Cthugha Related Materials

This page contains links and references to material releated to Cthugha. This includes programs of a similar nature as Cthugha (aka "Eye-Candy" programs), news-media coverage, reviews, commentary, etc.

Please feel free to submit material for consideration for this page. Send email to cthugha@afn.org with the appropiate URL or text. We are especially interested in official Press coverage. We reserve the right to decide what does and does not get placed on this page.

Stuff To Listen To

(From the CTHUGHA documentation)

Ella Fitzgerald:  (really!!, the 20's songs - trp@Cs.Nott.AC.UK)
Enya:             (Excellent with all white palettes - jsee+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Pink Floyd:       (actually, anything by Pink Floyd will do...)
Metallica:        Orion - use the crawling worms mode :-)

(From email commentary)

Jimi Hendrix (esp. Purple Haze and Little Wing)
Love Spirals Downwards

(my $.02)

Anything with deep bass. Some NIN (Hey Pig) and portishead types are great. Good acoustic guitar solos also look fantastic.

Other Similar Programs

Here's some other programs in a similar vain as the Cthugha programs. These are all graphical in nature, with changing, hypnotizing displays (what are sometimes called "eye candy" programs). Most of these are silent programs, unless otherwise noted.

Note: I've decided to limit the listing of programs here to "FreeWare" sorts. For an index of eye-candy and oscilloscope software that includes Shareware and commercial, titles, check out Riffer's Photonic Zone.

AcidWarp - PC, DOS-only program (Experimental Windows version available now). Mellow, hypnotizing. Instructions are included in the program on how to build your own cheapo wall-projector!
Timeless - A wonderful graphical and musical display to chill by. Semi-random plasma and optical distortion effects with animated icon effects (falling leaves, drifting hearts, flowers, and more). DOS-only program.
JCLPLASM - A simple, fluid real-time plasma program. C source code included. DOS only.
XTacy - Sort of a kaleidoscope program on steroids. Unix (X-windows), with a semi-working Microsoft Windows port.
Plasmat - Very small program that produces a real-time display of plasma clouds with color cycling and image warping. Simple but impressive. DOS only.
bomb - Mesmerizing, organic displays using cellular-automa and other techniques (including embedded icons). No sound support yet but the author does eventually want to make it sound-sensitive. Linux, OpenLib, and PowerMac versions. Beginning Windows95 support as well, now.
ZoneRings - A Windows-only program (available in 32-bit and 16-bit forms), but it's free. It uses a huge number of variables to create a dazzling array of animated effects, and comes with a ton of pre-made setting files to load and play with. Will also work nicely in 16-bit color video modes. Definately worth checking out.
Mandala- Another Windows95 only program, but also free (source now available). Creates displays similar in nature to AcidWarp.
ColorFusion - DOS-based program that does plasma-like displays and like Cthugha, uses sound-input to "seed" the display. It can take sound input from the Line In, CD, or Microphone ports of a SoundBlaster soundcard. Will run under Windows 95 without any problems. Very configurable with a lot of options.

Additional "Eye-Candy" Programs

Here's a webpage of links to various other Eye-Candy or Cthugha-style programs. Unlike the ones on this page, the links on Riffer's Photonic Zone include shareware and commercial programs.

Other Cool Sites

Here are some of the cool sites on the Internet that archive nifty graphic demos, tools, and other goodies.

The Hyperreal Tool Shed - Lots of cool tools for manipulating graphics, sound, and music, as well as generating them. DOS, Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, and Unix files.
The Apex Of Ultimate Light - A homepage dedicated to the Virtual Light Machine (built into the Jaguar home video game system by Atari), as well as to Cthugha.
The PC Demos Site - Tons and tons of graphics&sounds demos for IBM PC's. Pretty much all DOS-based. Lots of digital music files as well.
Live Alife Page - All sorts of interesting forms of "Artificial Life" displayed live (I.E. real-time) inline. Helps to have a fast net connection to view these pages. Fascinating and easy to veg-out with.

The Official CTHUGHA Home Page / cthugha@afn.org