A "Demo" is a combination of programming challenge, artwork, and music. You’re given specific hardware with any number of restrictions – code size, available memory, processor speed. Your goal is to output audio and video that pushes the limits of what is considered possible with such limited hardware. Here’s some examples of award-winning demos on the Commodore 64 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW5v93P-gBw), Atari XL/XE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EAG_811b4o), and an 8-bit Atmega88 microcontroller (http://youtu.be/sNCqrylNY-0?t=1m1s). Not enough? What about a full, three and a half minute 1080p HD demo written in just 4kb of code? Check out elevated by Rgba & TBC (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWcbj7ksqwE).
This class will cover the LAYERONE DEMO BOARD, a small piece of hardware designed by Arko & Davo of Null Space Labs. It's the board being used for the LayerOne 2018 Demo Party (http://l1demo.org). If you have any interest in C programming, assembly programming, graphics programming, or embedded systems programming, this is the class for you!
We'll cover setup and usage of the graphics and character (text) GPU, basic graphics and text output, and basic sound output.
We recommend brushing up on your C programming before attending, but even beginners should be able to follow along. By the end of this class you will have made some graphics bounce around on the screen and output some funky beats to your audio port. This might not sound like much but trust me - it'll take some doing : )
Please bring a Demo Board OR buy one at the class for $60 (cash). You must have a demo board to interact with all of the hands-on portions of this class! There will NOT be loaner boards!
