What's New in iCE Recently -------------------------- 0) Howdy! The Untimed here. This is my first pack so if you happen upon a mistake or two, it must've been the way you unzipped it. :) 1) CyberCrime is back! While Cavalier set up as the new CCi hub, Net Distortion took over and held the fort. Cavalier is slowly getting CCi back under control, so the iCE subs will be picking up and the iCE NotSo and Private subs will be more secure than ever before. iCE sysops are encouraged to pick up the CyberCrime network. More information is available from Cavalier on Network News 54. Coming Soon . . . Network News 54 CyberCrime International Network WHQ 3o5.949.5427 2) This month we witnessed the departure of two valued iCE members, STiLE and Quazar. STiLE, formerly an iCE Director, has taken leave of the entire scene and his board, Silicon Vortex, is no longer running. He was an excellent member and will be missed. Quazar, formerly an iCE Director and our resident ANSI LoGoD, has taken a leave of absence from iCE to hone his ANSI skill. We wish him luck and hope to see an improved Quazar in the future. 2a) Also, Lemming of iCE Euro has been asked to leave the group. It seems our Euro President, Genesis, believed Lemming to be signing his name to works generated by a GIF-to-ANSI converter. Hopefully this matter matter will be resolved soon. 3) Lord Mischief is back and he's staff. :) Praise be. 3a) It's an honor and a privilege to welcome to the iCE crew, VindicatioN! Formerly of the Valiant crew, VindicatioN is an accomplished ANSI and VGA artist and we all look forward to working with him in the future. 4) Hi, this is Metal Head. I just have a few semi-quick things to say.. Well, not all too quick but oh well... 4a) First, I want to explain to you the changes that have occoured in our VGA section. One of those changes is that, from this point on all VGA artwork will be released in the sam way that ANSI Artwork is... Uncoded. Why you ask? Well here are the reasons: #1 - In my personal opinion, VGA artwork could use some improvment. So, by having all of the VGA artwork released uncoded, VGA will need to stand on thier own 2 feet. And hopefully more well-rounded pictures will be produced, (Meaning Foreground picture, background, etc) rather then just "foreground" pictures. #2 - Loaders (Meaning VGA pictures that fade in then out) look bad and are not something which our coding talent should be focused on. Which is what happens in months like june (i.e. iCE-693.ZIP). So this will also free up our coders to work on other projects. #3 - It will make the iCEPACK's considerably smaller, meaning no more 2.6 Meg Packs. #4 - In the Advent of RIPTerm, uncoded VGA's would become "postable" while a coded VGA would not. The other change is that all of our Coded work (Intros, Mini-Demos, eventually Demos) will be released on thier own, separate of the iCEPACK. If you have any questions or complaint feel free to InterNet E-Mail me at "metalhed@phantom.com". Or mail me on The Prototype, 301-294-9334. Just send Matrix Feedback or feel free to apply. 5) The iCEMAG _will_ evenually happen, at the moment our coder has been on vaction for what I think is 2 months. He will be home to begin the school year, so the mag will begin being worked on again at that point. 6) I would like to apologize for the mistakes in the last pack. They were my fault, but I would like to leave a note to Iridium Magazine about that, as they were the only ones who wrote an article containing a paragraph about it. The pack was given to me to make up in the last week of the month. So the pack was rushed. but I couldn't help that much. Also to Iridium Magazine, about STiLE. He was _a_ director, not _the_ vice-president. And as a closing note, Alters of Madness was _NOT_, and never was taken from the CHQ position. (Contrary to the article in Iridium 1) 7) And last but not least for my portion of the .NFO file. I would like to announce that this is the 1st Anniversary of the iCEPACK. It has changed a LOT in the last year, as has iCE. Take a look at the August '92 iCEPACK sometime (ICEPK-08.ZIP) and compare. Now back to The Untimed.. 