28c3: Behind the scenes of a C64 demo

[Nemo]

 


Ninja / The Dreams: Behind the scenes of a C64 demo

 


C64 "demos" were the root of the whole demo-scene-thing and they are still the main force keeping the C64 alive today. Audiovisual pleasure, still pushing hardware limits, still exploring different ways of expression. But what is typically happening inside the machine when you watch a demo? What effort is needed to entertain the audience? This talk will give you an inside look at the steps taken for the award winning demo "Error 23" given first hand by one of its main programmers.




This talk extends previous talks and documentation about the Commodore 64 and its demo effects by adding real-life challenges and experiences to it. What were the basic ideas? What obstacles were on the way? How did they get solved? 6502 assembly knowledge is really not required, some general understanding about assembly and low-level computing will be useful, though (think of stack, timer, cycles...). This isn't about theory, this is for real

Topics include (but not limited to):

• Explaining design choices
  
• Basic ideas behind the effects
  
• Data compression techniques
  
• Load stuff while displaying effects
  
• Dirty tricks which make your computer science professor run away
  
• Synchronization and linking
  
• how to keep it all in 64KB RAM
  

Προφίλ του ομιλητή

Ninja / The Dreams

 

 


Wolfram works as a Linux kernel developer for embedded systems. Being a free software enthusiast, he contributed to a number of projects which crossed his path so far.

 


He has a quest "1000 projects to send patches to before I die". However, his first and true computer love is the Commodore 64. Active on the machine since 1988, he still likes coding for it and has enough ideas to continue doing that for a while.

 


Download high quality version: http://bit.ly/uLOyxu