Old eyecandy

What do you get, when you take graphic artists, musicians, and mix them with programmer's? Well....
You get a demogroup. Demogroups made up a subgenre in computing. (They still do)

When I started to get into computing as a hobby, outside my childhood home. I was exposed to demo's around the year 1992. Computers was my hobby from around 1986 or 1988 though, when my parents bought a Unisys 80286 machine. (A little side-note)

In 1992 I saw my first demo called "State of the art" by a group called Spaceballs. This demo was awesomme, it ran on an Amiga500 and it just hit me like a train. I was completely mesmerized.

 

Today, this demo just seems kind of primitive, yet it was THE shit to have on a 880 kilobyte Amiga formatted 3.5inch floppy disc. And looking at the specs. for the Amiga500 today, it is actually pretty good. The Amiga500 had a 7.14mhz (yes. megaherz, not giga). It had 512kilobyte of memory and everything was loaded from a floppy as standard. Though harddrives were sold, at the same price as the machine it self.

Where do demo's originated from? The answer is actually simple. Demo's originated from the Commodore64 and other 8-Bit machines. Back then, there were copyprotection on most games and programs. As well as today.

And people began "cracking" those games, in order to pirate them. And in many cases sell for a profit. And to stiffen off the competition, they started to advertise in a form of simple cracking-intro or in other words. A graphical presentation. They called it for a Cracktro, the word's "Cracking" and "Intro".

 

 

Time went by, and eventually the concept of Cracktro's evolved into a standalone presentation. Dubbed "Demo's", and new young artists/programmers saw a potential for a new kind of hobby. They started to compete big time.

The legazy from the old cracktro days, can still be found in moderne key generators.

Using some elements of C64 graphics and music style.

New technology eventually pushed the Amiga out, as the number one platform on wich to create demo's. I guess it started around 1993/95, as some remarkable demo's for the pc were released. Before that, only a couple of demo's on the pc platform is noteworthy to mention here. (I will do it anyway)

The first one is "Crystal Dreams" from a group called Triton. A nice little one, that has some 3D-Graphics. The second one is "Second Reality" from a group called Future Crew.

 

Today, the demoscene is not what it was. Well... It is still awesomme products they produce. New groups have come and old ones have left. Only a small handfull of groups, like Razor1911 is still active. And yes. They still do some good shit. 

 

A time before.....

Today. When gamers play together, it is eighter over the internet, or some Lan-Party. Yet back in the day's, we called it "Data-Weekend" or "Computer-Weekend". And yes. We had our share of fun.

I don't really know anything about how schoolchildren are using computers for fun, when gathering together now a days. I only remember how we did it back then. Back in the day's when only a handfull of people were using computers. A time when the most exciting technology in the home, was turntable's, cd-player and vhs recorder.

At my school, well in every publich school's, there was something called "The youth school". Wich were an offer from the state in wich the older schoolchildren could learn a skill during evening time. Mostly children in 8'th to 10'th grade. One could learn stuff like making photograph's, repairing moped's or learn different computer skills.
I signed up for the computer course. Wich I never ever regretted doing. It was so much fun.

It was around 1990, and all the gamers had Amiga 500's, and the more tech oriented geeks had Pc's.
The day I showed up for the first time, I quickly learned about the Amiga VS. Pc battle that raged on at that time. (some readers might actually remember this)

This "Data-Club" as it was known, held a big event a couple of times each year, wich was known as "Data-Weekend", were we would lay down our arms and gather in a big hall. For a whole weekend.
We would sleep whenever we just fell asleep from exation. We would eat whatever we wanted, and we would play games all weekend long. Not just computer games. Competitions like basketball and stuff like that were held too.
When computers and outdoor activities were not enough, there were an improvised theatere in wich we could watch all the hottest blockbusters. (On VHS of course)
And finally. If we needed something to keep us awake. Then the kitchen was open 24/7 if a fresh cup of coffee was in need. Yeah... It was totally awesomme drinking 5 cup's of black wakeup-juice at 4am in the morning.

