Chronicles

Tales from the road 1991-1997 with a car full of computer equipment. Conventions were a sort of predecessor to LAN parties, but with a focus on coding instead of gaming.

Fried Bits Eastern Coding Convention III (1995)

This thing was arranged in 1995 by The Independent, held at a strange place called Gemeinschaftszentrum Obervieland in the city of Bremen, Germany. There were about 300 people attending.

An early version of Bugs From Outer Space was released for the demo contest, landing on a 4th place in the tough contest against scene giants such as Lazer with their winning demo called “Lost Blubb”.

Mattias happened to fall asleep on the floor in the hallway. Someone took off his hat, placed it on the floor upside down and placed a note on him reading "HOMELESS". As he finally woke he found a pile of money in his hat (approx 11 Deutsche Marks in four different currencies). Ever since that episode we’re called “The men in hats” by Reservoir Gods.

To top it all off, we managed to get stopped by the Polizei on the Autobahn.

Reine and NoCrew in the infamous viking corner.

“22h50. On our left, there are the vikings of No Crew and Impulse. These Swedes are delirious: they brought EVERYTHING. In addition to their mega-big-Falcon-towers, I was able to count 4 coolers, 1 VCR, 1 waffle iron (true!), a 1.50m stack of audio equipment, 1 microwave, 5 speakers (with a big boomer), 3 Swedish flags and a huge mess all around their table. They came with a van, someone told me. Sweet Jesus, don’t let the network jump when they plug their monsters into my power strip.”
— Gael Trinquart, Toxic Mag 9 (May 1995, translated from French)

Gurgelkvack (1992)

The Gurgelkvack convention, also known as the Impulse Summer Party, took place in Stenungsund 1992. We initially had plans to release our dentro aptly called the Gurgelkvack demo, but time ran out quickly.

We booked a live band called Akmekop which was very appreciated by the attendants (at least the few ones who didn’t get tinnitus). We also got two large and ridiculously expensive RGB projectors: one in the cafeteria which showed demos non stop, the other in the big hall.

A certain famous demo crew had an “Coke Blast Experiment” in the hallway (don’t ask). We also had the distinct pleasure of witnessing the legendary blitzkrieg between NoCrew and Omega/Electra, resulting in the infamous "Omega Snake Demo" with sound recorded during the evening.

Among the attending demo crews were No Crew, Inner Circuit Explorers, Sync, Electra, Omega, Aggression, TLH, Crystalic, TFS/GRC, Universal Coders, Exonic, Kruz, Toxic and No Ball Crew. Electra won the demo competition.

Svenska Hemdator Nytt later wrote an article about the convention.

Links: Pouet, DemoZoo

Motorola Inside (1993)

This convention was a joint venture between Impulse and NoCrew back in 1993. After some intense weeks of planning, including soldering at 5 AM, the opening day arrived. We had official "Motorola Inside 93" tshirt merchandise on sale in the cafeteria section, and the sandwiches were so popular that members of Electra tried to buy more with exclusive source code.

The happy people in Omega and Electra had a wagon race in the corridors. There were even a few Falcon computers present and we arranged a small Falcon demonstration in the big hall.

The demo competition was won by Excellence In Art, featuring an animated music video with module player by Mårten. They won the music competition as well, thus rewarded with not one but two Atari Lynx portable game stations. Another memorable entry was "Ecstacy part B" by Inner Circuit Explorers, featuring cool stencil vectors. Mandus won the graphics competition with “Dolphin”.

Mandus with Impulse flag at Motorola Inside

Mandus with the Impulse flag at Motorola Inside.

Official "Motorola Inside 1993" tshirt merchandise.

Links: Pouet, DemoZoo

The Computer Crossroad (1993)

This beast was arranged by The Silents and several other crews in 1993. Over 1600 people showed up at Svenska mässan in Göteborg, making it the largest demo scene event in Sweden up to that time. All those people resided in a single big hall, doing their best to pump up the volume.

All sorts of strange creatures were attending, including those guys who insisted on wearing gas masks during the night. The Finnish crew Aggression marked their personal car parking space with spray cans, which was likely very popular with the local parking attendants.

Mandus got a 3rd place in the graphics competition with “Knight”.

Impulse area at TCC.

Nordic Atari Show #1 (1995)

The first Nordic Atari Show was arranged by SAK and NoCrew in Göteborg. People from Inner Circuit Explorers, New Core, DHS, XiA and more were attending at the convention.

Impulse were interviewed by a local newspaper. There was an exhibition with various Atari equipment, including the game Doom running in a Jaguar network. There were also several casualties of war during the Great Suction Arrow War rampaging in the halls.

