This is a spectacular example of how influential programming is. These days hardware is very heavily leaned upon to compensate for inefficient or sloppy coding. I salute their work wit tremendous zeal. Thirty years later I still have a soft spot in my heart for the old C64. Kudos!
8 sprite limitation overcome by careful use of horizontal/vertical raster interrupts and of course real-time data unpacking to maximize a limited memory. I remember talking to "Strider" of Fairlight in Sweden back in day ;) -The Phanthom
kiko lopez said he likes gameboy demos better because he prefers 8-bit synthesizers over c-64's "sid instruments", whatever he thinks those are. The ridiculous thing is that sid is an 8-bit synthesizer chip, and much more advanced than gameboys sound chip.
This demo really roxxorz!!! :-) I thought that I was hot shit when I debuted my 192-line $DO16 wave in 1992, but this makes my wave routine look like Donald Duck wrote that shit. :-O The FLI with the nearly-naked chick (well, she still had her panties on but her thingies were exposed) with the bouncing ball was superb, but then I was blown away by that Y-scrolling FLI piccy. I've never seen a C=64 do *THAT* before!!! :-O
These effects are achieved not only by being an efficient coder, but by exploiting many flaws in the C64s chips and using it way outside of its specifications. Maybe if today's machines could be exploited in such a way we'd see such amazing innovation. The 64k PC demo scene which uses much faster hardware is still amazingly impressive efficiency wise.
You can call it all sorts of names, but code is code and there is no such thing as "beyond assembly". Assembly is just a mnemonic representation of the opcodes since it is easier to memorize and distinguish words than numbers. But yes, back in the day, a lot of us knew the opcodes, and with lots of patience, trial and error, we could do neat tricks like self-modifying code and re-using data as code or vice-versa. Back then, every game was a democoding effort to make it fast and small enough.
30 years from now I'll be 50. May not have been there, but I sure admire the little C64, so I'll be there, at least. This is impressive, but what I love most is the music. Downright amazing. It's on Jeroen Tel's level.
Answer is... this *isn't* BASIC. It's hardcore machine code. Also, the full capacity of both sides of the disk are used, loaded in realtime while the rest of the demo is going on, and all on an ancient 8-bit micro. The C64 is amazing hardware for it's age. Also, Fairlight are amazing demo makers.
A lot of the specific techniques used to create complex demos like this is very hard to translate to tutorials since it's all pretty much custom, using insane workarounds and code "exploits" and glitches.
@@mrpedrobraga Fortunately, the VC crew stuck around long enough for me to get involved! Hard to believe a decade ago I thought I'd never get my hands on any of these systems. Lot of my old comments coming up this year. Interesting!
Wow,C64 and the SID Chip combined are the Masters of Sound and back then Graphics,and in some ways today's scene...OUTSIDE The Box and not Cookie-cutter...
sick demo, must take some crazy coding skills to pull this off.. i still remember D/L'ing demos to my C128 off my 300bps modem and was amazed by them, those were good times
Slow clap 👏🏽 Absolute masterpiece. Archaeologists of the future will examine this like an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. RIP Gunnar Jerry Kalback and Sammi Hoyt Barakat
Incredible. Maybe someday some canadian guy will create electronic music influenced by these demoscenes and chiptunes and will be named one of the best Dj/Producers in the world...
It always amazes me that in the early 80s Commodore gave away free naff but fun games when you first bought a 64, I got Blitz (landing a plane on skyscrapers and having to bomb them to make the runway flat!) and yet the SAME computer was capable of things like this demo! Mental! I guess in 30-40 years there won't be anyone around who remembers the era.
I call it machine code because most of the work is being done by the chipset, which has been programmed at the very lowest level by the demo code. Additionally, much of the CPU code running was not written in assembler, but generated by a very sophisticated unpacker built into the demo itself - part of a so-called "fastcode" system which eliminates loop and index overhead. This requires knowledge at the opcode and operand level, and is therefore beyond assembly.
