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The early days of competition. (1996 - 1997)

Started by Daniel3D, January 06, 2023, 10:20:38 AM

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Daniel3D

After reading Duplode's post about the coconut car is followed some of his links en got lost in the archives.

I was reading a random page (petrol Pete's) and read about how the early 'permanent' competition is supposed to work.
At least in his opinion.
It's a nice window in the early days that i miss in the Wiki.
Here is the site of Petrol Pete..

This is what he says:
QuoteCompetitions and Challenges
Here's the list so far: (copy the source below as an example for your upload)
Peter Fortman / Petrol Pete - paf4@po.cwru.edu
01-31-96 - PAF-TRKS.ZIP Just try and beat these! :)
10-21-96 - ORIGINAL.ZIP
Andre Doff - adoff@ibm.net
10-06-96 - TB.ZIP (B)eat this ;-) !
10-06-96 - Valhalla
Auke Damstra - adamstra@pi.net
07-01-96 VALHALLA
Markus Nagelholz / Mark Nailwood - nagel@dbai.tuwien.ac.at
02-14-97 - PAF-TRKS.ZIP Incredible highscores for baka/barrier/bars/default1 !
02-14-97 - TB.ZIP Fascinating highscores for all 'all*'-tracks !
02-14-97 - VALHALLA.RPL A replay from the King of Valhalla !
Above is a list of people who are interested in "competing" against another person. This can be done by comparing the high score list and the replay. You will be able to submit your .hig and .rpl files via e-mail into the incoming directory and other people can download them from compete/ and try to beat their scores. What I suggest is zipping up the .hig and the .rpl file and a some sort of text message indicating who you are, your e-mail address, the date, and any sort of taunting message you like. ;)
You can access the directory listing of this section, which probably includes files more recently added in the compete directory.

I highly recommend zipping them up with a PKzip compatible compression utility together into one file. I am going to suggest a naming scheme. Let's say that John J. Doe submitted JJTRACKS.ZIP which included tracks and high score files. Later, John Q. Public downloads those tracks, and beats all the high scores and saves replays of his triumphs. He wants to submit them to this archive, so others can be amazed as his prowess and technique. So he names the file as such.

jjtracks.961231jqp.zip
jjtracks is the set of tracks this refers to,
96-12-31 is the upload date
and J.Q.P. are his initials.
He submits it as an e-mail attachment and in the e-mail message writes:
John Q. Public / JP - <a href="mailto:jqp@isp.com">jqp4@isp.com</a><br>
<a href="compete/jjtracks.961231jqp.zip">12-31-96 - JJTRACKS.ZIP</a> I beat your score on EVERY track, JJ! Ha!<br>
JJ. Doe sees this soon after John Q. Public sends his e-mail since the maintainer of the Stunts archive only needs to save the attachment in the right directory and cut and paste the above into the web page. (hint hint)
So JJ doesn't sleep for three nights and furiously tries to outdo John's high scores until he finally beats one! It was his first track, JJDOE001.TRK. After watching the replay of his flawless run, he saves the replay and zips up the high score file and the replay as a file called
jjdoe001.970104jjd.zip

He submits it as an e-mail attachment and in the e-mail message writes:
John J. Doe / Doe-Boy - <a href="mailto:johndoe@whoami.com">johndoe@whoami.com</a><br>
<a href="compete/jjdoe001.970104jjd.zip">01-04-97 - JJDOE001.ZIP</a> (from JJTRACKS.ZIP) Those were just test runs... try and beat this!<br>
So then John Q. Public, beats the high score in jjdoe001.970104jjd.zip that very day and sends a file with a line in the message body of the e-mail like:
<a href="compete/jjdoe001.970104jqp.zip">01-04-97 - JJDOE001.ZIP</a> (from JJTRACKS.ZIP) Ha.  That was pathetic! I beat that on my lunch break. <br>
And so on and so forth... get the idea?
When these files are downloaded, most programs which can't handle more than 8.3 will take the last extension and use the first eight letters of the file. This means you should be careful when you download more than one file with the same first eight letters if you don't have Win'95. But, in most cases, you'll want to download only the most recent anyway, so this shouldn't be a problem. When you have uploaded a "challenge" I will look for the informational text inside the zip file. What would really help me is if you included a line in the message body like those above.

