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https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=6815

Is there more sparetime in those days? More fun magic circles? More individual sparetime? Compared to country side living?

la1n.ch
2022-06-24 22:55:17
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=1150
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). 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5112
All in one. Democollection - show all possible things in one demo. also often wirh story telling aspects - visual narrative or a classic story.
What is possible on one disc. More longterm motivation, more content needed.
Own type/textsorte.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5812
Amicom of Spreadpoint has been interviewed by Com and Orlando of Brainstorm at the Escpape and Spreadpoint copy party on Oktober 7th. 

When did you join Spreadpoint ? 
-A month ago. 

Your task in Spreadpoint ? 
-Coder, but in Spreadpoint everybody can do what he wants to. 

For how long have you been programming on the Amiga ? 
-For 2 years. 
What computers did you work on before? 
-Spectrum, Sinclair QL. I did some graphic programming with BASIC. 

What did you program on the Amiga? 
-A 3D-Demo (Summer of 88 for TLB), various intros and copiers for cracked games, Powerutility (sold it), a level editor for a shoot'em up, AMICOM-Kickstart (Antivirus, Copier etc.) 

What are you doing at the time ? 
-I'm working on Demo, called ATOM-demo. 
What's this about ? 
-Colored, shaded, permeating(!) 3D-Objects. 

Your future projects ? 
-3D vectorgrafics, 3D editor (ev. sell it), copier with multitasking capility, various utilities. 

What hardware do you have ? 
-An Amiga 1000  (1.5Mb, Harddisk 20 Mega SCSI), And an Amiga 2000 (A2620 Unix card, 68020 processor, 68881 math. coprocessor, 68851 Memory Management Unit, harddisk 80 MB SCSI, Modem 2400 Baud) 
Tell us something about your Master Seka. 
-It's based on the Seka V3.0 by Kefrens/Promax. It has been reassembled  and revised by my collegue Buddha. 
The main advantages are: 
Better editor commands, a finally working optimize function, auto runback, the workspace can be changed without exitting the Seka. 

Is there anything you want to advise to Amiga coders ? 
-Unfortunetly, there are more and more good programs, recently, which run only on one special Amiga. So I advise to try out the programs on different Amigas and to avoid unproper coding (absolute addresses, selfmodifing code, DBF-waiting-loops running to fast on the 68020.) 
And I hate programs, which you only can exit by a reset! 

Thank you for your answers. 

