Friday, April 26 Morpheus (Mark Woon) at Princeton put up the third SC server. It runs very fast, is seldom used and specializes in blitz games. The server includes all of the new improvements at Infovav and a couple new ones (like current tech level). Sunday, April 21 Nathan J. Mehl (at nmehl@bbnplanet.com) wrote that sc-admin and sc-talk would, in the next two months, be moved from the blank.org server. No noticable down time was expected, but users should be aware the could be off-line for a day or two. Monday, April 15 Infovav added all of Ronald Kinion's new aliens. Also new was one screen to build ships, an idea I sent to sci-admin (pat on my own back). Friday, April 12 Scinfo will not be on the air as of April 22. See yesterday's posting for the new SC talk areas. In SC-Talk, players are being asked by the adminstrators of the SC servers their ideas for games. For example, blitz game with 5 players, 3 systems and tech of 1.00. Thursday, April 11 SC-Talk and SC-Admin appear to reoplace the scinfo discussion area. How to subscribe is on main SC page. Wednesday, April 10 A second SC site is announced (address in SC Crisis Room), with a much faster spinner. Players wanting to try blitz games should go here. Tuesday, April 9 Stellar Crisis returned April 9. Nathan J. Mehl (nmehl@bbnplanet.com) can take credit for posting information on scinfo about the first site. Monday, April 8 Scinfo came back online after taking Easter off. I got a multitude of non-delivery messages. Jeffrey Price (jjprice@eos.ncsu.edu) and Stefan Vesterlund (s-vesterlund@bibliotek.gallivare.se) have downloaded SC. The program includes few comments. Trying to figure out the program's structure will be top priority, followed by fixes to make the program written in uLPC language use less memory. Both have asked others for help in the project. Doome appears to have been booted from scinfo for his constant goating of others. Several feel this was extreme. Sunday, April 7 (Easter) Scinfo appears to be down, for now. No messages coming in. Sent test message and I didn't receive it (or the dozen messages saying the message couldn't be delivered). Hairy Cow wrote that she also wasn't getting scinfo email. She has updated her page. Thursday, April 4 Bruce Berrest (mailto:BERREST1@BRWHCC3.HCC.COM) wrote that the latest SC update also could be downloaded from another download page. Nathan J. Mehl (at nmehl@bbnplanet.com) wrote that it was official, SC (98K tarfile) was released for public consumption under the GNU General Public License. The game could be downloaded at his SC download page. Nathan also wrote: Please understand that neither Sylvan, nor I, nor the Blanks, have any intention at this point of providing any tech support for SC or the Spinner server. Don't write us about it, because we won't answer. Sorry, but Sylvan doesn't have the time (hard to do coding when you're flying at Mach 3), and I don't know enough about uLPC to be of any use. :) (The latter is more likely to change than the former. We'll see.) I will, however, be more than happy to integrate any and all bug fixes and enhancements people make into the code, or just make the diffs available on the web page. I will also try to keep Sylvan posted about what's going on with SC now that it's loose in the world, and pass on any suggestions or comments he might have, unlikely though that may be. :) I'm pushing Sylvan to make one last change to the code, to allow you to set an upper limit to the number of simultaneous games, so as to make it easier to manage server load. Don't hold your breath, though. If people who set up SC servers would please send me the URLs, I'd like to maintain a list on the page. (Please do it even if it's on an internal server that's not accessible to the outside world -- I'd like to track how this thing grows. Go to it, and happy conquering! "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Nathan J. Mehl -- BBN Planet System Operations -- nathan@bbnplanet.com http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nmehl/home.html Wednesday, April 3 Ronald E. Kinion (rkinion@eecs.wsu.edu, i9130989@wsunix.it.wsu.edu, rkinion@beta.tricity.wsu, rkinion@wsu.edu, http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~rkinion/) wrote that Sylvan had been in contact, that a site to download SC was up at http://www.blank.org/sc You can also reach the page by clicking on the SC icon on my home page. I'll believe the game is back when I see it up and running! Tuesday, April 2 Michael Goetz at michael.goetz@execnet.com wrote that he would extend scinfo's account for 30 more days. "That should give you enough time for starting up another list. This is due to the news from Sylvan, which at least gives you a chance at resurrecting SC." During the next 30 days, no one can subscribe to scinfo and those who want to unsubscribe but do so correctly: emailing maiser@earth.execnet.com with the message: unsubscribe scinfo in the message body's first line. If you have changed your email address since subscribing the unsubscribe won't work. Monday, April 1 (April Fool's Day) Ronald E. Kinion (at rkinion@eecs.wsu.edu, i9130989@wsunix.it.wsu.edu, rkinion@beta.tricity.wsu, rkinion@wsu.edu, http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~rkinion/) wrote that Sylvan was back and would soon release SC's code to anyone wanting to place it on a server. (Remember what day this is). Kinion wrote that Sylvan was heading to flight school in July, but before he left he would release the source code. "I know the timing is a little ironic but I must assure you that this is _not_ an April Fool's joke," wrote Kinion. Kinion forwarded two messages from Sylvan. The first said: >->Greetings! sorry i've been absent and delinquent: I will finally get around >->to taking care of business now. The short story is I got accepted to fighter >->school, so I'll be releasing a GPL package of SC for everyone to have and to >->cherish. I also updated my .plan, as requested... hehehe... again, I apologize >->for my delinquent behaviour, and I hope to have something out for you all in >->the next couple of days... >-> >->send my greetings to the list, if there still is one... The second message from Sylvan said: >Plan: >Greetings, all. Yes, it's true, I am actually updating my .plan! Wowo. > >Here's the story: I have been accepted to Naval Aviation Officer Candidate >School, taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the U.S., >and I ship out in mid July. This means I will in all likelyhood >never work on SC again, because by the time I had any time, I'd want >to start something new. Result? I will be preparing a GPL'd package for >distribution of the code as it is now, so that anyone may have it. > >Warning: the code is NOT tight. It's a hog. A full set of a hundred or >so games running will hog maybe 30 megs of RAM, and require some dedicated >attention to make sure it doesn't freak out. But for the stout of heart, it >does work. If anyone wants to learn uLPC and update the code, GREAT! Keep me >informed if you decide to do so, as I would love to hear how the game is >doing. > >Thanks to all who have supported SC, and I hope a GPL'd package will work for >everyone. >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > >There it is, Commence partying!