Listing

Tennis For Two was the first Videogame ever! It was developed in 1958. The gameplay features were more complex and more fun than in the later very popular Pong or Breakout. GameLab ZHdK has made a new version to bring the amazing game mechanics to attention. You hit the ball with the A-button of your controller while you use the left analogue stick to indicate the direction (or angle) of the tennis ball. And since it is tennis, you can hit the ball anywhere in your own half of the court! It is surprisingly fun to play the "TennisForTwo Fantasy 1958" version. Made in 2015 by GameLab ZHdK.

Tennis for two is one of the most radiacal games ever. It has no ! avatar. At the moment the ball is on your field, you have the power to kick it in the direction, you want. So the game is more territorial based than avatar/npc-linked.

Brainstorm is a Swiss-based demo group, that has existed in two distinct periods; their formation as an Amiga demo group in the period between 1989 and 1993, and their reformation as a mainly pc demo group in 2006 until present day. They were originally formed a short while before may 1989 by graphician Chester and coder Majestic, and their first release was Lazer Roll. During the summer they recruited more members (like Orlando), and at the end of the summer vacation they were joined by the entire group Axxis (Bird, ...). This group had both a Swiss and German section, but the German section was found to be substandard and was forced to leave after a while. Another member, swapper Joker, left the scene soon after. They had by now started planning what would become the diskmagazine Zine. It was originally conceptuated as a cooperation between Brainstorm and another Swiss group at the time, Setrox, but the latter eventually decided against being part of the project. Due to this, Setrox coder The Accused left to join Brainstorm. Zine 1 was released in october. They were now a totally Swiss group again, except for two German members - Shadow and Yankee.

Advert in Cracker Journal 18 (january 1990), looking for members. Cracker Journal 19 (march 1990) reported, "Angel Dust joined Brainstorm and his name is now Six Pack." Sometime between Zine 3 (february 1990) and Zine 4 (april 1990) they decided to kick their German writer Yankee because he wasn't productive enough. He was a freelance writer for D.I.S.C. for a while before finally joining Addonic. Zine 5 was released at the Alcatraz Pentcost Party 1990 at the beginning of june. It was to be Orlando's last issue as editor, as The Accused had returned from his army service.

Metamorphosis (august 1991) mentioned their bbs Cheese-Line as 'new', and listed Accused, Axel, Bird, Chesney, Chester, Droid, ESA, Fly, Grubi, Luke, Macho, Majestic, Odie, Oli, Orlando, Patsy, Peace, Scattergold and Truxton as active members. Danish megaswapper The Pride joined the group in late september, and was sent a new packmenu for creating a new series of packs (see Superpack 1) - which would become the Obsession packseries, starting in october. All this was also reported in R.A.W 1 (november 1991).

R.A.W 2 (february 1992) reported that The Pride moved on from the group to join Sanity, and that a Finnish section had been opened by Phazer, Extabulator, Hoover, Mac, Top Azz and Voyager.

January 1993 saw the release of Axel's musicdisk Musicland, featuring among other songs his 8th-placed Technology from The Party 1992 the month before.