Other activities back then, was participating in sensual soccer competitions. Gaming with other people around their's or your computer. Or my favorite... Body crashing. Sounds wierd? Well... Just watch the following little clip, and you will see what I am talking about.

 

Another nice activity, was disc-throwing, in wich you had to throw a 5'25 inch floppy. It then evolved to 3.5 inch disks, then to floppy drives and I think they use harddrives now.

I have to remind you now, that this was a different time back then. When there were no real copy protection, no drm (thank's for the shit), no police raid's, no extra tax on blank media's (thanks for the shit again) and absolutely NO morale regarding piracy. It was like... Well. To say it bluntly and square. It was a time, much like "the wild west" back then.

We copied everything and anything. Shure we have heard about police raid's in places like England, Germany or any other major city. They were just words for us young punks. We simply did not care, and even the adult's encouraged us to copy all we could. They just yelled "Copy time", and we all knew that every other activites were put on standby for one hour. Mmmm.... Good times, good times. Hehe.
I might get some comments now, regarding lost revenues and lost earnings and stuff like the industry are loosing money. And I must remind you readers, that this was in 1988 to 1992 and well... The industry did survive.
We see new games every day, don't we? Yeah... We were just punks, giving game makers a hard time.

On sunday, the party was over. We packed all our machines. All floppy's were put away and we started to clean. We all went home and slept untill monday. And it all became normal grey every-day again.

The sound of the 90's

Back in the 90's, computer evolved at an alarming pace. And it was said, that when you bought a computer, the value was reduced by half, the moment you walk out the door. Actually.... The fact was, that faster and better component's were introduced all the time. (allmost on weekly basis in certain field's)

The soundcard. Once a luxury component on the PC-Market, was heavily refined and made better during the 90's. Once a mono card, capeable of nothing more than synthetic music, were finally evolved into a state of the art component in 1998/99. And finally could be found as a sort of standard equipment. (onboard, aprox' 1998/99)

The most widespread standard for music, were OPL-2/3 (Known as Adlib), and the most widespread standard for sound effects were "Soundblaster". There were other standards used, standards such as Gravis Ultrasound.
They were too expensive for the general public, who just wanted cheap sollutions.

For a standard setup in the years of 1994 to 1996, we had something like a Soundblaster 16 if decent quality was needed. Some people stuck to slightly older cards, such as Sound Galaxy cards that had a bit lower quality.

Now.
I am not going into much details about the different soundcards, or all the technical aspects. I am just going to give some examples on how PC-Sound evolved back then.
And what better way, than using youtube and some of the most played games back then.




OPL-2/3:
Adlib Standard, was what started this whole music and sound effects on the pc. Before that, nothing was possible, other than a simple beeper-sound. (wich was horrible and bad)
It was a cheap sollution embraced by a whole army of soundcard makers. And thereby became the standard for sound on the Pc for many years to come.

GUS:

Gravis Ultrasound from Canada, Changed everything. The only real problem for this standard to take on the world. Was it's pricetag here in my country. As everybody wanted the cheapest possible sollution of them all. I reckon that this was the case around the world too. This standard however, was embraced by musician's and people at the demo scene.

I have choosen one game this time, and two demo's wich really makes the GUS shine.

 

AWE-32/64:

Creative Labs realized that they wanted to make something like the GUS, and created the "AWE" line of soundcards. Compared to GUS, they sound a lot alike. And most people just bought an AWE-Something. It could be the AWE32 model whatever or the AWE32 model whatever that was choosen. In retrospective, we now know what cards are the best of them all. (it's the small differences that makes the big difference in the end)

Speaking of differences. Just check eBay for "Sound Blaster CT3900" vs. "Sound Blaster CT3600" and you will begin to see what I am talking about here.

In the end, just before Creative started to shift towards PCI slot (sadly), they launched the last line of ISA cards (AWE64), wich are good cards compared to what they have done before. Especially the AWE64-Gold.

They are not in any way perfect. Just really good cards.

