ISSUE #2 ---------------------------------------- Page No. ## ------------ Contents Page ------------ ----- Demo Reviews by NOSAH of DCS ----- ---------- Classified Adverts ---------- ------ Kreators Coding-Help Page ------- - An Introduction to Amiga Demo-Coding - ---------- Computer Addiction ---------- ---------- Freephone numbers ---------- ------- Count Zero's Amiga Quiz -------- MF Party Report and Interview - Mr BIG ----------- Vector graphics ----------- ---------------------- STOLEN DATA Issue #2 ----------------------- A TRISTAR - DCS - ANARCHY CO-PRODUCTION Shortcut-Page Title Author ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ F1 - 1 Contents -- F2 - 2-4 Demo Reviews Nosah - DCS F3 - 5-6 Computer Addiction Parell-axe - Alienation F4 - 7 Freephone Numbers Count Zero - Alienation F5 - 8-9 Quiz Count Zero - Alienation F6 - 10 Classified Adverts -- F7 - 11 Letters to Kreator Kreator - Anarchy F8 - 12-15 Magnetic Fields Party Report Mr Big - Anarchy and interview with No 5 F9 - 16-17 Beginners guide to coding Kreator - Anarchy F10 - 18-20 More advanced topics - 3D vectors Kreator - Anarchy Keep those articles and letters coming in, we need your help to make this Magazine successful. Thanks also to everyone who has written in with views on the first issue, if you feel the magazine lacks something, or you think you can improve it in any way please write to either address below . NOSAH (DAVE) MICHAEL (KREATOR) 99 St. LUCIA PARK, 42 BROWFIELD TERRACE, BORDON, SILSDEN, HANTS KEIGHLEY, GU35 OLD, W.YORKS, BD20 9PT, ENGLAND. ENGLAND. By the way this awesome music is by 4-MAT, press DEL to toggle text-colour ------------------ The Demo Reviews ------------------ ------------ By NOSAH - DCS ------------ For all the demo worshippers out there, here is the demo review page. This is where demos released since the last issue of the mag will be looked at and if worthy they will be rated and possibly included on the disk. This page is being done by Nosah coz Frapp and myself didn't agree fully on certain aspects. I hope there are no hard feelings Frapp. Let's kick off then with the demos which have climbed to the top this time. FOLLOW ME - RED SECTOR ---------------------- Dave-I know that this demo is actually a bit dated now, but it was release after issue 1 of S.D. So I've included it here.I would rate it most certainly as one of the best demos released since issue 1. It is up to Red Sector standards The graphics used in the demo are superb, and the skeleton which is beckoning to you out of the screen is quite stunning.Occasionaly an animated aircraft will fly from the horizon to the front of the screen accompanied by appropriate sound effects. There is a large RS logo at the top of the screen which can be toggled out to reveal the obligatory scroll text. One of the major points about this demo is the music composed by Romeo Knight, it's brilliant and very atmospheric. Check this demo out, it's on the disk. Kreator - I'm only going to say a few words here. The demo is in fact based on the album cover 'Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying' by Megadeth, right down to the logo style.As Megadeth are one of my fave bands,full marks there. Coding wise the demo is relatively simple, but the combination of great graphics and impressive sonics from Romeo Knight make this a demo worth watching. VECTORS 1990 - REBELS --------------------- Dave - First of all I think it is only right to say that the similarity between this demo and SEVEN SINS from Scoopex Finland is very noticable.Even the music is similar. However, I still have to say that it is a worthy piece of work, with some improvements made over the demo it is emulating.There is outstanding use of bobs and vectors, including a really nice screen of bobs which make up a solar system, very colourful too.All displays are imposed over the all too often present star field, with the screen size being reduced slightly by the introduction of two grey colour bars. In this demo, the Bobs/Vectors are not faded out as they change, instead a nice touch has been added where the lower colour bar moves up to wipe the screen clear and then lowers to reveal the next routine ..Nice. The music isn't too great but it's a good demo. Kreator -The bobs in this demo all