You forget this isn't interactive 3D. It's not like machine needs to adapt display dinamically according to input. So there's definitively fucking way VIC could have done this with no problems.
there was a software called fligraph. or fligraphics. i cant remember exactly, but it was make you able to use 4 colors in 1 pixel of c64. it was legendary at that time. i missed those days.
Everyone "steals" from everyone, that's just how science evolves. Back in the early days, everyone basically lifted their ideas from Xerox PARC, which was a great innovator but not so great at marketing their ideas. And Linux ? Linux started as a clone of Minix, which was a clone of Unix. BSD is also a Unix clone. Everyone copies everyone, and with each imitation comes a small, incremental improvement. Always has been.
4:06 somebody really needs to take something like that and make it into a playable game, have a playable demo, that would really help capture part of the demoscene, the idea that something you had so much fun on years ago can do something like that.
or it might have been on csdb...but I know I saw it. I was like HEY! its that part from that fairlight demo! That's where they got the idea! I looked for it for a bit but I can't find it.
These techniques are stand alone. Coding a game to run along with it with decent frame rates is much harder. Although that said, there are a number of first person perspective games for the C64. A surprising number. One of the first games I had for the 64 was 'Raiders of the Lost Tomb' which is a scrolling 3D game from 1984. Ironically, it has nothing to do with Indiana Jones even though everything about it screams Jones movie. It's frankly better than the indiana jones titles!
By harder I mean nearly impossible/impossible with full screen. I believe what they are doing there is using precisely timed raster bars with a look up table for the calculations. Since they are doing a limited set of a rendered environment, they can get away with a 1mhz processor. Mood for the c64 is an example of a 3d game with textured walls and exploding barrels. It is also practically unplayable. There was an actual full doom port done for the superCPU If you have an extra $700 and some luck finding one on ebay.
@@peterlamont647 quite true but I bet these developers know ways to optimize code to push the limits. Sam's journey is a classic example of a game that does the unimaginable
awesome !! and pls remember this is just 64 kb and 1 HZ of a little 8 Bit Machine :D I wish i could read the assembler sourcecode some where, do U know ?
Yes, go to csdb and download the demo. Source code can be disassembled. Though, like with all commodore machine language, it is almost never commented. You are left to read the raw disassembly for lessons on how to be more 1337. Its 1mhz btw, 1hz would be one cycle per second. A human could calculate faster than that.
It's quite a different style of music then the soundtrack to actual games. I think the music has kinda lost its grip on the atmosphere and sounds more like conventionel music. But then again it just isn't videogame music, so I am measuring it with the wrong standards. Anyway, I share the love for the Commedore 64 and it makes me happy I am not alone.
MacOS X was built on top of FreeBSD, not Linux. Additionally, the first Macintosh was released a full year *before* the first Amiga, and therefore cannot have stolen from it. If you are going to argue semantics, it is wise to be factually correct.
nobody was using machine code, the best groups used assembly and JCH's editor, not "assembler" assembler is not a language. it translates Opcode mnemonics into machine codes. I've used assembly on PLC programming 20 years ago and used assembler to translate the codes. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me with few demo sources written in machine code. the packer you talking about is probably just com compressor that used anti lamers.
You can't do that in BASIC. They did it in pure machine language. Basic could never hope to reach those speeds and isn't even capable of real time music tracks because it lacks interrupt support, sound support, and graphics support. Commodore was so sure people wouldn't bother with doing that in basic and if they did they could just peek and poke values to do it. They figured most of the professionals would use assembler/machine language monitors for making fast software. They were right.
This is a spectacular example of how influential programming is. These days hardware is very heavily leaned upon to compensate for inefficient or sloppy coding. I salute their work wit tremendous zeal. Thirty years later I still have a soft spot in my heart for the old C64. Kudos!
8 sprite limitation overcome by careful use of horizontal/vertical raster interrupts and of course real-time data unpacking to maximize a limited memory. I remember talking to "Strider" of Fairlight in Sweden back in day ;) -The Phanthom
Incredible for a computer from 1982!
It's awesome that fairlight are still a big part of the scene even today.
