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Events : Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall |
posted by Varthall on 9-Jul-2007 1:11:58 (9181 reads) |
This is a small report from the Codex Alpe Adria fair, which was held from 6th to 8th of July 2007. This year's event has been quite different from the past ones, since it was much less focused on computing in general and more on social contacts. It has been in fact an opportunity to spend some time among friends, rather than sitting in front of a computer! There have been some problems with the organization, too, one of which was the fact that a demoscene meeting have been organized during the same days, so a different program had to be arranged. I must say that nevertheless everything has been organized well, most of the things went smooth and, although unusual and smaller, the meeting has turned out to be quite enjoyable. I have been present in the central and most important part of the event, i.e. on Saturday the 7th of July, I'm going to write about what I believe has been the most interesting part, the speech by Max "M3x" Tretene about the Sam440 motherboard.
During the speech, the rev. B of the motherboard has been shown. It's a prerelease version which is being betatested in these months. Unfortunately, it couldn't have been shown running since the entire event has been hosted on a bus (!), traveling across the region around Udine. In the next weeks the newer rev. C should be released, which will be the final version before the release one. Tretene has pointed out that the differences between the revisions are minimal. The Sam440 board is going to be released at the end of September, during the Italian Pianeta Amiga show; during the show it will be possible to buy it! The version on sale will be the "End User" one, while there's another version, the "Embedded" one, I don't remember if the release date of this version has been announced, too (if it will be released at the same time as the End User one, for example). The OS shipped with the board will be Crux Linux, a distribuition specialized in PPC support, while the price tag should be in the same range as declared last year during the Pianeta's presentation. They are now evaluating in which configurations to sell the board, what seems most likely is that the End User one will have 512M of RAM directly soldered onboard. At the moment the only version of Linux running is a custom one, partly derived from the distribution released with the reference board of the AMCC CPU used on SAM, and partly from Debian. Other planned OSes are FreeBSD, an AROS bounty has been opened but not assigned yet, while there have been some informal contacts with the MorphOS team, although nothing has been decided yet. Regarding OS4, it was and still is the most important reason for this project. At the moment even ACube can't predict when and how the court case will finish (they are following the proceedings through the public available court documents), they have confessed they prefer to focus on the development and release of the board.
As already known, the version of UBoot which will be shipped with Sam will be 1.2.0. It is probable that this version will be available for A1 users too, since the SAM version of UBoot differs of just 5% from the A1 version, at the moment they have just stated that this release has a low priority. During the speech it has been asked if the board will follow the CHRP specifications, which would make it compatible with most of the Linux PPC distros available. As I have understood, the CHRP specifications require the use of OpenFirmware, so any OS destined to CHRP machines would have to be adapted in order to run under a different firmware. Tretene has said that UBoot has now a compatibility interface for OpenFirmware, which should make it possible to run Linux distros for CHRP machines under Sam440, too. During the meeting the official case for Sam has also been shown (it's the Nexus Psile case), it looks quite elegant and resembles the one of the Mac Mini. The case included a SATA slim DVD reader (I guess it was a writer, too).
The latest issue of the Bitplane magazine has also been released; it contains an article describing the Phoenix Project, a group of programmers (25 or so at the moment I have been told) which are developing software for OS4. Their first projects are a GUI for Transmission, the Bittorrent P2P client, and the X11 port of Firefox. At the moment the port is proceeding well, all the dependencies have been resolved (which should mean that a first executable already exists), there are now some issues with a library which have to be cleared. Also, a test and working version of VLC with the GUI exists (again under X11), but it won't be released since it's too slow for normal use, it will require a native port to be usable. Another goal of the team is to bring on OS4 the remakes of old Amiga games that have been recently released for other platforms, a nice idea without any doubt.
That's all for now, I will hopefully write about the whole event in another review. If there's any error or omission, feel free to point it out.
Varthall/Up Rough, 09/07/2007 |
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Poster | Thread | tomazkid
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 1:21:10
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Team Member |
Joined: 31-Jul-2003 Posts: 11694
From: Kristianstad, Sweden | | |
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| Thanks Varthall _________________ Site admins are people too..pooff!
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| | spotUP
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 1:27:01
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Elite Member |
Joined: 19-Aug-2003 Posts: 2896
From: Up Rough Demo Squad | | |
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| Indeed!