run on a full 32 colour screen, which deserves some commendation. This results in some very good looking objects. Another point in their favour is the complete absence of a scroller, and the most suprising fact of all, this demo is just over 70 k in length! I agree entirely with Dave's selection of this demo. THE ROOM - FAIRLIGHT -------------------- Dave - Quite a novel demo I thought. A great tune is playng while you watch some raytracing done in the centre of the screen (The Room) above and below this is an unusual "ripple" effect. I don't know what it is, I just like it. Kreator - Great demo to watch, interesting use of sprites(I think!)to create a solid 3D cube bouncing round the room, well done Celebrandil ! Well there have been quite a number of demos released recently, here are some of them .... Megademo-Predators>>Some great parts in this demo from New Zealand, well worth checking out if only for the music (2 Disks ).....Megademo-Vision>> This is yet another megademo from them but some good grafix from a new member ..... Partytime-Slipstream >> It's basically a number of digitised pics from the Bournemouth party which are displayed progressively,there are bobs and logos displayed over the pics, but they appear only as shadows,which adds to the effect of the pics which are in B/W. Coded by Andi (Nice one)..... Landscape-Mode D >>An unusual one this it is displaying ( in framework form ) a landscape which is continuously changing shape and rotating , great music.....Rebellion-Network >>What can I say, some of the best music I have ever heard on the AMIGA, all coded by 4MAT. Don't expect to see any great artwork coz there are no grafix...Hit the Road-Flash Prodution ( its a megademo), This one was made for the Upfront party in Denmark, It contains some excellent music and artwork and is a real team effort with all members of the group contributing....... Vectorstuff-IT >> Another one produced for the Upfront party, this demo contains an absolutely fantastic tune and some really good vector stuff, from Norways best !!.... VectorBalls- Arcadia >> A powerful tune and some nice multicoloured balls moving and rotating.... Please send your demos for review to the address on the contents page. Now for a couple of adverts -------------------------------------- If you want to buy or get the latest AMIGA wares then contact -- VISION FACTORY -- Write to ( NO NAME !! ) PLK 021362 C 2300 KIEL 1 WEST GERMANY -------------------------------------- The UNTOUCHABLES are looking for additional members, only the best will be accepted - Contact the UTB HQ SPIRAX - UTB 38 MARTON DRIVE BILLINGHAM CLEVELAND TS22 5BA -------------------------------------- Computer and Televison Addiction -------------------------------- By Parell-axe of Alienation In a world of rapidly advancing knowledge into the electronical envir- onment, we find ourselves amongst a slight, but noticable problem. The problem as I am sure you are aware is that of people sitting in front of screens either watching people or looking at Sprites and Bobs wizzing around the screen at high speeds. Something that you cannot resist yourself from doing is called an addiction. In this case it is TELEVISION and COMPUTER ADDICTION. Most of us just sit in front of our Amiga`s to play games, some sit to watch demo`s, some use utilities to achieve certain goals and some use their Amiga`s to write tremendous amounts of code so that other people can see what they are capable doing within an assembler. Whatever the reason is, that you sit in front of your Amiga, some of us are aware that we are unable to pull ourselves away from this almighty machine, and some people think that addiction does not exist. Well it does!!!! About 50 per cent of the people who own a computer use it at least one hour a day. 30 per cent use their computers at least Two and-a-half hours a day and 20 per cent use their computer more that 3 hours-a day. This means that an average person out of the 50 per cent group who has a computer from the age of 7 (lets say he`s got an Atari....R.I.P) spends 336 hours or 14 DAYS in front of his computer per year. So by the time he is 40 he would have spent 11088 hours or 462 days or 1 year and 97 days of his life staring despondently at a screen of some sort. WOW!!! With