     Translated by The Acc{sed/BRS
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5930
» FALSE influenced early esolangs like brainfuck and Befunge, which went on to inspire more, setting off the esolang movement. Did you have much interaction with esolangers (either during the Amiga era – not that they were called esolangers then – or more recently)?
Back then yes. Me and Chris Pressey would email a lot, with him showing me his latest creations (I mostly went back to “serious” language design after FALSE :). There was also quite a bit of community around FALSE, with people making implementations in other languages/systems, or make dialects etc. There was actually quite a few people that made “useful” programs in FALSE
Trends?
2023-05-28 13:51:51
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9011
More complex > More help
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=268
The arcade was a place to play games, meeting point. In the german part of switzerland there were almost only males (you could also gambel). They were dark in the most of cases.
In the ‘westschweiz’ there were a lot more women in also in the arcades and younger people (for example in Lausanne). 
In the arcades there were always different types of arcades (older and the latest), than ‘table football’, flippers and so on. 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=501
The after mainframe-area (based on c and co) was driven by coding near the hardware to get more speed. espacially in games. So Assembler was important. 
vecZ (Vectrex)
2022-06-25 01:20:29
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=738
at the end the vectors won. everything is now vector based in games (as an opengl or directx scene .-) more about this in the simple demo sinZ on pouet last year. therefore step back, step into the beginning 80ies with assembler and the vector console vectrex. and of course vecZ is a shootemup the most complicated (timing, a lot of action etc.) thing in those times.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=6722
Behind Digitalisation there is the idea to have more control and the idea to create reality by own rules. Everything should become a rule. It is the opposite of analoge materials or analoge things are a subset of cyberspace. 
Escape Copy-Party 1989
2023-02-14 11:44:43
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=6879
Escape Copy-Party 1989 was held in at the Schützen Haus in Villmergen, Switzerland for the Amiga scene. About 120 people attended, and 10 demos were released. Escape helped organize another Swiss party, this time together with Spreadpoint, in october. Among the groups that visited this party were Double Density Crew, The Supervisors, Piranhas, Amitech, Clan, Space Coloss, Silver Hawks, Slime Byte, and many more. During or immediately after this party, Atrix and Senses merged into the new group Setrox.
Mentioned briefly in the news section of Cracker Journal 12 (january 1989), "Escape Copy-Party was on 28 29 January 1989 in Switzerland.". A party report followed in Cracker Journal 13 (march 1989).
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=7307
Das klingt abstrakt. Können Sie das anhand eines Beispiels konkretisieren?
Es gab im Laufe der Geschichte viele Fälle, in denen Projekte, Ideen und Frameworks, die von Frauen entwickelt wurden, die Art und Weise, wie unsere Welt funktioniert, wirklich radikal hätten verändern können – wenn diese Frauen bekannt gewesen wären oder das Projekt zur richtigen Zeit ans Licht gekommen wäre. Hypertext ist ein großartiges Beispiel dafür. Es gab fast 20 Jahre lang Leute, die wirklich ausgeklügelte und interessante Hypertext-Plattformen und -Systeme (siehe Kasten) entwickelt haben, die sich Gedanken über die ganzheitliche Beziehung gemacht haben, warum Ideen miteinander verbunden sind und was es bedeutet, wenn eine Tatsache mit einer anderen Tatsache verbunden werden kann. Viele davon Frauen. Und sie haben Systeme entwickelt, in denen so etwas wie ein 404-Fehler (Seite nicht gefunden, Anm. d. Red.) unmöglich ist, weil die Verbindungen, die Links das Wichtigste in diesem System sind. Hätten wir heute solche Systeme als primäre Informationsbrowser, würden wir vielleicht anders denken. Wenn ich mir solche Dinge anschaue, stelle ich mir vor, was wäre dann gewesen? In der Zukunft könnten ähnliche Dinge passieren. Wir müssen einfach in der Lage sein, an die Gegenwart zu denken, statt die Dinge im Rückspiegel zu betrachten.
Decision - Future?
2023-03-16 09:56:57
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=7397
Thesis: the atari st guy were much more into business afterwards because of the software (calamus etc)
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=1138
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. 
.
2022-11-22 15:55:54
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=1025
Homecomputer were attractive for:
  1. as Computers create staff
  2. as Consoles
  3. you could pirating easily software games included
  4. the 16-bit consoles had mouses and guis. easier to use.
Therefore a lot of console wanted to make out of the console a computer (like intellivision). And a lot of users also thinks that the videogame crash was also because a lot moved away from consoles to computers. 
The other possibility were Personal Computers. The ‘Homecomputer’ was more. It was not only a working station. Personal Computers were mostly monochrome (PC: CGA, EGA)
TENNISFORTWO
2022-04-29 14:48:08
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=2343
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.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=2543
Often used, more tracks than normal. So the disk-copy-software couldn't handle it. 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=2553
Often used - enter data from cover or description. 
With more and more photocopiers, often used bad copyable sujets (red etc) or complex systems like rotating discs (several lucas arts games  and were in the mood of the game).
Later the dialog to enter the number/code came in the middle of the game (manic mansion etc). 
Codes were also used to ‘store’ progression.
.
2022-06-06 11:39:02
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=3743
“4-Which composing programs have you been using? Which one in particular?”
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.)
 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=3755
GameArt like other digital media art is distinguished by a technologically induced ephemerality as well as by a decentralised and therefore difficult longterm availability. More complicating, GameArt differentiates even further and orientiates itself towards earlier lines of game culture like play in backyards, malls and high streets. There is a wide range for designing, playing, and experi- encing GameArt that expands all the way back to a mode of playful experience and action. How can this wide range and depth of themes, interactive playing time, and game mechanisms possibly be archived and made accessible?
Archiving for a society with an open end, in other words a „ludic“ society, has to be determined by an open possibility of observing artistic instruments being developed in order to expand it fur- ther or contextualize it in a new way. The suggestion is to try to build an open and playful archive that includes involved parties and works (from a „knocked down“ curbstone pixel to a player) as well as bystanders (spectators) in a comprehensive setting. While there seem to be long known instances of recipients through whom art works only have been able to unfold their meaning (in play), artists with their possible intentions and, finally, the functional systems of society like sci- ence have to be included first. These instances would only be the first traces and layers among many in an open archive. Subsequently a new „philosophy of archiving“ will be drafted that origi- nates in specific phenomenons and questions of GameArt.
These emerging levels and models describe diverse and partly disagreeing strategies of GameArt. The works span from the game as a medium of artistic discourse to the outright subver- sive criticism of a pronounced „ludic“ society. Therefore a „Mille-Plateaux“-archive is at the same time the base we are standing on and the future we are developing (as a tool).
.
2022-07-02 21:20:02
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=4232
Antares is a classic role-playing game of the Bard's Tale variety set in a science-fiction scenario. After the radio contact with space explorers stopped, a second troop goes to look for them. Unfortunately on the way they receive a emergency call, get shot and have to land on the planet Kyrion. Now the troop has to explore the planet and find out more about what happened.

