Origin of demoscene
Something grabbed from Usenet's comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos
created a discussion:
Note: Each quote begings with a * ITALIC line. Messages are in original condition.
* Hi all!
When did the first demo appear? Was the first scene Assembly '92? Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
Thanks,
- Nelson
And the replies...
* > Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
The first demo?
The first demo-kind of thing in what we are used to associate
to something known as "the scene" was released over ten years
ago in the eighties, on the C-64, and nobody knows what it was.
Antti "Addict" Piirainen/Doomsday.Topaz Beerline.Solaria
* >> Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
Demo's were born of crack intro's on the Commodore 64. Those crack intro's were no more than a graphical signature of the guy(s) who cracked the game. During the 80's those intro's evolved from a static screen with only the name of the cracker, to screens with music+scrolltexts+rasterbars into mindblasting demo's.
Mm... does any1 want to write a book about this?
SCouT/SuccesS
* > Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
i think they had started on C64, i saw some intros (yuck) on my spectrum too.
* > Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
Well, I remember seeing and making demos on my TI-99/4a as early as 1982. The earliest PC demo I know of dates back to 1987; the Amiga and C-64 scenes are both older than the PC scene.
The first demo ever was probably when some joker sat down at ENIAC and
typed in...
10 PRINT "I am the greatest!"
20 GOTO 10
:)
* > > The first demo ever was probably when some joker sat down
at ENIAC and
> > typed in...
> > 10 PRINT "I am the greatest!"
> > 20 GOTO 10
> Nearly Jim ;-). BASIC was only invented in 1964. The first demo was when one of the ENIAC programmers realised he could make interesting patterns in the glowing vaccuum tubes by running different code batches through it. I believe Charles Simiyoni (ugh can't spell it), code god and former(?) Microsoft employee has had this experience...
> Come to think of it, Lady Lovelace spoke of Charles Babbage's differential engine "weaving algebraic patterns" sometime in the late 1800s. Good design coming through again?
In the early 1800's actually, wiseguy... :)
* >Demo's were born of crack intro's on the Commodore 64.
Those crack intro's were no more than a graphical signature of the
guy(s) who cracked the game.
During the 80's those intro's evolved from a static screen with only
the name of the cracker, to screens with music+scrolltexts+rasterbars
into mindblasting demo's.
I remember the first non-static demo on the amiga.. An Razor intro with a picture and a scroller... Great stuff :)
Kim Robert Blix
* >> The first demo ever was probably when some joker sat
down at ENIAC and typed in...
>> 10 PRINT "I am the greatest!"
>> 20 GOTO 10
>Nearly Jim ;-). BASIC was only invented in 1964. The
first demo was when..
Yeah, I knew it wasn't it BASIC...ENIAC was programmed totally by hand of course (or did they have punched cards by then?). I did -not- know about the patterns in the vacuum tubes, though...
>Come to think of it, Lady Lovelace spoke of Charles Babbage's differential engine "weaving algebraic patterns" sometime in the late 1800s. Good design coming through again?
I'd believe it. But then, what about theoretical demos? What about the first time somebody held a glistening metal cube up to the light
* > The first demo ever was probably when some joker sat down at ENIAC and
typed in...
10 PRINT "I am the greatest!"
20 GOTO 10
HEHEHE :) good one. He had to use wires to program and got some text out of a typewriter :)
* : > Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
: Well, I remember seeing and making demos on my TI-99/4a as early as
TI-99/4A?? THAT old thing?? I remember writing several BASIC programs that ran out of memory :) (16K onboard, you needed a 32K extension box AND a cartridge version of their "Extended BASIC" or the mini-assembler to use the extra memory)
Lance Kalzus
* >: Well, I remember seeing and making demos on my TI-99/4a as early as
>TI-99/4A?? THAT old thing?? I remember writing several BASIC programs that ran out of memory :) (16K onboard, you needed a 32K extension box AND a cartridge version of their "Extended BASIC" or the mini-assembler to use the extra memory)
Hey,... demos on the good old TI-99? I've never seen one, but i think it must be possible :)... btw. any other people here which had/have a TI-99/4A? Greets to them all!!
<-AURoRA of Devotion
* When did the first demo appear? Was the first scene Assembly '92? Did Amiga demos started much earlier?
somewhere in '85 approx. first there was just intros. newcomers - study some history. everything started from crack-intros, but you knew that already so I should just shut up.
Grab a c64-emulator and check something.
* >Ha! I always used a cooler version, like this:
>10 PRINT "I am "
>12 PRINT "I am the"
>17 PRINT "I am the greatest!"
