Area 5150 by CRTC & Hornet

It doesn't occur terribly often that you hear adjectives such as “impressive” used in conjuction with CGA graphics. But here were are once again! You may recall a while back an amazing demo was released into the world which used CGA's composite graphics to generate 1024 colors on the screen at once, quite a feat for a graphics standard most people associate with being able to display no more than 4 colors. If you haven't already seen this, check out CGA in 1024 Colors - a New Mode: the Illustrated Guide on VileR's blog for more technical info, or simply enjoy the YouTube video 8088 MPH by Hornet + CRTC + DESiRE (final version). And now, the team is back again with another ridiculously impressive demo! The latest effort is viewable on YouTube; check it out captured directly from real hardware in the video Area 5150 by CRTC & Hornet (Party Version) / IBM PC+CGA Demo, Hardware Capture or if you prefer view it as being presented at Evoke 2022 in the Area 5150 Audience Reaction video. This time around no composite video techniques are used, instead every trick in the book is pulled out to show 16 colors graphics with a CGA card and RGB monitor. While the demo scene has more traditionally been associated with the Commodore 64 or Amiga, both machines with specialized hardware for graphics and sound, it's nice to see the humble IBM PC given some attention; this demo is quite the accomplishment, congratulations to everyone involved (and a well deserved first place win)! At the moment only the demo videos are available, a more detailed technical write up should be coming soon and once it's available I'll be sure to post an update with the link. For now, enjoy the videos!