The Silly Venture 2023 Summer Edition – event report (English)
2023-08-31/
The weather has got crazy again, we have July in August. This morning I have put on a polo shirt and trausers, and after a few short physical exercises involving getting a suitcase from the depths of the garage, I have quickly changed my mind and switched to: light shoes, shorts and a T-shirt in my favorite blue colour. Why I need a suitcase? I am visitng hospitable Gdansk, where the summer edition of Silly Venture, the largest event in Europe (maybe even wolrdwide) dedicated to Atari computers and consoles, is organized by Grey and the SV Team. This time, Silly Venture takes place at the Królewska Fabryka Karabinów (the Royal Rifle Factory, German: Königliche Gewehr-Fabrik), a place with a very interesting history.
The place is located in the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town), a postindustrial zone of Gdańsk at 35-38 Łąkowa street.
The history of this quarter dates back to the first half of the 19th century. The building of the former sugar refinery located in this area was purchased by entrepreneur Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, as his former rifle factory was located in the place where the city authorities decided to build a military hospital in the years 1838-1844, well known for its heroic defense in September 1939 of the Polish Post Office (an exterritorial Polish property in the Free City of Gdansk) located in one the ex-hospital buildings (today’s Obrońców Poczty Polskiej square).
The attack on the post office began at 4:45 am, on September the 1st, 1939, simultaneously with the attack of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein on Westerplatte. The postmen endured until the evening when the pumping of petrol into the cellars and setting fire to the building by means of flamethrowers finally led to the capitulation of the Polish Post’s crew. The commanders on both the Polish and German sides were killed in the attack, and the capitulating Poles were finally sentenced to death and shot in early October 1939. Dieter Schenk published his book in 1995: “Polish Post Office in Gdansk – the story of a certain German judicial murder”, and the direct effect of its publication was the review of the trial of the Defenders of the Post Office by the National Court in Lübeck, which resulted in a finding of violation of the rules of court proceedings and violation of the provisions of the 4th Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land and thus resulting in a posthumous acquittal. The verdict, apart from its moral significance, also led to the compensation payment by the German government in 2001 in the amount: 10.000 DM (Deutsche Mark) to widows and 5.000 DM to children of the murdered. Coming back to Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, his factory shortly after establishing was able to produce and modify several thousand of rifles a year. In 1846, one of the very first steam engines in Gdańsk was installed in the factory. In 1853, another owner of the factory became insolvent, and the factory was acquired by the state with changing its name to the Royal Rifle Factory. With a state support the company grew significantly and in 1916 the factory’s area covered already an entire quarter.
In 1857, the factory started the production of Dreyse needle-gun, which was quite modern at the time.
Dreyse needle-gun
The next milstone in the development of the factory was production of a new model of rifle designed by the Paul and Wilhelm Mauser, named the M1871.
M1871
In 1901, the factory began production of its last rifle, also a Mauser’s design, named the K98. This weapon was being widely used by German army during the World War I.
Mauser K98, The Swedish Army Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In the middle of the World War I, the Royal Rifle Factory was the second biggest employer in Gdansk (after the shipyard). It employed 6.5 thousand workers and was able to produce almost half a million rifles a year. After Germany’s defeat in the World War I, the production of rifles was suspended as a result of the establishment of the Free City of Gdansk, and in 1920 completely stopped. This was done following the agreement that Gdansk could not serve as a military base, erect fortifications and allow a production of military equipment, including ammunition, on its territory. The factory’s machines were purchased by Poland and in 1919-1921 transported to Radom what helped to set up one of the most modern weapons factories in today’s Europe, named Fabryka Broni Łucznik. The first rifle produced in Łucznik was the wz.98, a Polish version of the K98 rifle.
KBK wz 98, The Swedish Army Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In the abandoned area of the Royal Rifle Factory several civilian companies began to operate making use of tax relief and other incentives offered by the City. In 1928, an additional modernist style building was built for the Tobacco Monopoly Factory (currently used by the Polish multinational clothing manufacturer – LPP). Later, in the 1930s, the local NSDAP unit was also located in the rifle factory’s area. The quarter survived the WWII relatively intact and after the war, the biggest companies that started to operate there were: Gdańskie Zakłady Futrzarskie (the Fur Coat Manufacturer of Gdansk) Gdańska Fabryka Obrabiarek (the Lathe Factory of Gdansk) – the latter one also known from its secret production of lathes for shaping the artillery shells. After the communism’s fall in the 1990, many companies established their headquarters in the factory but rotating like in a kaleidoscope. The most famous is the LPP, which is a today’s owner of such brands like: Reserved, Cropp, House, Mohito and Sinsay.
In 2005, a significant part of the former Royal Rifle Factory was purchased by veterinarian – Marcin Krzemiński, who placed a veterinary hospital there and rent out the rest of the area to artists, restaurants and various enterprises. Today, the Royal Rifle Factory has become a popular and fashionable place, where the cafes and restaurants teem with life, and the loft character of the place attracts young people. Interestingly, significant part of the area of the Lower Town was in past covered by wet meadows, which served as pastures. The former character of this area is reflected in the names of the streets: Wierzbowa (Willow), Polna (Field), Szuwary (Reeds) and Łąkowa (Meadow). Even more interesting is the history of the foundation of the Lower Town, which was established in the area of Świńskie Łąki (Pig’s Meadows) bought from Gdansk’s butchers.
