Alchimie

(under construction)

The 12th edition held in 2017

Alchimie is a French demo and retro computer party obviously held in France, more precisely in the Drôme département, in the wine producting Valley of the Rhône.

Organization and history

Organized by the TripleA association, an originally Amiga oriented club. TripleA mostly organize events called Amigabouffes, which are basically dinners with Amiga afficionados. Alchimie and µAlchimie are the annual XXL Amigabouffes.

The annual events are currently alternating with the main Alchimie each odd years and the smaller more intimist µAlchimie the even years (between each main). Main Alchimies are held in Tain l'Hermitage (Drôme) while µAlchimies are help in the smaller village of Clérieux (Drôme). mostly during late october or mid-november.

It has seen more and more French Amstradists attending it in later editions, slowly becoming one of the main French Amstrad friendly party, alongside Atari and Amiga and any retro computers fans, and modern computers users as well.

First edition of the Alchimie was held in 2001.

History
from 1st to 6th
7th Alchimie
Alchimie 2009
Alchimie111111
AlchimieX
Alchimie0xb

Alchimie timeline

Alchimie 1 – 2001

Alchimie 2 – 2002

Alchimie 3 – 2003

Alchimie 4 – 2004

Beb, Ramlaid paid a short visit to put a souped-up CPC6128 on display and play some Amstrad Demos.

A CPC6128 was in display with some keen Demos.
a report of Alchimie4 by Ramlaid.

Alchimie 5 – 2005

Alchimie 6 – 2006

Alchimie 7 – 2007

Demoniak actually came here before as he is also an Amiga legend. He later chose to avoid the event in order to avoid MacDeath (quite understandable). He actually coded a small intro for CPC during the event (unreleased officially) Link at CPCrulez Here

Proof Demoniak is also an Amiga enthusiast and attended Alchimie before it was cool.
Demoniak working on something at Alchimie2007 ?
Alchimie7 intro by Demoniak.

Alchimie 2009 – 2009

Alchimie 111111 – 2011

MacDeath (without reservation and a lone Amstrad 6128PLUS & Monitor with few floppies). could purchase brand new in-box joysticks and Sega Pads, find sweet cables and make new friends and taste the event.

MacDeath shopping.

Alchimie X – 2013

MacDeath having his 6128PLUS, ROMbox by Bryce and PC to write any 3"1/2 dsk possible on display, impressing Amiga fans with SymbOS and all the nice classics and Demos. AST came to pay a (short) visit as well. This year, nice mouse pads were produced as merchandizing / goodies.

MacDeath.
Some machines
And others
MacDeath playing.
AST was here (background).
The Amstradist corner.
How to impress Amiga fans...

Alchimie 0xb – 2015

MacDeath, Overflow, Ast, OffseT, POWER, others...

Paris was under terrorist attacks at the same time, which quite spoiled the event.

CPC corner
Some machines
Amigabouffe with Rosé.
Amiga fan vs Atari ST fan... notice the Amstradist in white and blue behind them.

Now with a handfull of Amstradists, the take over may start, and the now Amstrad corner is sieged for the first time. AST, OffseT and POWER could bring their reputation and expertize into the fray. Talking about Fray... A medieval martial art association came to give some nice demonstrations and re-enactement of the Atari vs Amiga wars of the past. This year decorated drinking glasses were produced as merchandizing / goodies.

Alchimie 12 – 2017

MacDeath/TO8rulez, Overflow/Logon System, AST/iMPact/System?, Roudoudou/Flower Corp., Golem13/GnG, MvKTheBoss, OffseT/Futurs', Zik/Futurs', TotO/nogoLmetsyS, Khomenor/G2L2 Corp , Mac_Gyver/Pinscreenman, PulkoMandy/Shinra team/Pulkocitron, xtrabet, Case, POWER, Beb/Overlanders, Gotcha, Fred/Screetch, CloudStrife/Shinra team, Barjack ...

MacDeath's meltdown
Roudoudou the PinHead
And other legends around Overflow.
Some machines
GnG?
Ast and others
Zik, Offset? Watchout PulkoMandy the Croc is gonna eat you !
Who put a minimig inside a GX4000 casing?

