Baby Comas 5 ------------ Future Vision (1992, 28.12, ECS Musicdisk, 2 disks). Released at The Party 92. Backdraft --------- Crusader-X joined Wildfire, but soon moved on to Dynamic (SLH11). Backlash -------- GER> Wulf (sysop 'DEVILS' HOME' open 93). USA> Baser Evil (sysop 'COURTS OF CHAOS' WHQ). ???> Legal Eagel (code, 03/91), Ltd (gfx, 03/91), Maker (cosysop), Scampy (swap trade, 93). Boards; TIMEWAR. Intro (1991, .03, ECS Intro). code: Legal Eagel, gfx: Ltd, music: Silents. Backstage --------- This group became a part of Ram Jam, maybe late 92. Among the people who made the jump were Posdnuos, probably M.A.S.E + others. Bacteria (-1992) ---------------- DEN> Ace (code, 12/91), Savage, SMB (music, 12/91). Bacteria was an exclusively danish demoscene group. Danish graphician and swapper Toastmaster (12/91-) joined Rebels, and the group died as all the other members also left for various other groups. Twinz got kicked. Mr.Thorax joined Dreamscape. BacPack Menu (1991, ECS Intro). code: Ace, gfx: Toastmaster, music: "funky...but it smb!" by SMB (4ch MOD format). review: An OK but hardly innovative packkmenu, BacPack has all the standard features of its kind. There's a logo on top, a scroller at the bottom, and oh yes - a selector in the middle of the screen. However, it is passably executed, with some good graphics, making it a bearable production. The issue reviewed here is #10. The intro needed KillAGA from DOpus, but ran just fine from disk. Release date is uncertain, but it is probably late december 91, prior to The Party. The disk was also installed with Ace's BacBoot 1.01, and an installer for this toolboot was included in the c directory. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Bad Brothers (BB) ----------------- GER> Anti-G (code sysop 'OUTER SPACE', doublememb 100%, 05-07/96). Badcat (BCT) ------------ FRA> Gandbox (music, 03/93), Harry (gfx music, 12/92), Napoleon (swap). Partytro (1992, 28.12, ECS 40k Intro). code: Ron/Liquid, gfx/music: Harry. 8th in The Party 92 40k intro competition. Bad Karma --------- BEL> Bigophone, Crisp, Franky, Malcomn, Mosez, Phantom, Reti, TCB (sysop 'METAL IMPACT' WHQ, 04/96), Zynix. SWE> Boone, Marwic (sysop 'NUCLEAR WASTE'). SCO> Candyman. DEN> Enzo (sysop 'SKY TOWER'). GER> Nino. GRE> Madboy. AUS> Trespass. CAN> Eric the Red (sysop 'WHO CARES' WHQ). Boards; CYBER GARDEN (bel), DOXOLOGY (bel). Bad Karma were at one time in (illegal) cooperation with Crux, using the acronym CBK. Bad Trip -------- GER> Bosinsky (sysop 'DEIT TIME', 09/91), Mr.Trax (sysop 'BIT JUNGLE', 09/91-04/95), Painkiller (sysop 'HELL', 09/91). Bad Zone -------- POL> Ace (mainorg code swap), Cooper (gfx swap), Kovy (music swap), Mr.Kadde (music swap). ENG> Budda (code swap), Carp (swap). FIN> Dump (swap, new late96), Kure-4-Kancer (music swap, new late96). SWE> Melfis (gfx swap). Baked Bean Design? (BBD) ------------------------ ???> Foxy (ex Trilogy, new late93), Kiwi (ex Trilogy, new late93). BBD? are no longer a Trilogy subgroup. Foxy and Kiwi joined from Trilogy, and B.Bop joined Trilogy (late93). Balance (BLC, 1991-, http://hem.passagen.se/excelblc/) ------------------------------------------------------ DEN> Ayotte (Thøger Wessel, music, ex Chrome, old handle Blue Fox, 12/92- 95), Connor (Jakob Steffensen, gfx, 07/92-04/94), Mad Smiley (code, 06/96), Motion (Anders Lundholm, gfx raytrace music, 07/92-12/93), R.W.O (Rene Wessel Olsen, gfx, ex Kefrens, new late94-12/94), Split (Niels Chr. Kvaavik, swap, 12/92-10/93), Unique (gfx, 12/94), Wolfman (William Henrik Olesen, org swap, 07/92-95). NOR> Blaze (Øystein Kristoffersen, swap, ex Frogs, 10/93), Cantona (Einar Vestheim, swap, new 06/96), Chagall (gfx, ex Frogs, 10-12/93), Cola (ascii swap, old handle Dizzy, doublememb Lingo, 10/93-94), D'Fence (10/93), Kefir (music, ex Legend), Razorblade (Geir Vestheim, swap trade, ex Majic 12, 05/95), Ranx (Dag Erlandsen, code, re-Stone Arts, ex Frogs, 10/93), Terminal Silence (music ascii, 12/93). SWE> Atheist (music, ex Sunshine Productions, 08/95-06/96), Confidence (Magnus Isaksson, code, ex Duplo, ex doublememb Subspace, doublememb Artwork, 08/95-12/96), Deelite (Henrik Bertilsson, music, triplememb Sunshine Productions and Razor 1911, 08/95), Excel (Jani Oinonen, mainorg gfx swap edit, ex Sunshine Productions, 95-02/98), Gorg (gfx, 05-12/96), Grid (gfx, ex Sunshine Productions, 08/95-late97), Pantera (swap, ex Sunshine Productions), Radix (Jacob Svanholm, music, triplememb Limited Edition and Smoke [music]), Vicious (code, ex Sunshine Productions), Xerxes (sysop), Zero (code, ex DCS, new late96). FIN> Xendi (M. Alasaarela, gfx swap, ex Deadline, new 10/93). ENG> Bassline (music, ex Defekt), Hampster (gfx, ex Defekt), Jozz (music, ex Defekt), Kata (Jacob Restrup, code, 04-12/94), Melone (trade, doublememb 2000 AD, ex Defekt), Overdose (swap, ex Delicious), Quadrex (code, ex Defekt), Scotch (gfx, ex Defekt), Tango (org trade, ex Defekt). HUN> Rack (gfx, doublememb Absolute). ITA> Hedgehog (code, ex Biosynthetic Design). ISR> Cyber Bug (swap, ex Frogs, 10/93). N-L> Infant (Rene van deer Steen, code, ex Subspace, new late97). FRA> Geist (gfx, ex Gods doublememb, late96). USA> Starcam (sysop 'WORLDS OF WONDER', ex Defekt). ???> Magic (editor, doublememb?/ex? Nah Kolor), Pixel, Smartass (swe? music, 05/96-12/96). Balance was formed in Denmark by Wolfman, TNT, Split, Eddie and Spib in june of 1991. Some musicpacks were the first releases from the group. The next members to join were graphicians Connor and Idefix. Eventually yet another graphician joined, Trade (later handle Motion). The group still lacked a real coder though, and their search ended after they recruited Wreko from Divine. Their first real productions were the "Necessary Drugs" packs. Wreko helped recruit another musician, Mazzachre, and soon after also a second coder joined, called Scope. Spib then left because of lazyness, and coder IC3 joined. They got their first board ('SUFFOCATION') when Ramirez joined. Now it was time for their first trackmo, "Software Failure" [91]. Their next release was a bbs intro, and then IC3 got kicked again due to lameness. Their second trackmo, "Deepcore" [07/92], is released. The turning point in BLC's career surely came with the release of the first issue of their diskmag "Magbox" [07/92]. This mag announced both new musician Chyle as well as Mazzachre's leaving for Focus Design. The group was still 100% danish. Balance is a demo group based in Denmark. Originally, Balance released the diskmag 'MagBox'. However, when the fusion with the Norwegian group Frogs was decided, they brought with them THEIR diskmag 'Upstream'. Ofcourse there were some discussion as to what mag to continue publishing, and the result was a compromise; the mag retained the name Upstream, but used the old MagBox code and continued the numbering from MagBox. The previous editors of the two mags, Wolfman (magbox) and Cesium (upstream) were coeditors of the new mag. Coca and Cola formed the ascii-group Lingo while they were still in Balance, so in effect they were doublemembers. Ranx started working at Funcom late 1993, but would remain an (inactive) Balancer. Graphician Chagall also got an offer from Funcom, but decided to go to England to study art instead, so his further scene career is uncertain. Balance were also coeditors of the danish chart "Dansktoppen" with Parasite from the beginning, but the chart was later taken over by Polka Brothers. 1993 - The Finnish section was formed mid 93 by ex-members of Deadline (Dionysus, Bad Karma, Nutcase, Xendi) and Alcatraz. Finnish Lohi (ex Diffusion) left for the PC scene, and coder Xarium joined Parasite mid 93. 1994 - Norwegian swapper Messiah (Banana Dezign doublemember) joined Spaceballs late 94. 1995 - Finnish musucian Nutcase (code gfx music, ex Deadline, new 06/93- mid95) moved over to the pc section of Balance mid 95. Coder Fizban decided to leave the scene late 95. Danish musician Subject (ex Chrome, old handle Chyle, 07/92-01/97) changed handle to Prophet and joined Scoopex 01/97. He was a doublemember of Passion for a while, from late 94, but later terminated this double membership. Danish graphician and musician Cyboman joined Ambrosia late95. Finnish sysop Roland left. Danish coder Scope (07/92-01/95) joined Passion. Scope worked on demos like "Deepcore" [07/92], "Lost World" [12/92] and "Syndrome" [12/94] as well as the MagBox/Upstream code. Finnish musician Dr.Fruid (ex Frogs) left the Amiga scene. German coder Bailey (ex Frogs, 04-10/93) joined Lego. Bailey coded "Newstro" [04/93] before leaving. Norwegian coder Coca (old handle Broth, 10-12/93) joined Cesium's new group Session. Norwegian musician Vegard! (ex-doublemember) left to be a member of Scoopex only, but after a while he left them too and joined Melon Dezign. Nik joined Desire (UPS10). Danish musician Tricktrax (ex Chrome, 12/92) and hungarian graphician Nexus 6 (ex Frogs, 10/93) were kicked. Tricktrax is now in Puzzle. Danish coder Wreko (Jesper, 07/92-12/93) left for the PC scene - more specifically Diffusion PC. Norwegian organizer and previous 'Upstream' editor Cesium (ex Frogs) left the scene for a while. As a consequence, his board 'OMAHA THUNDER' (opened 03/94) was also closed (12/94). Some time later, he reentered the scene with his own group, called Session, and reopened the board there. Finnish members James (old handle Bad Karma), Dionysus (both ex Deadline, new 06-10/93) and Dean left to join Decnite (PRP4). Danes Eddie (Frederik Esbensen, music swap, 12/91-07/92), Immortal, TNT (raytrace, 07/92) and Idefix (gfx, 07/92) all got kicked. Danish swapper and sysop Ramirez ('SUFFOCATION') joined Majic 12 (RAW4). Growl (ex Chrome, 12/92) joined Orient. Software Failure (1991, ECS Trackmo). info: Holding down the firebutton when booting activates a secret part. Deepcore (1992, 07.07, ECS Trackmo). code: Scope, Wreko, gfx: Connor, Scope, Motion, music: Chyle. Magbox #1 (1992, 20.07, ECS Filemag). code: Scope, gfx: Motion (title, background) Scope (background, font), Connor, music: "Iceman-Theme" by Chyle (ProTracker MOD format), editors: Wolfman, Eddie, Split. review: The very first issue of Magbox is a little thin when it comes to the amount of articles, and was meant to be a combination of diskmag and messagebox (like Chit-Chat). Graphics are only passable, and the music is not particularly revolutionary either. The best and most interesting articles this time was Wolfman's history of Balance DK, interview with Hannibal/anarchy and a report and interview concerning the controversy surrounding the recently held Hurricane party. There is also a lot of really unnecessary humour stuff. The news item about Nexus 6/23 Celsius Crew (also spelt wrong, btw! =) forming a Hungarian division of Anarchy is false. In fact, he joined Frogs and later - when Frogs merged with Balance - became a Balance member! The mag needs KillAGA to show graphics and play music correctly, otherwise it works perfectly. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- note: Needs KillAGA! DEN> Chyle, Connor, Scope, Split, Wolfman Magbox #2 (1992, 03.09, ECS Filemag). code: Scope, gfx: Connor (title, fonts ++), music: Chyle, editor: Wolfman (main), Split, Scope. review: Much improved graphics is the first thing that you notice, as well as some nice music. Much more articles, and the music is better than in the first edition too. The mag itself works fine with KillAGA, despite some hiccups with the music replay and slight problems with the larger proportional fonts. They also correct the incorrect news item about Nexus 6/23 Celsius Crew from the earlier issue. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- note: Needs KillAGA! Magbox #3 (1992, .11, ECS Filemag). code: Scope, gfx: Connor, Motion, music: Sound Division. Lost World (1992, 28.12, ECS Trackmo). code: Scope, gfx: Connor, music: "Dirty-Mary2-bf" by Blue Fox. 14th in The Party 92 demo competition. review: A nice, polished trackmo from the coder of the MagBox, later Upstream diskmag. It has the polished feel of Andromeda or even Phenomena...I guess it's the graphics that give the impression. Some of the logos or fonts could have been taken right out of any demo by those two groups! Testament to Connor's talent, I guess. Nothing TRULY out- standing here...except perhaps the spacecut routine - that was unusual back in 1992. Also, they present a glenz vector with LOTS of faces, though the 'this is a new world record' effects failed to impress me a long time ago. Who cares if you've got four more faces on your glenz than the next guy, when you can't even spot the difference with the naked eye? It's the visual part that matters. Excite me! Apart from the 'slime vector', which had graphical errors, I had no problems running this on my system. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. MagBox issue #4 (1993, ECS Filemag). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: "Personal Problems" by Subject. MagBox issue #5 (ECS Filemag). info: This was the last issue released under the 'MagBox' name. The next issue was "Upstream #6". Reality has no Meaning (1993, 07.04, ECS 40k Intro). code: Wreko, gfx: Motion, Wreko, music: Subject. 