Here comes my Codef remake of Death Of The Left Border demo by TNT Crew, released in 1988 on the Atari ST.
It was the first demo with the left border removed on the ST.
TNT Crew was known for its sample demos, and this one plays samples from Kraftwerk’s Electric Café. Shortly before, in their FNIL Demo, they had written that the left border could not be opened. The scrolltext of this screen admits it: “we said in our FNIL that’s impossible to use the left border because of the DE-signal, that was a big mistake! (as you can see on this screen!)”
The same text sums up the race of that year: “first it was the lower border (TEX), then the right border (?), and now we presents the left border!”
TNT Crew was now part of The Union, the new alliance of The Exceptions, Level 16, The Carebears and others, and the scrolltext announces what comes next: “Level16 has already found out something about the upper border, so -The Union- perhaps soon presents a demo with no border”. That came true with the Union Demo in January 1989.
How it works
The trick is different from the other borders: instead of a 50/60 Hz switch, the screen goes to high resolution for a moment at the start of each line. The routine had no stabilisation yet, and the scrolltext warns that it “doesnt work on all computers as it should; on some computers the video-chip displays only each second plane”.
How the left border is opened is explained on the Atari ST Fullscreen demos history page.
Run it in your browser
- On Aldabase
- On WAB, the CODEF demo gallery (click “CLICK HERE” to start it)
More about it