''Psychedelia'' is an early light synthesizer developed by

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 ...

and published by Llamasoft in 1984. It was converted to the

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, the director at ASCII Corpo ...

and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

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 Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of ...

'', ''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 In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

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 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small ...

assembler 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 bet ...

, fitting into about 1

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage, digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix ''kilo-, kilo'' as a multiplication factor of 1000 (103); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000&nbs ...

. Running the code for the first time had a profound effect on Minter: "It just felt wonderfully new, and somehow primal... it was like the patterns and

mandala A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid ...

s that have fascinated humans for millennia, but come to life, under your control..." Originally, Minter intended the algorithm to be public domain and contributed an early version in listing form to a computer magazine. After encouragement from his parents, Minter eventually released an expanded version commercially as ''Psychedelia''. He continued to develop the light synthesizer concept, designing ''Colourspace'' (1985), ''

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 rele ...

'' (1987), '' Virtual Light Machine'' (1990, 1994, 2000 and an unreleased version in 2003) and ''

'' (2004). ''Psychedelia'', along with other older Llamasoft programs, has since become

public domain software Public-domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words, software for which there is absolutely no ownership such as copyright, trademark, or patent. Software in the public domain can be modified, distributed, ...

. Later the author released a variant for

Pebble A pebble is a clastic rocks, clast of rock (geology), rock with a grain size, particle size of based on the Particle size (grain size), Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than Granule (geology), gra ...

devices.

Critical reception

On its release ''Psychedelia'' received mixed reviews. ''

Your Spectrum ''Your Sinclair'', originally ''Your Spectrum'' or ''YS'', is a discontinued British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was commercially published between 1984 and 1993. History The magazine was la ...

'' criticized the concept of a light synthesizer, describing ''Psychedelia'' as boring and awarding an average of 2/5. ''

Sinclair User The ''Sinclair User'' was a magazine dedicated to the Sinclair Research range of home computers, most specifically the ZX Spectrum (while also occasionally covering arcade games). Initially published by ECC Publications, and later EMAP, it was pub ...

'' also only awarded 2 out of 5, finding the concept interesting but concluding that the games-buying public was the wrong demographic for this kind of software. In contrast, '' CRASH'' found the package great fun to play around with, describing the effects as fantastic, but criticizing the retail price and narrow appeal. The magazine featured ''Psychedelia'' on their October 1991 covertape.

External links

Official site
at Llamasoft
Disassembled source code for Psychedelia on the C64
at GitHub

References

{{Jeff Minter 1984 software Music visualization software Llamasoft software Assembly language software Public-domain software

Usage

History

Critical reception

See also

External links

References