4th in The Gathering 93 40k intro competition. Newstro (1993, 07.04, ECS Intro). code: Bailey, gfx: Rattle/PMC, music: Dr. Fruid. Released at The Gathering 93. Sound Barrier (1993, .04, ECS Musicdisk, 2 disks). code: Wreko, gfx: Chagall, Connor, music: Subject, Blue Fox. info: Propaganda #4 brougt the news that Subject, Blue Fox, Connor, Unique, Kata and Wreko were working on SB2, which was to be one of the first AGA musicdisks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that project was never released... Upstream issue #6 (1993, 30.07, ECS Filemag). code: Scope, gfx: n/a, music: "Upstream#6" by Subject/Balance (ProRunner 1.0 format), editors: Wolfman, Cesium. Information: UPS6 was the first release after the merger of Upstream and MagBox; it adopted the Upstream name and the MagBox code and release number :) Released at Rendezvous 93 and at Assembly 93. Meetro '93 (1993, 30.07, ECS File). code: Cola, gfx: Chagall, music: Travolta/Spaceballs. Released at Rendezvous 93 and Assembly 93. Gale Intro (1993, 30.07, AGA Intro). code/gfx: Wreko, music: "Sulphuric Ash" by Nutcase. Released at Galemands Gilde. review: Why this requires AGA is totally beyond me, but there you go. The only remotely interesting bit is the afterburned large dot routine, which was slightly original if nothing else. Avoid. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Zoom Parallax Demo (1993, 07.08, ECS Multifile). code: Panoramix, gfx: Tetsuo, Spiri, music: n/a. Released at Assembly 93. Smalltalk (1993, 20.10, AGA 22k Intro). code/gfx: Scope, music: "22k" by Subject. Released at the Melon Birthday Party. Upstream #7 (1993, 30.11, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: Scope, gfx: Connor (main), Chagall (title), Scope (fonts, back), music: "Foundations" by Subject, editors: Cesium, Wolfman. review: Another good issue of Upstream surfaces. Contentwise, this is perhaps not their strongest issue, but I believe that is a mirror of the demo situation at that time; before the big AGA demos started appearing. The scene was at a crossroads, people were busy experimenting with AGA and consequently weren't releasing demos. Visually, this issue is OK, if not their best. Subject's music sounds like he's trying to do a Lizardking cover...which is a little ironic, given that the next issue came with a Lizardking soundtrack :) Not a bad issue, but then - Upstream rarely is! The original disk also contained the 22k intro "Smalltalk" [10/93]. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. The Party 3 Intro (1993, 28.12, ECS 40k Intro). code: Coca, gfx: Chagall, Coca, Cola, music: Terminal Silence. review: Another not-bad intro from the Norwegian section. There's no 'wow' routines here, but overall a nice intro. Chagall's 'no smoking' picture is cute... [glenn] GLE tested A500 /000-7/½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. Cutting Edge (1993, 28.12, AGA 40k Intro). code: Scope, gfx: Unique, music: Subject. 9th in The Party 93 40k intro competition. H.A.S.H. (1993, 28.12, 40k Intro). code: Wreko, gfx: Connor, music: Slide/Parasite. 13th in The Party 93 40k intro competition. review: Not bad at all, with some fairly tasty dot routines. It's not exactly 'Desert Dream' in the dot respect, but not bad at all. Surprisingly much grapics. I once tried running this on my 1mb A500, but didn't have enough memory even when depacking the file first. I can't positively say it's an AGA production, though. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. MrsKingTro (1994, Intro). code: Mr.King, gfx: n/a, music: Subject. Review: This intro is FAKE. This was revealed in Upstream #10, neither Mr. King nor Subject had anything to do with it. Upstream issue #8 (1994, 02.04, ECS Multifile Diskmag). INT - code: Kata, gfx: Connor, music: "Juggernaut Jam" by Subject. MAG - code: Scope, gfx: Connor (panel), Scope (fonts, background), Fairfax/Andromeda (intropic), music: "Water Below" by Lizardking/ Razor 1911, editors: Wolfman, Cesium, Mount/Polka Brothers. Released at The Gathering 94. review: Upstream delivers quality with this issue, with some very nice and interesting articles - like the Chromag interview. There's nothing wrong with the audio-visuals in the mag either; the backgrounds and the panel both have nice layouts. This was the first issue with a third 'main' editor, Mount. You won't notice much of a difference, though. The option to save an article to disk is nice. The only reason this qualifies as a multifile mag is the fact that the module is a separate file. Not much more to say about this, except it's one of the best ever mags. One slight sniggle, though - a BIG BUG! When attempting to load a new module, the mag crashes the moment I press the mouse button! The intro is a rather bland affair, to be honest. It resembles those old trailer intros Brainstorm used to release for Zine, without any of the excellence of those. On the A500, the intro seemed somewhat unstable when setpatch wasn't run first. The tune 'Water Below' by Lizardking was later used in the Razor 1911 musicdisk "Memorial Songs II" [01/95]. [glenn]  GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. Orgasmatron (1994, 02.04, AGA 40k Intro). code: Coca, gfx: Buzz Fuzz, Kefir, Coca, music: Kefir. 12th in The Gathering 94 40k intro competition. Upstream issue #9 (1994, Diskmag). INT - code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: "D0dstekkno" by Subject. MAG - code: Scope, gfx: n/a, music: Nutcase. Syndrome (1994, 28.12, AGA File). code: Scope, Kata (additional), gfx: R.W.O, Unique, music: "Culture Shock" by Subject. 14th in The Party 4 demo competition. review: I'm actually a little surprised that this didn't do better than 14th at The Party, though ofcourse there were a lot of good releases that year. This one has very fast, mostly vector, routines timed to the usual techno music. Some interesting stuff here, a.o. what was probably the first HAM8 plasma. Did anyone do that earlier? The fire effect is ugly and blocky, though. THAT effect has been substantially improved with time! R.W.O's picture "Zailorpower" also participated in the graphics competition at The Party, and finished on a split 39th place. On my 030 machine, the road part fucks up graphically. I do not know what causes this, really... Perhaps the routine is timed for a standard 14mhz 020 in some way...who knows? The demo works fine on a standard A1200, no fast needed. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. note: See review. Plantarium (1994, 28.12, Wild). 6th in The Party 4 wild demo competiton. info: Presented on an A4000.  Upstream issue #10 (1995, v.early, ECS/AGA File Diskmag). code: Scope, gfx: Connor (panel), R.W.O (intropic), Scope (fonts, backgrounds), music: "Off Piste.bf" by Blue Fox. review: One of the greatest diskmags of the time, Upstream has both interesting articles and top presentation. You can't go wrong with this. The reason for the ECS/AGA at the top needs a little explanation; the intropicture by R.W.O is in 256 colors, and if you're running on an ECS machine, you'll just get an explanatory text, like: "No aga - no pic!". The mag itself runs fine on most configurations. Needs req.library to load modules or save articles. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Embryo (1995, 12.08, AGA HD Multifile). code: Confidence, gfx: Grid, music: Atheist & Deelite. 8th in the Assembly 95 demo competition. review: An acceptable production from the Swedish division of Balance. Nothing outstanding, just nice. The music is frantic demo-techno, and not the worst of its kind. The demo includes two fullscreen pictures by Grid, one of a screaming man's face with a twirl effect around it, and one that's reminiscent of Hajime's metal people art, though of a kitten. I did a search, and as far as I can see Grid did not enter any graphics competitions during 1995. This probably means this is the only place you'll ever see these :) One thing I noticed about the effects is that Confidence seems to use a rather unique method of 'smoothing' his effects, almost reminiscent of the raster effects used in comic books. Interesting... To conclude: Acceptable. Does not require fastmem, but takes advantage of it if it's there. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Freak (1996, 26.05, AGA 4MB File). code: Confidence, gfx: Grid, Gorg, music: Smartass. 3rd in the Icing 96 demo competition. review: To the sound of a heavy, boombastic tune by Smartass we're given a demo without much soul. The effects are of highly variable quality, some are very impressive and others are not so hot. The big tunnel routine is nice, and sort of reminds me of the tunnel in TBL's "Captured Dreams" [03/97]. The morphing (env?) object is too blocky though, I think Confidence should have spent some more time on that. There's only one real piece of graphics here, a fullscreen picture of a woman's face - not signed but presumably by Grid, since it resembles his style. The best effect here is a truly great one, though - an amazing light routine, where we're sort of looking into the light, and it changes a little. It's awfully smooth and nice, and lifts the demo as a whole a lot. I guess this is worth getting for that effect alone ;) I tried to run this with only 4MB fast and my Kickstart mapped to RAM (eating 512k in the process), and found I didn't have enough memory. So if you're gonna run this on a 4MB machine, be sure you're not remapping your kickstart, oki? [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Endolymfa (1996, 28.12, AGA File). code: Confidence, gfx: Gorg, music: Smartass. 3rd in The Party 6 demo competition. review: The best part of ENDOLYMFA is the opening, which with it's fast texture mapped and animated surfaces create a nice mood...which unfortunately it fails to sustain through the rest of the demo. It's a rather short demo too, which doesn't help matters that much. The effects consists mainly of the usual env and phong objects, with an overweight on toruses. The music's nothing special. A little disappointing. In my eyes, Syndrome's "Subzero" (6th) is a much better demo than this. Ofcourse, results are not up to me, but to the voters at The Party :) Seeing as the (unpacked) file is over 2MB in size, this will obviously need a little more memory than the 2MBs of chipmem in AGA Amigas. I do not know exactly how much, though, since the distribution doesn't have any text describing requirements. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Ballcrackers, The (TBC) ----------------------- SWE> Axodry, Headhunter, Maxwell, Mr.Bond, No.1, Outsider, Smasher, Techno, Vonix. Nick23 joined D-Mob. Transmutations (ECS Musicdisk). Bamiga Sector One (BS1, 1986-1990) ---------------------------------- BEL> Cbx (89), Ermida (mainorg supply, 86-89), Lion (89), Lord Blitter (code crack, 11/88-89), Skylight (crack, 11/88-89), The Bandit (89), The Belgium Waffels (code, 89), The Hobbit (89), The Red Baron (89). HOL> Switch (code crack train pack, 89). DEN> The Free Traders (code crack music, 89). ENG> The Demon (music, 89), Toxic (spread, 89). CAN> Double Density (trade, 89). USA> The Agnostic (sysop 'INFERNAL REGIONS' WHQ, 89), Viral Empath (crack, 11/88). ???> Chatterbox (crack, 11/88), Necromancer (swap, 11/88), Outbound (new 12/88), Syncro (crack), The Visitor (swap, 11/88). Bamiga Sector One was formed in Belgium in june of 1986 by Ermida and two others. Their members later found their way into such groups as Kefrens (S.L.L). They were also in several cooperations, with a.o. Cybertech. Necromancer and The Visitor are father and son. 1988 - An interview with Ermida in Crack Journal #10 [11/88] revealed how they were having problems getting crackers, seeing as Lord Blitter was working for a large software company, Chatterbox went to the university, Skylight is very busy at the moment with other things, The Big Fat Lamer is abroad and won't be back until next year, and finally Viral Empath is now busy writing protections (!) for a large software firm ;) Outbound joined in december. 1990 - Danish musician S.L.L (ex Red Sector) left for Kefrens early february. The group was declared dead early 1990. Scroll Surprise (ECS File). Banal Projects (1992-) ---------------------- FIN> Andy (Antti Kujanpaa, music, 12/94-08/95), Boogieman (founder, 92), Boris (founder gfx, 08/92-93), Epidemic (code, ex Complex, 93-08/95), Karbunkle (founder, 92), Lopez (new 10/93), PMB (founder code, aka Paul McBody, 92), Prayer (founder gfx swap, 93-08/95), Suhu (Juha Sohlman, swap, ex Leader Productiond, new late 93-95), Ukulele (founder music, 93-08/95). Banal Projects were born in late 1992 (existed .08), and is an entirely Finnish demo group - with a sense of humour ;) Dutch musician Mark/Rebels joined, but left for CNCD right away 08/93. Charles 2000 (Demo). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: Dean (The Player 6.1A format). Rodeo (1993, mid?, ECS File). code: PMB, gfx: Prayer, Boris, music: Ukulele. NIVEL.exe (1993, late?, ECS Intro). code: Epidemic, gfx: Prayer, music: Ukulele (2x The Player 5.0A format). review: This cool little intro opens with a good picture by Prayer, set to the opening bars of Ukulele's frantic and weird tune - VERY hard to classify! Then we're shown an amiga rules-like effect, only divided... hard to explain really! At the top of the screen there's a B.P. logo. Then there's the endpart, with a small mummi-troll (Norwegians and Swedes will know these) in the left corner, and a fractal-triangle-zoomer. Pressing and holding the right mouse button makes it turn the other way, by the way :) In addition, there's a good an unusual text writer. Not bad at all, this! When you exit, you get a few bars of another module, which is kind of...nice. [glenn] GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Mama (1995, Musicdisk). info: Seven pieces of ethnic inspired music by Ukulele. Seasick (1995, 12.08, 40k Intro). code: Epidemic, gfx: Prayer, music: Ukulele (The Player 6.1A format). 4th in the Assembly 95 40k intro competition. review: Yeah! This is more like it! Short, but good. I can't really find anything to put my finger on here, except perhaps the weird tune...but it's by Ukulele, so what can you expect? The main effect consists of bitmap manipulations done to a picture of Mickey Mouse seen from behind, surfing. Coolness. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Bold (1996, 18.08, AGA File). Director; Epik Forrester. 