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Philosophy
Time was passing, the code was not complete but we had an obligation. Everybody asked "I'm waiting for Focus..." - But only few contributed (Thanks to them!). At some time, I got sick of waiting from others so I decided to take over the project. After having made (for a part for Chaos Megademo in 1994) a nice pixel-perfect vertical scroll routine, I optimized it and altered it to be used as a text viewer. I remember facing strange bugs, thanks to the screen addressing system, but eventually by the summer of '96, the code was ready.
Another complexity was the fact that I wanted a font easy on the eye (unlike the tiring-to-read mode 2 characters) and the ability to display icons and pictures on-screen along with the text, much like the web-pages. Such stuff is time-consuming and also eats up memory. So, while finishing the main code, I had also to create another program to convert Ascii documents to the new enhanced Focus format. After lots of efforts, the result was to use 8x16-pixel fonts in Mode 1 (with 3 colors). Still, there was more work to be done! Fortunately I had prepared enough Soundtracker tunes, so the music stuff was settled. But what about graphics? I was lucky to find Rex and drew for me some icons (he couldn't cope with the fonts I reckon), while Catloc gave me the main logo and a tune.
The biggest problem remained though. My aim was to release it before
1997 with about 40 articles (I hate small fanzines), but we only received
about 5! So I started writing, even translating texts that found interesting.
The above may sound a bit disappointing, but that was the climate in that
period. Just to make things worse, no other Greek freax bothered to offer
enough articles, not even the other Chaos members! Only after many calls
of help we eventually collected over 30 texts. Then, the editing and page
set-up were the final stage. Me and Catloc managed to draw some bad icons
and because I had nothing better, they were used also. Finally, I thought
of a small intro and coded it in a hurry to finish up the project. What
a great relief it was, when this burden was removed!