Break down of a C64 demo effect • Hacker News Board

Post by bnastic » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #31

bnastic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you had been alive and busy with computer programming back in the day you too would have been clever as hell. Don’t underestimate the power of internet today and the ease of obtaining information - that certainly was not the case in the ‘80s. Unless you were close to demo groups you were left with two choices: a) reverse engineer the code (good old “Monitor 49152”), or b) give up

There were a ton of good hobbyist magazine back in the day, many of which dedicated a page or two to low-level hackery

True. As a kid I was eagerly awaiting the first week of the month for that one magazine that carried a column called “C-64 intro service” about low level intro- and demo-programming. But the pace of printed information is terribly slow, esp. if you can’t get many of them where you live.

I remember waiting for someone to explain how the “giant scroll” worked (letter the size of the whole screen, with borders removed) as I couldn’t disassemble the demo successfully. Months later, the article appeared explaining the technique. To a young inquiring mind that seemed like eternity.