Uh... the whole event was on a BUS!?... wikkid! I'd hoped for more juicy info regarding os4 on sam, but you can't have everything! Nice report Varti! _________________ AOS4 Betatester, Peg2, G4@1ghz, Radeon 9250 256mb, 1gb RAM.
http://www.asciiarena.com http://www.uprough.net
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| | sundown
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 1:33:54
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Elite Member |
Joined: 30-Aug-2003 Posts: 5120
From: Right here... | | |
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| Thanks Varthall, enjoyed the read. _________________ Hate tends to make you look stupid...
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| | Boot_WB
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 1:35:43
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Super Member |
Joined: 14-Feb-2006 Posts: 1134
From: Kingston upon Hull, UK | | |
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| Thanks for the update _________________ Troll - n., A disenfranchised former potential customer who remains interested enough to stay informed and express critical opinions. opp., the vast majority who voted silently with their feet.
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| | Varthall
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 1:54:09
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Super Member |
Joined: 17-Feb-2004 Posts: 1559
From: Up Rough | | |
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| Please edit the news item, it should read "Sam440", not"Sam400". _________________ AmigaOne XE - AmigaOS 4.1 - Freescale 7457 1GHz - 1GB ram
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| | redfox
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 2:04:47
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Elite Member |
Joined: 7-Mar-2003 Posts: 2076
From: Canada | | |
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 2:09:47
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Elite Member |
Joined: 30-May-2003 Posts: 2959
From: Auckland, New Zealand | | |
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 3:05:14
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Team Member |
Joined: 31-Jul-2003 Posts: 11694
From: Kristianstad, Sweden | | |
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| @Varthall
Fixed. (+ for to "by mr. Tretene") _________________ Site admins are people too..pooff!
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| | AmiKit
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 8:48:46
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Super Member |
Joined: 18-Jul-2004 Posts: 1139
From: Europe | | |
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 11:21:38
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Super Member |
Joined: 18-Aug-2003 Posts: 1283
From: Under The Moon - Howling in the Blue Grass | | |
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| | elwood
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 12:19:37
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Elite Member |
Joined: 17-Sep-2003 Posts: 3428
From: Lyon, France | | |
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| _________________ Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci Sam460 1.10 Ghz AmigaOS 4 betatester Amiga Translator Organisation
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| | number6
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 9-Jul-2007 18:50:21
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Elite Member |
Joined: 25-Mar-2005 Posts: 11602
From: In the village | | |
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| @Acube
ok. This line seems to have disheartened people to the point they won't ask any questions about your positive news: Quote:
At the moment even ACube can't predict when and how the court case will finish |
However, I hope you can clarify a few things I know you can answer, since they don't speak to the issue of OS4.
Is the intent to sell mobos or complete systems at Pianeta Amiga?
Thanks for the info and best wishes as always.
#6 _________________ This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author. *Secrecy has served us so well*
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| | guruman
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 10-Jul-2007 0:28:25
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Regular Member |
Joined: 20-Jun-2007 Posts: 133
From: Padova, Italy | | |
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| I cannot comment on behalf of ACube, but my understanding (I was at Codex too) is that they want to offer both the bare motherboard and a complete system. Don't know if both the offers will be available at Pianeta Amiga, or just the board, but soon(ish) you'll know.
About the show: it was mstly a friendly and social event, more than the previous years (and it already was a peculiar event at this!). We visited Aquileia and its Basilica, a winecellar in Aquileia (where we tasted some white and red wine), then we went to eat in the coutryside near Cividale and had a pretty good lunch, we visited Cividale and the small Longobard temple there, and finally the historic centre of Udine. The speeches took place in the bus during transfers from one location to the other. In addition to the Sam440EP that everybody could see and touch, also a couple of naked Efikas were available in the bus.
Just a single small addition to Varthall's report: when asked about MOS on SAM, Max said they're also in contact with someone "above" the MorphOS-team, although at the moment the contacts are informal and at level of chatting. My take: I'd say that if they are really interested in MOS, there is nobody ahead or above the core members of the team, however they might be talking about something with broader scopes, I don't know...
Finally, many thanks to Michele Battilana for the organization of this event!
Kind regards, Andrea |
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| | skandream
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 10-Jul-2007 11:24:12
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Member |
Joined: 10-Sep-2004 Posts: 26
From: Unknown | | |
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| "There have been some problems with the organization, too, one of which was the fact that a demoscene meeting have been organized during the same days, so a different program had to be arranged."
Where's the problem with that? I honestly can't see that. Codex was supposed to be held in a different location anyway, so wtf...
From my point of view, we (Horde organizers) had nothing against sharing visitors among the 2 events, but it if you put ppl on a bus you won't share'em with anyone else, right? ;)
Oh, btw: Horde has been a real demoparty, not just a meeting this time... ;) |
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| | number6
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 10-Jul-2007 17:10:18
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Elite Member |
Joined: 25-Mar-2005 Posts: 11602
From: In the village | | |
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| @skandream & @guruman
Thank you both very much for the additional info.
