Merry Ch
ristmas
the ACiD news ...
n
e
w
unsane
Issue No.14 An Official ACiD Productions
tm Public Update December 1996
By Cthu
lu
Winter - the harshest season. The barren landscape a
uniform white, all landmarks hidden beneath a conceali
ng shroud of snow. Despite this, we find a way to pe
rsevere. Trapped in our busy cabins, the mind is lef
t alone to end-
lessly spin with only one release - that of hot fingers on
the keyboards and busy clicks of the mouse.
Tossing a few logs on the fire affords us the luxu
ry of carrying on,
thawing frostbitten fingers and doing what has to be done, b
ecause even though the rest of the scene seems to thin
k that its okay to hibernate once the snow falls, th
ats not good enough for us. We have to maintain our
standards even
while other groups curl up and dream of sugar-plums.
Weve got to grit our teeth and knuckle up, because if
we slack off, the scene might not get what it is so
eagerly awaiting for Christmas - the latest
ACiD Acquisition Update. The thought of all those teary-ey
ed doodleboys come
January is revolting enough to make us see the necessity
of what we do, and
we love it.
When it comes to the line, we cant depend on a shinin
g star to guide us
through the night. Weve just got to pack up our own sle
igh, Jack, hitch
the reins and bobtails to a couple of the hungriest, fierces
t timber wolves we
can find, and kick some rosy holiday ass!
By Necromancer
and Ra
D Man
With the massive influx of scene-related internet activi
ty, it should come
as no surprise that there are mounds of web sites devoted
to art groups and
their child-spawn. Some of these sites are the home page
s of groups, while
others offer the services of a scene yellow pages. Still
others offer fully
functioning FTP sites harboring artpacks and related files
. The latest and
largest addition to these archives is that of artpacks.acid.o
rg.
This month, ACiD unveils their latest vision-turned-rea
lity to the public -- The ACiD Artpac
ks Archive http://artpacks.acid.org
. What started out as
a mere daily top ten counter for our
FTP site has expanded into a full-blown
web-based GUI archive for the entire art scene! Virtually
every file manipu-
lation command available through ftp, a shell, or di
al-up bbs is now available on-line via Artpacks. You
can extract files from an
archive, view extracted files, create batch queues for
download, or search our database fo
r keywords,
all with the click of a button.
All new uploads are
automatically
inspected
for validity and
descriptions
are extracted
via the FILEID.DIZ befor
e
indexing. Af
ter being available for
30
days, they are t
hen involuntarily
ca
tegorized and moved into the appropriate
directory under
/pub/artpacks/category/
year/alpha.
This is just the
beginning.
How
does it all happen?
Multiple
As a photograph of Posk was not PER
L script s combined with CGI
that we
available at press time, ACiD lik
e to call the ACiD
Artpacks Archive offers you an a
lternative: pork. Engine, or A3E
for short. That, and the
vast hardware
resources of Walnut Creek
CD ROM: One Pentium Pro 150mHz wit
h 512 megabytes of RAM, 72 gigabytes of storage. N
ot to mention bandwidth:
A 100 Mbps connection to the internet via three T3s allowin
g up to 1250 users
simultaneously. And last but not least: The Apache web
server running on FreeBSD Unix v2.1.6.1-RELEASE. No
Microsoft product could ever supply the power nec
essary for this site.
With artwork and HTML designed by ColorNox, the speed
of PERL by Shivan
Bastard, and smooth operation of the site by your friend
ly ACiD hosts, the
the Artpacks Archive should feed all your arty pac
k needs.
By Cthulu
On that cheery note egg nog, anybody? there are some
refinements to be
made to ACiDs new internal organization. Weve even check
ed our list twice.
None of those naughty fellows in our group. It seems that
Megga Hertz was a
good boy this year, so his present is to get a promotion
to Telecom-Courier
team Advisor, replacing Mad Arab. His predecessor,
however, got more than a
simple lump of coal. Mad Arab remains to assist and co
ach the remaining
members of the Telecom-Courier team, though his profile
isnt going to be
quite as high as it once was.
Relatives inevitably show up for the holidays, but
here comes an old
friend who we hope will stay a while. Returning from a mea
ndering route most
lately though Apathy comes our old friend Stone the C
row, the blotto raven.