You can access the directory listing of this section, which probably includes files more recently addd in the compete directory.
Edison once said,
"I have not failed 10,000 times,
I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
---------
Currently running over 20 separate instances of Stunts
---------
Check out the STUNTS resources on my Mega (globe icon)

Daniel3D

The thing that got me in this story is that it is very close to my start is stunts.
Of course I didn't have internet and i was oblivious to the possibility, but.
My copy came with tracks and high scores of the previous owners.
And I tried to beat them.
At the time i thought they were set by the makers of the game. That's kinda how naive I was. But anyway. This is a logical start and i think there should be a Story about it in the Wiki.
Edison once said,
"I have not failed 10,000 times,
I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
---------
Currently running over 20 separate instances of Stunts
---------
Check out the STUNTS resources on my Mega (globe icon)

alanrotoi

I love archaelogical articles! Also personal stories of the different pipsqueaks. Always is needed a review of the origins. All of that stuff built directly and indirectly what the community is today.

Duplode

Good stuff. From what I've seen so far, Petrol Pete's page was perhaps the first "big" Stunts website, compiling information from a wide range of sources.

Duplode

Plenty of the early history of Stunts racing took place on Usenet and mailing lists. In particular, there is surviving evidence of a Stunts competition being held as early as May 1993: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games/c/NP2tM4aCWcE/m/RlryXJKqVfsJ (alternative source: https://www.usenetarchives.com/view.php?id=comp.sys.ibm.pc.games&mid=PDEzMjI5QHVxY3NwZS5jcy51cS5vei5hdT4 ). The message is reproduced below:

Quote from: David Leadbetter, to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games on 1993-05-04For all you Stunts addicts out there, there is a small list of people being
put togther who are going to race each other every week. If you are interested,
mail me and ask to be added to the list. We haven't started yet, but should get underway within a week.
Unfortunately, we don't want the list to be excessively large, but email if
you're interested, and if there is a tremendous overflow, I'll mail all the excess about setting up a second list (managed by someone different of course, who would have
to volunteer). If this does happen, you will get the benefit of all our preparation to date.

David (down under).

PS: I would have posted this to the correct new subgroup, but they all haven't made it
down here yet.

It looks like competition was a success, as there were at least two further seasons (announcements: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.announce/c/0lYGzEqGoR0/m/JoCoPl5x0YoJ and https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.amiga.games/c/8GjfF1XUNes/m/ZJDu7aukzg4J ).

Cas

It's amazing!  In the 90s, I didn't have an internet connection until maybe half of 1999... but beginning 1997, it was possible for me to access via cybercafés and the University's computer lab. I remember having come across a Stunts competition at some point around that time, but I felt like everybody knew what they were doing there already and I didn't, so I didn't participate. I should've done it. Now we're a lot more organised, yet, I'd stay in the 90s forever if I had a choice. I don't need any of what came after, ha, ha.
Earth is my country. Science is my religion.

Chulk

Quote from: Cas on March 07, 2024, 06:03:47 PMIt's amazing!  In the 90s, I didn't have an internet connection until maybe half of 1999... but beginning 1997, it was possible for me to access via cybercafés and the University's computer lab. I remember having come across a Stunts competition at some point around that time, but I felt like everybody knew what they were doing there already and I didn't, so I didn't participate. I should've done it. Now we're a lot more organised, yet, I'd stay in the 90s forever if I had a choice. I don't need any of what came after, ha, ha.
I need Qatar 2022 to happen! And my 2 girls, sure, but mainly winning the WC!
Yes, it is me. No, I'm not back at racing (for now...)

alanrotoi

I need 2017 to happen haha. It was a good year in many aspects.

A friend of my primary school, Martín, came home in October? 1993 and shared some videogames. Carmen Sandiego and Stunts. Once we tested it I saw it was a cool 3d racing game. It was BB1.0 version but Helens.trk was missing and also some Jaguar files too. It appeared in the car showroom but couldn't race with it. Ironically, Jaguar was my first professional race back in zct14 in 2002.


Again back to 90's, my older brother (Manowar) was more skilled than me so he has the best times. He started a competition between us and the game's opponents. So at the beginning each of us had a track (bernies, skids, etc., we built one for helen) his and mine. Based on football idea of localism every pipsqueak had his local track and everybody raced on it. He even beated Skid! The time passed and he left playing computer games but I kept it and also sometimes I organized these competitions against opponents. It was from 1993 to 1997 aprox. Being the last two year a period with large gaps without racing because I had a better computer (486 dx2 4mb ram and svga) so new games showed up.

