DEmos and Animations

The 8-bit Shack developers create software that demonstrates the many capabilities of the 8-bit architecture that include humorous and holidays based animations, 3D tools, and screen savers. Many packages were written with a simple goal of “can it be done?!” Click on “More Information” button to learn how it was achieved and how you can replicate it in your own environment.

Halloween 2024 Demo

A fantastic 8-bit animated rendition of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining! With the spooky music to top of the famous scenes with the tricycle, axe through the door, and the twins! Download and get chilled!

Christmas 2024 Demo

In a stereotypical Christmas, the temperature is cold and their is snow on the ground — but where else is that a thing? A penguin playground! Check out the latest playful animation of penguins goofing around and dancing.

PLENTY OF FISH (FISH TANK)

Plenty of Fish (Fish Tank) is a Lores demo using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system to make a scrolling fish tank with fish swimming around. Use it as a screensaver or just marvel in its capabilities. Enjoy!

Gothic art

a collection of Hires scenes drawn on 816 paint which use page flipping to create smooth animation. Dan was going to use them in an adventure game but in the end they were too good not to publish on their own.

New Year 2019 Demo

A story about the adventures of Lord Edward of Wellington and his friend/adversary Lord Adlington. Written by Daniel Henderson and Sellam Abraham using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system.

Summer Demo 2022

Star Wars goes to Ibiza this year's summer. Enjoy this Star Wars themed Lores animation which was published in summer 2022.

Halloween 2021

Scary Halloween demo published in 2021 using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system and Midi2Mock by Tom Porter to bring in the Michael Jacksons Thriller song.

Halloween 2020 Demo

A series of pixel art Scary pictures with some very spooky music. Enjoy! Written by Daniel Henderson using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system.

Christmas 2020 Demo

It's Star Trek meets the 1980's with some funny dialogue. Written by Daniel Henderson and Sellam Abraham using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system.

Christmas 2019 Demo

Another adventure starring Lord Edward of Wellington. starring in a nativity story. Written by Daniel Henderson and Sellam Abraham using Sellam Abraham's GReasy system.

Christmas 2022 Demo

A medieval short movie that was the first Double LORES Christmas demo using the FFEdit package with FrameAnim and a PT3-player for playing a MockingBoard soundtrack.

Christmas 2019 Demo

Apple ][ Christmas Demo uses 40 column text mode and HIRES graphics with MockingBoard sound. Featuring some text mode tricks and HIRES graphics animation with an animated Santa Claus with his reindeer sleigh; random background image generation (mountains & trees); and loads of snow with snowfall state machine (particle simulator). See the technical write-up here.
Banana Vision

Banana Vision

What is better than a dancing banana on a mock-up of the Apple ][ computer. Join in the on the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dance, unfortunately you will have to provide your own music! Written by Daniel Henderson as a homage to the original AppleVision from the DOS 3.3 system disk. The picture of the Apple II was done with 816 paint in Hires mode and shape tables were used to make the Banana dance.

XMAS 2020 - particle simulation

This Demo is just a small feasibility study connecting the DOLORes library with a PT3-file audio player and a particle simulation state machine and some timed automation in order to create a self-running demo of a Galton's Board simulation in double LORES on an Apple //e (128kB or better @1MHz).

  • Animation of 102 particles following a graviational force

  • Pseudo random number generation for movement direction decision of each particle

  • Automatic gravitational force reverse every ten seconds

  • User interaction possible

  • Music playback via a MockingBoard (or compatible sound card)*

Fire DEMO

Proof of concept of an Apple //e double LORES demo showing an old school FIRE-effect with underlying animated banner and PT3-music output via a MockingBoard running on a 65C02 CPU @1 MHz. The demo shows a well-known foreground fire simulation which is used as a dynamic mask to partially cover an underlying banner which position and colouring is also animated. This little demo should provide some learning insights on how to develop fast double LORES algorithms outside the DOLORES-library in that complicated framework of Apple //e bank switched memory layout (neighbouring pixels are located in different memory banks).

  • Animation of 512 pixels with a FIRE-effect in the foreground

  • Pseudo random number generation for fire generation

  • Using the simulated fire as a mask for an animated logo in the background

  • User interaction possible

  • Music playback via a MockingBoard (or compatible sound card)

TWISTER DEMO

TWISTER is an old-school demo effect showing an overlay of different sinus waves which gives the impression of a winding spiral in 3D. The task was to implement that effect on a standard Apple II with 48k RAM @1MHz CPU speed.

LENS Demo

Proof of concept of an Apple //e double LORES demo showing an old school LENS-effect with underlying background image and PT3-music output via a MockingBoard running on a 65C02 CPU @1 MHz. The demo shows a well-known lens simulation which is used as a dynamic mask to partially cover an underlying background image. This little demo should provide some insights into how to implement these demo effects using the DOLORES-library in the complicated framework of Apple //e bank switched memory layout (neighboring pixels are located in different memory banks).

  • Animation of a 13 x 13 pixel lens

  • Fixed pre-calculated distortion matrix

  • Lens X/Y-trajectory for automated lens movement

  • User interaction possible

  • Music playback via a Mockingboard (or compatible sound card)

XMAS 2018 Demo

This little demo shows a rotozoomer in LORES written in 6502-assembly language. The frame rate is about 13,7 fps.

  • A rotozoomer is an already well-known old-school demo effect. However, I was interested to implement a version for the Apple ][ LORES-mode in order to see how fast (regarding to fps) and compact I can get the code.

  • A good description about the underlying maths of a rotozoomer can be found here.

  • In my approach of the rotozoomer I do the needed trigonometric calculus (linear transformation) for each frame only for three coordinates ((0,0), (1,0), (0,1)) of the texture and calculate the corresponding deltas before I draw the frame. The deltas in x- and y-direction are then only summed up when iterating through the complete LORES-screen.

  • Preparing a new frame needs 24 multiplications (3 * 8) for the three rotated points in order to determine the required deltas. This results in 7911 cycles/frame (around 8 ms) for the whole trigonometric calculus! *

3D STARFIELD DEMO

Simulating starfields is an essential problem in space action game development. Most shooter games feature a simple 2D-starfield where stars are moving in a single direction as a side scroller to simulate the flight of a spaceship.

In this demo, we show off a much more sophisticated 3D-starfield that has the appearance of coming right at you, or coming at you and spinning. There is also the ability for the stars to leave a trace behind .. which can generate interesting patterns that look like out Milky way galaxy.

3D - Geometric Shape Demo

XMAS 2018 Demo

The following source code resembles V.1.61 of the 3D-Demo from May 2017 and gives all the necessary insights in basic 3D-algorithm design back in the days,

Following versions of the demo kept the basic calculation routines and just got some new features concerning object data handling and soundtrack playback.

More information available on this Github repository here.