Mattel Aquarius demos - where from can we find?
category: general [glöplog]
While browsing the pouet.net prods, it seems that Mattel Aquarius is not listed there.
Even Mattel Aquarius being a rare 8bit computer (it were expensive and obsolete when appeared in the market, i think this can justify the Aquarius rarity), it seems to have interesting hardware limitations, and specially display limitations, to be scrutinized from demos - what do you all think?
Even Mattel Aquarius being a rare 8bit computer (it were expensive and obsolete when appeared in the market, i think this can justify the Aquarius rarity), it seems to have interesting hardware limitations, and specially display limitations, to be scrutinized from demos - what do you all think?
if there is no release it doesnt gets listed as platform...
quite simple
quite simple
@xeNusion: i imagined that...
@magic: the more people can bash Aquarius, more the stuff made on it can surprise us! :)
@magic: the more people can bash Aquarius, more the stuff made on it can surprise us! :)
are u planning to make a prod. than?
well, i wished being skilled enough to do that... :|
my curiousity about Mattel Aquarius demoscene were mostly because we can display pictures like 
or 
- if people can make interesting demos and pictures on zx81, surelly some stuff also very interesting could be done on Aquarius
or - if people can make interesting demos and pictures on zx81, surelly some stuff also very interesting could be done on Aquariusearly 80s platforms with "interesting hardware limitations" are a dime a dozen... your previous suggestion (coco aka dragon) has a lot more potential to do decent demos, and is probably more challenging as well (due to less common components)
also, those picture you posted look like shit, even for aquarius standards (sorry but it's the truth)
also, those picture you posted look like shit, even for aquarius standards (sorry but it's the truth)
+s
Quote:
also, those picture you posted look like shit, even for aquarius standards (sorry but it's the truth)
you don't need so say 'sorry', since i were aware that i'm posting crappy conversions, and as well it's awesome seeing there are people here knowing Aquarius can display better than this! :)
as well, would be great seeing, at least, pixel-art illustration contests for these 8bit computers more 'abandoned' in the demoscene, such as Aquarius and CoCo2 are
nitrofurano: hey! I suggest you look at Thomson demos, and most notably TruC70 by PULS.
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=55979
16 colors, 8x1 blocks are used in this demo.
Thomson computers were built in France between 79 and 89, they have quite good hardware components but put together in a stupid way that ruins it (there is a timer but no interrupt generation from it, interrupt take forever to get handled because they are hardwired to the ROM and the OS messes with them, sound is only a buzzer on some machines). On the other hand, the last machines in the range (TO8, TO8D, TO9+ and MO6) have up to 128 video modes, "most of which are unuseable" according to the custom chip designers.
Look at the commercial software for these machines, then at the demos, to see how a 'crap' platform can sometimes have hidden resources :)
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=55979
16 colors, 8x1 blocks are used in this demo.
Thomson computers were built in France between 79 and 89, they have quite good hardware components but put together in a stupid way that ruins it (there is a timer but no interrupt generation from it, interrupt take forever to get handled because they are hardwired to the ROM and the OS messes with them, sound is only a buzzer on some machines). On the other hand, the last machines in the range (TO8, TO8D, TO9+ and MO6) have up to 128 video modes, "most of which are unuseable" according to the custom chip designers.
Look at the commercial software for these machines, then at the demos, to see how a 'crap' platform can sometimes have hidden resources :)
see? a dime a dozen...
@PulkoMandy - hey there! :)
downloaded, but i confess i still struggle a bit on Thomson - how can i open it in an emulator? (as well, if you could share an youtube video, would be awesome!)
as well i wanted to see a Thomson version of this http://nitrofurano.altervista.org/experimental/webcampictureson8bitcomputers/index.html working (any information is very welcome!) - i wanted to cover each of all 'dozen' 8bit platforms, and each of their display mode, with this project - the ready versions are only the zx-spectrum (tested) and CoCo2 (not tested yet)
As well, that Lua script i wanted to contribute to the GrafX2 project, that cell colour reducer, were for helping people on drawing pictures with this cell attribute limitation (8x8, 8x1, 2x2, 2x3, etc.)
@RowleyBirkin - the problem of this dozen is each one has a very different interesting technical specs each other, and i think there is the beauty of the retro scene, and, maybe because overshadowed from popularity of machines like zx-spectrum, c64 or msx, some of them are still hidden and unknown due on the lack of popularity of them, what makes them as real pearl of the retro scene, and demos showing their capabilities would help they shine and avoid they falling in the oblivion.
downloaded, but i confess i still struggle a bit on Thomson - how can i open it in an emulator? (as well, if you could share an youtube video, would be awesome!)
as well i wanted to see a Thomson version of this http://nitrofurano.altervista.org/experimental/webcampictureson8bitcomputers/index.html working (any information is very welcome!) - i wanted to cover each of all 'dozen' 8bit platforms, and each of their display mode, with this project - the ready versions are only the zx-spectrum (tested) and CoCo2 (not tested yet)
As well, that Lua script i wanted to contribute to the GrafX2 project, that cell colour reducer, were for helping people on drawing pictures with this cell attribute limitation (8x8, 8x1, 2x2, 2x3, etc.)
@RowleyBirkin - the problem of this dozen is each one has a very different interesting technical specs each other, and i think there is the beauty of the retro scene, and, maybe because overshadowed from popularity of machines like zx-spectrum, c64 or msx, some of them are still hidden and unknown due on the lack of popularity of them, what makes them as real pearl of the retro scene, and demos showing their capabilities would help they shine and avoid they falling in the oblivion.
nitrofurano: there's no need to explain your fascination for obscure retro platforms to me, just look at my profile and you'll notice it's a shared passion ;) however, i'm also a realist, and fact of the matter is that some of these platforms failed for good reasons. aquarius is a fine example: it has rather bad specifications for a machine released in 1983, it was never properly supported by it's manufacturer or the software industry, it wasn't very cheap, etc etc. there are far more interesting/deserving platforms out there, but even those are probably not going to get picked up by the scene anytime soon either. so why should we spend a lot of time on a platform like aquarius, and not on one of the many more interesting platforms out there? ;)
Let's not forget the fact that there has only been one proper C128 demo ever. :-)
Nitrofurano: there is an emulator archive with autorun in my second comment in this prod.
Otherwise, you can download dcmoto http://dcmoto.free.fr/download/prog/dcmoto_20101022.zip and try for yourself. (press/click 4 or E at the bootscreen to boot a disk, after inserting it somewhere in the file menu).
As for your "webcam" script, you can use the sapfs tools for creating disk images. The fileformat is identical to the CoCo one as far as I know, so it shouldn't be too hard. You can get some info on the screen format for mo5 here : http://shinra.cpcscene.com/mo5.shtml.
Otherwise, you can download dcmoto http://dcmoto.free.fr/download/prog/dcmoto_20101022.zip and try for yourself. (press/click 4 or E at the bootscreen to boot a disk, after inserting it somewhere in the file menu).
As for your "webcam" script, you can use the sapfs tools for creating disk images. The fileformat is identical to the CoCo one as far as I know, so it shouldn't be too hard. You can get some info on the screen format for mo5 here : http://shinra.cpcscene.com/mo5.shtml.
PulkoMandy, dcmoto.exe doesn't runs fine on Wine - it's too slow (1fps or less, on a Core2duo processor), the menu just blinks when trying to access it, and when hardly finding the option to open the floppy image, the image disk opening dialog gets blank - do you know any native emulator for Linux? anyway, i were having also dificulties on running or installing MESS emulator (the library call from the Ubuntu repository binary version seems corrupted) - and thanks for all info else! :)