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The Fingerbob's were a (mainly) ST demo crew which produced demos between 1989 and 1992. Here I've gathered up what I can find from that era, along with source code where possible. The simple fact is that most of that stuff is lost forever, but what most of what I do have is here.

The programs listed below have all been tested as working in the STeem 3.2 emulator. I have also tested this stuff with Hatari 1.2.0, which seems to mostly work, and with Saint 2.13 which works except for some of the STE hardware scrolling stuff.

Where there is source, I tested that it built okay, and it does.

Please enjoy this small slice of history...




Electric Cafe Test Demo #1 (’89)

Electric Cafe Test Demo #1This is the very first completed screen I wrote. It was not released (as far as I ever remember). It was the precursor to the Holburn Demo. I think there may have been a Test Demo #2, though I don’t remember any specifics. The “Electric Cafe” was the group name we used for a few weeks before settling finally on Fingerbobs!

Electric Cafe #1 EXE only

Cube (’92) [Unfinished]

Unfinished Cube DemoThis is a screen I was making for the forthcoming “Genetix” demo by the Inner Circle. I’m not sure exactly why this was never finished, but most likely it’s because I had a full-time programming job to contend with. The cube scroller sure took a lot of CPU time, but there was some left over, though I never did decide what to do with it. As an interesting little note, when I asked Mr Pixar to draw me rotating cube sprites on the telephone, he misheard me and instead created some quite wonderful rotating “Q” sprites. Must have been a bad line 🙂

Cube EXE and Source

Quite Big Demo (’92 I think)

Quite Big DemoMr Pixar went mental and expanded his colour palette animation picture to 3×2 screens in size (Think that’s right), TCC put the code together, and the result was the Fingerbob’s contribution to the PETE demo. This one’s STe only because it uses the hardware scrolling.

QuiteBig EXE and Source

STE Scrolling Test (’91)

STE Scrolling TestThis is just some code to demonstrate STe hardware scrolling of a tile based map. It worked. Little else to say except that there’s source code. STe only, obviously.

STE Scrolling EXE and Source

Screen for NTM Demo by Zuul (’91)

Demo for Zuul's NTM DemoI created this for the NTM Demo by Zuul, which did eventually get released, though I do seem to remember there was a lengthy delay. Standard fare on offer here.

Zuul EXE and Source

Unnamed Intro

Unnamed IntroMr Pixar made a very cool colour palette based animation and this intro for “Ripped Off” showcased it to the world. TCC wrote the code.

Unamed EXE only

Fullscreen (’91)

Ripped Off Fullscreen IntroWhen I went to visit Stick & Bilbo of “Ripped Off” the first time, this little screen resulted. I had neither the time nor the inclination to spend all weekend counting cycles (there was beer to be drunk!) so this uses a simple low cost text printer, and does little else. Stick created the graphics. I think this appeared on one of the “Ripped Off” disks.

Fullscreen EXE and Source

Disk Maggie Intro (’91 maybe)

Disk Maggie IntroNot much to say about this one. Sammy Joe of the Lost Boys asked me to submit an intro for use in Disk Maggie, and this is what I came up with. It appeared on Disk Maggie #3 I think. Actually there is more to say… the 3D code is total shit. At the time I didn’t know you could use matrices for 3D rotations so this code does it the stupid way! Oh well, we live and learn…

Maggie EXE only

STE Tracker Player (’90)

STe Tracker PlayerThis was my attempt to create a STe tracker module player using the funky new hardware. Running it on the emulator it sounds noisier than I remember, but since I can’t test with a real STe (I have no ST hardware anymore) I can’t tell if it was really that bad. Maybe it was, maybe I’ll fix it now 🙂 There’s code for the module player, and a player program which I created for “The Demo Club” PD Library.

STE Tracker EXE and Source

Bootsector Stuff (’89-’90)

Bootsector StuffI found the idea of putting little demos on a bootsector quite intriquing. Later of course this became an actual category in demo competitions. However at the time I tried it, I don’t believe I’d seen anyone else try it. The provided zip contains my 3 attempts (with source), as well as a Bootsector writer program I developed which was published on Disk Maggie #3. My first boot demo “Stars” seems to have been widely adopted since it appears on a significant number of the Disk images I’ve downloaded!

Bootsector EXE and Source