Label

Gar Nix - An Atari 2600 VCS Demo


Release: Nordlicht 2022, 4th place in 512 bytes compo.


View in emulator running in web-browser: Stellerator (PAL), Stellerator (NTSC)


Downloads


Credits

SvOlli:
code, music

Instructions

Just load, lean back and enjoy. A version with a menu is included: you can choose between the PAL and NTSC version. The NTSC version has 20% faster music and is only a rough port with number of lines and colors adjusted. The menu runs on 60Hz with coloring that works with both PAL and NTSC.

The online version does not feature the menu, but only different versions for PAL and NTSC.

Note: This demo is not SuperCharger compatible, since the SuperCharger does not support CommaVid RAM. A separate SuperCharger version is included inside the archive. This version will break the 512 bytes limit, though: the PAL version is about 572 bytes, not counting the padding and tape header.

This package includes:

Also, this is paying homage to JAC! and his demo Nothing, taking his idea and trying to squash it down from 4k to ½k while still adding a single improvement (displaying text over the raster splits). Hope you like it, pal! About the name: if someone asks me, if I have any entry in a competition, I can state "Gar nix" (which means "absolutly nothing") without lying. JAC! did the same with "Nothing".

Also a short tech note: 107 of the 128 bytes of the RAM in the Atari 2600, are used for executing code. While it would be possible to run the code from the CommaVid RAM in the cartridge, the addressing would have costed an extra byte for each access. Expensive, if you've got only 512 bytes of ROM.


Discussion


Screenshots

ScreenshotScreenshot
Mainpage Valid CSS Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional