PUBLIC HOUSE

It came as no surprise to the assembled party that the murderer was among their number. Indeed, as the Colonel remarked to Lady Marjorle, it was inevitable given that both the doors and the windows were locked, and the house backed on to a three hundred foot ravine with several poor people at the bottom and not a decent hairdresser in sight. But now, Jonathan Nash delves into the European disk box and muses why the introductory paragraph of a page has little bearing on its contents.

I've a couple of smarties for you this month. The Mad Guys strike (yet) again with Unlimited Spirits, and then it's time to reach in to the shoebox of history and pull out an old but pretty good demo from someone using their proper name. (Actually. I've no idea how old Nanodemo is. but what the heck, eh?)

Nanodemo
By Jacek Michalak and the Cat-Man
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash

A new bunch (well, to me anyway), Jacek and Cat-Man have come up with a very imaginative demo that, well, I really like. Part of the appeal is that by looking closely, you can see how they've managed to do each part. It's sort of like letting you in on the secret or something. (And from here ladies and gentlemen, it's but a small step to burble burble burble. Ed)

First on up is a lovely animated screen featuring thirty-two rotating Earths. As I said, if you pay attention you can see how the effect has been achieved, but it looks really smart nonetheless. Part Two is a similarly impressive piece o' programming - ten digitised faces bouncing on the spot with intertia. Part Three opens with a rather dull vertical scroller (each letter is repeated thirty-two times, so you get a whole line of, erm, one letter) but bounces back with a well-executed bob effect. (You know, loads of little balls on-screen at once.) The pattern's a bit unexciting though, and the demolette finishes somewhat abruptly. What a shame.

And so to Part Four, being the fourth part, or that part which comes after the third. (It's burble time! Ed) There's a smart symmetrical pattern drawing thing which, well, smartly draws a symmetrical pattern. The wonder of maths, eh? The finale is a simple animated pic of some fractals (or mandlebrots, or something) which is appropriately called 'Respiration'. But before we dash to the final verdict, a special mention for the decompressor. It's awful. It decompresses to the colour memory, so you get a load of blobs splattering across the screen. And it's dead slow. Well, a minor point. Oh, another one is the coarse humour. Bit 1970-Reg-Varney-sitcom-ish really, and in today's style-oriented times, such things are death in the better social circles. (Oh, hoity-toity. Ed)