10th in The Assembly 96 demo competition. review: This is almost embarassing. This is only a selection of pictures of celebrities, with the text The Banal and the Projects overlaid at regular intervals. In the background you hear the theme music of...that's right, The Bold and the Beautiful. Not wonder it finished almost last. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Banana Dezign (BDZ) ------------------- NOR> Bob (aka Jack Frost), Brainbug (music, 11/93-04/94), Decoy (Stian Olsen, sysop 'SILVERHAWK', 02/94-97), IT (sysop 'HOME ALONE' WHQ, doublememb Cryptoburners, 04/94), Jelace (music, ex Destiny), Necro (code, ex Talent, 11/93-04/94), Optic (ex Shamrock, 04/94), Pensplit (gfx, ex Talent), Teo (11/93), Znit (Espen Skog, trade swap). CRO> Diablo (ex Polaris, new 02/94), Dr.J (ex Polaris, new 02/94), Elf (Code, ex Polaris, new 02/94-04/94), Metal (ex Polaris, new 02/94), Satan (ex Polaris, new 02/94), The Ripper (ex Polaris, new 02/94). ???> Leviathan, Mad Guru. Boards; TWILIGHT (nor, 93). Croatians Alpha (music, ex Polaris, new 02/94) and Blue Deville (gfx, ex Polaris, new 02/94) left with Finnish musician Kristian (old handle Saracen, ex Destiny) to join Talent late 95. Curiously enough, the news where I found this used his old handle 'Saracen'...did he change back? Anyway, the Talent memberlist reflects the Saracen handle. Norwegian sysop Hellfreak ('WARZONE', 93) got kicked. Norwegian coder and sysop Mr.Z (ex Talent) joined Scoopex. Norwegian sysop Micro-Pal ('THE WHITE HOUSE', ex Alcatraz, 93) left. Norwegian swapper Messiah (ex Equinox, Balance doublememb, 02/94) joined Spaceballs. Graphician Marlboro got kicked. Croatian swapper Rod (Svitlica Stanjoe, ex Polaris, new 02/94) left the scene. Banana Dezign was formed by It/ex Cryptoburners and Micro-Pal/ex Alcatraz. There is some mysticism connected with Brainbug's membership. He was in Alcatraz back in 1992, and contributed a tune to the music competition at TG'94 under the handle Brainbug/ALCATRAZ. However, he contributed music, seemingly as a full member, to two BDZ productions between 11/93 and 03/94. Was he a doublemember, perhaps?  Melbu (1993, 31.11, AGA Intro). code: Necro, Bob (debug), gfx: Marlboro (logo), Necro (fonts), music: Brainbug (The Player 5.0A format). Made at the Combase'93 party, but released later. review: Not the most serious of people, these guys, are they? Another minimal production this, with some very yellow scanned pictures of the participants and filled vector bananas. The best thing about this small prod, tho', is Marlboro's logo. Very cool! The music is a heavy metal riff thing, not Brainbug's best by far. This was probably a lot more fun to make than it is to watch. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Bowel Movements (1994, 08.02, AGA Intro). code: Necro, gfx: Blue Deville, music: Brainbug (The Player 5.0A format). review: Not much to see here, just a text writer over some red/orange graphics mapped on a sphere, flying around. The humourous text is rather fun though. 'Because we care.' You can run the intro without AGA installed, in which case you'll get a requester saying that the demo requires AGA to run and you get to hear the soundtrack. $VER: Bowel Movements 1.0 (08 Feb 1994) by Necro\Banana Dezign [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Så Ung Og Helt Uten Hår... (aka Wonko) (1994, 03.04, AGA File). code: Necro, Elf, gfx: Optic, music: "Shinin' Ol' Boots" by Brainbug (TrackerPacker 3 format). 8th place in The Gathering'94 demo competition. review: Easily the best of the three BDZ demos I have... The design on this is a lot more 'together' than in the others. Nothing much to say, except that the tune is rather fun :) They've certainly kept their sense of humour... [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Band, The --------- BEL> Flame Snake, Infernal Duo (DMA and Thief), Sir 004 (03/89). NOR> Hellraiser, Skyhawk, TFL, Vampire. The Band was one of the first cracking crews, probably based in Belgium. 1989 - Skippy and Woody left for The Silents in november. Basement (1995-) ---------------- SWE> Reverend D (founder sysop 'TRESPASS'), TBM (founder code, later TBL?). Basement was formed by TBM, Phase and Reverend D from Freezers in late 95. However, Phase soon left for Insane, where he was kicked within a week. B.A.S.F. (1994-) ---------------- GER> Lightforce (Swap, ex X-Trade). NOR> Base, Odie. ???> Link (ex scoopex), Parallax (ex Scoopex). BASF was formed by ex-members of Scoopex Germany. Sysop Iceberg got busted jsut two days after he joined BASF! German graphician Navy left Vanish to join, but soon moved on to TRSI. Bass [old] ---------- Meta joined Rebels. Bass [new] (1993-) ------------------ FRA> Meta (founder, ex Rebels), Patrick (founder, ex Rebels). Bass was reformed 93, after Meta and Patrick left Rebels. Bass Crew --------- Hardcore Trax 1 (1994 or pre, Music). Basstech -------- ???> Bareface (sysop, new 09/92), Extaxy (new 09/92). Cedric joined Legend. Boozo, sysop 'INTROSPECTIVE' joined Noxious, but soon went on to Submission. Bastards -------- DEN> Bitman (gfx, 91), Gizmo (ex Cult, new mid92), Michael Carlson (sysop 'MADE IN DENMARK'), Surrounder (gfx, old handle Bitman), TMT, Tuborg (Janus Lindahl, swap, ex Light), Wild Child (Peter Walsted, swap). SWE> Mr.Foley (ex Energy). ???> Melf (music, 92), PMA (gfx, 92), The Judge (code, 92), Xerox. Most members left to form a new subgroup for Crack Inc. 09/92. Cyber Sounds (1991, ECS Musicdisk). New Stuff (1991, early, ECS File). code: n/a, gfx: Bitman, music: n/a. Techno Trance III (1992, ECS Trackloaded Musicdisk). code: The Judge, gfx: PMA, music: Melf. GLE tested A1200/020/2mb chip/3.0. -- info: Crashes after showing titlepicture. Caches off has no effect. Beastie Boys [old] (BB) ----------------------- The Syndicate: ???> Art Force (gfx, new 02/89), Dingo von Springberg (code, new 02/89), Dri (swap, 02/89), Futurelight (gfx, 02/89), Kevin (swap, 02/89), Marco (swap, 02/89), Mel (code, 12/88-02/89), Myk (swap, 02/89), No.1 (music, new 02/89), Rene (swap, 02/89), SkyDancer (music, 12/88-02/89), Tibor (swap, 02/89). BB was a group that came to the amiga from the c64 scene, and was pretty big in the German scene for a while in the late 80's. Their most active members were all in the subgroup The Syndicate of the Beastie Boys. 1988 - December saw the release of their classic "Megademo" [12/88]. 1989 - The Syndicate/BB released a packdisk from the Bamiga Sector 1 and Warfalcons party [02/89]. At this party the group also released a new intro which announced Dingo, No.1 and Art Force as new members, and said bye bye to Alex and Rush. Mel had also planned a demo for this competition, but could not complete it in time. Norwegian graphician Fairfax joined Pure Metal Coders. Megademo (1988, 17.12, ECS Disk). code: Mel, gfx: n/a, Music: "Lars" by SLL/Bamiga Sector One, "Part IV music" by TFC, "Wondertec" (first), "Skydancer" and "Opus Dei" (end) by SkyDancer. info: A truly classic megademo, with some great pieces of music! Sound System Demo (1989, 11.02, ECS Intro). code: Dingo, gfx: The Dark Lord (logo), n/a (picture), music: "Android" by Skydancer. Released at the Bamiga Sector 1 and Warfalcons copy party. review: Another oldskool onescreen intro, this one is at least a LITTLE original. The top of the screen feature a Beastie Boys logo moving from side to side... This is done in classic demologo style, but is still not the worst example of its kind... in shades of grey and gold. The bottom of the screen is occupied by a bouncing scroller (like a DYCP on the c64!). The middle of the screen is the most interesting part, though - it features a very nicely drawn picture of a pair of earphones, over which a circle is laid. This circle has equalizers spinning around it... it's kind of hard to describe, but looks real cool! For an example of an oldskool intro, you could go far worse than this. The name of the intro does not appear anywhere inside, but was taken from the results. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- note: Needs KillAGA. Beastie Boys [new] (BB) ----------------------- GER> Bandog (code, 90). Beastie Boys were reformed by some of the old members, and the entire group Irongods. Beatless (BTL, -1995) --------------------- SWE> Tevie (swap, late95). Beatless was a swedish demo group. 1995 - Late 95, swedes Note (swap), Iz, Leprechaun (swap), McPudel and Fugazi left for Giants, and Braindead left for Insane. The group was therefore declared dead. Summer (ECS Intro). code: Megabyte, gfx: Jamsam, Limpa, McPudel, music: Jamsam. Beermacht. ---------- GER> Alfred (sysop 'BEERKRUG' WHQ, 09/91). Beta Team (BT) -------------- ???> Roberts (music, 05/94). Roberts made a module for Mystic's demo "Vital" [94], and that's all the information I have on him... Polish coders CBM80 and Larsen joined Mystic. Beton Design ------------ ???> Human (music), Kain (gfx), Muad'dib (raytrace), Norweg (music), Yoe (music). 1996 - Chrom and Skizo left the group, and Wolf and Dr.Pacient left the scene 04/96. Green. joined Anadune 06/96. Goldfinger (1995, 30.08, Demo). 8th in the Intel Outside 95 demo competition. Betrayal -------- ???> SCSI, Xag (code). Betrayal's 'claim to fame' are a few utilities by Xag, the most notable probably being the 'JamCracker+' music composition program. Talisman left the scene. Einstein joined Punishers. Betrayed -------- SWE> Polarbeer (sysop 'INFINITE LINK', 01/95). Beyond (-1992) -------------- ???> Art of Noise (music, ex Acume, old handle Moonwalker). The best members of Beyond and Arise decided in late 1992 to join together to form Abyss. These members were at least: Sodom (code, ex Amaze, new pre 07/92), Duke, SMC, Skindiver, Toxic (music), Neurodancer and Artline (both ex Agnostic Front). German superswapper Mr.King joined Analog. Tool Intro (ECS Intro). code: Sodom, gfx: Toxic, music: Art of Noise. Night Dreams (1992, 26.07, ECS File). code/music: SMC, gfx: Toxic, Flo. Beyond Force (BF) ----------------- FIN> Boss (code gfx, 12/89-08/93), GMN (Olli Auvinen, code, aka Gremlin, 08/93), Hazor (Tommi Lahtonen, code gfx, 90-08/93), Shumway (gfx, 90-91). ???> Alistair (gfx, 90), Andy (gfx, 89), Drucer (code, 06/88), Elysion (gfx music, 08/93), Jogi (music, 12/89-90), Keith (music, 89), Mr.Sam (gfx, 91), Nimrod (gfx, 90), Sage (code, 90), Stranger (code, 91), Zag (code, 89), Zardax (music, 08/93). Beyond Force were originally a finnish c64 group, and when the amiga section was born, several members coexisted on the two platforms, f.ex. Hazor and GMN. Demo (1988, 14.06, ECS File). code: Drucer, gfx: n/a, music: Jason/TDT. Cooperation with Deathstar. Multiplexor (1989, ECS File). code: Zag, gfx: Andy, music: Keith. Second Demo (1989, ECS File?). code/gfx: Boss, music: Osterman/Scoopex. Wild Beast (1989, ECS File?). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jogi. Party Demo (1989, 29.12, ECS File). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jogi. Released at the X-Mas Party 89. Sine Intro (1990, ECS Intro). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jogi. Flexible Logo (1990, ECS File). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jogi. Jumbosinus (1990, ECS File?). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jogi. Splitter v2.0 (1990, ECS File?). code/gfx: Boss, music: Jochen Hippel/independent. Colorpulator (1990, ECS File). code/gfx: Boss, music: Fleshbrain/Crusaders. Jumbosinus v2 (1990, ECS File?). code: Boss, gfx: Nimrod (font), music: Jogi. Twisted Wriggler (1990, ECS File?). code: Boss, gfx: Alistair, Nimrod, music: Maniacs of Noise/independent. Still Hating (1990, ECS File?) code: Sage, gfx: n/a, music: Fleshbrain/Crusaders. Mysterious Mixture (1990, late, ECS File). code: Boss, gfx: Shumway (logo), Charles Deenen/Maniacs of Noise c64 (font), music: "Death-Star" by Fleshbrain/Crusaders (ProTracker MOD format). review: Now, this is what makes wading through endless amounts of old demos and intros seem halfway worth my time. Every now and then you come across a small jewel, and this is just such an instant. Much thanks to two elements - the music and the plasma-like effect that I really don't know what to call :) - a little magic is created here. It's one of those rare little productions that create a little atmosphere... But stop reading what I'm wabbling on about, and GO GET THIS - hmm, that music is just an amazingly wondrous piece... After pressing left mousebutton to exit, you are shown a picture with Hazor's address for swapping, before the intro exits for real. It needs KillAGA to work, but still destabilizes my system after exiting. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review! First Try (1991, ECS File). code: Stranger, gfx: Mr.Sam, music: Fleshbrain/Crusaders. Expres (1991, ECS File). code: Boss, gfx: Mr.Sam, music: Dean/Complex. Oh No! (1991, ECS File). code: Boss, gfx: Boss, Shumway, music: Fleshbrain/Crusaders. Assembly Intro (1992, ECS Intro). code: Boss, gfx: Hazor, music: Old Fart/Silents. info: Possibly released for the Assembly party in august, but results that year were restricted to the three top placers, so no record exist of the other entries. 5 Years Intro (1993, 10.08, ECS 40k Intro). code: GMN, gfx: Elysion, GMN (fonts), music: Elysion. 