The Exceptions

The Exceptions were a German demo group formed in the 1980s. They were early pioneers writing demos for the Atari ST platform.

History

Usually known by the shortened form Tex they formed in the spring 1986 when Eric Simon and Udo Fischer were still teenagers. On obtaining an Atari ST they started exploring what they could do with this new hardware. After finding the initial Basic implementation limiting, they moved onto writing some simple graphical demonstration computer programs in assembly.[1]

After an early period of cracking games software and adding these demo screens to the loaders they eventually realised the coding was more fun. Their first breakthrough was a demo called the Little Color Demo released in the fall of 1987. It was however the release of the then large B.I.G Demo (Best In Galaxy) which propelled them to prominence.[2] It featured a large collection of music ported from various Commodore 64 games by their recently joined musician Jochen Hippel.

They later joined a demo group alliance known as The Union where they were involved in some screens of The Union Demo.

Release history

The Exceptions released many small cracktros and intros before moving onto proper demo releases.[3] A selection of the more influential releases are listed here:

Demo Release History
YearDemoComments
September 1987Little Sound DemoMostly music with some colour scrolling
January 1988The B.I.G. Demo113 Tunes, 5 screens[4]
March 1988The Amiga DemoAn early example of oversan border busting[5]
January 1989The Union DemoIn collaboration with TNT Crew, The CareBears, Level 16, the Replicants and the Delta Force[6]

Members

Like most demo groups the members used handles or nicknames to identify themselves.

  • Mad Max a.k.a. Jochen Hippel (musician).
  • Daryl a.k.a. Michael Raasch (coder).
  • ES a.k.a. Erik Simon (graphican).
  • 6719 a.k.a. Gunter Bitz (coder). His nickname is based on the citycode of his hometown.
  • -ME- a.k.a. Udo Fischer (coder).

Notes
  1. Posthuma, Stefan. "The history of demo programming on the ST". Vol 7 Issue 3. ST News.
  2. Dead Hackers Society. "Review of B.I.G. Demo".
  3. "The Exceptions". pouet.net.
  4. "The B.I.G Demo by The Exceptions". pouet.net.
  5. "The Exceptions (Atari ST)". Janeway Amiga Scene Demo Search Engine.
  6. "The Union Demo by The Exceptions". pouet.net.
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