Impulse had two demos for the contest. We finally decided to release some parts of the unfinished project Wizbound, which somehow got a 2nd place in the STE demo competition. There was also Ångest, a very short one-night hack which got a 3rd place in the Falcon demo competition. Mandus won the Falcon graphics with “Zoo” and Mattias won the STE graphics with “Tryne”.

Impulse headquarters at NAS-95.

Nordic Atari Show #2 (1996)

The second Nordic Atari Show was arranged by SAK in cooperation with NoCrew in Kortedala.

The demo contest featured the last demo from Impulse, entitled Bugs From Outer Space, which won the contest (prize was a Jaguar console). Reine also somehow happened to win the HTML competition.

Inner Circuit Explorers showed some stunning phong-shaded environment mapped objects and Aggression from Finland tormented us with sound experiments. AN Cool of TCB appeared from nowhere, showing some unreleased stuff and released his last demo ever (or so he said), entitled Keff demo.

Also appearing in the contest was a mysterious entry entitled RGB Reine. Reine was very surprised when his face began to bounce across the big screen with a RGB-splitter. The authors turned out to be New Beat Development. Very funny guys… (By the way, there is a rumor that Fiskkompaniet will make a demo called “VGA Daniel”)

Brainless Institute New Year Party (1992)

Brainless Institute was the name of a demo crew who held a new year convention in Skövde 1992. The Impulse crew went straight from a sleepless warmup party in Black Valley to the site in Skövde.

We soon realized that a lot of strange people had found the place as well, when we were greeted by a guy wearing a chainsaw and another one who dragged his monitor by the power cord like a dog. Welcome to Schlätta, I guess.

Legendary crews such as The Carebears (TCB), Sync, Omega and Electra were attending, and quick to harshly chase intruders out of their rooms. Mattias bought six bicycle pumps and created his own mini-gun to attack the surroundings. He also managed to get a 4th place in the graphics competition with the picture “NoHead”.

Compusphere (1993)

Compusphere was a series of conventions arranged by Galaktiska Institutet in the metropolis of Uddevalla.

After an intense drive through a snowstorm we arrived to the place. The hall was noisy and the pizzas were cold, but we did our best to increase the ambience by playing Depeche Mode on loud volume. Reine tried to get some hours of sleep in the car, but woke up almost freezing to death due to a blizzard.

Impulse won the demo contest with a horrible one-night-hack called Terra Incognita, featuring annoying samples of industrial music by Front 242. Mattias got a second place in the graphics competition with “Amiga Dino” and Mandus got the fourth place with “Doorlord”.

The demo contest prize ceremony and our winning demo Terra Incognita were broadcasted on local TV.

Impulse corner at Compusphere.

Compusphere 2 (1994)

The second convention by Galaktiska Institutet was held at Östraboskolan in Uddevalla.

Impulse showed a preview of Wizbound and tried to pile a stairway to heaven with pizza boxes. NoCrew donned their best Batman outfits while improvising a table tennis match using the hall equipment, to the dismay of the organizers. The theme of the weekend was Mayhem By Power Failure.

Compusphere 3 (1994)

Third convention by Galaktiska Institutet, this time at Regementet i Uddevalla.

The place featured a giant igloo in the center, for unknown reasons. Reine made the mistake of taking the car to fetch some loudspeakers from a shady apartment somewhere, don’t really know what happened there but the volume was suddenly pushed beyond boundaries in the hall.

Impulse area at Compusphere 3.

Västkust Internal (1993)

This friendly gathering was arranged by Inner Circuit Explorers in Kungsbacka 1993.

A lot of fun people were stuffed together in a small place, ensuring maximum chaos. Impulse shared room with NoCrew, thus turning the amplifiers to 11.

Mattias won the demo competition with his unconventional animation called the Biting Demo (honestly, you don’t want to know the content).

Impulse and NoCrew headquarters at Västkust Internal.

Västkust Internal II (1994)

After the success of Västkust Internal, there was a followup co-arranged by Inner Circuit Explorers and Impulse in Stenungsund.

This gathering was notable for fierce fencing wars, squash tournaments and lightning-enhanced floppy disk sandwiches on fire in the microwave oven.

Links: DemoZoo

The Party (1992)

The convention with the somewhat uninspired name was arranged by TLH and TFS in Lidköping 1992.

We brought our own RGB-projector to the room along with the usual tons of gadgets, which caused a bit of havoc with the organizers. There was some kind of rave party in a hallway, but as always, denial is policy. We still feel a bit bad though for bouncing stuff on sleeping people from the balcony.

Omega won the demo competition with their demo “Grotesque”, a visual demo with samples from Front 242.