Fortyfikacje Gdańska – Archiwum Państwowe w Gdańsku
In 1576, the New Motława riverbed was dug, and in 1638 the construction of fortifications was completed. Built in the years 1623-1638 according to the design of the Dutchman Cornelius van den Bosch and made under the direction of another Dutchman – Peter Jansen, the old Dutch bastions can still be admired as: Wilk, Wyskok, Królik, Żubr and Miś, which remained today from 14 originally made. In addition, the plan made in 1650 by Georg Tellior assumed draining the area by digging a canal network. This project was completed in 1700. As the ground drained, the canals were burried and the present-day streets were built on them, planted with Swedish rowan, a tree able to deal with high groundwater levels. The process of burying of the canals was completed in 1871 and one can say the Lower Town is a district that grew out of swamps. 🙂 In addition, in the 1880s, the Lower Town got connected to the rest of the city by horse tram lines, which were electrified in 1900. The first line entered the Lower Town through Długie Ogrody, the second through Toruńska Street. The remains of the former tram lines can be still seen today. All in all this is a very interesting place, which used to have also its bad reputation as the “flying knives’ district”, but today it is definitely a worth visiting place and that is exactly what we are going to do thanks to the Silly Venture Demoscene Party’s invitation. 🙂
***
Before we set off, a quick information of what happens in the garden. All the birds have already left their nest boxes and only from time to time a gang of forest sparrows visits firethorn bushes. Rhododendrons bloomed again as well as sunflowers, which were sown from seeds lost by birds at the bird feeder in winter. 🙂 Red Admirals, beautiful butterflies that are flying in our gardens until November and then migrating to Italy, appeared on the blooming buddlejas. The dog makes use of the green lawn and listens for steps of a cat from neighbourhood using a “sonar” method. 😉 In the meantime birds eat the dog’s food and drink water from the dog’s bowl. 😉
It’s time to prepare for the trip, I will pack pack my staff, and you, dear readers, try to find a comfortable place to rest and make a cup of good coffee. If the aroma of coffee sarrounds you we can set off for Gdansk. 🙂
***
A cabin-size suitcase was packed. This time I did not take retro equipment, but a variety of emulators installed on my laptop – starting from Atari 2600 through Atari XL/XE, Atari 7800 up to Atari ST. You never know what might be needed. 😉 I got on a train, where I had a seat, as it turned out later, next to a nice sailor going to Gdansk for weekend-sailing in the Gulf of Gdansk. Of course, several sailing topics were discussed with my co-passenger and after that I started to do a research on the Lower Town, as I epxected some interesting facts to be uncovered below the layers of the paint of history. The views from the train where familiar to me as I had traveled exactly the same way while I had been going in December to the winter edition of Silly Venture. However, the landscapes were different from those in winter, when the white colours had dominated. This time a variety of summer colours exploded. 🙂
I reached Gdansk with a slight delay and immediately the beautiful and completely renovated railway station attracted my interest. The weather was also brilliant with a temperature slightly below 30 degrees Celsius. 🙂
The ordered taxi arrived in 7 minutes and after a short conversation it turned out that the driver’s son was a marine officer and worked on gas carriers. Somehow those marine conversations were meant to happen on that day. 🙂
When I got to the hotel, I was greeted by a nice receptionist and after just a few minutes I was in my room whose windows were this time not on the street side, what promised sleeping well all night. 🙂 I took a quick shower and was going to walk 400 meters distance to the Royal Rifle Factory. Crossing Podwale Przedmiejskie, I entered the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town) and my attention was immediately attracted by the modernist LPP building and the Swedish rowans.
After a while I rached my destination,
what was confirmed by the address plaque:
and the banner. 😉
Immersed in the courtyard, I immediately spotted familiar faces, especially that Commodore Brotherhood was represented by two notable members of the ‘Lepsi De’ group, who thank to the Grey’s persuasion and granted immunity also decided to visit the Atari event. 😉
Very last fixes took place, e.g. Piter brought a large Silly Venture logo, which after assembling was to either be mounted outside or inside the room where the Compos were planned to be held.
Eventually the later idea was applied. 😉
After climbing the stairs leading to the first floor, the loft atmosphere was immediately noticed, additionally emphasized by the piano and the magnificent monstera. 😉
Going forward I noticed a huge bar 🙂
and the conference room on the right-hand side, where the guests were taking their strategic positions for the contest. 😉
The next action to be taken was finding Grey, confirming the arrival and obtaining the badge and the gadets. 😉This year the basic package consited of two magazines (one was the special edition for the SV 2023 – to be downloaded here) by the biggest German 8-bit Atari users’ club – the ABBUC (Atari Bit Byter User Club – https://abbuc.de), whose boss – Carsten Strotmann also visited the event. 🙂 In addition, a few gadgets from the City of Gdansk, a postcard, a registration plate’s frame and a sticker with SV logo that immediately landed on my laptop’s lid. 🙂
The crème de la crème of the gadget set were “Silly-Krówki” candies, that after unfolding asked the fundamental question: 😉
In addition, one could buy a t-shirt with the SV logo in four colours: black, grey, yellow and blue, and of course I chose the latter one. 😉
I also obtained the badge…two-sided one. 😉
One of the contests run at the SV was the Dread tournament, a great Doom clone for the stock Atari ST, written by the team: KK/Altair, John Tsakiris, Dennis Ramberg and DMA-SC. Of course, a warm-up before the competition was mandatory. 🙂
In the meantime, the SV Culinary Logistics Team led by Sylwia was preparing “something to eat”… 😉
Next, the signal “food” was transmitted and the bar was surrounded and taken alive. 😉
Of course, we could not do without the punch served by the originator and author of this delicious drink. 😉
All day long the thirsty could quench their thirst with bottles from the local brewery
as well as taken directly from the keg. 😉
After such a delicious meal we went to the Skipp’s concert announced by the wall posters:
Skipp warmed the equipment up…
and started the concert which slowly progressed…
…to finally make the audience go wild and breaking Skipp’s personal record by reaching 3.5 hours of non-stop music. 🙂 Shortly after midnight I headed towards the hotel, wondering what would happen tomorrow. 🙂
***
The morning was foggy, but not as a state of my mind 😉 but indeed the Lower Town was shrouded in fog.
After eating a decent breakfast at the hotel and drinking two caps of coffee, I set out for the event venue, which was slowly coming to life. In order to do something “hands-on”, I helped the organizers to refresh the rooms and prepare them for the next day full of events. Participants wnet to the venue at their own time and around noon, the concert of Felice (Maggie Team) from Great Britain, which was postponed from the previous day, started, announced additionally by a nice poster.
We had a chance to listen to a deal of good music, whose sounds sometimes resembled the music of Depeche Mode band. 🙂
After the concert, the duo of TeDec and sim1 appeared on stage and told a very interesting story related to coin-op machines (arcade machines where you could play after inserting a coin or token), especially the one related to the game ‘the 1941 – Counter Attack’ written by… Japanese. My conversation with both presenters revealed further layers of curiosities and I think that this is a good topic for a separate article on the blog, and maybe even will be able to persuade both gentlemen to do an interview. 🙂
The next point on the agenda was the presentation by Thomas Niemann (a.k.a. Schlampf) covering an interesting HW extension for the Atari STE called twiSTEr, which accelerates it, serves as a memory extension and offers the IDE interface:
After the presentation Thomas aswered questions at his twiSTEr demo installation.
Sharp at 2:30pm the GFX, MSX & Wild Compo started (the official stream recorded is available here).
