Amiga milestone demos - 30 years ago

[dissident]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Can't remember that one at all, try to find it, I'd like to have a look.

Another early, also trackloaded, classic is the Megademo by Antitrax 2010. I know one of the coders personally, he re-appeared out of nowhere some years ago and unfortunately spread a lot of wrong info regarding early productions and tried to bend history, if that was done intentionally is something I won't discuss here but I do have my opinion...

Anyway, great early demo with really clean code, nice parts and humour too.

This one is a little jewel, StingRay. Skilled guys created something very cool in 1987! And it shows the transition from looped samples to the first soundtracker modules. Thanks for this nice hint.

[Tigerskunk]

I remember, I have seen a few demos back then in 87 and 88, but the first thing that really blew my mind was the

WILD COPPER - MEGALO DEMOS Disk...in early 88...

[ Show youtube player ]

There was so much stuff you were not even aware of that the Amiga could do, like that workbenchscrolltext and meanwhile playing music, and rotating the mouse pointer. Plus all these nice demos with amazing music.
And in the end the joke with "Laurent a une tete de neud" or whatever when you pressed reset.

When I saw that demo, I knew I got the right machine for christmas the year before...

[dissident]

Originally Posted by Apollo

Reminds me a bit on the old 'Thrust' Demos, same 'Ottifanten' style
Same graphician maybe?

Meanwhile I remembered the real name of the track loader I was walking 'bout:
'Vortex 42 Megademo' (1988)
[ Show youtube player ]

Yes, very catchy tunes and some nice effects for this time. A one I didn't know yet. And I caught myself reading one scroller much longer than I intended to do.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

And as usual the Atari ST lacked all originality so they copied everything from the Amiga.

[ Show youtube player ]

Yes, Amiga's old enemy which never reached its glory but also has some nice demo productions. But you are right. Most time, Atari ST coders just wanted to copy Amiga effects.

[ViLXDRYAD]

this thread made my day, i ran out of recommended amiga demos to watch and here i found plenty of new ones to try; thank you, everyone! +O+

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by dissident

Yes, Amiga's old enemy which never reached its glory but also has some nice demo productions. But you are right. Most time, Atari ST coders just wanted to copy Amiga effects.

I always liked the over scan tricks the ST could do though. From recollection they got shot of the bottom border by switching to 60hz for a few cycles in the last scan line which confused the hardware and made it read an extra 8k of ram into video. I'm pretty sure they used similar techniques for the other borders but the Amiga never had to deal with any of that.

However, the thing I never liked about ST demos was the stupid menu system they always used to have. I'm not sure if that was a hangover from the 8 bit era or if it was down to the early ST productions such as The Big Demo, Union Demo which they never managed to shake.

Around the time the ULM Dark side of the spoon demo came out on the ST I got rid of it for my Amiga but I was amazed how they did that demo.

Great times. Better times with the Amiga though.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Juz400]

Originally Posted by Apollo

Thats how meanings differ. Personally, I like what we called the RGB colors ($f00,$0f0,$00f) and the scrolltexts. Sure, from from a technically point of view many demos/intros which came later where better.

But this were the time when the guys were exploring the machine in assembler. I am pretty sure many of them did not have a copy of the hardware reference manual and only a copy of Kuma Seka assembler from some tool collection. I personally like this era very much. Years later the question for the coders was not HOW to operate the line mode of the blitter but how FAST you could achieve it.
I often smile when I watch some intros from '87/'88 when they just used a looped audio sample. Or when you see that the font used is topaz. Or color cycling intros (only one static picture), remember the Headbanger Intro? Once I saw an intro which was basicly a graphics.lib screen and then banging the hardware over it. Its that technically imperfection which I like, because they didn't knew better.

I bet there were many 6th 7th generation photocopies of the hardware manuals going with those copies of Seka

Quite a few people would have graduated from the C64 too,
A whole new more powerful CPU to learn, all those extra registers and 256/512K of directly addressable memory and to cherry on the top all the custom chip goodness!
All sorts of dodgy programing practices in those early days! I remember buying a Kickstart 1.2 ROM just to see what the demos on some Kent Team demo disks I had were like as they crashed instantly after decrunching on a 1.3.
Jumps into the ROM me thinks some worked ok but others were "D`OH! ECS Agnus strikes again"
What was the reason all the display went all weird and slanted?

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

However, the thing I never liked about ST demos was the stupid menu system they always used to have. I'm not sure if that was a hangover from the 8 bit era or if it was down to the early ST productions such as The Big Demo, Union Demo which they never managed to shake.

Do you mean the menus disguised as platform games? Yes, I hated those as well, but I don't think the Amiga ever had anything like that. The Amiga had a far more sensible solution in the form of multi-parters ("Left mouse button to load next part").

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Do you mean the menus disguised as platform games? Yes, I hated those as well, but I don't think the Amiga ever had anything like that. The Amiga had a far more sensible solution in the form of multi-parters ("Left mouse button to load next part").

