Some reflections from Tat.

Hello Maggie-readers.

So a few days ago CiH contacted me and asked me if I could write a few words for this anniversary issue. About what a pleasure it had been to be part of the Atari demoscene and how much I'd enjoyed creating demos and working with some of the great people on the scene. And he asked if I could write a small piece about my experiences and thanking some of the cast of thousands who had made the scene such an amazing place to be.

And I said, 'no'.

Instead I just cobbled together a load of the usual drivel and dash it off to Chris without proof-reading. We computer professionals don't just do things pro bono you know: Chris has promised me unlimited use of the Maggie Team word- processor and as many unformatted 5.25 inch floppy disks as I can carry.

Anyway, here it is.

I read in the gloom of the fading display on this Apple Watch (at least 2 hours since last charged) that it is 2015, and using the full Calculator functionality on the portable telephone unit burning my hand, that means it's:

28 years since my Dad came home with a œ299 ST after Atari UK jacked the price to œ399, meaning that I wouldn't be able to afford one for another year. It took another 6 months of shoe polishing and car cleaning to clear my debts with him, then start saving for a double-sided disk drive to actually do anything useful;

26 years since I read about ST News in Jeff Minter's column at the back of ST Format and find out about the demoscene. About another year until I finally got to run the SoWatt demo on a TV big enough to read the main menu scroller and work out you could press Up and Down to select a screen;

23 years since I helped release a half-decent demo, jeopardizing my A-level results. It's hard to think about titration or the Schleswig-Holstein Question when you're trying to get your disk-loading code to work;

17 years since I jacked in the Falcon demos and got a job. Which precludes me about talking about any modern demos.

I don't remember much about that last six years of demo-making, apart from living in Hamburg for a year and some of my hair falling out because I didn't eat enough fruit and veg, failing to trouble the scorers at university and caring about making something really good.

Ah yes, caring. Caring a lot, if I recall. At the start it was the I'm-making- something-cool caring, which is great. Towards the end it was that sort of make-you-sick-with-worry caring, the bad stuff.

It's only now that I realise that's really what the scene is: it's about caring enough to do something that seems, in the cold light of day, completely pointless. Not as pointless as, say, having Donald Trump's face tattooed on your left buttock, or trying to gain the world record for balancing neutered whelks on your face, or playing Rugby Union, but pretty pointless nonetheless.

Such a lot of life is about not caring too much. A lot of ripping-off, doing just enough, getting by. Many people pay lip service to caring, then end up working as things like paid assassins, or estate agents. But you guys and girls are trying to do difficult things well. If you're making art, it's for a resolution less than the display on your cooker. You're making sound on the digital equivalent of the kazoo. If you're coding, you're probably targeting a machine with less power than a top-end nasal trimmer.

I've been in the slightly unusual position to have worked with a lot of people passionate about making great games at Sony. (You'll never see the office lights turned off at Sony City in Shinagawa, for example). But even here there's a profit to be made, the honour of the company to uphold. Do a great STe demo and you might gain the adulation of a few like-minded souls in a (probably disturbingly fetid) meeting room in a school somewhere. That was true even back in the 'golden days' but it's even more so now.

So well done you, for caring. I salute your tenacity and desire to make great things.

Keep caring!

Steve (Tat)

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