Amiga demos
Encyclopedia
Amiga demos are demo
s created for the Commodore
Amiga
home computer
.
A "demo" is a demonstration of the multimedia capabilities of a computer (or more to the point, a demonstration of the skill of the demo's constructors). There was intense rivalry during the 1990s among the best programmers, graphic artists and computer musicians to continually outdo each other's demos. Since the Amiga's hardware was more or less fixed (unlike today's PC industry, where arbitrary combinations of hardware can be put together), there was competition to test the limits of that hardware and perform theoretically "impossible" feats by refactoring the problem at hand. The Amiga was the undisputed leader of mainstream multimedia computing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though it was inevitably overtaken by PC architecture.
Some Amiga demos, such as the RSI Megademo, or Crionics & The Silents "Hardwired" are considered seminal works in the demo field. New Amiga demos are released even today, although the demo scene has firmly moved onto PC hardware. Many Amiga game developers were active in the demo scene.
The demo scene spearheaded development in multimedia programming techniques for the Amiga, such that it was de rigueur for the latest visual tricks, soundtrackers and 3D algorithms from the demo scene to end up being used in computer game development.
, although a few were written in C and other languages. To utilize full hardware performance, Amiga demos were optimized and written entirely for one purpose in assembly (avoiding generic and portable code). Additional performance was achieved by utilizing several co-processors in parallel with the 68000. These co-processors include, Copper (a co-processor for synchronizing custom chipset writes to video display sync) and Blitter
(a chip capable of quickly moving blocks of graphical data from one position on the screen to another). Sometimes performance optimizations were so aggressive that operating system control had to be disabled during a demo to avoid a crash or to achieve real-time rendering.
Antitrax 2010 (ATX) released the very first "megademo", called Antitrax 2010 Megademo, in 1987.
Eric Schwartz produced a series of animated demos that ran with MoviePlayer, an animation software package similar to Macromedia Flash. The animated demos drew heavily on the whimsy and graphic style of comic strips.
Red Sector Incorporated (RSI) produced a piece of software called the RSI Demomaker, which allowed users to script their own demos, replete with scrolltext, vectorballs, plasma screens, etc.
Full demos range from under 128 KB to several megabytes. There have been several thousand demos produced in many countries. Some active demo countries were Denmark
, Finland
, Germany
, Italy
, Norway
, Sweden
, UK
, Poland
and others.
on computer games and other software. The purpose of the intro was to advertise cracking and distribution skill of a particular group. Later it developed into a stand-alone art form. Many demo and intro groups disassociated themselves from the cracking and copying scene, although the same people could still be involved in it.
, freeware
and other not-for-profit development. The architecture provided no substantial mechanism for protecting software from inspection. In order to read the memory one simply performed a hot reset (which preserved the contents of RAM
) and then booted to a dedicated floppy disk
that could inspect and dump the memory's contents. It was therefore common for developers and hackers to "rip" music, graphics and code and then reuse it in their own productions. This led to intense competition in certain fields, for example, in the development of sound tracking software and Tetris
clones, with each group of developers trying to outdo the current state of the art. In fact, some demos even featured their source code as part of the executable to save hackers the trouble of disassembly, though it came strewn with incendiary comments for those who would seek to improve on it.
Demo (computer programming)
A demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer subculture known as the demoscene. Demogroups create demos to demonstrate their abilities in programming, music, drawing, and 3D modeling...
s created for the Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
.
A "demo" is a demonstration of the multimedia capabilities of a computer (or more to the point, a demonstration of the skill of the demo's constructors). There was intense rivalry during the 1990s among the best programmers, graphic artists and computer musicians to continually outdo each other's demos. Since the Amiga's hardware was more or less fixed (unlike today's PC industry, where arbitrary combinations of hardware can be put together), there was competition to test the limits of that hardware and perform theoretically "impossible" feats by refactoring the problem at hand. The Amiga was the undisputed leader of mainstream multimedia computing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though it was inevitably overtaken by PC architecture.
Some Amiga demos, such as the RSI Megademo, or Crionics & The Silents "Hardwired" are considered seminal works in the demo field. New Amiga demos are released even today, although the demo scene has firmly moved onto PC hardware. Many Amiga game developers were active in the demo scene.
The demo scene spearheaded development in multimedia programming techniques for the Amiga, such that it was de rigueur for the latest visual tricks, soundtrackers and 3D algorithms from the demo scene to end up being used in computer game development.