12th in the Assembly 93 40k intro competition. review: I quite like this intro, which was made in celebration of BF's five years in the scene on C64 and Amiga. There's a few OK things here, and you notice attention has been put into making it polished. Effort pays off in Scenery: Nice one. [glenn] GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. The Wonderful Art of Hajime Soroyama ECS (1993, 10.08, ECS Slideshow). code: Boss, Hazor, gfx: n/a, music: Zardax, Galaxy/Elysion. info: There are two versions of this; one for ECS machines and one for AGA equipped ones. The sections have been kept separate here, since they do not share exact credits or, presumably, appearance. The Wonderful Art of Hajime Soroyama AGA (1993, 10.08, AGA 2MB Slideshow). code: TNT, Hazor, gfx: Galaxy/Elysion (font), music: Dens Design. info: See review above. Beyond 2000 (B2000) ------------------- NOR> Disk Fixer (music swap), Dr.Cruel (music), Goldfax, Hawk 1989, Megatron, Mr.Fox, Punisher, Raistlin, Tronixx (music). Spytrax left. Seaside Boy joined Theatre. Intro (1990, 27.01, ECS Intro). Disk of Music (1990, 06.06, ECS Musicdisk). Bice Twice ---------- Sverige (1996, 05.04, Demo). 5th in The Gathering 96 demo competition. Binary Boys ----------- Halucinations (1991, 16.12, ECS File). code: Byte, gfx: n/a, music: n/a. Biohazard --------- Solarized (1996, 13.04, 40k Intro). 3rd in the Scenest 96 40k intro competition. Bionic ------ Zeb's 3rd Division (1990, ECS Musicdisk). info: 6 songs from Zeb, presented in a dos-menu manner. Biosynthetic Design (BSD) ------------------------- ITA> Metal Designer (Antonello Mincone, code, later Scoopex, late95), Mr.Yo (sysop 'TRACKLAND' WHQ, late95). ???> Dixie Flatline (gfx, late95), Fra (gfx music, late95), Lry (gfx sysop 'CYBERTRASH', late95), Sirio (sysop, late95), Stun (c-code gfx music, late95). BSD was probably an all-Italian, demooriented group. After Italian musician, graphician and main organizer Parsec (early-09/96) left for Elven 11, the group died. Italian coder Hedgehog surprisingly left for Balance. Tenebra (Demo). Biotech ------- AUS> Lex Luthor, Radiance. Biotech is dead. Agro joined Mystix. Birdhouse Project ----------------- More Members Intro (1994, 09.10, Demo). Contribution for the Dooms Day 94 party demo competition. Megademo! (1997, 30.03, Demo). 8th in the Mekka Symposium 97 demo competition. Bit Arts -------- GER> The Fog (swap, ex Sanity, new mid91). Bitstoppers [old] (BTS) ----------------------- The original Bitstoppers were a classic cracking group. Bitstoppers [new] (BTS, -1992) ------------------------------ GER> Bob Duncan (sysop 'HILTON PALACE', 10/91), Oli (sysop 'INTEC SYSTEMS', 10/91), Sargor (sysop 'TOTAL KAOS', early92), Speed (Patrick, trade, early92). USA> Leviathon (sysop 'TERMINAL FROST'), New Jack (sysop 'NEW JACK CITY'). Bitstoppers were a cracking crew started shortly after the death of Infinite Perfection. They died in the middle of 1992. Swedes The Master (sysop 'SKY HIGH') and Mercy joined Fusion early 92. In Fusion, the boardname was PRESSURE POINT, 'tho...don't know when he changed it! Germans Rudi (ex Skid Row) and Selim left for Crack Inc., all other members left for Fusion. Bitstoppers is therefore dead! (06/92) Norwegian swapper Jaffa (ex Infinite Perfection) sold his Amiga and left the scene. Bizarre Arts (BZR) ------------------ GER> Antibrain (org gfx music, 12/94-07/96), Axis (code, 07/96), Azure (org code, doublememb Artwork [details] late95, 12/94-07/96), Coming Art (code music, 11/95), cr8y (gfx, new 06/96), Daim (ascii trade, new 06/96), Deetz (code, new late95), Doomsday (Boris Badasch, swap, late95), Eagle (raytrace), Halfbyte (music, doublememb Pandemonium, new 06/96), Krusty (trade sysop, new 06/96), Oson (music, new 06/96), Tracer (code, new 06/96). ???> JMS (gfx, 12/94). Boards; FICTION FACTORY (late96). Bizarre Arts is a purely German demo group, with ome pretty wellknown talent being doublemembers from other groups. 1995 - Late in the year, Dreamkiller (music swap) and Suicide (code) both decided to leave the scene. Sid and Dano, and the board 'DISABLE' were kicked, and finally german swapper and ascii artist Rave left the scene. 1997 - Azure, Antibrain and Fiver had a sequel to "Television" [02/96] planned for The Party 97, but ultimately they did not release it. Pyrox (1994, 28.12, 40k AGA Intro). code: Azure, gfx: JMS, music: Antibrain (ProMizer 2.0 format). 9th in The Party 4 40k intro competition. review: Who would have known Azure would rise to such heights? After viewing this effort, you could easily have been forgiven for thinking he'd end up like all the other uninspired coders. What you get here is ONE routine, 'the world's first' Ham8-plasma, as they claim. I have no idea whether that holds true or not, but I do know that even back in 1994 full-screen plasma routines were hopelessly old. I find nothing here to recommend this, other than the later fame of some of its creators. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Dice (1995, 21.05, AGA 40k Intro). code: Azure, gfx: Fiver/Artwork, music: Antibrain. Winner of the Nexus 95 40k intro competition! review: Dice is a very, very cool little 40k'er! It opens with some cool fullscreen plasma, then goes on to show us a few objects of what can best be described as 'plasmamapped vectors'. It looks a little like very colorful gouraud, if that helps any... Then it moves on to texturemapping a cool picture by Fiver onto a cube (and later a torus). The cube starts spinning around, and so does the graphics on the cube! What can I say? [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Zimbabwe (1995, .11, AGA File). code: Azure, gfx: Fiver/Artwork, Antibrain, Coming Art, music: Antibrain. Released at the Voyage 95 party. review: Oh, this was fun! Of course, the tune is what MAKES this demo. It's a groovy techno thing, with some melodies that just kind of eats themselves into your head and refuses to go away... The effects here are timed to the music IN EXTREMIS, the effects sometimes changing to every single beat of the music... The drawback here is that the effects are repeated a little too often. Had it not been for that, this would have been very close to a perfect production! The effects on display are not too numerous, but a full-screen rotzoomer and a gouraud-donut are perhaps the best ones. "I *PARTICULARLY* enjoyed that...Let's see what's next." In june 1997, Azure released version 1.4, which fixes some problems on 040/060 machines, and fixes the classic The Player 6.1A bugs. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Note: Both original and 1.4 version tested. Television (1996, .02, AGA 4MB File). code: Azure, gfx: Fiver/Artwork, music: Antibrain. 2nd at Convention 96 demo competition. review: Not nearly as good as "Zimbabwe", this production is still very much Bizarre. It's - as they say - an experimental attempt to combine videoanimations with demo effects. In my eyes, they do not entirely succeed on their experiment, mainly due to two reasons: 1) It's too long. Halving the size, using some of the better video (like the cornflakes), and throwing out some of the less interesting stuff would make this a lot more desireable. And 2), the effects do not blend together in the way that I suppose Bizarre wanted. It's two very different aspects, and there is no actual successful merging. Requires an accelerator. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Fresh! (1996, 13.07, AGA 40k Intro). code: Azure, Axis, gfx: Fiver2/Artwork, Sire (object), music: Antibrain (The Player 6.1A forma). Winner of The Summer Party 1996 40k intro competition! review: Now, here's a very good intro! Lots of bump mapping here, and some seriously FAAAAAAASt env and phong objects make this a very enjoyable ride indeed! No wonder really, this is actually just the code to Azure's "Phi" [07/96] (released for Artwork one week earlier) with the added value of Axis' cool water ripple routine (later used in his "SILIConvention 97 Invitation" for Arsenic). But hey, that doesn't matter, since this is STILL a very cool intro ;) Azure released a fixed version 1.1 in february 1998, which should work fine with 040/060 machines, and had that good old The Player 6.1A bug fixed. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Blackbirds ---------- Viking left to form Byte Busters Norway in the middle of 1991. Black Division -------------- Black Monks was formed when Black Division and Mad Monks joined forces under a new name in the beginning of 1989. Black Jack (-1995) ------------------ FIN> Grand Master B (music), Janitor (Janne Peltola, swap), Splatterhead (Vesa Kivisilta, swap pack, later Eltech, 93). DEN> Domain (swap pack). ???> G-Sus (gfx music AMOS). Black Jack was a demo group based in Finland. 1995 - Late in the year, Raivo left for Ambrosia and the rest of the best members formed a new group called 'Innocence'. The group then died. AddBox will from now on be an Innocence release. Finnish sysops Akiro and Dr.Poop ('NAUSEA') joined Scoopex. Black Lotus, The (TBL, 1989-, http://www.tbl.org) ------------------------------------------------- SWE> Azazel (Magnus Alakangas, music, ex DCS, new late95-03/97), Dig-It (Patrque Haggblad, code, 08/96-12/99), Exon (code, 08/94), Gizmo (code, 04/96), Im-Pose (gfx), Kalms (Mikael Kalms, code, ex Artwork, old handle Scout, 98-04/01), Ken (code), Louie (Kenny Magnusson, gfx, ex Insane, doublememb CNCD, 04/96-04/01), Rodney (gfx, ex Axis, new late95, 12/95-03/97), Rubberduck (Johan Dohl, founder code, 89-04/01), TBM (code), Tudor (Henrik Andersson, gfx raytrace modeller, old handle Snorpax Tudor, 08/94-04/01). HOL> Danny (Danny Geurtsen, gfx, doublememb Nah-Kolor, 04/96-03/97), Facet (Martijn van Meel, gfx, ex Virtual Dreams, doublememb Lemon. new, 04- 06/96), I-GO (Thies Edeling, orgamiga code html edit 'R.A.W'), Lowlife (Angelo Bod, gfx, ex Axis), SuperNao (Michiel Krop, music, ex Virtual Dreams, doublememb Lemon. new, 05/96), Tim (code, ex Spaceballs). NOR> Magnar (Magnar Harestad, music sysop 'NOISELESS', ex Spaceballs, old handle Lizard, 06/96). PREVIOUS MEMBERS - SWE> Cypher (gfx, 02/96), Dickhead (founder code), Fishbone (gfx), Hitman (sysop 'BLACKBOARD', 08/94), Hokke (code, 94), Igloo (gfx, 02/96). NOR> Jeek Elemental (code). ???> Axm (gfx, 95), Eddieboy (music, 94), Hook (code), Kajiu (music), Overload (ascii trade sysop, 04-06/96), Sag (code music), Shark (sysop), Skyhigh (code), Vfcon, Wolf (music, 08/94). The Black Lotus was formed in sweden in 1989, when Atari coder Dickhead and his companion Rubberduck decided to build their own group on the Amiga. Who could have known, back then, that TBL would once rule the Amiga demo scene? From their very humble beginnings they've managed to build a group of truly epic proportions. After their breakthrough production "Tint" [04/96] at The Gathering 96, they went on to rule the amiga demo scene for a number years - and even still come back to release the odd production today. They were the first group to win at The Gathering two years in a row; Spaceballs have since taken over their record. Find video versions of their recent demos at: ftp://mirror.support.nl/pub/tbl/download/movies/ Most members of TBL are today employed in the games industry. Dutch members Danny, Tim and Lowlife work at Eidos Interactive ( http://www.edios.co.uk), in the UK; Kalms, Offa, Eq, Rubberduck och Louie all work at Digital Illusions Computer Entertainment (http://www.dice.se) in Sweden. Rodney also works/worked on games. Thanks to Kalms for some information and corrections. 1995 - The demo "Cybernetic" [04/95] reached the 3rd position in The Gathering demo competition, and was probably the group's biggest success thus far. The intro "Mind The Carrot" [06/95] was the group's sole release at Icing this year, reaching a disapointing 9th position in the competition. At Assembly in august came the release of the demo "Misery" [08/95] - finishing 12th in the competition. The steady flow of releases would continue out the year, with the demos "Que?" [10/95] - 2nd at Remedy - and "Mindprobe" [12/95] - 15th at The Party. 1996 - This was the year of TBL's big breakthrough. The year started gently with the release of the demo "Spectral" [02/96] at the small swedish party Creutz in february. It was at The Gathering in april their name would be known, though. Through the release of the two 4k intros "Gizmo" [04/96] and "EQ-4k" [04/96] - 1st and 2nd in the competition - and the landmark demo "Tint" [04/96] they made sure they would be a name to remember. Needless to say, "Tint" was the clear winner of the demo competition. They did not rest however, and already the next month they released the intro "Mind The Carrot 2" [05/96] (1st) and the demo "Glow" [05/96] (2nd) at the Icing party in sweden. As if this was not enough, june brought the Remedy party to sweden, and once again TBL were triumphant in both intro and demo categories, with "Tractorbeam" [06/96] and "Darkside" [06/96] respectively. Their final release of the year was the demo "Goa" [08/96] at Assembly, which finished 3rd in the competition. Apart from the jokey "The Money Tribe" [09/96], it would be until late march next year that they released anything. 1997 - "Captured Dreams" [03/97] is the name of one of the best amiga demos ever released, and a true landmark in the amiga demo scene. With it, TBL became the first ever group to win twice at The Gathering. Sadly, the truly great demo would be their only release on the amiga this year. Swedish coder Noy (02/96-) left this year to help form the new group Dole. Swedish coders Offa (Mattias Gruvman, 08/94-03/97) and Equalizer (Daniel Hansen, 08/94-03/97) both left the Amiga scene for professional game programming careers. For the sake of order, they have been removed from the member roster. 1998 - The Gathering, an event where they had been successful in the past, became the venue of their 'comeback' of sorts, with the winning intro "Imitation None" [04/98]. This would become another year with only a single amiga release from the group. 1999 - Nothing was heard until december, and The Party. There, TBL shocked the scene with the release of their new demo "Rain" [12/99], a full two and a half years after their last full demo. The demo finished only third in the competition, but was a sign that TBL was still a force to reckoned with. It was certainly one of the year's top demos. 