Alive
News Team Current issue History Online Support Download Forum @Pouet

01 - 02 - SE - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14

Alive 9
Paracon 6 Party Report

This was the first time I did ever visit an Atari party and therefore I think  I
should write another party report.

In the beginning I was quite unsure. ST Survivor convinced me to attend, telling
me about the nice party place, the breakfast and all over. So I decided to  make
it, take my  ST with me  and enjoy it  in its all  glory. But there  was a major
problem: how should I  get there? By car  would have been my  preferred solution
for sure  but I  personally do  not have  one nor  could I  manage to get one. I
already wanted to ask Creature / XL but he told me he had no car at the time  of
Paracon 6 and that he was looking for  a way to get there too. Major setback,  I
thought at first,  as he had  already kindly offered  to take me  to EIL3 a year
ago. But why  drop my plans  altogether? Another idea  came to my  mind. Why not
take on of my friends  from Clausthal? He is a  C64 fan so it would  have been a
nice thing. But he too couldn't manage to  have a car at the party date. In  the
end he even decided not to go at all. It was already begin of November and I had
no idea. But  then I simply  opted to go  by train, bought  myself an affordable
ticket and made sure I was welcome. I  surely was so I did go. I packed  my STFM
and some other stuff,  including my copy of  The Atari ST Profibuch  and a nifty
MC68000 manual. As I was going to take the train and I surely had no small TV  I
did go without a monitor or TV.  Cooper planned to come as well and  he promised
to bring me a TV in his car. Whew - final problem solved!

As I  had to  book my  train ticket  in advance  on fixed  trains and all on the
weekend, I started the trip from my parent's home at 5:30am in the morning.  the
train ride was ok although I had to stay one and a half hour out of six at  ugly
train stations to wait for the next train.

Then it was 11:20 and I was  at the "ugly greenish" train station of  Selters. I
took out the invitation text with the description. Finding the pub and the  road
next to it was easy.  I just fell down the  hill and stood on the  small bridge.
Now the text said "the location is a few hundred meters ahead." Well, it was not
"a few",  but a  single. I  could already  see the  public swimming pool and the
white building next  to the street  turned out to  be the DLRG  building. I must
admit, it was  very very quiet  around there and  I decided to  peek through the
front windows first. Not much to be seen so I simply decided to ring the bell.

Surely  I was  right, Ray  opened the  door and  I could  already see  some old
computers running in the back with a few people. My first statement was "I'm  at
the right place :)". The party was already going strong, atleast I thought  that
but it looked not that productive  at first. Most people were already  there and
The Paranoid quickly showed me everything  at the place. They had a  comfortable
table for Cooper and me, although  Cooper and ST Survivor were still  missing. I
did unpack my lot  on the table next  to Manou who was  heavy at music stuff  as
well as Gwem next to her. I had no monitor so I just unpacked and soon got  into
a very nice conversation with  RA/Paradox. Soon we were talking  about oldschool
stuff  and techniques.  He showed  me his  truecolor slideshow  for STE  and we
watched a bit of "The Dark Side Of The Spoon", all on Zweckform's STE as RA only
had a Falcon and I  no monitor. Meeting the others  was easy as well and  I soon
felt very comfortable with all those nice fellows. Paranoia was at work to do  a
party movie and they soon put my MC68000 manual on tape. I must admit at first I
had some small problems guessing who is who but I managed it.

As I had no machine and RA was coding, I looked here and there and chatted  with
Ray a bit. Ray even  had brought an RGB monitor,  dunno anymore for whom it  was
intended. But it seemed not to work properly on Falcon. Ray offered to try it on
my STFM and we did. But it didn't work either. The picture was crisp and stable,
for a mere  10 seconds, before  it would collapse  and Ray had  to try the knobs
again. After 5 minutes of trying to stabilize the picture, we both decided  that
it wouldn't work. Bad luck - but it was very kind by Ray to offer a try!

