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source: DEMO.DESIGN FAQ, http://www.enlight.ru/demo/faq
Commodore 64 - scene, software, traditions, terms
The C64 is the machine on which most of such concepts as
demo/intro/diskmag and many others.
Specifications:
CPU: 6510 - 1MHz, 8 bit, RISC-like instruction set (56
pieces) 13 addressing modes, conveyor ~4-5 times faster than z80
at the same clock frequency
Memory: 64K RAM, 20K ROM, expansions - 256K & 512K units
Video: Sprites, Raster IRQs, Combination of text and
graphic modes on one screen, 320x200 or 160x200x16
colors (With "open frame" - up to 512x256). Unique mode
color per point" - no. Horizontal and vertical hardware
scrolling
Sound: 3 oscillators 4 waveforms per oscillator: Triangle,
Saw, Rectangle, Noise 3 amplitude modulators 3 oscillators
envelope (Attack Rate, Decay Rate, Sustain Level, Release Rate)
Generator synchronization Programmable filters External audio
entrance
Ports: RS232, IEEECH88 (serial version), Centronics, two ADCs Video
Outputs: Composite (PAL), Monochrome video, RF expansion port
(systemtire)
Peripherals: 2 joysticks, mouse, light pen 1531 cassette
tape recorder 1541,71,81 disk drives (have their own ROM/RAM, CPU
6502AD) As well as hard drives, printers, accelerators and much more
other
C64 Scene
Intro
Several horizontally scrolling/appearing lines of text
+ beautifully drawn LOGO between them (for example on a black background
or against the backdrop of flying stars). LOGO is separated from lines of text
horizontal raster stripes. Behind/in front of the logo too
stripes are possible - for example, moving along a sinusoid or
iridescent.
There was music in about 70% of the intros, but it could also be absent. B
Unlike the demos, there was nothing reprehensible in
using music torn from, say, a toy, but not in
by no means from another intro (!)
Intros by themselves, as a rule, did not exist - they were added
to freshly released / stolen toys and other software. Exit
of them was carried out by space, after which it was unpacked
(usually with the involvement of a piece of video ram) and launched itself
toy (or another intro :). Intra size fluctuated
depending on its complexity and the presence of music and lay within
from 5 to 20 blocks (1.2-5 kb). Musicnever takes
more than 8-15 kb. For example, you can listen to music from the game
Deflektor (464k) and from a small intro (293k). Both topics were
converted to .wav using sid2wav and then to RealAudio. B
in the original (code + data) they took up 4k each (!).
Demos
A completely independent thing written either for party or
just like that (the ratio was somewhere around 70% / 30%, and what
further, the more focused on party). Size - no more
1 standard disk (i.e. about 360 kb) Demo consisted of
several parts - often loaded. During loading
(~10-25 seconds) music was playing and something simple was happening, but
nice action. The main emphasis was on design,
graphics and music. Code quality was usually not a concern because
firstly, left-wing people didn’t write demos on c64, secondly
low-quality code would not fit into the narrow confines of a small RAM.
No source codes were distributed at that time - there were no networks
it was.
Although the effects were repeated, they were quite rare and not one to one.
alone. As an illustration: I remember a terrible scandal when one
one of the Offence coders shared an idea with the coders from Crest
(a very original idea with scrolling). So - Crest in
urgently released the demo, which includedused this
idea. There was an absolutely terrible scandal. Offence released a demo
with his own, so to speak, author’s version of this effect, to
Fortunately, it is much better and more interestingly implemented. At the party
there were no prizes, which had a beneficial effect on the general atmosphere.
Noters
Small (1-6 kb) programs, when launched on black
(usually) something like this would appear on the screen:
CHROMANCE NOTER v1.2 by CHROMANCE
PRESS SPACE TO SEE ACTUAL NOTE
PRESS ANY ELSE TO EDIT NOTE
When you pressed any button other than the spacebar, you were in something
like a simple text editor where you could type
text (music playing in the background). Moreover, for text you can change
color, highlight words with flickering, some letters moved...
