Nah-kolor History Books

Written by Magic

Nah-kolor is a well-known Amiga group that is starting to get active on PC as well. In this article you can learn what the group has done so far.

Welcome to the Nah-kolor HIStory books. Read here how the OLDSkOoL core of Nah-kolor (Norby, Qba, Dreamer, Magic, Lazur, Elis and Baldhorse) meet in Poland, how they evolved and how eventually Nah-kolor got founded. This all within just a ONE year period lasting from August 1994 to July 1995.

But, you can also read about our joining AND leaving as a subgroup of TRSI, the Nah-kolor resurrection and the releases that followed in 1995/96 and 97.

Finally read about anno domini 1998.

-- 1994 --

On a sunny day, it was the 2nd of August 1994, me (Magic) and Sascha, who has left the Scene in the meantime, visited Phantom/Applause at his place in Poland. There was only one problem. By accident we visited him one week too early, so he wasn't at home.. What should we do? We took our list of Polish contacts, nearly 40 (!) and decided to call a few to see if we could visit them. If it was fate we didn't know at that time, but strangely enough the phone rang. This meant the awakening of a new era. The era of Dreamer and me..

In the end of 1993 I joined Applause to be the main editor of the THING magazine. Through my article writings this magazine worked its way up in the top ten of the international mainstream of Amiga diskmags. Applause, which is a Polish group, gained alot of reputation because of this. In 1994, Poland was a nation on its own. Yet to be discovered by the western Amiga scene. This was a common topic in various diskmags in that time.

The phone rang. Phantom's mother answered; the voice at the other end of the line was full of excitement.

It was the voice of an unknown Amiga musician, the Polish Dreamer, who in that time was a member of Flying Cows. From than on, things got rolling, our early visit to Poland was our 'luck' .. Dreamer invited us to his place, but since Poland is so big, we decited to spend the night at Python/Trsi's place, who would join us to our journey to Konin, Dreamer's hometown.

When we arrived in Konin, a special party was orginized just for us. And people came over from all over Poland to the house of Dreamer. Many we knew already, since Poland always had our interest. Xtd who I already had the pleasure of meeting at The Party 3, but also Norby, Sputnik, Kopara and Lenin were present. They are all very nice people. Dreamer told me he was very proud that he entered from nothing to the no2 spot as best musician in the Polish charts of THING. He let me hear some of his new tunes, and let me choose between two of them, which he should enter at the Intel Outside Party 1994. Ironically the one I didn't choose later became 2nd at The Party 4, where Dreamer had his breaktrough and got the attention he deserved as international Amiga musician. All his 'crazy' tunes had much influence through his already 9 years of piano playing experience... Dreamer also got 2nd at the Intel Outside Party 1994.

We later meet again at The Party 4. I joined Mirage and became editor of Chit Chat, while Dreamer, not long after the Intel Outside party, founded TPD (Tom, Python, and Dreamer) which later added a 4th name. Lazur. The no1 graphician of this time according to all charts. TPDL got 6th in the intro competition at The Party 4.

-- 1995 --

Short after The Party 4 TPDL died, and Dreamer joined Masque, which he left after a couple of months. Also Mirage died more or less, and I became independant. In July 1995 at The Somewhere In Holland Party, Dreamer and I meet again. He won the music competition with a very interesting module called 'Dziadowa Piesn' while Lazur got 3rd in the graphics competition. After the party we went to my place, and decided to found our own group; NAH-KOLOR. Dreamer thought of the Nah part and I took KOLOR from a beachball which was lying around my room, and these days is lying around in the attic. :)

After Nah-kolor had been formed, many things happened. We joined TRSI as a sub-group, we announced some heavy releases at The Party 1995, almost all diskmagazines got into the topic about the new sub-group of TRSI. We released a small crackintro coded by Baldhorse, and graphics by Lazur. Also SPEED packmag was released by Qba. But other productions got delayed, Nah-kolor and TRSI split up at The Party 1995, after some massive chats between various members. Main reason: TRSI didn't want a subgroup anymore. Only 100% members. Later almost at the end of The Party 1995 Danny joined up from Spaceballs...

-- 1996 --

After our break-up with TRSI, the beginning of 1996 was a somewhat inactive period in time for Nah-kolor... Nah-kolor needed a new structure as group now we were a group on its own. But in the middle of 1996 the new Lazur slideshow 'WILD' got released under the Anadune & Nah-kolor label. Some SPEED issues got released by Qba, people joined up and people left.