Subject:
'Re: VIC-II colors'
From: Robert 'Bob' Yannes
To: Philip
'Pepto' Timmermann
Date: 27.09.1999
I was involved with the development of the VIC-II, however the actual implementation of the design, including the Color
Palette, was done by someone else. I have forwarded your message to him, but it is up to him if he wants to respond.
I can tell you that the design was based on the principle that adding a sine wave of a particular frequency and amplitude
to an inverted version of the same sine wave at a different amplitude produces a phase-shifted sine wave of the same
frequency. The amount of phase shift is directly proportional to the amplitudes of the two sine waves.
The VIC-II used the 14.31818 MHz master clock input (4 times the NTSC color burst frequency of 3.579545 MHz) to produce
quadrature square-wave clocks. These clock signals were then integrated into triangle waves sing analog integrators. The
triangle waves were then integrated again into sine waves (actually rounded triangle waves, but good enough for this
application). This produced a 3.579545 MHz sine wave,
inverse sine wave, cosine wave and inverse cosine wave.
An analog summer was used to create the phase-shifts in the Chroma signal by adding together the appropiate two waveforms
at the appropiate amplitudes. The Color Palette data went to a look-up table that specified the amplitude of the waves by
selecting different resistors in the gain path of the summer. The end result was that we could create any hue we wanted by
looking at the NTSC color wheel to determine the phase-shift and then picking the appropiate resistor values to produce
that phase-shift.
Color Saturation was controlled by scaling the gain of the summer. When we picked the resistor values to determine the
output phase-shift, we also scaled them to produce the desired output amplitude. Luminance was controlled using a simple
voltage divider which switched different pull-down resistors into the open-drain output. We could create any Luminance we
wanted by choosing the desired resistor value.
I'm afraid that not nearly as much effort went into the color selection as you think. Since we had total control over hue,
saturation and luminance, we picked colors that we liked. In order to save space on the chip, though, many of the colors
were simply the opposite side of the color wheel from ones that we picked. This allowed us to reuse the existing resistor
values,
rather than having a completely unique set for each color
I believe that Commodore actually got a patent on this technique. It was certainly superior to the Apple or Atari approach
at the time, as they ended up with whatever colors that came out--ours allowed the designer to freely select Hue,
Saturation and Luminance.
Since all of this was based on selecting different resistor values and resistance varied from chip lot to chip lot, there
was variation from one Commodore 64 to another. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though, since all of the Chrominance
selection was based on resistor ratios, which could be kept constant even if the actual resistor values varied. Luminance
was more of a problem. A trimmer resistor should really have been used to pull up the output. This would have allowed the
Luminance to be adjusted for consistency from unit to unit, however Commodore didn't care enough about consistency to
bother with adjusting each unit
Robert
'Bob'
Yannes

The topics vintage computing and vintage gaming are of course intertwined. 

First gaming is a part of the whole digitalisation. But before computer were in every household the consoles were there. The first funny digitalisation and alternative to the non existing tv-program (share the screen). And then the homecomputer in the private areas came ‘home’.  So games became again software in the area of computing. 

And so on … 

Two types of tv-games:

First developing on Atari ST (Assembler) but never published something except a demo for a bbs 1993 (First founded by two brothers). First not released ‘product’. A listing game for Happy Computer. 
Than switched to Macintosh (1995 ). Games in C . And than published over the net (website) or in Maganzines Disc-Magazines as Shareware. Paid first with checkes (almost impossible to get the money for 15$ games), so switched to real money and than to KAGI.com a first worldwide payment service.

Inbetween the author worked produced Flash-Games for advertising and ported a lot of games for Java (Applets) 1996 . 

Afterwards switched to Objective-C on MacOSX with a new name: la1n.ch. 

there are two aspects came together in the universal computer. 
1. computing (sorting)
2. control (cases, if then, input)
before this were seperated functions in analoge maschines.

I discovered Linel's SoundFX about a year before I saw Soundtracker (which I 
hated). The important difference between the two is that SoundFX let you use 
CIA timing so you could match breakbeats perfectly, where as Soundtracker had 
no concept of "BPM". I was trying to make house/dance tracks so I found SoundFX 
was better for that purpose. I later used Noisetracker for making more typical
demoscene tracks (Noisetracker's pattern FX were far far superior to SoundFX's).
Of course, when it came to implementing the playroutine into code - SoundFX 
sucked! (See Magnetic Fields Spaced Out 1 music disk to hear how my music 
DOESN'T work with the playroutine hack.) By the time ProTracker was released, 
you could choose CIA timing, so I started using that.

The king of trackers, as far as I'm concerned, was OctaMED for its synth sound 
editor. I spent so many happy hours making C64-sounding tunes using that (some 
are still available at Exotica's Special section.)
 

