Previous Next

HEY MAN, this is really far out. It's so far out I can't see the point of it.

The latest craze from Llamasoft is called Psychedelia. The author describes it as a computer toy.

You could hardly call Psychedelia a game. All it does is create random, pretty, patterns which you can program and save onto tape. Pressing keys on the keyboard will have one of three effects. You can either change the characters which make up the patterns, change their colours or the overall flow of the patterns.

If you want to produce your own patterns the program presents you with one cursor block on the screen. You can change the block into one of the pre-defined character shapes, set the visual synthesiser to record mode and press the keys to control the direction of the whirls, lines, circles and diamonds.

Llamasoft has launched the product into the wrong market. Instead of being on the shelves of high street shops it should be running advertising matter in their windows. The program does allow text to be run with the graphics, so the product would be ideal for visual advertising.

The light synthesiser is an interesting idea, probably generated because Jeff Minter of Llamasoft had run out of things to do with camels, goats and llamas. It is the sort of activity which could make you go blind - or mad. You would certainly be mad to buy it.