# La scène Atari polonaise et le groupe Cobra

## (Polish ATARI scene and Cobra crew)

By Eros/Cobra

[NdTB : voici un article entièrement en anglais, écrit par un atariste polonais. Il parle de la scène Atari en Pologne ainsi que du groupe polonais Cobra. Le texte étant très facile à comprendre, je n'ai pas voulu le traduire.]

### 1. Atari XE/XL scene

This computer has microprocessor 6502 by MOS Technology. New models of this computer (from second half of the '80) have 65c02 processor. It has some new instructions. Standard processor can address 64kb of RAM memory but other version of this computer (130 XE) has 128kb RAM. Second 64kb RAM is separated on 4 blocks, 16kb each. Atari 130 XE - it was last model from XE/XL series. But people from the scene took matters in own hands. They made memory extensions to 128kb for 800 XL and 65 XE, and to 192kb for Atari 130 XE. Then people made RAM extensions to 256kb and to 312kb. Today we have RAM extensions to 1MB (wow!!!) and propably it isn't the end. For example one member of our group - Macgyver, he has 64kb of standard RAM and 1024kb of extension memory. Memory like this let us for watching GIFs, BMPs and amiga's IFFs in 16 colours (interlaced). But it's not all. We have special graphics format (and viewer, of course) called HIP and this let us for watching gfx in 32 colours, it's not so bad as for 8-bit computer. If you have a great number of memory, you can listen to 4channel MODs (from ST or Amiga) with frequency about 8 kHz, and with 10 kHz and 8-bit samples on computer with digital-analog converters (COVOX). But is't not all, of couse you can fit up second sound chip - POKEY and you will have 8 channel stereo sound for synthetic sounds. Both, COVOX and Stereo upgrade are very popular on our scene. Few words about graphics. So, Atari XE/XL has gfx-chip 'ANTIC'. This is something like amiga's cooper. About FDD and HDD. The standard is diskfloppies (360kb) but in Poland are produced floppies 720kb. More, you can connect hard disks by special interface.

Now about scene...

On our XE/XL scene there are about 20 crews and about 200 people. 1st real brainblasting demo was made for QuaST Party '96. Group Shadows showed us their 'Asskicker' demo. What the effects ? Well, zoomrotators, textured cubes, cubes with zoomrotator on the walls, gouraud shading cubes, wolfenstein 3D, motion blur, enviromed mapping. 'Asskicker' was fucking brainblasting thing, real kick for us. Whole hall screamed: 'Konop, Konop, Konop...!!!', 'O kurwaaa !' and 'Konop, you are God !'. Konop is a coder who coded all this demo.

Next party was 'Rush Hours' in February '97. In all demos weren't new effects beyond phong shading virtual world. But it was an animation. Another party was 'Intel Outside #4' in July '97. There we had 3 new demos. There were effects from 'Asskicker' but better & faster and bumpmappings. 'Intel Outside' was a multi party, so all XE/XL demos shocked PC, C-64 & Amiga users. But it was the start. 3 weeks later we had 'QuaST Party '97' (5th edition) and there were 8 demos. 1st place took Excellent crew with demo 'Vengeance'. Main coder (Bloomer) coded some cool effects, like: bent textures, wave, comanche, textured cube (view from inside), textured tunnel and 4 incovex gouraud shading cubes. 2nd coder (Kuchara) coded zoom with double rotator. Demo has nice gfx and great Hard Core msx by Josh. Other demos had effects: bumpmaps, textured tunnels, galaxy distorters. One demo had vector world and other one 2 phong shading toruses (in 7 frames)-wow !!!. Except demos we have 3 disk-magazines, many new gfx viewers & msx players. Lastly appeared even Protracker. So, as you see polish XE/XL scene still live and propably will live longer & longer, 'cause many people don't like PC :) Up to this days in Poland are making new games. Since 1989 people have made over 100 games. More known titles: 'Lemmings', 'Mission Shark', 'Valdgirs Swords 2','Trix', 'Operation Wolf', 'Lasermania', 'Masters of the Darkness'. Today we are waiting for Excellent's game - 'Dynablaster'. It will be game for (max.) 3 players and there will be sampled music. I think that's all. What to add ? Maybe that more than half of people (on scene) very like to drink alcohol (especially vodka), and this helps them to make great demos with cool design. The oldest people are 45 years old and the youngest are 14-15.