computers it`s mainly the same things you see, demos,utilities, games but television is a much bigger threat to the way that we live. With the introduction of Cable and Satellite TV we now have the option of many more channels and a much wider option of what we watch. You now have the option to see Opera, Sport, Continuous Films, Non stop Music and you can even order shopping through the T.V. So it`s no wonder that we are becoming more dependant on the square screen in the corner of our living rooms. Since we can watch sport instead of participating in it and we can get shopping instead of going out to the shops to get it, we are using less and less energy.In turn this unused energy is stored as fatty deposits aroung the walls of the arteries. If one of these arteries is block or made smaller by these deposits, a number of hazardous effects can arise. e.g Heart Disease or even Heart Attacks. Televisions also give off minute amounts of radiation, and over the years these minute pieces of radiation can amount into enough to start a chain reaction in the cancer cells within each human`s body. So what it really means is that if you watch too much T.V or use computers too much,you will either turn into a mass of fat or you will eventually become a fleshless computer user as you begin to rot away as a result of over using your fingertips and under using your brain and muscles for something more strenuous like sport. I use my computer well over 5 hours a day and I couldn`t careless if I rot away as a result of using my beloved Amiga too much, at least I`ll rot away doing something that I enjoy. So my advice to all you computer and tele- addicts out there is......Sod everyone else....Do what you want to do and If they don`t like it...Tell them to suck on it. If you want to contact ALIENATION then write to: 233 Heronswood Road Welwyn Garden City Herts Or Phone AL7 3JH (0707) 326547. ENGLAND Ask for Phil CODERS, GRAPHICS ARTISTS, MUSICIANS SWAPPERS NEEDED. Kreator - Thanks Phil for that article Sorry, it arrived too late for Dave to include it in the paper mag. INTERESTING FREEPHONE NUMBERS ! LIST COMPILED BY: COUNT ZERO OF ALIENATION ALL NUMBERS ARE PRECEDED BY 0800 89 FOLLOWED BY FOUR DIGITS: HOLLAND-------------------------8427 JAPAN---------------------------5523/5526/5512 AUSTRALIA-----------------------5654/0022/9991/5619/7101/9600 AMERICA-------------------------1381/1382/1313/1837/0211/2028/1135/5534/3030 AMERICA (OPERATORS)-------------1395/0011/1594/3270 CANADA--------------------------3131/3426/1024 SWITZERLAND---------------------4517/7101 HONG KONG-----------------------5793/0852/5761/5511 FRANCE--------------------------0033/44 AIRLINES------------------------1000/2000/5555 COMPUTER------------------------5566 All these numbers are freephone 0800 numbers,so dont worry about your phone bill, and as far as I know all of them are still operative, but the countries names may not be correct. The reason they exist is so that legitimate users can phone them for free,and the company on the other end pays for the call, the CANADA 3426 number should put you through to Bell Phone Co.AMERICA 3030 should be the New York Stock Exchange !! Remember that International calls take 15 - 20 seconds to connect. This Info was brought to you by COUNT ZERO OF ALIENATION !!,Another exclusive for the best disk mag around - STOLEN DATA ! ------------------------------------- ------------- Count Zero's Quiz ------------- ----------------- ----------------- ------------- Questions ------------- ------------------------------------- 1. What does 'Amiga' mean in spanish ? 2. The British TV system is called P.A.L.,what does it stand for ? 3. The American TV system is called N.T.S.C.,what does this stand for ? 4. What will the 1.4 Operating System not have ? 5. How many pins on your external disk drive port ? 6. What is the fastest Modem the Amiga can Support ? 7. ROM routines begin at what address in memory ? 8. Name two ways to phone America for free ! 9. How mant bitplanes does a Hold-And-Modify picture use ? 10. Quartex use the lyrics from which music group in their messages ? 11. What is the most amusing advert seen in computer mags recently ? 12. What combination of keys give you the pound sign ? 13. What does WYSIWYG stand for ? 