Hi there, and thanks for all the nice comments about this production!
First, thanks to kieranhj for the excellent screen capture.
Here follows some comments on how it mas made:
While TRSE enabled me to create this demo, I also *made* TRSE, so uhm how much combined hard work went into the entire production is difficult to say.
While I *do* own a BBC - the very same my dad bought in 1985 and I learned how to code for (one of the reasons why I wanted to create this demo) - the computer hasn't been able to turn on for about 20 years. I therefore had no idea whether it would work on real HW.
I'm also quite impatient and not very good at reading documentation, which is why I usually learn about new (read:old) computer systems by simply brute-forcing through stuff : where is the screen memory located, what is the system memory layout, graphics layout, register addresses etc. Since I have compiler/codegen support for most of these old CPUs (6502, Z80, X86, GBZ80, M68K etc) in TRSE already, I usually proceed by implementing system-specific libraries in TRSE while experimenting with creating new tutorials / example files / demo effects.
Sometimes, these tutorials will grow into a demo. Happened on the CPC (see "Mørketid"), VIC-20 ("Purple Planet Yo"), Gameboy ("Yo-grl"), C64 ("1981","Aroused") etc. I'm also working on demos for the Atari ST, Amiga, DOS(386), VZ200, SNES etc. In the case of the BBC, I simply extended the built-in ray tracer in TRSE to output BBC-style 4-color graphics (compressed "BEEP" logo, fade-outs), managed to set up a disk loader system and voilà - a demo was born. Don't think I spent more than 3 weeks creating this, as most of the effects are stuff I already had implemented in other systems in TRSE (3d engine is generic on all 6502 platforms in TRSE, just need a line renderer).. 3d-stuff is pre-rendered graphics, most of Optic's graphics are C64/A500-conversions done with TRSE.
Needless to say, I'm no expert on the BBC - hardware tricks and hacking mastery is not something I usually spend much time on - and since I didn't have any working BBC to test on, I actually had no idea whether the demo would work on real HW or not. I used the "b2" emulator for testing, but again - didn't even know if the disk loading routine would work on proper hardware / the timing with the music would be screwed.
I hope that I'll find time to return to the BBC again to create something more .. eloquent in the future, but you never know. I tend to jump from one system to the next, learning what I can (and hopefully releasing a demo) before moving on to the next one. Until now, the only computer that I've seemed to return to (in terms of releasing demos) is the C64 - but there are *so many other* interesting old computers out there as well!
If anybody is interested, the entire source code + resources of the demo is now included with TRSE as a sample project. You compile the entire project with the click of a button, then run the disk with ctrl+R!
For those who are interested in watching more of my stuff, check out my yt channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEoez- ... 4WdJtwLC_A
Learn how to code for TRSE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWCy9zo ... uK8uvjcJia
Playlist of some demos that I've made :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnAoYDj ... PyZx1HMaCu
Nicolaas (Leuat/Proxima)
