In the shadow of the... Thomson by PULS [web]
Title: In the shadow of the Thomson
Category: Demo (other 8 bits)
Rank: 3rd
Party: Forever-Party 2019 - Horna Suca
Features: A new mod-player for the Thomson machines producing
samples at around 8khz.
A set of pictures from the Amiga game "Shadow of the
Beast" adapted to the standard TO7/70 screen.
A hidden part! (tips below)
Group: PULS (http://www.pulsdemos.com)
Author(s): Samuel Devulder (player, img converter, mod converter),
Prehisto (bootloader, trackloader)
Machine(s): Thomson TO7/70, TO9[*], TO8, TO8D[*], TO9+[*] with a
floppy drive and a joystick expansion.
Format: Single 320kb standard Thomson disk in various emulator
formats (SAP, FD). Interleave: 7 (Basic's default value).
____
[*] tested on real machines. Other configurations were tested with
emulators.
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HISTORY
=====================================================================
Two years ago, PULS showed at Horna-Suca a music-disk playing amiga-
music at 5khz. That was nice, but that production only ran on the
high-end TO8 and TO9+ machines. Earlier machines like the TO7/70 or
the TO9 were not supported. Actually, these machines are often
ignored by coders because they are considered as boring. To sum it
up, they are shadowed by higher-end machines.
So PULS decided this year to bring these machines back in the light
and to support all TO-machines born after the TO7/70 (1984) at the
Forever 2019 party. This means: having lower graphics specs (320x200
with color-clashes and a fixed palette) and much less memory than
usual. What a challenge!
For the graphic part, a GrafX2 plugin [https://tinyurl.com/yy7zkyw2]
was used. That plugin contains state-of-art image conversion
algorithms for the Thomson computers. It allows converting any true-
color pictures into various Thomson graphics mode, including the
basic one.
For the audio part, the player was redesigned and is now 45% faster
than the one from 2017. It allows playing-back most amiga modules
at about 8khz(130µs by sample to be precise) on the lower-end Thomson
machines.
Combining these two tools we get a nice music-disk that works on any
TO7/70 backward compatible machine. No "TO" machine were left in the
shadow of the TO8D beast this time. Hence the title!
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CREDITS
=====================================================================
Graphics are excerpts from "Shadow of the Beast I" (c) 1989 by
Reflections / Psygnosis. Many are available on Google-image or there:
https://tinyurl.com/y27tlbml
The title image is extracted from the remake of that game made by
Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs for the Sony-PS4 in 2016.
The orignal soundtrack was made by David Whittaker for Reflections /
Psygnosis and is available here:
https://tinyurl.com/y4na87m7
The hidden part soundtrack was originally made by Tim Wright (c) 1992
Reflections / Psygnosis. It is available here:
https://tinyurl.com/y2rmkebh
That part displays a picture from "Shadow of the Beast III".
The hidden part transition screen is an excerpt from "Shadow of the
Beast II" (c) 1990 by Reflections / Psygnosis. The soundtrack for
that screen is a free-to-use a amiga module entitled "Noizzz!!!" by
Fabian / Desire:
https://tinyurl.com/y4g6vxz6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ptXT3Z0Ik
=====================================================================
TIPS
=====================================================================
1) Listen to the music-disk preferably on a real-machine rather than
on emulators. They tend to produce noticeable audio aliasing
artefacts.
2) Pressing CTRL-C will quit the demo.
3) You can jump to the next score by pressing SPACE or ENTER.
4) Pause the music during playback by pressing any key.
The screen border shall turn red when the music is paused.
Press any key again to resume the music.
5) Do you recall the MO6 displaying an easter-egg in the boot-menu?
The hidden part is triggered almost in the same way...
ROT13:
... jura gur zhfvp vf cnhfrq (abgvpr: jr ner ehaavat ba n G.B.7,
abg n Z.B.6)
6) ROT13 is an encryption scheme (https://www.rot13.com/).[ back to the prod ]