compils

In 1987 when the cost of a 720K floppy disk was quite high, users attempted to fit as many files as possible onto a single disk usually by extending the format to have more sectors or extra tracks.

One day Mac Sys Data recieved two demos and set about putting them on one floppy disk. The demos were Micromix 1 and 2. Both demos were configured to be executed from their own directory and so it was very easy to copy both demos to one floppy disk.

Rather than leave it at that, Mac Sys Data thought it would be good to write a simple menu to automatically select either demo in the same fashion as the game compilation crews were doing (Automation/Pompey Pirates/Medway Boys).

Having learnt 68000 and having a copy of K-Seka, MSD started writing a simple ASCII based menu. Once content the process worked, he set about adding a scrolling message, picture and finally, after hacking an LSD menu, a tune. The first POV demo compilation was born.

Time went on and MSD had very few demos to compile, most demos would not fit on a single disk without some method of extending the space on a floppy or by reducing the space the demo took.

One day whilst pondering how to pack a demo without hacking the demo itself and inserting a new loading routine, he stumbled upon the TRAP 1 vector address ($84) in TOS. It appeared to be a pointer into ROM for any TRAP 1 calls. Less than 30 minutes later, proof was made and MSD now had a way to intercept any TRAP 1 call and so had a way to intercept any LOAD commands.

The first few POVs were virtually unpacked as the LSD packer and Happy packer were the only ones around and were mostly unavailable to the general public. MSD had to write a packer of his own before POV went further. The first packer was a simple run length encoding packer that basically looked for repetitive strings of data.

A couple of months later a copy of the LSD packer arrived on our door but there was no depack routines so out came MONST and after examining some of Automation's packs, MSD had a working data depacker.

By May 1990 POV 23 was released. Shortly after POV 24 arrived complete with a tracker menu. With the arrival of a new artist (Oz), POV had some decent pictures and fonts. The first appearance of Oz was on POV 25.

In July 1991 we made it to POV 80, the first demo compilation menu on the ST to play a mod and knock out the lower border. The picture and mod were from Mental Hangover by Spoopex on the Amiga.

On the 1st of December 1991 we released demo compilation 99! Persistence Of Vision were on the top of a crest and their popularity was booming. Magazines were reviewing the disks, PD libraries were naming our compilations on their adverts.

How could be get better? The move forward was simple... release a disk containing all our own work.

May 1992 came and POV released demo compilation 100. We made POV 100 a special one by making it a multipart demo all by POV. At this time Boris was writing games professionally for the ST and Amiga. He converted the game called 'Leander' to the ST and so used the main character of the game for the main menu. Like all decent demos, there was a hidden screen to find. Disk 100 has a complete and comprehensive information program listing all the contents of each disk together with a miniture picture of each menu.

Months rolled on and compilations came out, April 1992 saw POV 109, 110, 111, 112, 113 and 114. May 1992 saw POV 115, June 1992 saw disks 116, 117 and 118, July 1992 saw disk 119. July 1992 saw POV 120, August 1992 saw POV 121 and 122. September 1992 saw POV 123, October 1992 saw POV 124, December 1992 saw POV 125 (previews were shown at the Great British International ST Copy Party organised by Ripped Off in August 1992 in the UK). December 1992 also was the release date for POV 126, 127 and 128.

In 1993 disks came slower, Feb 1993 saw POV 129, March saw POV 130, April saw POV 131 and POV 132, May saw POV 133 and June 1993 saw POV 134 and 136. At this time Mac Sys Data bought a house and a lot of work was needed to make it occupiable.

As there was no need for compilations, POV wrote a demo themselves called POVERTY. Originally for the Falcon, Poverty was released on the STE a couple of months later.

More recently POV have been making compilations that work on Atari STFM/STE/Falcon machines and where possible the menus work on the PC Pacifist Emulator. POV will continue to create compilations until any demand for Atari ST/STE/PaCifiST demos disappears. In the mean time our compilations will continue to be released.