Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu!psteffn From: psteffn@pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Paul Steffen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: AMIGA DEMOS: Europe VS. USA Keywords: demos Message-ID: <15321@life.ai.mit.edu> Date: 26 Apr 91 19:03:18 GMT References: <20691@brahms.udel.edu> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Organization: The Internet Lines: 54 True, there aren't very many interesting US demos. That doesn't mean good coders don't exist here. As far as the quality of European game/deom programmers, it used to be quite the opposite. In the early 80's, many of the games coming over from Europe were very bland and weren't at all visually impressive. I think Psygnosis used to go by different name [I recognize that owl somewhere] producing games for the Spectrum and C64. Infogrammes, I believe was there, too. In the US, we had games l8ike StarRaiders [which is still one of the hottest games in it's category and was written in only 8k!!!!!], and the early Lucasfilm games. If you've ever seen Ballblazer on the Atari 8-bit, it was as technically brilliant as Shadow of the Beast was on the Amiga and was probrably the first time anyone programmed a 3D checkerboard smooth scrolling ground [which the Atari 8-bit handled effortlessly doing two at the same time, I might add] that you now see on some of the DOC demos and on Space Harrier. The other games, Koronis Rift, Rescue on Fractulus [can't remember the other cave one] were the first to use real-time 3d fractal landscapes. There were programmers like John Harris, Douglas Crockford [who was one of the Lucasfilm team], Chris Crawford, Phillip Price [author of Alternate Reality, actually got to meet him once], and quite a few anonymous Atari programmers. Just like Europe has Jeff Minter [of course!], Steve Bak, Dave Whittaker, Ben Daglish, etc. Probrably the reason why there are so many good demo coders in Europe is because of the popularity of BBC Basic [at least, that is what Jez San mentioned] because it allowed mixing assembly with basic statements and somewhere along the line, these younggsters became competitive to try to outdo each other. Who knows. I do know that in the US, we are taught to use 'good' programming habits and to never break rules and to program in C. I'm sure if you showed any of the code for a demo to a computer science major [lowercase intentional], they would call it the work of satan. The truth, however, is that it takes much more skill and knowledge than most computer science majors possess to do it. Of the 100 or so demo groups on the Amiga, there are probrably only a few that I would consider brilliant. Razor1911 [Vertical Insanity and their Copper demo are impressive], Anthrox [Tabb], and a few others, are among them. Still, the Amiga demo groups have it easy compared to the ST groups that are out there. The Lost Boys [Life's a Bitch] and The Care Bears [Cuddly] megademos match just about any Amiga demo I have seen [which includes all from AB20] and vector line, block fills, overscan, 4-track Soundtracker music, copper-type effects [color bars, resolution changes..] all must be done completely in software. I've been programming in assembly since 5th grade and I know a 15 year old who wrote a helix scroller for the ST and I know a 13 year old who writes Amiga CLI utilities both in assembly and I am putting together routines for a demo and perhaps once I get it done, I'll send it to ab20. C. I'd love to get in touch with any demo coders that are out there! psteffn@gnu.ai.mit.edu STratoHACKster@Mars Hotel best mail address: psteffn@caticsuf.csufresno.edu