The 'demoscene':

September 5, 2002 1:32 PM

The 'demoscene': Have you got the latest UltraforceTitanium10000-equipped desktop computer? The latest PDA? The latest Java Virtual Machine and the latest browser? Or have you got an 18 year old ZX Spectrum? Or a Commodore Amiga? Don't worry, there's always some way to show how powerful you machine of choice is. Demos have been around since the dawn of home computing and the best of them might someday be mistaken for video art.
posted by edsousa (12 comments total)

another handy link

demoo.calodox.org
posted by atom128 at 1:55 PM on September 5, 2002

as well asfunny demo scene quotes, and stories about the eary days of the pc scene , both courtesy of oldskool.org.
posted by atom128 at 1:58 PM on September 5, 2002

My word. This brings me back to the greatest game that never was...Sword of Sodan for the Apple IIGS. I fell in love with the demo. Maybe it was because I was in sixth grade and the graphics were so stunningly realistic that just looking at the heroine in the flyer makes me want to be in sixth grade again.
posted by pedantic at 2:04 PM on September 5, 2002

I remember I was just starting to learn about graphics and programming when I first saw Future Crew's Second Reality and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. My friend had d/l'd it from some place in scandinavia, maybe x2ftp.oulu.fi, where we used to get a lot of cool stuff. He too was just learning about all that stuff and was like, "dude, you gotta see this." Now that I think about it, that was probably the first step on the path that led to his current employment at Pixar.
posted by jeb at 2:39 PM on September 5, 2002

woah. That 'tips' link cicks ass

Unlike the old hornet archive, scene dosn't have any 'quality rating' information, so you never know what you're going to get.

I'll definetly downlaod all the ones of the tips.php page
posted by delmoi at 3:34 PM on September 5, 2002

There used to be a small Apple IIGS demo scene and the company I worked for would often throw in some of the disks into customer orders to show off what their computer could do.

It backfired, though, when people called up and said "I want to order Nucleus." "What do you mean, 'order'?" "Well, you sent me the demo and now I want to buy the game." "But there is no game." "Don't be silly, no company would make a demo that good and then not make the game!" "Well, it actually wasn't made by a company." I took dozens of those calls...

BTW, the word "demoscene" should be pronounced "de-MOH-seh-nuh."
posted by kindall at 4:14 PM on September 5, 2002

delmoi- that demoo link i posted also filters out the better ones, and is more current then the scene.org link.
posted by atom128 at 4:26 PM on September 5, 2002

BTW, the word "demoscene" should be pronounced "de-MOH-seh-nuh."


kinda like people once -- in the world of BBSes, where often you'd see slang written before you'd hear it -- pronounced warez as WAR-EZZ?

luckily, i wasn't one of those kids.

no, i was a "pd lamer" who'd get dropped connections before even hitting the login prompt, followed by the "no 1200 baud lamer". Man, if only i could've got my hands on the warez. of course, the pursuit of pirated software during my formative years rather than actual social skills regarding what most other adolescent boys my age were chasing has led me to become a sad bitter man, with WAAAYYY more fuckin' warez than you, man.

also: i remember seeing the Future Crew demo; yeah, that was one of those things that when your friends came over, someone would always be like: dude, you've got to check this out.

last "i-was-once-a-scenester-sorta" -- one of my friends that i met in the last few years, oddly enough, used to be an ansi artist for ACiD. that's right... LEET!

(ah, thedraw.)
posted by fishfucker at 5:22 PM on September 5, 2002

oops, lamer = lamerz (yeah. there's a diff.)
posted by fishfucker at 5:23 PM on September 5, 2002

If you like things short and simple, check out 256b.com - hundreds of demos programmed in only 256 bytes or less, but which do amazing things. Makes me want to go out and learn assembly language.
posted by Jimbob at 7:18 PM on September 5, 2002

hundreds of demos programmed in only 256 bytes or less

You mean "256 bytes or less if you don't count DirectX, which is several megabytes."
posted by kindall at 11:50 PM on September 5, 2002

You mean "256 bytes or less if you don't count DirectX, which is several megabytes."

Still, rather impressive, considering most modern demos aren't running straight on the "metal," as they would in the past.

Nothing wrong with a system call ... or ten. ;)
posted by aflores at 1:56 AM on September 6, 2002