Who invented the border removal techniques ?

[mbricout]

This is a part of the ST history that I ignore:

Who invented the border removal tricks ?
- For the upper and lower borders ?
- For the left and rigth borders ?
- How did they get the info about the Shifter's hardware ?

What is the first demo or intro these techniques where used in ?
- Upper and lower borders ?
- Left and rigth borders ?

How many games use border removal ?
- Lethal XCess (upper/lower)
- Enchanted land (left/right, I think)
- any more ?

Thanks,
Michael

[Showaddywaddy]

check

http://codercorner.com/fullscrn.txt

this should explain quite a bit

Shw

[cb]

How many games use border removal ?
- Lethal XCess (upper/lower)
- Enchanted land (left/right, I think)
- any more ?

In Teknoball Z, there is an option to remove the lower border.
Obsession also uses border removal.

[insanity]

Pang - one of very few commercial games with lower border removal!

baz

[simonsunnyboy]

Afaik Lemmings removes the lower border for the control panel.

[mbricout]

Thanks guys, and thanks to the link to the info, Showaddywaddy.

I just remembered: Turrican II removes the lower border during the splash screen and the main menu. Any more games, I wonder ? Any one with no border at all (even shareware/freeware)?

Cheers,
Michael

[cb]

Thanks guys, and thanks to the link to the info, Showaddywaddy.

I just remembered: Turrican II removes the lower border during the splash screen and the main menu. Any more games, I wonder ? Any one with no border at all (even shareware/freeware)?

Cheers,
Michael

On Son Su Shi main screen, there is no low border, but only on STE...

[keops]

By the way, anyone has this Alyssa demo? I've been looking for it for quite some time.

[thothy]

How many games use border removal ?

The jump-n-run game "Quick & Silva" opens the bottom border during the game (but only uses half of it).

BTW: If you can read german texts, have a look at http://home.wtal.de/gmb/Artikel/hexer.htm (search for "Alyssa" in this huge text)... TEX describe there the border tricks and they guess that Alyssa had a C64, too - on this machine, you can remove the bottom border with similar tricks, too. So they thought that Alyssa simply tried to adapt the trick from the C64 to the ST.

[ZWF/Paradox]

Hello,

the Thalion game "Chambers of Shaolin" removes the lower border.

[Ragstaff]

A shareware platform game called "Hoog" by Spiral Mile software removes all borders I believe....

As well as Obession, Substation by UDS removes some borders... as well as Stardust?
...but removing borders on the STE is quite different to removing borders on the STF/M machines, so I'm not sure you could consider it a real technical achievement

[Cyrano Jones]

Light Cycles on Apathetic Games removes all the borders.

But its crap

[Ragstaff]

I remember some fullscreen space invaders clone reviewed in ST Format too... from memory, I think it was later than issue 50 and less than 70... so you only have 20 issues to flick through

[rich]

Graftgolds Fire and Ice uses the bottom border to hold the progress map. Killing Game Show also used the bottom border I think, initially for the cool water effect. The Ocean game Toki didn't remove any borders at all except until the very end of the game, where it removes all the borders to do a massive full-screen scrolling "game completed" end sequence, which I remember being very surprised at, because the game itself was technically average.

Overscan Invaders was a PD one I believe Ragstaff was talking about.

Cheers,

Rich

[GT Turbo]

Thanks guys, and thanks to the link to the info, Showaddywaddy.

I just remembered: Turrican II removes the lower border during the splash screen and the main menu. Any more games, I wonder ? Any one with no border at all (even shareware/freeware)?

Cheers,
Michael

Our game : Tiles Osmosis (Lower border removal during game !)


GT Turbo (Cerebral Vortex)

[biscuit]

Afaik Lemmings removes the lower border for the control panel.

No it doesn't.

[alien]

I consider it more a discovery than an invention because it was about understanding the way the chips worked.

I discovered it independently from everybody else, but I had seen it done before, and seeing it is important. On the other hand I discovered 4-bit hardware scrolling without seeing it beforehand. (See my ST Magazine articles, soon to be translated & republished in Atari Alive). At the time I was a member of the "Technocrats" with Ajrarn.

I don't quite remember how ST-CNX (before I & Ajrarn joined) got it. Bzb may also have discovered it.

As to who else found it, I don't know. XXX-International had one of the first upper/lower removal techniques. The Union shared techniques with its other members, so TCB was helped by TEX, which was helped by ? Level 16? ULM had their own unstable technique for some time, so they may have found it too.

The following techniques were needed:
- turn off lower border (easiest)
- turn off upper border (harder)
- synchronize the 68000 to the video processor
- turn off right border
- turn off left border
- turn off right border
- stabilize the whole thing

Similarly for hardscroll. I found it, but so did Nic (TCB) and Omega.

Alien / ST-CNX

[Pink/RG]

The Ocean game Toki didn't remove any borders at all except until the very end of the game, where it removes all the borders to do a massive full-screen scrolling "game completed" end sequence, which I remember being very surprised at, because the game itself was technically average.

I thought toki was coded by m-coder? In which case it could explain the usage of such demo like techniques.

[mic]

Toki was coded by Mcoder as many other games developed by the french division of Ocean. I guess Mcoder started coding games before actually extending his activities to demo coding on the ST.

[bod/STAX]

A Prehistoric Tale removed the lower border for status display.

[Mug UK]

Lost Boys coded game, so not suprise there with them removing the border on a game.

As per Mcoder above on Toki .. anyone know of any games not by demo coders that used border removal techniques?

[prog99]

Lost Boys coded game, so not suprise there with them removing the border on a game.

As per Mcoder above on Toki .. anyone know of any games not by demo coders that used border removal techniques?

A well known software house asked a well known hacker to rip the sync scrolling from the cuddly demos. Alledgely

[terence]

Toki was coded by Mcoder as many other games developed by the french division of Ocean. I guess Mcoder started coding games before actually extending his activities to demo coding on the ST.

M-Coder started coding games on the oric-1 at least, maybe on the spectrum.

his first demo was a full screen ('genius has no border')

and yes he did Toki, using demo technics and tricks such as generated sprites (to manage to reach the quality of the amiga version)

[ggn]

As per Mcoder above on Toki .. anyone know of any games not by demo coders that used border removal techniques?

Turrican II and maybe I removed the bottom border on the intro. Were Thomas Engel (ST conversion) and Holger Schmidt (original Amiga program) demo coders?

George

[mic]

As far as i know original members of Factor 5 were previously members of The Light Circle (which was mostly a hacking crew by the way).