Interview of Longshot / Logon System (April 2011)
Serge Querné, better known under the pseudonym of Longshot, is considered as the pionner of advanced programming on Amstrad CPC. Productions after productions, he progressively demonstrated how powerful the Amstrad CPC was. I was curious to know more about him, so today I'm glad he kindly accepted to answer my questions!
1. Hi Serge ! Please can you briefly present yourself? (your age, what you do in real life..).
Serge Querné (Longshot)
Hi Arnaud. I'm 44 years old. I'm working in a transport & logistic company oriented in cars industries. I'm specifying softwares and edi processes between cars companies & manufacturers.
2. Let us quickly know about your first contacts with computers, how old you were, etc.
Oric-1
As far i remember, my first contact with a computer was the game Aztec on Apple 2 in 1982. I was 16 year old. And I had found my way in the life. A few monthes later, having worked hard work for my father, i was the proud owner of an Oric-1. 8 differents colours in 240x200 was really surprising in this time for a personal computer. My first program was a poor attempt of creation of an aztec-like game in Basic (called The crypt). Then, later, some adventure games and utilities (particularly graphics tools). Luckily, some of these programs were published (hebdogiciel, cobra soft) and i won enough to invest in some other computers Cobra soft expected that i realize conversion of my game Atlantis (a bad adventure game created quickly in 1984) on the other platforms, as spectrum, thomson to7-mo5 and amstrad 464-664. It's to this opportunity that i discovered the cpc, and i quite naturally bought 6128 version. C64 was really interesting, but all french tv worked with secam system. Pal to secam converters were really very bad and it was a pain to look a the image of c64 in France.
3. You were one of the head of Logon System. We all know about the whole story : the great family of friends, The Demo, articles in press, etc. But do you have some uncommon facts to share? Some great moments only few people is aware about?
My first week-end in Paris was memorable, when i met the team of amstrad 100% (french magazine) (at amstrad expo 89) and several guys of the future logon team. Imagine a pack of young demomakers, writers of fanzines & a100%, crackers, following oldest persons (regular alcoholic consumers) in disreputable bars of Paris. Clod (redactor of the fanzine syntax error) had "rented" the services of a prostitute to take the virginity of a 15 year old cpc scener... He had not understood why this lady asked him to follow it, and when he returned, i think that he knew more precisely what she was expecting... 3 monthes later we were organized our first meeting in a church near Paris with some German and a part of the rising cpc scene. Another great moment was the Jean Michel Jarre concert in Paris (14th july 1990) with the logon team. All subways were closed and the complete team slept in my small appartment.
Logon System team at Amstrad Expo '89
4. Still about Logon System, there was an article in french ACPC magazine wondering about author of 1989's YAO Demo, Fefesse (RIP), to probably join the team. Was this rumour true?
It is not true. Robby (chief redactor of 100% team) was very lyric...
In this time, Fabien (Fefesse) was not any more interested in demoscene, and he already worked on several projects of video games, as xyphoes fantasy. Later he worked for several editors of video games for conversions (in particular playstation 1). His biggest contribution in the video game was the nomad soul (pc). the was the real father of this game which launched the quantic dream company and his boss megalomaniac)
In this time, Fabien (Fefesse) was not any more interested in demoscene, and he already worked on several projects of video games, as xyphoes fantasy. Later he worked for several editors of video games for conversions (in particular playstation 1). His biggest contribution in the video game was the nomad soul (pc). the was the real father of this game which launched the quantic dream company and his boss megalomaniac)
5. The "legend" is that you progressively discovered most of new graphic technics, one after one, by having guesses versus CRTC (the chip managing graphics). Some people claims the contrary, cf. you used official Amstrad data sheet for that. Or even you had such information from your current job at Ubisoft, at the time. Whatever your sources were, please could you clarify that?
Ubi Soft wanted to create a studio of development but they were really not very well organized. The game were mainly realized by freelancers and you were to be operational at once.
The amstrad cpc is built from very classic components (crtc, fdc were the same as ibm pc) and i'd got back some datasheets to the school of computing (and also from some friends studying electronics). It's not very difficult to understand the principles of an hardware scroll because locomotive basic uses it constantly to scroll the screen, for example. Several games used some crtc tricks to improve the screen effects (titan, genocide, skatewars). All offset-splitting technics (multi splitting, line to line splitting, horizontal splitting, ...) were just improvements of these basis. I've tested more specifically some registers, as i was trying to expand video memory to display an overscan screen for example.
