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Oxyron

The German group behind the Coma Light demos

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A German demo group formed in December 1991, best known for the Coma Light series of Commodore 64 demos: twelve numbered parts between 1991 and 1994, then Coma Light 13, which won the C64 demo competition at X'2012. Oxyron also made Amiga demos in the 1990s and worked with Crest on Deus Ex Machina, winner at Mekka & Symposium 2000.

Oxyron announced itself in December 1991 with a demo called Coma Light, and kept the name going for more than twenty years. The German group released twelve numbered Coma Light demos for the Commodore 64 by 1994, with a few oddly numbered extras such as Coma Light 4 1/2 and Coma Light sqr(71) along the way. Then the series stopped. Eighteen years later Coma Light 13 won the C64 demo competition at X in 2012.

Fast facts

  • From: Germany; formed in December 1991.
  • Platforms: mainly the Commodore 64; also the Amiga, mostly between 1994 and 1998.
  • Best known for: the Coma Light series, ending with Coma Light 13 (2012), and Deus Ex Machina (2000), made with Crest.
  • Founders: TTS, AKC, Yazoo and Graham, by the scene database CSDb’s account; Demozoo names ten founders, all from the group Gloom.

A busy start

Oxyron came out of an older C64 group, Gloom. Demozoo’s history names ten founding members, all former Gloom members, with the graphic artist Yazoo elected leader. The group released a great deal very quickly. CSDb lists more than forty Oxyron releases for 1992 alone: demos, the diskmags Scene Observer and Pravda, music collections and editing tools. Coma Light 4 came fourth at the Light and Phenomena Easter Party in Sweden in 1992, and CSDb records Coma Light 8 as the winner of a C64 demo competition at The Party in Denmark that December. The organisers’ own published results for that year list only the PC and Amiga competitions.

The British press noticed the pace. Reviewing the odds-and-ends demo Fantasia 3 in July 1993, Commodore Force’s public domain column opened: “What an active bunch of computer freaks the Oxyron lot are! I mean, if you look up ‘active’ in the dictionary, you’ll be referred to the word OXYRON”. The group, it said, reckoned they were the most industrious group around, “and you’d have a hard time proving them wrong”. It did not think much of the demo itself, which it said “was rushed out in time for Coma Light 8 but wasn’t good enough to be included”.

At The Party 1993, in Herning, Coma Light 11 came fifth of the C64 demos with 400 points; Camelot’s Tower Power won. Coma Light 12 followed in 1994, and there the numbered series paused.

On the Amiga

In December 1994 Oxyron entered the Amiga demo competition at The Party with Killing Time, its first Amiga release. The organisers’ results put it tenth with 129 points, in the field that Andromeda’s Nexus 7 won. The Amiga side did better later. Oxyron’s Phongfree won the Amiga intro competition at The Party 1996 with 547 points, and XIII came second to Scoopex’s Alien 2 in the Amiga demo competition at The Party 1998.

The C64 work carried on alongside. Dawnfall, a one-file demo by Graham, came second at The Party 1995 behind Reflex. The group also organised the Symposium party in Germany in 1996, where its anniversary demo 4 Years Oxyron came third. At The Party 1997 One-Der came second to Smash Designs’ Second Reality.

With Crest

From 1998 Oxyron made several productions with the German group Crest. Krestyron came third in the C64 demo competition at Mekka & Symposium 1998, and Coma Job 2/3, credited to both groups, came third at The Party that December. Their best-known joint work, Deus Ex Machina, won the C64 demo competition at Mekka & Symposium 2000 with 362 points to 284 for Plush’s +H2K. The organisers’ results list it under Crest; CSDb credits its code to Crossbow of Crest and Graham of Oxyron, with Graham’s loader.

A reference for coders

Graham also wrote technical reference pages for the group’s website. His “6502/6510/8500/8502 Opcode matrix” lays out every opcode of the C64’s processor family, including the undocumented “illegal” ones, and marks which are unreliable. Of one of them, XAA, the page warns: “DO NOT USE!!! Highly unstable!!!” The site also carries register references for the VIC-II and the SID.

Coma Light returns

In the 2000s the group released less, and came second at Breakpoint 2007 and at X in 2008 with the two Natural Wonders demos. It came back to the top in October 2012. Coma Light 13, coded by Axis, Bitbreaker and Peiselulli with music by Fanta, won the C64 demo competition at X’2012 in the Netherlands. The Dutch musician Jeroen Tel was an Oxyron member from 2012 to 2017, by CSDb’s member list.

In 2014 Oxyron and Censor Design won X again with Comaland. The latest release in Oxyron’s CSDb list is the game Pieces II, in 2022.

Sources

See also

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