High Woltage: C64 Corner

Solitaire (1991)

2009-05-24T20:36:00.031+02:00

My first encounter with solitaires took place during the mid-eighties. Around 1989 I saw a PC implementation of Klondike (named Las Vegas). It was a pretty simple, character-based program. It was obvious that our demo-coding experience was there to help us code a nice solitaire game.

Solitaire is completely my design. But it wasn't my only goal to write a game... to write an amazing one, that was what I wanted to do. Later I participated in a program contest with Solitaire, unfortunately I screwed up the presentation to the Jury and ended up in third place. I even tried to sell this game to a software house in Holland. I found the name and address of the contact person in a Hungarian Commodore magazine. The guy wasn't working for the company anymore when I sent him the demo version... That's my luck. (Later I wrote games for Windows as well.)

The game has an auto-start routine, and the directory is modified to trick the curious user. Just try to load any files from the disk (the ordinary way). A turbo loader was added as well.

Intro. The entire intro was coded by me. The logo and the character sets are mine as well. These ten colors I used here have an influence all over the other parts of the game, the user will know that it's the same product. The intro music was composed by Teonaki. The border take-offs were quite common for us those days.
Menu. The menu of Solitaire presents the same ten colors used in the intro. No technical brilliance here, just some nice graphics.
Rules. Again, those ten colors are used in the small logo and the raster bars. The rules are displayed in the bottom half of the screen while in the upper half the name and difficulty of the selected solitaire are displayed. In the four corners of the screen you can see the suit symbols, of course, "under" the border.
Game Play. All three games have different game plays. The common features are the pointer arrow and the time counter (both in the borders). The game is played by joystick, the "N" key for next and the "F" key for foundation are also used. Sound effects are Teonaki's.
Hall of Fame. Again the same colors in the design. And that convex lens. It's just a nice little routine from the last part of my Big Logo Disk. The 2x2 char-set is made by Crazy Speed, music by Teonaki.

Download

Full Version: The full version of Solitaire. (174 848 bytes)
Autoloader, start with LOAD":*",8,8
Demo Version: The limited edition of Solitaire. (174 848 bytes)
Start with LOAD":*",8,8
Hall of Fame: LOAD"HALL*",8,8
Full Version (Cracked Tape Edition): The full version of Solitaire cracked by Triad. (174 848 bytes).

Music

Main Theme 2023 KBytes, MP3, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, 96 KBps, Mono
Hall of Fame Theme 1063 KBytes, MP3, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, 96 KBps, Mono

Synthesizer (1992?)

2009-05-24T20:35:00.019+02:00

Synthesizer is a sophisticated synthesizer program. I wasn't involved in the programming of this product, just the splash screen and the intro are my works.

It was also presented in a program contest and took first prize in its category (educational).

Download

Synthesizer: (174 848 bytes)

Get a Life (1991)

2009-05-24T20:35:00.018+02:00

Get a life is a game of Teonaki. In this game you're a virus and you have to kill a mainframe using some sort of VOS ("Virus Operating System") from command line.

The idea of this game was born in Teonaki's head, he wanted to create a game in which the player would play the role of a deadly computer virus. In those days encounters with viruses were pretty common things. The game took third prize as well in a contest.

I don't remember exactly the game play. In the upper part of the screen a schematic map of a computer network was displayed, with some terminals and a main frame. The object of the game was to kill the main frame through infecting machines. There was a central virus killer that removed infection from machines. It was a really nice real-time game.

The lower part was some sort of a console. The player was able to execute commands to control the virus, to infect different parts of the network. The commands were interpreted and executed or denied by the Virus Operating System.

The commands I was able to decipher:

cls: Clear screen
quit: Give up
ver: Display version info
dir: Display disk information of drive
a: / c: (only on consoles): change drive
c1 - c12: change console
1 / 2 / 3: change local board
cxx/y: change console and board at the same time
I was able to discover some other command fragments, but was unable to use them properly: brain, tape, hico ?, hide ?, track. I have absolutely no idea how you can infect disks, machines, etc.

Download

Full Version: The full version of Get a Life. (174 848 bytes)
Autoloader, start with LOAD":*",8,8

Music

Intro Theme 2426 KBytes, MP3, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, 96 KBps, Mono
Hall of Fame Theme 2653 KBytes, MP3, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, 96 KBps, Mono

Big Logo Disk (1989-1990)

2009-05-24T20:31:00.011+02:00

Big Logo Disk is a bundle of my first ten logos presented via small demos coded by the members of High Woltage. I made logos mainly for self-purposes but there're some created for other groups of the Hungarian scene.

During this "first period" of my logo drawing career I started to use the title The Logo King, which is a bit impudent, but those logos made some difference those days (even if it's hard to believe). I'm sure, logos from the 90's those are far more sophisticated and have better design.

If you have the stomach to read the scroll texts, you get the picture of a 15-year old boy's thoughts about life.