I released quite some articles in various magazines. Dreamer, Muffler and Lazur competed in various competitions. I started orginizing the mOments module collection together with Hedgehog, which got released at the 1st of November 1996 at the Saturne and Gravity party. (Held at the same date.) I became the main-editor of Showtime, issue 4 got released with quite a lot articles by me, a module by Dreamer and a module by Muffler, and a title picture by Lazur. At The Party 1996, Metal Designer released his 'Noiseless' 4kb intro, put together in just one weekend. In the meanwhile Klod was still coding on his demo. All in all not a bad year, but yet a very important one!

-- 1997 --

After The Party 1996, people were still working on productions, or were studying very hard to pass their exams. But around summer time Nah-kolor started releasing productions again. The Amiga scene witnessed a series of succesful releases in just a six months period... At the 11th July 1997 we celebrated our 2 years anniversary. Qba and Norby visited Dreamer at his house in Konin... And at the Intel Outside Party 1997 held at the 12th & 13th of July Klod released his first big demo called Touching. A demo with music by Revisq and graphics by Lazur & Fame.

Dreamer also competed in the 4 channel module competition with a module but didn't get as far as expected, however, strangely enough Muffler got 3th with a module, but until today we both don't know who entered his tune. :) I released a few articles in Seenpoint#5. The very nice Polish scener Action joined Nah-kolor in the beginning of 1997, but is anno domini 1998 not active on Amiga anymore. Yet Nah-kolor still remembers this loyal 'spox' dude..

In the meantime Blaze took over SPEED from Qba. And he released issue 35 until now. At The Assembly party 1997 Metal Designer and Hedgehog released their very nice 64kb intro called 'The Prophecy' with music by Muffler and gfx by Fame & Fra... At the end of August at the Gravity party 1997, where we released mOments at the 1996 edition, Klod came up with a new demo called 'Episode' with music by Scorpik, gfx by Fame and Lazur and tracings by Amiflash. Due to time pressure on some configs this demo doesn't run, but a fix is already released when reading this, and you could also try to run the demo without startup-sequence makedir ram:t, execute Episode.. This should do the trick :-) After this party, Norby travelled to Celic's place in Germany from where he travelled to the ECTS show in London...

At the 6th of September Nah-kolor organized The Italian Gathering 1997. From which people said it was a rather good and cosy party. From which a followup could be expected. After a while I (Magic) released some articles again... In ROM#9, Seenpoint#6, Showtime#6 and Generation#25...

In the beginning of November at a party in Hungary, Unreal released his first slideshow under the Faculty & Nah-kolor label. After this release, Faculty went inactive and will probably focus on the PC as Unreal told me. Some more members joined up in Poland. For example the talented musician Popcorn. In the UK Shade joined up (Generation co-editor) shortly after he had renamed to Alive.

At the 14th of December at the Astronyn'97 party in Poland, KLOD released PING-PHONG, a 64kb intro with music by Revisq and gfx by Fame. The intro ended 3th. At the same party various Nah-kolor members ended up rather high in the graphics, 4 and multichannel compo. Raze of Nah-kolor won the last mentioned competition.

The year was almost over now. Yet I wrote for several magazines that were still to be released. These are Seenpoint#7, EC#32, Retro#2 and The Jungle#10... All these magazines were planned to be released at The Party 1997. We decided not to release a demo at The Party 1997, yet we wanted to wait a week for The Trip party in Italy.

-- 1998 --

Just two years away of going into the next century, Nah-kolor already released a demo in 1998 when it was only 4 days old. Coded by Metal Designer in a small time period his Side-fx demo got released at The Trip party in Italy taking home a first place. Other people involved were Scout with his c2p codinx; Unreal, Alive, Fra, Made and Lowlife for the graphics and a very nice tune called mod.dawn composed by Dreamer.

SideFx.lha is a 1.79mb file, which can be downloaded from aminet or from this homepage. At the same party Unreal got the first place in the graphics competition, and Metal Designer surprised everybody with a first place in the fast intro coding competition.

In the middle of January, Traitor, a highly talented Raytracer in Poland, accepted Blaze's offer to leave Phase Truce and joined the Nah-kolor family. Later on in the middle of February Hiv and Blackstrike responsible for the magazine 'Orgazm' joined up in Poland, making Orgazm a Nah-kolor release...