The party has six members (chosen from twelve pre-defined characters) with different statistics and abilities, e.g. fighting, cooking, PSI (the science-fiction variant of magic) or translating (needed to communicate with non-hostile species). The world and dungeons are explored through a first-person perspective and when meeting enemies, the fight plays out turn-based: the player tells the characters what to do and text informs of the results. Killing enemies reward experience points which in turn improve the abilities.

Each character has to eat and sleep. While too much hunger results in death, a sleeping character is in a kind of trance: he still walks around, but can't take any actions or fight. Besides sleeping, there is also medicine available to keep the spirits up: just like other parts of equipment, it can be bought in hidden shops with gold found at slain enemies. Each character can transport up to six items and a radar shows how dangerous the current area is. Dead party members can be resurrected at the landing module.
HIstory
2022-08-03 12:18:08
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5064

Alcatraz was formed in 1988 from the ashes of the more strangely named "Motley Crue Team", by Metalwar (Code, Music), Helix (Gfx) and PGCS (Gfx).

Metalwar was the mastermind behind most of the first productions of the group, until the time of Mega Demo 2, when new creative members like Hornet of Avengers joined Alcatraz.

After Mega Demo 3, Metalwar started to work on his dream Amiga game, codenamed "Ilyad". This shoot 'em up was eventually released in 1989 by UbiSoft. One year later, Metalwar and Helix decided to leave both the group and the scene, leaving PGCS heading the group.

https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5522
  • don't write specs. Users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get.
  • don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.
  • don't write application programs, they pro- gram right down on the bare metal. Application programming is for feebs who can't do systems programming.
  • don't eat quiche. Real programmers don't even know how to spell quiche. They eat Twinkies, Coke and palate-scorching Szechwan food.
  • don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much it did for them.
  • don't read manuals. Reliance on a reference is a hallmark of the novice and the coward.
  • programs never work right the first time. But if you throw them on the machine they can be patched into working in only a few 30-hours debugging sessions.
  • don't use Fortran. Fortran is for wimpy engineers who wear white socks, pipe stress freaks, and crystallography weenies. They get excited over finite state analysis and nuclear reactor simulation.
  • don't use COBOL. COBOL is for wimpy application programmers.
  • never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 am, it's because they were up all night.
  • don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC, after the age of 12.
  • don't document. Documentation is for simps who can't read the listings or the object deck.
  • don't write in Pascal, or Bliss, or Ada, or any of those pinko computer science languages. Strong typing is for people with weak memories.
  • know better than the users what they need.
  • think structured programming is a communist plot.
  • don't use schedules. Schedules are for manager's toadies. Real programmers like to keep their manager in suspense.
  • think better when playing adventure.
  • don't use PL/I. PL/I is for insecure momma's boys who can't choose between COBOL and Fortran.
  • don't use APL, unless the whole program can be written on one line.
  • don't use LISP. Only effeminate programmers use more parentheses than actual code.
  • disdain structured programming. Structured programming is for compulsive, prematurely toilet-trained neurotics who wear neckties and carefully line up sharpened pencils on an otherwise uncluttered desk.
  • don't like the team programming concept. Unless, of course, they are the Chief Programmer.
  • have no use for managers. Managers are a necessary evil. Managers are for dealing with personnel bozos, bean counters, senior planners and other mental defectives.
  • scorn floating point arithmetic. The decimal point was invented for pansy bedwetters who are unable to 'think big.'
  • don't drive clapped-out Mavericks. They prefer BMWs, Lincolns or pick-up trucks with floor shifts. Fast motorcycles are highly regarded.
  • don't believe in schedules. Planners make up schedules. Managers 'firm up' schedules. Frightened coders strive to meet schedules. Real programmers ignore schedules.
  • like vending machine popcorn. Coders pop it in the microwave oven. Real programmers use the heat given off by the cpu. They can tell what job is running just by listening to the rate of popping.
  • know every nuance of every instruction and use them all in every real program. Puppy architects won't allow execute instructions to address another execute as the target instruction. Real programmers despise such petty restrictions.
  • don't bring brown bag lunches to work. If the vending machine sells it, they eat it. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche.
.
2022-11-28 14:18:15
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5792
Depeche
Demo coder, known for cool demos and trainers.
Depeche jonied Spreadponit in 1989. He mysteriously left SP in 1990 and broke up alomst all contact. He then went over to DefJam but not very much later stopped his Amiga activity. Depeche was so fond of language games that he once bought a Langenscheid's dictionary of slang-English!
Data 
Born 1972, grown up and living in Switzerland
Todays occupation: finishing studies (comp. sci)
Work
Demos: Wooow, Scrapheap, Empire, Power!, HI5 and more
Trainers: a whole lot...
Sound: some crazy mixes
Tools: a disk copier in a bootblock, TLB-Utilitydisk, more
Hobbies
old days: being creative, being cool, speaking cool, cool places, cool clothes, cool people, arcade games, pinball machines
today: unknown.
Music
DM, Art of Noise, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Yello, LL cool J, Derek B, De la soul, ...
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5850
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.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5884

