People who ammaze / impress me...

I like to think of myself as not without tallent, and I do indeed shine more than many of my peers, then it was from those whom where without peer that I have been inspired to become what I am today :).

It is to these people I dedicate this blog entry!

I'll start from things which are impressing me most reciently, and funilly, whats impressing me today is something that comes from years gone by. Not that i'm slow to be impressed lol, just I keep being impressed by people like these.

Check out this picture, this is one of the many pictures to be found in the Atari 20 Years Demo and it is fantastic (especially when you understand it only uses 16 colours).



This is but one of many impressive screens found in this demo, created by some ammazing people. Having a fondness for Atari and understanding how difficult it is to make it do what these people can make it do makes these demos like fine wine for me. It is possible the uninitiated they might not see the artistry and interlect which has to go into to producing these demos, though prehaps when I tell you that on a machine was never intended or designed to have a resolution greater than 320x200 with 16 colour and these coders blow away these rules and produce screens running in resolutions much, much higher and with up to 512 colours. It might give you a little incling of things. For example, the following screenshot shows a demo running at 415 x 270 resolution.


Or this one running nearly 800 x 600:

You have to see these demos to really appriciate them (and it really helps if you ever tried to code them too lol). If you want to check them out, you can download HAtari which is one of the most comprehensive Atari emulators. You could also download Steem 3.2 which is another excellent Atari emulator (but only supports Atari's up to the STE).

So, for a list of groups or people who have really impressed me (there have been so many, I may forget some, if I miss you i'm sorry):

Sector One

This group wrote the smoothest fastest scrolling routine for the Atari ST i've ever seem with great music to-boot. Simple, elegant, impressive.

These guys are heros! You just run the demos and drop jaw.

Infact, I think I could just stop there LOL.

There where lots of other groups which impressed with some of their intos. Like Elite and the Pompey Pirates to name but two. However, given that they routinely ripped stuff out of other games/programs its hard to say if it was their work which impressed or a compilation of the best of the others (though obviously to rip stuff like that takes a massive amount of skill in itself.. so doubtless they where great hackers). Though the overall composition was obviously theirs alone.

Flame of Finland, whos menu introduction has my most remembered favourite chip-tune. It can't go wihout a mention!

Heres a screen from one of the Pompey Pirate menus, the scroller on this is just fabulous (I wonder if they coded it or ripped it? the music was ripped, great music tho).