Part 0, Part 1. The menu and the first two parts are quite simple, there're no stunning effects in the code. In the menu I show my first 3x3 character-set. In the Big Logo Disk we re-cycled some 3rd party graphics (mainly char-sets) and music. Of course no code ripping was done.
Part 2. This part is also quite simple (though the multi-speed scroll is a nice one). Arny was a classmate of mine in the secondary school, he was also part of the scene, with foreign contacts. For some reason I started to hate him like hell and it took more than a year to consolidate the situation.
Part 3. Again, My first 3x3 char-set, maybe my first border take-off, and a nice effect with those rotating raster bars. We used BASIC in those days only to create sinus tables :)
Part 4. This part is my absolute favorite. This is just too good. It has a multi-speed pulsing scroll (my idea, yes), some Lissajou curves. That bottom effect with the logo is quite something (remember: we're in 1989). And the tunes match the ambient of the whole part.
Part 5. Teonaki's part. I don't really like this part, takes too much time to get to the final effect.
Part 6. A nice one. My first side-border take-off. Tape cassette player scroll, a master idea. A char-set designed by me, split raster bars. That's all.
Part 7. Nothing special.
Part 8. Previously it was the intro for the Logo Editor System, with a 2x2 SCC char-set. That bar around the (multi-speed) scroll is a nice one.
Part 9. My other favorite. This is a cool and really composed part. The convex lens effect is working well. I haven't seen a similar effect on the 64 ever since. Keep your eyes on the raster bars at the bottom... The scroll text is worth reading, it tells the story of the High Woltage and closes a chapter of my life.

Download

Big Logo Disk: This release contains the Big Logo Disk, the Logo Editor System, and notes. (174 848 bytes)

Our Answer! (1990)

2009-05-24T20:29:00.009+02:00

Our answer was done during the summer of 1990. It's a 5+1 part demo, the size is 198 blocks and it's packaged into one PRG file. We're pretty proud of that, it's a huge demo, without loading additional parts from the disk. I think it's a mature demo-pack and proved to B+H that we were the number one in town. The whole concept of the demo is about to write strange, innovative, sophisticated routines. This demo was created in a short period of time (some weeks).

Part 0. Just to be sure everyone knows what this demo is about. Logos by me (the moons are not).
Part 1. Maybe the best part, again the message presented with a style ;) I remember that I had a few raster-bar's time left when finished this part, so to fill the screen with code I created that shiny effect at the top. (I hope some of you understands what I am writing about...) The 1x1 scroll is my idea, the border scroll with split raster bars is a good one.
Part 2. A DYCP scroll (Note: right now, when I'm moving this text in 2009 I just checked what DYCP means: Different Y Character Position. I didn't know. :). As the scrolltext tells: I was thinking about how to code a DYCP (I had seen one before) for about 20 minutes and the next day I coded it for four hours. The result is in this part.
Part 3. Not an eventful part, The splitting scroll effect is basically the same as the one in the first part. Takes very much raster time.
Part 4. Teonaki's part. Comes with a nice six-colored logo (outline design by Teo). The three-channel dynamic analyzer is a nice job. Teo made a 2x2 scroll that is capable of displaying accented characters. Nice.
Part 5. This part has a really doomy mood. I like the music very much. I used the extended color mode for the first time (will play an important role in Solitaire later). The multicolor logo is made to be "transparent", thus I was able to change all three colors of High Woltage. The bottom border scroll is of course my idea, I think I proved to be quite an inventive coder.

Download

Our Answer!: 198 blocks of our best demo from 1990. (174 848 bytes)

Logo Editor System (1989)

2009-05-24T20:28:00.007+02:00

As I mentioned in the B.L.D. post I created my logos with this Logo Editor System. It is a utility package that converts (packs) three color Art Studio pictures into SCC format logos and vice versa. Art Studio was a good tool to paint the logos, but it assigned inconsistent multicolor combinations to the pixels.

The L.E.S. was able to correct this issue and after the clean-up it compacted the logo discarding all empty 8x8 pixel sections. It created a character map to display the compacted character logo, and saved it along with the resulted character-set and the colors used in the logo. That was the SCC logo format. I wrote a nice read me file to both B.L.D. and the L.E.S.

Download

Logo Editor System: This release contains the Big Logo Disk, the Logo Editor System, notes for both. (174 848 bytes)

G-Man Trainer (19??)

2009-05-24T20:25:00.008+02:00

G-Man is a nice game from Code Masters. After I trained it providing unlimited time, fuel, missiles, and ammo, I managed to reach the end. Unfortunately in the final stages the game jams from time to time. However it's not the fault of the training code, later I was able to get to the end with the original version and the jams were there.

Trainer Intro. The whole intro runs on the screen (literally). This game was so huge that I couldn't find enough space to the trainer code and the trainer selection intro. The decompactor places the code onto the screen and then runs it. The code is as small as possible, yet it's colorful. I just absolutely love it.
Splash Screen. I also changed the splash image of the game to a self-made one. I just didn't like the original one, I think my creation reflects the game's mood better than the original one. Sounds weird that someone just cuts a part from an original game (and this image is a collage, is not entirely my design) but that was life.

I kept the Code Masters logo, the credit for the author, took the background and this little astronaut from somewhere and composed the splash screen you see here.