14. How do you know if your local exchange is digital ? 15. EPROM stands for what ?,and what is it usefull for doing ? 16. What is the interface called on the side of your machine ? 17. What CPU did the Commodore 64 use ? 18. What two books are the best for learning to code ? 19. What does custom register DIWSTRT control ? 20. Count Zero is a book written by whom ? ------------------------------------- ------------- Count Zero's Quiz ------------- ----------------- ----------------- ------------- Answers ------------- ------------------------------------- 1. Amiga means 'Female Friend' in Spanish 2. PAL stands for Phase Alternating Line 3. NTSC stands for National Television Standards Committee 4. No Software Failures (Guru's) !! 5. 23 pins 6. 19200 bps 7. ROM starts at Hex F80000 8. Phone 0800 89 0011 / or use someone's AT & T card ! 9. HAM uses 6 bitplanes 10. Quartex like Pink Floyd lyrics (so do I) 11. The advert trying to discourage software piracy 12. Press 'Alt' and L to get the pound sign 13. What You See Is What You Get 14. Your phone will make audible tones when you dial a number 15. Electronically Programmable Read Only Memory-Good for pirating cartridges 16. The S.C.S.I. Interface (Small Computer Systems Interface) 17. The 64 used a 6502 CPU 18. The Amiga Hardware Reference Manual and The Systems Programmers Guide 19. DIWSTRT controls where the playfield screen starts 20. William Gibson,published by Grafton Okay,Thats all Folks, Count Zero ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In case you are not in possession of the accompanying STOLEN DATA paper magazine, this is what you're missing, An Interview with DEL of SAE ( now MAYHEM !!! ), Interview with PORSCHE of the NUKEBUSTERS, A profile of RED SECTOR, Interview with IRATA of RED SECTOR, Gossip, Party report from the UPFRONT-TRILOGY-DOMINATORS party, Report on the VENLO Meeting, Intro to the CE BIT Show, Demo Reviews, Judge Drokk cartoon strip, Dear Mr Drokk, The Charts, A great SILVER cartoon, Lots more great artwork, And a brilliant front cover by BRADY of WOT And what does it cost for this enlightenment, only 30p + SAE if you live in the UK ( Bank-Note in your own currency nearest to 1 pound sterling + Disk for the disk magazine ) So get those orders sent in now, and don't forget issue Three of your favourite magazine is due for release approx. 30th MARCH. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- The Coders Section --------------- ----------- By Kreator ----------- ------- Help - Page ------- KREATOR, I have only been coding for about a month, and when I recieved STOLEN DATA disk mag off a contact I decided to read the section on bobs,but I soon found that it was mostly incomprehen- sible. So how about something which myself and other apprentice coders might be able to grasp ?, like how to do a scrolly, detailing what needs to be done, how to do it, and some source code included on the disk. I think this would be a more logical progression than starting with probably the most complicated subject, like blitter objects, and would help a lot more guys like me who are just starting to code. From The Neuromancer !! -------------------------------------- Neuromancer, Your wish is my command, you will see that in this month's issue I have split the Coding section into a beginners and a more advanced section. -------------------------------------- Yo Man ! It would be cool to see some sinus-scroller sources in your great mag ! Bye Signed Jarno -------------------------------------- Jarno, This issue's coding section was already written when I received your letter. However I'll see what I can do for issue 3, sounds like a good idea. -------------------------------------- MAGNETIC FIELDS Select Party 3rd - 4th Feb 1990 ----------------------------------------------- Hammer,Judge Drokk,and myself (Mr-Big) arrived in Doncaster at around 4pm. We expected to be at a big hall when we arrived but it was just an ordinary house.As we walked towards the door we could hear lots of noise from inside. we knocked and all was silent,the door opened and we were greeted by a familiar face, it was Frap of M.F. and he said "oh no, its Anarchy !" at that point the noise level started to pick up again.We were now in a medium sized living room,packed to the