Vouting was possible by both the special paper sheet and the convenient web application.
Audience was voting:
and at the bar something was cooking up… 😉
The first part of the Compos was drawing to an end…
and soon it turned out what kind of action was performed at the bar…. 😉
The next point on the agenda was presentation of the RM 800XL project, a modern version of the ATARI 800XL.
Larek with the team of: Artur, Andrzej and Rafał jumped to the stage and revealed their plan to release RM 800XL already next year. The RM 800XL architecture is based on two processors made in RISC and FPGA technology. The prototype should be available already in September this year. According to the presenters, the new computer will be fully compatible with Atari XL both in terms of software and external interfaces. You can find out more about this on the official website of the project: https://revive-machines.com. I keep fingers crossed for that ! 🙂
After a great meal at the bar, where plenty of food and drinks was served… 🙂
…it was possible to look around and see what interesting the participants brought with them, e.g. a well maintained Atari 520ST set:
with an interesting home-made pad:
It was also a good opportunity to have a closer look to the Thomas’s Atari STE computer with the twiSTEr on board (you could read more about it here),
an observe that man does not live by the Atari alone. 😉
There was also an opportunity to visit the organizers at their World Control Center, 😉
and take a picture at Silly Venture’s official floor stand 😉
There was also an incident – a lonely strange package was left on the table, forced the organizers to consider calling fire brigade, sappers, or order immediate evacuation… 😉
Sharp at 5:30pm a second part of the Compos started covering the Intro, Demo and Game categories (the official stream recored is available here)
The conference room was filled again with participants armed with voting tools and ready to use them. 😉
The temperature outside reached 30 degrees Celsius again, so the possibility of drinking “isotonic” drinks to replenish electrolytes was beneficial. 😉
Shortly after the Compos the “Dread” tournament took place:
and the winner was TeDec, to whom I warmly congratulate! 🙂
The last point of the evening program was a film starrying RJ Mical, the main designer of the Atari Lynx console, who also took part in the development of the Amiga 1000 and its later models. Actually the film had been presented before, but without Polish subtitles and for the quite small audience, so this time Grey together with Paptak shared “after processing” version. As for the sake of clarity: the 30th anniversary of the Atari Lynx console had been celebrated at SV2019 and its designer had greeted all participants remotely and had agreed to be one of the judges after the party, what had been arranged by KK who had had a pleasure to talk to RJ. I do recommend watching it! 🙂 (just click on the picture below or follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NmIBuDZvSk ).
Shortly after midnight, finishing an eventful day, I went to the hotel, and on my way, as it should not be nothing strange on the street named Łąkowa (Meadow), I met a young fox. This is one of the many suprises the Lower Town might give. 😉
***
The next morning, after having a good breakfast, I packed my staff and clattering over the Gdansk’s cobblestones with wheels of my suitcase, I reached the venue again, where the preparation for the Compos Award Ceremony started,
and the prizes awaited new owners. 😉
Next the “Highest Commitee” announced the results and the winners appeared on the stage greeted with a loud round of applause and the traditional “handshake-kiss-lapel-red carnations” 😉
that is, they were given a statuette and prizes funded by sponsors.
The prizes could be to some extend “customized”, i.e. if someone had already had 3 “Lauras” at home and proved that had passed them twice, then he or she was not given the 4th one. 😉
The competition entries are being uploaded to the demozoo server and around September, 2nd shuld be fully available at:
https://demozoo.org/parties/4590.
The Compos results are available on the SV website:
https://www.sillyventure.eu/download/sv2k23se_results.txt,
of course in the txt file, which I also present below:
/ __|___\_// /_____/ /________
_ __/____\| / / /_ / /_ / |_____ 2023 SUMMER EDITION
_ ___ |/ / \ \| / \| / |/ / RESULTS
\ ._____/___/._______ .______/\___ / --+ Silly Venture +--
\| \| \| / /
_____________________ /____/ _ __ _____________________
___ / / __/_ _ / _/_______ __ / _ / _/__ _
/ |/ / _____/ | / _/ / | / / |/ / ______
_ _ / | / \| / | \ / / |/ / | \ \| /__ _
\\\__\ .______/\ ._____/.___|\____\ ._\__/\ .______/\ ._|\ \ ____/ _///
\| \| \| \| \| \| \____\|sK!
___________________________________________
_________________ \| __ _ \| compos results \|
._\\__________________________________________________________________________.
| |
| ....................Staying faithful to ATARI's roots!................. :
: ................... 17-20 AUGUST 2023 GDANSK / POLAND ................. .
. ___________________________________________________________/
\_\_________________________________________________________.
____,
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - GRAPHICS COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Don't Step on the Demoscener's Ego! PI / GPDWT 7.644
02. Self Test Raphis / Agenda 6.966
03. Dawn. Then Dusk. pépé / Hemoroids 6.825
04. Aramaic Dream Titlescreen NoName 6.379
05. Lovely Melody Buddy 4.491
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - ATASCII COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Iced Earth Odyn1ec 7.237
02. CyberPunKatze pépé / Hemoroids 7.175
03. Cosmic Shaman +Adam+ 5.431
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - GRAPHICS COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Faith in the Roots Jade/S16^Arsenic^DSR^Dune 8.525
^EFT^HMD^TEK
02. Cheesy Future Critikill/S16 8.483
03. Cyberpunk 2023 Vasyl/Joker^SWEET16 8.017
04. Don't let the dogs out Carrion/Censor Design 7.917
05. Children of the Pixel (We all are) pépé / Hemoroids 7.617
06. Cargo Nytrik / HMD / sweet16 7.433
07. Psycho Nytrik & Pandafox / HMD 7.317
____.
/|\___| ATARI FALCON - GRAPHICS COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. The plague Nytrik / HMD Hydroxid 8.350
02. Roots of Eternity RUE & CK 8.339
____.
/|\___| ATARI VCS 2600 - MUSIC COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Happy Yummy Bear Triace 7.825
02. Vaguely Composed Sonata KK/Altair 7.333
03. Lemme hear you say ZoltarX / NG 6.263
04. BamBamHacko glafouk / Flush 5.741
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - POKEY MUSIC COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Prick up your ears Buddy 7.000
02. Dream off ZoltarX / NG 6.741
03. Rylis Przunk 6.373
04. The Dark Moon Is Rising (vertigo remix) Poison 5.966
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - YM2149 MUSIC COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. The Endtune That Didn't Make It mOdmate/SMFX 7.639
02. 2072 MCH/Genesis Project 7.621
^MultiStyle Labs
03. Please just don't ZoltarX / NG 7.368
04. Paréidolia AD / MPS 6.898
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - 4CHN MUSIC COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. The Empire of Chaos Poison 6.246