#6 _________________ This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author. *Secrecy has served us so well*
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| | AndreasM
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 12-Jul-2007 9:23:57
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Regular Member |
Joined: 16-Sep-2003 Posts: 337
From: Germany | | |
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| i search someone who can write a showreport from the Codex Alpe Adria for the Amiga Future. _________________ Andreas Magerl APC&TCP - Home of Amiga Future Publisher for Amiga Software, Merchandising and many more. http://www.apc-tcp.de - https://www.amigafuture.de - https://www.amigashop.org
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| | Varthall
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 12-Jul-2007 15:14:35
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Super Member |
Joined: 17-Feb-2004 Posts: 1559
From: Up Rough | | |
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| Quote:
i search someone who can write a showreport from the Codex Alpe Adria for the Amiga Future.
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Check your PM.
Varthall _________________ AmigaOne XE - AmigaOS 4.1 - Freescale 7457 1GHz - 1GB ram
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| | mcb
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 18-Jul-2007 2:02:11
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Member |
Joined: 22-May-2006 Posts: 27
From: Unknown | | |
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| Thanks for the Horde report. Given more time I would have loved to pay a quick visit, but we ended up going to bed at 4-5 AM every night ourselves during that week-end
> Where's the problem with that?
Let me see if I can understand and perhaps help clarify the "problem, not a problem" issue...
It is IMHO normally not a problem, but a normal fact of life, that individuals may spin off from an organization, be it commerical or volunteer, wanting to create something of their own, possibly inspired by where they came from, most likely seeking for more independence, probably thinking they can do better, and/or for whatever other reasons. As an organizer of Codex Alpe Adria, which is certainly far from perfect, I respect that, and I would have had no problem myself if some of the people who helped us in the past for the demoscene part of our event decided to go on their own. It would have been perfectly understandable.
What strikes me though is that these people did not just spin off and go their own way, but instead they aimed straight at Codex Alpe Adria (note the keywords and the date, which is the same as that of Codex Alpe Adria).
Normally, when you prepare to organize an event, you look at the dates of other events in order to avoid conflicts. At least, that's what we always did, carefully looking at other computing and demoscene events not just in town, but also elsewhere in Europe. We always announced Codex Alpe Adria well in advance, and that was the case preparing for 2007, which was, as usual, the first week-end of July, as confirmed no later than at Codex Alpe Adria 2006.
It is of course your right to say "WTF" and that you don' see a problem with that. For myself, if I see the same people who would normally find it lam3 to take someone else's code, sound track, or graphics, starting to actively promote a second demoscene-related event and demo competition on the same well-known date, in the same town, and even playing with the same search engine keywords of another event, then sure, I would say the two seem to be on a deliberate collision course, and yes, IMHO there's a problem with that. Unless, that is, you enjoy that type of race.
This is why the Codex Alpe Adria organizers reluctantly (and feeling quite bad about the whole situation) changed the date of their own demo activities and competition, which is what Varthall mentioned.
As for the choice of organizing the event on a large bus on Saturday, and then on the mountains on Sunday, rather than at a single location, for us this was a refreshing and welcome change, especially after some very tough weeks at work and a quite sad Amiga year. All the people who were actively involved on our side of the organization were familiar with the difficulties we had to overcome. A bus doesn't need to mean isolation, and it certainly wasn't the way we saw it. To the contrary, given the chance and the time (which wasn't there) I had imagined that we could perhaps even visit your party (as it would normally have been about one hour away, considering walking to the bus stop, and changing bus at the station). But, when it came down to setting a realistic schedule that wasn't even an option. This was our own vision of something that could be done with a bus, not like a handful did, seeing it as a... problem.
I hope this explains things a bit better, and I look forward to the pictures we expect to post on our site (0xAA.org) soon, and to meeting our friends again at Pianeta Amiga in September. |
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| | skandream
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 19-Jul-2007 11:48:30
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Member |
Joined: 10-Sep-2004 Posts: 26
From: Unknown | | |
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| @mcb
I won't waste too much time trying to explaing things AGAIN, so just let me clarify a bit:
Quote:
What strikes me though is that these people did not just spin off and go their own way, but instead they aimed straight at Codex Alpe Adria (note the keywords and the date, which is the same as that of Codex Alpe Adria). |
That's unfair, you're showing an OLD page, more than a year ago (2006 anyone?), when Horde was still (bad for us) somewhat related to Codex. There's been just a minor update for 2007 and that was the WIP website anyway. This proves: you suck.