Cas

I still have the BB1.0 copy of Stunts I was first brought by my friend Pablo. That day, I usually refer to as "the first wave", because I had only had a computer for a week or so and didn't have any games. He came with lots of diskettes and I suddenly had about ten games, including Stunts.

That copy did have its strange things too. Skid was missing a file, so if you selected him for racing, the game would crash. The default replay was not the original one, I think. It was raced on the default track on a Porsche March Indy and ended in a crash after flying up into the air at the loop. The AdLib driver was corrupt. I didn't notice that for months, because I only had the internal PC Speaker, but when I had a SoundBlaster, I noticed that selecting it, the game produced strange noises, so I kept using the PC Speaker, until one day, I realised that my copy of Fight (4D Sports Boxing) also had this file and it had good sound, so I copied it into Stunts and the problem got fixed.

There have been some respectable years in the 21st century for me. Honorable mentions go to 2005, 2009 and also 2017, yes!  Yet, nothing beats the "perfect decade" (1985-1994) and 1997.
Earth is my country. Science is my religion.

Duplode

It looks like early competition manager David Leadbetter mentioned above was also the author of the well-known (it's a reference in the Wikipedia Stunts article) Game Bytes review of Stunts (Daniel posted about it some time ago).

Game Bytes, by the way, was a fascinating publication: an indie digital magazine, packaged as a DOS program and distributed through public FTP. The issues can be found and ran interactively, via DOSBox on the browser, at the dosgames.com archive. You can find David's Stunts review in Issue #20 (August 29, 1994) >> Miscellaneous >> Golden Oldies: Stunts!

Cas

Hey, I wish I had known if this magazine back in the day!  Going through it gives a strong sense of nostalgia!
Earth is my country. Science is my religion.

Erik Barros

Quote from: Duplode on March 16, 2024, 03:58:01 PMIt looks like early competition manager David Leadbetter mentioned above was also the author of the well-known (it's a reference in the Wikipedia Stunts article) Game Bytes review of Stunts (Daniel posted about it some time ago).

Game Bytes, by the way, was a fascinating publication: an indie digital magazine, packaged as a DOS program and distributed through public FTP. The issues can be found and ran interactively, via DOSBox on the browser, at the dosgames.com archive. You can find David's Stunts review in Issue #20 (August 29, 1994) >> Miscellaneous >> Golden Oldies: Stunts!

I really liked the distribution format of this magazine, the digital format was very creative.

Daniel3D

Quote from: Erik Barros on March 17, 2024, 01:56:21 AM
Quote from: Duplode on March 16, 2024, 03:58:01 PMIt looks like early competition manager David Leadbetter mentioned above was also the author of the well-known (it's a reference in the Wikipedia Stunts article) Game Bytes review of Stunts (Daniel posted about it some time ago).

Game Bytes, by the way, was a fascinating publication: an indie digital magazine, packaged as a DOS program and distributed through public FTP. The issues can be found and ran interactively, via DOSBox on the browser, at the dosgames.com archive. You can find David's Stunts review in Issue #20 (August 29, 1994) >> Miscellaneous >> Golden Oldies: Stunts!

I really liked the distribution format of this magazine, the digital format was very creative.
a short while later, still late nineties i got my info form Crazy Bytes, a similar thing on CD-Rom. with games, demos, articles and popular music in Mp3 albums,
Edison once said,
"I have not failed 10,000 times,
I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
---------
Currently running over 20 separate instances of Stunts
---------
Check out the STUNTS resources on my Mega (globe icon)

Daniel3D

Quote from: Duplode on March 16, 2024, 03:58:01 PMIt looks like early competition manager David Leadbetter mentioned above was also the author of the well-known (it's a reference in the Wikipedia Stunts article) Game Bytes review of Stunts (Daniel posted about it some time ago).

Game Bytes, by the way, was a fascinating publication: an indie digital magazine, packaged as a DOS program and distributed through public FTP. The issues can be found and ran interactively, via DOSBox on the browser, at the dosgames.com archive. You can find David's Stunts review in Issue #20 (August 29, 1994) >> Miscellaneous >> Golden Oldies: Stunts!

I read the review again. And I still think it's one of the best, honest and most true reviews ever written.
It deserves a more prominent place in our community. Maybe a Review page on the portal? Where we collect some of these marvels.?
Review Collection??
Edison once said,
"I have not failed 10,000 times,
I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
---------
Currently running over 20 separate instances of Stunts
---------
Check out the STUNTS resources on my Mega (globe icon)

dreadnaut

Want to submit it as an article on ZakStunts? We can date it and attribute it correctly.

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