02. Hùmân Dîm€nsïôn II AD / MPS 5.983
____.
/|\___| WILD COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. The duel Buddy 7.196
02. Echoes from the depths of the TIA Buddy 6.569
03. For Eternity CD Teaser Poison 6.431
04. Christ Mass Knight (SV 2023 SE Edition) Poison 6.157
05. Russian War Pawel - "nowy80Retro", 6.140
Rafal, Marcin
____.
/|\___| ATARI VCS 2600 - GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Silly road Sigma 7.160
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - 256B GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Epic Killer Rabbits Battle KK/Altair 8.102
02. Skarb Piratów Krzys 5.837
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Adoom Swiety/Zelax 8.698
02. Greedy Bat Coded by Zdenda 6.078
03. Dark City Road Coded by Zdenda, 5.627
music by Poison,
car-design by PG
04. Robot and Minion Coded by Zdenda, 5.431
music/sounds by PG
05. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 01 Zdenda 5.173
06. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 03 Zdenda 4.962
07. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 02 Zdenda 4.882
08. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 04 Zdenda 4.769
09. Tetris T Coded by Zdenda, 4.765
music by Poison
10. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 06 Zdenda 4.635
11. Zdendazuma II. datadisk 05 Zdenda 4.549
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Space Zot Shaoth, Papy CPC, DMA-SC 6.745
02. Ready Steady Bang 0.9 Cooper, AD, Der Vinz and Sts 6.741
____.
/|\___| ATARI 7800 - GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Cameltoe Karri Kaksonen 5.600
____.
/|\___| ATARI LYNX - GAME COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Wizzy Karri Kaksonen 7.449
02. Minimal Oceo 6.146
03. Bowling Area Oceo 5.490
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - INTRO 256B
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. colored sines PPs 7.043
02. Flight Over Unknown Land Kane / Suspect 5.458
03. Eternal Sunshine gorgh/Agenda 5.298
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - 128B INTRO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Matka Natura Marquee Design 6.941
02. Indecision Tom/SMFX 5.769
____.
/|\___| ATARI FALCON - 256B INTRO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. cornellBoxFC sadoslav/atariBDSM and 7.592
Ulrich von Chain/atariBDSM
____.
/|\___| ATARI JAGUAR - INTRO 256B
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. algorip 42Bastian 7.412
02. Tom & Jerry & Julia 42Bastian 7.280
03. cornellBoxJAG sadoslav/atariBDSM and 6.592
Ulrich von Chain/atariBDSM
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - 4KB INTRO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Last minute compofiller for fun <3 McBurrobit 5.981
____.
/|\___| ATARI ST/STE - 96KB INTRO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. IHNTTFAN Vipy / NGC , Soundy / NGC 7.392
02. Return of the Devil's Show (XXX/18+) Rector 5.404
03. The Incantation #1 The Eristic Principle 5.160
____.
/|\___| ATARI VCS 2600 - DEMO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Karuna gorgh/Agenda 6.804
____.
/|\___| ATARI XL/XE - DEMO STANDARD (6502/GTIA)
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Atari3D Desire 6.900
02. sv23we invite Buddy & PPs 6.660
03. )...incomplete...( Buddy + PPs 5.981
_____.
\\____| ATARI ST/STE - DEMO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. My school is old by Hemoroids (HMD) Ayoros, pandafox, ad, 7.904
nytrik, dieu and jade
02. Compofiller Onescreen McBurrobit 5.300
____.
\\___| ATARI LYNX - DEMO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. rottoprojoLynx 42Bastian 4.563
____.
\\___| ATARI JAGUAR - DEMO COMPO
TITLE: AUTHOR: PTS:
01. Silly Venture 2k23 Winter Edition Invitation Mystic Bytes 6.553
02. YARC512 42Bastian 4.319
___________________________________________________________ _
_\ /_
| 16TH EDITION OF SILLY VENTURE |
: |
._ GDANSK, POLAND 17-20.08.2023 _:
/___________________ ___ .___ ________________\
/________>> /\ | /\ | _/ | <<_______\
/ \ | / \| \ | sK!
F O R E V E R
It’s time to say goodbye to hospitable Gdańsk and the Silly Venture. It was a good time, the organizers did everything to make everyone feel at home even though they faced a lot of challenges, such as struggling with the African heat. The atmosphere was great, the food delicious, and the drinks allowed to function reasonably well in these extreme temperatures. 🙂
Hats off to Grey and the whole SV Team, especially to “the Team of Culinary Logistics” 😉 , who did not let us go hungry. The event was attended by guests from Poland, Great Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Norway, Finland and the USA (California). For sure, if the holiday plans allow, I will come back here next year, and additionally I invite you already to the winter edition of Silly Venture, which will take place in Gdassk, on December 7-10, 2023. You could already confirm your presense there using the following link: sillyventure.eu/pl/visitors. The list of participants is growing fast. 🙂 See you in Gdansk in December, when the winter will put its shades of white colour on the streets, pavements and roofs of the Lower and Old Town!
***
I wish you a nice ending of summer holidays, catch some more sun, because the weather, even a bit capricious still could make a tan on your skin. Stay tuned and special greetings to Grey and the entire SV Team! 🙂
The place is located in the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town), a postindustrial zone of Gdańsk at 35-38 Łąkowa street.
The history of this quarter dates back to the first half of the 19th century. The building of the former sugar refinery located in this area was purchased by entrepreneur Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, as his former rifle factory was located in the place where the city authorities decided to build a military hospital in the years 1838-1844, well known for its heroic defense in September 1939 of the Polish Post Office (an exterritorial Polish property in the Free City of Gdansk) located in one the ex-hospital buildings 
(today’s Obrońców Poczty Polskiej square).
The attack on the post office began at 4:45 am, on September the 1st, 1939, simultaneously with the attack of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein on Westerplatte. The postmen endured until the evening when the pumping of petrol into the cellars and setting fire to the building by means of flamethrowers finally led to the capitulation of the Polish Post’s crew. The commanders on both the Polish and German sides were killed in the attack, and the capitulating Poles were finally sentenced to death and shot in early October 1939. 
