\I[The ABC 80 is Rising|By Rix/Error 11|Section: Odds and Ends - Various]
\F2\4\MThe ABC 80 is Rising!
\F1\3\C[ClipArts/pinnen.Chnk]
There was a miracle at Icing '96. The first demo in a very long time was released for the ABC 80. It was TimeTeam, a newly founded group with members from NewAge who showed their contribution for the wild competition. The demo was not very advanced and it was made in BASIC, but it had the honour to be the very first demo for the ABC 80 in modern times.
\2Some months after this astonishing release a new group was formed. It was me (coder) and Ant/3LE (graphician) who founded Error 11 (The eleventh error in the ABC 80 BASIC is Syntax Error). Lately also Tokige Tekla (coder) and another graphician joined. We are still searching for a musician who can compose the music for our first release.
But why found an ABC 80 demo group? Well, the C64 is a limited computer exactly as the ABC 80, but still very amazing demos may be produced for this machine. The modern computers have no limits. If you think that your machine is too slow you will only have to purchase a faster processor and it will be faster. The ABC 80 cannot be upgraded. It is also a big challenge to make demos with very limited resources and that is the main reason why Error 11 was founded. We also want every scener who likes to be a little nostalgic once in a while to buy an ABC 80 and join the ABC 80 scene!
The technology behind the ABC 80 is very simple. It has a Z80 CPU running on 1 MHz. The graphic resolution is limited to blocks with the screen resolution 79x75x1 which can be referred to as super-lores. It has no DAC and the sound chips can only produce built in sounds. It has one expansion bus and a connection for a cassette recorder. It has 16k BASIC ROM and 16k (expandable to 32k) RAM. The Video RAM is only 1k (yes, 1k). In other words you cannot expect very much from this computer. However, the limits are not set yet and one never knows!
\3
Error 11 is going to arrange a party for the ABC 80 only. It will be the first of its kind in modern times (perhaps there were parties for the ABC 80 in the seventies or the eighties...). Read more about this party in the invitation which will be released soon.