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Trip-a-Tron
Trip-a-Tron is a light synthesizer written by Jeff Minter and published through his Llamasoft company in 1988. It was originally written for the Atari ST and later ported to the Amiga in 1990 by Andy Fowler. Description Trip-A-Tron was released as shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ..., but came in a commercial package with a 3-ring-bound manual and 2 game disks. The trial version contained no limitations, but registration was necessary to obtain the manual, which in turn was essential to learn the script language ("KML" - supposedly "Keyboard Macro Language" and only coincidentally the phonetic equivalent of "camel"), which drove the system. The software has a usable but quirky user interface, filled with in-jokes and references to Llamasoft mascots. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeff Minter
Jeff Minter (born 22 April 1962) is an English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 1981 with games for the ZX80. Minter's games are shoot 'em ups which contain titular or in-game references demonstrating his fondness of ruminants (llamas, sheep, camels, etc.). Many of his programs also feature something of a psychedelic element, as in some of the earliest "light synthesizer" programs including '' Trip-a-Tron''. Minter's works include the music visualisation program ''Neon'' (2004) which is built into the Xbox 360 console, and the video games ''Gridrunner'', ''Attack of the Mutant Camels'', ''Tempest 2000'', and ''Polybius''. Game development career Pre-commercial career (early years) Minter began programming computers at a young age. He wrote the game ''Deflex'' for the Commodore PET in 1979. However it would not be until a long il ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychedelia (light Synthesizer)
''Psychedelia'' is an early light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter and published by Llamasoft in 1984. It was converted to the MSX and ZX Spectrum by Simon Freeman. Usage ''Psychedelia'' allowed a user to generate a light show on the screen grid, using the joystick to send pulses or bursts of coloured squares. There are various preset settings, or the user can manually set the variables controlling the pulses. Patterns can be recorded to memory or tape for later playback. Unlike Minter's later synthesizers such as ''Neon'', ''Psychedelia'' does not use audio as a factor, only using a joystick's input. It is, however, intended to be played in accompaniment to music. History Minter had been considering "dynamic interactive pattern generators" but hadn't coded any previously. An idea for an algorithm came to him, in which patterns would be seeded along a path, which would then expand and change shape and colour over time. He coded it in 6502 assembler language, fitting into a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Synthesizer
Music visualization or music visualisation, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music. The imagery is usually generated and rendered in real time and in a way synchronized with the music as it is played. Visualization techniques range from simple ones (e.g., a simulation of an oscilloscope display) to elaborate ones, which often include a number of composited effects. The changes in the music's loudness and frequency spectrum are among the properties used as input to the visualization. Effective music visualization aims to attain a high degree of visual correlation between a musical track's spectral characteristics such as frequency and amplitude and the objects or components of the visual image being rendered and displayed. Definition Music visualization can be defined, in contrast to previous existing pre-generated music plus visualization combinations (as for example music videos), by its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Light Machine
The Virtual Light Machine (VLM) is a light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter in 1990. It was installed into a number of electronics, including the Atari Jaguar CD and Nuon DVD players. The Virtual Light Machine is similar to what would later be seen in music visualizations included with Winamp and other Media players. When an audio CD is put into a VLM compatible device, the VLM loads, manifesting visualizations which appear on the screen that change with the music. The VLM is set apart from simple music visualizers by an interactive mode that allows users to manipulate graphics generation on the fly. VLM versions Three versions of the VLM software were released. VLM-1 is the version installed and developed for the Atari Jaguar CD. Nuon players featured version VLM-2. VLM-3 was to be the basis of the video game ''Unity'', which was in turn upgraded to form the basis of the Neon light synthesizer, utilized in the Xbox 360 and Minter's '' Space Giraffe''. A prototype dubbed VLM-0 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neon (light Synthesizer)
Neon is a light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter ('Yak') and Ivan Zorzin ('Giles'). It was based on an enhanced version of the graphics engine originally to be included in ''Unity'', which became an independent project after Unity was cancelled in 2004. A version of Neon is used as the default visualiser for the Xbox 360. The authors have retained the rights to implement the software on other platforms and contexts (a Microsoft Windows version was due in 2006 but the release has been hampered by rights issues). The Xbox 360 version, implemented into the media player and activated whenever music is played, is actually the "First Wave" of Neon. Up to four people can control it with the same number of gamepads, or it can be run autonomously via the "v-crew" code. Jeff Minter's '' Space Giraffe'' uses the Neon engine, as does Llamasoft's subsequent games ''Gridrunner Revolution ''Gridrunner Revolution'' is an action game developed by Llamasoft for Windows. It was release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assembly Language
In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence between the instructions in the language and the architecture's machine code instructions. Assembly language usually has one statement per machine instruction (1:1), but constants, comments, assembler directives, symbolic labels of, e.g., memory locations, registers, and macros are generally also supported. The first assembly code in which a language is used to represent machine code instructions is found in Kathleen and Andrew Donald Booth's 1947 work, ''Coding for A.R.C.''. Assembly code is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an '' assembler''. The term "assembler" is generally attributed to Wilkes, Wheeler and Gill in their 1951 book '' The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Dig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari ST
Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available in July. It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface, using a version of Digital Research's GEM (desktop environment), GEM environment from February 1985. The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with Megabyte, 1 MB of memory, was the first home computer with a cost per kilobyte of RAM under US$1/KB. After Jack Tramiel purchased the assets of the Atari, Inc. consumer division in 1984 to create Atari Corporation, the 520ST was designed in five months by a small team led by Shiraz Shivji. Alongside the Mac (computer), Macintosh, Amiga, Apple IIGS and Acorn Archimedes, the ST is part of a mid-1980s generation of computers with 16 or 16/32-bit processors, 256 kilobyte, KB or more of RAM, and computer m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-bit or 16/32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. These include the Atari ST as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. The Amiga differs from its contemporaries through custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites, a blitter, and four channels of sample-based audio. It runs a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS, with a desktop environment called Workbench. The Amiga 1000, based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was released in July 1985. Production problems kept it from becoming widely available until early 1986. While early advertisements cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
