Cromemco Dazzler - Kaleidoscope
One of my favorite bits of video art history is the cromemco dazzler kaleidoscope. The dazzler (1976) was one of the first color computer graphics cards and was designed by the same person who made the cyclops which was the first digital camera system. One program the dazzler hardware could run was called kaleidoscope written by Li-Chen Wang. It’s a very simple bit of code (127 bytes of 8080 assembly) that came preloaded as a demo/idle visualizer on the dazzler. It does what it says on the tin, creates an infinite animation of surprisingly beautiful kaleidoscopic patterns. Shortly upon release a computer store in NYC put a TV with kaleidoscope running on its window display. This display apparently caused such a traffic jam from drivers staring at it that the cops called the landlord of the store to shut it down. Below is a link to view video of the dazzler and a second link to a website that has the open source “copyleft” code available to run today.