 

Facts

  • TTV1 was the first file-based Amiga virus
  • Its creation was a fun experiment. It was inspired by the boot block based SCA virus which had reached dubious fame due to its very successful spreading and the flaw of overwriting the boot block. Would it be possible to create a self spreading file, thus breaking out of the boot block dread?
  • Development took place between spring and fall 1988.
  • The early code name was HOUZ virus.
  • Thinking up the name we tried to find something that would sound mean and at the same time on the verge to ridiculous. The final name was inspired by a rap band called The Terrorists.
  • The virus does not harm the system. In fact, care was taken to avoid any even unintentional damage.
  • Identity of the authors was kept secret for 30 years. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2019 at the Demonights 008 event in Bern Switzerland
  • "The names have been changed to protect the innocent" shown in the message was inspired by the song Beat Dis by Bomb the Bass. They have sampled it from the Dragnet radio series.
  • The "BGS9" was in fact a clone. Its code is almost identical even including the resident name "TTV1". It got more reach and thus was regarded as the origin.

About the life of the beast

  1. TTV1 installs itself as a reset proof resident module (KickTag/ROMTag) named "TTV1"
  2. On reset the resident module (virus) is called
  3. Execution gets delayed in order to gain disk write access. Therefore Intuition's OpenWindow function is redirected.
  4. As soon as the AmigaDOS tries to open the CLI window the OpenWindow gets called the virus looks for the startup-sequence on the booted disk
  5. The virus is looking for the first command (A) in the startup-sequence
  6. File request windows (e.g. "Disk is write protected") are being temporarily disabled
  7. Virus renames A to $a0202020a02020a020a0a0. This is a combination of none breaking spaces and spaces. The idea is that the user will oversee this "invisible" file.
  8. Virus writes itself as an executable command with the name of A to the disk
  9. Eventually A gets loaded and executed with all its parameters by the virus
The next time the user will boot the disk the virus gets loaded into RAM and step 1 takes place. On reset the horizonal beam position gets evaluated. If the beam position is smaller than a certain number the screen turns black and a message in white letters appears.
.
2022-12-06 08:36:27
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5928
» Why did you pick the odd syntax?
To keep it simple to parse, I knew that each operation had to be a single character. Then it dawned on me just how unreadable this language would become, and it was at that point that I thought it would be fun to use more obscure symbols to make it crazy looking on purpose. The idea that you could have a collection of random-looking symbols, and that it would actually be useful, and implemented using such a small compiler got me excited :)
Changes
2022-12-10 18:33:19
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=5964
  • How were people working with plain canvas  like Deluxe paint / Degas elite (no layer like in photoshop?)
  • No undo function - what were the consequences
  • Difference between 16 - 32 Colors and more (Ham Mode?)
  • Pixeling vs painting (for example today?)
  • How the fill was used (when filling was fix)?
From outside a comment
2023-02-27 09:39:35
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=7045
From outside: 
_ Strange fetish with the cows (coming from Buenzli-Event). 
_ Very 3D focussed (also there at lovebyte this year)
vs. Game Jams: Most products were created before. More party. 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=7867
Hardware
- C64 consolen basis, erinnert mehr an eine Console als an einen Computer (Sprite, Hardwarescrolling, Music).
- SID wirklich witzig
VisualDisplay
Unmöglich viele Modis: High res. Multicolor > Programmierung schwierig. Positiv: Kombinierbar
- Beschränkte 16 Farben > Schwierig etwa eigenes zu machen. 
- Strahlende Farben fehlen.
Music
- Music Coding
- SID wirklich interessante Stücke. 

