Corruption Extra
From C64 Diskmag Wiki
yohoo friends n' lovers!!
the corruption staff welcomes you to
- corruption special edition -
the following article is extracted from
the magazine "computer front"! i think
it's very interesting to read how an
outsider reports about the c=64 scene!
always keep in mind that this is no real
issue, only some kind of special service
credits for 'corruption special edition'
text : deff/dominators
fast code : XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
fast logo : grizzly adams/dom
char : XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
exclusive music : a-man/arcade
the text you are going to read doesn't
have to reflect the staff's opinion in
in any way! everything is (c) by simon
collis/computer front...
"you may be wondering what all this demo
stuff is about. what is the use of a
demo, what is the point of them? the
easiest way to explain why demos are
around is to start off by going back in
time...
in the beginning
the first demos appeared on the compunet
network. these small programs generally
fell into three categories: coders de-
monstrating routines, graphic artists
showing off their pictures, or musicians
airing their works. unfortunately, owing
to their specific nature, most early
demos were not designed to be admired by
the masses. a group of demo makers, how-
ever, got together and decided that this
limited appeal was not enough. they di-
vided themselves into teams, with some
members handlind the coding, someone
else drawing the graphics, and another
composing the music. some of the early
compunet demos still hold up well, and
it's worth looking at material by the
judges, triad, ash and dave (now game
writers) and god and hake (who later re-
christened themselves digital light and
magic).
one of the largest groups working on
compunet was nato, who produced many
products. one of their best demo writers
maduplec, is still on the scene - i'll
mention him later. other groups from
comunet are still going strong, in fact
some are over 10 years old! (ed:who?)
celeb's corner
many famous names used to visit the net,
at one time it was used by lots of soft-
ware houses to search for new talents
there. a few of the big names on the
network included tony crowther, demon,
matt gray, hagar, rob hubbard, jeff min-
ter and maniacs of noise. compunet in-
cluded personal mail (electronic mail)
as well as a 'partyline', a multi-user
conference. of course,these were nothing
new in the computer terms; ms dos & unix
systems have had similar things around
for years (high-powered operating sys-
tems for the uninitiated). but to the
64 owner, these were a revelation. and,
most importantly, fun!
the postman always codes twice
the use of personal mail and partyline
was expensive, and led to people mailing
disks to each other to cut down costs.
compunet obviously didn't start this
process, they just accelerated the speed
at which the idea, and therefore the
swapping scene, spread. the number of
contacts for the average swapper in-
creased dramatically, to the point where
some of the bigger swappers today can
have anything from 50 to 200 contacts
each.
as the charges increased on the net, so
the number of customers declined,concen-
trating instead on the swapping scene.
people began to set up their own bbses
(bulletin board system), to the point
where nearly all large groups now have
at least one board, if not more.
bbses being operated by europeans (such
as censor and fairlight) include south
of heaven, attraction, the testure, and
wares aquarium. most bbses also deal
with news, disk magazines and e-mail.
however, in order to access these bbses,
you'll need a modem and the relevant
software. (...)
one size fits all
demos come in many sizes, from one file
(the easiest to put on tape) (ed:oh no!)
to massive multiloads featuring many
parts and filling both sides of a disk.
many groups prefer to release one-disk-
side demos or half-a-side demos, not
only because smaller demos let you fit
on other things, such as...
music packs - these are special demos
comprising one screen, which is usually
a list of the music in the pack and a
logo. a control method (...) is used to
select the tunes and play them.musicians
generally distribute their music for
demos in this way, especially if they
are members of 'music only' groups, such
as sonic graffiti, the sonic circle, the
vibrants or torture of music.
disk magazines - these contain news and
demo reviews and charts from around the
world. charts are often (ed:each time!)
voted by the readers.most magazines list
contact addresses for obtaining vote-
sheets, later issues and so forth. how-
ever, these can sometimes be somewhat
contoversial; an early edition of the
magazine smooth criminal caused trouble
owing to its containing the information
necessary to build a bomb!
bob's yer uncle
most demos cover a much wider area than
these, concentrating on the coding
tricks that programmers are using. there
are many different tricks that can be
used in order to make demos more im-
pressive, including bob plotting, dycp's
and stretching. there are too many to
list here, let alone describe, but most
are simply amazing. more contemporary
demos include productions like dodger,
by maduplec of nato (i said i'd mention
him again!). this is an excellent demo,
containing many original ideas,and great
graphics and music. absolutely every-
thing done by maduplec. if you manage to
find this one,then get it - it should
form the part of any demo collection.
(ed:and don't miss 'happy birthday deff'
from maduplec aswell!!)
ice cream castle, produced by crest, is
much larger than dodger - it covers two
disk sides. record-breaking parts and
original feature routines - such as a
part including 600 sprites - all help to
form this demo. another bit displays a
logo moving over a diamond-pattern, and
the diamond uses all 16 colours at once!
origo gangster
the standard of demos is constantly im-
proving, as new routines are invented.
the latest 0rig0 demo, for example,loads
the next part while running the former.
and the demos don't suffer for this
either - all parts are excellent; there
are some incredible colour effects and
wonderful fractals. to explain what
fractals are would take the whole of
this article, but for those in the know,
they generate some 16-colour mandelbrot,
gaston and julia sets. (and for the not-
so-technie people, we're talking about
those pretty swirly pictures loved by
ravers and new-age-folk.)
cure (previously called the digital un-
derground, or tdu) have, in their latest
demo, decided to give some details of
themselves - each member of the group
has a digitized picture of himself, with
some personal data. there are some nine
effects in all, and new twists on some
themes, so it's certainly worth getting
your hands on.
but why?
so why are there so many groups on the
demo scene? why do so many people spend
their free time writing demos?
one reason is that software houses have
benn known to look at pd disks in order
to find new talents, although this
practice is no longer common as it was
when compunet were at their hight.
several well-known programmers who have
started out in this way include manfred
trenz(turricane 1 and 2), markus schnei-
der (rolling ronny) (ed:wrong!), and
jeroen tel (numerous games, including
turbo out run and robocop 3) (ed:jt is
a composer!).
but could there be any reasons? i asked
entropy's whw design (one of their top
graphics artists) why he originally
decided to produce demos... (ed:who the
hell is whw design?) "basically, to get
a name for myself, but also to improve
on how to use a computerwith art." he
considers his best work to date to be
the project unknown, "the graphics for
that are very nice, with the sword logo
and the dycp."
prime mover
it would seem, then, that the prime mo-
tivation for creating demos is to esta-
blish a name for yourself- to build up a
reputation for quality work with the
disk magazines and get voted for in the
charts by the readers. in this way, the
magazines play a large part in the demo
scene (although a lot of people voting
tend to select those people who are al-
ready at the top of the charts). you can
obtain demos either by writing to the
swappers in the groups themselves who
spread the demos (usually in europe) or
by going back to the pd libraries. if
you go direct to the swappers, then you
will probably only get the newer stuff,
but you will also get things back -
assuming that you have anything to send
them. (...)"
simon collis/computer front
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