We are :)
kiko lopez said he likes gameboy demos better because he prefers 8-bit synthesizers over c-64's "sid instruments", whatever he thinks those are. The ridiculous thing is that sid is an 8-bit synthesizer chip, and much more advanced than gameboys sound chip.
This would have BLOWN my adolescent mind if I had loaded this on my c64.
Same here. I'd have spent way too long trying to work out how it was done too
It's blowing my mind now!
So, the part with the telephone lines; who made that one? 'Cause DAMNNNNN!
This demo really roxxorz!!! :-)
I thought that I was hot shit when I debuted my 192-line $DO16 wave in 1992, but this makes my wave routine look like Donald Duck wrote that shit. :-O
The FLI with the nearly-naked chick (well, she still had her panties on but her thingies were exposed) with the bouncing ball was superb, but then I was blown away by that Y-scrolling FLI piccy. I've never seen a C=64 do *THAT* before!!! :-O
These effects are achieved not only by being an efficient coder, but by exploiting many flaws in the C64s chips and using it way outside of its specifications. Maybe if today's machines could be exploited in such a way we'd see such amazing innovation. The 64k PC demo scene which uses much faster hardware is still amazingly impressive efficiency wise.
You can call it all sorts of names, but code is code and there is no such thing as "beyond assembly". Assembly is just a mnemonic representation of the opcodes since it is easier to memorize and distinguish words than numbers.
But yes, back in the day, a lot of us knew the opcodes, and with lots of patience, trial and error, we could do neat tricks like self-modifying code and re-using data as code or vice-versa. Back then, every game was a democoding effort to make it fast and small enough.
30 years from now I'll be 50. May not have been there, but I sure admire the little C64, so I'll be there, at least.
This is impressive, but what I love most is the music. Downright amazing. It's on Jeroen Tel's level.
Answer is... this *isn't* BASIC. It's hardcore machine code. Also, the full capacity of both sides of the disk are used, loaded in realtime while the rest of the demo is going on, and all on an ancient 8-bit micro.
The C64 is amazing hardware for it's age.
Also, Fairlight are amazing demo makers.
c64, filthy basslines since 1982.
A lot of the specific techniques used to create complex demos like this is very hard to translate to tutorials since it's all pretty much custom, using insane workarounds and code "exploits" and glitches.
Then the best way to learn them, is to directly look into the source itself. And tinker with it and see what works
Math and rendering routines.
So you're essentially deliberately throwing in broken code?
Still - loop unrolling is one of the key techniques.
If anyone knew how to make the most of available resources, it'd be the demosceners. Seriously, the day the last C64 demo comes out will be a sad one.
:(
@@mrpedrobraga Fortunately, the VC crew stuck around long enough for me to get involved! Hard to believe a decade ago I thought I'd never get my hands on any of these systems.
Lot of my old comments coming up this year. Interesting!
8:00 - This looks like enough capabilities to do a simple Wolf3d-like game... Must write the whole in assembly probably, though
Failight won.. back then.. and nowadays they still do!
Yeah I was never really into games... but I sure loved watching these demos on my c64. It's amazing what can be done with so little.
That was truly awesome! Thanks Fairlight!
Wow,C64 and the SID Chip combined are the Masters of Sound and back then Graphics,and in some ways today's scene...OUTSIDE The Box and not Cookie-cutter...
sick demo, must take some crazy coding skills to pull this off.. i still remember D/L'ing demos to my C128 off my 300bps modem and was amazed by them, those were good times
Fairlight are the masters, always on the bleeding edge since as long as I have had a C64 and that's a bloody long time.
NES: "C64 is less powerful than the NES. It can't hurt you."
C64:
Que hermosura. a BIT of art? No, a lot of art.
Oh man, imagine if this had come out back in the amiga and st era, this would have blown peoples minds.
Slow clap 👏🏽
Absolute masterpiece. Archaeologists of the future will examine this like an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph.
RIP Gunnar Jerry Kalback and Sammi Hoyt Barakat
damn, website down. are there other good scene sites? and: awesome demo and the fairlight nusic reminds my on my first days on my c64...
