Corruption Extra

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        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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