��[�]��������������������������� ADVENT24.CPP ���������������������������1�[]ͻ� /*          And the best of the season to all of you once more!              ��                                                                              �� If you work in one of the traditional creative professions, you will be well �� familiar with the substantial lead time involved in recording a Christmas-   �� themed album or shooting a movie scheduled for a wintertime release, and you �� will feel basically unmoored in time trying to find the reservoir of holiday �� good cheer at the bottom of your soul in the sweltering heat of late July,   �� when you're at the absolute furthest point from its being remotely relevant. ��                                                                              �� (It's very different in Australia of course, but then many things are.)      ��                                                                              �� But here in cyberspace, we move fast and break things with our rapid         �� prototyping in Internet Time, our Swatches synchronized across time zones    �� from here to the moon.  Our Advent calendar's patron saint Andy tried to get �� things started on this project back in April, but Christmas seemed very far  �� away and, well, virtual shovels didn't go in the digital ground until the    �� morning after Halloween.  (Further complicating matters, it took a while to  �� determine which was going to be top priority for November, this or the 30th  �� anniversary observance of our establishment in an October.  Ultimately, the  �� Advent calendar's window of possibility was simply more immutable.)          ��                                                                              �� In any case, we'd all collectively had such a great experience pulling the   �� previous year's digital ADVENT23 calendar out of thin air on short notice,   �� powered by nothing but an imminent deadline and The Christmas Spirit, that   �� we felt that the undertaking needed to be repeated.  To reiterate, in case   �� you missed it last year, these releases consist of an executable that        �� displays a single 25-line ANSI art screen on seasonal themes (some sincere,  �� some whimsical, some grim) every day, allowing you to view that day's image  �� and all the ones for the previous dates in December (accessible by hitting   �� the left arrow on your keyboard) -- but just like a traditional analogue     �� ("meatspace" sounds even wronger than usual here, maybe less so if we're     �� talking about one of those "bacon-of-the-day" novelty ones) Advent calendar, �� the only valid way to see what would be unlocked the following day is to for �� wait (or, ahem, find a way) for your computer's clock to reach the stroke of �� midnight                                                                     ��                                                                              �� We enhanced the formula this time around by pairing the flight of single-    �� screen ANSI illustrations with a parallel display framework intended to      �� allow them to be enjoyed in basically their only remaining historically-     �� relevant context (well yes, we could embed them to display at the end of     �� DooM levels, but you must agree it is not a natural best fit): on computer   �� bulletin boards, in an arrangement cooked up by j0hnny a1pha. That version,  �� for BBS use only, is full of spoilers, so please request that your favorite  �� SysOps download it from his Space Junk BBS (details via spacejunkbbs.com,    �� though it is also of course available via mistigris.org, along with three    �� decades of our prior releases for collectors and completionists) and install �� the door on their systems running a variety of BBS software packages.        ��                                                                              �� In conclusion, thanks to all of our contributors and observers, colleagues   �� and fellow travellers for sharing another year full of vintage computer art  �� with us, and here's looking forward to more of it in the New Year!  (And...  �� who knows, if we're lucky, sometime between now and then we might get around �� to celebrating our 30th, stay tuned!)�                                       ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� */��������������������������������������������������������������������������������ͼSAUCE00ADVENT24 infofile                  Cthulu + NDH        Mistigris           20241130���

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