For those of you unfamiliar with this RIPscrip master
extraordinaire and
former Bitchslap editor, well, now you are. If nothing e
lse, hell help us
get rid of the turkey leftovers in the fridge. I think t
heyre starting to
move.
Joining ACiD for the first time this frigi
d winter come three very
talented and outstanding high-resolution artists. T
he first of these, Eporue,
joins us from that other
group, iCE, boasting a
mastery of both
bit-
mapped and rendered graphics. KjllerPole is
nt quite as diversified, but what
he lacks in variety he makes up for
in specialization - particularly in his
fantastic renderings. If STC manages to finish the
turkey, these guys get the
cranberry sauce.
The third of these it seems missed
the rope-tow a few months back, slipping
between the cracks of the ACiD and Mop merger
. It is thus
with our lost Vengeance
and Raider, restoring
them to full glory
with the rest of their former Mop-mates. I
hear that theyre fond of sweet
potatoes and candied yams. Thats fortunat
e, because we just so happe
n to
have a few tubs full of the bloody
things. You see, we dont only rec
ruit
ACiD members for their ar
tistic abilities, but also
for their ravenous
appetites. If we didnt recruit
during the holidays, wed b
e eating the
bloody leftovers until Easter!
Wintertime is always a good time to get together and sha
re holiday spirit,
and no one took that advice more to heart than ASCiiD, ACiDs
ASCII department,
and Trank, who joined their merry forces to recreate that mos
t seasonal of
groups, Remorse, which is
taking over in a turn of
events from ASCiiD as
ACiDs ASCII department.
The band of wassailers
includes all of the
following artists, all
in good cheer, too, I
might add: Asphixia
whos having trouble
breathing because he
gobbled down too many
mashed potatoes, Bad
Spirit, Cypher Hex,
Discyple, Endless Name-
less, Enigmatic, Erupt,
Ewheat, Fahrenheit, Fire-
Smokey the Bear reminds us that only YOU can
storm, Forge, Hiro Pro-
prevent forest fires. That means stay away from
tagonist, Kaleidas, Piroma
niak, Fahrenheit and Firestorm, all recent
Lethal Injection, acquisitions f
or the newly formed Remorse. Stay
Maestro, The Messiah away
from Bibby, too. His name spells trouble.
celebrating a birthday
recently, Miasma, Mice,
Mr. Self Destruct, Omicron, Piromaniak
, Polymorph, Posk, Sargon
, Sir Death, Terminator2, Tri
p, and Whodini, whos stumbling around
the hall in the Santa
costume. We figure that the new combined might of these two
ASCII powerhouses should be sufficient to finally sca
rf down whats left of that fruitcake which
has been sitting around for god knows how long. If we don
t finish it, well
just re-wrap it and give it to someone else.
ACiDs music division, pHluid, got a healthy boost and
not only from the
spiced cider from four marvelous musicians, in additio
n to our twelve
drummers drumming and eleven pipers piping. Bibby c
omposes successful swing,
jiving ja, and rocking... er... rock music. Phaze
only has time to compose when hes not down on the f
loor grooving to his own tunes, because hes deep
into dance-muzak. Stone might be found in the ambi
ent room, emerging through
clouds of smoke as he rolls through trance, triphop and t
echno tunes in his
head. As for Rexazy, well, his name just says it
all. In any event, itll
be a welcome break from all of these saccharine carols.
Do you want me to
tell you where you can shove those ten leaping lords, buddy?
Two big names return to ACiDs coding division thi
s holiday season.
Nivenh needs no introduction, having been through s
o many groups and as the
creator of the Impulse BBS software, and Sharp is
back in ACiD from a long
hiatus, previously to which he was an ACiD senior staff
member. They can
stay as long as they want, as long as they finish off t
he ham. We would,
but its just not kosher.
What do you get when you cross a web designer with a
Photoshop master?
If you guessed Netscape Navigator with a smudge tool, you d
eserve a smack in
the head. If, however, you guessed ColorNox - a mult
i-talented HTML phenomenon
and graphic genius and newest member of ACiD Information
Systems, then you
get to pass GO and collect 200. For his present, we gav
e him the official
title of webmaster of artpacks.acid.org - the ACiD Artpacks A
rchive Website.
