PIC:barclip2.ilbm

CL9:          Hardware and Mags
PIC:barclip2.ilbm

CL4:          By Darkhawk/IRIS

CL1:Kam_'s  article  is an excellent point
for  me to start from and explain both
the  previous  philosophy  behind  the
Eurochart,  aswell  as  the  new  one.
Running the risk of upsetting poles as
a  whole,  I  find  this focus on what
Amiga  hardware you have is especially
strong  there, as is the PPC movement.
Maybe it is a sort of status symbol to
be able to say that you've got a fast,
expensive  Amiga  there,  but  for the
so-called  'old'  Europe (don't we all
love   Rumsfeld?),  it  seems  not  to
matter  that  much  with  the  size of
Amiga  hardware.   In  Scandinavia and
Germany for example, sceners have been
very   slow  to  get  a  PPC,  instead
developing  demos  for  the 030 to 060
range  of Amiga's.  Why is that?  As I
have  said  before,  it  is  about the
mentality,  and  where  you want to go
with your art/demoscening.

CL0:Most     of     us     already    have
computerequipment  that  can  put  the
fastest  and  best equipped Amiga's to
shame,  i.e.   we  have  a modern-day,
cheap  PC.   We  produce stuff for the
Amiga  mainly out of an old love, with
the  vision  that  it must be quality.
Quality  knows no bounds in regards to
hardware.   You can produce quality on
a C64 aswell as on a PC.  I think this
makes many people reluctant to upgrade
their  Amigas.   Why bother, when that
which  made  you like the Amiga in the
first  place  is  not to be (re) found
with better hardware?

CL1:On  the  other hand, what made us like
the Amiga in the first place can maybe
be    rediscovered    if    sufficient
like-minded people decide to make a go
for  it again, stimulating others, and
this  will  most  likely happen on the
new,  fast PPC Amiga's out there, i.e.
the   Amiga   One  and  the  Pegasos2.
Therefore  it  is  time to upgrade the
Amiga  and  try  something  new.   Not
because  the  hardware  is better, but
because  this is where it will happen,
this  is  where there is life.  Thus I
think sceners who have not upgraded in
a  long  while,  can  get  tempted  to
finally  do  so  now, if they see that
there  is  an active, pioneering scene
on  the new PPC Amiga's.  As you might
know  by now, the Eurochart staff want
to  promote  such a scene too, meaning
that   while  we  disagree  about  the
specifics,  we agree on the whole with
Kam_.   The  next issue of the EC will
indeed be different and more flexible.
However,  before  I  write about this,
let's take a look at the Eurochart and
its code as it is right now.

CL0:Why  do  we not have AHI support?  The
answer  is  fairly  simple:   it would
require   changes  in  the  code,  and
nobody  has  either  delivered  an AHI
tune,  nor  complained  much about the
lack  of  AHI.   To be sure, I think I
have received 3 complaints/notes about
the lacking AHI support in the EC over
the  years  I  have  been  maineditor.
This  is  not  much,  and  this is the
reason  we haven't spent ressources on
including it.  Apart from that, I am a
firm     believer     in     backwards
compatibility  for diskmags.  There is
no  reason  why  the  EC should not be
enjoyed  by all Amigans, regardless of
system.  As it is now, only those with
at  least  AGA can view the Eurochart,
and  this  is again so because we lack
complaints  from people wanting to see
the   EC   on   their   OCS   Amiga's.
Everybody  has at least AGA, so we are
not shutting out anybody by keeping it
this  way.  As a matter of fact I know
many  Amiga  sceners who 'only' have a
030,   but   are  nonetheless  sceners
interested in the scene.  For example,
Zerox  only  has  a 030 (finally, took
him  ages  to  upgrade his 020, hehe),
Tricktrax  of  my  own group has a 030
and  so  on.   Your  skill  is  seldom
dependent  on  your hardware.  This is
one  of  the  reasons  why  the EC has
always  been  able  to  run  on  small
Amigas.   Another  is  the good reason
of:   what's  the point?  Diskmags are
fairly  simple  things  ressourcewise.
They   display   text,  show  gfx  and
include  some  music  at  the simplest
(and most usual) level.  Sure, you can
add  a  lot  of  features and even add
demoroutines  but  this  can  be  done
easily  enough  even  on an A500 (just
take  a look at older diskmagengines).
Basically,  a  diskmag  does  not need
extensive  hardware,  and thus, in our
philosophy,  it  shouldn't  rely on it
either.   The  advantages  of  this is
that  you  can have everybody watching
your mag, you make the code stay sharp
and  effective  and  you even get some
oldskool prestige out of it.  Voila!

CL1:The  disadvantages  might  be that you
can't  add  all the features you want.
However,  this  will  never  be  true,
because  naturally,  if  we  wanted  a
feature,   we'd   add  it  if  it  was
possible.   Let  us suppose that a lot
of  musicians had sent us multichannel
tunes,  and  that  many  people wanted
multichannel  tunes.   In  that  case,
we'd  have  done some AHI support, and
made  sure  that the EC could still be
viewed  on  an  unexpanded A1200 (e.g.
by  always including at least one 4chn
module  and letting the code recognize
hardware     and     adjust     itself
accordingly).  However, the demand has
never  been  there,  and  to  be fair,
we've   also   had   other  priorities
(translated:    been   lazy)  than  to
improve   this  old  code  much.   Now
however,  the  developments in the big
wide  world  force  us to do something
new, while still making sure we adhere
to   our  philosophy  of  keeping  the
magengine  as  simple and effective as
possible in terms of hardware.

CL0:What  does this mean for the future of
the  EC?   It means that we still want
to  have  an EC issue that can be seen
by  68k owners, regardless of CPU.  At
the  same time we also want to have an
EC,   that   can  run  on  native  PPC
computers.   The solution is either an
EC  looking much like this one, or two
EC's   with   the  same  articles  and
charts,  but  with  different features
and code.  As the way you do scenework
will   be   different  on  native  PPC
computers,  like  it is also different
on   modern   PC's,  compared  to  68k
Amigas, it is not feasible to keep the
same code and the exact same mag.  For
one,  sceners  on  PPC  computers will
compose  in multichannel, or they will
just  deliver MP3's for inclusion into
the  mag.   Graphicians will likely go
mad  if  their  graphics  are inserted
onto  a  screen resoloution of 320x256
or    the   like.    Probably   screen
resolution  in  the  new  mag  will be
640x480  or  800x600,  with  different
designs   and  graphics  needed  as  a
result  of  this.   Of course, when we
get  a  pixelled picture, we will only
be  too happy to change the resolution
to accomodate it.

CL1:Where does that leave a 68k Eurochart?
We  do  not  know,  but we will do our
best  not  to  shut  out the 68k Amiga
owners  during the transition phase to
a  new  scene.   Possibly a toned down
version of the code we use for the PPC
version  will get compiled for the 68k
Amigas,  with  separate music and gfx,
but  it  is  still  too early to guess
about these things.  First, we need to
know  whether there is a scene left at
that time at all.

CL0:So  the  conclusion is, in a way, that
you can be happy Kam_:  the next issue
of  the  EC will no doubt support both
4chn, multichannel and mp3's.




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