I mean the menus in general, but yeah most were weird platform type affairs. Them care bears crew ripped all the graphics from the game ‘custodian’ for their cuddly demos, i mean come on - what a pile of fucking shite.

The Amiga sceners set the precedence for how demos should be done which is followed to this day.

[UberFreak]

Some nice demo recommendations in this thread, a few golden oldies I was not aware of.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by Seiya

For the fan of Megademo you cannot resist to watch this big numbers of "megademo"
Sorry, in this moment audio problems in broadcast

let's see:
[ Show youtube player ]

That's really an outstanding collection with much new stuff for me which I didn't know yet. Not to forget many new catchy tunes. Many thanks for that, Seiya.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by SyX

Well, i always remember Doctor Who when i hear that tune, hehehe.

You are welcome dissident... and i promise that the scroll message is superfunny, hehehe.

I can think in another nice early intro/demo, maybe you already know because is from Kefrens, but in case that you don't know, give a try to Den Gik Sku' Ned!.

It is only from august of 1990, but i am practically sure that a big part was developed during X-Mass 89 and the last work was during summer holidays 90. And for me, it is the missing link between pre-90 and 90s amiga demo style (the triangle FX looks so andromedish, hehehe).

Yes, SyX, I knew it, but haven't watched it for a long time. A good reminder. So many nice sine movements and ideas which were new at that time. Of course, the triangle FX could be also from an Andromeda demo, indeed.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Dynamix, Crack,Inc.

Thanks for the info, I will check their productions.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I remember, I have seen a few demos back then in 87 and 88, but the first thing that really blew my mind was the

WILD COPPER - MEGALO DEMOS Disk...in early 88...

[ Show youtube player ]

There was so much stuff you were not even aware of that the Amiga could do, like that workbenchscrolltext and meanwhile playing music, and rotating the mouse pointer. Plus all these nice demos with amazing music.
And in the end the joke with "Laurent a une tete de neud" or whatever when you pressed reset.

When I saw that demo, I knew I got the right machine for christmas the year before...

Yes, this production is a classic. Many fresh ideas and effects. I don't know how they did it, but the balls "mirroring" the scrolltext like a texture are awesome for that time. A production I've forgotten to add to my favourites.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by ViLXDRYAD

this thread made my day, i ran out of recommended amiga demos to watch and here i found plenty of new ones to try; thank you, everyone! +O+

Nice, that you like this thread, ViLXDRYAD. That's how it was meant to be. Different people with new demo hints to watch.

[dissident]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I always liked the over scan tricks the ST could do though. From recollection they got shot of the bottom border by switching to 60hz for a few cycles in the last scan line which confused the hardware and made it read an extra 8k of ram into video. I'm pretty sure they used similar techniques for the other borders but the Amiga never had to deal with any of that.

However, the thing I never liked about ST demos was the stupid menu system they always used to have. I'm not sure if that was a hangover from the 8 bit era or if it was down to the early ST productions such as The Big Demo, Union Demo which they never managed to shake.

Around the time the ULM Dark side of the spoon demo came out on the ST I got rid of it for my Amiga but I was amazed how they did that demo.

Great times. Better times with the Amiga though.

[ Show youtube player ]

On the A500/A2000 with the old chipset you could do similar tricks switching the display from 50 Hz to 60 Hz. You had to write to the beam control register and simply skip the difference between the amount of PAL and NTSC rasterlines at the bottom of the display and the graphic hardware automatically switched to 60 Hz. The only usage I know was in the cracked game "Wings of Death" where you could toggle between PAL/NTSC with the CTRL-key if I remember correctly: [ Show youtube player ]

The famous Vodka-demo on the Atari-ST impressed me very much. Simply awesome:

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[dissident]

Originally Posted by Juz400

I bet there were many 6th 7th generation photocopies of the hardware manuals going with those copies of Seka

Quite a few people would have graduated from the C64 too,
A whole new more powerful CPU to learn, all those extra registers and 256/512K of directly addressable memory and to cherry on the top all the custom chip goodness!
All sorts of dodgy programing practices in those early days! I remember buying a Kickstart 1.2 ROM just to see what the demos on some Kent Team demo disks I had were like as they crashed instantly after decrunching on a 1.3.
Jumps into the ROM me thinks some worked ok but others were "D`OH! ECS Agnus strikes again"
What was the reason all the display went all weird and slanted?

Yes, most coders on the amiga came from the C64 and benefitted from their knowledge of this machine. That's why the early Amiga intros looked like 16-bit versions of C64 intros, especially the North Star Megademo I: [ Show youtube player ]

And it was funny to read how Mahoney&Kaktus talked about their first steps coding on the amiga in their Blue intro of the Northstar Megademo III: [ Show youtube player ]

[dissident]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

Some nice demo recommendations in this thread, a few golden oldies I was not aware of.

Aim achieved, UberFreak. Nice that you like this thread.