rafters with people. There must have been 60 people in this small box. We pushed our way through to a clearing and started to set our gear up, (which was kindly brought along by Mnemonic of the Untouchables) all around there were people who I recognised.Well who was actually there : Oracle, Paradox UK, Acme, Acidforce, Illusions UK, Inner City, Mercenary, and of course Magnetic Fields. The entrance fee to this party was only a quid (reasonable) and beer and soft drinks were available at the bar. Food was ordered from the local Pizza Hut and was promptly delivered. At around 8pm at lot of guys had cleared out, this gave us a chance to copy all the latest cracks,which had been down- loaded all day by a good mate of mine 'Annialator of Oracle'. Things were beginning to slow down now, we were putting our finishing touches to our party demo which was the entry for the competition. All around there were bodies trying to get some kip. The demo and music competition were not until 2pm on Sunday so we all crashed out until 8am Sunday morning. Sunday 4th ---------- Well what can I say, we woke up fucking freezing.Judge Drokk had tried to get some sleep in Hammer's car, but just couldn't get off due to the fact it was around minus 10 outside. Inside however, things were starting to warm up, Annialator had just downloaded a few more cracks, and everyone got copies of our party demo, and our new chip music disk. At around 1:30pm Number Five and Opal arrived to judge the demo and music entries. the winners were:- Demo - Party demo by Anarchy(Kreator) Music - Jam Session by Anarchy(4-Mat) Verdict ------- Not bad for a first attempt, you can learn a lot from your first copy party.You can impress everyone and get a good name for your group, or it can turn out shit ( like the Maffia one in wales ) and get a bad name for your group. The entrance fee was cheap and food and drink was available at a price. Well done to Magnetic Fields, lets hope the next one you have is in a bigger place,but is just as much fun to attend. Interview with No 5 of Magnetic Fields ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Magnetic Fields Select Party 3-2-1990 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr-Big : Ok lets start,who are you and what group are you with ? No 5 : well im No 5 (number 5) and Im in Magnetic Fields Mr-Big : When did your group start? No 5 : 18 Feb 1989 Mr-Big : Where did you get the name Magnetic Fields? No 5 : Well, I was on the phone one day talking to Blaster and I asked him for a good name to call our new group, and he just said Magnetic Fields. apparently it was playing on his tape deck at the time. Mr-Big : Did you think you would become so popular? No 5 : No, but then how many groups do. Mr-Big : Where do you rate your group in the UK? No 5 : Does Miss World vote for herself ? Its not for us to say,its what the other groups think of us that counts. Mr-Big : Whats your fave demo on the AMIGA? No 5 : Well, I couldnt say what all the members of MF like, but I still like Red Sectors vector balls,for a while anyway. Mr-Big : What about fave music then ? No 5 : On the Amiga there are so many good tunes. I couldnt narrow it down to one. Mr-Big : Ok,what about favourite food? No 5 : The groups fave food when we get together is pizza. Mr-Big : Fave drink? No 5 : Well when i'm not driving its big Southern Comforts, the rest of the group vary from pop to whisky. Mr-Big : Ermm, what about your fave film? No 5 : Mine has to be Short Circuit, thats where my name originates. The rest of the group is probably ' Debbie does Dallas again' Mr-Big : Would you like to comment on your select copy party? No 5 : Ok, other than the one we had last year (which was just for group members ) you could say this was our first one. I would like to thank everyone who attended. Mr-Big : Will you have another party? No 5 : From the response from this one 'yes'. we will probably join up with another group or two and get a bigger place next time. Mr-Big : Have you got anything planned for this year? No 5 : Yes, watch out for some cool demos intros etc, we will carry on supplying our contacts as fast as we can, and of course we will have our yearly outing in april as usual. The Magnetic Fields raid on Alton Towers. Mr-Big : Thanks for your time No 