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Demos began as software cracker's 'signatures'. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit via an increasingly impressive-looking graphical introduction or intro. The first time this appeared was on the Apple II computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, these intros evolved into their own subculture independent of cracking software. These were not initially called demos but rather letter, message, et cetera. Ironically, quite a few of the young talents that spent their time " coding" demos and thus gaining in-depth experience programming computer graphicsComputer graphics (CG) is the field of visual computing, where one utilizes computers both to generate visual images synthetically and to integrate or alter visual and spatial information sampled from the real world. The first major advance in computer gr later ended up working in the games industry, whose products they had initially cracked.
The main aim of a demo is to show off superior programmingComputer programming (often simply programming is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. Programming has elements of art, science, mathematics,, artistic and musical skills over other demo-groupsThe demoscene is a computer sub-culture that came to prominence during the rise of the 16 bit micros (the Atari ST and the Amiga), but demos first appeared during the 8-bit era on computers such as C64 and ZX Spectrum. Demos began as software cracker's 's.
PC-Demo: Interceptor by Black maidenBlack Maiden Black Maiden is a group of people mainly from Europe participating in various art disciplines like demos, music, textmode art, graphics design, graffiti and alike. Black Maiden was founded in 1985 by Voice and Tex as a cracking group on the A Since any given computer platformThe word platform is used in several different contexts including various topics: In rail transport, a railway platform is an area at a train station to alight from/embark on trains or trams. In politics, a political platform is a list of principles held before the PCThe term personal computer or PC has three meanings: IBM's range of PCs that led to the use of the term see IBM PC. A generic term used to describe all microcomputers (mentioned here). A generic term sometimes used to describe a computer based on IBM's or age meant every computer of a given line had identical capabilities, a comparison between demosThe word demo can have at least three meanings, but all of them are derived from shortening the word demonstration. In Politics A demo is a demonstration of feelings and opinions on a political issue. Another name for a protest march or a sit-in. In the a on earlier platforms was directly possible. This created a competitive environment where demoscene groups would try to outperform each other creating amazing effects.
DemoThe word demo can have at least three meanings, but all of them are derived from shortening the word demonstration. In Politics A demo is a demonstration of feelings and opinions on a political issue. Another name for a protest march or a sit-in. In the a writers went to great lengths to get every last ounce of performance out of their target machine. Where games/application writers were concerned with stability/functionality of their software, the demo writer was typically interested in how many CPU cycles a routine would consume and how best to squeeze as much effects and activity onto the screen. This went so far as to exploit known hardware errors to produce effects that the manufacturer of the computer had not intended, giving the demo-groups a feeling of having gone into extremes that nobody else had reached before.Recently, computer hardware advancements include faster processors, more memory, faster video graphics processors, and hardware 3D acceleration. With many of the past's challenges removed, the focus in making demos has moved from squeezing as much out of the computer as possible to making stylish, beautiful, well-designed real time artwork - a fact that lots of so-called " old school demosceners" seem to disapprove of. This can be explained by the break introduced by the PC world, where the platform varies and most of the programming work that used to be hand-programmed is now done by the graphics-card. This gives demo-groups a lot more artistic freedom, but can frustrate some of the old-schoolers for lack of a programming challenge. The old tradition still lives on though. Demo parties have competitions with varying limitations in program size or platform. Different series are called compos . On a modern computer the executable size may be limited to 64 kB or 4 kB. Programs of limited size are usually called intros. In other compos the choice of platform is resticted. Only old computers, like Commodore 64 or Atari ST, or mobile devices like handheld phones or PDAs are allowed. Such restrictions provide challenge for coders, musicians and graphics artists and bring back the old motive of making a device do more than it was intended for.
One of the best known demoscene productions outside the demoscene is " fr-08 : .the .product", made by the German group Farbrausch. fr-08 is a 64 kB intro. Some of its technical merits were far above most earlier productions -- for instance, it features a full seven-minute sound track (using a full-featured real-time software synthesizer) and lots of 3D environments within the given 64 kilobytes. This is a good example of demoscene mentality: breaking the rules by doing something everyone thought was impossible.