                        Creativity Demo Net
                        -------------------

  Creativity DemoNet or shortly CDN is a nowadays a quite common sight
among BBS'es that are oriented towards demos. But what exactly is CDN?

  The idea behind The Creativity Demo Net(work) is now almost a year
old. I had been dreaming about having a way to communicate electronically
between different demogroups. When we (Future Crew) attended Megaleif
Easter Party last easter in Uppsala, Sweden I was positively surprised
when I found out that Mirage / Cascada had also been thinking about
the same thing. We both thought that it was a good idea and began
developing it.

  But it didn't work out as we intended. There were a lot of difficulties,
in Sweden and in here Finland. At first we tried to spread the net via FidoNet,
but soon it came clear to us that demogroups needed their own net. The
same time I had been also talking with Trojaner (SysOp of Skull's Southern
Germany HQ) and he was also inspired by this idea. We decided that Skull
and Future Crew wouldn't be enough to start a new net with, so I contacted
Arjan Pool (who had relations with DCE) and he also thought that the idea
was just great. And we got underway.

  At first the net was called just plainly DemoNet, but it was almost 
immediately changed to Creativity Demo Net (for some reason even I yet don't 
know =)). Anyway, at first it was planned that StarPort would become
the World HQ, but as Arjan wanted to take the job and all the big 
responsibilities, Arco BBS became the WHQ (and still is). Much of
the coming success of CDN was based on Arjan's continuing hard work for CDN.

  The net started working in August 1992, four months after the first idea
about a demonet had come to me. And after that net has spreaded like a 
wildfire! At first CDN spanned only 3 countries (Finland, Holland and Germany)
but soon Sweden joined in, and then country after country and bbs after bbs
joined in. To this date (2.3.1993) CDN spans the following countries:
Finland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, England, Italy,
Turkey, Belgium, Canada, USA and Australia. THAT'S 14 COUNTRIES!
And there are about 85 nodes in CDN, all BBS's that are demogroup's
BBS'es. Considering the small amount of demogroup BBS'es, I would estimate
that about 65% of all demogroup BBS are connected to CDN and all of the biggest
groups like FC, Skull, DCE, Cascada etc are connected to the net.

  So what kind of echoes does CDN carry? Well here is the complete list of
echomail areas:  
  
*    1. CDN.4ALL
        The area for everyone in CDN
*    2. CDN.ANNOUNCE
        Made a new demo ? announce it overhere.
*    3. CDN.DISKMAG
        All information about diskmagazines
%    4. CDN.CHAT
        All chatting with other members
%    5. CDN.PROGRAMMING
        For help with programming problems
%    6. CDN.GFX
        For all graphics makers
%    7. CDN.MUSIC
        MIDI/MOD/MUSIC help and questions
S    8. CDN.TEST
        Test area
!    9. CDN.INTERGROUP
        For selected groups within CDN
S   10. CDN.SYSOP
        Sysops CDN only
H   11. CDN.HQ_HOST
        For mail between HOSTS versus HQ

* - for everyone who gets
    connected to a BBS
% - for registered persons
    (demogroup members)
S - only for CDN sysops
H - only hosts and HQ
! - for special selected groups

  CDN has areas for relaxed talk between people (and it gets QUITE
relaxed sometimes, and QUITE weird =), but it's just fun!), and for
serious purposes such as programming.
   
  And what does CDN require from a BBS? Well, the first and MOST
important requirement is that the BBS is some demogroups (preferably an
active one) BBS. That is rule that there are only few exceptions from.
But otherwise, you just have to:

 - place the completed files of the CDN on his/her BBS that everyone can download them.
 - use the CDN nodelist and it's updates.
 - connect to every area available to them.

  Not too many rules... And that is because we want CDN to be fun,
not some playground for idiots with a lawbook for brains.  
Also, there are ABSOLUTELY no charges in CDN, so the only costs you have to 
pay are your own phonebills.

  You can FREQ more info about from for example the WHQ under the magic name
CDNINFO. So, get more info now if you are interested in joining in!


                        =ABYSS- / Future Crew