Tools
- Damals Paintingprogramme? > Öfter bessere Computer genutzt wie Amiga/PC (Compiling)

Coding
- Schwierig reinzukommen, sogar schwieriger als Atari2600
- Entwicklung über Jahre
- Basic embedded .-(
- Woher kam das Wissen? Die Software? (Magazine?)
- Öfter bessere Computer genutzt wie Amiga/PC (Compiling)
Gamecoding
- Ohne Tricks (Sprite Multplexer 8 Sprites viele Spiele nicht denkbar) ähnlich wie beim Atari 2600. Tricks
Beschränkung
- Beschränkung bei Shootemups am Schwierigsten bei allen anderen Genres eher möglich mit 8 Sprite durchzukommen.

Community
- Identitätsstiftend aber warum? Einfach übers gemeinsame Spielen?
- Bis heute ungebrochen. Aber mehrheitlich Spieler? Demoszener? 

Heute
Gesamte Entwicklung auf einmal da, keine allmähliche Steigerung/Entwicklung über 10 Jahre
Selbst heute, einige Tutorials aber kein Gametemplate. Viel bis heute unterschiedliche Nutzung: Vorallem game und demoscene. 
> Anwendersoftware fast nicht dokumentiert. 
> Neue Games, demos > Anwendersoftware?
Keyboard C64
2023-04-07 17:32:44
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=8022
The Theory
Limitations
The technical limitation on the C64 Keyboard hardware is that not more than 2 keys may be pressed at the same time if you want to be 100% sure the result is valid. In some cases, three keys will work fine but whenever 3 keys form a right angle in the keyboard scan matrix, a 4th letter will appear. The combination “ABC” will work fine but the combination “ASD” will form such a triangle and the matrix will also report that the “F” key is pressed. Same goes for “ASF” which would incorrectly read a “D” the same way.
In short, the C64 keyboard is not a piano where you can play choords and stuff.
.
2023-05-01 12:01:44
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=8656
Derrick Steel sums up the game succinctly in his entry on MobyGames: "In what has to be considered one of the most "original" games of all time, you are a flying beer in space. And the evil corporations are coming after you, so you must use your "beer power" to fight off wave after wave of corporate beer." To be more precise, your goal is to defend the Eichhof Brewery from the imperium of invading "big beers," with bottle caps and other imaginative weapons that only beer lovers can appreciate ;)
Trends
2023-05-28 13:52:45
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9005
More complex > trends
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9073
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
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9147
The CFA was founded in 1987 in Basel, Switzerland, when 3-letter names were still in fashion. CFA stood for “Computer Freaks Association”. In the first months the CFA was a group of C64 fans and gaming tournaments were held in regular intervals. They organised a gaming room at a local School-Party of the RG in Basel.

The CFA started with pure Demo-Making and Software-Swapping. The first international contact was the Norwegian group The Sinister Realm 2013 Stavanger. One of the early meeting places was the Dial-Club, a local Computer-Center in Basel.
At this time a regular Exchange-Ring of Software between the members was built up.
The first Copy-Party visited by CFA members was Crazy & ZSS Party 1988 in Pratteln/Switzerland. In 1989 Members of the group was busted by police on a German Copy-Party, but thanks to slow Swiss legislation, no CFA member had any troubles at all after returning to Switzerland.
The CFA took part in Demo-Contests of other Swiss copy parties: Crazy & RCS Party 1989, Crazy Stardom Copy-Party 1989 and Fresh Party 1990. 

In the early days, our strategy was: focus on Switzerland. This changed with the first member expansion outside of Basel: 
German members: Snief and The Cure.
Liechtenstein members: Sandman.

War against another Swiss group Fresh, which led to a funny anti demo Fresh on Top. The war was officially ended at the Swiss Pirates Reunion 2002. (nowadays there are many friendship boundaries between the former 2 opponents).

The CFA has in the meantime started importing and cracking games: access to the major US BBS, latest wares and cards agogo. 

1990-1991 Cooperation with Italian Cracking Service from Italy.

11/1989-07/1993 reknown Disk Mag “Immortal Flash” an e-zine that become quite popular in the scene (later released by Atlantis).