Dieter Schenk published his book in 1995: “Polish Post Office in Gdansk – the story of a certain German judicial murder”, and the direct effect of its publication was the review of the trial of the Defenders of the Post Office by the National Court in Lübeck, which resulted in a finding of violation of the rules of court proceedings and violation of the provisions of the 4th Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land and thus resulting in a posthumous acquittal. The verdict, apart from its moral significance, also led to the compensation payment by the German government in 2001 in the amount: 10.000 DM (Deutsche Mark) to widows and 5.000 DM to children of the murdered. Coming back to Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, his factory shortly after establishing was able to produce and modify several thousand of rifles a year. In 1846, one of the very first steam engines in Gdańsk was installed in the factory. In 1853, another owner of the factory became insolvent, and the factory was acquired by the state with changing its name to the Royal Rifle Factory. With a state support the company grew significantly and in 1916 the factory’s area covered already an entire quarter.
In 1857, the factory started the production of Dreyse needle-gun, which was quite modern at the time.
In 2005, a significant part of the former Royal Rifle Factory was purchased by veterinarian – Marcin Krzemiński, who placed a veterinary hospital there and rent out the rest of the area to artists, restaurants and various enterprises. Today, the Royal Rifle Factory has become a popular and fashionable place, where the cafes and restaurants teem with life, and the loft character of the place attracts young people. Interestingly, significant part of the area of the Lower Town was in past covered by wet meadows, which served as pastures. The former character of this area is reflected in the names of the streets: Wierzbowa (Willow), Polna (Field), Szuwary (Reeds) and Łąkowa (Meadow). Even more interesting is the history of the foundation of the Lower Town, which was established in the area of Świńskie Łąki (Pig’s Meadows) bought from Gdansk’s butchers.
the design of the Dutchman Cornelius van den Bosch and made under the direction of another Dutchman – Peter Jansen, the old Dutch bastions can still be admired as: Wilk, Wyskok, Królik, Żubr and Miś, which remained today from 14 originally made. In addition, the plan made in 1650 by Georg Tellior assumed draining the area by digging a canal network. This project was completed in 1700. As the ground drained, the canals were burried and the present-day streets were built on them, planted with Swedish rowan, a tree able to deal with high groundwater levels. 
The process of burying of the canals was completed in 1871 and one can say the Lower Town is a district that grew out of swamps. 🙂 In addition, in the 1880s, the Lower Town got connected to the rest of the city by horse tram lines, which were electrified in 1900. The first line entered the Lower Town through Długie Ogrody, the second through Toruńska Street. The remains of the former tram lines can be still seen today. All in all this is a very interesting place, which used to have also its bad reputation as the “flying knives’ district”, but today it is definitely a worth visiting place and that is exactly what we are going to do thanks to the Silly Venture Demoscene Party’s invitation. 🙂
Before we set off, a quick information of what happens in the garden. All the birds have already left their nest boxes and only from time to time a gang of forest sparrows visits firethorn bushes. Rhododendrons bloomed again as well as sunflowers, which were sown from seeds lost by birds at the bird feeder in winter. 🙂 Red Admirals, beautiful butterflies that are flying in our gardens until November and then migrating to Italy, appeared on the blooming buddlejas. The dog makes use of the green lawn and listens for steps of a cat from neighbourhood using a “sonar” method. 😉 In the meantime birds eat the dog’s food and drink water from the dog’s bowl. 😉
It’s time to prepare for the trip, I will pack pack my staff, and you, dear readers, try to find a comfortable place to rest and make a cup of good coffee. If the aroma of coffee sarrounds you we can set off for Gdansk. 🙂
I reached Gdansk with a slight delay and immediately the beautiful and completely renovated railway station attracted my interest. The weather was also brilliant with a temperature slightly below 30 degrees Celsius. 🙂
The ordered taxi arrived in 7 minutes and after a short conversation it turned out that the driver’s son was a marine officer and worked on gas carriers. Somehow those marine conversations were meant to happen on that day. 🙂
When I got to the hotel, I was greeted by a nice receptionist and after just a few minutes I was in my room whose windows were this time not on the street side, what promised sleeping well all night. 🙂 I took a quick shower and was going to walk 400 meters distance to the Royal Rifle Factory. Crossing Podwale Przedmiejskie, I entered the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town) and my attention was immediately attracted by the modernist LPP building and the Swedish rowans.
After a while I rached my destination,
what was confirmed by the address plaque:
and the banner. 😉
Immersed in the courtyard, I immediately spotted familiar faces, especially that Commodore Brotherhood was represented by two notable members of the ‘Lepsi De’ group, who thank to the Grey’s persuasion and granted immunity also decided to visit the Atari event. 😉
Very last fixes took place, e.g. Piter brought a large Silly Venture logo, which after assembling was to either be mounted outside or inside the room where the Compos were planned to be held.
Eventually the later idea was applied. 😉
After climbing the stairs leading to the first floor, the loft atmosphere was immediately noticed, additionally emphasized by the piano and the magnificent monstera. 😉
Going forward I noticed a huge bar 🙂
and the conference room on the right-hand side, where the guests were taking their strategic positions for the contest. 😉
The next action to be taken was finding Grey, confirming the arrival and obtaining the badge and the gadets. 😉
This year the basic package consited of two magazines (one was the special edition for the SV 2023 – to be downloaded here) by the biggest German 8-bit Atari users’ club – the ABBUC (Atari Bit Byter User Club – https://abbuc.de), whose boss – Carsten Strotmann also visited the event. 🙂 In addition, a few gadgets from the City of Gdansk, a postcard, a registration plate’s frame and a sticker with SV logo that immediately landed on my laptop’s lid. 🙂
The crème de la crème of the gadget set were “Silly-Krówki” candies, that after unfolding asked the fundamental question: 😉
In addition, one could buy a t-shirt with the SV logo in four colours: black, grey, yellow and blue, and of course I chose the latter one. 😉
I also obtained the badge…two-sided one. 😉
One of the contests run at the SV was the Dread tournament, a great Doom clone for the stock Atari ST, written by the team: KK/Altair, John Tsakiris, Dennis Ramberg and DMA-SC. Of course, a warm-up before the competition was mandatory. 🙂
In the meantime, the SV Culinary Logistics Team led by Sylwia was preparing “something to eat”… 😉
Next, the signal “food” was transmitted and the bar was surrounded and taken alive. 😉
Of course, we could not do without the punch served by the originator and author of this delicious drink. 😉
All day long the thirsty could quench their thirst with bottles from the local brewery
as well as taken directly from the keg. 😉
After such a delicious meal we went to the Skipp’s concert announced by the wall posters:
Skipp warmed the equipment up…
and started the concert which slowly progressed…
…to finally make the audience go wild and breaking Skipp’s personal record by reaching 3.5 hours of non-stop music. 🙂 Shortly after midnight I headed towards the hotel, wondering what would happen tomorrow. 🙂
The morning was foggy, but not as a state of my mind 😉 but indeed the Lower Town was shrouded in fog.
After eating a decent breakfast at the hotel and drinking two caps of coffee, I set out for the event venue, which was slowly coming to life. In order to do something “hands-on”, I helped the organizers to refresh the rooms and prepare them for the next day full of events. Participants wnet to the venue at their own time and around noon, the concert of Felice (Maggie Team) from Great Britain, which was postponed from the previous day, started, announced additionally by a nice poster.
We had a chance to listen to a deal of good music, whose sounds sometimes resembled the music of Depeche Mode band. 🙂
After the concert, the duo of TeDec and sim1 appeared on stage and told a very interesting story related to coin-op machines (arcade machines where you could play after inserting a coin or token), especially the one related to the game ‘the 1941 – Counter Attack’ written by… Japanese. My conversation with both presenters revealed further layers of curiosities and I think that this is a good topic for a separate article on the blog, and maybe even will be able to persuade both gentlemen to do an interview. 🙂
The next point on the agenda was the presentation by Thomas Niemann (a.k.a. Schlampf) covering an interesting HW extension for the Atari STE called twiSTEr, which accelerates it, serves as a memory extension and offers the IDE interface:
After the presentation Thomas aswered questions at his twiSTEr demo installation.
Sharp at 2:30pm the GFX, MSX & Wild Compo started (the official stream recorded is available here).
Vouting was possible by both the special paper sheet and the convenient web application.
Audience was voting:
and at the bar something was cooking up… 😉
The first part of the Compos was drawing to an end…
and soon it turned out what kind of action was performed at the bar…. 😉
The next point on the agenda was presentation of the RM 800XL project, a modern version of the ATARI 800XL.
Larek with the team of: Artur, Andrzej and Rafał jumped to the stage and revealed their plan to release RM 800XL already next year. The RM 800XL architecture is based on two processors made in RISC and FPGA technology. The prototype should be available already in September this year. According to the presenters, the new computer will be fully compatible with Atari XL both in terms of software and external interfaces. You can find out more about this on the official website of the project: https://revive-machines.com. I keep fingers crossed for that ! 🙂
After a great meal at the bar, where plenty of food and drinks was served… 🙂
…it was possible to look around and see what interesting the participants brought with them, e.g. a well maintained Atari 520ST set:
with an interesting home-made pad:
It was also a good opportunity to have a closer look to the Thomas’s Atari STE computer with the twiSTEr on board (you could read more about it here),
an observe that man does not live by the Atari alone. 😉
There was also an opportunity to visit the organizers at their World Control Center, 😉
and take a picture at Silly Venture’s official floor stand 😉
There was also an incident – a lonely strange package was left on the table, forced the organizers to consider calling fire brigade, sappers, or order immediate evacuation… 😉
Sharp at 5:30pm a second part of the Compos started covering the Intro, Demo and Game categories (the official stream recored is available here)
The conference room was filled again with participants armed with voting tools and ready to use them. 😉
The temperature outside reached 30 degrees Celsius again, so the possibility of drinking “isotonic” drinks to replenish electrolytes was beneficial. 😉
Shortly after the Compos the “Dread” tournament took place:
and the winner was TeDec, to whom I warmly congratulate! 🙂
The last point of the evening program was a film starrying RJ Mical, the main designer of the Atari Lynx console, who also took part in the development of the Amiga 1000 and its later models. Actually the film had been presented before, but without Polish subtitles and for the quite small audience, so this time Grey together with Paptak shared “after processing” version. As for the sake of clarity: the 30th anniversary of the Atari Lynx console had been celebrated at SV2019 and its designer had greeted all participants remotely and had agreed to be one of the judges after the party, what had been arranged by KK who had had a pleasure to talk to RJ. I do recommend watching it! 🙂 (just click on the picture below or follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NmIBuDZvSk ).
Shortly after midnight, finishing an eventful day, I went to the hotel, and on my way, as it should not be nothing strange on the street named Łąkowa (Meadow), I met a young fox. This is one of the many suprises the Lower Town might give. 😉
and the prizes awaited new owners. 😉
Next the “Highest Commitee” announced the results and the winners appeared on the stage greeted with a loud round of applause and the traditional “handshake-kiss-lapel-red carnations” 😉
that is, they were given a statuette and prizes funded by sponsors.
The prizes could be to some extend “customized”, i.e. if someone had already had 3 “Lauras” at home and proved that had passed them twice, then he or she was not given the 4th one. 😉
The competition entries are being uploaded to the demozoo server and around September, 2nd shuld be fully available at:
https://demozoo.org/parties/4590.
The Compos results are available on the SV website:
https://www.sillyventure.eu/download/sv2k23se_results.txt,
of course in the txt file, which I also present below:
It’s time to say goodbye to hospitable Gdańsk and the Silly Venture. It was a good time, the organizers did everything to make everyone feel at home even though they faced a lot of challenges, such as struggling with the African heat. 
The atmosphere was great, the food delicious, and the drinks allowed to function reasonably well in these extreme temperatures. 🙂
Hats off to Grey and the whole SV Team, especially to “the Team of Culinary Logistics” 😉 , who did not let us go hungry. The event was attended by guests from Poland, Great Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Norway, Finland and the USA (California). For sure, if the holiday plans allow, 
I will come back here next year, and additionally I invite you already to the winter edition of Silly Venture, which will take place in Gdassk, on December 7-10, 2023. You could already confirm your presense there using the following link: sillyventure.eu/pl/visitors. The list of participants is growing fast. 🙂 See you in Gdansk in December, when the winter will put its shades of white colour on the streets, pavements and roofs of the Lower and Old Town!
The place is located in the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town), a postindustrial zone of Gdańsk at 35-38 Łąkowa street.
The history of this quarter dates back to the first half of the 19th century. The building of the former sugar refinery located in this area was purchased by entrepreneur Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, as his former rifle factory was located in the place where the city authorities decided to build a military hospital in the years 1838-1844, well known for its heroic defense in September 1939 of the Polish Post Office (an exterritorial Polish property in the Free City of Gdansk) located in one the ex-hospital buildings 
(today’s Obrońców Poczty Polskiej square).