2000 - In march, at the TRSAC party in denmark, TBL released another demo. "Senseless" [03/00] won the demo competition! 2001 - Another year, another demo - "Perfect Circle" [04/01] won the demo competition at the prestigious Mekka Symposium party! Purgatory (Disk). Total Brain Collapse - TBC (ECS File). code: Hook, RBD, Offa, gfx: Monza, music: "Shadow" by Wolf. review: Oooooh my god, boring! This is a horror example of how *NOT* to make a demo. It's got a few, ugly effects, a soundtrack that I won't even mention and 'effects' like a hidden-line vector! Jeeeesus, filled vectors was the norm in fucking 1990, people! Unadvanced, unexciting, unworthy. Avoid! [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA. Nugget (1993, 03.03, ECS Disk). code: Hokke, Ken, Hook, Dickhead, Rubberduck, Offa, gfx: Extreme, Watchman, Tango, music: Wolf.  Twisted Minds (1994, AGA File). code: Rubberduck, Hokke, Offa, gfx: Snorpax Tudor, music: Eddieboy. Released at Dreamhack 94. GLE tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. Phucker (1994, .08, ECS File). code: Offa, Exon, Equalizer, gfx: Snorpax Tudor, Equalizer, music: Wolf. Winner of 'the Borlänge party'. review: Thorougly unexciting - as usual for the early TBL demos. The more of these I watch, the more astonished I am that these guys actually made "Glow" and "Captured Dreams" later! The version reviewed is the release version, the compo version had several bugs. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Cybernetic (1995, 14.04, Demo). 3rd in The Gathering 95 demo competition. Mind the Carrot (1995, 17.06, AGA 64k Intro). code: Offa, Equalizer, Rubberduck, gfx: Axm, Snorpax Tudor, music: Rubberduck. 9th in the Icing 95 64k intro competition. GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Misery (1995, 12.08, Demo). 12th in the Assembly 95 demo competition. Que? (1995, 08.10, AGA HD Multifile Demo). code: Equalizer, Offa, gfx: Snorpax Tudor, Axm, music: Lizardking/Razor 1911 & Mantronix/Phenomena. 2nd in the Remedy 95 demo competition. review: This is actually rather good, much thanks to the two dynamic cooperation tunes from two old favorites. Very very OK. Will run on unexpanded A1200's, but fastmem and accelerators are useful. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Mindprobe fixed (1995, 27.12, AGA ?MB HD Multifile, 3 disks). code: Offa, Equalizer, Rubberduck, gfx: Rodney, Tudor, music: Azazel (main), Hollywood/Axis (The Player 6.1A format). 15th in The Party 5 demo competition. review: Another not-too-cool older TBL release. This one hints at what "Tint" will be, but does not quite make it. The whole demo is presented in that annoying 'every-other-pixel-is-black' mode, and if you ask me, that is a major drawback. It just doesn't look as good as solid effects! The most innovative effect here is a little hard to describe, but I'll try. It's a magnified picture by Rodney in the background, and on top of that there's two vectorcubes, spinning and space-cutting each other. One is an RGB-vector, and the other is texturemapped with a small portion of the mentioned picture. As the picture is magnified, it's larger than the screen, and the whole thing moves as the vectorcubes travel around on it. Very very nice. The picture is "Climber" by Rodney, which came 2nd in the graphics competition at The Party. Too bad the rest of the demo is not equally exciting. Azazel's module was made in two hours, during The Party! This is also very likely his first released module for TBL; he was in DCS two months earlier. Though it'll work fine on an 020-14, at least an 030-28 with 2mb fast is recommended. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Spectral (1996, .02, AGA HD Multifile, 2 disks). code: Offa, Equalizer, Noy, Rubberduck, gfx: Cypher, Igloo, Tudor, music: Azazel. Released at Creutz #1 96. review: This is not half bad! Though it has some mysterious palette choices, and the design is sometimes...well, enough about that...this is one of TBL's better productions. There's the usual shading and stuff - and the usual Azazel music :( Not much to say, really - an above-average release from TBL. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Gizmo (1996, 05.04, 4k Intro). code: Gizmo. Winner of The Gathering 96 4k intro competition! review: Seems to disagree with my machine, once just showed the opening logo and froze on a black screen, another time it got as far as popping a nicely-coloured torus on the screen before freezing. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review. EQ-4k (1996, 05.04, 4k Intro). code: Equalizer. 2nd in The Gathering 96 4k intro competition. review: This nice 4k'er opens with some red-on-black quasi-plasma stuff, which then turns into a tunnel of sorts. We travel into the tunnel, which has 'The Black Lotus' written on the walls, before coming to the coolest effect in the intro, a 'sea' of sorts of gradient blue-on-black. Then the tunnel routine is repeated with the same blue-on-black palette and it's over. Be advised that the version reviewed is v1.1, and the file-id.diz file claims it's 'fixed', without specifying further. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Tint (1996, 05.04, AGA 4MB HD Multifile). code: Equalizer, Offa, gfx: Danny, Facet, Louie, Rodney, Tudor (objects), music: "Khan-Be-Phonk", "Definitive Era" and "Fractured" by Azazel. Winner of The Gathering 96 demo competition! review: A little slow to get started this, but when the second piece of music kicks in, it takes off in a big way. Ah yes, the music. I can't help thinking that with some other musician, this could have been a well and truly GREAT production. As it stands, the first tune stinks big-time, and the second ranges from lousy to great in what is a truly bizarre mixture. It seems Azazel can't decide between techno and more traditional demo music, and as a result he tries to mix the two with varied results. The code here smells more of good ideas than truly advanced routines, but is overall quite acceptable. So to sum up: The first part sucks, the rest is quite good. Worth noting is that the compopictures from the artists above are all included. Danny's '18bit truecolor' picture seems to be an elaboration on Lemon.thoughts, which won a clipart competition in EuroChart (I think) some time ago. An OK production with GREAT graphics. Recommended 030-28 or above. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Mind The Carrot 2 (1996, 26.05, 64k Intro). code: Offa, gfx: Louie, SuperNao (hand object), music: SuperNao. Winner of the Icing 96 64k intro competition! review: This is one of the nicer intros I've seen! It all opens with a cool logo-picture by Louie, which is followed by several objects and effects, the first of which is a shaded carrot! Placed in demo/aga on AmiNet, but the system tester says 'no hardware requirement'. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Glow (1996, 26.05, AGA 4MB HD Multifile, 3 disks). code: Equalizer, Offa, gfx: Rodney, Louie, Facet, Tudor, music: SuperNao, Azazel. 2nd in the Icing 96 demo competition. review: Oh yes. This is the first truly outstanding TBL production I have witnessed, and what a demo it is! Since last time they've obviously gotten some design help from their newest members. While some of their earlier productions have looked a little weird, this one looks just smashing! The demo opens with an animation of a spaceship leaving a space station, to great accompanying strings music. After that, we're treated to the usual rendered objects and stuff, with one very important difference: These are cool, advanced routines that look GOOD. Even their rather untraditional palette choices now look smashing! What can I say? TINT only HINTed at things to come! Recommended! Runs on standard A1200's with enough mem, but recommends 030-28 or above. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Darkside (1996, 16.06, AGA ?MB File). code: Rubberduck, Noy, Offa, gfx: Facet, Danny, Tudor, music: Lizard. Winner of the Remedy 96 demo competition! review: Darkside signalled a drastic departure for TBL. Gone was the flashy techno, to be replaced with a tune by Lizard that's closer to a film soundtrack than anything else. A lot of people were skeptical when Darkside was released, but in my eyes this is one of their better demos. It opens with some dots morphing to form the names of the producers. This could have been done a lot better, the routine now looks downright ugly! The titlepicture by Facet is one of his most surrealistic pictures ever! The next picture is a raytraced one by Tudor, of a hand stretching out of a monitor to touch the A1200 beyond...very good! Another good routine here is the travel down spinning tunnel with the white light in the centre... This looks like a precursor to the tunnel at the end of the zoomer in the later TBL demo "Captured Dreams" [03/97]! I like "Darkside". It's an unusual demo, in that it manages to create a gothic atmosphere and still throw in a few good effects. The music deserves a special mention; it's a highly original tune. The release version apparently had some bugs, but a fixed version was later to be put up on the TBL website. On my 4mb fast system, I couldn't run this demo because I didn't have enough memory. This may have been due to the fact that I map my Kickstart to fast ram, but I can't be sure... It DOES require some fast, I'm just not sure how much :) [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review! A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Tractorbeam (1996, 16.06, AGA 40k Intro). code: Offa, gfx: Facet, SuperNao, Tudor (objects), music: SuperNao. Winner of the Remedy 96 40k intro competition! review: WOW! I've just been blown away by an amazing piece of 40k intro. This small file oozes professionalism from every pore. The effects are good and plentiful, much more than I'd expect to see in a 40k intro these days. There are so many '1-effect-intros' out there. This one opens with some envmapped objects, which isn't all that unusual these days :) Next we travel down a rather cool yellow/green tunnel...which suddenly has the objects from before in the middle! It's like Offa's saying 'maybe you can do that too...and this...but can you do them TOGETHER!?'. Next there's a tecturemapped sube spaceut with some envampped objects, before it ends with what can only be described as motionblurred fireflies. Not bad at all, TBL... [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Goa (1996, 18.08, AGA ?MB HD Multifile). code: Offa, Dig-It, Equalizer, gfx: Rodney, Louie, Tudor (objects), music: Azazel. 3rd in The Assembly 96 demo competition. info: Azazel's music from the demo also competed in the music competition, and came 3rd. The timing was made on a 030-28. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review. Note: Not enough memory to run! The Monkey Tribe (1996, .09, File). 2nd in the Creutz #2 96 demo competition. review: Intended as a parody on 3LE demos. Captured Dreams (1997, 29.03, AGA HD Multifile). code: Dig-It, Equalizer, Offa, gfx: Danny, Louie, Rodney, Tudor, music: Fndr/? (intro), Radix (main). Winner of The Gathering 97 demo competition! review: The show opens with a texturemapped tunnel, with credits texture- mapped onto squares flying around. A 'CD' logo is next, then we zoom into the middle of the picture. At first it looks like a normal zoomer, but it quickly becomes evident that there's layers and layers of fantastic gfx before we hit the bottom! There, it smoothly integrates into some lights flashing out at us in time with the music before the entire zoom process is reversed. Only this time, we zoom back a little more than where we started, and it becomes evident that we're in a room with several different 'tv-boxes' hovering in the air. They all have changing pictures on them, and we travel around until we settle on a picture of the side of a skyscraper. This is now the main focal point, and soon a beautiful dolphin comes swimming/flying by, reflected onto the windows of the skyscraper. It's all very 'Beyond the Mind's Eye'. We see the dolphin from three different angles before we move on. Next is an amazing, big dinosaur object (T-Rex?), sneering at us. This object is made up of MANY polygons! Next we're treated to Danny and Louie's coop picture "Angelic Particles" (also winner of the TG97 graphics competition) before we move on to another showstopping effect... We're suddenly underwater, with calm music and a soothing atmosphere. Next is another texturemapped tunnel, this time with a moving lighstource. It goes on with some butterflies flying around ancient architecture, before the show is rounded off with not-too-good picture by Rodney. CD has to be one of the best demos ever released, period. It seems TBL has got most of their design problems out of the way, and this demo sure kicks ass! One thing I especially noticed and liked, was the way the music changed to the MOOD of the demo. For the faster, frantic parts there was techno-style stuff, while underwater we were treated to a beautiful pan- pipe mood tune. Great! Swedish musician FNDR (Jonas Hedeback) was not a fulltime member. The demo requires at least 4mb fast, and a 030-50 processor. However, the system checker searches for 020+, so in theory it is possible to run on inferior hardware... [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Imitation None (1998, 11.04, AGA 40k Intro). code: Rubberduck, Spite/?, Digit, Scout, gfx: Louie, music: Fndr/?. Winner of Gathering 98 64k intro competition! review: Who would have guessed - TBL are back with a small 40k sign of life! Unfortunately, this one's a no-starter due to one very important factor: Speed. You're obviously gonna need a FAST machine to get this baby to roll acceptably. So the keyword would be: Beautiful but agonizingly slow. If you've got a fast machine, please do. Otherwise, don't bother. Nice to look at, tho' ;) FNDR (Jonas Hedeback) and Spite (Erique Hemming) were not fulltime members. