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    .:.      .:.             invites you to                .:.
              .   .:.                    .  .:.             .
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        /     \   \  \  /    \    \  \  /  __/ /    \ /  \  /  \   .:.
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  The ParaCon 7   organized by Paranoia  sponsored by Textildruck Fuchs

                    November 25th to November 27th 2005
                            DLRG-Heim Selters/Ts.
                                   Germany



   _____________
__|The ParaCon 7|____________________________________________________

      Once again, for the fifth time in a row, Paranoia invites
      you to a ParaCon-party, namely the seventh. The party is
      taking place from Friday, November 25th from about 17:00,
      to Sunday, November 27th, around noon, in the DLRG-Heim
      in Selter/Ts. in Germany.
      Once again, we like to invite all Atari 16/32-Bit and all
      Commodore 8-Bit fanatics to spend a constructive and
      creative weekend among friends. Once again, Paranoia will
      try to top last year's breakfast service and this time,
      our sponsor, Textildruck Fuchs, has something really very
      special for you.
      
                   _________
__________________| Details |________________________________________

      Now that date and place are set, let's come to the usual
      details which are of interest for a ParaCon-party:
      
      [ ] Preregistration
          To attend you need to be registered. To do so, you
          can send an email to paranoid@atari.org.
      [ ] Web site
          More and up-to-date information about the ParaCon 7
          can be found under the URL http://paracon.atari.org
          
      [ ] Attendance Fee
          The ParaCon party costs you 12 Euros. You do not
          need to pay on registration but on arrival.
          
      [ ] Breakfast Service
          Paranoia will serve breakfast on both saturday and
          sunday.
          
      [ ] Sleeping area
          A warm and cosy sleeping area is provided. Earplugs
          are strongly recommended though.
          
          
                             __________
____________________________| Features |______________________________


      The all new ParaCon 7 mixes well known features with a 
      list of new ones added.
      
      + Cosy and friendly location
      + Easy to reach by car, train and even by place
      + Parking lot directly nearby
      + 2 Supermarkets directly nearby
      + Cosy and Warm Sleeping Area (Earplugs recommended!)
      + World Class Breakfast
      + Pizza and other food service
      + Special Bonus by our sponsor Textildruck Fuchs
      + Christmas Market on Sunday afternoon

      Register now and you can enjoy the features of ParaCon 7
      already on the last weekend in November.
      
      
                                        _________
_______________________________________| Licence |____________________

      Please read the guest user licence described below. By
      attending the ParaCon 7 you affirm you have read and
      accepted the issues described there.
 
      - The location itself is a no-smoke area
      - Use of toasters, microwave ovens etc. is not allowed.
      - The organizers are not responsible for your equipment.
        Please keep an eye on it yourself.
      - Please mind that the location is not very big and
        restrict the amount of equipment you bring
      - The use or swapping of illegal software will be legally
        prohibited
      - No narcotics or illegal drugs! (Mind German laws)
      - The organizers preserve the right to remove any attendant
        from the party without prior notice and without any kind
        of refund if they consider it necessary to maintain the
        party safe and sound
        
        
                                                   _________
__________________________________________________| Options |__________      
      
      While the usage of Microwave ovens, toasters, barbequeues,
      coffee makers or water boilers in the main room is not
      permitted, the organizers can prepare coffee or hot water
      on request. Please do not use the kitchen without explicit
      permission.
      The area is cosy but kind of smallish. Please bring only
      the equipment you really want to use during the party and
      leave optional computers, monitors, printers and other
      gear at home. This will make it much easier for the
      organizers and other attendants.
      The sleeping room is indirectly separated from the main
      area. It's easy to reach and has a warm carpet. Since
      people actually sleep on this floor, please leave your
      shoes outside this area. Also, earplugs are strongly
      recommended.
      There is the option of ordering Pizza and other food
      several times during the day but usually not before
      early evening. The organizers will also collect orders
      from time to time.
      Finally, there are a few locations within walking range.
      There are 2 supermarkets nearby and a gas station is
      roughly 2km away. Two pretty good restaurants are just
      a few minutes away as well.
      
                                                             _______
____________________________________________________________| Route |__

      The location is easy to reach by car and by train and 
      indirectly, even by plane. Please find the detailed
      route plans below. The target location is the DLRG-Heim
      Selters in Selters/Ts., Germany.
      
      By plane:
        You'll be landing on Frankfurt Airport. Go to the
        Subway station and look for a train going to 
        Frankfurt main station. Follow the route "By
        train" from here.
        
      By Train:
        Coming from the south (Frankfurt):
          Once you arrived at Frankfurt main station, look
          for a train going to Limburg a.d. Lahn. This train
          should be labelled "Regionalbahn", otherwise it
          might not stop in Selters/Ts. Probably you will
          have to change trains in Niedernhausen. In this
          case make sure the train going from Niedernhausen
          to Limburg is a "Regionalbahn".

