The ADN party - for Atari Days Nancy - is a small but friendly convention that has been held in France for almost 15 years. Over a weekend about thirty ATARI fans will gather in a small and hot room to share their love and passion for a wide range of machines. To speak the truth I now feel a bit out of the demoscene for various reasons yet I am still fond of ATARI and I enjoy meeting cool people once a year so let’s go again! This year the event takes place from July 26th to 27th even though as usual you can be here on Friday night. As I write this I know that this time we will all think about our dear friend Shadow272 who passed away earlier this year. Our thoughts fly to his wife and family.
DAY ONE
STS (12:33) : I arrived at the party place more than 30 minutes ago, took time to set up my tent before we are stormed by rain (hopefully we won’t). Greeted a lot of known faces, nice to see them again!
AD (13:16) : Downloading & testing Sommarhack 2025 demos on my Mega STE with DMA-SC and Gunstick.
STS (15:34): Back from meal, my stomach is so full that I feel like sleeping now. Instead let’s try and write something. We are 25 or so, haven’t really counted, all nice folks though, lots of ATARI computers as you may guess, some projects seen here or there. Nice to meet Gunstick/ULM who is about to start his speech (French only sorry) about coding. His so famous distorter from Dark Side Of The Spoon can be seen on the not so giant yet nice screen.
About 20 minutes later: OMG, I didn’t understand anything about Gunstick’s explanations, well not much indeed but let me tell you that a cheatcode is hidden in the famous demoscreen that no one has been aware of since 1991! (note: seems that this code was revealed on Demozoo some months ago)
Cooper (17:13) : a quick appearance at the partyplace, always nice to see the old pals and to see some new faces keeping the Atari flag’s high, but it seems the guests’ level increased, ULM , Megabusters and others are around, impressive :D now going back to chat with the attendants…
Monos: C’est cool cette convention, on programme, on joue, et on se moque des Amigas. J’aime l’Amiga !!! (English translation: this is a cool convention, coding, playing games and making fun of Amiga. I love Amigas!)
Nono & Jojo : second time in the most beautiful village of Lorraine ! Still friendly and fun . An amazing nostalgy : teenagers again (“old geeks” :) . Even for Jojo who doesn’t practise computers! Thanks for all and see you all on next ADN !!!
Cooper (19:50) : nice atmosphere, except for the 2 b*stards playing loudly with Llamatron or Pacman on E’s :D (Note of STS: he was actually referring to himself and DmaSc!)
Gunstick (21:30): q,qying… oh, French keyboard… amazing party! Great people and nice food. Sitting outside for lunch and dinner talking about all and everything. I did my parallax distorter talk first time in front of knowledgeable coders. Seems everyone loved it. I think about other knowledge transfers next year.
GT Turbo (21:35) : As always, this ADN party is like all the old ones. Great people, fun during all the party. When you had tasted one of this party it’s like drug, you need it very often. If you except ‘bad jokes’ from STS J everything is just cool and fun. Be back next year for sure.
Wulf (22:14) Well, what am I doing here ?just feeling comfortable with nice people. Have you been told the party is standing in a football club. Night has fallen and coloured lights twinkle all around the room. It fits perfectly with all the mess all around. It looks like Christmas but during the summer. There are plenty of Sts and a few Falcons. Some of them are open with their guts out, but everything is ALIVE. Here people are still coding or creating in their kind of way. Dma-Sc is on my right , testing the Amiga version of Grind, but it’s on emulator on PC. Ok, on my left ST Survivor is using my good old 520 Stf , testing all the disks NoNo Is giving us (with Fuzion Menus) … well, it really looks like Christmas with so much things to do or try..
We’re now all waiting for the famous musical quizz mastered by Dma-Sc…I’ll tell you more later. ADN is good for you !