Download

G-Man Trainer: (174 848 bytes)

Oil Imperium (cracked version) (199?)

2009-05-24T20:24:00.006+02:00

Oil Imperium is a strategy-business game, quite an interesting one. It was imported to Hungary by BCB+HSA (our duel was over by then) and it came with a pretty serious crack protection, it required the user to enter some words from the documentation. It was easy to get around the first protection, I presented a nice custom message to the user, but the second one (that asked the same question in the middle of the game) was harder. Anyway the game was cracked.

It was the second time I used the real three-color logo style and we coded a pretty nice color changing effect to demonstrate the values of the new style. The graphic analyzer is real cute.

Download

Oil Imperium Side A Side B: The cracked version. (2 x 174 848 bytes)

Airborn Ranger (turbo version) (199?)

2009-05-24T20:23:00.005+02:00

Airborn Ranger is a pretty nice intellectual commando game. We introduced turbo-loading support into the game to reduce load-time of missions, etc. In the original version it took ages to load a mission.

The intro is nothing special.

Download

Airborn Ranger Side A Side B: The turbo loader version. (2 x 174 848 bytes)

Catalog

2009-05-24T20:16:00.006+02:00

I wasn't able to recover a running instance of every single product we made, but you have here a short description for programs we are related to.(Some of our actions taken on games might be considered as illegal... But, please, note that the object of these pages is to document that period as a part of history.)

Solitaire. Solitaire is my major product. I finished it in 1991. That is the age without illegal opcodes, yet. It's 100% pure 6510 code ;). I even tried to sell this program to an agency. There's no foreign parts in the game, every byte was done by High Woltage, and one character-set is by Crazy Speed - CSP a.k.a. Ágoston Mihály. The game pack contains three solitaires: My Favourite (a Hungarian version of Sir Tommy), Las Vegas (a.k.a. Klondike) and Canfield.
Get a Life. Get a life is a game of Teonaki. I made a splash screen and designed the graphics of the game. In this game you're a virus and you have to kill a mainframe using some sort of VOS ("Virus Operating System") from command line.
G-Man trainer. G-Man is a nice game from Code Masters. I trained it to have unlimited time, fuel, missiles, and ammo. The whole trainer intro runs on the screen, I like it really much. Besides I changed the splash image of the game to a self-made one. That image is a collage, is not entirely my design.
Oil Imperium (cracked version). Oil Imperium is a strategy-business game, quite an interesting one. And it came with pretty good crack protection, took me some time to get around it.
Airborn Ranger (turbo-loading). Airborn Ranger is a pretty nice intellectual commando game. We introduced turbo-loading support into the game to reduce load-time of missions, etc.
Our answer! demo. Our answer! is the first and last demo of High Woltage, it was done during the summer of 1990, I think. It's a 5+1 part demo, the size is 198 blocks and it's packaged into one PRG file. We're pretty proud of that. The graphics generally were done by me (sometimes using foreign parts). The code is mine except for Part 4. I state it here again: I never stole or re-wrote a single byte from another demo. All code was designed and coded by me. The music was, as usual, ripped from other demos. I'm not a musician.
Big Logo Disk. The big logo disk is a collection of some intros or small demos to present my first 10 logos. This pack was released before Our Answer! The logos and some character sets are original SCC graphics, but I had to use some 3rd party designs (of course no code ripping here either). There're some real killers on the disk.
Logo Editor System. A utility package that converts (packs) three color Art Studio pictures into SCC format logos and vice versa. All my (character) logos were made by this tool. It also has a "read me" program.
Synthesizer. A sophisticated synthesizer program. I had no real programming in this product, only the splash screen and the intro is my work. I kind of like them.

Scene and Groups

2009-05-24T19:59:00.012+02:00

Late eighties, early nineties. In those days it was inevitable, if you wanted to be taken seriously as a coder, to have an alias and even better, a three-letter nick. I started as "Short Circuit - SCC", later left the long form and saved SCC. I did coding as a hobby, even though I took it very seriously.

Some words about the English present in these programs. Of course it was obligatory to write scroll texts in English, it was part of the job. I apologize to everyone who dares to read my texts. These texts were born after one or two years of secondary school English classes. My English is far from perfect today, but it was awful ten (twenty) years ago. I think you'll understand.

Some time later I got to know Wagner Zsolt and started to hang out with him, writing stuff (some teletext like program). His alias was "Teonaki - TEO". After forming a two member group with the name (somewhat personal for TEO) "Egnesc & IC", "High Woltage" was born in 1990, as far as I remember. Those times we did some demo and intro coding, cracking, training games and things like that. The culmination of this period was the Our answer! demo.

With this demo our little clash with the town's wanna-be leader crew, "BCB and HSA", ended. Later I became a member of a real prestigious group "Dynax", which was formed of the best members of the two local leaders. Dynax became internationally known, but without me. It was that period when I started to lose my contact with the C64 (came the Amiga and the PCs), and the guys from Dynax kicked me out for doing nothing in the crew. Or, as I remember, suddenly I just wasn't a crew member anymore.