        Coming from the north (Limburg):
          If you do not go through Frankfurt, your next
          waypoint would be "Limburg a.d. Lahn". If you
          arrive in Limburg, please look for a train going
          either to Frankfurt, Wiesbaden or Niedernhausen.
          Make sure this train is called "Regionalbahn".
          
        Leaving at Niederselters:
          The train station to get out of the train is
          named "Niederselters". Head for the station, which
          is an ugly green building and pass it towards the
          street. You should see a small street to the right
          side of the pub "Zum Bahnhof", leading slightly
          downhill. Follow this street until you cross a 
          little stream over a bridge. Keep walking straight
          on for a few hundred meters and you will reach the
          DLRG-Heim in Selters, which is on your right.
          
          
      By Car:
        This way or other, you will have to get onto the A3,
        the autobahn connecting Frankfurt and Cologne.
        Coming from the south (Frankfurt):
          Get onto the A3 heading for Cologne. Exit the
          Autobahn in Bad Camberg. The exit is tricky, drive
          slowly and read the signs. The exit is actually
          before the gas station.
        Coming from the north (Cologne):
          Get onto the A3 heading for Frankfurt. Exit the
          Autobahn in Bad Camberg. Mind that the exit is
          under construction, so drive carefully. The exit
          is actually before the gas station.
        Take the next possible turn left, heading for Bad
        Camberg. The road does a few turns and then goes
        straigt downhill into the city of Bad Camberg,
        passing a small industrial area and crossing the
        railway station. Follow this road until you reach
        a T-Section with traffic lights. Turn left, heading
        for Limburg (B8). Keep going on this road, leaving
        Bad Camberg, for about 4 to 5km.
        After you have passed a Minimal market, which was
        on your left, you reach a cross section with traffic
        lights and a Penny market to your left. Turn left and
        keep going straight on for 200m. The DLRG-Heim is on
        your left.
        
      Additional options:
        Limburg a.d. Lahn is connected to the fast railway
        between Frankfurt and Cologne. This station is fairly
        easy to reach by train and depending on your route,
        it might be sensible to go to this station which can
        only be reached by a so-called Intercity Express (ICE).
        One of the organizers might be able to pick you up
        there. If you plan to do so, please ask the organizers
        as early as possible if it is possible to pick you up
        there and please, give us your cell-phone number so we
        can reach you if something goes wrong. 
        Please mind that this is an option you will have to
        arrange with the organizers in time, i.e. a few days
        before the party. Just calling us saying that you just
        arrived and asking whether we could pick you up then
        is definetly not an option since the answer may very
        well be "no".

   ___________
__| Remindtro |________________________________________________________


        Sorry for being so late again. This time, almost every-
        thing went wrong. While the basic effect ran rather soon
        (mid summer), the whole rest around it took longer than
        usual - And to be honest, it was completely and purely my
        fault. 505 delivered his great music almost instantly and
        Zweckform finished all graphics in time. But coding-wise,
        everything that could go wrong went wrong. Not to mention
        the fact that for rouhgly 1 1/2 weeks, it didn't run on
        the STE at all because of a "+34" instead of a "+36".
        
        Even worse, the stuff that usually creates problems, like
        implementing totally new music replayers with funky effects
        or new screen drivers, worked well this time. Therefore, 
        the credits are as follows:
        
          - maxYMizer music: 505
          - graphics:        Zweckform
          - additional code: RA
          - font and code:   The Paranoid
          - music replayer:  gwEm
          
        Regards to 505 for using the "zync"-bytes of maxYMizer in
        an excellent way to provide timing for the effects and for
        helping with the design this way. Naturally, thanks must
        go to gwEm for the YM-tracker maxYMizer. Additional thanks
        to Ultra of Cream for his help with the 3D business. As
        usual, the demo-engine is losely based on Evil's, so
        thanks as usual to Evil of DHS.
        I have to apologize for 505 for the terrible delay this
        thing was released with ... And it's not even really
        finished. The code is a mess (besides the main effect) and
        i conquered one stupid bug after the other - I should have
        probably taken a longer time out after finishing Pacemaker.
        The graphics are also not finished but maybe, the effect
        will be re-appear in a more complete intro soon ...

        Finally, mega-greetings to RA for finishing his excellent
        old-school screen in time - Sync-scrolling, overscan and
        digidrums for the very first time ever on the ST - and
        that on its 20th birthday.
        