5, before you go how about a group profile? No 5 : Well, here goes nothing...... Number 5 - Management Blaster - Swapper/Co-management Dextrous (ex Yaz) - Coder/Musician Hit - Coder Bastard - Coder Spook - Coder Hassle - Coder Sister Arv - Graphics/Vector Designer Frenzy - Graphics Anz - Graphics Spook - Musician Spike - Musician Cosy - Modem Trader/Swapper (fast and reliable) Opal - Modem Trader/Swapper (Kick Off champion) Frap - Demo Freak/Swapper (probably the best demo freak in the world) Interview carried out by Mr-Big/Anarchy 3rd Feb 1990 -------------------------------------- -------------- An introduction to demo coding on the Amiga ----------------- --------------- By Kreator ---------------- Well due to requests from our readers, I have split this article into two: one part backtracks from last months issue, and covers the copper the other covers what I had originally intended to do this issue but not in as much depth, ie. 3D graphics. One defence an ST owner makes for his plastic breeze-block when challenged by an AMIGA owner is that the ST has a slightly faster 68000 processor ( 8 Mhz compared with the miggys 7.14 Mhz) Unfortunately for him however the Amiga has an array of very powerful custom chips to create wonderful graphics, crisp sounds multiplicities of sprites and bobs and dynamically alter the structure of the display quickly and easily. The latter is what I hope to cover this issue ie. I will be talking about the Copper. The Copper is in fact a very simple processor, it has only three instructions namely WAIT , MOVE , SKIP WAIT X,Y - This instruction tells the copper to wait until the specified position is reached. X is measured in Bus cycles, or 2 low res. pixels, each command has two words which means it takes two bus cycles to process the command ie. we can only specify X to an accuracy of 4 low res pixels. Unfortunately the Vertical Y position is specified in 8 bits ie. from 0 to 255, but there are 313 ( 0 to 312 ) raster lines in a non-interlaced screen.How do we specify these last 57 lines? This is achieved by Waiting until the last possible position recognised by the copper ie. 222,255 , then execute another WAIT instruction. eg. You want WAIT 50,270 instead use: WAIT 222,255 WAIT 50,15 (ie. 270 and 255) MOVE A,REG - Moves the value A into the specified Register. The Copper assumes the REG is an offset to the start of the Custom register area HEX DFF000. eg. Color00 is standard label for the background colour and is at $DFF180 To set the screen to black at position (0,0) use : WAIT 0,0 MOVE 0,$180 SKIP X,Y - Very similar to WAIT but if the position specified has already been passed by the raster beam, then the copper carries on but skips the following instruction. I have never needed to use this command so I won't go into anymore detail. As it happens, no assembler will generate these commands for you they must be encoded yourself. Some of the tedium can be removed however with the use of macros, which take a little longer to assemble but are infinitely easier to debug and follow. See the source on this disk ( in the Custom Registers file ) for examples of this. For obvious reasons I have renamed the MOVE command MOV. The Structure of the commands are as follows ; MOVE Command word 1 bits 0 0-8 9-15 0 Register Unused Command word 2 holds the data word WAIT Command word 1 bits 0 0-7 8-15 1 X position Y position Command word 2 bits 0 1-7 8-14 15 0 X mask Y mask BFD A lot of the second word will look unfamiliar. BFD means Blitter Finished Disable, if this bit is clear the copper will always wait for the blitter to stop before continuing,this is only of any use if you start the blitter from within the copper. The masks allow you to only consider certain bits of the (X,Y) raster position. Thats all for this months intro. the source on the disk also covers setting up screens. Next month I will tell you how to write a scroll routine. ---------------- More advanced coding techniques ---------------- ----------- By Kreator of ANARCHY UK ---------- ---- 3 D routines ---- I am going to approach this topic from a mathematical point of view, the mathematics invloved are quite simple but if you are not particularly adept in this area dont worry it isn't essential to understand the underlying theory. Now