>20 GOTO 10
Or how about the first scroller on Apple Basic:
10 ? "I ROCK! ";
15 REM EXACTLY 40 CHARACTERS BETWEEN QUOTES
20 GOTO 10
Heh, try it and see. Quotes should line up when line wraps.
--
Jim Leonard (Trixter / Hornet)
* >: When did the first demo appear? Was the first scene Assembly '92? Did Amiga demos started much earlier? >
>Oh, my. Say, we Byterapers made our first demo in 1987 in C-64. And we weren't even in the first wave. Demos started originally in Apple II platform, way way back ago.
Really? Well, I've got a cracktro or two from 1984, but they're just scrollers, nothing amazing. Was there ever a real *demo*, per se?
I heard there was an Apple ][gs demo in 1985 or 1986, but I've never seen it.
--
Jim Leonard (Trixter / Hornet)
* > Real elites do something like this..
>
> 10 X$=" I'm am the greatest! "
> 20 for I = 1 to 79-LEN(X$)-1
> 30 locate I,14
> 35 color rnd(16),0
> 40 print X$
> 50 next
> 60 for I = 79-len(x$)-1 to 1
> 65 color rnd(16),0
> 70 locate i,14
> 80 print x$
> 90 next
> 100 goto 20
This certainly is NOT ok.
1) only works with one basic interpreter/compiler. (locate is not basic)
2) it looks ugly :)
> So, see? I'm naturally a democoder.. ;)
If that means that you only can do nonportable bad code, then I agree :)
-- Tero Pulkkinen -- terop@modeemi.cs.tut.fi --
* : I heard there was an Apple ][gs demo in 1985 or 1986, but I've never seen it.
Yup, a group called the FTA did some really amazing stuff on the GS around this time. Actually, 85/86 seems a tad bit early for their big creations (Nucleus, Modulae, "the XMAS Demo"), but I know there were a lot of disks floating around with collections of "intros" on them from various groups around that time. Modulae is really very impressive, much more so I believe than any PC production I've seen since SR. One really interesting thing was that the FTA was way into a "No Tools!" philosophy. Back then it wasn't demos vs. Windows, but demos vs. GS/OS. =)
--
David Ross
* >> 10 X¤=" I'm am the greatest! "
>> 20 for I = 1 to 79-LEN(X¤)-1
>> 30 locate I,14
>> 35 color rnd(16),0
>> 40 print X¤
>> 50 next
>> 60 for I = 79-len(x¤)-1 to 1
>> 65 color rnd(16),0
>> 70 locate i,14
>> 80 print x¤
>> 90 next
>> 100 goto 20
>This certainly is NOT ok.
>1) only works with one basic interpreter/compiler. (locate is not basic)
>2) it looks ugly :)
Not basic? It worked with my FP2000 (casio A4 sized computer with LCD display about 8yrs a go.) And it works with qbasic, gwbasic, turbo basic. And almost all basics made later. Maybe I should use also LET command which were used when assigning variables with very first basics.
The book which I used to remind me about bsic is "The Beginners Computer Handbook" printed in england 1983.
Yep, and I were really reading that book then , and wrote most of those programs to my comp too.
>> So, see? I'm naturally a democoder.. ;)
>If that means that you only can do nonportable bad code, then I agree :)
Hmm, can you show me few demos with portable code? Maybe Quake & Doom, yep, but they aren't demos.
- Zorlim / Net Generation (Sami Lehtinen), Helsinki, Finland
Why Mysdee/(B) is an evil person?
Mysdee/Byterapers is a terrible person. Someone simply wondered why groups can't make great demos for every single party, Jmagic/Complex replied and Mysdee started confusing people. Some believed it - and everybody started fooling those yankees and other foreigners.
* (someone)
: > Talking about Finland, where were all the big finish groups at
Juhla (except for Coma ofcourse). Are they all saving up for
The Gathering?
* (Jmagic)
: What big finnish groups did you miss then? Not every group can contribute
to every single compo and for example Orange made several products for
TP6... Besides, because of new law, most finnish sceners had to get a
job...
* (Mysdee)
Oh yes, our parliament approved a new law which almost forbids the
possession of computer or calculative equipment if it is not
used for working purposes. One has to pay annual 1200FIM (300USD)
fee to get a tax sticker on the one corner of the monitor. Some
of the famous sceners already got busted for this (Hannu of
The Jebediahs and Tino of Cinderella^Toothbrush) so it is
easier to get a shitty job than pay the fee.
**