In 02/1991 the CFA died and the remaining members built up Atlantis. More info in Joker Note.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9255
OLIVER It all started for me at a Christmas party at Starbyte Software. It was a remarkable event. I never met so many talented people at one place before. The developers showed the games they were developing including the Amiga version of Rolling Ronny. We got the offer for converting the game and if I remember correctly, we agreed almost instantly. Previous projects of Bones Park were economic simulations, which was… how to describe… rather static stuff. I usually call those games Excel-pushers. A jump-and-run is way more interesting and it is action we wanted to create.
MARIO Back then, in the C64 era, most games took only a few weeks or a couple of months to develop. So we had to keep a constant flow of new contacts and projects. One project we did in late 1991, Trans World, for German publisher Starbyte, went pretty smooth and even became our first #1 in German sales charts, so we were invited and offered to work on other titles. One concrete offering was the C64 conversion of Rolling Ronny. Even though most of the first games I programmed were simulations, I still had spent a lot of time on developing action and real-time oriented games. So it was a perfect moment to put all the learnings into a concrete game – and that would have been Rolling Ronny.
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=9257
OLIVER Being a pixel guy – the tools were remarkable. We did not have devkit like the Katakis tools or something specified for creating game graphics. I used the editor that came with the Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit for sprites, which turned out extremely practical. The Ronny-sprite was created with an C64 editor called Mob-Profi, which provided overlayed hires and multicolour-sprites. The pictures in the intro and end sequence were pixeled in Koala Painter with a joystick, but everything else was more like hacking. I edited the charset with a font editor. The level backgrounds were tile-based maps, so a friend of mine coded one tool for combining 2×2 chars to tiles including the colour – and a second tool for assembling the levelmap like a puzzle game. As setup I had a C128 and Amiga 500 side by side. By the way – there was a TV and a monitor connected to the C128 at the same time, because of the the different video quality and I wanted to be sure that the graphics  looked right on both display types. With our modern mouse or stylus driven tools and those workflow-trimmed programs it is hard to believe that we got things done at all back in the day when we were even lacking fundamentals such as UNDO functionality. However, I have to say that you had full control over the technical specs of the graphics and as a graphic designer you started to think like a coder.
Otherwise, I hardly remember details of the project. At least for the first month, Mario and I were working alongside each other. The intro and the end sequence were finished first. Then it was very intense and determined by crunchtime, the process was sort of first-in-first-out. The progress in code was tied to incoming graphics. Markus composed the new tunes at home far away and we had some issues with the delivery. Nevertheless the whole soundtrack reached us in time and its implementation went smoothly. Still there was no free time at all. In the final weeks weeks it became a kind of competition – like, who needs the least sleep! I also remember that the editing of the levels was pretty chaotic. Three of us worked in shifts and it took much longer than planned.
Oh I almost forgot about the  communication with Virgin. That was the horror for me because I hardly spoke any English back then. David Bishop and I talked English and German mixed, which worked surprisingly well.
Mobiles Kino (Basel)
2022-07-04 16:47:56
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=250
A lot of works in the area of electromechanic/optic calculation in games.
Pinballs & Computing
2022-05-27 18:48:48
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=260
Pinballs are really computing hells. 
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=276
Where people met, talked about computers, learnt about computers. Played games, designed games.
Yes also pirate software and games was part of this world. 
Motorola 68000
2023-03-17 10:37:06
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=503
Base for a lot of computers (GUI, Mac, Atari, Amiga, Next  etc) arcades and Arcades! Expensive but with a fantastic assembler-language. 
Make your own diskcopies
2022-04-12 21:45:30
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=790
Several tricks (copy also more than allowed track nubmers etc)
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=855
Games made for old hardware or emulators for hardware. Restrictions of yesterday.
Tracker
2023-05-07 09:21:37
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=1856
Tracker were software - used especially on the Amiga. The most of the music was created in this type of music software. And the people behind the swiss games of the 80ies/90ies even created a tracker and the possibility to use the same framework also in games. 
.
2022-05-21 10:38:55
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=2966
- Money for archive the past (the objects, the hardware, the software, the memories)
- Make the past searchable
- Archiving the swiss net (.ch) once a year 

add more things
Tennis for two - radical
2022-05-21 14:44:35
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=3072
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.
.
2022-06-30 14:59:00
https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=4113
Dugger was the first game to use some components of my upcoming "Game Exec" mini OS which was used in many games such as Crack, Eliminator, Leonardo, Ringside, Star Wars, Traps'n'Treasures and more.
linkz: https://vintagecomputing.ch/?browseid=1
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