Wherever I lay my kit, (that's my home!)

A brief(ish) consideration of the kit that is brought to demo parties.

Typing this on the laptop at Outline 2013, I'm considering the many diverse types of equipment that have been brought to demo parties over many years. Some events managing to attract more gear than others, due to a fortuitous or hilarious combination of circumstances.

We're starting at the bottom first of all.

1. Pen and Paper:

Back in the very early days, we're talking about events such as Symp '96 and Alt Party '98, budget and carrying restrictions meant a real back to basics approach for these parties.

We would have liked to have brought desktop computers, especially our beloved Atari ST's and Falcons, but a lot of factors mitigated against that. This equipment needed to be paired with bulky CRT screens, which were a pain to bring with you, even impossible where flights were involved, so we didn't. Some people managed to tweak the goodwill of other demosceners living closer to the party place, who were not labouring under the burden of an expensive crossing of 'wet stuff' to get there and borrowed a screen from them.

Instead, the early parties sole ambition for me was keeping a decent(ish) realtime record of the party, as it happened. For this purpose, pen and paper were good enough. The Symp '96 report happened almost by accident as Tat kindly donated a pad and writing materials. This kept us busy and off his solo Falcon which he was preoccupied with coding on. The Alternative party 1998 report was punched in the teeth of forgetful negligence by me, as the original specially obtained notepad 'forgot' to leave the premises of Fishpool and missed the party altogether. Instead, an epic report, cobbled together on hand towels gathered from the toilets at the venue stood in its place. This method carried on for at least one more (Alt) party.

Advantages include extreme portability, no ill effects from sudden power loss. A long life storage format with no risk of sudden failure.

Disadvantages include having to read back on wonky handwriting afterwards and type it all into a computer at home, effectively doubling the workload. But hey, we were young, strong and foolish back then!

2. Someone else's computer:

I was fully expecting to continue with the tried and tested pen and paper system at the first Error in Line party in 1999. However, there was a pleasant surprise as the abundantly kit-stuffed party loaned me a Mega ST and a spare screen for my realtime reporting ramblings.

True, there were small blemishes on an otherwise pristine picture. This machine spent most of the time preferring not to work, unless you opened the case and propped it up at a weird angle. I found my way around its temperamental tendencies, and it behaved pretty well once the learning curve had been climbed and gave me the article I had been seeking.

Other 'borrowed' hardware from times past would include the communal Toshiba laptop donated by John Hayward, so ancient that the Kido Butai used it to navigate to Pearl Harbor. This performed brilliantly in its intended role as an 'electric notepad' to collect our ramblings for the Sillyventure party in 2000.

I also recall that Felice's first laptop was pressed into service as a communal machine, before these became universally available, even acting as a realtime article hub for one of the early Outline parties.

Advantages include not looking like a lamer with paper, having proper storage in a legible format that was easy to add to a text file back home and my typing speed being better than my writing speed. Disadvantages could include limited access, especially if the machine in question was being heavily used by its owner (Generally Felice trying furiously to log on to an intermittent party network!)

3. Your own stuff. at last!

Finances and transport arrangements finally got to the point where it was possible to transport quantities of 'own' equipment to parties.

This took off in a big way for the STNICCC party at the end of 2000, with a Atari Falcon and Atari STE transported. The latter machine being used for a realtime article. The Falcon was my secondary (pre CT60) machine. This has also attended other parties, namely the second Error in Line party, where the STE wasn't used for a realtime text, but was loaned to a grateful Reservoir God for the duration. The Falcon has also attended the 'memorable' (as in wake up screaming at night) Mekka Symposium 2002 party. The extreme lameness and heat in the main hall made it tired and want to sleep after a good long while. A further Falcon travelled all the way to Finland for an Alt Party where we had a competition entry as well as an article under construction.

The third Error in Line was attended by an Acorn Risc PC for a change. Earlier editions of Outline were graced by my CT60 Falcon, this stood in as competition entry showing hardware on a couple of occasions, Some of the time, I even had competition entries of my own as well.

Oh I might mention that flat screens were starting to appear and make a welcome difference to load carrying too.

Advantages include the fact that it's your own gear and you know where everything you might need is located and all its little peculiarities of day to day operation.

Disadvantages include the fact that it's your own gear and it behaves ever so slightly differently in an alien party environment, which makes you generally angsty about its overall health.

4. The whole damn kitchen sink!

With availability of cars, some people's travelling ambitions threaten to overwhelm everything in front of them. By now it was possible to bring original hardware, sensibly proportioned flat screens and laptops as a secondary machine were making an appearance. Sometimes random games consoles and spare screens and other hardware promised for other people got in there as well.

Then we took a long hard look, realised that there wasn't any room in the car for 'people' anymore and started repacking again.,,,

5. A reappraisal and slimming down again.

Two factors have brought about the backlash against over the top overloading. Firstly, the universal availability of affordable laptops provides a decent and easy to transport alternative to all the other stuff mentioned above. With decent emulators of your favourite oldschool hardware included for no extra cost, these are a real alternative for lots of people, even those of us into heavy coding.

Secondly, our original hardware is getting older and more 'collectible', meaning frailer and more expensive to replace if it does break. In my case, the form factor on my main Falcon has transformed into a bigger case with an externally (neatly) kludged graphics card garnishing the top, which I don't fancy lobbing into the rough and tumble of a typical prolonged car journey to a demo party anymore.

We also seem to be going to a regimen of very restricted load carrying on some forms of transport. Budget airlines barely tolerate the combined load factor of you and a can of diet coke, it seems.

So for most parties, the present consists of laptops.

Advantages are that pretty much everything you need can be transported in a single bag these days,

Disadvantages definitely include a loss of character and fun that all the old machines add to these parties. If we're not careful, a carefree demo party ends up looking like a stiff and dull corporate event (but only on the surface, we're all going Raaahh! inside!)

6 For the future?

So the next question to ask is, are we stuck with an efficient but soulless future based around salaryman hardware, or are there alternatives?

For the boring but necessary online functions, these can be done with the current generation of smartphones, some of which are heavily blurring the distinction between 'phone' and 'tablet computer', For this party, my Android phone is much more responsive in connecting to the party network than this laptop.

It now seems that there could be a welcome re-injection of fun and character in a neat and easy to carry package too. There is a rising trend of FPGA based hardware. This could be paired with a suitably small screen and be every bit as portable as a laptop.

We have many options for different FPGA solutions, including the well known Raspberry Pi as a standard of its own. There are several flavours of favourite retro platforms in this ultra-compact format. We've got the elite Atarian appealing Firebee clone at the present time. On the other hand, there seems to be a new project coming forward, the MIST Atari ST/Amiga FPGA clone, which could be more affordable and well worth checking out.

Sitting next to me whilst writing this article, Matt 'Gasman' Wescott has a Speccy 2010 FPGA clone with him, as well as his Macbook, which he is coding on, So I could be looking at the future of demo party kit as I type this!

CiH for Mag 2013 - At Outline Party, May 2013.

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