
                                           Abduction'97 - The Cow Strikes Back
                                     A Silly Little Infofile, Stardate 20039.7
                                                                  Version 1.00



   Hello there you all little wanna-be-abductees!

   Here's a silly little infofile for all of you. Its purpose is to spread in-
   formation (especially among the  Amiga people as there is no pre-invitation  
   intro for Amiga (for certain reasons - we're sorry)). You just have to deal
   with this text  until the final invitation  intro (and the final invitation
   text) will be released in a month or two. Stay looney-tuned.


   Abduction?!?:

      A demoparty. Quite a big demoparty actually.  Bigger than an eating cow.
      Or a pack of eating cows.  Lotsa Amiga and PC abductees. Last year ~500.
      This year even more. Held annually. Since 1994. In Oulu, Finland. On the
      second weekend of June. Like always.  Good entertainment for all of you.
      Very fun indeed.  Great features.  As always. Trust us.  Trust Abduction
      Organizing.

      Date & time:   6-8th of June, 1997. The doors will open at 10:00 on Fri-
                     day and close at  12:00 on Sunday.  The detailed schedule
                     will be included in the final invitation text.

      Place:         Oulun urheilutalo in Oulu, Finland.

      Entrance fee:  100FIM (~20USD). Girls, foreigners and senior citizens :)
                     get in for free!

      Features:      The usual:  lotsa room, lotsa electricity,  lotsa tables,
                     lotsa chairs, lotsa quiet sleeping places, lotsa competi-
                     tions for PC and Amiga,  lotsa high-tech PA stuff,  lotsa
                     real-time-voting, lotsa coke and junk-food for sale, lot-
                     sa just about everything.  Read lotsa more from the final
                     invitation.
   

   The usual:

      - absolutely no  alchol, drugs, smoking,  vandalism or piracy inside the
        partyplace (sex is allowed, though)
      - you are not allowed to sell hardware, software or food without getting
        a permission from the organizers
      - you are legally responsible for your actions  -  you break it, you pay
        for it
      - the organizers have a right to remove a person from the partyplace and
        not to let him (or her) in again if the person has broken any of these
        rules or any Finnish or international laws
      - the organizers are pretty almighty


   Competitions:

      We have made a decision to increase the number of competitions. At least
      the following competitions will be held for sure:  Amiga demo and intro,
      PC demo and intro, music,  graphics, raytracing and wild. Read the final
      invitation to find out if there will be even more competitions (not that
      likely, though).

      We have to say that last year we were  a little disappointed at the qua-
      lity of Amiga demo competition (with a few exceptions of course).  Put a
      little more  effort on your productions  and we promise that you will be
      rewarded. Trust us. Trust Abduction Organizing.

      The organizers will choose the jury members and the juries choose  which
      productions will be seen  and heard in the finals.  The number of shown/
      played entries will be 15-20 (or less if the quality or quantity of pro-
      ductions is low).  And, please, don't run away when the jury members are
      being selected.

      By entering any competition at Abduction'97 you give us a permit to pub-
      lish your  entry on CD-ROM.  Top 3 in every category will receive royal-
      ties if the CD-ROM project will become reality. For the very same reason
      all filenames must be  ISO-9660 standard compliant  (only 8+3 characters
      and no special characters). The very same rule applies also to producti-
      ons made on Amiga.

      In demo, intro and wild competitions at least one of the authors must be
      present at the partyplace.  In music, graphics and raytracing competiti-
      ons all the authors must be present at the partyplace.

      The prizes are good.
      
      The competition machines are:

         Intel Pentium 150MHz

            - MS-DOS 7.0
            - 16MB RAM
            - GUS Max 1MB (SB Pro will be installed when (/if) needed)
            - 2MB VRAM PCI (S3) video card

            The competition machine has  580000 bytes of free conventional me-
            mory and it has many  configurations  (you choose one when submit-
            ting your entry).

