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NEW P.D. DEMOS REVIEWED - By Dean Garraghty
(c)1995 Dean Garraghty
Three new demos from Poland recently came our way, so I decided to
write a little about them rather than just say we have some new P.D
disks! Although there are three demos, two are single sided so we have
made these into one disk, therefore there are two new disks available.
PD182 is called Sweet Illusions. This is a true double density disk so
you will need a US Doubler, Happy, etc in order to use this disk. It is
split into 12 separate parts. It is a DS/TDD disk. It works on any
machine with 64K or more.
The Intro part has a vertical starfield and shows a list of the people
involved and who did what. Later comes digitized pictures of these
people with more information. There is also some nice music playing in
the background.
Part 1 is called "Shadebobs". Here music plays while a Polish scroll
line is accompanied by a mode 9 pattern being made up of small "blobs",
hence the name.
Part 2 is called "Plotmaster". This type of demo is seen on many other
demos disks. As the music plays, two scroll lines (in Polish) start up.
The mode 8 pattern being created can be changed by the user by changing
the values on the screen.
Part 3 is called "Ray Tracing". This bit is very good! It has two
scroll lines, music, and a shaded ray traced picture of lots of 3D
spheres coming towards you at an angle. The whole disk is worth having
just to see this bit!
Part 4 is called "Druttors". This is a rolling demo of Giga Assembler,
which looks very good. I have never heard of it! It then goes on to a
second bit called "vectors", but I am told you have to exit from this
straight away or it locks up.
Part 5 is called "Effect 1". The first part of this is a mode 9 picture
which is fiddled with to create nice looking effects. Then it goes on
to some text effects. The next bit is "Shadows" which has sine wave
scroll lines, and other nice scroll effects. The last bit is lots of 3D
spheres rolling around like in many other demos.
Part 6 is called "Plasma". Here some nice music plays, along with a
Polish scroll line, and four coloured lights changing in time to the
music. Then the plasma graphics effect starts with user-definable
variables. There is also a vertical scroll, and a greetings line.
Part 7 is called "Infos Part". Nice music with a vertical scroll
starts. There is an excellent mode 9 picture of a beastly sort-of
character. Scroll contains greetings, and is part English and part
Polish.
Part 8 is called "Techo". Here various pictures are displayed on the
screen, while the background changes constantly from white to black
creating a stroboscopic effect. It also contains bad language.
Part 9 is called "Effect Part 2". Here the music starts and then a
picture of a car is displayed and zoomed in. Next comes a digitized
picture with flying letters and 3.5" disks! Some bad language is used.
Next is a morphing demo. Here different mode 8 pictures morph into one
another. Very nice! Next is a semi-circular scroll line, followed by a
"Star Wars" type text effect.
Part 10 is called "Filltors". This is an excellent vectors demo. Here
we have spinning 3D shapes, including cubes, pyramids, cylinders,
houses, and kites. Different shading effects are then shown, along with
part filled shapes. Really impressive stuff!
Part 11 is the final "Credits" part. Here we have music and a
starfield, with a list of who did what on each part.
This is an excellent demo disk, with very little bad language.
Unfortunately most of the scrolls are in Polish. Some of the effects
demonstrated are very clever and show what the Atari can do!!
PD183 contains both Ray of Hope and Bitter Reality. This is a DS/DD
disk and can be run on a 1050 or other 127K type drives. However,
Bitter Reality will not work on modified drives. It will not work on US
Doubler drives and will only work on Happy drives if you run a VERY
UNHAPPY utility first. The standard Unhappy option on the Happy disk
will not do the trick. Ray of Hope will run on any machine with 64K or
more, but Bitter Reality will need a 130XE, etc. to run all the demos,
though the first few work OK with 64K.
First I will talk about Ray of Hope. The Intro part is a fairly simple
fade in, fade out text demo with some music.
The next part is the Display List Part. Here two mode 9 logos are moved
around with different effects, which looks quite nice! There is also a
Polish scroll line. Next comes some familiar music with a unique
"figure of 8" type scroll. Next comes "Zelax" in big green letters with
a dot pattern over it. Different coloured squares then make patterns
above this, while some nice music plays.
Next up is a plasma demo. Here you can use the joystick to change the
parameters. It also has a Polish scroll line and music. The "bars part"
comes next. This is a very nice demo using mode 9 bars to create nice
effects. This is followed by a 3D spinning shape which crashes soon
after it runs, so quit out straight away. Then comes the end credits
with music and a vertical scroll.
Now I will talk about Bitter Reality. The introduction has a starfield
effect with nice music and the intro text. This is followed by the
"flexible square" demo. This starts with some nice music, and then a
square in mode 8 is made to look like a "flying carpet" effect. It also
has a small graphics bar following the beat of the music. Next comes
the "greetings part" which has music, an English scroll line, and 3D
spheres moving in a sine wave pattern. Next comes "Sinus Worm". Here a
digitized picture of a chewing gum packet is moved around the screen.
At the bottom of the screen there is a sine wave scroll with
reflection. Green and purple characters move along the top and bottom
of the screen. The scroll is in Polish. The music is very nice! Next is
"Rzog Plazma" which is another plasma graphics demo with very nice
music.
"Partyland" is the next demo, and is in fact several demos. First is a
very large scroll line and very nice music. There is also a starfield
with little pyramid shapes which grow in time to the music. Then there
are some mode 8 graphics effects. Next there are two large lines of
sine wave scrolling text. Then there are some mode 9 bars making
patterns. Next is the vector film. Here 3D cubes and such like spin,
with some very clever effects used. "Filet Lazma" is the next demo and
contains music, an English scroll, and some mode 8 graphics effects.
"Dragonbobs" is the next demo and is excellent! Some familiar music
plays, while that strange mode 9 beast like character is displayed, and
vertical sine wave scrolls go past it. There are also bars at the
bottom which grow/shrink in time to the music. The scroll is in
English. Next some 3D spheres are used to make patterns, like on many
other demos of this type. The "Farewell" is next and is the last demo
with music and a list of who did what.
These two are very good demos and well worth looking at. It just goes
to show what the Atari can do!
Originally published in The Atari 8-bit News-Paper.
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