Quote:
Normally, when you prepare to organize an event, you look at the dates of other events in order to avoid conflicts. At least, that's what we always did, carefully looking at other computing and demoscene events not just in town, but also elsewhere in Europe. We always announced Codex Alpe Adria well in advance, and that was the case preparing for 2007, which was, as usual, the first week-end of July, as confirmed no later than at Codex Alpe Adria 2006.
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Oh, and that's why you're gonna organize a "demoparty" (mhuwuaua) which will collide with Function? ROTFL!
Summing up: you need a check on reality man! |
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| | mcb
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Re: Codex Alpe Adria report by Varthall Posted on 19-Jul-2007 19:47:10
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Member |
Joined: 22-May-2006 Posts: 27
From: Unknown | | |
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| A first set of pictures is now online.
Quote:
you need a check on reality man! |
A check on reality is always welcome, and I would guess that this equally applies to all sides.
Quote:
That's unfair, you're showing an OLD page, more than a year ago (2006 anyone?) |
Unfair? More than a year ago? The grab that I linked to was a fairly recent 2007 grab, not a 2006 or pre-2007-announcement one. I know that the web site changed in the past few weeks and days, becoming a site with several pages, and I do not dispute that. They may now have changed the tags, but they never changed the date, which remained on collision course with our event until we changed our date.
The screenshot with the web content and HTML source view was taken after Horde was announced at Breakpoint 2007 (in the case of myself, I was handed some flyers). As you can see behind the Notepad window, it also mentions the "7-7-7" name and 2007 date range in more detail. If a reality check is again needed, perhaps the administrators at untergrund.net have a backup of the post-2007-announcement server files, and can help you with that?
This gives me the not-so-good feeling that we are confronted with an attempt to distort reality, more than exposing it, expecially as a fabricated allegation is used to conclude that a previous post in this thread was "unfair" and that somebody "sucks". I would expect anyone who now says to be one of the organizers of Horde to know (or at least be able to verify) what its web site contained after the Breakpoint 2007 announcement (and not just in 2006, which I don't know, and can't verify).
Quote:
when Horde was still (bad for us) somewhat related to Codex |
Somewhat related? Good or bad, I am not aware of such a relationship in 2006. The first time I personally heard about the word "Horde" was on a sheet that could be seen at Codex Alpe Adria 2006. But nobody ever mentioned the word "Horde" to the organizers of Codex Alpe Adria, not even to me at Breakpoint 2007, until I saw the flyers there. This would be fine, if the event was truly independent (I am not claiming any right to knowing anything before others do), but the choice of dates, for one, indicates that even in 2007 it was not meant to be independent.
I am not against a "pure" demoscene event, which obviously has its own merits, and which I occasionally enjoy visiting myself. My respect goes to anyone who organizes any type of event, small or large. I know it is always a lot of work and it is a pleasure to be there simply as a grateful visitor. I hope that my previous post still speaks for itself about what I felt that the "problem" in this case was.
Quote:
Oh, and that's why you're gonna organize a "demoparty" (mhuwuaua) which will collide with Function? |
That is indeed our main concern (as also indicated by the "More detailed information to follow soon" text on the 0xAA.org site), although as you probably know there are other similar events which are quite distant from each other geographically, yet they take place during the same week-end (such as Breakpoint and The Gathering). But this should not distract us from the original issue, which was about two events on the same day, in the same country... and almost in the same town (not more than 1000 km apart).
Other factors are time constraints, and the wish to engage in something that is fun to organize and to experience.
It is generally known that Codex Alpe Adria tries to bring together a synergy of interests. It is our belief that the more abstract concept of digital culture can embrace in a friendly way areas such as demoscene, retrocomputing and alternative computing, and that this can be combined with daytime activities that can bring more people closer to the scene, rather than cultivating an exclusive club for a small elite. On the other hand this brings other challenges with it, and we know that we can't master these without the help of trusted friends, as Sergio too was explaining in his speech this year.
Your other remarks about the "demoparty" seem to be consistent with similar concerns expressed by others about the "purity" of our event, or about the "belonging" of some of our own organizers to the scene. Even our Amiga involvement was by some seen as a problem. I guess we have to live with that.
The "open" vs. "close" scene event could be an interesting debate by itself, but I am not sure we want to engage in politics here. On the other hand, it could also be interesting to better understand why some people keep mentioning that "The Italian scene is dead", and what pattern of behaviors, if any, could have led to that... |
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