I was reading some of the Net News groups on the internet and I
couldn't help but notice that every other day or so, a person
would post a message with the subject line:

                      "Help! Name my band!"

Having gone through the agony and frustration of selecting a name
myself, I thought I'd do something to help make part of the job
easier. 

Why not let the computer do the work of selecting interesting
word combinations? It's been done before with lotto number
pickers (I wrote one commercial effort for the now-antique
Timex-Sinclair 1000 home computer, way back in 1983) and
idea/outline makers. Why not with band names?


THE PROGRAM
BANG (Band Automatic Name Generator) runs on most any IBM
compatible PC. A CGA card or better is all you'll need. It was
compiled on a 486, and tested on a Pentium 90 (top end system at
the moment). It's easy to load, doesn't take a ton of memory, and
is downright addicting.


THE SOUNDS
Since not everyone has a soundcard (although more than half of
you do), BANG will play a randomly selected tone sequence if you
pressed "Y" at the beginning music prompt. If you pressed "N"
(upper or lower case), then sounds are disabled for this session.
I just did this to keep the program from being too serious.


THE NAMES
There are a ton of names in the internal database. And enough combinations
and permutations (over 10 billion) such that the chances of getting a duplicate name are
over a billion to one. If you do pull up a duplicate name, better run
(don't walk) to your nearest convenience store and purchase a lottery
or sweepstakes ticket. It's your lucky day.

- Brett McCarron, author
  mccarbwm@ix.netcom.com
  program release date: 1/21/96