Spreadpoint

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Spreadpoint is an Amiga group. It was active from 1986 to 1996 mainly as a demo group. Composing non-commercial audio-visual demos, Spreadpoint took part in the unique period of creative discovery of multimedia technology. Their most famous works include X-Large and Cube-o-Matic demos, where 3D-imagemapping was introduced at realtime speed, Soundtracker V2.3 (a popular music editor) and the Spreadpoint sticker shown right.

[edit] History

It was founded 1986 when also its first Demo - Multiscanner - was released. Despite the name, Spreadpoint was mainly active as a demo group and had only minor spreading and cracking activities. Spreadpoint was based in Bavaria/Germany, had members in Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and Norway and BBS in Belgium, Germany and for some time also in the US. Cooperations of Spreadpoint were fostered with Austrian group Subway, and for a limited time there was a Spreadpoint-DefJam-CCS cooperation. Spreadpoint was also closely affiliated with Red Sector. In 1996, Spreadpoint set up a web site that included most of their important artwork. Demos, music and scrolltexts were made publicly available. The small "museum of computer arts" included not only Spreadpoint work, but also some other demos and general information about the demoscene and the Amiga in general. While official activities and artwork productions stopped in 1996, some Spreadpoint members continue to hold meetings until today. Most of the members are no longer active in the computer scene but have become sysadmins, software developers, school teachers, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, there is even a university professor. Some members like Starbuck and Lord are still active in the computer and art scene.

[edit] About Spreadpoint activities and members

Like many successful demo groups, Spreadpoint had their own coders, graphics artists and music composers. The following list is not complete. Besides demos, Spreadpoint also released multiple editions of the famous "Soundtracker" music editor (by Mnemotron), trainers like Elite II +184 (by Lord) and some utility programs, especially the "Power Utility" (by Buddha).

Music Composers: Starbuck, Erni, Ghetto
Graphics artists: Psy, Grampa, Lord, Fresh, Marvin, Ucom
Coders: Mike, Mnemotron, Mark, Buddha, Amicom, Depeche, Tip, Lord, Big Brother, Fiona, George II, Manhunter, Mathew, Thomas, Tilt
Organizers: A-Mike, Andy, Asgard, Munster, Roger
BBS: Spreadpoint BBS (Cocaine), Flying Saucer (Uli), Dark Century (Blackstar), Heaven's Gate(Yukon)
Supporters: Ice-Tea, Beamrider, Slash
Parties: Spreadpoint members and friends come still together rather often. Last bigger party held together with Radwar, Tristar and Red Sector, Fairlight was called Rainbow Party and located in Heinsberg/Germany. (Amiga-Invitation by Lord)

The music artwork of Starbuck can also be experienced at Nectarine demoscene radio (see References). Some of the many logos are available at the Spreadpoint Website.

Selected Demos: Multiscanner (1986), XLarge (1989), Wooow (1990), Scrapheap (1990), Cube-O-Matic(1991)
Selected Music: theme.spt (1989, XLarge demo, by Erni), mod.transformer (1989, Soundtracker 2.3 Intro, by Starbuck), mod.tennis (1990, Wooow Demo, by Starbuck) and mod.robotron (by Starbuck with samples from Kraftwerk "Ich bin Ihr Diener", used in the Scrapheap coded by Depeche)

The German member Lord was active as a Coder, Cracker, Graphican, Musician, Phreaker, Sysop. Nowadays he is a well known painter, sculptor and mediaartist. Last production: Stage design for Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John's Passion with Deutscher Kammerchor. Last seen: Demo against 1984, Berlin, 22. September 2007, http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de