### 2. ST scene

Today this is the smallest Atari scene in Poland, but few years ago had many members. The history of polish ST scene made crews : Acid Team, Illusion, TFTE, USSR, X-RAY Team, Luzak Team, Zokathra.

Unfortunately but we don't know to much about history of polish ST scene. We know that there were diskmags like : STEK, Magnum, The Voice, Quast, Echo (it's still alive). Best polish ST Demos:

- Dragonnels by Acid Team,
- Insomia by Luzak Team,

I must add that today we have 3 disk mags:

- Player
  by Klocek/Syntax
- Filler
  by Maskotka/Confusions
- Echo
  by Adamsky

The last ST productions were:

- AMOK - demo by CNF,
- Mr. Gouraud - intro by Yoyo

In the future our crew will make new demo 4 ST (with new never seen effects on ST).

### 3. Falcon/(ST) scene

The last and the youngest scene is Falcon scene. There are following crews:

- Mystic Bytes,
- Cobra,
- Pandemonium,
- Luzak Team (?),
- Excellent (this year winners of XL/XE Orneta demo compo),
- Confusions (we don't know if this crew is still live),

Shadows are dead, but Grey created new group (Mystic Bytes), ex-Shadows coder and musician are now in Freezers (Amiga crew), but we hope that Yonek will do something for Falcon.

Strictly speaking, Falcon scene has existed for 1 year. Everything started on QuaST Party '96. There was showed 1st polish Falcon demo 'Firestarter' by Shadows. Some days later we had another group - Pandemonium. This crew showed us their 1st demo ('Ignis') on Siliconvention'97. On the same party Shadows crew showed their 2nd demo - 'IT' and this production took second place. Third polish Falcon crew was our group - Cobra. We made our debut with 128k intro called 'Insanity' and we took 1st place (wow!).

2nd place - 'Into the Pentagramm' by Pandemonium

3rd place - fake intro 'Crock' by Klamot Design

Of course, Shadows showed another demo 'ACYL'. This is the best production from Poland, and one of the best Falcon demo with design & special climate. Another crew is 'Confusions'. They relased 'CNF intro' for QuaST Party '96, then slide-show 'Amblery' and 'Amok' demo for QuaST Party '97. 'Amok' has some new & cool effects.

'Amok' won and Sqward (coder) got Falcon.

Some days ago, Sqward made new 4k intro 4 Falcon - 'Surprise' but he left Confusions and now he is in Mystic Bytes.

We hope that we will have more polish ST/Falcon groups. Many of us fuck PC and games like Duke Nukem or Quake. We have it in our asses and will never buy PC-shit special for stupid games.

I think this is the end of the story :)

# History of the Cobra Team

Our group came into being 02.09.1995 in one pub in Olsztyn. The founders were: Chris, MacGyver and Mayonez. Cobra was made from union of 2 teams:

1. Becuel (BQL). Members: Chris, Mayonez, BLB, Rav [now he is studing in Warsaw (no time) and he has PC :( ] and Fatman. The greatest production of the BQL was 'Becuel Puzzle' coded by Mayonez. Other things made BLB (mainly some GFX and MSX).

2. Shark Team, in which were: MacGyver and Mr.T (he left scene but he still has Atari XL). This group made 2 demos but they were nothing special so, Shark Team weren't so known on the scene like BQL and they hadn't many contacts.

I want to add that BLB was absent when Cobra was founded. Why ? Becouse he lives in Kolobrzeg (500 km from Olsztyn - main city, where live many Cobra's members).