At that time, my only goal was to show something that a c64 could never display. (The c64 fans at ubi were claiming so often that cpc is shit. It was funny to show them a full overscan picture on a cpc, when they were limited to use the hardware sprites of c64 to try to do the same).
It feels strange or idiot now to say that, but at that time i was very proud about the z80a opcode "HALT" used to synchronize perfectly the code with the video beam.
The amstrad cpc is built from very classic components (crtc, fdc were the same as ibm pc) and i'd got back some datasheets to the school of computing (and also from some friends studying electronics). It's not very difficult to understand the principles of an hardware scroll because locomotive basic uses it constantly to scroll the screen, for example. Several games used some crtc tricks to improve the screen effects (titan, genocide, skatewars). All offset-splitting technics (multi splitting, line to line splitting, horizontal splitting, ...) were just improvements of these basis. I've tested more specifically some registers, as i was trying to expand video memory to display an overscan screen for example.
At that time, my only goal was to show something that a c64 could never display. (The c64 fans at ubi were claiming so often that cpc is shit. It was funny to show them a full overscan picture on a cpc, when they were limited to use the hardware sprites of c64 to try to do the same).
It feels strange or idiot now to say that, but at that time i was very proud about the z80a opcode "HALT" used to synchronize perfectly the code with the video beam.
6. You have one clear rule : no release of unfinished previews. Which made me wonder : do you have unreleased previews ? I mean : are you silently working on a new production for years ?
Yes i have some code not finished by several members of logon. I hope i can finish the most advanced to be able to show them one day. I also work on some others things when i've free time and the motivation.
7. Still about previews.. history said you were angry against Overflow's attitud at the time, cf. he released his previews when Logon was about to not produce anything else. I guess S&KOH was such a production, as also other previews such as that incredible Shadow Of The Beast remake, the flying precalculated 3D objects, etc. Past is past and what is done is done; but still : is that story still active in your mind regarding Overflow?
I was not so angry about that (that he showed his code during Euromeeting 2). An this time (1992), i felt arriving the commercial end of cpc life and several members of logon were no any more interested in the demomaking. Olivier wanted to be known (as most of the young demomakers of this era) and he felt isolated besides of the team which lived in Paris region. Euro 2 was the most important meeting ever done (for the cpc scene) and was reviewed by german & english press. Slash (from logon) had to write the A100% magazine report and i've asked him to publish lot of pictures of Olivier work, as i knew it would be difficult to create a collaborative demo from these parts. (i was also convinced he will never finish these parts, according to my own experience about previews).
About 3D objects for example, it takes an huge amount of datas precalculated. I was not agree to spend 60kb on disk for each 3D object in a collaborative demo (the main drive on cpc gave only 180 k per side). I'm not against the precalculated approach in demomaking, but i'm more impressed when the datas are calculated by the demo (like it's done in boule&bits for example).
About 3D objects for example, it takes an huge amount of datas precalculated. I was not agree to spend 60kb on disk for each 3D object in a collaborative demo (the main drive on cpc gave only 180 k per side). I'm not against the precalculated approach in demomaking, but i'm more impressed when the datas are calculated by the demo (like it's done in boule&bits for example).
8. Reading you in forums, you are still actively following news from demoscene. What do you think of last released demos ? Did you enjoy watching masterpieces such as From Scratch, Batman Forever..? What would be the perfect demo for you?
It seems that the new demos on cpc leave the ancient model ("one screen" part, or "main menu selection")
It's really a good thing.
From Scratch is a masterpiece of technical hardware tricks and it represents unmistakably a very big work. It's a demo of a very high technical level and several parts are impressive (even if the wobbler is ugly). A big effort was also made to link the parts with effects of transition, while playing the same music in the whole demo.
Batman Forever is much more less technical but it introduces a real scenaristic line in the creation process. It uses effectively the capacity to load data of the disk and execute the code and music while the demo runs, while linking the music and the effects. We could say that there is a "rythm" in the demo and i believe that most of the demoes should follow this model. It also proves that everything is not a question of technical level.
I'm less positive about the "big pixels", in particular when hundreds kilobytes are precalculated, even if this technic allows to create fluid animations (50Hz framerate).