Brushing and stomping the snow off their boots come th
ree new members of
ACiDs Telecom-Courier division. Unholy Spirit and
Mindreader fit the roles
well enough - the first a telecom member, the second a cour
ier, and the third
- Tarheel - is now ACiDs official e-mail courier!
E-mail pac-man@acid.org to
receive ACiD Acquisitions via
e-mail from Tarheel! Just
put subscribe
acid artpack monthly in the BODY o
f the message! Isnt techn
ology grand,
folks?
By Cthulu
Old aquaintances should be forgot in the days of Auld
Lang Syne, so as
such weve decided to do a spot of early spring cleaning. F
irst out go three
artists who didnt draw OR eat any of the food. Talk about
adding insult to
injury! So toodle-oo to Abnormal, Morbius
and Pushead. Mendator w
as so mad
about not getting a Christmas cracker that he just off and
left in search of
a bigger bang. Sodium temeporarily resigned due
to the amount of time that
his weekly zine - Acrylic - was taking from him. Hell be
back by this time
next year, though. We cant say the same for Spiri
t of Illusion, unless he
changes his loyalties and realizes that ACiD is a mu
ch more valuable
affiliation to have behind his name than Twilight. L
ocutus was seen sneaking
out of the window muttering something about assimilation a
nd we just chucked
Quisling out into the snow, photomanipulation tool
s and all.
Movements through pHluid have included the summary
ousting of Beaner,
Nova and Xenoc. Sheesh, couldnt t
hey play anything besides Chestnuts
Roasting on an Open Fire? Any group would rather kick the
m out than listen
to that tune all month. Sheesh!
Leaving the c
oding division is one lonely
man - Jazz, former coder of the Sinister
off-
line mail reading system, but we dont think
that hell realize that hes been
evicted
for quite some time as we h
avent heard from
him f
or months. Maybe by the time he realizes
the error of his ways he can backtrack his foot
prints in the snow drifts to regain
his way
back to the ACiD house of ho
liday merriment.
Napalm
Death resigns from ACiD Information I
nactive members are lined Systems this s
eason - no one quite knows what up again
st a blood-stained happened to him. A
pparently there was some wall, blindfold
ed, offered a accident involving laundry
detergent and petro- final cigarette, and
given a leum gasoline and he, well, died.
Oh well. At
parting gift. Not shot, of least w
e liked the way he smelled in the morn-
course. That would be bad. ing.
ACiDic loses a few more members - Code
Zero actually Cold Zeno, but he came down with
the flu, Social Distortion
and The Chosen One obviously in this case we ma
de the wrong choice. Still,
we didnt send them off completely unequipped - they were
each given a candy cane and a sprig of holly before th
ey went.
Finally, ACiDs Telecom-Courier department loses
two members. The difference between the first of t
hese, Soultaker, and the second, Cl
over, is
that where Soultaker stepped down due to lack of time,
while Clover was
summarily ejected for never having been active at all.
There. With that
nastiness out of the way, we can crank up the tunes and
party away in our
little shack until the snow stops falling.
By Necromancer
In the history of the computer underground art scene th
ere have been many
collaborations between people. Many times have artists a
nd administrators
gathered together to better their groups and advance their
own status in the
scene. And ACiD is rivaled by almost none in the sheer amo
unt of merges that
have happened in the annals of art scene history. Such grea
ts as iCE, Gothic,
and MOP have been assimilated by ACiD into the mass melti
ng pot of artistic
talent that is ACiD. And now, the ascii scene is no exception
Early in the month of November, I was made aware that
Trank!Ascii was in a sad state of disorganization. Wh
odini wasnt able to handle the group, due
to certain real-life problems, and no one was stepping
up to shoulder the
responsibility. Me, being a Trank member an
d Whodinis friend, brought up the
fact that we could merge ACiD!Ascii and Trank. He aske
d if this would be
alright with RaD Man, and I said yes I had already inquired
with him about the
merge and that it was ok.