suppose we are given an object to transfer into a wireframe representation on screen. We must construct a list of coordinates which specify the vertices of the object and also a connection list which tells the computer how to connect these points together. eg. A cube has 8 vertices, and 12 connecting sides, the vertices are as follows (50,50,50) (-50,50,50) (-50,-50,50) (50,-50,50) (50,50,-50) (50,-50,-50) (-50,-50,-50) (-50,50,-50) and if these are then labelled 1-8 we have the connections as follows 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-1 5-6 6-7 7-8 8-5 1-5 2-6 3-7 4-8 If you don't believe the example try to draw the cube yourself and visualise the coordinates. Notice that the point (0,0,0) is at the centre of the cube, this is important because in our rotations this will be the only point which remains stationary. When rotating the object what we are in fact doing is rotating the vertices about the fixed ORIGIN (0,0,0). There is a mathematical theorem which states that any 3 dimensional rotation can be split into 3 individual rotations in only 2 dimensions, which is a much simpler thing to calculate. Now in general it is quite difficult to calculate these rotations from an arbitrary 3D rotation, but happily enough this doesn't matter when writing demos because by simply performing 2D rotations and varying the 3 Angles of rotation we achieve an interesting effect. The formula for 2D rotation is given as follows, x = X cos(s) - Y sin(s) y = Y cos(s) + X sin(s) This can easily be shown with simple trigonometry. These formulae enable us to rotate a point in just two dimensions, but all we now do is to rotate the point three times in different planes. In other words if we are given a general point (x,y,z) and a,b,c are the three angles of rotation then to calculate the rotated point follow the procedure below (just for interest the angles a,b,c are called the Euler angles) x1 = x cos(a) - y sin(a) y1 = y cos(a) + x sin(a) y2 = y1 cos(b) - z sin(b) z1 = z cos(b) + y1 sin(b) z2 = z1 cos(c) - x1 sin(c) x2 = x1 cos(c) + z1 sin(c) Then (x2,y2,z2) holds the rotated coordinate. To implement this on the Amiga use a Sintable which has values from -32768 to 32767, this can be reused for the cosine calculations as cos (a) = sin (a+90 degrees). You could code the routine something like Move x,d3 Move y,d4 Move z,d5 Lea Sin,a0 Lea Cos,a1 Move d3,d6 Move d4,d7 Move a,d0 ;a holds 2x the angle Move (a0,d0),d1 Move (a1,d0),d2 Muls d2,d6 Muls d1,d7 Sub d7,d6 Add.l d6,d6 Swap d6 ;Calculation of x1 Muls d2,d4 Muls d1,d3 Add d3,d4 Add.l d4,d4 Swap d4 ;Calculation of y1 etc...... Now up until now we haven't considered how the lines will be drawn to the screen, I shall assume you have access to a blitter line draw routine, if not there is one included on the disk, which is from the System Programmers Guide. There are two options open now we can leave the coordinates as they are and simply add a displacement to them before plotting the lines, or go for the more realsitic technique of perspective. This invloves scaling the x,y coords. according to how far into the screen we are. A reasonable way of doing that is as follows x,y,z in d3,d4,d5 Add #Depth+Scale,d5 Move.l #Scale*65536,d6 Divu d6,d5 Muls d5,d3 ;Scale the X coord Add.l d3,d3 Swap d3 Muls d5,d4 ;Scale the Y coord Add.l d3,d4 Swap d4 Alternatively you can use a table of scaling values. Now all that remains is to plot the lines. Dont forget up until now all vertices have been calculated with the origin at (0,0) but now we must move the origin to the centre of the screen or where ever else you want it. This means adding a displacement to each pair of coordinates. To see how these techniques are implemented I've included some source for you to examine. These routines can easily be adapted to other purposes, eg.to create vector bobs, use a single point for each bob and before plotting sort the z coordinates and plot the bobs in reverse order, also a simple form of hidden line removal can be implemented by creating a list of surfaces, calculating the normals to these surfaces and if the normals point away from you dont plot any lines in the surface. For an example of this see my Magnetic Fields Party Demo. Next month I will write about sine scrollers, Kreator .......