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                DEMOSCENE STARTER KIT v.2.0  Documentation                 
 


Epilepsy Warning


A very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures
when exposed to certain patterns or flashing lights. Exposure to certain
light patterns or backgrounds on a television screen or while playing
video games or while watching a demo may induce an epileptic seizure in
these individuals. Certain conditions may induce epileptic symptoms
even in persons who have no prior history of seizures or epilepsy.
If you, or anyone in your family, has an epileptic condition,
consult your physician prior to playing. If you experience any of the
following symptoms while playing a video game or while watching a demo:
dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness,
disorientation, any involuntary movement, or convulsions, IMMEDIATELY
discontinue use and consult your physician before resuming play.



Legal Stuff


YOU MUST READ THE FILE NAMED LICENSE.TXT BEFORE RUNNING PROGRAM
This is provided free because I am a nice guy. That means I do not want
any trouble for it, and I don't want any money either. 
If you want to pay me in some way you can give it to all sceners
you know. BUT it is NOT freeware. Apart from what is needed to run the
program you can not disassemble it, or use the datafiles from it
without written permission from the author(Me). Private persons may not take
money for this product, but it may be included on a CD-compilation for
money, so long as all the original files are included, and none are changed.
You are encouraged to distribute this on BBS, FTP, WWW, CDROM, and disk!

Files

These are the files you should have:

README.TXT      (This file)
LICENSE.TXT     (Terms that must be agreed upon to run program.)
FILE_ID.DIZ     (BBS Description)
UNION102.NFO    (Infofile of the group I am a member of. READ IT!)  
DOS4GW.EXE      (Required DOS-extender)
DSSK2.EXE       (The Starter-kit v.2.0 executable)
SK2_1.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_2.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)                                  
SK2_3.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)                                  
SK2_4.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)                                  
SK2_5.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)                                  
SK2_6.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_7.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_8.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_9.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_A.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_B.DAT       (Starter-Kit v.2.0 Datafile)
SK2_1.PAL       (Palette file used by DSSK2)
SK2_2.PAL       (Palette file used by DSSK2)
SK2_3.PAL       (Palette file used by DSSK2)

No other files are necessary, however all of the above files go under the
license agreement. You might find some BBS intro's or something as well,
but who cares, eh?

System Requirements

Absolute Minimum:     386 SX  15mhz.
                      VGA Screen & display adapter.
                      At least DOS 2.1, probably higher.

In the real world:    486 DX2 66mhz.

Dream Machine:        Pentium 166mhz.
                      A GUS soundcard.
                      A fast graphics card.

Try having at least a couple of hundred K of free upper memory, eh?
The program is painfully slow on some 486's.
It was coded on a Pentium 133, with that kind of a system in mind.
I don't expect too many people to still use 386's, and know of only
a few who still use 486's. It shouldn't run too bad on a top-end 486.
This program *must* be run in exclusive DOS-mode. If you attempt to run it
under Windows '95 or any other version of Windows it will crash,
and you'll have to reboot your system.
If you wish to see colors in the text-reader, you must have this line in
your CONFIG.SYS file:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
or:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ANSI.SYS
The exact command may not be totally like this on your machine, but
just remember to do DEVICE=wichever directory ANSI.SYS is in\ANSI.SYS

If you are wondering why it runs slow even on your P2 333mhz, it's because
the program runs slow on purpose. It's meant to run slow.
I'm serious. I wanted to set a calm laid-back mood in this program,
and that just can't be done if everything is zipping past your eyes in a blur
at 200 FPS. It should be slow and smooth on a Pentium 100, slow and jerky
on a 486/33.

Usage


Simply enter the directory you've got DSSK2 in, and type
DSSK2 (followed by.... GASP! ENTER!).
When you've got the main menu up on the screen
you may select a section by pressing its corresponding number on
your keyboard. When you have done this you will get a text-reader
up on your screen. The text reader can be navigated with these keys:

Home       - Will take you to the start of the document.
PageUp     - Will display the previous screenlength of text.
PageDn     - Will display the next screenlength of text.
Arrow-Keys - Up and down arrows may be used to scrool the screen up
             or down by one line. Using arrow-up is very slow, and tedious..
Esc        - Will exit the text, and bring you back to the main menu.

Contact Info


The people behind my e-mail service have merged with Yahoo.
I don't really know if this has any consequences on my mail.
Please mail me with your comments about DSSK2, or to talk about the scene,
or anything else for that matter! I love mail!
You can also leave a message for me at CountZero BBS
(see resources-section of DSSK2 for number), but it would be
more reliable to send an e-mail as I check that much more often,
and I'm probably deleted from Countzero's records.
This is my Internet e-mail address:

thezippy@rocketmail.com


Credits


Code/Gfx/Design/Text - Zippy/unIon
Music                - Pearl Hunter/unIon
unIon Logo           - SyNc/unIon
TinyXM Module Player - pascal/cubic team (aka. Niklas Beisert)


Changes since v.1.1


All files have substantially more information except the
DemoDictionary-section. Two new sections have been added:
"Design for Demos" and "What Operating System?".
I'm afraid they're both under 150 lines though.
There is a totally new interface, which is much better.
Now you can actually live with the text-reader, although it's still
pretty buggy. I had originally planned to include SoundBlaster-support
in this version of DSSK, but I eventually decided that it would make
the archive too big for my liking. Be intelligent. Get a GUS.
A. You get a really, really good sound-card.
B. You can listen to music in 90% of good demos.
C. Pearl Hunter has written some really good music for the Starter-Kit,
   so you're really missing out if you don't have a GUS.

Other Info


To start everything off I'd like to say something which I thought was
quite clear, but some people said wasn't. This program is mainly
directed towards the *PC* DemoScene.. Some people just *might* have noticed
it beeing a *DOS*-executable... :) Now lets talk about the goal of this
program.. If you are already familiar with the DemoScene, the goal of this
program is to give you a bit more information, and maybe tell
you a few things you didn't know from before.
If you are a total newbie, the goal of this program is to give
you enough information to be able to act as a spreader,
ultimately going on to beeing a coder, or something else.
This is my second ever official scene-production, so I'd still like people
to go easy on me. I would like to thank pascal for writing such a short,
good, no-fuss module player and pH for writing such good music so all you
GUS-owners can get the joy of music with this prod. To all SB-owners:
Do like me, swallow your pride and add a GUS ACE to your SB. It's worth it.
Or even better, get a GUS VIPERMAX! Then you have both SBPRO, and GUS MAX.
I haven't found any big bugs in this program that would make it crash.
However, if the program does crash, it probably can be solved by
freeing up a bit more RAM (just remember to keep ANSI.SYS if you want colors).
The only proper bug I've noticed is that it writes (maximum) one line to
the screen *after* the EOF. Also it's sooooo slow to scroll upwards.
Not really too serious. There might be a few other small bugs.
I might make a version 2.1, with bugfixes, and an improved text-reader,
SB-support, or maybe even a faster version for 486-owners,
but then again, I may not. If I don't get any positive feedback on this
version, I'll spend my time coding a demo or something instead.
Also I'd like to mention that unIon is looking for a graphician to do
pixel-by-pixel gfx for our productions, so if you're interested in joining
unIon as a graphician you can mail me (or another member of unIon)
with samples of your work.

Greets are in the program.

Zippy of unIon