8) Included in this pack you'll find the new version of MasterView. It is 2.1 and it's got a number of improvements: VGA Smooth Scrolling in the text mode, Preview Mode, Pop Up Help Window, and Pop Up Status Window. Big fixes from version 2.0: resets screen mode upon exit and it will now let you exit when viewing many ANSIs. Special thanks to Master Com for a job well done. 8.01) Well there you have it. See you next time. 8.1) Ahh, actually, not so fast. Cavalier here, in what seems to be a NFO file writer version of musical chairs. First off, if you have not gotten ahold of your copy of Iridium issue #1, do so now. It's finally out and is a fine publication by Raistlin [iCE] reporting on everything in the art scene today. A few of my articles/reviews got a littled messed up in the conversion, but such is life eh? 8.2) It sometimes becomes aggravating to work in a scene where you sometimes end up competing with some rather immature brats. After ICE01-TU.ZIP circulated, it seems a certain one by the name of Kronos decided to do a well thought out and intellectual reply to TU's letter. We wish this was the case, but instead Kronos thought his best reply would be that of an ANSimation that both wasn't funny and wasn't done very well. As you can see, there are no "rebuttal" ansimations in this pack or in any future pack, for those cheap shots are the work of immature kids with nothing to do. While you might think differently, as iCE we don't lower ourselves to petty rag wars, we just make some of the most excellent artwork in the scene today. Immature artists, if you find this 8.2 note of the NFO file angering, please address your arrogant ANSimations to "Cavalier" and not the rest of iCE. (stepping off soap box) 8.4) Well there you have it. See you next time. --- - Just wanted to thank Denizen for the large amount of work he's done for the group, Necromancer for his latest art, Cavalier, Raistlin, Denizen, & Genesis for their organizational help, as well as Lord Carnuss for his exquisite ansi this month. And a special apology to the ANSi artists in Finland for last month's omission. -TT - The Untimed [iCE] Sr Staff Metal Head [iCE] Sr Staff Cavalier [iCE] Director Tempus [iCE] ZZZzzz Greets to: Tempus - In the Lyne of Phire? (what does that mean? -tt) ST & QZ - Good luck in the future, it's been "phun". Elminster - Thanks for the help. Denizen - That'll be $1.20 :). Raistlin - What do you mean no one ever greets you? :) TeCH - So, who wanted to get polled? P. Slasher - The MAN with the PLAN! CHAOS - Total Chaos #2 was great, getting better every time... Hi Ron! R. Noble - And then Mirage ruled the world..and malls.. and small children..and TheDraw. Cavalier - Hey! My Mitch impressions are GREAT! Everyone - Thanks for supporting iCE. And last, but not least, thanks go to the artist's and member's of iCE who contributed this month. ---- [ The following is the documentation for MasterView v2.1 ] Master View 2.1 coded by Master Com [iCE] MV (MasterView) is a full screen ansi viewer. Alot of ansis made by ansi artist groups are 50 lines or longer, so using the type command dosn't give you a chance to look at them long enough for you to appreciate them. Someone decided that we should have an ansi viewer, the first few ansi viewers I saw were basically pathetic attempts to make them selves known. All it did was your basic dos TYPE command followed by a INPUT ":",A$ or something similar (getch() for you C programmers). The next few would let you slow it down or speed it up, but that was basicly the equivalent of hitting CTRl-S or screen pause for me. Then I wrote this one, this one will load the entire ansi into memory and let you scroll through it so you can get a good look at it. You can also change the video mode in the middle to 50 line mode to see more of it (most look better in this mode BTW.) New in 2.1: . VGA Smooth Scrolling in the text mode. . Preview Mode . Pop Up Help Window . Pop Up Status Window Bugs fixed from 2.0 . Resets screen mode upon exiting . Lets you exit if you have many ansi's. CGA Card Owners: The VGA smooth scrolling option is defaulted to on. You should have no compatibility problems with your CGA card. If you do however, just press 'V' when you first get into View Mode to turn off the VGA Smooth Scroll.