Wulf (22:35) Gosh, I’ve just played “Killing game Show” for the first time ever. I did’nt know this very nice game, and now I got it thanks to NoNo and his Fuzion CD Disks. Greeeeeat. The legendary Gunstick is now playing on my St. Yes the guy who achieved the super impressive parallax distorter in ULM ‘s “Dark Side of the Spoon”. We’ve have stars around us. Monos is just asking how I feel know… Greeeat, every one is great, and you’re a good guy Monos (impressive asm coder)
STS: rounding up day one in a few words? About 25 people including this time not only the usual sceners such as lazy GT Turbo/Cerebral Vortex or Cooper/Paradize but also nice to see DmaSc again and also veterans such as one coder of Megabusters and of course Gunstick/ULM. I enjoyed a lot of modern demos on the real thing, especially the Sommarhack releases and also gave a few disks a try, rediscovering old games that still look great (Magic Pockets anyone?). AD and Hylst had secretly worked on a slideshow in memory of Georges aka Shadow272 who passed away some months ago. It was a moving tribute! The blind test was great too as Dma and AD recreated famous songs as chiptunes. Hard to find out that such one was ‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica but it was fun except for the shitty font used in the prod. Oh wait, I made this font! Around 1 am everyone left the room and went to bed.
DAY TWO
RaZ (CVSD): First time coming an eternity after the conv started in 2011, very cool tight but welcoming group of passionate guys (and gals), the place is small and isolated (so you can do your stupid dance and songs without troubling the neighbours, you know the one :p ). And beyond all that, you juste end meeting some freakin’ legends : DMA SC, STS the one and only, Cooper, Thorn and the hellish fullscreen master himself Gunstick !! (the nicest guy) He spent almost 2 hours explaining us how he came with the idea and how he did his Paradist Screen for the Dark Side Of The Spoon megademo. So, why don’t you fluffin’ try for yourselves ?
STS: woke up at 7, only a handful of us awaken. About one hour later, the room is crowded again, everyone’s talking about demos, games or life here and there.
GT Turbo : like always only few hours of sleeping. Time to eat something
Wulf (11:54) Yeeeeeeeeah GT Turbo has fixed my 1040 STE with Gotek and everything is working again. Thaaaaanks so much GT Turbo. And another good news (for me) my 1040 STf runs perfectly the excellent “ShotGun” I’ve bought at the GemTos; It’s a fantastic and very very funny 4 players game. Fast, simple and great. You’ve to shoot the others players in a 2D maze before being shooted. Impressive for a GFA Game. I Love it. People are now gathering around my 1040 Stf enjoying this funny game. Thanks to his creator.
I would be very pleased to play this game at home and show to my young friends (too young to have known the golden age of the ST) the fun you can experiment with old machines. We sure going to have furious tournaments and moments of laugh. What’s why I enjoy the ST, a machine who’s still alive, playable and fun. Atari for ever !
After the meal, I’ll tell you a bit about the game I’m programming in GFA: “Pathfinder” already playable and working well. Time for aperitif now. (Note of STS; seems that you forgot to do it hehe!)
GT Turbo (12:00) : APERO !!! Time to eat !!
STS: we have just finished a nice 4 player game of SHOTGUN and hell, that was so fun! I didn’t think the game was that great!
Vinz: another great edition with an outstanding musical quiz prepared by AD and DMA_SC !
AD: Yes! DMA-SC and me did 30 tracks on MaxYMiser: only well known songs and only choruses.
We also tried some games on Mega Ste in 16Mhz such as Stunt Car Racer and Buggy Boy, which are properly accelerated (smoother) compared in normal machine.
Steph : J’ai encore gagné à Vroom en multiplayer … je garde ma coupe. Et j’ai monté dans mon deuxième atari un gotek … je n’ai plus de lecteur de disquette … j’en cherche un … à l’année prochaine. (English translation: I have won the Vroom multiplayer championship... Holding up my cup. I have added a Gotek to my second Atari, yet I don't have a floppy drive and am looking for one, see you next year).
Vicomte : YEAH !!!!! encore une édition ADN au top !!! ça fait du bien de revoir les potes, à bientôt les amis. (English translation: Yeah, another top notch ADN!! So nice to meet old friends again, see you soon pals!)
LAST WORDS BY STS
This is not the usual coding convention, more a gathering of people who love their Ataris but who cares? It doesn't mean no demo nor game has been developped here, see link below, and of course we could get a glimpse of projects that haven't been made public yet. All in one this remains a very friendly meeting, sharing lunches and slices of our past and present lives. Thanks are sent to the organizers, mostly JB and his wife Diane who spent so much time and devotion taking care of us! See you next year!
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