In the first half of March Swapper QIX joined up in Poland since his former group Gods had died. Also PC graphician Warpig joined up to conquer the Amiga scene.

At the 15th of March at Spoletium'98 party in Italy, Nah-kolor won the 1st price in the 64kb intro competition. Nah's Hard Core intro was coded by Metal Designer, Scout and Hedgehog. Some other members ended rather high in the graphics and module competitions.

Though 1998 was already some months old, some rather huge releases were in developement for months now. Around summer time these productions were planned to be released. "Intel Outside party 1998 will be Ours!" coder Klod of Nah-kolor commented in a letter to Amiflash. Also the long awaited Unautorised Lands demo coded by Hedgehog with some help by MD was near completion, with a stunning graphical design by Unreal. The best design ever in my opinion. Also Amiflash's slideshow was supposed to be released at the Intel Outside party with two modules by Raze in it.

In the last few weeks of April I (Magic :) released some articles again. In The Official Eurocharts issue 33, in Seenpoint issue 8 and in Retro issue 3. Also Generation issue 26 features some nice articles by me. Raze of Nah-kolor supported Seenpoint issue 8 and Trashcan issue 4 with a module, and in the last mentioned magazine also Revisq contributed with a tune, composed together with Muffler. Unreal painted the layout design and title picture for the Official Eurocharts issue 33.

In the first week of June, after 10 solid months of hard work and laziness :D Unauthorized Lands was finally released at The Abduction 1998 party. With code by Hedgehog and Metal designer. ALL gfx and design by Unreal, one traced picture by Amiflash and music by Estrayk, it reached the thirth place. Also because the demo bugged on the 060 compo-machine. :( But a week after the party a 100% version was released.

During the Summer, Nah-kolor released one huge (5mb) demo at Quast'98 which won the first price. At the Intel Outside 5 party Ripper of Nah-kolor released his first intro DIVE which directly won the 40k intro compo at this great annual Polish party. Metal Designer of Nah-kolor travelled to Poland and meeted with Blaze and Qix and some other great Polish sceners like for example Zig. They meet in between io5 and Gravity3 parties. But Metal Designer coded a nice 64k intro which competed at Gravity3 party at the 30th of August and took home a 3th place. "First they played Md's intro in the 4kb intro compo, but half way they stopped it when the orginizers found out there mistake. Meanwhile the audience at Gravity3 said WOOOOW ;)" Qix of Nah-kolor commented the day after Gravity3.

Also during the summer Norby and Fame rejoined Nah-kolor, and also Raze who hadleft the scene for a couple of months decided to rejoin. In the same time some members in Poland were asked to leave because of no communication with the group. Spark and Ridler joined up in Poland also during the Summer.

Another special happening during the summer was Amiflash of Nah-kolor's VIDEO demo at Intel Outside 5 party. 100% made at his a4000/040 it was a real beauty, but no match for the SGI Video Demos for example presented in the competition...

As some of you might remember when Nah-kolor got founded in 1995, Norby, Qba, Magic and Dreamer were in the original formation. Ironically enough this summer Magic was as usual at home in Holland, while QBA visited Quast'98, while Dreamer visited IO5, while Norby visited Gravity3. All at different party's. But Qix commented that Dreamer visited QBA before visiting IO5. =))

We're heading into the last months of 1998 now... The winter is coming but the Nah-kolor family will stay on top of things. A new demo by Klod, probably in November. Unreal's 2nd slideshow should come also in 1998 still. And Metal Designer will start with the coding of Memories - Moments II, where all modules, and almost all graphics are already finished from...

Homepage: http://www.nah.dom.pl
Engineer: Amiflash of Nah-Kolor
Editor: Magic of Nah-kolor
Some Gfx: Acid, AmiFlash, Fame & Lazur
Features:
-A warm welcome textfile, introducing the homepage.
- Info about members and releases and the latest news about the Nah-kolor Group available.
- Full Nah-kolor HIStory, Past, Present & Future written by Magic of Nah-kolor. Starting from the year 1994...
- The Nah-kolor Museum(tm), guarded by Magic & Amiflash
- Support for SPEED packmag maintained by Blaze, and of course all Nah-kolor releases ONLINE and freely downloadable.
- Online voting for SPEED or Fastadium packmagazines.
- Make yourself famous and sign The Nah-kolor Guestbook!
- Links of perfection to other Amiga scene homepages.

- Magic/Nah-kolor