The attack on the post office began at 4:45 am, on September the 1st, 1939, simultaneously with the attack of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein on Westerplatte. The postmen endured until the evening when the pumping of petrol into the cellars and setting fire to the building by means of flamethrowers finally led to the capitulation of the Polish Post’s crew. The commanders on both the Polish and German sides were killed in the attack, and the capitulating Poles were finally sentenced to death and shot in early October 1939. 
Dieter Schenk published his book in 1995: “Polish Post Office in Gdansk – the story of a certain German judicial murder”, and the direct effect of its publication was the review of the trial of the Defenders of the Post Office by the National Court in Lübeck, which resulted in a finding of violation of the rules of court proceedings and violation of the provisions of the 4th Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land and thus resulting in a posthumous acquittal. The verdict, apart from its moral significance, also led to the compensation payment by the German government in 2001 in the amount: 10.000 DM (Deutsche Mark) to widows and 5.000 DM to children of the murdered. Coming back to Johann Ferdinand Geschkat, his factory shortly after establishing was able to produce and modify several thousand of rifles a year. In 1846, one of the very first steam engines in Gdańsk was installed in the factory. In 1853, another owner of the factory became insolvent, and the factory was acquired by the state with changing its name to the Royal Rifle Factory. With a state support the company grew significantly and in 1916 the factory’s area covered already an entire quarter.
In 1857, the factory started the production of Dreyse needle-gun, which was quite modern at the time.
In 2005, a significant part of the former Royal Rifle Factory was purchased by veterinarian – Marcin Krzemiński, who placed a veterinary hospital there and rent out the rest of the area to artists, restaurants and various enterprises. Today, the Royal Rifle Factory has become a popular and fashionable place, where the cafes and restaurants teem with life, and the loft character of the place attracts young people. Interestingly, significant part of the area of the Lower Town was in past covered by wet meadows, which served as pastures. The former character of this area is reflected in the names of the streets: Wierzbowa (Willow), Polna (Field), Szuwary (Reeds) and Łąkowa (Meadow). Even more interesting is the history of the foundation of the Lower Town, which was established in the area of Świńskie Łąki (Pig’s Meadows) bought from Gdansk’s butchers.
the design of the Dutchman Cornelius van den Bosch and made under the direction of another Dutchman – Peter Jansen, the old Dutch bastions can still be admired as: Wilk, Wyskok, Królik, Żubr and Miś, which remained today from 14 originally made. In addition, the plan made in 1650 by Georg Tellior assumed draining the area by digging a canal network. This project was completed in 1700. As the ground drained, the canals were burried and the present-day streets were built on them, planted with Swedish rowan, a tree able to deal with high groundwater levels. 
The process of burying of the canals was completed in 1871 and one can say the Lower Town is a district that grew out of swamps. 🙂 In addition, in the 1880s, the Lower Town got connected to the rest of the city by horse tram lines, which were electrified in 1900. The first line entered the Lower Town through Długie Ogrody, the second through Toruńska Street. The remains of the former tram lines can be still seen today. All in all this is a very interesting place, which used to have also its bad reputation as the “flying knives’ district”, but today it is definitely a worth visiting place and that is exactly what we are going to do thanks to the Silly Venture Demoscene Party’s invitation. 🙂
Before we set off, a quick information of what happens in the garden. All the birds have already left their nest boxes and only from time to time a gang of forest sparrows visits firethorn bushes. Rhododendrons bloomed again as well as sunflowers, which were sown from seeds lost by birds at the bird feeder in winter. 🙂 Red Admirals, beautiful butterflies that are flying in our gardens until November and then migrating to Italy, appeared on the blooming buddlejas. The dog makes use of the green lawn and listens for steps of a cat from neighbourhood using a “sonar” method. 😉 In the meantime birds eat the dog’s food and drink water from the dog’s bowl. 😉
It’s time to prepare for the trip, I will pack pack my staff, and you, dear readers, try to find a comfortable place to rest and make a cup of good coffee. If the aroma of coffee sarrounds you we can set off for Gdansk. 🙂
I reached Gdansk with a slight delay and immediately the beautiful and completely renovated railway station attracted my interest. The weather was also brilliant with a temperature slightly below 30 degrees Celsius. 🙂
The ordered taxi arrived in 7 minutes and after a short conversation it turned out that the driver’s son was a marine officer and worked on gas carriers. Somehow those marine conversations were meant to happen on that day. 🙂
When I got to the hotel, I was greeted by a nice receptionist and after just a few minutes I was in my room whose windows were this time not on the street side, what promised sleeping well all night. 🙂 I took a quick shower and was going to walk 400 meters distance to the Royal Rifle Factory. Crossing Podwale Przedmiejskie, I entered the Dolne Miasto (the Lower Town) and my attention was immediately attracted by the modernist LPP building and the Swedish rowans.
After a while I rached my destination,
what was confirmed by the address plaque:
and the banner. 😉
Immersed in the courtyard, I immediately spotted familiar faces, especially that Commodore Brotherhood was represented by two notable members of the ‘Lepsi De’ group, who thank to the Grey’s persuasion and granted immunity also decided to visit the Atari event. 😉
Very last fixes took place, e.g. Piter brought a large Silly Venture logo, which after assembling was to either be mounted outside or inside the room where the Compos were planned to be held.
