Please insert disk 2

March 7, 2003 7:22 AM

Old Amiga graphics demos recorded to Divx. These stuff was state of the art.
posted by Pretty_Generic (10 comments total)

Nice grammar there.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:27 AM on March 7, 2003

There's also a dvd of various demos, Mind Candy. I've ordered one but don't have it yet.

I never did any demo coding, but I always thought the demos themselves were amazing. People could cram so much stuff, much of it mind blowing for the computers of the time, into so little space. I taught myself some of the techniques on my trusty Commodore 64 but I never made a demo since they required a variety of talents from coding itself, to graphic design and music composition. I could code, that was all.

I used to break copy protection on Commodore 64 software and release it to friends who would then distribute it but I never had a flashy intro, just a simple grey screen with the handle I used at the time.
posted by substrate at 7:28 AM on March 7, 2003

If you want to sample some of the new state-of-the-art from the graphic demoscene, try out the nominees for the 2002 Scene.org Awards, culled from the best of all the big demo contests. For more, try Monostep and Demoo, which are moderated lists of the best demos. Fast PC and video card recommended.
posted by waxpancake at 8:41 AM on March 7, 2003

thank you thank you thank you thank you!

this is a fantastic link. ah, mem-ries.

[this is good]
posted by fishfucker at 12:17 PM on March 7, 2003

great stuff pretty! took me way back...

Is there an amiga emulator and/or conversion program for the mac? I have some old floppies with animations/projects I did ages ago, and my mac won't even recognize the disks...
posted by amberglow at 2:34 PM on March 7, 2003

iron feather journal released a sweet collection of c64 cracks and demos on video. i picked this up a year or two ago for ten dollars and it's always fun to put on at parties as a background video.
posted by boogah at 4:49 PM on March 7, 2003

There's always emulation. Well, maybe. Sites like back2roots have been having a helluva time dealing with the IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) bots despite all the efforts of the site's owners to get licenses and keep it legal.
posted by john at 6:16 PM on March 7, 2003

Amberglow,

here ya go!
posted by john at 6:19 PM on March 7, 2003

Rather a bummer about the IDSA busts. I highly doubt that the software companies that are even still around from the Amiga days, are actually generating any revenue from 10-15 year old titles. Sure, you could say that the existence of download sites for software that old implies some sort of demand, but I imagine that for the vast majority of downloaders, games that old are more of a quick trip down memory lane than something they'd pay actual money for. And what about people who owned legit copies of those titles back in the day? It's probably a lot more convenient for them to download an emulator image of their fave old games, than try to load them off of old, bit-rot-stricken disks in formats modern PC/Mac drives can't read. Sadly, the way the DMCA applies in the US, ISPs pretty much have no choice but to comply with a takedown notice, regardless of who's legally in the right.

For those of you who run PCs, have a look at the Text Mode Demo Contest.
posted by arto at 11:53 PM on March 7, 2003

woo yay
posted by ajbattrick at 3:26 AM on March 8, 2003