Ever since I was made aware of the “Beat Nick Part 2” demo, I’ve been eager to find other Atari ST demos and animations that make use of the Atari’s VT52 text mode.

This week I found three more. I made some video captures of these demos as they appeared in the Atari ST emulator Hatari and I include them below for your enjoyment.

These demos are text files. They use special escape sequences to move the cursor around the screen and change colors. The technique is very similar to what ANSI artists did on IBM PC-compatibles to create ANSImations.

Also: if you know more about these demos or their authors, please add a comment!

Commando

This demo bills itself as “The First full length COLOR St Cartoon!!” It says it is a “Tim Production.”

This anti-Commodore animation depicts an Atari ST user who snaps and goes on a rampage killing Amiga fans and employees.

It’s a sequel to an earlier ATASCII animation with the same title made by the same artist, with a nearly identical plot — except in the original it was an Atari 8-bit user and the offending computer was a Commodore 64.

This particular demo runs really fast. To get the best effect, I would encourage you to download it and watch it at a slower speed in QuickTime, VLC, etc.

Original file: COMMANDO.LZH

Bouncing Fuji

This animation shows a multicolored Fuji bouncing around the screen. According to the demo itself, the text file was generated using GFA Basic.

Original file: FUJI_BOIN.TXT

Good morning, Jacob!

This animation shows a black spinning cube or pyramid.

The demo credits “Mr. Coke” of Avena and “The Innovator” of NEWline as the main coders.

Original file: SCHNAH.ZIP