Welcome!
Welcome to the Logon System blog.
Logon System is a group founded in 1988 whose members worked primarily on a 1980s home computer called the CPC, manufactured by Amstrad. The group also worked occasionally on other machines from that era.
My pseudonym in this group is Longshot.
Logon System had a certain influence in the small world of the demoscene in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly through its productions but also by cultivating a spirit of information sharing around a common passion. We were fortunate and privileged to be able to share this knowledge through a widely circulated specialized magazine (Amstrad Cent pour Cent), which gave the group a certain "reputation" in this small community.
Despite the years and gray hair (for those who still have it), several of us have remained in contact. I have occasionally contributed to dedicated forums (CpcRulez and CpcWiki for example), helping with a bit of code here, a tool there, or technical or historical explanations whenever possible.
Overflow, one of the team members, brilliantly took up the torch of demo creation in the early 2000s. He produced impressive creations in the purest spirit of demomaking: to provoke amazement in the viewer through an unusual and pleasing effect, deemed impossible to achieve (if one doesn't know the magic trick behind it).
As for myself, I worked on the CPC in spurts, depending on various life circumstances. Being rather passionate about research, many of my works remained in a drawer until 2020. The Covid pandemic gave me the opportunity to start writing a structured document containing a synthesis of my knowledge, validated by thousands of test programs.
At the end of 2021, I published this document (Compendium) along with an old demo from the 1990s (Amazing Démo) revised to fix display compatibility issues encountered at the time and add a short introduction with new techniques, as well as test programs (Shaker).
In 2022 and 2023, I was fortunate to get in touch with DManu78, author of the AMSpiriT emulator.
Passionate about the CPC, he openly and humbly shared the progress of his work on the system-cfg forum.
DManu78 agreed to work with us synergistically. This very positive collaboration allowed the Compendium to grow and advance beyond my expectations. The latest public version of the document is version 1.7.
During this work, I created several programs described as "Proof Of Concept" (POC). In the professional IT world, they make it possible to demonstrate the feasibility of an idea. Beyond testing, it was also a way to create small amusing and innovative things. I will return to the Compendium and these small creations in a future post if the blog finds its audience.
Why a blog?
To express myself more simply than through various social networks (these days, it's mainly Discord that's in fashion, succeeding Facebook, but it's hard to structure discussions there and avoid "trolls").
It also became necessary.
I have indeed been the recurring target for several years of a small group of people within the microcosm of the French CPC community. These individuals have been trying for over 10 years to spread false or misleading information about me through social networks, their productions, fanzines or novels, with the aim of minimizing or denying my work, or at worst slandering or attempting to ridicule me.
In the context of my more sustained public activity on CPC since the end of 2021, particularly with the publication of the Compendium, these same people have begun a series of disloyal maneuvers to attack this work from different angles.
It's quite ironic when you know they've been dreaming for years of having such a document...but probably not written by me.
These final clarifications were necessary because I will soon be looking at, among other things, articles in the paid fanzine "64NOPs".
Longshot / Logon System