Promised Land Commodore Plus4 Demo 50FPS

[@daren42]

what a beautiful palette the plus/4 has

[@denip5527]

Such an amazing demo! Blown away by the playing with the range of colors this machine has. You really created something very beautiful!

[@ecernosoft3096]

When Commodore finally took some notes from atari:

[@mikelee9149]

Its amazing just how good the Plus 4 is, a great Demo.

[@exidy-yt]

Whoa, I am blown away! Those ball and plane effects are astounding and would have given the classic Amiga 'boing' ball demo a run for the money had they come out at the same time, and on such limited hardware! Great work. Who knew the plus 4 would have been capable of this?

[@MMSZoli]

Wow, all those COLORS! I was really blown away on the party. Fantastic product!

[@brostenen]

And little did they knew at Commodore, that this would even be possible. Amazing result for the machines limitations.

[@funkydude74]

Would have turned heads if this was playing at the 1983 CES. :)

[@brostenen]

@@funkydude74 Yup... Competitors would have pissed their pants.

[@ponocni1]

It blows me away, that you did it without any hardware sprites.

[@brennocks]

I had a plus 4 when I was a kid I learnt to program in Basic on it when I was 10 and 11 years old. I had a c16 then got a plus 4 when I was 11 because it was cheap. It's amazing seeing what it is capable of this would habe blew my mind back then. It did have some advantages over the c64 there were some really good games - if something like this demo existed back then it might have inspired some really cool stuff. I'm not surprised graphically that this sort of thing was possible - but the sound!!!! wtf. Thats also some real talant. I'm sitting here going Wow. Like I'm sure a clever c64 programmer could do something cool - but it just didn't have the colour pallette. It was a cool machine and Ive watched some videos of the games that existed back then that I never knew existed or couldn't afford. There was always more c64 stuff in the shops bu there was still a lot of c16 stuff I couldn't buy or play. Most of ,y friends had c64 and would "exchange" games and I couldn't be part of that. So I missed out not just on all the c64 stuff but also tje opportunity of sharing games with all my mates with TED computers since most of my friends had c64's instead. But I was one of the first to get an Amiga which changed everything. But what a missed opportunity the TED's could have been more awesome rather than "the shitty alternative".

[@earthwalker007]

Absolutely pure genius ❤

[@BikeNutt1970]

Great demo. Thanks 👍

[@imbezol]

Insane that this is all possible!!

[@carminone]

Wow, this is beyond spectacular.

[@harrydigital9073]

Super awesome, that was my first computer back then...

[@AllGamingStarred]

i'd expect this on the 32x but not the Commodore plus 4. swell job

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

So demo arranges 16x16 chars to fix the weird memory addressing on C64, plus4 bitmap mode? And then lots of CPU power. I think there is one line interrupt to switch between text and graphics. Like graphics 3 in BASIC. 6502 is so fast! I like that this demo shows of 3 pages of colorful graphic animations. And only minimal if any prerendered graphics from PC, great! Trailblazer is a game from plus4. I wonder if we could at least include one obvious effect like this in every plus4 demo? Though I wonder if there is some cycle perfect bad line trigger code at kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJ6nfZtpgtKipbs

[@williammanganaro9070]

Love this gritty demo !!

[@uctumi]

How did you achieve that great SID-like sound? does it come from plus/4 natively or does it have some external SID chip added?

[@lavinagotu5934]

It's SIDCARD. Common practice for C+4 demos for decades now.

[@valley_robot]

Way too many voices for a +4 , nothing sounded like this on the +4 , this just sounds like c64 music because it is

[@mityaboy4639]

Just thinking about how Commodore dropped the ball with these machines. Just imagine if they were not managed by such id**ts, we might have Commodore computers today. But they were dead set on shipping incompatible devices rather than growing the tech they had. (Yes, there are some basics in place like the 6502 cpu and variants of it, and the C16/116/plus4 being almost identical)... but they were focused on 'we need a computer on *that* market/pricerange' rather than building up a family of better and better devices. Like the C128 could have been a much more powerful C64 and the C64 could have been slided back on the pricerange... instead the C128 was trying to do something it should not have tried at that point anyway. (CP/M?) These demos are amazing because they show how much potential the Commodore machines had even without specialised architecture (like what you find in an Amiga or Atari) Kudos to the people doing the Plus4 demo - I always loved the C16/Plus4 range better anyway :) Alright back to x86 land...

[@januszlepionko]

Compare tech specs and prizes of the first Macintosh and the Apple ][GS which were on the market in the very same time.

[@robwebnoid5763]

Bil Herd said the C-128 was really just a Frankenstein machine meant to fill the C-64 upward compatibility space that the Plus4 family did not fill the previous year. It was a rough year in 1984 due to the computer competition wars. Commodore only targeted the C-128 to survive 1 year on the assembly line, but it actually got public demand for 5 years, so that was a nice surprise & revenue. CP/M was just a last minute added bonus due to the Z80. Yes, CP/M sucked on the C-128 because internal timings made it twice as slow as a Z80 on another platform, but again it was just added last minute for people to try. I think with the Plus4/TED/C16 family of machines, they made too many variations. This black-colored family of computers were really meant to fill the really low budget niche to compete with the Timex Sinclair 1000 / ZX81, but when Tramiel quit, I think this C16/TED family should have died with him, or at least just make 1 or 2 versions. Instead, management/marketing made too many versions, because Tramiel wasn't there anymore to guide them, as quickly & eventually the Timex Sinclair 1000 became a bust anyway, as it was way too simple of a computer to do anything really useful. Memotek did make addons for the TS1000 but you still had a basic computer that could not do much compared to other 8-bits at the time. Had Commodore not made these Plus4 family, I think they may have focused on other computer models one year in advance & that could have done something better & then Commodore could have possibly lived at least one more year beyond 1994. But that is all hindsight now. Technological progress & the Intel/IBM computer was already around the corner ready to kill off all 8-bit computers anyway, along with Apple's progress, especially when they were cheaper than Amigas & there were more PC brand names to choose from. Today we have many new 8-bit computers being made, including the Commander X16, Foenix, Agon Light, etc, as well as new C-64 copycat PCB's you could build yourself. I still have all my C-64 stuff, including my Schnedler CPU accelerator that I bought in 1990 that made my C-64 blaze 4 times faster nearly a decade before CMD made their own accelerators for the C64/128.

