TW #26–#33, #50 — the 20 MeEnUhTz Chip Compo column (AmusiC)

The weekly column of the 20-minute-chip-compo (20mc): its origin story, the rules, the voting system and its changes, three result tables from autumn 1995, and — in #50 — why it stopped after Christmas 1995 and came back bi-weekly in March 1996. Written by AmusiC (Sotiris Varotsis, Bass Productions, amusic@prometheus.hol.gr), later with Floss (George Nowik).

Key claims#

Origin (#26, #50). On #trax (EFnet) DarkHeart and DeathBringer joked, "sarcastic about the fact", about an online competition under a time limit; AmusiC took it literally, prepared a sample pack of chip samples ("which sucked big time"), opened the channel #ChIpCoMpO, wrote a rules file and ran the first compo the same night — five people; Mute won, Rimbo second, DeathBringer third; the compo took 30 minutes, the voting the rest of two days. The reaction made him turn it into a weekly event; Popcorn, then traxweekly editor, offered a column and TW became an "official sponsor". The "20 Meenuhtz(tm) Chip-Compo" name and the compo's "Shortest International Music Competition" tag date from #26 (14 September 1995).

Rules (#26–#33, repeated every week). Be present on #ChIpCoMpO at the start and declare; one tune per person; 20 KB maximum uncompressed, 4 channels maximum, the samples of the week's sample pack (in 1995 plus at most two own samples — dropped for good by #33), uncompressed file, DCC'd or mailed before the deadline; 20 minutes plus 10 for connecting and transferring; filename = three letters of the handle, a dash, four letters of the title (amu-tmhk.mod); formats MOD (Pro/FastTracker), XM, S3M; leaving the channel before the start signal disqualifies. The sample pack exists to stop cheating ("prepare a chip tune a week before") — its samples are "also detuned, to avoid ready made patterns". Held every Saturday, first at 02:00 CET ("MTV Europe's time"), from #27 at 00:00 CET (Friday ~19:00 EST).

Voting. First a points system with voter roll-calls and a bonus for contestants who voted (#32: bonus = number of contestants); from compo #8 (#33) a 0–9 grade per song, summed and divided by the number of voters, self-votes allowed, forms parsed by a program — "please don't alter the voting form". Plans for monthly winners (≈5 compos) and an all-time chart; #chipspread opened for spreading work, #chipcompo moderated.

Hosting and helpers. Snowman of hornet gave the compo a home on ftp.cdrom.com, /demos/incoming/music/20mc/, one 20mc_xxx.zip per competition with the tunes and vote form (#27). Sponsors listed: TraxWeekly (Popcorn / Gene Wie), Hornet (Christopher G. Mann), Axl (Thomas Axelsson) for the chip.irc script, Kxmode for the WWW page. Imphobia diskmag forwarded the announcement. Mailing list: 32 subscribers by #32, 43 by #33.

Problems. Compo #2's sample pack was saved as IFF 8SVX, which "seemed to have compatibility problems with ST3 and FT2" and cost one contestant a disqualification (#27). Compo #6 disqualified four: Khyron (dropped out), Luvk (no tune), Aquafresh (never declared, "would deserve 1st place"), Mystical (five channels — his tune scored 274, more than the winner).

Results.

• Compo #2, as of 16 September 1995 (11 contestants, 8 submissions, 17 voters): 1. necros 123, 2. Charlatan 102, 3. Balrog 100, 4. SnowMan 83, 5. Octoque 77, 6. Axl 55, 7. Acechan 42.
• Compo #6, as of 13 October 1995 (22 contestants, 21 submissions, 18 voters): 1. Calvin 267, 2. Balrog and Zodiak 264, 3. Floss 247, 4. H0llywood 220, 5. Charlatan 212, 6. Sikamikaniko and Zeus 195, 7. Vile 183, 8. Vector 167, 9. Nova 154, 10. Cyberdmon 152, 11. Fred 151, 12. Axl 133, 13. Ender 127, 14. Pfister 120, 15. Rompedraugen 63, 16. Dr. West 53, 17. HeiZahn 35.
• Compo #8, as of 28 October 1995 (23 contestants, 22 submissions, 14 voters, new 0–9 system): 1. Mystical/Purple 8.3076, 2. Zeus 7.1538, 3. Calvin 6.6153, 4. Lepra 6.5714, 5. Sikamikaniko 6.3751, 6. Charlatan 6.1428, 7. Grave Digger and Phoenix 5.8571, 8. Smeghead 5.5, 9. LuvK 5.2857, 10. Fred 4.7857, 11. Nova 4.3076, 12. Sunday 4.2142, 13. Feather 4.0714, 14. Iha 3.6428, 15. zinc 3.2857, 16. Axl 2.857, 17. Tuskus 2.6428, 18. Pfister 2.5.

Why it stopped and came back (#50, 7 March 1996). "Some time after Christmas" 1995 people stopped voting and "complained that the scene was full of chiptunes, which were of a really bad quality (well most of them)"; the staff's poll on whether to continue got no mail except Charlatan's improvement idea, so the compo was abandoned "so they could gather up strength and actually miss the chipcompo". The return, "20mc b'": bi-weekly, cycles of ten compos plus one "20 day chipcompo", a break between cycles, results every second Thursday, same channel and time, plus a Newsletter Mailing List (NML). AmusiC's stated purpose: "not the creation of many good chiptunes, but to have hours of fun and tension, and give a task to people, which actually made them improve their tracking abilities".

Practical takeaways#

• The 1995 definition of a PC chiptune in one rule set: ≤ 20 KB, ≤ 4 channels, a shared pack of tiny samples, MOD/XM/S3M — see chip-samples and chiptune.
• A time-boxed compo with a fixed sample pack is a training device: the organiser says so explicitly, and detuned pack samples force you to tune and arrange rather than paste patterns.
• Vote-form discipline (0–9 grades, averaged, machine-parsed) is the ancestor of later online-compo voting.

Notable quotes#

• "A Chip A Day, Holds The Doctor Away" (#32 masthead).
• Charlatan on #trax: "It's better than Assembly '95"; DennisC: "the 20MC RULES if you want my opinion" (#33).
• "We Survived Criticism, We Survived Laughters, And We Made It To The Phat Number 8" (#33).

Relevance#

The primary source for the 20-minute-chip-compo entity, the chiptune flood of late 1995 discussed in s-tw037-death-of-the-chiptune-debate, and the compo culture described in compos.

Pages touched#

20-minute-chip-compo, chiptune, compos, tracker-scene-history, hornet, traxweekly, necros, zinc, chip-samples.