Amiga Bouncing Ball Demo Origin Story

In December of 1983, we were busy writing software to test, exercise, and demo
the capabilities of the prototype hardware coming together. I was in charge of
graphics software. The beginnings of the Boing Demo started with Sam Dicker
writing a demo that showed a full screen 3d ball that spun using colormap
animation. We all had created several demos during December to show off the new
hardware. I had the idea to do something else with that spinning ball. I took
Sam's software and changed it to reduce the size of the ball so I could bounce
it by changing the raster pointer. I didn't get very far before we had to pack
everything up and head to Las Vegas for CES. For the first 3 days of CES, demos
were shown like Sam's spinning ball, text, an audio synthesizer controlled by a
small music keyboard (power chord was my favorite setting), but no bouncing
ball. In the evening of CES I continued working on the new demo and finally by
early Thursday morning I had completed the first version of the Bouncing Ball on
the Amiga. There was no sound and it only bounced up and down, but it spun and
cast a shadow over a grid I had drawn. We (RJ and I) fell asleep inside the demo
room leaving the demo running. Amiga people coming in before the show started
Thursday morning saw the demo and said they need to bring everyone back to see
the new demo. The Amiga booth was real busy. Note that the Amiga demo was behind
closed doors by invitation only.

Told by Dale Luck to Al Kossow, Software Curator, Computer History Museum