        Oh, almost forgot the requirements for the little reminder.
        It's a Paradox-production so it runs on an
        
          [X] Atari STE with 1MB or more RAM
          [X] Atari MegaSTE with 1MB or more RAM
          [X] Atari Falcon030 with 4MB or more RAM with VGA or RGB
          
        It doesn't run at all or at least not very well one
        
          [ ] Atari ST
          [ ] Atari STE with 512KB RAM
          [ ] Atari TT
          [ ] Atari Falcon030 with a CT60 or CT63 upgrade
        
        As usual, it has been tested on the following systems:
        
          [X] Atari Falcon030 VGA, 14MB, FPU, Nemesis, NVDI 4.11
          [X] Atari MegaSTE, RGB, 4MB, NVDI 4.11
        
        

                ______
_______________| Help |________________________________________________

      Again, this text should feature some technical stuff as
      well, so here goes.
      The Atari STE was the first 16/32-Bit computer of the 
      series to feature horizontal and vertical fine-scrolling.
      While vertical fine scrolling merely requires the ability
      to set the low-byte of the screen address accordingly, the
      horizontal fine-scrolling requires the ability to have
      lines larger than the current resolution and to make the
      graphics chip to skip a certain amount of pixels at the
      beginning of each line.
      While the Atari STE offered all of that, the latter came
      with a problem, as it is officially affirmed by Atari:
      
        "Setting the Video Base Address Pixel Offset during
         the VBL from unequal to zero to zero might result
         in corrupted display."
         
      As a result - and so it is explained in the STE-FAQ as
      well - this register should be treated in a HBL-Interrupt
      rather than the VBL to avoid resetting it during the VBL.
      However, for many programs, this means the introduction
      of the HBL-interrupt as an additional interrupt source
      and might mix up timing with music/digi-sounds etc.
      Therefore, the HBL-Interrupt is not desired.
      
      Often enough in magazines and on webpages a solution
      without requiring the HBL-Interrupt is debated, but so
      far, only fragments of a working routine have been
      presented and the results were not very satisfactory.
      Nevertheless, a simple solution is available even
      during the VBL and even better, it works on the STE,
      the Falcon VGA and RGB and even on the TT.
      
      The procedure is quite simple. During the VBL, you
      first write the screen base address (mind the order):
      
        move.b adr_high,$FFFF8201.w  ;High Byte
        move.b  adr_mid,$FFFF8203.w  ;Mid Byte
        move.b  adr_low,$FFFF820D.W  ;Low Byte
        
      Now write the new pixel skip and line offset in no
      special order
      
        move.b line_ofs,$FFFF820F.w  ;Offset between lines
        move.b pxl_skip,$FFFF8265.w  ;Pixel Skip (0-15)
        
      This might actually lead to the Shifter interpreting
      the following lines in the wrong way and therefore
      doing corrupted screen display. Funny enough, the
      Shifter will always perform correct display when
      writing the address counters by hand:
      
        move.b adr_high,$FFFF8205.w  ;High Byte
        move.b  adr_mid,$FFFF8207.w  ;Mid Byte
        move.b  adr_low,$FFFF8209.w  ;Low Byte
        
      Once these values have been loaded directly into the
      screen address counters, the Shifter seems to correct
      its faulty line interpretation and will correctly
      display the next frame.
      
      So much for the technical stuff this time. Personally,
      i kind of wondered that this easy solution works, but
      it does very well.
      
      

                       ______
______________________| Misc |_________________________________________


      Why is the ParaCon 7 nicknamed "Family Reunion" ?
      Actually, with the disappearance of Paranoia as a demo-
      group, the meetings have gone rare and less productive
      and Paranoia has reached the state of perpetual sleep.
      Not dead, but not really moving either. Yet again, in
      autumn, Paranoia-members suddenly awaken, start to buy
      enormous amounts of food, rent a video beamer from the
      city of Offenbach and write odd text files.
      All of a sudden, Paranoia meets more often to plan and
      coordinate the upcoming party, making it again a very
      cooperative and family-like group.
      This is why the ParaCon 7 is nicknamed "Family Reunion".
      
      Again, we'd like to apologize for inviting you to this
      party this late and also for the very very late release
      of this text.
      Again, we'd like to thank our sponsor, Textildruck Fuchs,
      for supporting us in a very special way this time.
      Also, greetings are sent to the DLRG in Selters, which
      have once again provided us the location without any
      hestitation or restriction.
      Additional thanks must go to 505, Zweckform and RA of
      Paradox for supporting the invitro so well and on short
      notice. Greetings to gwEm for his great and flexible
      MaxYMizer tracker and his help on how to implement the
      replay routine.
      
      Special greetings to Der Komtur who prevented the ParaCon
      from being cancelled. In fact, the weekend for the ParaCon
      was registered beginning of summer this time, just to find
      out in autumn that the location was already booked for a
      first-aid-examn, but nobody remembered this double-booking.
      Der Komtur immediatelly organized a location for the first-
      aid-examn so that we can have the DLRG-Heim instead.
      
      As usual, nothing of this would have been possible without
      our favourite, Afri-Cola.
      
      
      Well then, see you on the ParaCon 7.
      
      
      The Paranoid/Paradox
      
      
      
      
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