This year more than 20 French Amstradists came to the party which also saw 3 Amstrad releases, while many are often seen posting at various forums such as Amstrad.eu or CPCRulez, other peoples simply came with Amstrads along other machines because you know, AMMMSTRAAAADDD !!! The Organizers really appreciated that those many Amstradists came to revitalize the Party with good humour and a huge crocodile, the best thanks to be done to the TripleA association is to come to release nice prods there. MacGyver spent the whole event to demonstrate the PinScreen in the "Amstrad corner" and some conferences were held by Roudoudou, MacGyver, PulkoMandy. Khomenor covered the event with many Twitch lives with 2 webcams and many drinks were had. As always a concert with AY/YM chiptunes was given on Saturday night. Also it was steaming hot because of some heating system malfunction and a few power shortage here and there due to some misplaced red power-off button and the many 30+ years old machines working. This year, nice mouse pads and bags were produced as merchandizing / goodies.

Alchimie 13 – 2019

Visitors : Demoniak, Roudoudou, Golem13, AsT, Drill, Kris, Sid, Khomenor, Hayabusa, JayBLOOD, MacDeath, Xtrabet, OffseT, Overflow, TotO, Hicks , Beb, JBleDaron, MAC_GYVER, Targhan, Tarkir, norecess, CeD, OneVision, Gotcha, CMP, hERMOL, PulkoMandy, Solorenzero...

Almost 30 Amstrad active sceners or user attended the party which was probably one of the biggest de-facto "Amstrad" event since quite some time. Twitch Live streams by Khomenor and JBleDaron were covering the whole event, NoRecess could come from far Québec to present preview of Sonic GX, Golem13 was also presenting his longer beard and Ghost'N'Goblin PLUS cartridge version preview as well. The whole Impact team was assembled, Vanity as well, the amount of (french) legends per square meters was sometimes impressive, yet not a lot of releases beside a pair of graphix or some wild compos from Amstradists. Food and drinks were had, lulz too.

The Amstradists.
Exclusive preview by Golem13 and noRecess.

µAlchimie timeline

µAlchimie – 2010

µAlchimie II – 2012

µAlchimie III – 2014

Hermol, MacDeath, Overflow.

Panoramic view.
Hermol and MacDeath the bearded.
Nice machines assortments.
Enough machine power to successfully farm Bitcoins.
The Lotus turbo Esprit challenge, ST vs Amiga in network on projector, upon the Amstrad corner.
CPC464.
View from the amstrad corner, the Oliver pair.
MacDeath pretending to pixel something (unreleased yet)
Sir Hermol : CPCrulez!

Finally after many spams of reports of previous editions in lenghty posts at various Amstrad Forums, two other renowned Amstradists were lured to come taste the event, the food and the wine. With an Amstrad Legend such as Overflow and Hermol the webmaster of CPCrulez website, this may take-on at last with the aim to open south-east Amstradists to other retro-community and have a proper local annual gathering. Halas, Overflow was totally unknown as a legend here, this injured his pride so he sweared to the gods of code that one day he will be recognized at last and began a long work to the tops of the Demoscene to re-affirm his status one day. (ok, this may not be what really happened)

µAlchimie IV – 2016

MacDeath, Roudoudou, Overflow, Ast, OffseT, POWER, others...

Panoramic view.
Panoramic view.
CPC corner.
Some machine.
Some other machine.
Local press article (MacDeath's back can be seen).
Overflow (Demoniak?) and AST.
OffseT and Roudoudou.

Again the Amstrad contingent grew stronger, with the addition of Roudoudou a well known french scener and a legend to become. Overflow already started his ascension to Godhood of code earlier with his release IO on MSX at Forever, he would later say : "what limitations ? No one told me I couldn't do that"... Yet a sordid and treacherous compatibility scandal almost rendered his effort vain.

Report from Roudoudou at CPCwiki forum (French) :

µAlchimie V – 2018

Offset, Hermol, Overflow, Ast, Roudoudou, MacDeath.

Compos

Alchimie 12 – 2017

The Alchimie12 (2017) was somewhat special in that Roudoudou and Overflow decided to both release at the composition, for Amstrad PLUS/GX4000 format in ROM cartridges, making it a doubled first. Nothing could have been possible without the C4CPC cartridge to unlock the full potential of the system at last. The second generation of Amstrad CPC made a grand entrance as a serious Demoscene competitor in the retro computer categories, competing with 16bits with huge number of colours on screen, impressive soundtracks and smooth fast paced animations, praised by Amiga and Atari fans during the event.

Case completed the Amstrad performances with his Amstrad CPC Graphic composition, Ranked First as well.

Glokzilla , a very cool Atari STf demo reached 3rd place and was also a serious contestant.