The party was going strong and the Frenchies were still missing. Paranoid  said,
normally they would be at the location around 2:00pm, well it was already a  bit
later and so it  went. No monitor to  code or even play  a game - but  I was not
pissed, there was so  much to see. MagiC  desktops around, Ray's cool  CT60 in a
standard case with outer shell removed, Earx coding some interesting effects  on
a very small TV, Gwem and Manou obviously doing music. I surely was the only one
to bring a standard STFM but no one joked or complained on that. I was simply an
accepted scener  at a  scene party.  That felt  very nice  indeed! Time went on,
still the Frenchies were missing. Lotek Style however appeared in the afternoon,
greeting everyone and he soon deployed his Falcon as well. Now interesting stuff
begun as Lotek and  Ray discussed, coded and  checked parts of the   latest TSCC
demo, Beams. Lotek even had some sort of script and Ray did work on the endpart.
It was very interesting to see the ongoing work and the design  flow as well  as
some effects on it.  Very cool stuff indeed  and I enjoyed watching  the ongoing
work.

Time went on and we played a bit of Obsession on Paranoid's Falcon. And sometime
around 17:00 the Frechies finally did  arrive. "Better late than never!" was  my
reaction and soon both Cooper and ST Survivor brought their gear in. And,  thank
god, Cooper did bring a TV for me. Again, thanks mate, you saved my day! We  had
a bit  of chatting,  coding, showing  stuff and  pieces and  things were  simply
great. A bit later, I accompanied  ST Survivor and Cooper to the  supermarket to
get some food and juice to drink.

The rest of the evening was filled with playing a few games, yes I played  Xenon
and Lethal Xcess on Saturday evening. Both  Lotek Style and Earx did join me  on
LX for a round and it  was a lot of fun for  me. I coded on my upcoming  game as
well, working close with  STS who did another  piece of graphics for  me which I
integrated into my code. I hadn't coded for 2 months or more and now I did  feel
a lot of motivation at Paracon.

Actually I  started to  get a  bit tired  at that  point, I'm  sure midnight was
through when  The Paranoid  connected the  beamer to  his Falcon  and we all did
watch some Falcon demos  on the big screen.  They were all a  bit psychodelic in
design so I felt a bit dizzy and together with my tiredness, I decided to get my
sleeping bag  and take  my night  nap. It  was around  2:00am on  sunday when  I
climbed the  stairs and  got to  sleep. Sleeping  was ok,  although someone  was
snoring  very heavy.  Well having  been in  the German  Navy, I  knew one  could
survive that so it surely was ok.

I did awake in the morning when  sunlight came through the upper windows of  the
hall. It was  probably around 8:30am  when I climbed  down the stairs.  Only one
active at  that time  was Zweckform  who was  playing Obsession  on his  STE. We
chatted a  bit but  then I  did hit  my STFM  and coded  a bit  more. One  after
another, the others climbed down and  geared up for the day. The  Feske brothers
were missing though. It seemed they needed a longer nap compared to the  others.
Soon someone  yelled "breakfast  is ready"  and we  had a  very great breakfast.
Although I personally don't like Mini-Pizza for breakfast, anything I liked  was
there. Rolls, croissants, strawberry jam, yoghurt  and milk, I was happy and  it
was great. Just as STS did promise  me - a breakfast for gods, really!  Noon was
arriving and most people  started to pack their  stuff. i had a  final nice talk
with the Feske brothers, Lotek and Ray and then, one for one, did leave.

But I managed to get signatures on my STFM from all sceners there. You can see a
picture taken by Charon at the Paradize website, http://paradize.atari.org/.

Sooner or later in  the afternoon I was  the last scener there,  all others were
gone, except  for the  Paranoia guys  who cleaned  the place.  I helped them and
still had about an whole hour to wait at the train station. But finally my train
arrived and I headed home.

It was a very nice party and I  did meet so many nice and friendly chaps  that I
really would like to meet them  all again. The small but friendly  Paracon party
is really an event I will keep in my heart for a long time!

Great party, great breakfast and lots of cool Atari stuff - Paracon rulez!

                                       Simon Sunnyboy / Paradize for Alive, 2005


Alive 9