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davidnAs I was in a Commodore 64 mood thanks to yesterday, I was remembering some of the other things that I used to play about with on it. I really have no idea where any of the diverse tapes that we had for this thing came from, but one of them that I remember loading up quite a lot was a sort of graphics program called The Designer's Pencil.
I say "sort of" because while its focus was on producing graphics and music, this was done through programming a routine to draw and play them, like some sort of unlikely prototype of a cross between Mario Paint and ZZT. An analogy that falls down immediately, because the interface was nothing like either of them - as far as I can tell, on the right you have a list of commands that you can select from to add them to the list on the left, and you can then edit some of their parameters. Different variations on the commands let you draw in a direction for [variable] number of pixels, so you can set up things like loops, and the whole thing can get surprisingly complex.
The language is quite understandable and LOGO-like on the surface, but thanks to the limited space, all the commands are named things like JSUB and it looks like Assembler - and it wasn't helped by the way that the designers had declined to use the arrow keys and instead put up/left/right/down on F1, F3, F5, F7, which doesn't really make any more sense on a Commodore keyboard. Naturally, through this extraordinarily cumbersome interface I failed to create anything worthwhile of my own at all, but it came with a library of example files. Some of these were algorithms like a spiral, and some were very impressive complete little programs, drawing things like helicopters and cars. But while scrolling innocently through these titles when I was four - CUBES, MUSIC, SAILING, COPTER - I eventually stumbled across one called FAROUT. It... was terrifying.
This horrific spectacle looked like this:
Yes, I know, I can feel the disappointment radiating off you already. There's no way that I can make this look as frightening as it seemed, even when I mention that that background flashed rapidly in random colours in an apparent attempt to induce a seizure. But perhaps listening to the sound coming from the Commodore while this was running might change your mind:
The sound of FAROUT (and/or hell)
Well, I ran straight out of the living room, didn't I? I had to get away from the unholy sound of a Commodore 64 being instructed to go berserk, as the random kaleidoscope pattern on the screen gradually spread, showing the growth of insane cells in the computer as the screen epileptically flashed behind it. After that, I knew that FAROUT was evil and must never be allowed to escape its electronic jail again - every time I played about with The Designer's Pencil, I got a bit of a chill when I saw its name in the list, and always made sure to skip over it, never even allowing this program listing from hell to be displayed.
I had to load it up again to record its sound, of course, and though the attempt to get over the fear worked rather better than my earlier attempt at Ecco the Dolphin, I could still see why I had been scared of it at first - there's something very uncomfortable about the randomness and insanity of it, especially that crawling-up-and-down sound. However, just as I was about to turn it off, it crashed the computer - and not just the emulator it was running on, the whole thing just ground to a semi-window-drawing halt. After twenty years away, FAROUT had made the most of its opportunity for revenge.
It's gone now, never again to be opened, sealed in a vault somewhere at the bottom of the SCP Foundation.
I say "sort of" because while its focus was on producing graphics and music, this was done through programming a routine to draw and play them, like some sort of unlikely prototype of a cross between Mario Paint and ZZT. An analogy that falls down immediately, because the interface was nothing like either of them - as far as I can tell, on the right you have a list of commands that you can select from to add them to the list on the left, and you can then edit some of their parameters. Different variations on the commands let you draw in a direction for [variable] number of pixels, so you can set up things like loops, and the whole thing can get surprisingly complex.The language is quite understandable and LOGO-like on the surface, but thanks to the limited space, all the commands are named things like JSUB and it looks like Assembler - and it wasn't helped by the way that the designers had declined to use the arrow keys and instead put up/left/right/down on F1, F3, F5, F7, which doesn't really make any more sense on a Commodore keyboard. Naturally, through this extraordinarily cumbersome interface I failed to create anything worthwhile of my own at all, but it came with a library of example files. Some of these were algorithms like a spiral, and some were very impressive complete little programs, drawing things like helicopters and cars. But while scrolling innocently through these titles when I was four - CUBES, MUSIC, SAILING, COPTER - I eventually stumbled across one called FAROUT. It... was terrifying.
This horrific spectacle looked like this:
Yes, I know, I can feel the disappointment radiating off you already. There's no way that I can make this look as frightening as it seemed, even when I mention that that background flashed rapidly in random colours in an apparent attempt to induce a seizure. But perhaps listening to the sound coming from the Commodore while this was running might change your mind:
The sound of FAROUT (and/or hell)
Well, I ran straight out of the living room, didn't I? I had to get away from the unholy sound of a Commodore 64 being instructed to go berserk, as the random kaleidoscope pattern on the screen gradually spread, showing the growth of insane cells in the computer as the screen epileptically flashed behind it. After that, I knew that FAROUT was evil and must never be allowed to escape its electronic jail again - every time I played about with The Designer's Pencil, I got a bit of a chill when I saw its name in the list, and always made sure to skip over it, never even allowing this program listing from hell to be displayed.
I had to load it up again to record its sound, of course, and though the attempt to get over the fear worked rather better than my earlier attempt at Ecco the Dolphin, I could still see why I had been scared of it at first - there's something very uncomfortable about the randomness and insanity of it, especially that crawling-up-and-down sound. However, just as I was about to turn it off, it crashed the computer - and not just the emulator it was running on, the whole thing just ground to a semi-window-drawing halt. After twenty years away, FAROUT had made the most of its opportunity for revenge.
It's gone now, never again to be opened, sealed in a vault somewhere at the bottom of the SCP Foundation.