Of coz, 2 years ago Cobra was only Atari XE/XL crew aNd members were:

- BLB
- Chris
- MacGyver
- Mayonez

In March 1996 Winio was jointed to the Cobra team. He was the 1ST Falcon owners in this group. Next important whiles were on the QuaST Party '96. There has joined Eros (who had and still has STfm). Propably, up to end of this year he will buy F030. Next person, who was jointed, was Hermes (he lives in Krakow). On the QuaST Party '96 Cobra was known as the biggest drinkers. One of us pissed urine on VLX (guy who made msx 4 'Ignis' - Falcon demo), other when slept (being drunk) was painted on face and another one (drunk) fumbled (by his hand) in shits in WC. I must add that this year Cobra members were co-organizers of the QuaST Party and they were quite quiet (besides that Eros was much drunk and he vomited his T-shirt with Atari logo). After QuaST Party '96 joined us Kuchara and Wodzu but few weeks ago they left our group. They are still active and they are in a group called Excellent.

In autumn '96 Chris bought STE and in June '97 MacGyver bought Falcon (32 MHz). So, we made F030 section. After QuaST Party'97 Mayonez bought STE and we made ST/STe section. We have 1st Mayonez's works on old, good ST and I can promise that he will shock you (at hand future).

Our state was lasting up to QuaST'97 and in September were jointed: Legwan (ex-Shadows graphician) aNd Martin (CNF member).

So, our actual memberlist is:

- BLB (XL section, still active)
- Chris (XL/ST section, sleeping now. He has just married so, too much work & no time, but he is busy with internet.
  Look at our side: http://chris.se.com.pl)
- Eros (XL/ST section, active, he is translating this text from polish into english, oops :)
- Hermes (XL section, swaper and he's busy with internet, too. http://student.uci.agh.edu.pl/~tatar/Atari/Cobra/
- Legwan (ST/F030 section, new member, gfx-man)
- MacGyver (XL/F030 section, coder and main electronician)
- Martin (ST/F030 section, our new swaper)
- Mayonez (XL/ST section, real coder & musician. Now he is working on some new things 4 ST & F030. He has ST scarcely 2 month. But when he didn't have any knowledge about Falcon, he made (in 5 days) 'Insanity')
- Winio (XL/F030 section, coder(?)&swaper, guy who wrote this text)

Now about our productions...

- Cobra Info (computer XL. Coded by BLB. Short Info about 'new' crew - Cobra)
- INTVIEW (computer XL. Coded by Mayonez. Viewer 4 gfx in format INT made by Mayonez. 16 colours (interlace))
- INTconverter (computer XL. Gfx converter: from BMP into INT)
- MegaPlayer (computer XL. Coded by MacGyver. Msx player, many formats: CMC, MPT, MD1, MD2, TMC, ST, FC. This program uses Stereo upgrades and can play musics with one sample(d) pattern (15 kHz) or 2 sample patterns (8 kHz). This is the best and the famous player on the scene.
- Freemoon (computer XL. Coded by MacGyver. Program which serves Cobra Hacker)
- Task Play (computer XL. Coded by MacGyver. Never let out program which played music in the background and you could run other one. Real multitasking ;) on XL !!!)
- Intro for QuaST Party'96 (computer XL. coded by BLB. 3rd place)
- Invitation for QuaST Party'96 (computer XL. Coded by MacGyver)
- Partro QuaST Party'96 (computer XL. By Mayonez)
- Invitation for QuaST Party'97 (computer XL. coded by Mayonez. In intro was 1st bumpmapping 4 XL !!!)
- Insanity (computer Falcon. coded by Mayonez & MacGyver special for 128k intro compo on QuaSt Party'97. 1st place. Our debut on F030. This intro was done only in 5 days)
- BMPVIEW 1.0 (computer ST/e, F030. coded by Mayonez. BMP viewer on ST in grey shades, in resolution 320*200. Next versions will let you watch BMP,GIF,IFF in 256 colours !!!)

Tech. expanders... which MacGyver fits up in Atari XL:

- Cobra Hacker (device which let you edit memory and search in
  loaded programs. All designed & made by MacGyver. Price - 2$.
- memory extends (up to 1MB !!!)
- Stereo upgrade
- Covox
- soon, upgrades & extentions 4 ST/Falcon

What plans we have ?

In the future will made: some new cool demos, intros and tools for ST/Falcon. But we'll be active on XL, too. Propably in spring of next year we'll make intro or demo for ST. In 1998 we want to make a demo especially for F030 for Symposium or Siliconvention...

So, wait for our productions. And we hope that we'll shock you :)

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