Eventually the later idea was applied. 😉
After climbing the stairs leading to the first floor, the loft atmosphere was immediately noticed, additionally emphasized by the piano and the magnificent monstera. 😉
Going forward I noticed a huge bar 🙂
and the conference room on the right-hand side, where the guests were taking their strategic positions for the contest. 😉
The next action to be taken was finding Grey, confirming the arrival and obtaining the badge and the gadets. 😉
This year the basic package consited of two magazines (one was the special edition for the SV 2023 – to be downloaded here) by the biggest German 8-bit Atari users’ club – the ABBUC (Atari Bit Byter User Club – https://abbuc.de), whose boss – Carsten Strotmann also visited the event. 🙂 In addition, a few gadgets from the City of Gdansk, a postcard, a registration plate’s frame and a sticker with SV logo that immediately landed on my laptop’s lid. 🙂
The crème de la crème of the gadget set were “Silly-Krówki” candies, that after unfolding asked the fundamental question: 😉
In addition, one could buy a t-shirt with the SV logo in four colours: black, grey, yellow and blue, and of course I chose the latter one. 😉
I also obtained the badge…two-sided one. 😉
One of the contests run at the SV was the Dread tournament, a great Doom clone for the stock Atari ST, written by the team: KK/Altair, John Tsakiris, Dennis Ramberg and DMA-SC. Of course, a warm-up before the competition was mandatory. 🙂
In the meantime, the SV Culinary Logistics Team led by Sylwia was preparing “something to eat”… 😉
Next, the signal “food” was transmitted and the bar was surrounded and taken alive. 😉
Of course, we could not do without the punch served by the originator and author of this delicious drink. 😉
All day long the thirsty could quench their thirst with bottles from the local brewery
as well as taken directly from the keg. 😉
After such a delicious meal we went to the Skipp’s concert announced by the wall posters:
Skipp warmed the equipment up…
and started the concert which slowly progressed…
…to finally make the audience go wild and breaking Skipp’s personal record by reaching 3.5 hours of non-stop music. 🙂 Shortly after midnight I headed towards the hotel, wondering what would happen tomorrow. 🙂
The morning was foggy, but not as a state of my mind 😉 but indeed the Lower Town was shrouded in fog.
After eating a decent breakfast at the hotel and drinking two caps of coffee, I set out for the event venue, which was slowly coming to life. In order to do something “hands-on”, I helped the organizers to refresh the rooms and prepare them for the next day full of events. Participants wnet to the venue at their own time and around noon, the concert of Felice (Maggie Team) from Great Britain, which was postponed from the previous day, started, announced additionally by a nice poster.
We had a chance to listen to a deal of good music, whose sounds sometimes resembled the music of Depeche Mode band. 🙂
After the concert, the duo of TeDec and sim1 appeared on stage and told a very interesting story related to coin-op machines (arcade machines where you could play after inserting a coin or token), especially the one related to the game ‘the 1941 – Counter Attack’ written by… Japanese. My conversation with both presenters revealed further layers of curiosities and I think that this is a good topic for a separate article on the blog, and maybe even will be able to persuade both gentlemen to do an interview. 🙂
The next point on the agenda was the presentation by Thomas Niemann (a.k.a. Schlampf) covering an interesting HW extension for the Atari STE called twiSTEr, which accelerates it, serves as a memory extension and offers the IDE interface:
After the presentation Thomas aswered questions at his twiSTEr demo installation.
Sharp at 2:30pm the GFX, MSX & Wild Compo started (the official stream recorded is available here).
Vouting was possible by both the special paper sheet and the convenient web application.
Audience was voting:
and at the bar something was cooking up… 😉
The first part of the Compos was drawing to an end…
and soon it turned out what kind of action was performed at the bar…. 😉
The next point on the agenda was presentation of the RM 800XL project, a modern version of the ATARI 800XL.
Larek with the team of: Artur, Andrzej and Rafał jumped to the stage and revealed their plan to release RM 800XL already next year. The RM 800XL architecture is based on two processors made in RISC and FPGA technology. The prototype should be available already in September this year. According to the presenters, the new computer will be fully compatible with Atari XL both in terms of software and external interfaces. You can find out more about this on the official website of the project: https://revive-machines.com. I keep fingers crossed for that ! 🙂
After a great meal at the bar, where plenty of food and drinks was served… 🙂
…it was possible to look around and see what interesting the participants brought with them, e.g. a well maintained Atari 520ST set:
with an interesting home-made pad:
It was also a good opportunity to have a closer look to the Thomas’s Atari STE computer with the twiSTEr on board (you could read more about it here),
an observe that man does not live by the Atari alone. 😉
There was also an opportunity to visit the organizers at their World Control Center, 😉
and take a picture at Silly Venture’s official floor stand 😉
There was also an incident – a lonely strange package was left on the table, forced the organizers to consider calling fire brigade, sappers, or order immediate evacuation… 😉
Sharp at 5:30pm a second part of the Compos started covering the Intro, Demo and Game categories (the official stream recored is available here)
The conference room was filled again with participants armed with voting tools and ready to use them. 😉
The temperature outside reached 30 degrees Celsius again, so the possibility of drinking “isotonic” drinks to replenish electrolytes was beneficial. 😉
Shortly after the Compos the “Dread” tournament took place:
and the winner was TeDec, to whom I warmly congratulate! 🙂
The last point of the evening program was a film starrying RJ Mical, the main designer of the Atari Lynx console, who also took part in the development of the Amiga 1000 and its later models. Actually the film had been presented before, but without Polish subtitles and for the quite small audience, so this time Grey together with Paptak shared “after processing” version. As for the sake of clarity: the 30th anniversary of the Atari Lynx console had been celebrated at SV2019 and its designer had greeted all participants remotely and had agreed to be one of the judges after the party, what had been arranged by KK who had had a pleasure to talk to RJ. I do recommend watching it! 🙂 (just click on the picture below or follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NmIBuDZvSk ).
and the prizes awaited new owners. 😉
Next the “Highest Commitee” announced the results and the winners appeared on the stage greeted with a loud round of applause and the traditional “handshake-kiss-lapel-red carnations” 😉
that is, they were given a statuette and prizes funded by sponsors.
The prizes could be to some extend “customized”, i.e. if someone had already had 3 “Lauras” at home and proved that had passed them twice, then he or she was not given the 4th one. 😉
The competition entries are being uploaded to the demozoo server and around September, 2nd shuld be fully available at:
https://demozoo.org/parties/4590.
The Compos results are available on the SV website:
https://www.sillyventure.eu/download/sv2k23se_results.txt,
of course in the txt file, which I also present below:
It’s time to say goodbye to hospitable Gdańsk and the Silly Venture. It was a good time, the organizers did everything to make everyone feel at home even though they faced a lot of challenges, such as struggling with the African heat. 
The atmosphere was great, the food delicious, and the drinks allowed to function reasonably well in these extreme temperatures. 🙂
Hats off to Grey and the whole SV Team, especially to “the Team of Culinary Logistics” 😉 , who did not let us go hungry. The event was attended by guests from Poland, Great Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Norway, Finland and the USA (California). For sure, if the holiday plans allow, 
I will come back here next year, and additionally I invite you already to the winter edition of Silly Venture, which will take place in Gdassk, on December 7-10, 2023. You could already confirm your presense there using the following link: sillyventure.eu/pl/visitors. The list of participants is growing fast. 🙂 See you in Gdansk in December, when the winter will put its shades of white colour on the streets, pavements and roofs of the Lower and Old Town!
