-MIDI keyboard.

Somewhere I read a comment saying these USBs produce very little electric disturbance and hum, so perhaps there's that too. It might be the one area where the EIE has become a little more valuable over age, as so many tiny synths can be USB-powered these days.

EIE and Ardour

I was mainly interested in having multi-channel audio recorded with MIDI-clock sync. Recording without synced clock would be nearly useless. A "120 BPM" in the source machine might not agree with the recording computer, and there would be a mismatch between the bar grid and the sound data.

As the recorder sends a clock signal, the audio will be instead happily laid over the bar grid, facilitating further bar-based editing and song construction.

I tried Qtractor at first as I'm already familiar with it, but I just couldn't bother with getting EIE to work with Jack, so I installed Ardour and used ALSA.

Ardour5

I'm not that keen to move over to a full-on DAW that does everything, Ardour looks sufficient for recording and has good editing facilities.

As I have a Roland Boutique synth, on occasions I found Linux had chosen that as an audio device (the boutiques do that) so I had to explicitly tell the system the EIE is the desired output device. Looking with Alsamixer there are no adjustable parameters for the EIE.

Ardour tracks explicitly connected to outputs

Setting up things with the EIE and Ardour had some complications, as it wasn't always obvious if I'm meant to hear the sound or not. I fought for a while with something I thought was a clock sync misunderstanding, only to find out I had to flip a switch in the EIE to hear the sound. It's a little uncertain if the same would have helped with Qtractor, but I doubt it.

Also, Ardour can lose the configuration and it may need to be re-set for each new project.

I can also have four-channel output from the Ardour but in practice it's better to re-route to "stereo".

Ardour MIDI clock setting for EIE Midi interface

Likewise, to have the MIDI clock working, I have to use the Ardour "patching matrix" style interface. Here the Boutique has imposed itself as a possible MIDI device too.

I have to say the editing is quite intuitive, the audio blocks can be cut, spliced and moved about quickly. 

What I got with my setup is a slight mismatch between the recording starting point, which didn't exactly line up with the beginning of the tracks. Not sure if this has anything to do with EIE, or some parameter in Ardour.

Anyway, it was easy to fix in the edit, by cutting the obvious extra and moving the tracks to the start position. After that it's simple to cut, paste, remove and repeat song portions.

Some empty space at the start of the recording, to be cut away

A problem with a small number of recording tracks is that separating percussion could easily take four or more channels.

There's a cheap way to improve the situation a little, by recording permutations of the beat after the "song" proper has been recorded. So you can have bars with kick or hihat only, then use repeats to create new tracks for all of them.

In any case it looks it would be better if the basic bones of a song fit into four tracks. Afterwards, four more tracks might be recorded for further embellishments. Again it looks like the gear is aimed at the classic 4-person band who want to record a demo.

Trying to figure settings for punching in some MIDI USB keyboard playing ultimately crashed Ardour, and I started recalling why I moved away from this type of software in the first place.

But anyway, in the end the EIE box did what I wanted, it records four (mono) channels simultaneously and it wasn't expensive. In addition, it does perform as a funny-looking sound card, and I don't have to switch between general computer use and sound recording contexts.

Vammala Party 2024

This was the thirtieth Vammala Party, and Thirty years of Vammala Party. It was also the tenth anniversary for me, and the eleventh visit overall. 

The location is the almost standard Kauppila farm, with good accommodation and suitable outdoors options. The weather was mixed, but not limiting in any way.

The event is not purely a demoparty, one could say the demoscene events only occupy one corner of the whole thing. This in some ways makes it more appealing than many demoparties, but it's also apparent the compos don't have many entries.

The Wild compo was strong as usual, there are even certain traditions and styles observed, which have grown (or in-grown) during the years.

I had nothing to contribute beforehand to the compos, except an idea for the Tuplain compo where existing youtube audio is combined with another video. I combined a slowed down C64 Delta footage with Koyaanisqatsi music. When I have little expectations about winning the compo, I submit something I'd personally like to see, or want to show to others.

The reverse also exists, of combining slowed down SID Delta music with a Koyaanisqatsi clip, but I spared the audience from this as the music sounded rather horrible.

The customary on-site Commodore 64 PETSCII was done, and it turned out ok.

Pals, Commodore 64 PETSCII

Then I began working on a Tic-80 fantasy console image. This I supposed would be small enough to do on location. Yet my ambition grew and I saw the idea would not really fit into that resolution. So, I switched over to Atari ST format and kept on pixeling.

I am working on adding a Tic-80 mode to Multipaint, but the more I understand about it the less interesting it seems. With 24-bit RGB colors, the mode is so flexible as to be almost pointless.

Also, using the two layers, 32 colors could be invoked, and with some tricks I believe even more is possible. So I could almost just as well enable a low resolution 24-bit RGB mode. Meh.

But enough of that.

Pixels in Space, Atari ST, 320x200, 16 colors out of 512

The Atari ST outcome is nice, and although I could see a few more evenings would help a little, the hands are a little lazy and the dithering could be more refined. But there's also a certain roughness I like.

Perhaps using the default Tic-80 palette as a starting point helped take the image in this direction, instead of doing the "one color slide and accents" approach. I'm also relatively unaware what peak Atari ST images look like, so I was not too much pressured by precedents.

https://demozoo.org/parties/5037/