8:07 How does it draw such beautifully straight lines without jagged 3dges?
Gezus, the samples in this are just so spine chilling. i am in UTTER sheeeer HEAVEN right now!!!
Wow - amazing that they managed to wring such cool visuals out of the ol' c64! Even a bit of 3d, lol!
@fdm06
YES, I agree. The music in this os literally KILLING ME here. I am so overwhelmed buy these soundz. Just purely stunningly amazing!!!
C64 was so much more than a game console. Lots of great music has been made with it over the years.
Incredible. Maybe someday some canadian guy will create electronic music influenced by these demoscenes and chiptunes and will be named one of the best Dj/Producers in the world...
Those block animations give a Descent game vibe.
I love this Demo ^_^ the music is amazing!!
harrharrharr great to see that old stuff beeing big again! thx!
love this demo, I have the end song as a ring tone on my phone!
This is absolutely magnificent and the ending is the icing on the cake. I love it!!
Oh man! 02:44 is mind blowing! Love that staccato gate effect!
It always amazes me that in the early 80s Commodore gave away free naff but fun games when you first bought a 64, I got Blitz (landing a plane on skyscrapers and having to bomb them to make the runway flat!) and yet the SAME computer was capable of things like this demo! Mental! I guess in 30-40 years there won't be anyone around who remembers the era.
(wipes eyeballs) HOLY SHIT!
wow really feels like some new colours are possible on the good ol c64
Is the ending tune on the HVSC and if so what can i search to find it?
Another sick demo from Fairlight
Is that real physics and 3d? wow
Raster interrupts
The tune 5:30 onward is one of my favorites! :D
Copy of a trance track.
+thearchiveable Which one? I really would like to know.
Thats awesome !! i love it !!! keep on doing ! more and more of this !
I call it machine code because most of the work is being done by the chipset, which has been programmed at the very lowest level by the demo code. Additionally, much of the CPU code running was not written in assembler, but generated by a very sophisticated unpacker built into the demo itself - part of a so-called "fastcode" system which eliminates loop and index overhead. This requires knowledge at the opcode and operand level, and is therefore beyond assembly.
I want this to be interactive....
Make a game with this mood / style...
And sign me up for 2 copies...
this is all c64 based code? jesus this is awsome!
I keep hitting space bar for more... Nukid of Hoaxers
That must've been overclocked C64. There's no fucking way 3D stuff can run this smooth on a stock one.
Maybe not 3D AND interactive, but I'm sure there are clever ways of hardcoding these animations very efficiently.
That's why these guys are legends.
You forget this isn't interactive 3D. It's not like machine needs to adapt display dinamically according to input. So there's definitively fucking way VIC could have done this with no problems.
This is so cool! I want my commodore c64 back now !
i am impressed, this puts a500 to shame, great music!!!! miss my c64
How can I create Grafics like this? Only with the commodore? Which programm? thx
there was a software called fligraph. or fligraphics. i cant remember exactly, but it was make you able to use 4 colors in 1 pixel of c64. it was legendary at that time. i missed those days.
this is beautiful
Is there any emulator that allows to run 2 (or more) disks packed in one zip file without swapping them?
Everyone "steals" from everyone, that's just how science evolves. Back in the early days, everyone basically lifted their ideas from Xerox PARC, which was a great innovator but not so great at marketing their ideas. And Linux ? Linux started as a clone of Minix, which was a clone of Unix. BSD is also a Unix clone. Everyone copies everyone, and with each imitation comes a small, incremental improvement. Always has been.
ok
4:06 somebody really needs to take something like that and make it into a playable game, have a playable demo, that would really help capture part of the demoscene, the idea that something you had so much fun on years ago can do something like that.
I can't remember the name of it, but to basically make your day, it is a game. I know for a fact I saw it on gamebase64
or it might have been on csdb...but I know I saw it. I was like HEY! its that part from that fairlight demo! That's where they got the idea! I looked for it for a bit but I can't find it.
