

          ,------.      '             ,--.
           || .--. '  ,---.   ,---.  ,-'' '-.  ,---.
           || '--' | |/.-. : ||.-. | '-.  .-' ||'.- |
           || | --'  \\  --. ||'-' '   || |   ''-'  '
           `--'       `----' || |-'    `--'    `---'
                             `--'
    ,---.   ,--.                                          ,--.
   // O  \  || |-.  ,--. ,--.  ,---.  ,--,--,--.  ,--,--. || |
  || .-.  | ||.-. '  \\ '  /  (( .-'  ||       | ' ,-.  | || |
  || | |  | ||`-' |   \\  '   .-'  `) || || || | \\'-'  | || |
  `--' `--'  `---'  .-'  /    `----'  `--`--`--'  `--`--' `--'
                    `---'

    .___..       .__         .              .___ .
      |  |_  _   [__) _  _. _|.    , _  _   [__ *| _
      |  [ )(/,  |  \(/,(_](_] \/\/ (/,(/,  |   ||(/, *  *


       ---=======xxXXXXXXX OOO##OOO XXXXXXXxx=======---


Otherwise known as 'The bit of this demo that's the most entertaining
part of the whole thing...

.  .   ..
|  | _ ||
|/\|(/,|| . . .

Here we are again, was it really 2016 long ago, that we last made one
of these excruciating ASCII creations? I guess it was.

I think we were sort of knocking things on the head at that time too,
as we had reached the perceived limits of what was possible with the
limited tools to hand. Apart from the odd mischievious knock-off
production from 2017, which was a missed release from 2016, we've
been as inactive as a brain cell in a politician.

 __.
(__  _
.__)(_) . . .

What has changed now?

It was a long hot summertime, a few crucial days of which were spent
at the 2023 Sillyventure Summer Edition. A great time was had by all,
much refreshing juice, both of alcohol and non-alcohol natures was
drunk, much perspiration was sweated out of our bodies. No writings
of a diskmag or realtime text nature were attempted. Apart from
playying with assorted games and demos with my emulated Atari's of
various types, a rogue thought kept on nudging in.

The notion was of prodding around inside the defunct carcasses of
source and graphics from previous ASCII projects to see what could be
pulled out for a cheap and easy Winter Edition entry. Sure enough
there were several graphical 'things' that had not made it to the final
cut of previous releases. There was even the odd 'thing' which was
due a deserved reappearance.

A little playing around soon had a handful of test screens running. It
was as if we'd never been away?

A further incentive came from the competition viewings. Apart from the
very welcome innovation of split compo blocks and running these to a
strict timescale, there was something of an issue with many entries
being submitted by that universal but lesser talented coder 'Phil Space'.

If they can get away with it, why not us?!

.__       .    .
[__) _. _.;_/  |_  _ ._ _  _
[__)(_](_.| \  [ )(_)[ | )(/,

It was too easy to let matters slide, as is often the case. The post party
enthusiasm vanishes in a hot blast of 'real life' matters.

This time was different. Seizing the trusty laptop, with emulated Hatari,
we carried on making stuff over the following days and weeks. Old stuff was
repurposed, borrowed stuff, well, borrowed. Ignored screens had their
day in the sunlight. We even started to have ideas for new things to try,
so gradually, 'Pepto Abysmal' took shape.

There were parts that were started and put to one side even. This demo
was going to have a lot more Boris Johnson in it then it did. That may
reappear in a separate specially themed future production.

Well here it is, different in some respects, but still clutching tightly
to its ASCII heritage. It is sitting even more in the uneasy middle
ground between legitimate and fake productions than before. Not as
obviously aimed for 'chepe larfs' as some earlier ASCII prods by another
group. It may end up in the legitimate category and hopefully massacred
by a flood of vastly better made productions.

.___.      .            ..                 .
  |   _  _.|_ ._ * _. _.||  .   __._  _  _.;_/*._  _
  |  (/,(_.[ )[ )|(_.(_]||\_|  _) [_)(/,(_]| \|[ )(_]
                          ._|     |               ._|

It's aimed at a 16 MHz platform with STE palette and STE sound as an
ideal fit. The Falcon 030 running as plainly as possible fits quite
nicely. It was developed entirely on Hatari, with some real hardware
testing and runs nicely. It's all ascii, no bitmaps. Start in ST-Medium
resolution for a clean exit to the desktop.

Sonically speaking, we have pushed a leaky boat out a bit more than
usual with sample files instead of rancid beeps from the YM-side. The
tunes are old modfiles, stolen from CiH's cupboard of forgotten memories,
back when CiH had pretensions of becoming a scene musician, back in 1991
or thereabouts. These have their own separate text file to explain in
the 'extras' folder.

We may have found a display bug in our displayer to leverage off. Also
some screens may not enjoy the 'Prancing Dancing Tree' in its glory.
The older and more rebust the screen, the happier it will be with rapid
low to medium resolution and back again switching. Hatari is okay though.

Running at 16 MHz stock is ideal, running on faster hardware will be
briefly amusing. Running at 8 MHz, not at all amusing.

.  .        .   ,       .
|  | __ _  _|  -+- _  _ | __
|__|_) (/,(_]   | (_)(_)|_)  *

Mac TextEdit for pretty much all the preliminary creation, on the fly
script and picture editing and this readme text of course.

Everest (Atari) for finessing and checking the ASCII stuff.

Audacity sound editor (Mac) for recording and converting soundtracks,
and also a shout-out to VLC Player for playing the original modiles for
Audacity to be able to record them as a sample stream.

Hatari, for creating and running inside a simulated atari Falcon. This
was done with both Falcon TOS and EmuTOS. It's actually quite hard to
reproduce a real hardware authentic run time with Hatari, at least for this
MacOS version. The run time is very tight, just about perfect in Hatari
and a little slower on real hardware.

Falcon 030, the Desktopper years edition, for testing and things.

We did manage to find and grab a couple of new things from online, which
were painfully hand-converted from the original GIF to authentic textual
text. The font creating website, patorjk.com is still there and is still
extremely helpful.

.___..        .  .__        ,          ,    ._._
  |  |_ *._. _|  [__) _.._.-+-  .   __-+-. .|,|,
  |  [ )|[  (_]  |   (_][   | \_|  _)  | (_|| |
                              ._|

Apart from one or two screens, where the artist has signed their name,
we've really not got a clue where much of the extra material has come
from this time, sorry about that.

.__.     .        .      ,             ,  _
[__]._  _|  .    ,|_  _.-+-  ._  _ \./-+-' )
|  |[ )(_]   \/\/ [ )(_] |   [ )(/,/'\ |  ;

There are the raw materials for something with Boris Johnson in it. This
will be more of a slide-show/animation concept rather than a pure ASCII
orgy, so somewhat unlike this production.

After that, who knows? But then again, we weren't really expecting to
make this comeback!

                              \__/
                              |==|    |__|
                              |''|    |--|
        P i s s a l o t     _.+  +._  |..|
                           /\,)    /\ +  +._
                          :  `-._.'  ;     /\.  G a g a r i n e
                          |      "*--|  _.'  ;
         .                | \        |     . |
 ::.., .::..     .::;; .  |  `.      ;      '|     .        .:
;;;;;   ;;;   ::;; ;: :   |     '   /| .,    :   .::.:   ; :: ::
: :''::'';;  :'  ':::;    |\       ' |   \   | .:;;;'   '::: ':'
                          | `.       |       '

                     "Goodnight from me, and him!"


  C ! H - 19.11.2023.