There was another approach after entering the "editor" all further
button presses (cursor movements, backspace, del, symbols)
are remembered so that they can be reproduced later at startup.
It turns out very cool - self-extending lines,
bugs to be corrected, etc.. One way or another, after preparation
text, all this is recorded (more precisely, the same file is created,
which, when launched, will do everything the same (allow
read/write), but only with your text). If at the beginning
press not any key, but the space bar, theneverything that is shown
written by the previous person (to the music). Noters were used
very widely. For example:
■ When the team released the software, and it required some
explanations, they were formalized in exactly this way. Descriptions
buttons in toys, comments on crack'y, fix'y, etc.
■ Some information that the team wanted to convey to
scenes. For example, that they are back, that they have released a new demo,
what party will take place, etc.
■ Bust'ax warnings - listing BBSs that
struck, who should not be trusted (for connections with the FBI), etc.
■ If one swapper mailed the disk to another, then usually
I wrote there noter with a list of warez on this disk and
friendly wishes.
■ The person was just in a good/bad mood, and he decided
write about it :)
Scene
In addition to the well-known coders, graphicians, musicians,
crackers were also swappers, as an indispensable attribute of any
self-respecting team. They were engaged in correspondence with others
groups, sending out disks withfresh warez, and other things like that
same spirit. There were also fixers - they fixed bugs in just
software/game released by any company. It should be noted
an important point - on PC there is a fairly clear boundary
between crackers and demo makers. Fixers and swappers like
the phenomenon does not exist at all. So, - on the c64 scene
most teams did everything at once. That's all later
began to acquire specialization, which led to the fact that
today it doesn’t even occur to a person who breaks software
code a simple intro for this occasion :( In the USSR and Russia
the demoscene was practically absent (anything was written no more
10-15 people, with the total number of demos/intros released being less
5 pieces).
Trends and features
99.99% of software is written in Asma, although there are C, BASIC, PASCAL,
LOGO, FORTH, LISP, etc. This is due to insufficient volume
memory and performance. Standard kernel routines
I/O are usually not used - they write their own. If
the toy/demo is multi-file, then often the disk directory is beautiful
is formatted with pseudo-graphics (on c64, files in the directory are displayed in
the sequence in which they are written) Protection against
copies exist, but usually copiers for them appeared
the next day:) I only came across one disc, which I didn't
I was able to copy. 99.99% of toys are broken. I don't remember any
a game in which there would be no intro or at least a note that
fixed/cracked/trained by ??? Music editors are built on
type of trackers, but the approach is slightly different - more flexible (the concepts
no order, there are just links in the patterns for each channel
into certain blocks containing small portions of notes). Tools
are edited in the tracker itself by changing numbers (ADSR,
filters, modulation, waveform, etc.). In general, such trackers
aimed at a person who knows how hardware works
car. For example, for convenience when writing music
the vertical bar shows which part of the time it is
from the full passage of the ray through the raster is spent on playback
music :) There is quite a lot of documentation (which
personally, I got the opportunity to read after I myself had more
became less aware of the issues) Programs are written either with
using an assembler, which usually has a simple built-in
editor, and/or using a thing called monitor. She
is an assembler/disassembler without symbolic tags
+ many small amenities like
transfer/fill/load/save/ascii-hex dump/search. Monitors
there are quite a few, but they are all externallylook similar and
occupy approximately 17 blocks (4.3kb) - this size is due to
ease of placement in memory. There are cartridges with
built-in monitors/debuggers (Final Cartridge III, Action
Replay, etc.)
After Commodore went out of business,
this car is no longer produced (by anyone), although it is still in the world
There are a lot of old computers left. Development of new models
also long discontinued (last model was Commodore 65 -
A trial batch of about 1000 pieces was produced).
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