Back in the good old days, I used to write some demos by myself and in my humble mind, I thought they were quite good. But seeing, what kind of wonders coders squeezed out of the old C64 since then, I noticed that I just scratched the surface of knowing the secrets of my C64 and especially the VIC. To be honest, even back then in the 90s, I was far from beeing a top coder, but it was great fun to see some cool effects and to experience the proudness of discovering how they work by your own and maybe even tweak them a little more. I can’t imagine this feeling on modern machines. I have not coded a line since about 1992 but I still love to see our favourite 8-Bit Machine having a vivid scene after all these years and people are still stretching the limits of it! SCRAP, G*P
@@gazzaka IKR I read all his comment and then "I have not coded a line since 1992" and I felt so sad lol. COME ON DUDE. Get back into this shit! We need more coders from the old days!
@@rooneye Yea , but whenever I get going doing 6502, I have forgotten the addressing modes etc... having said that, it might take a day or two to get it back !
I did the same.. knew some cool folks I never met but would love to know what theyre all doing today. Tried tracking then down on the c64 db.. no luck. Good ole days.
We will need good coding experience written down and saved for when we need Nano systems and Rigid systems - using very constricted, restricted, and limited complexity coding environments. It would even be a stretch to have 16 bit 64K available in those environments. Keep exploring and discovering the unknown of these limited systems - it will be useful for our future generations. (e.g., Exploring Venus with clunky rigid systems and programming molecular computer nanites is one example where the things you explore and invent now can be useful.)
For me who were in the scene back in the 80's.. This is just mind boggling. Now days, closing in on 50, I still love the C64 days.. Those were the days =) I could just press a button on my Final Cartridge, and scroll through the memory by typing "i" then I could spot where the code and the music were just by looking on raw memory dumps...
It is so nice to see such a familiar sight. About 30 years ago a Fairlight intro was always a thing of beauty and a portal to a great game that came after it. I always enjoyed those intros. It may be a lot of work but it is so worth it. I'm really happy to "see" you guys back , still alive and kicking apparently! Keep it up, and thanks for keeping this wonderful machine relevant.
All I can do is admire the tricks of the magician. And even that is a small miracle. I've no experience with the platform, and none with coding at all, beyond a BASIC trick or two. Until recent, every demostration was speaking a foreign tongue. But it all made me want to learn the language. And now that I understand a little about RAM limitations and horizontal line interrupts, and concepts I still lack the proper words to describe...? (Like the software coded parallax? How the hell...?) It feels good to finally be part of the audience, proper....even if I still remain the least informed member. Thank you for reviving a barbarian's sense of wonder.
Imagine how much that 3D effect at the beginning and the cute characters at the end would have blown away the designers of the machines themselves if they'd have seen this like a year or less after release of the C64? Chuck Peddel would have been like 🤯 "WOAH! Wait a minute now. We didn't design this machine to be THIS fucking good. 3D? BEAUTIFUL GLORIOUS three fucking DEEE?! We're charging way too less for this machine." 🤣
Doing extraordinary things with severe limits - is absolutely amazing and fantastic fun. Much appreciated. Anything extremely hard is always worth doing. I forgot it was C64 and drifted into a belief that it was a great Amiga 500 demo. Wonderful work and I loved watching the result. A small story about its making and the true history of Fairlight would be nice too. Thanks.
The programming tricks can be amazing, look at the Atari ST, basically a souped up spectrum... Bring in the Care Bears... pseudo hardware scrolling , super fast use of the 68000 cpu...
Don't know if it goes against the spirit of these things and their 80's style and everything, but could you imagine how fucking cool it would be to hear a modern song/beat with the SID chip to go along with these? In my mind while I was watching I just flashed Billie Elish Bad Guy in my brain and thought that awesome tune would be perfect!
I always wondered why didn't these demo authors write some games. They were obviously better programmers then 99% of people who wrote games back then. Just a thought.
A good few did, but it's a very different discipline for one thing and demo writers tend to be obsessive over every detail, but when paid by the hour, it's hard to be like that, deadlines and such...same with musicians...the ones who had unlimited studio time did the most awesome work usually
There's a couple of contributing factors: 1) time/budget constraints dictated by the necessity to make profit, 2) no internet to share information, 3) no emulators and cross-platform development tools. Also, a game is a different kind of animal because it contains mechanics like collision detection and you can't optimize your data structures and unroll the code just for the sake of one effect. It requires more conservative and more generic approach.
Leave me alone with profit and time. It has nothing to do with that. Coding a demo sucks all the resources of a C64 without any room left for the game engine such as memory, speed and game play. Many of these demos use all the sprites for cheating and illusions, at the expense of the anyother animation.. But they are still remarkable games that have done very well, have a look at playable of Limbo demo or Mayhem game to name a few.
@@Avatar2081 Well, the game industry is not exactly known for leisure approach to development. Trying to catch up to pre-Christmas sales deadlines can be tough. Back then a lot of games had to coincide with the release of a certain movie etc. They were in the business of making money, they didn't code for sentimental reasons like it's done today.
All of this could be from the 80's EXCEPT that bit at 4:30. I mean obviously it COULD have been made ofc. but it wouldn't have because it's such a modern design. Those Japanese telephone polls are quite hipster in the design/unixporn community.
@@jakublinhart4612 yes man ! the demoscene is incredible !:) Got a folder on my SdiecII interface, sometimes I turn on y breadbin just to enjoy the best demos on the real machine, it's a SHOW :)