[@mityaboy4639]

@@robwebnoid5763 I will say the blasphemous thing: Tramiel was equally guilty killing Commodore and it did not start with his departure either. He was presiding over the C16/TED family design and positioning. He was there to make totally incompatible peripherals for the new computers (joysticks, dataset… etc) the fact that no one commodore could take on other commodore’s programs was digging the grave for the product from early on. The idea was : grab as much cash as possible through upsell (peripherals) and milk it dry. thats no vision for future survival. Where intel (and ibm and then the clones) succeeded is that you were able to move your code up to the next generation with little to no problems and just take advantage of the faster better hardware. the performance also was a disaster if we are honest about this. up until the c128 cpu speed was down on the 1mhz range and while all of them were 6502s in their hearts … the thing needed more power or at least offloading the work to other components with the sole exception of the SID commodore remained on the CPU will do it for costcutting reasons. Which is charming and fits with how things were in the past… but just shown no future vision… so even before he left Commodore… things were just going inone direction: extinction i will add that Atari and Amiga also went down the drains despite having superior hardware… but they too lacked the compatibility aspect of new generations and they only started to address it too late in the game when intel based PCs started to pull away i know it’s captain hindsight territory, but the point is; its not Termiel’s lack of presence what killed Commodore. if it were… we would still have Atari where he went after Commodore. but we dont have that either. the c128 is a franken machine… but it was just the continuation of previous errors and some signs of recognition of those faults… but too little too late. and i for one would be happy if intel and ibm did not won that “war”

[@1337Shockwav3]

"without specialized architecture" you're aware that the SID and VIC-II are specialized? Just like the TED (and SID) used here. If you take those away you'd basically get a machine along the lines of an Oric Atmos, which is basically a 6502 based ZX Spectrum when it comes to capabilities. The C128 was just silly - CP/M mode severely crippled and the additional features not exactly accessible to the Commodore (64) side.

[@Kai-zl7cd]

Awesome!

[@zonenknautsch]

fantastic. what else is there to say?

[@dbranconnier1977]

Impressive demo!

[@Ama-hi5kn]

Is there is a pure Plus/4 demo with no SID card out there?

[@lavinagotu5934]

Sure, look for Bauknecht and TEK products, like Rocket Science, States United

[@MrMarianoamigo]

Music on the SID? Ah, ok with SID. Did the stronger CPU helped?

[@lavinagotu5934]

You mean slightly stronger than C64 CPU? Well, not much of a difference... I prefer programming the Plus4 because of the TED chip over the VIC II.

[@GoWithAndy-cp8tz]

can I hear SID onboard?

[@lavinagotu5934]

Yes, SID card

[@willb6862]

Is this SID modified Plus4?

[@lavinagotu5934]

Yes

[@willb6862]

@@lavinagotu5934 If commodore only made it with stereo SID and left chip sprite calculation and of course left prototype name 264/364 that would be the best 8 bit ever ... But as we know management (suit and ties + profit) always destroys creativity...

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@willb6862these computers were an exercise in cost reduction. Two SID chips sound very expensive. Yeah, two player sprites would have been nice. Infinite height. 3 individual colors for each. Could TED be two chips? One slow part runs at 1.8 MHz and stores the bad lines and manages everything vertical. The fast part runs at 7.2 MHz, accepts the crystal clock, creates color clock and pixel clock. Counts for PWM of the sound square waves. Draws sprites and scrolls smoothly in horizontal direction. Connection: 8bit at 1.8 MHz. If we want to save pins: Double Data Rate !! I feel like the slow chip should handle the msb of smooth scrolling. With DDR even the top 2 bits . Only lsb on the fast chip. Likewise the slow bits of the sprite counter “character” could use two pins to trigger the fast counter . Screen border.

[@buklau8782]

4:30 timestamp

[@dryb0nes-gmd]

i enjoy

[@thewelder3538]

This is probably technical wizardry, but there could have been so much more work done on the pacing. It's a struggle to sit through it, unfortunately.

[@lavinagotu5934]

yes, you are right, this demo was made for the hardcore fans of this platform.

[@thewelder3538]

@@lavinagotu5934 Yeah I made many demos for the Amiga, some of which you can find here, but I didn't own a C64 or other Commodore machine, I had a BBC Micro. Way Too Rude on the Amiga was a great demo by a good friend of mine.

[@DanyWildTV]

dope

[@MarkusBurgstaller1508]

A really cool demo with really nice effects! Can i ask you on how you created the source data for the colorcycling at 17:20? Did you calc it via something like magnetic forces between the to points?

[@jesperjohnsen5336]

💪

[@PipiRoe]

GODS RULE FOREVER

[@lavinagotu5934]

;-)

[@jakubkrcma]

It is a shame the Plus/4 didn't have HW sprites.

[@lavinagotu5934]

We made up for it with SW sprites... Check out Wizard of Wor or Impossible Mission Plus4 versions ;-) In return we have 121 colors instead of 16 for the C64 :)

[@jakubkrcma]

@@lavinagotu5934 Yes, there were ways to go around the limitations. Like multiplexing of the basic 8 sprites on C64...

[@ThePierrezx]

Awesome...