I don't know if a perfect demo exist. According to me, it's a nonsense because the idea is to make always better than the previous time. I think that a good demo is one demo that you want to watch several time because you simply like seeing it, or dreaming that you will make better...one day
It's really a good thing.
From Scratch is a masterpiece of technical hardware tricks and it represents unmistakably a very big work. It's a demo of a very high technical level and several parts are impressive (even if the wobbler is ugly). A big effort was also made to link the parts with effects of transition, while playing the same music in the whole demo.
Batman Forever is much more less technical but it introduces a real scenaristic line in the creation process. It uses effectively the capacity to load data of the disk and execute the code and music while the demo runs, while linking the music and the effects. We could say that there is a "rythm" in the demo and i believe that most of the demoes should follow this model. It also proves that everything is not a question of technical level.
I'm less positive about the "big pixels", in particular when hundreds kilobytes are precalculated, even if this technic allows to create fluid animations (50Hz framerate).
I don't know if a perfect demo exist. According to me, it's a nonsense because the idea is to make always better than the previous time. I think that a good demo is one demo that you want to watch several time because you simply like seeing it, or dreaming that you will make better...one day
9. You had hard comments against Jeff's HxC Floppy Emulator. Your point was that hardware should use DSK files natively instead of pre-converted HFE images. Why that position?
I don't think of having had hard words to Jeff. Just a polite debate.
The point was not that HxC use file DSK instead of HFE, but concerned the method used to get back the informations of directory. The subject of the discussion was the creation of a program allowing the selection of one disk stored in the peripheral (sdcard, USB device, USB memory), and to use it as current disk.
On every system using the HxC (Amiga, Oric, Cpc, Atari, ..) the only way of realizing that is to use a function giving the access to a sector of the card. So the software on every computer has to "know" and manage the filesystem used in the card. I think that it's not evolutive and difficult to maintain, because it requires to know the filesystem used in the card and the slightest evolution implies to modify the programs on every system. It's not compatible either with the other drive-emulators using others means of storage. My opinion is that the card should supply the informations of the directory under a simple and normalized shape (like the DSK standard). A Cpc should not know the FAT32 or NTFS or ex-FAT or quite other self made storage structure.
The point was not that HxC use file DSK instead of HFE, but concerned the method used to get back the informations of directory. The subject of the discussion was the creation of a program allowing the selection of one disk stored in the peripheral (sdcard, USB device, USB memory), and to use it as current disk.
On every system using the HxC (Amiga, Oric, Cpc, Atari, ..) the only way of realizing that is to use a function giving the access to a sector of the card. So the software on every computer has to "know" and manage the filesystem used in the card. I think that it's not evolutive and difficult to maintain, because it requires to know the filesystem used in the card and the slightest evolution implies to modify the programs on every system. It's not compatible either with the other drive-emulators using others means of storage. My opinion is that the card should supply the informations of the directory under a simple and normalized shape (like the DSK standard). A Cpc should not know the FAT32 or NTFS or ex-FAT or quite other self made storage structure.
ACPC magazine advertising The Demo
10. You have a website, a great resource for everything-Logon. Do you still bring updates to it, from times to times? It reflects great friendship spirit btw, awesome read, many love to share!
This site is a little bit out to date now.
Fred had suggested me to put all the sources of our old demoes on the site, especially The Demo, but it's a big work, and i'm not certain about the interest (these sources were not very commented. with the cpc assemblers, comments took many precious bytes). The objective is not to have another forum or news of the scene activity, because i believe that several sites do that already very well.
But I would update these pages one day...
Fred had suggested me to put all the sources of our old demoes on the site, especially The Demo, but it's a big work, and i'm not certain about the interest (these sources were not very commented. with the cpc assemblers, comments took many precious bytes). The objective is not to have another forum or news of the scene activity, because i believe that several sites do that already very well.
But I would update these pages one day...
11. The interview is almost done. So now this is free topic.. anything else to share with us?
I wanted to phone to Shap near 19:00 to read him a full load of ignominies with revolt and disdain...
But I prefer to say that you should let nobody discourage you from creating or from participating, whatever what is your level or what you bring to the scene.
All the rest is only empty conceit.
But I prefer to say that you should let nobody discourage you from creating or from participating, whatever what is your level or what you bring to the scene.
All the rest is only empty conceit.
Thank you a million Serge for answering these questions!
Thanks to you. It was with pleasure.
Euromeeting 2 - Reims 1992