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Rain (1999, 28.12, AGA File). code: Rubberduck, Dig-It, Kalms (additional), Spite (additional), gfx: Louie, Tudor (additional), FTHR (additional), FNDR (additional), music: Carebear. 3rd in The Party 99 demo competition. review: Just one word: "WOW". This demo is testament to the demopower of TBL, a group of almost unheard of talent. "Rain" was their first demo in a while, with only the intro "Imitation None" [04/98] released at TG98 since their amazing "Captured Dreams" [04/97] - demo of the year in 1997. Even if I stay by my claim that "CD" is the best amiga demo ever, "Rain" comes close to topping it. The only reason why Haujobb's "Mnemonics" [04/99] is demo of the year this year and not this one, is that Haujobb made a demo I could actually run on my machine =) The demo is fluent, with great art direction (credited to Louie) and design elements. Every single screen is well thought out, with a great sense of the overall design, and the music fits perfectly to the cyberpunk-y feel of the demo. There are effects in this demo that have never even been done on the amiga, and effects that I simply do not have words to describe. There is the most amazing phong shading, some voxels towards the end, and... well, just lots and lots of greatness! =D "Rain" is an almost perfect demo, with all the elements coming together seamlessly. This is the kind of demo you show to your friends to get them interested in the demoscene. Just amazing. This review was only made possible by our contributor SoLO, who generously sent me a cd with the demo as an mpg file. The mpg was grabbed from an a1200 equipped with a 50mhz 68060 processor. The demo itself is not runnable at all on my machine, 50mhz 030 =( Probably requires a shitload of memory, too. A rough guess would be 16mb. Carebear (Erik Lyden) is probably NOT a fulltime member of the group. He is, in case you didn't know, a musician with top finnish pc demo group Orange. Neither FNDR (Jonas Hedeback), FTHR (Antti Jaderholm) or Spite (Erique Hemming) are fulltime members. The final screen in the demo, before the end credits, features a picture and the text "yeah, that's the downside". The picture is grabbed from Luc Besson's fabulous film "Leon". We wholeheartedly recommend it =) [glenn] Senseless (2000, 18.03, AGA 060 Demo). code: Rubberduck, Kalms (additional), gfx: n/a, music: n/a. Winner of the TRSAC 2000 demo competition! info: Apparently requires an 060 processor in order to run fast enough. Received a favourable review in Nah-Kolor's "Devotion #1" [00]. Perfect Circle (2001, 15.04, Demo). code: Kalms, Rubberduck, gfx: Louie, Tudor, music: TraumaChildGenesis (FastTracker II XM format). Winner of the Mekka Symposium 2001 demo competition! info: Requires an 060 processor and about 20 megs of fastram. Can anyone review this for me? Pleeeeeease? 'TraumaChildGenesis' are the two finnish musicians !Cube/Armada and Teque/Aggression. Developed with TBL's new demosystem, NewAge. Black Monks [old] (1989-) ------------------------- GER> Dark (gfx, later Red Sector Inc., 09/89). ???> Andy, Anvil (ex Alpha Flight, new mid91), Archangel, Black Knight, Captain Future, Delton (ex Dynax, new mid91), Dr.Jekyll, Ego the Avatar, Flash, Gonzo the Zazgul, Ivanhoe (crack, 04/89), Snooper, Wild Blood. Black Monks was formed when Black Division and Mad Monks joined forces under the new name in the beginning of 1989. 1990 - Shadow and Spirit left to rebuild Critters with Amiga Freak/Trilogy mid 90. Dam joined Supreme around the same time. Coder and cracker MnemoTroN (ex Silicon League) joined Spreadpoint with a few other members. Black Monks [new] ----------------- GER> Ego (code trade sysop 'BLACK MONASTERY', early92). ???> Anvil (ex Alpha Flight, old handle Zychon), Claw (music, 12/92), Kamikaze, Moses, Pete, Rain, Willow. Black Monks was reborn late 91 or early 92, with a mixture of old and new members - in total 11 members. The first ones to join the new group were Kamikaze, Pete, Moses, Rain, Claw and Willow. German graphician Fade One joined Masque. Black Robes (BRB, -1992) ------------------------ FIN> Coroner, Jayhawk, Mr.Mad, Plug1 (trade, 02/93), Squirrel Fish, Stalker. Black Robes was a Finnish demo group, perhaps most noteworthy as the foreunner of the legendary Virtual Dreams. 1992 - Black Robes is dead! John Peel joined Digital; Dr.Skull, Tsunami (ex Spaceballs), Alien, Groo (06/92) and Dr.Death formed Virtual Dreams. Lappari and Hex joined Damones; Bart left the scene. Matti Ja Teppo is now also a member of Virtual Dreams, though how he got there is a mystery. Finnish swapper Fozzie joined Fanatic. Black Sector ------------ ITA> Apocalypse Now (music swap trade, late95), Anubi (gfx, late95), Bad Jack (hack AM+PC+CONS, late95), R.A. & Min (gfx music, late95), Subwoofer (gfx music, late95), Tryal (codePC, late95), Ultimate Cyborg (code, late95). Blade ----- FIN> Jolly Roger, Zombie. Blade was formed by ex-members of Poorsoft. They released an intro for the Assembly 93 competition, but it wasn't shown on the big screen. Blaze ----- POL> Imperator (gfx), Sky (Radoslaw Gulczynski, swap). Xenos joined Mad Elks. Blitz ----- ???> T.M.D. (ex Firecrackers, new 12/90). Intro (1991, .04, ECS Intro). Released at the Anarchy Easter Party 91. Bloodsuckers (BS) ----------------- FIN> Bloodstone (trade, 03/94), Hitman (trade, 03/93), Hoffi (trade sysop 'THUNDERSTRUCK' WHQ, doublememb Damones 93, 07/91-03/93), Illuminator (trade, doublememb Accession, 03/94), Rib, SCH, SCY (trade, 10/91), Wanton (code). SWE> Highlander (sysop 'SOMEWHERE IN TIME', 10/90). GER> Genesis (sysop 'GENESIS POWER', 10/91), Pirate (sysop 'BERLIN AMIGA NEWS', 09/91). ???> Android (ex Accession), Armalite, Chuck D, Communist, Cowboy, Cyborg, Dr.No (ex Alpha Flight), Mann, Mr.Wizz (code, 12/88), Mutants, Rawak, The Wicked, Zacae (ex Alpha Flight. Death, sysop 'SATAN'S PLACE' rejoined Zenith. German Flaxx (ex digital) joined The Silents. Bloodbath In Paradise (ECS File). Mass Compensates The Brain (ECS Musicdisk). Turtle Meeting Intro (ECS Intro). Mr.Wizz's (1988, 12.12, ECS Intro). Blue Crystal (1992-1993) ------------------------ Blue Crystal was a shortlived finnish group, likely formed around late november 1992 by Wasp (code music) and Zakal (code music). Axe (swap) joined, then also Sphinx (gfx music) from D-29. All members joined Styline in january of 1993. A small group formed by Wasp (Vesa Halttunen, coder & musician) and Zakal (Tuomas Nikkinen, coder & musician) in 1992. Axe (Jyrki Lindlöf, swapper) joined. Sphinx (Aki Sopanen, graphician & musician) joined from D-29. All members joined Styline in January 1993. Bodyworks (1995-1995) --------------------- SWE> Axy (org ascii sysop), Blade (org music), Delery (code sysop), Schizzo (music), Tekburn (music), Visitor (trade, later Subspace), Zcandaler (sysop). Bodyworks was formed by Axy and Blade after the death of Deadline Design, as an ascii and trading group. They dominated the trading scene of west sweden, had a lot of members, and released several ascii collys. In addition the swedish members, there were also a few in germany and the uk. Sometime late in the year, Axy and Blade decided they'd had their fun, and declared the group dead. Blade (who had now learned to code) was in Inhumans with Visitor for a while, before helping form Subspace. Axy later surfaced as Phase/ Spaceballs and later in Essence. Bomb Software (1994-) --------------------- FRA> Ben (code, 12/96), Clawz (Mathieu Berthaud, founder music, ex Complex, doublememb Impact Studios [pc], 09/94-12/95), Gengis (Frederic Heintz, founder code, ex Complex, 09/94-07/95), Hof (gfx, 12/94), Made (Carlos Pardo, gfx, ex Scoopex, new late95-04/98), Suny (gfx, ex Movement, new late94-12/94), Titan (Sebire Laurent, gfx, 04-12/96), Trajan (gfx, ex Dreamdealers, new late94-12/94), Zebig (gfx, 12/94). DEN> Roscoe (Steen Hillestroem, swap, ex Razor 1911, new late94). GER> Trasher (Oliver Plink, swap, triplememb Sanity and Artwork, new late95). After releasing their last demo for Complex, "Real" [04/94], Bomb! was formed by Clawz and Gengis in August 1994. Soon after, they recruited the French graphicians Trajan and Suny, and the Danish swapper Roscoe. In september, they then won the intro competition at the 3S Party with their first release, the 64k intro "Casual" [09/94]. They then worked hard for a few months, and could present to the public at The Party 4 the demo "Motion: Origin 2" [12/94]. The original "Origin" [12/93] (made for Complex) had secured Gengis the winner at last year's party, but "Motion" didn't come in better than 3rd. 1995 - Next they recruited top french graphician Made and spent most of 1995 working on their commercial game Fears, which was previewed at the end of "Motion" and released in September. The game was done by Gengis (code), Hof (gfx), Titan (gfx), Suny (gfx) and Clawz (music). 1996 - Following the completion of the game, Gengis and Clawz released their last Amiga production in the "Saturne 3 Invitation" [07/96], and left for the PC scene - where in addition to scene activities they are currently working on an adventure game. Made now seems to be the only remaining active Amiga member, contributing graphics to productions left, right and center - though mostly for his old group Scoopex. However, he has lately begun doing more and more 24bit pictures in high resolution, and now he also works almost exclusively for the PC scene. Gengis and Clawz first joined Impact Studios on the pc, before moving on to Oxygene. They are now back in their own group Bomb!, though - and the pc section seems to become as powerful as the Amiga one was in its time... Casual (1994, 03.09, AGA 64k Intro). code: Gengis, gfx: Hof/?, Walt/? (car person), music: "Blache Bleuche" by Clawz. Winner of the 3S Party 64k intro competition! review: A cute and nice first production from Bomb. Nice font! The music is kinda unusual for Clawz, but still good. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Motion: Origin 2 (1994, 28.12, AGA Trackmo, 2 disks). code: Gengis, gfx: Suny, Trajan, Zebig, Hof, music: "Overtaking" (main) and "Intermediate" (end) by Clawz (The Player 6.0A format). 3rd in The Party 4 demo competition. review: Gengis and Clawz followed up the original "Origin" (released for Complex), who won at The Party the previous year, with this great demo. The strongest point of Motion has certainly got to be its design. It opens with a great loading picture by Suny (I believe it also competed in the gfx competition), which looks like it was inspired from the scene in the introduction to the movie 'Cliffhanger'. Then, an eye suddenly looks at us. We zoom into the eye, and the demo begins. We're treated to a variety of good effects, including fast voxel landscapes and various vector environments. The real showstopper however, appears at the end of the demo, when Gengis revealed the first real Doom routine - with walls, floor and ceiling. For more of that routine, buy the game 'Fears', which was developed by much the same team as this demo. The demo is timed to one of Clawz' techno tunes, which sounds great. Then again, few people on the Amiga do techno as well as Clawz... The endpart requires some fast mem, a fact that made it guru when it was originally shown at The Party. However, the whole demo runs perfectly on unexpanded A1200's except the endpart. It supports external drives. Whole-heartedly recommended. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Saturne Party 3 (1995, .07, AGA File). code: Gengis, gfx: Made, music: "Kuulitte Oikein" by Clawz (ProTracker MOD format). review: This is certainly one of the smoothest invitation intros I've ever seen, and the one with the best graphics! It opens with a fullscreen picture by Made, of a small green gnome, before showing a Saturne Party logo with a vectorbased '3' zooming back in place. Then we're taken to the text selector, which is a set of tecturemapped cubes. The great thing is that the cubes have two sides, one French and one English, so you can actually select the language you wish to read the text in! The music is also great, so what more can I say? This is one of the best invitations ever - never mind that the party was cancelled at the date mentioned in the intro, and wasn't held until april of 1996! For further irony, it was at that very party that Gengis released his first production for the pc, Impact Studios' "Bomb", cooperating with - yes, you've guessed it - among others Made and Clawz :-) This was almost certainly Gengis' last Amiga production. He was next in Impact Studios (as mentioned) on the pc, before moving on to Oxygene and finally back to Bomb. As for the release date, I found it on a pack where all the other productions were from early .07, so it's a pretty probable date. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Cyberia - ISO Opus 2 (1996, 18.08, AGA 4mb HD Multifile). info: Made contributed graphics to this Scoopex demo, making it a coproduction. See Scoopex' entry for details.  Shaft 7 (1996, 28.12, AGA 4MB HD Multifile Demo) code: Ben, gfx: Titan (logo, gfx), Made (title), Axel (objects), music: "Temple of Sun Remix" by Legend and Yolk (8ch XM format). Winner of The Party 96 demo competition! review: Bomb!'s amiga swansong containted what was perhaps the (upto then) most advanced 3d scenes ever realised on the machine... Beautiful design coupled with fast, great-looking env and bumpmapped objetcs and 3d scenes made this one of the VERY best demos of 1996. Mercifully short, but nevertheless a real powerdemonstration, "S7" is - in my book - the second best demo of 96. What was so special about the demo was perhaps that coder Ben was a total unknown, and to our knowledge never released anything ever again... Made's title picture is a special version of his "Eden 377" (which he came 2nd with in the graphics competition at the same party) with the title of the demo overlaid. Please note that the version reviewed is tagged Revision 2.0, with a few bugs fixed from the competition version. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Bomb Squad ---------- FIN> Baron (trade, doublememb Malice [pc], 03/94), Bright Angel (trade, 03/94), Crime-Z99 (trade, doublememb Alpha Flight, 03/94), Eibon (09/95), Fisu (trade, 03/94), G.O.D (trade, doublememb Alpha Flight, 03/94), Ice-T (trade, 03/94), Leecher (trade, 03/94), ScE (trade, 03/94), Trash (trade, 03/94). ???> Boheme (music, 08/95), Brem (music, 08/95), Mailman (trade, 03/94). Finnish trader Illuminator (03/94) joined Accession. Ultimate Stress (1995, 12.08, 40k Intro). 9th in the Assembly 95 40k intro competition. Bonzai (BNZ, 1994-1994) ----------------------- GER> Cocoon (Stefan Hardt, code swap, ex Savage, old handle Mayday, 03/94), Dahaul (Paul Kraus, music swap, ex Savage, 12/94), MDB (Carsten, sysop 'LOVE LIKE BLOOD' WHQ, ex Savage), Ragman (Mark, gfx, 03/94), Solid (Christian Meyer, swap music, ex Savage, 03/94), Sting (Dirk Dallmann, ascii swap). ???> Mirage (gfx, 12/94). Bonzai was formed by Sting/ex Proline. However, shortly after they were formed Sting left to joined Alcatraz instead. The news of BOTH the birth and death of Bonzai were in Propaganda #4 :). In addition to the 'Gimme Alcohol' demo, they also contributed the only game in the game competition at the Dooms Day 94 party. Fox joined Dominators. German swapper X-Poole got an offer to join Platin, but instead went to Nuance. Love Like Blood (File). Sleepless Nights (1994, 13.03, ECS 40k Intro). code: Cocoon, gfx: Ragman, music: "40k Intro Theme3" Solid (4ch MOD format). Released at The Easter Party 94. review: I'm sorry Bonzai, but this intro just bores me. No redeeming qualities, design flaws, and...well, that tune is just annoying. [glenn] Gimme Alcohol (1994, 09.10, Demo). Contribution for the Doom's Day 94 demo competition. Bonzai Brothers (1995-) ----------------------- GER> Cocoon (ex Vodka), Dr.Avalanche (Rene Kueppers, swap, ex Vodka), Risc (mainorg swap, ex Vodka). After Sting lost control over Alcatraz, he formed BB with most ex members of Alcatraz Germany (ROM #4). Apparently, the Brothers in BB was intentional, to avoid confusion with the PC demo group Bonzai. It didn't help much, though, since in Propaganda #4's news section they're consistently referred to as just Bonzai :) ...Still not sure if this group's the same as the one above, due to some conflicting information. When original organizer Sting left, swapper Risc took over as the new WHQ. Hardy (code) and MBD left the scene late 95. Finnish musician The Hooligan left to be in Fanatic only, late 95. Maxx, Powl (both ex Vodka) and Gonzo all joined Illusion late 95. German swapper Ghandy (ex Rebels, new ROM4) and coder Toaster (ex Vodka) left to join Gods. German swapper and founder Sting (ex Alcatraz) joined Abyss late 95. Bonzai Revival (http://www.bonzai-revival.de) --------------------------------------------- Appears to be a revived version of the good old Bonzai, with old member Sting back again! Boom Design (-1994) ------------------- FIN> Hunter (swap, 08/94), Mehukatti (08/94), Tri-State (swap, 08/94). Boom Design was a subgroup of Pulse, before all the members joined the Pulse breakout group, Avantgarde in late 1994. Hunter rejoined the scene late 1995. Norsu Intro (1994, early, ECS Intro). code/gfx/music: Mehukatti. Convex Hull (1994, 07.08, ECS 40k Intro). 19th in the Assembly 94 40k intro competition. review: Unfortunately, a rather dreadful affair. The only real 'effect' here is a zoomrotator, and we've seen better. Not too interesting. No credits appear anywhere in the intro. [glenn]  GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA. Booze ----- Anarchy Party Demo (1991, .04, ECS Demo). Released at Anarchy Easter Party 91. Borealis (1993-) ---------------- NOR> Felix (swap). Bounty ------ ???> Wild Child, Modemia (swap trade, 10/89). Bounty was a mainly Danish group. 1990 - The group arranged the Bounty Party in august! Wally and others left late 90. Danish coder Gizwiz joined Kefrens. Brainstorm (BRS, 1988-1993) --------------------------- SWI> The Accused (Vermesser Mussler, code editor, ex Setrox, 10/89-08/90), Bird (code, ex Axxis, new 89-06/90), Chester (Andre Schelker, founder gfx, 05/89-08/90), Com (code, 10/89-06/90), E.S.A. (code, 10/89), Fly (code, ex The Perfects, new late90), Grubi (music, 05/89-08/90), Luke (code, 10/89-06/90), Majestic (founder code, 05/89-08/90), Odie (gfx sysop 'CHEESELINE', 10/89-08/90), Oli (gfx, old handle Olivision, 05/89-04/90), Orlando (Orlando Budelacci, code, new 89-08/90), Scattergold (10/89-06/90), Sky (code), Spirit (swi? music, 12/89- 02/90), Taskmaster (swap, new 03-04/90), The Edge (02-04/90), Truxion (gfx, 05/89-08/90). GER> Shadow (swap, 10/89-08/90). DEN> Droid (music). ???> Barrax (ex Extreme), Cobold (swi? 10/89), Extabulator, Mac, Mad Freak (ex Deadlock), Phazer, Scott (swi? music, 90), Top Azz, Voyager. Brainstorm was formed a short while before may 1989 by Chester (gfx) and Majestic (code), and their first release was "Lazer Roll" (05/89). During the summer they recruited more members (like Orlando), and at the end of the summer vacation they were joined by the entire group Axxis. This group had both a Swiss and German section, but the German section was found to be substandard and was forced to leave after a while. Another member, swapper Joker, left the scene soon after. They had by now started planning what would become a legendary diskmag, "Zine". It was originally conceptuated as a cooperation between Brainstorm and another big Swiss group at the time, Setrox, but the latter eventually decided against being part of the project. Due to this, their coder The Accused, who DID believe in the project, left them to join Brainstorm. The first issue was released in october. They were now a totally Swiss group again, except from two members (Shadow, Yankee) in Germany. Sometime between issue 3 [02/90] and 4 [04/90] they decided to kick their German writer Yankee (10/89-02/90) because he wasn't productive enough. He was a freelance writer for D.I.S.C. for a while before finally joining Addonic around 07/90. Also two new members joined, SixPack (old handle Angledust) and Taskmaster, which left them with only one non-Swiss member, Shadow. Swiss members Sixpack (old handle Angeldust, new 03-06/90) and Mr.Frost then left late 90. 1992 - Danish swapper The Pride (ex Flash Productions) left for Sanity around january. A finnish section was opened around january, with Phazer, Extabulator, Hoover, Mac, Top Azz and Voyager as members. The finnish adventure was shortlived however, after Hoover left for Rebels and the section died pretty quickly. After this experience the group decided to have no more foreign members, and went 100% swiss again. 1993 - Brainstorm died in the end of 1993, after some key members - Axel (music, ex The Perfects, new late90), Tin (gfx, new 03/92) and Rob Rose (code, 91) - found some things said in diskmags by Orlando, Chester and Oli stupid. They felt that the name of Brainstorm had been tainted by these interviews, and decided to declare the group dead. So the three members instead started a new group called Brainstorm Productions, with the intention to make a better, more demo-oriented group. Ofcourse, their plans never became what they had imagined, and Brainstorm Productions never released a single thing. Swiss graphician Peace (ex The Perfects, new late90) joined Scoopex late 92/early 93. Metamorphosis (ECS Demo). code: n/a, gfx: Peace, music: Axel. Lazer Roll (1989, .05, ECS Demo). code: Majestic, gfx: Olivision, Chester, Truxton, music: Grubi. Metal Demo (1989, ECS Demo). Sound Disk (1989, ECS Musicdisk). Zine #1 (1989, .10, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, music: "Zine-Sound" by Spirit (4ch MOD format), editor: The Accused, Majestic. review: Another small piece of history... The very first issue of Zine! The first thing that strikes me (having read a couple of the later issues) is how little the layout has changed since that first issue. It's already a nice mag, and probably the very first one on the amiga that scrolled the pages, and not just faded in the next one. There's no extraordinary visuals or anything here, you just enter slap bang right in the middle of the magazine. Editorially there's not much to shout about though, just 48 articles all included, and that includes a ridiculous amount of 'interviews' with more or less interesting scene people. This mag would improve over time, though. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Zine #2 (1989, 10.12, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, Olivision (coop title), music: "Zine- Sound II" by Grubi & Spirit (4ch MOD format), editors: The Accused, Majestic. Released at the Brainstorm/D-Tect party. review: First thing that strikes you is that there's now an "intro" picture of sorts as you load the mag...at least that's what I presume it's supposed to be... I can't see it unscrambled on my machine you see, and caches off and original chipset doesn't help either :( But it doesn't crash and soon the second issue of Zine is staring you in the face. Nothing has changed graphically, the mag looks the same, and almost reads the same. There's still endless "interviews" with standardized questions for unknown groups, but just as in the first issue there's also a few interesting articles. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Zine issue #3 (1990, 07.02, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, Olivision (coop title), music: "Zine- Sound III" by Grubi (4ch MOD format), editors: The Accused, Majestic. review: I still can't see the loader picture, so that is pretty much lost on me, but the mag loads and you can immediately see that graphically it is still the same. It contains about the standard amount of information by now, some 60 articles - and still too many 'interviews'. This issue announced The Accused wasn't going to be working on the next issue since he has to go to the army. New editor from issue #4 would be Orlando. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Megademo (1990, 21.04, ECS Megademo, 2 disks). code: Luke, Bird, gfx: n/a, music: "A.L.II" by Spirit, "Blizzard" and "F.E. Backup1" by Grubi and Spirit, "Jamming", "Loader" by Grubi, "Points of Echo" and "Street" by Scott, "Sparrings" by Spirit. Released at the RSI, AFL and Spectral party 90. Zine #4 (1990, 21.04, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, Oli (coop title), music: "Zine Sound IV" by Spirit (4ch MOD format), editor: Orlando. Released at the Red Sector Inc, Alpha FLight and Spectral party 90. review: Some new blood in the editor chair for this issue, since previous editor The Accused had left for the army, was Orlando. And it seems the change was for the better: They present a mag with more to read than ever, 99 articles this time! Some changes since last time, writer Yankee was kicked, and their proposed party with Alcatraz was cancelled (hence this was not released there, as promised in the last issue). This was also the first issue with a real news section (though news that Shining 8 are dead were WRONG :). This is perhaps the first GOOD issue, as far as the reading goes, and it now comes across as a much more focused effort than the first three issues. The music is NOT good... :) [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Zine #5 (1990, 03.06, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, Oli, music: "White Song II" by Grubi (4ch MOD format), editor: Orlando. Released at the Alcatraz Pentcoast party. review: Again, nothing has changed on the graphical front (perhaps time for a new logo?). But the improved editorial content is carried on, and the news corner is much more extensive than last time. Also the interviews that swamped the first issues of the mag are now more restrained, and with people that are actually halfway interesting to read about! There's a few less articles than last time (72). This was to be Orlando's last issue as editor, as The Accused had returned from his army service. Just one almost priceless anecdote: After announcing rumours that IBM are planning the release of a new home computer with an 80286 processor (possibly even 386 they claim), they deliver this little comment: "That sounds funny, a scene on a IBM-computer!". Oh, and this little newsgem: "Apple wants to produce a homecomputer, too!" [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Zine #6 (1990, 20.08, ECS Multifile Diskmag). code: The Accused, gfx: Chester, music: "Black and White" by Grubi, editor: The Accused. review: The Accused returned, with the first issue to have more than 100 articles. Some changes and improvements to the coding and the graphics had also been performed, all changes to the better. This was the first time (actually, the first time EVER) we saw the bar under the articles that allows us to see how much is left of a given article - now a standard feature in any diskmag. This issue also celebrated the first birthday for the magazine, it was now one year old. Comparing this issue to the first ones, you can certainly say that the mag had matured! This was also another kind of celebratory issue, since last month the mag had finally overtaken Alpha Flight's "Cracker Journal" as the no.1 mag on the scene in the Official Eurocharts! [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Another Dream (1990, .08, ECS Demo). Solid Communication (1990, .01, ECS Demo). Zine issue #8 (1991, 15.01, ECS Diskmag). Zine issue #9 (1991, ECS Diskmag). Zine issue #10 (1991, ECS Diskmag). Sounddisk II - The Best of Grubi (1991, ECS Musicdisk). Blitter Miracle (1991, late, ECS File). code: Rob Rose, gfx: n/a, music: Axel. review: Impressive for a 1991 demo, innovative coder Rob Rose here shows us routines that shouldn't really be possible on the Amigas at the time :) - like texturemapping and an incredibly fast mandelbrot fractal generator. The overall impression is good, and the fact that the texture- mapped cubes don't always look as good as they could, is quite forgiveable when you consider the achievement. The demo runs perhaps a little too fast on my machine, and cuts to the next part at exactly the moment when the credits are about to appear in the scrolltext. Peeking in the executable doesn't help either, since Rob Rose is probably using his own decruncher or something...I certainly couldn't rip it, at least :( Innovative but sometimes slightly boring. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Zine issue #11 (pre 1992, .02, ECS Diskmag). info: Issue 11 was the last issue ever released. The diskmag throne was soon claimed by R.A.W... Musicland (1992 late/1993 early, ECS Musicdisk). code: Rob Rose, gfx: Tin, music: Axel. info: ONLY works with fake fast! Musicland 2 (1993, ECS Musicdisk). code: Rob Rose, gfx: Tin, Peace, music: Axel. Brainstormers, The ------------------ Tune Disk (1989, 01.04, ECS Musicdisk). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: "Metalman-4" by BMD-NAT, "Miguel 03", "Miguel 06", "Miguel 07" and "Miguel 14" by Miguel, "SML29-War", "SML 01", "SML 04", "SML 05 New", "SML 05", "SML 06" and "SML 09 HardVersion" by SML. Brain Wave (1989-) ------------------ FRA> A.Ch (code, 03-06/90), Arrakis (mainorg code, 03/90), Big M, Bytefox (gfx, 03/90), Lecolos (code music, 03/90), Quasar, TIK (gfx, 03/90), Van Gogh (gfx, 03/90). DEN> Krueger (swap, later Kefrens, 03/90), Rain Man. NOR> Shinox (swap pack, late90). GER> EBF (swap), Hijack. ENG> Spellcaster (swap, 03/90. USA> Sergeant Pepper (modem, 03/90). ???> Matthew (ex Savage, new ca 07/90). Brain Wave is french demo group, formed by exmembers of Overgrowth [no entry] and Phoenix in november 1989. 1990 - Towards the middle of the year, some members left to create a French section of North Star. Raistlin was kicked sometime around 03/90. Just For Your Ears (1991, ECS Musicdisk). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: Funschis/Zenith, Maniac. Cooperation with Zenith. Bravo (1994-) ------------- POL> Phantom (founder org gfx, ex Applause), Tolek Banan (ex Applause, new early95). ???> Flowmaster (editor, new early95). Bravo was formed by Phantom/Applause in 1994. Bronx (BNX, 1991-) ------------------ TUR> Astron (Reha Bicer, code, ex Crash), Barbarian, Eugene (raytrace), Gart (swap sysop1 'SPLIT SEVEN' WHQ), Hooligan, Hunter, Jam, Max (music swap, 06/93), Micro (code), MS (code, 93), Pentagram (code, old handle Phobia, 06/93), Sam, Swat (ex Coast), Thunder, Turbo (founder mainorg gfx ascii swap sysop2 'SPLIT SEVEN' WHQ, 93-96), Victory (swap, ex Saints). SWE> DJ Jones (music, 96), Fire (ex Conqerers), Godhead (ex Transfer), Herlikhan (ex Transfer), Malice (code gfx, 06/93-96), Penny (gfx, early94), R2D2 (ex Conqerers), Randy (org, old handle Dot, late94). FIN> Deadbeat (music, ex Zenon, new 93), Kazz (swap, early94), Vortex (ex Paralysis, 93). SPA> Double R (Jose Jordan, swap). DEN> Cruel, Helloween (Jan Nielsen, swap), Shakesbeer. FRA> Dyze (gfx, ex Nihondreamers). USA> BJ (sysop 'MAELSTORM'). ???> Bacteria (ex Crossbones), Codian (gfx, 93), Judge, Minotaur, Nemesis, Ravetronic (new late93), Zorlac (ex Crossbones). Boards; THE BEER BAR (aut). Bronx was born in Turkiye, of all places, after the Zombie Boys changed their name to Bronx in january of 1991. They are probably best known for their oddly named diskmag "Cemetery News" and their controversial packmag "Auschwitz". Their BBS 'THE BEER BAR' appears to have the same phone number as 'FIRE AND ICE' (sys: Imagic/2000 AD, later Sceptic). The Swedish section was reborn late 94, by Randy (old handle Dot). Their swedish graphician Penny is apparently female. News in Miracle's "Eternal #2" that Dot had joined Balance was WRONG. 1992 - Swedish swapper Goose joined DAI mid to late 92. 1993 - Swapper Beast joined Cyborgs early 93. Dr.Mantrix left mid 93. Bloody left mid to late 93. French trader Bombsquad left for Devils late 93. 1994 - Stranger joined Saints late 94. Mix joined Saints. Mazz joined Freezers. All Spanish members of Intense joined Bronx. The German section was kicked. Finnish swapper Zanu (93) joined Accession. Turkish swapper Kickman (ex Centura) joined Miracle. Turkish swapper Vigo left to form his own group 'Coroner'. AGA Dentro (AGA File). code: Micro, Astron, gfx: Turbo, Dyze (japfont), music: Gore/Zenon (main), DJ Jones (end). review: True to tradition, Bronx don't bother with irrelevant things like release dates; the effects suggest this is from the early AGA period, though, 1993 or 94. Who knows? None of the effects are particularly impressive; the best is the shadebob-like dot effect that form patterns; The rest are just block zoomrotators and dot-routines :( [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. Istanbul Style (ECS Slideshow). Split 5+2=? (Intro). code: Malice, gfx: Eugene (raytrace), Malice (font), music: "Watch" by DJ Jones (Tracker Packer 3 format). review: This one-screen (not counting the fadeout spinning logo screen) BBS intro for the 'SPLIT 7' BBS (clever title, then!) comes without any kind of release date. It was uploaded to AmiNet in early 97, but the dates of the files in the archive are september 92... The rendered spinning Bronx logos are nice. The music is a sort of dance/techno hybrid with little variation or originality. Also, some sort of shadebobs variation is active behind the font of the writer. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Faith of Black (1993, ECS File). code: Pentagram, MS, gfx: Turbo, Malice, Codian, music: Max. Portakal (1993, 03.06, ECS Intro). code: Pentagram, gfx: Surf's Rocker/Independent, Malice, music: Max. DJ Jones' Chip Pack #2 (1996, Musicfile). code/gfx: Malice, music: DJ Jones. review: Malice's cool graphics are the main attraction of this small chippack. I'm thoroughly unimpressed by DJ Jones' chiptunes, but then again I'm probably spoiled by all those great THX tunes I've been hearing lately... :) Anyway, get it for the cute gfx. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- note: Font's a little weird... Browbeat (BBT) -------------- FIN> D.N.A (gfx, 05/89), Freddy (code swap, 05/89), Infinity (Juha Kouri, code, 05/89-94), J-Zax (05/89), Mace (swap, 05/89), Ruzzo (swap, 05/89), Splatter (code, 05/89), Zip (swap). Browbeat was a Finnish demo group, a section of the originally c64 group. Finnish coder Infinity is the author of JNet, a transfer program between the Amiga and the Commodore 64. They were accused of spreading the BGS-9 virus for the amiga. Dots of Browbeat (1989, .05, ECS Intro). code: Splatter, Freddy (additional), gfx: D.N.A, music: "Engura" by ???/X- Men (SoundTracker format). review: Well, a croweded screen is presented here at least! At the top, a mediocre Browbeat logo in what is likely supposed to look like metal, is encased on all four sides by beat indicators moving in time with the music. Below this a small scroller moves, also with beat indicators to its left and right, before another bigger scroller occupies the bottom part of the display. The font used here is also made to indicate metal, but does a much better job of it. Behind the entire display at all times a small string of vector plots move, and the sines can be changed by pressing the right mouse button. And that's about it really =) Some of the scrolltext is really childish, and reveal these guys ages to be around 15... Plus some parts are in Finnish, but I don't really feel like I missed anything ;) The music was ripped from X-Men's Party Invitation, which they admit in the scrollers. This was Splatter's first demo on any computer. The intro appears to work perfecly with the use of KillAGA, but still crashes on exit. This intro was found on Horizon's "Rack-Pack #16" pack, released on the 2nd of june 89, plus there is mention one place in the scrolltext that it was written in may of that year, so may is a 100% certain release date. It was likely not released at any party. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review! Brutal ------ FIN> Dna (Antti Liljo, music swap). NOR> Decker. Finnish swapper DNA has placed two ads in the same mag, one as DNA/Brutal and one as DNA/Regency... Bucket (-1997) -------------- ???> Digger (swap), Judas (code), Kordi (code), Necroscope (gfx), NoName (music), PinPong (raytrace), The Soul (code), Zaba (swap). Bucket is a demo group. 1996 - The group released X-Man's 64k intro "Inside" at the Intel Outside 3 party in poland. 1997 - The Soul (code) left the scene late 97, and Bucket died. Inside (1996, 30.08, 64k Intro). code/gfx: X-Man, music: Raze. Released for the Intel Outside 3 64k intro competition. review: Errr.... well, the chiptune is AMAZINGLY annoying and squeaky, but despite that and the lack in design talent =) this actually contains some halfway decent code at least... There is phong objects, mostly, and not the most advanced ones, but there's also a phong space-cut routine that, correct me if I'm wrong, is probably actually a first. [glenn] GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1. Budbrain Productions -------------------- DEN> Diablo (Rene Bidstrup, music), Psycho (code). Budbrain is the brainchild of the two Danish madmen Diablo and Psycho. Their unique style of demos changed the face of scenery forever when they unleased their first Megademo onto an unsuspecting public in 1990...and the second one was also a big success. 1992 - Sonet left to join Vixen in september. Megademo (1990, 29.06, ECS Megademo, 2 disks). Winner of demo competition at the Amiga Conference 90. Megademo II (1990, 26.12, ECS Trackmo). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: Diablo. 2nd in the Dexion party demo competition. Byte Busters (BB) ----------------- GER> Bomber (sysop 'PEARL HARBOUR', ex Scoopex), DMC (sysop 'FULL HOUSE' WHQ), Domestos (swap), Loomex (ex Sceptic), Mac (swap). FIN> Fuzzray, Saxon, Sgt.Pepper (sysop 'PARADOX BBS' EHQ), Silverghost (sysop 'SOLID BALL OF ROCK'). SWE> Uncle Acid (Robert Falk, swap). NOR> Voodoo (ex Zone 7, new mid91). HOL> Cubik (swap), The Mega Bandit (swap, late90). ENG> Rich, K-9, Overide. USA> Illuvatar (sysop 'SPATULA CITY'). ???> Daffy (new 06/92), Twix (ex Pirates, new ca 01/92). Boards; RENDE-VOUZ (swe). Byte Busters was a demo group. 1990 - Necro left late 90. 1991 - Danish musician Z.A.P was a member 90-91, and was later Hille/ Insanity. 1992 - Twix joined from Pirates around january. Mike Dee joined Grace early92. Swedish swapper Zaddo (old handle Amory) left for the new Rebels. Swedish swapper Pace left. German Pearl left the scene. Timeless joined Infect. Mike, sysop of 'STOLEN SLIME II' joined Sceptic. Jordanian Picasso (new mid91) left. Jordanian Eagle (new mid91) joined St.Pauls Crew. Jordanian Mutassem (new mid91) joined Damage Incorporated. Norwegian swapper Viking (ex Blackbirds, new mid91) joined Amaze. Norwegians Dr.Voodoo, Selwyn, Dr.Floyd and Cooper joined Paragon. German swapper Rebel MC (pack 'Beach Pak') joined The Special Brothers. Royal, Hydra, Obelix, Evileye, Sadist, Phobos (swe, ex Exact, new mid91) and TLT were all kicked or left on their own accord. Byte Syndicate -------------- Kreator joined Desire. Byterapers Inc. (http://byterapers.scene.org) --------------------------------------------- FIN> Albert (trade, 03/93), Drifter (gfx, ex Vertigo), Dweezil (new 12/90), Grendel (swap trade, 11/91-03/94), Heatbeat (music, ex Sector 4, later Rebels, new 12/90), Hoffi (03/89, later Bloodsuckers), Judge, Jugi Perfecto (music, later Jugi/Complex, 89), Merit (swap, new 12/90), Raduis (ex SOS, new early90). SWE> Speed-Head (music, 04/89). ???> Clever (music, 04/89), CSA, Dark Young, Extabulator (ex Society [no entry]), Hotshot (music, 04/89), Jonez, JS (ex Dual Crew), Kannibal (ex Skid Row), Polo (music, 04/89), Radish (old handle Rogue, mid92). Byterapers Inc. is a group with tradition; perhaps one of the oldest groups on the entire demoscene! They used to be big on the C64, and I believe many of their Amiga members are originally from the 64. They have lately also been making PC demos with great success! 1990 - Their Australian section was formed late 1990. 1991 - Turtle joined Sonic in september. Finnish sysop Illegal ('BYTE ALLEY') was a member for exactly one day in november, but was kicked because of bad reactions to his board. Whale was kicked. T.O.B joined Damones. Finnish trader and sysop Python ('TYPHOON', 07/91) joined The Silents. Another source claimed he joined Complex. The Australian division; Birdzone (new late90), Mogwai (new late90) and The Control (new late90) all joined Insanity. Muzzax I (ECS Musicdisk). Muzzax II (1989, 24.04, ECS Musicdisk). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: Speedhead, Polo, Clever, Hotshot. info: 12 pieces of music. Muzzax III (ECS Musicdisk). Muzzax IV (1989, ECS Musicdisk). code: n/a, gfx: n/a, music: Pole, Speedhead, Jugi. info: Contains 12 pieces of music. Muzzax #7 (1991, ECS Musicdisk). Bytestar -------- Vixen joined Flash Production. Danes Fox and Spiderman joined Atomic Intelligence.