So, starting just about 2 weeks before the
beginning of December, we announced to the
ascii gathering of Trank and ACiD!Ascii members
that we would be merging the two groups, and
the result of the merge would be thus:
A. This reformation would be a rebirth of the
original Remorse!Ascii, founded back in
1994.
B. We would as a seperate entity from ACiD,
while retaining our ACiD affiliation, ala
pHluid and ACiDiC.
And C. We would take the ascii scene by storm.
Sir Death, often associated
with the unliving, breaks
We have done all these things successfully,
free from the stereotype
as our first pack, available at by drawing a
scii artwork.
ftp://artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/artpacks/
1996/rmrs-06.zip, was immensely popular, judging
by its day-to-day statistics. Even though it was a slig
htly hurried pack,
it was filled to the brim with the high-quality art you wo
uld only expect to
see from ACiD Productions.
And next month will be even better.
By Necromancer, Whodini and RaD Man
The year of the rat was a great year for many gro
ups, and a time of
liberation for many small third-world countries. But 1996 wa
s a GREAT year for
ACiD, and a time of many changes. Yet these changes are not
to be feared, but
to be welcomed with open arms and warm holiday eggnog-filled
cheeriness.
Many of the changes made were time-old traditions that h
ad been written in
stone for many years in the way ACiD was run. And many
other changes were just that -- changes. Nothing else
You will also find within this article not just modifi
cations to the way
ACiD was run, but also accomplishments made by the group a
s a whole, and by
individual members striving to be all that they can be
. And it is these
members, who wish to be the best, and who wish to make the
ir group the best,
that make ACiD so great. Without artists, coders, write
rs, web designers,
and musicians, what would you have? Nothing. You would
have an empty .nfo
file, which would most likely look like crap since there woul
d be no artists.
Starting to understand? No, I didnt think so. So let
s move right on to
the momentous occasions that made 1996 such a great year.
One of the biggest changes in ACiD was its presence
over the internet.
On January 6th, acid.org became an official domain
name, succeeding acid.extern.ucsd.edu. Later in t
he year, the administration of the site
also changed hands from Wonder Monkey to Wolfie, resulting
in a speed boost
from ISDN to T1. The scene also witnessed the removal of t
he /ansi directory
on the Hornet Archive, and then later its restoration
in the form of the
ACiD Artpacks Archive artpacks.acid.org.
ACiD also changed how the group itself is structured.
The traditional
Senior Staff and Coordinator hierarchy was done away wit
h, replaced with a
more functional Advisory Staff. The archive format for the
packs was changed
from the monthly ACiD Acquisition format weve had for th
e last four years,
to a numbered system.
Along with these changes, were a few major archievemen
ts. The infamous ACiD T-shirts sold out. ACiDs
attendance at the NAID 1996 Demo Festival resulted
in winning 1st in the graphics competition by Blue G
ravity, as well
as two places in the top twenty in the music compo
s by our pHluid
musicians. Tasmaniac develops XBIN format, an improved text
mode binary stan-
dard for the scene. The Product 2, coded by MrKite, was a
hit, providing a
variety of informative articles.
And like years prior, we had a few major mergers. Th
e Piranha PPE cod-
ing group merged with ACiDiC. Saga and MOP merged with
ACiD Productions.
Trank!Ascii merges with ACiD!Ascii division to create a ne
w ACiD subsidiary,
Remorse.
As you can see, 1996 has been quite a sens
ational year for us all at
ACiD Productions and we look forward to even greater things t
o come!
By Cthulu
As we toss the last logs on the fire and watch it sl
owly burn out, we
pull on our parkas and march out, through the end of winte
r and its lasting
twilight and into the sunrise of the spring. Though the
hoary frost still
savages the few tender blades of grass which poke through t
he sodden mess, a
change is nigh. The days grow longer and we grow strong
er, our abilities
growing with the rebirth of the world.
Spring is coming and theres nothing that any of us
can do to stop it.
Temperatures rise and winters cold domain comes to an end.
Its time to pull
out of this deep freeze and show the scene that there is life
past the ice.
ACiD Credits: Writers:
Cthulu and Necromancer Editor:
RaD Man ACiD
ACiD Special Thanks: Unsane
Photographer
: Nitnatsnoc ACiD