Did you use a CPU accelerator?
That was bloody impressive!
this is not just an computer, its an old friend
Back to the Roots ! Przynajmniej dla mnie ! coś pięknego. Craven/Apidya. Polska
Totally impressive.
what amazing 3D graphics in some parts! Why dont these guys make games?
These techniques are stand alone. Coding a game to run along with it with decent frame rates is much harder. Although that said, there are a number of first person perspective games for the C64. A surprising number. One of the first games I had for the 64 was 'Raiders of the Lost Tomb' which is a scrolling 3D game from 1984. Ironically, it has nothing to do with Indiana Jones even though everything about it screams Jones movie. It's frankly better than the indiana jones titles!
By harder I mean nearly impossible/impossible with full screen. I believe what they are doing there is using precisely timed raster bars with a look up table for the calculations. Since they are doing a limited set of a rendered environment, they can get away with a 1mhz processor. Mood for the c64 is an example of a 3d game with textured walls and exploding barrels. It is also practically unplayable. There was an actual full doom port done for the superCPU If you have an extra $700 and some luck finding one on ebay.
@@peterlamont647 quite true but I bet these developers know ways to optimize code to push the limits. Sam's journey is a classic example of a game that does the unimaginable
was this hand coded in basic or assembly?
I think basic can't even reach 1/3 of the framerate of this demo...
Probably an alternative version of 8088 MPH
What a masterpiece! Thank you!
Magical!
So miss these days
@00Skyfox It also requires a good amount of artistic talent, creativity and some very fine coding skills. Fairlight combine these.
This is fuc...g awsome.
Sweet tracks.
awesome !! and pls remember this is just 64 kb and 1 HZ of a little 8 Bit Machine :D
I wish i could read the assembler sourcecode some where, do U know ?
Yes, go to csdb and download the demo. Source code can be disassembled. Though, like with all commodore machine language, it is almost never commented. You are left to read the raw disassembly for lessons on how to be more 1337. Its 1mhz btw, 1hz would be one cycle per second. A human could calculate faster than that.
I just love this demo... :)
Very impressive!
simply amazing! respect!
Got this working as i found out this demo is for PAL C64 (at least this works on c64 maxi)
I came pixels
awesome job!
What about all the books about coding?
It's quite a different style of music then the soundtrack to actual games. I think the music has kinda lost its grip on the atmosphere and sounds more like conventionel music. But then again it just isn't videogame music, so I am measuring it with the wrong standards. Anyway, I share the love for the Commedore 64 and it makes me happy I am not alone.
great work!
Holy shit is that a ninja panda?
orangestar brought this up on runder and this is cool as fuck
Music at 5:30 is awesome :)
Its awsome
The animation at 1:18 is used in the current version of VMC Lite software... strange.
Music at 05:30 is awesome :)
This is amazing
MacOS X was built on top of FreeBSD, not Linux. Additionally, the first Macintosh was released a full year *before* the first Amiga, and therefore cannot have stolen from it.
If you are going to argue semantics, it is wise to be factually correct.
This drugs is great on video.
and still does.
great
that was dope
Супер!!! Красавцы!
nobody was using machine code, the best groups used assembly and JCH's editor, not "assembler" assembler is not a language. it translates Opcode mnemonics into machine codes. I've used assembly on PLC programming 20 years ago and used assembler to translate the codes. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me with few demo sources written in machine code.
the packer you talking about is probably just com compressor that used anti lamers.
so fucking cool!
wow!!!!!
No way in hell it would be possible do this in BASIC...
Assembly, and a commodore set at 50 hrtz will do the trick.
Wow
i would love to see code of this...
i can't imagine how you can do such thing in BASIC... 0_o
You can't do that in BASIC. They did it in pure machine language. Basic could never hope to reach those speeds and isn't even capable of real time music tracks because it lacks interrupt support, sound support, and graphics support. Commodore was so sure people wouldn't bother with doing that in basic and if they did they could just peek and poke values to do it. They figured most of the professionals would use assembler/machine language monitors for making fast software. They were right.