The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I just found the original SC2 MOD contest announcement.
It was posted here (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.misc/browse_thread/thread/d3696f6c96b21d9d/) and here (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.misc/browse_thread/thread/b521132ec20301ba/), and again here (http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc/browse_thread/thread/b7ff4e942ac8722e/).

Also, an SC2-related question about the temperature of planets here (http://groups.google.com/group/sci.astro/browse_thread/thread/ff967e10a2374550/).

Cool find! I love the guy who comes in and goes "That's all very well but when is this going to be released on the Amiga"

$50, that's not much :D

That's $50 plus a copy of Star Control II. :P
(And the dollar was worth a lot more pre George W. Bush  :-\)

It would be cool to track down the tunes mentioned in the announcement. This is a bit tricky, since we only have PC-style filenames to go on, and these are likely to be changed from the original if the file originates on the Amiga; probably by abbreviating the title. However, we can make a few assumptions, based on what TFB want and that they haven't contacted the composers directly:

• The files are Soundtracker (or closely related) MODs
• The files are 70000 bytes or less (uncompressed)
• The files do not contain contact information for the composers
• The files were easily accessible on the net in March 1992

I have a few guesses (in decreasing order of confidence based on whether other tunes also show up that could be the right one) that match the first three criteria and seem to be made in the late 80s or early 90s based on the samples used:

• bacardi (http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=34858): bacardi.mod on The Mod Archive; one hit, exact
• necron (http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=49817): necron.mod on The Mod Archive; one exact hit and a few similarly named
• demons revenge (1) (http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=37449): demon.mod on The Mod Archive; one exact hit and many similarly named
• paris-dakar (http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=80891): paris-dakar.mod on The Mod Archive, par.mod on Elektron BBS (http://freenet-homepage.de/elektron-bbs/filelist/MULFILES.ASC); one exact hit and lots of similarly named
• no more trials (http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=64252): trials.mod on The Mod Archive; only one hit on "trials" here
• little upfront-tune (http://amp.dascene.net/downmod.php?index=96559): MOD.little upfront-tune on Amiga Music Preservation; three hits on AMP for "upfront" (the other two contain mailing addresses for the composer)
• push (http://amp.dascene.net/downmod.php?index=91562): STK.push on Amiga Music Preservation; one exact hit and lots of similarly named tunes

So I'm curious...does anyone know which MOD won the $500?

It was HyperSpace, by Riku Nuottajärvi.
He also got a certificate. We posted a scan of it at some point, but I can't find it right now.

I think the original posting was lost in the SourceForge fiasco of 2002, but here is the picture:
(http://uqm.stack.nl/files/other/contest/letter.jpg)

Why am I not surprised that it was one of the Precursors? =P

Trivia:
The tune for the melnorme (originally called potatojuice.mod, I believe) was by a guy who invented his own genre of music called 'Poot', of which the melnorme tune was an example.

There's actually a version of Potato Juice with lyrics.

Video evidence (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zIguKKXCT8Y#t=681s) for the above claim.

Nice find.

I've found a copy of the track here (http://mp3.mp3s.ru/view/track/Robots%20Are%20Supreme/Potatojuice/).

Starting at 11:30.

More like 11:21, the position I linked to. Judging by the MP3, the additional 10-second intro is part of this version of the song, even though the version in the game lacks it.

When I followed the link, it didn't skip to that timestamp.