         A1200/060

            - Blizzard 1260 - 68060/50MHz
            - AmigaOS 3.1
            - 2MB chip RAM + 16 MB fast RAM
            
      And here are the rules which may still change (not radically, though):

         PC demo

            - the maximum size of demo in an executable form is 4096 kilobytes
            - VESA 2.0 modes are allowed, but 100% VGA register compatible vi-
              deo mode(s) must be supported
            - pure animations are not allowed
            - demo must not save anything on the hard disk
            - demo must run without any kind of interaction (except for setup)
            - demo must work without sound / a sound card, too
            - one must be able to quit demo by pressing ESC
            - only the first 10 minutes of the demo will be shown

         PC intro
      
            - see the  PC demo competition  rules (the only  difference is the
              size limit which is 64 kilobytes in PC intro competition)

         Amiga demo

            - the maximum size of demo in an executable form is 4096 kilobytes
            - demo must not save anything on the hard disk
            - pure animations are not allowed
            - demo must be harddisk-installable
            - demo must run without any kind of interaction (except for setup)
            - only the first 10 minutes of the demo will be shown
            - one must be able to quit demo by clicking the mouse

         Amiga intro

            - see the Amiga demo competition rules (the only difference is the
              size limit which is 64 kilobytes in Amiga intro competition)

         Graphics

            - maximum resolution is 640x480, 256 colors out of 16.7 million
            - any format supported by the most often used viewers will do
            - scanned, ripped or  raytraced pictures are  not allowed (neither
              are those which contain registered trademarks or logos
            - submit two versions of the picture (one with your signature, one
              without it)
            - only one picture from one artist
            - pictures  will be shown on  either Amiga or PC  depending on the
              computer they were made on

         Music 
    
            - both multichannel and 4-channel songs will compete in this cate-
              gory
            - 50% of the songs played in the finals will be 4-channel modules
            - all standard formats are allowed (such as S3M, XM, IT and MOD)
            - maximum size of the song is 1024 kilobytes
            - maximum number of channels is 32
            - no MIDI songs
            - only one song from one artist
            - all modules will be played either on PC equipped with GUS (1 MB)
              or on Amiga depending on the computer they were made on
            - only the first 4 minutes of the song will be played

         Raytracing

            - maximum resolution is 640x480, 16.7 million colors
            - any format supported by the most often used viewers will do
            - submit two versions of the picture (one with your signature, one
              without it)
            - only one picture from one artist
            - pictures  will be shown on PC  equipped with  a true color video
              card
            - pictures  which contain  registered trademarks  or logos are not
              allowed

         Wild
         
            - productions don't have to be video clips  and they don't have to
              be submitted on VHS cassettes (but if they are,  they have to be
              in PAL format; cassettes will be returned)
            - we don't supply the hardware (other than the VCR) for you... You
              have to bring your own computers, synthesizers  and whatever you
              may need (we may be able to help you, though, so ask)
            - your production must not contain copyrighted or illegal material
              (as said before, both international and Finnish laws do apply at
              the partyplace)
            - only one production from one group or person

      Minor changes  are possible and we  are entitled to make them  (if found
      absolutely necessary or so).

   
   Special features:

      Information about the special competitions will be released on our home-
      page (http://dot.tcm.hut.fi/abduction/ that is) and on the final invita-
      tion. At least a Sony Playstation competition will be held.

      The Leningrad  Cowboys And The Alexandrov Red  Army Chorus And Dance En-
      semble will throw a gig  in Oulu on Friday the 6th! No competitions will
      be held during the concert (that's a promise), so go there and have some
      fun! Oulun lippupalvelu sells 20000 tickets to the happening - give them
      a call ASAP (08-3147200). The only downside is that the tickets are *uc-
      king expensive - 200FIM.


   Wanted - your chance to be an organizer:

      We need a few people to take  care of certain things like walking around
      around the party place with  (video) cameras and filming things, running
      special competitions etc. It would be great if you were able to use your
      own hardware - we'll pay the expenses  (films, cassettes, etc).  Contact
      us.


   Contact:

      Karpow/Scoopex is responsible for Amiga compos.  Send your Amiga-related
      questions, comments and ideas directly to him (unless you want to get in
      touch with the main organizers Mainframe or Markus (that's me!)):

         Seppo "Karpow/Scoopex" Seppl                    karpow@kauhajoki.fi
         Korpikylntie 245
         61980 Pntne                                              06-2324183

         Ilkka "Mainframe" Jauho                        mainfram@stekt.oulu.fi
         Kaitovyl 30A11                                          040-5404704
         90570 Oulu                                           fax: 016-3793902

         Markus "Markus Aurala" Aurala                    markus.aurala@iki.fi
         Caloniuksenkatu 6A17
         00100 Helsinki                                            040-5040510

      Feel free to contact Abduction Organizing ry for any reason  (well, read
      the whole invitation and visit our webpages first... please). Or so.



   Hei idille ja kaiken maailman partyjen jrkkjille (Assembly, Demolition,
   Juhla, etc).

   Bye for now.

   Signed,

      M. Aurala and Acoustic Sauna
      aka The Very Official Abduction'97 Information Give-Away Taskforce