Den Crackern ging es selbstverständlich auch darum, bekannt zu werden. Sie versuchten symbolisches Kapital anzuhäufen. Man kann ihre Motivation und ihre Aneignungsweise durchaus mit derjenigen der Graffiti-Sprayer jener Jahre vergleichen, die mittels “taggen” ihres Künstler- und Gruppen Namens auf leeren Flächen der Stadt versuchten, Aufmerksamkeit zu erreichen – zum Beispiel GEN im Zürich der 80er Jahre. Getting Fame oder Getting Up war die Losung.

Aus den anfänglichen kurzen Bemerkungen als Text wurden immer komplexere eigenständige Vorspänne – die sogenannten Intros. Hier zeigten die Crackers mit der Message ihres Namens, die nicht zuletzt als Botschaften an die Adresse anderer Cracker Gruppen dienten, ihr Ganzes Können. Dabei versuchten sie alles aus diesen Computern herauszuholen. Diese Intros waren eine Art Graffiti auf den blanken Oberflächen der Games jener Zeit. Die Intros unterstanden nicht den Gesetzmäßigkeiten des Game Designs. Die Spielmechaniken spielten keine Rolle und mussten nicht verändert werden. Es ging lediglich um die Titel- und Credit Sequenzen der Spiele. Es ging um einen visuellen Auftritt, der auffallen sollte. Die Intros mussten gut aussehen und einen Wow-Effekt haben. Mit dem Einbezug von Musik und Animation wurde es aber bald auch wichtig, spezielleres Wissen zu erarbeiten. Die Cracker Gruppen begannen Arbeitsteilung einzuführen mit Programmierern, Grafikern und Musikern.

Aus diesen Intros, die in bestehende Spiele eingefügt wurden, entstand später eine ganz eigene Szene, die Demoszene. Und so kommt es, dass sich im Umfeld der meisten Schweizer Cracker und frühen Game Devs auch immer Demos finden. Diese Szene ist noch immer aktiv und dokumentiert sich bis heute selbst. Man findet fast alles aus den letzten 40 Jahren auf der Website POUET (2000) sowie in spezialisierten Datenbanken. Einige der Entwickler updaten ihre virtuellen Echtzeit Welten bis heute aber auch direkt selbst.

Abbildung 14: Cracks und Demos aus den Jahren 1983 – 1988 werden archiviert und öffentlich zugänglich gemacht über die Website der Swiss Cracking Association SCA (2018).Abbildung 15: Aus dem Repertoire des Crackers Hcc: Solomon’s Key Cracktro, Atari ST (1987).
 

Spreadpoint is an Amiga demo group, formed in 1986 by Marvin and (D-)Mike.

Amicom and Depeche joined the group in 1989. Swapper advert in Cracker Journal 16 (october 1989), listing an address in Bad Aibling, Germany.

They were coarrangers of the CeBit 1990 demoparty in march. Depeche left the group sometime this year.

With the march 1991 release Innovation Part Two, Psy announced he was rejoining Spreadpoint from Axxis. Grmblwrz (december 1991) mentioned, "We also welcome our new American members - Paninaro and Micro".

The october 1992 cracktro for Pinball Fantasies welcomed Ice Tea and The French Dewd to the group.

Upstream 1 (january 1993) reported that Cocaine joined Addonic from Spreadpoint & Amiga Industries along with his bbs Moria.

Alcatraz Pentcost Party 1990 was held at the Centre Culturel du Chene in Aubonne, Switzerland. Alcatraz was originally to have arranged this party (together with Brainstorm) in april, but the original plans fell through. There was a dj with a huge light and laser show, a large screen, around the clock movies and a snack bar, so there was plenty of activities to get into. Separate sleeping quarters were available in a nearby hall. This may very well have been the first instance of females getting free entrance to a demo party. As we know, this became the norm in the years to follow. The winner of the demo competition won an A1000, the second place took home an Action Replay cartridge and some empty disks.

Cracker Journal 19 (march 1990) reported, "Alcatraz' "Pencost Mega Party" on 2nd to 4th of june 1990. Acitivites: Mega Demo Competition, DJ - light and laser show, three little conference rooms, two mega screens, TV and video corner, snack bar, special modem phone line, sport places, about 70 beds..."

