Welcome to
The Zoko Team Homepage
|
Our story and a tribute to the Commodore 64 computer | |
About The Famous Zoko Team
It all started when Cato's punch on a keyboard formed the
now famous four letter word (and I mean Zoko). We were two guys having
fun on the Commodure 64 computer. The rise to fame was
uninterrupted and in 1989 we won a Scandinavian C64 demo competition
in Trondheim, Norway, with the demo 'Exquizite'. We retired shortly after
that. Send an
email if you want to talk about old times.
Zoko Team Members
- Thrax
(Gudbrand Eggen)
Code and graphics
- Sharkey (Cato Broberg)
Code and graphics
- Mr Last (Lars Stuanes) Graphics
- Sølve Lindgard Amiga code
Zoko Team Demos
Thanks to TMB for converting the Zoko Team demo from 1988.
Zoko Team on the Web
|
About the Commodore 64 and Emulators
The legendary Commodore 64: A unique computer.
Any 64 is a genuine 64 and not a
collection of freely selected hardware pieces, like todays PC. The 64
is a beige plastic case which looks like a too thick keyboard, and
when you plug it into the television set, sounds and images appear
that were amazing back then. Best of all, the sounds and images
could be controlled
by using the keys to enter programs, and programs could be swapped
with other people. The 64 is probably the computer with the most games
written for it.
We in the Zoko Team took part in exploring and utilizing the 64.
Step by step we learned about its many peculiar traits and the techniques to
make use of them to create the most artistic effects on the screen.
It was hard work, and still the Zoko Team only did a very small part of
the total effort to master the 64.
Only programming ingenuity has contributed to the amazing performance
boost of the 64, not improved hardware as is so often the case on the PC.
Now there are emulators. On this Pentium 200 MMX I double-click the file
"A Lot Of Old Shit.Horizon.d64".
The well-known blue screen
of the Commodore 64 appears, excactly like I remember it.
I start the demo, which was made the year after we retired.
There is no difference to the image I would expect from a real 64
except for a very slight jerk once or twice per second.
I note that they have, as I would put it back then, '14 sprites
in the sideborder over a logo with
FLI'. I remember we were thinking about the problems involved with
programming that. Then after a while the PC screen saver 'waving flag'
appears, more smoothly shaded than a 64 could ever manage.
That makes me think: All those programming
difficulties, and now the whole thing
is simply emulated. Amusing in a way, but hey: A
real challenge is attractive even
after you discover a shortcut. Then it's an art.
The Commodore 64 has experienced a revival because of the internet
and emulators,
and people have put most of the old stuff on the net.
New demos are
being made all the time. It's really touching.
Commodore 64 games and demos on your PC
- Install the CCS64
Emulator for DOS and Windows 95 (takes *.d64 and
*.prg files)
- Get what you want from
www.c64.com
|
For transfering to or from a real C64, see the Star
Commander homepage.