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ESI

Ethanol Software Inc, a Spectrum demo group from Toruń

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ESI (Ethanol Software Inc) was a Polish demo group from Toruń whose ZX Spectrum megademo The Lyra II went out on a Sinclair User covertape in December 1991. The group followed it with Shock in 1992, moved to the SAM Coupé, and still releases occasional productions.

Not to be confused with Eagle Soft Incorporated, the North American Commodore 64 cracking group that also signed itself ESI.

In December 1991 British Spectrum owners found a Polish megademo on the front of Sinclair User. The magazine’s covertape carried “the rad LYRA 2 music demo”, made by a group from Toruń that called itself Ethanol Software Inc, or ESI for short. The Lyra II was the group’s second demo that year, and in 1992 it followed with the eight-part tape megademo Shock.

The name was a joke about the alcohol in drinks, and the group’s scroll texts return to it often. The loader of its first demo, The Lyra, printed “COPYRIGHT E.S.I.” and the demo gave a contact address in Toruń, in northern Poland.

Fast facts

  • From: Toruń, Poland.
  • Name: Ethanol Software Inc, also written Ethanol Soft Inc. and E.S.I.
  • Members: Kaz, Mat, Ziutek and Rackne, as the scroller of The Lyra II lists them; Demozoo also lists Muad’dib, Cat-Man, Kassoft and Sabe.
  • Platforms: ZX Spectrum (1991–1992), then the SAM Coupé (1992–1993), with later one-off productions for other machines.
  • Best known for: The Lyra II (1991) and Shock (1992).

The Spectrum demos

Demozoo lists two ESI demos from 1991, The Lyra and The Lyra II, the second dated 9 August. The scroller of The Lyra II names the line-up: “THIS TIME ‘ETHANOL SOFT INC.’ (E.S.I.) IS COMPLETED: MAT, ZIUTEK, KAZ’N’RACKNE”. Kaz and Mat wrote the code, Ziutek wrote the music, and the texts came in both Polish and English, with Muad’dib credited on Demozoo for the English translation.

The texts are full of the Polish scene of the time. One part sends rude messages to the people at the Polish computer magazines Bajtek and Top Secret, telling one of them that the Spectrum is not dead. The same part explains that while demo makers abroad aimed their insults at the Commodore 64, in Poland everyone aimed them at Atari owners. The group’s music was written for the AY sound chip of the 128K Spectrum, and one scroller explains in Polish that “ST” in its music credits means Sound Tracker, the music editor, not an Atari ST.

The Lyra II travelled well beyond Poland. Sinclair User put it on its December 1991 covertape, with more of it on the January 1992 tape. It was also converted to TR-DOS disk at least twice: one version is signed by Vasilyev Anton, and another, dated 1992, by ASC of Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine.

In 1992 ESI released Shock and Shock Remix, again for the Spectrum, and Music Bank 5, a collection of tunes from recent games coded by Mat. Its scroller sets out the rules of a “music bank”: music and nothing else, with no effects, “not even VU-meters”, or somebody would call it a poor demo. It then sends 128 greetings messages, some of them to the staff of Sinclair User, and ranks the Spectrum demos of the day. Shock comes first. The Lyra II comes third, “much worse than ‘Shock’ but it was the first megademo”, with an atmosphere of its own.

The SAM Coupé and later

From 1992 the group’s releases moved to the SAM Coupé, a Z80 computer from Miles Gordon Technology that could emulate a 48K Spectrum. Demozoo lists a music tool, Etracker v1.2, and short intros in 1992, then The Lyra 3 and a disk magazine, E-Mag Demo, in 1993.

ESI never quite stopped. Demozoo lists a Game Boy Color demo, Infinite Bobs, in 2000; The Lyra 3.1 for custom hardware in December 2020; an intro, Plasma, in 2021; and VCCC Gift, a Spectrum entry in a code challenge, in December 2024.

Sources

See also

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