PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA!!!

Another fun-filled week delivers a another time wastin' issue of the Weekend Update!


First, a quick blurb from one of our correspondants in the town of Politicos and monuments:

Last CD I bought-update: "Terminator X and the Valley of the Jeep Beats" Sure PE's beats are phat and def, but it's not 'cause of Terminator.

Kelly McCollum, kellymc@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu


Hungry? No time? No money? Feel silly? Try the Internet Pizza Service. I tried it. It's not very filling, but it's definitely one of the more bizzare 'net services around:

This is the help file for the "pizza" service of the Internet Pizza Server. This service will parse a pizza order contained within your message body and construct a GIF format image of each pizza. The images are then MIME encoded or uuencoded and mailed back to the sender of the order.

Sound like fun? Of course it does. To access any of the following subcommands, set the subject of your message to "pizza ", i.e. "pizza help".

Some of the subcommands that pizza will accept are:

help       - this file

info       - more general pizza information and news

menu       - this will give you a list of currently available toppings

uuencode   - forces the pizza program to generate uuencoded pies instead
             of the usual MIME encoded versions.  Note that if the mail
             filter doesn't detect the presence of MIME support on your
             system, it'll default to this mode.

mime       - forces the pizza program to generate MIME encoded pies.  This
             is the default if MIME is detected on your system.

jpeg       - causes the pizza program to generate a JPEG image instead of
             the default GIF image.

gif        - causes the pizza program to generate a GIF image.  This is 
             the default option.

bugs, beej - either of these will forward your message body to
             beej@ecst.csuchico.edu (and others).  Use this for
             feedback or bug reports.

verify     - this will verify a previously made pizza order
If you only have "pizza" in the subject, it assumes that you're placing an order. The parsing method is simplistic, and I'll just give a lot of examples. If you want an extra amount of a particular topping, precede the topping name with "extra" or "double". Halves are delimited by the keyword "half". A size of "small", "medium", "large", or "family" is also permitted on the order line. The default is "large" in order to maximize our profits while saving CPU cycles.

Each line of your message body will represent a separate pizza. Here are some samples:

half cheese, half pepperoni
medium pepperoni and olives, half salami and mushroom.
small pepperoni beetles with half extra eyeballs and half double olives.

Note: all punctuation, "and"s and "with"s are unnecessary, the orders are case insensitive, "Olives" is the same as "olive", blah blah blah.

There is currently a maximum of two pizzas per order.

If all goes well, the Pizza Server should mail back a verification message. Probably all you have to do to confirm the order is reply to that message but you should make sure that the first two words of the subject of your reply read either "Re: pizza" or "pizza verify".

Finally, you should receive your pizza order along with a bill. Pay the bill only if you want to...all proceeds from the Pizza Server will go directly to my pocket, for me to spend on whatever I choose.

If the order is uuencoded, you'll have to use the Unix or dos version of the uudecode utility. Save the mail file somewhere like "foo.uue", exit to the shell, and type "uudecode foo.uue". It'll extract the pizzas into the current directory and name them pizza0.gif, pizza1.gif, and so on.

Otherwise, the order will be in MIME encoded format. If your mailer doesn't support MIME, whine to your sysadmin until a new mailer gets installed. (Note: the "mime" service will tell you what version of MIME your mailer uses.)

If you can't enjoy the MIME pizza outright (since you're not on a graphical terminal) there should be an option to save the pizza in your account. The pizzas are mailed in GIF format. Name it something descriptive like "pizza.gif".

Future enhancements:

      drinks!

      more toppings--feel free to send me additional toppings in GIF,
      PCX, IFF, JPEG, or whatever format for use in the server.  I'll
      be sure to add your name to the list of contributors to this
      project, whatever that's worth...Any bitmaps you mail to me
      become mine to do with what I choose.  The toppings know no
      bounds!  half goblins, half toast and baseballs.  For a size
      reference, pepperoni is 30x30.
---------------

The "pizza" service of the Internet Pizza Server is maintained by beej@ecst.csuchico.edu

Apr 6, 1994


To save you the trouble of asking for the menu, here it is:

Internet Pizza Server Topping Menu

List of Toppings

   Stock toppings!
      cheese 

   Meats!
      baconbits
      beef
      beetles
      canadianbacon
      eyeballs
      goblins
      kittens
      pepperoni
      pork
      salami
      sausage

   Veggies! 
      garlick
      greenolive 
      greenpepper 
      mushrooms 
      olives 
      onions 
      pineapple
      redpepper 

   Breakfast!
      bacon
      eggs
      toast

   Sporting Goods!
      baseballs
      basketballs
      footballs
      golfballs
      tennisballs

   Hardware!
      bolts
      hammers
      nails
      nuts

   Aphrodisiacs!
      greenmnm

Prices

Size      Base price       Price per Topping
--------------------------------------------
Small      B$6.00              B$0.80

Medium     B$10.00             B$1.05

Large      B$13.00             B$1.75

Family     B$18.00             B$2.50

There is an additional 37% tax on all uuencoded orders thanks to certain
unnamed FCC regulations. Pay cheerfully! 

---------------

The "pizza" service of the Internet Pizza Server is maintained by
beej@ecst.csuchico.edu

Sep 20, 1994

I said that I would mention the demos worth getting hold of (from the Assembly '94 competition), but you'll have to live with a review of the top 3:

First place went to a group called EMF for their demo Verses. It's got some good graphics, but they only support the Gravis UltraSound, so I personally think it's lousy.

Second place went to Cascada for a demo entitled Holistic. The visuals for this weren't very creative, but the code that went into this had to be phenomnal. At one point they map a random string of !24,000! dots in 3-D space and rotate the whole mess. This is probably a good time to discuss the 'rules' of demos. There aren't really any set rules, but the honor code is as such: (1) All animation should be done 'real-time' - no pre-recorded stuff. (2) Scanned material is frowned upon - it's become more common lately, but only for things like pictures of the crew. (3) As much as possible should be done at machine code level - 'C' is acceptable, and maybe Pascal, but NO Basic or automatic code generators. The biggest plus to Holistic is that it supports Sound Blaster, GUS, Covox, AND PC SPEAKER!!!!

Third place is the one I would have picked for first. Iguana made Heart Quake in the same spirit as Future Crew's Second Reality. It supports GUS, and Sound Blaster and the graphics are phenomnal. As with any competition, I'm sure there are lots of politics that outsiders aren't aware of, but Iguana has consistenly put out some really _great_ stuff. Maybe next year for these guys.


As I've said in the past and I'll say again: The Weekend Update thrives on info from YOU, tell me what you're interests are and I'll let the world know. (Wouldn't you like to see your name in lights - even if they _are_ 1mm by 2mm?)