Here comes my Codef remake of the “Best Part of the Creation” screen by Flix / Delta Force, released in the Punish Your Machine demo by Delta Force (Atari ST, 1991)

A fullscreen in medium resolution (800 × 262 x 4 colors, instead of the usual 640 × 200), for the first time on an ST ! And a 42 kb long scroller…

Flix coded and drew this screen, with additional border code by New Mode, the Delta Force logo by Thor and soundchip music by Big Alec. Flix is also the author of the Atari ST Demo History website, one of the sources of my own history page.

Medium resolution was the hardest case. During the ICC #2 party in August 1991, Flix wrote in the ST NEWS report: “I’m having really heavy problems with my Medium Resolution Fullscreen. I worked it out at home and now I discovered that the screen doesn’t work on most of all the STs on this convention.” The border experts at the party, such as Gunstick of ULM, -ME- of TEX and Alien of ST Connexion, all told him that a medium resolution fullscreen running on every ST was impossible.

The screen came out three months later in Punish Your Machine, and its intro text sounds relieved: “after weeks of hard work, we succeeded in making the following screen run on all STs. If it doesn’t, don’t despair, it’s not a masterpiece anyway.” Later, the greetings screen of No Cooper by 1984 (September 1992) and the reset screen of the Dragonnels Demo by Acid Team (December 1993) used a medium resolution overscan too.

The scrolltext is written by Flix and many guests of the scene, and in the original screen three more texts are hidden: press Help, F10 or Left during the intro, and Right during the scroller.

How it works

On each line, the left border and the stabilisation switches are done in low resolution, as in a usual fullscreen, and the screen goes to medium resolution only in between, for the picture.

How this medium resolution fullscreen works is explained on the Atari ST Fullscreen demos history page.

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