Even if it apparently lost its appeal for some persons, and got diluted into the huge number of internet scenes, the demo scene is here to stay. It still is a group of weird people, from all around europe mostly, obsessed by art, performance and friendship. They form groups, demogroups, with friends where they, as coders, trackers or graphicians try to do the best of themselves to amaze the audience.
In the early days it started as cracking groups on the c64 put nifty effects in the loaders of the pirated releases.. More and more people got interested in this early demoscene, and soon they separated demoparties from the copyparties.
It propagated then on platforms such as the Amiga or the Atari where legendary demos were produced. The first demos were just a sequence of screens and effects. Then groups focused on doing original transitions, and as the competition improved, they pushed the machines to their limits using many tricks.
Quickly, some groups like melon design focused on what is known in the demoscene slang as 'design'. Pastel colors and arty screens and music where the main characteristics of this new style.
While the demoscene matured on the Amiga, some groups tried to create a scene on the pc. It was a challenge in itself, since in 1991 the pc was a brain dead machine for everything related to realtime graphics or sound. The focus on the pc was on the performance and the demo coders where light years ahead of the game coders while they were trying to imitate the effects and demos released on the Amiga. From this period came the illusion that one the scene's goal was to beat games.
Soon, as the amiga died, and the pc scene matured, the demos became what they are today: depending of the groups and individuals more or less focused on design or performance. The true tao of the scene.
Thanks to groups embracing new technologies and
to new compo rules at demo parties, we may see a huge renewal
of the demo scene. This year (2000) already we had two amazing demoparties,
Assembly'2k and LTP4, which permitted the new school and the old school
to meet. And new demo forms and vocabularies are finally been created! (metamorf/zden, antimoney/3state, just a touch of funk/digital murder)
It's about using computing devices to express our identity and pride. It's about being a producer and not a consumer. It's about sharing. Sharing our work, and our values. It's about doing things hard, lean and fast. It's about having fun. It's about motivating each others with our creativity and arrogance. It's about invading places we are not supposed to invade. It's about doing things useless with what is supposed to be only functional. It's about caring about what you do, not who you are.