 

Final notes and thoughts:
There are tons and tons of other sound solutions in the 90's. Some were really low grade cheap ones and some were really expensive. And still are pretty hefty in price.
Those solutions are Roland or Yamaha MIDI modules. Yes they sound really great, wich a plus. Yet they were not that great for gaming in a broad sense. You really needed to have the exact module for the exact game. Otherwise the sound would not play correct.

Don't get me wrong on this. If you have the money (we are talking big money), and the space to store them. They are THE ABSOLUTELY BEST solution for music in games from the 90's.

Hope you had fun reading this littel roundup on what it could have sounded like, in a gamer's room, back in the 90's. It was fun to write.

Sites about vintage computing

There are tons and tons of information out there on the internet, for those who just realized that new hardware won't cut it for old/older games. And need to build an old computer. Or just upgrading an ancient machine for this purpouse. Yeah... What to do? Where to start?

A lot of people start by looking at videos of some duchebag who is killing old hardware, by handeling it on the nylon carpet and wearing nylon based clothes. Not wearing any anti static equipment. There are other places than youtube on the internet for these type of matters. Places were people are telling you to be carefull with the old precious hardware, and WILL help you. When building a new machine is the next new personal project for you.

If you do not know where to start. Then you are in a bit of luck. Actually a lot of luck, as I have gathered three good places to start some vintage-time.


The Amd K6 Resources page
This page is a "must read" for all fan's of the K6 family of CPU's, and for fan's of the Socket Super 7 platform in general. It is well written, it has tons of information and even a little guide for tuning a Gigabyte GA-5AX motherboard. Please head down to this page, if you are planning on building a SS7 based machine.
AMD K6 - Resources

Vogons.org
Vogons is the absolute best forum, when talking about retro computers in the broadest sense. As it is not only for those who are retro'ing around, using 25 to 30 year old computers. It is allso for those who are planning a retro machine from around 2004.
The users at Vogons are really helpfull, has a good sence of humor and the community is an extremely strong one. And you will find users from all over the world.
Vogons

Phils Computerlab
At Phils Computerlab, you will find really good and solid information. An professionally done website that are easy to navigate, and with a wellwritten language.
Phils Computerlab 


Hope that you will find the above information usefull. Remember that playing games on DosBox, is nothing compared to the real deal. Allways run that old game, on authentic hardware.

2 x Voodoo2

I got myself some Voodoo2 cards  a couple of weeks ago. I did buy a 12mb PowerColor before I purchased these two cards. Yet no second PowerColor was avaliable at that time.
And I think that a second one will be extremely hard to come by (unless a reader wants to sell his).

Now. What can I do with these babies? Well...
I think I will install them on a K6-III-400 system, sporting eighter a Matrox G400 or a Compaq TNT2 Ultra. As I feel that they are the top dog amoungst cards for the Socket Super 7 platform. Shure I could do better by installing a V3-3500 or 12mb V2-SLI. The problem is, that I do not have an extra V3-3500, and I don't have the extra PowerColor V2.
Well... Into my GA-5AX system they will go.

Why did I buy them then?
Back in the late 90's, more specific in 1998. I dreamt of owning a Voodoo2, and the dream kept on until Geforce6 was released. Then I finally moved on, wanting more and more powerfull hardware. Until I eventually decided to get back to my roots of computing.
I have my modern laptop, on were I use the internet, reading email's. Modern stuff like that.... What I really needed, was to get back into the classic pc-stuff. Things like setting EMM386 and playing around with IRQ's DMA's and stuff like that.
Then I began searching for old stuff. Old hardware and taking up my old and not forgotten skills of setting jumpers. Configuring config.sys/autoexec.bat. I just began enjoying my childhood joy of old hardware you just have to know and configure on your own.

It all escalated, to the point were my collection of hardware is allmost covered from 1994 to 1999. And this is were these old V2 babies come in. I have them, and they are hard to get. Unless of course. You are willing to go on eBay and pay more than 8 times what they really are worth.
(if you ask my personal view on what they are worth)