pouët.net

Emulator report: Gets surprisingly far in PCem. Used machine [8088] AMI XT clone (just find yourself the right BIOS), 640k RAM, CGA. Original resolution if you want to see all the CRTC changes, custom to keep it to one size. Sound stutters a little bit, max buffer size is ideal. Glenz flickers a bit a couple times, and the last effect (wibble) and credits (lake) don't work. Credits music doesn't either. So close, but it wouldn't be an achievement if something didn't break. :) As for DOSBox, if you want to try a configuration that works, good luck to you. But with default CGA machine config, DOSBox is like, nope.

Even though I didn't contribute anything other than "eyeballs" (as VileR put it), I feel a thumb up is still a CoI since I've watched development of this since the beginning. It's been a long time coming, to put it lightly!

Sorry we broke all your emulators again!

That's it. anything else is not expected to work.

There will be a proper direct video for sure. The party capture had to be done quick at 1am, but we'll do a better one as soon as time allows. :)

@Sesse, apperciate the perspective. I guess the intro does go on for a bit - we wanted to account for viewers who aren't super familiar with the hardware, or may not realize the difference from something like 8088mph, etc... but it's true, there's a delicate balance to keep.

Re: emulators, I think a good part of the problem is that PC emulators seem to treat CGA as a subset of VGA, and try to work out resolutions, aspect ratios and refresh rates from register contents. At least DOSBox, PCem and 86box do that. But it's really a fixed-frequency device, like most early home computer video standards. So to emulate it accordingly, you'd render what a monitor would display: a fixed frame size (overscan included), refreshed at 59.92Hz with the active raster sized and positioned within as required.

That would've certainly made it easier to do quick dev tests on emulators. (Certain parts such as the end credits would need a bit more than that though...)

Wait'll you get a load of 8088 MPH. :D

Very impressive demo that kinda alters the perception, it made me quickly forget that it is still running on the humble 8088/CGA, totally feels like a platform of a next generation. Like my friend said, all we knew is a lie, 80286 and EGA were a mistake. Piggie for the music, tho!

Saga Musix: It looks like those parts didn't get finished in time. The Marble part was supposed to keep scrolling and maybe have some group greets in it. And I was wondering when someone would catch the repeating shrine pic. :) One of the two pics will be replaced in the final version. I believe the vertical scrolling picture with the houses will be replaced as well.

Saga: Yes, we were partycoding for 3 months right up until 2am before the deadline. Phoenix is correct on all counts, we ran out of time. Some sync-to-the-music parts are also slightly off.

A final release will definitely come out that ties up all loose ends.

The end credits music engine is different from 8088 MPH - this one is single-channel and synchronized with the raster, for a 15.7 KHz sample rate. Somewhat stricter limitations on combining samples/volume levels, but it leaves much more CPU time available (so more interesting things can be done on screen).

A couple more thoughts..

I don't want to "well, actually.." this demo, but suggesting it would run on a 1981-spec PC 5150 might be a bit of a stretch. The PC was built to be expandable from the start, but according to Wackypedia, the 5150 was sold only with 16K (!) or 64K RAM, expandable to 256K. RGB color CGA monitors (at least from IBM) weren't available until 1983 - until then it was either mono (MDA) or composite color (like 8088 MPH). Also, you couldn't get one with a HD until the 1983 PC XT - though to be fair, this demo was developed to run from a floppy, and apparently the party version can run from two. So, maybe it's more like Area 5160 (XT, which allowed up to the 640K RAM needed for this), but close enough. :)

Also, while I was getting sneak peeks at the effects during development, my thought was, this is going to be like a C64 demo - and I meant that in a good way. The C64 demoscene has matured to the point where loading times and graphics modes aren't often a consideration anymore - those limits have been explored. That allows more focus on the artwork, the design, and the music. While there were still limits to be broken and tricks to be discovered for the 8088 while developing Area 5150, the artwork and transitions while loading played a major part. Mindblowing effects and new records are great, but so is a demo pleasing enough to the eyes and ears that you don't have to worry as much about new records or new effects anymore. In this case, a bit of both is cool too. :)

(oh, and for PCem, Generic XT clone works about the same as AMI XT, and you can download the BIOS ROM from the PCem page, so that might be an easier route)

@phoenix: yeah, the average 5150 as initially sold by IBM wouldn't be able to run it out of the box. Then again... the 256K limit was only for motherboard RAM; both IBM and others sold memory expansion cards (and that expansion RAM ran at the same speed). Similarly there were third party HDD units for the 5150, and RGBI monitors (e.g. Amdek and Princeton), before 1983. Thanks to IBM's open architecture approach it was rare for people to keep their machines "purely" IBM, even before the actual clones appeared. But then that has always differentiated the PC from most other demo platforms I suppose.

Floppy storage is a bit of a different story, since the first drives available were single-sided, and DOS 1.0 supported only 8 sectors per track, so the initial standard was 160K per disk... double sided drives and 9 sectors per track came a little later (1982?), and that's when 360K became the baseline. But yeah, "official" floppy support is a matter for the final version :)

...whoops, didn't mean to slip a self-upvote in there. :(

Direct hardware video capture is now available, see new youtube link @ top.

Here's something we were going to include with the party release, but forgot about it: a ROM font comparison test.

The graphics rely on the contents of IBM's character ROM - many non-IBM CGA boards have the exact same 8x8 font as the original, but that's not always the case. This will let you find out visually, without having to dump and compare: https://github.com/viler-int10h/CGA-font-compare.