Results and information based on Pentcost Party Invitation and party report in Hack-Mag 1 (august 1990).

Alcatraz Pentcost Party 1990 was held at the Centre Culturel du Chene in Aubonne, Switzerland. Alcatraz was originally to have arranged this party (together with Brainstorm) in april, but the original plans fell through. There was a dj with a huge light and laser show, a large screen, around the clock movies and a snack bar, so there was plenty of activities to get into. Separate sleeping quarters were available in a nearby hall. This may very well have been the first instance of females getting free entrance to a demo party. As we know, this became the norm in the years to follow. The winner of the demo competition won an A1000, the second place took home an Action Replay cartridge and some empty disks.

Cracker Journal 19 (march 1990) reported, 'Alcatraz' 'Pencost Mega Party' on 2nd to 4th of june 1990. Acitivites: Mega Demo Competition, DJ - light and laser show, three little conference rooms, two mega screens, TV and video corner, snack bar, special modem phone line, sport places, about 70 beds...'

Results and information based on Pentcost Party Invitation and party report in Hack-Mag 1 (august 1990).

(Entry is a copy of the Demozoo entry! > https://demozoo.org/parties/7/)

With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware.

The C64 dominated the low-end computer market (except in the UK and Japan, lasting only about six months in Japan[7]) for most of the later years of the 1980s.[8] For a substantial period (1983–1986), the C64 had between 30% and 40% share of the US market and two million units sold per year,

In the UK market, the C64 faced competition from the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum, and later the Amstrad CPC 464.[11] but the C64 was still the second most popular computer in the UK after the ZX Spectrum.[12] The Commodore 64 failed to make any impact in Japan. The Japanese market was dominated by Japanese computers, such as the NEC PC-8801, Sharp X1, Fujitsu FM-7, and MSX.[13]

Part of the Commodore 64's success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores.

One computer gaming executive stated that the Nintendo Entertainment System's enormous popularity – seven million sold in 1988, almost as many as the number of C64s sold in its first five years – had stopped the C64's growth. Trip Hawkins reinforced that sentiment, stating that Nintendo was "the last hurrah of the 8-bit world".[57]

 

 

The Tandy Color Computer was the runner up. The Apple II was the winner in the category of home computer over $500, which was the category the Commodore 64 was in when it was first released at the price of $595.

n the United States, the greatest competitors were the Atari 8-bit 400, the Atari 800, and the Apple II. The Atari 400 and 800 had been designed to accommodate previously stringent FCC emissions requirements and so were expensive to manufacture. Though similar in specifications, the C64 and Apple II represented differing design philosophies; as an open architecture system, upgrade capability for the Apple II was granted by internal expansion slots, whereas the C64's comparatively closed architecture had only a single external ROM cartridge port for bus expansion.

Aggressive pricing of the C64 is considered to have been a major catalyst in the video game crash of 1983.

The price war with Texas Instruments was seen as a personal battle for Commodore president Jack Tramiel.[25] Commodore dropped the C64's list price by $200 within two months of its release.[6] I

Meanwhile, TI lost money by selling the TI-99/4A for $99.[26] TI's subsequent demise in the home computer industry in October 1983 was seen as revenge for TI's tactics in the electronic calculator market in the mid-1970s, when Commodore was almost bankrupted by TI.[27]

Although many early C64 games were inferior Atari 8-bit ports, by late 1983, the growing installed base caused developers to create new software with better graphics and sound.[34]

 

The swiss gamedesign was influenced and even founded by the cracker scene coming from the C64 to Amiga and the other tree was the Atari ST. Around 25 own Games and Ports were created and published from 1985-1997. There was even an own publisher Linel. 

la1n was the direct next step from imp89. New maschines and a new platform macosx. “Therefore i learned objective-c and coded real object orientated” and switched now to 3d games with opengl. The games were now more an more like gameengines and were object-orientated. But still hardcore coded. This change with the upcoming game engine like torque or unity. 

Therefore the last games from la1n.ch till now were again hardcore coded games like axe (atari 2600 vcs), vecZ (vectrex 2016).