Demo software
Most demos were written in 68000 assembly languageAssembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
, although a few were written in C and other languages. To utilize full hardware performance, Amiga demos were optimized and written entirely for one purpose in assembly (avoiding generic and portable code). Additional performance was achieved by utilizing several co-processors in parallel with the 68000. These co-processors include, Copper (a co-processor for synchronizing custom chipset writes to video display sync) and Blitter
Blitter
In a computer system, a blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, that is dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within that computer's memory...
(a chip capable of quickly moving blocks of graphical data from one position on the screen to another). Sometimes performance optimizations were so aggressive that operating system control had to be disabled during a demo to avoid a crash or to achieve real-time rendering.
Antitrax 2010 (ATX) released the very first "megademo", called Antitrax 2010 Megademo, in 1987.
Eric Schwartz produced a series of animated demos that ran with MoviePlayer, an animation software package similar to Macromedia Flash. The animated demos drew heavily on the whimsy and graphic style of comic strips.
Red Sector Incorporated (RSI) produced a piece of software called the RSI Demomaker, which allowed users to script their own demos, replete with scrolltext, vectorballs, plasma screens, etc.
Full demos range from under 128 KB to several megabytes. There have been several thousand demos produced in many countries. Some active demo countries were Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and others.
Intros
Smaller demos are often known as intros. They are typically limited to between 4 and 64KB in size. Intros were originally used as tags by cracking groupsSoftware cracking
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
on computer games and other software. The purpose of the intro was to advertise cracking and distribution skill of a particular group. Later it developed into a stand-alone art form. Many demo and intro groups disassociated themselves from the cracking and copying scene, although the same people could still be involved in it.
Ripping
The Amiga thrived on public domainPublic domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
and other not-for-profit development. The architecture provided no substantial mechanism for protecting software from inspection. In order to read the memory one simply performed a hot reset (which preserved the contents of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
) and then booted to a dedicated floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
that could inspect and dump the memory's contents. It was therefore common for developers and hackers to "rip" music, graphics and code and then reuse it in their own productions. This led to intense competition in certain fields, for example, in the development of sound tracking software and Tetris
Tetris
Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
clones, with each group of developers trying to outdo the current state of the art. In fact, some demos even featured their source code as part of the executable to save hackers the trouble of disassembly, though it came strewn with incendiary comments for those who would seek to improve on it.
List of Amiga demo groups
Note: These are only groups with articles on Wikipedia.- EquinoxEquinox (Amiga demogroup)Equinox is an Amiga demo group with an active period between the years 1987-1996.The name Equinox was not used from the beginning. In the early days we were called The Powerlords, or sometimes The Powerlords Corporation, which consisted of sections in Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom...
- Melon DezignMelon DezignMelon Dezign was an Amiga demo group founded in Denmark on October 21, 1991 by Seen and Paleface . Originally, they were a subgroup of Crystal, where they at first exclusively created intros for cracked games...
- NorthstarNorthstar (demogroup)Northstar was an exclusively Swedish demoscene group, perhaps best known for their early diskmag "Exceller 8" and their two members Kaktus and Mahoney — authors of the original NoiseTracker and several musicdisks....
- Pygmy ProjectsPygmy ProjectsPygmy Projects is a demo group that creates demos and intros for the Amiga home computer. They have released several demos and intros, most notably Extension and G-Force . Extension won the "Amiga demo" competition at the 1993 Assembly demo party. G-Force won the "Amiga intro" competition at...
- Red Sector Incorporated
- SanitySanity (demogroup)Sanity was an all-German demo group, formed in March 1990 by Panther and Hawk. The group quickly took in Vindicator and Cruiser as well. Their first production was the musicdisk Best Game Music Monthly #1, which announced the birth of the group.-History:After forming Sanity in 1990, German...
- SpaceballsSpaceballs (demogroup)Spaceballs is an Amiga demo group from Norway, originally based around the city of Halden. It was formed in 1987, but did not make its first release until 1989.The group has released many demos, including State of the Art and Nine Fingers...
- SpreadpointSpreadpointSpreadpoint is an Amiga group. It was active from 1986 to 1996 mainly as a demo group. Composing non-commercial audio-visual demos, Spreadpoint took part in the unique period of creative discovery of multimedia technology...
- The Black Lotus
- Tristar and Red Sector IncorporatedTristar and Red Sector IncorporatedTristar & Red Sector Incorporated is a computer scene and underground formation which derives from the longest-running in scene history, getting started in 1990.RSI existed from 1985, before being joined by the "T" later on....
- Virtual Dreams
List of Amiga demos
Note: These are only demos with articles on Wikipedia. For more demos, refer to the external links below.- LechLech (Demo)Lech is an Amiga demo by the, mainly Polish, demogroup Freezers. It was the winner of the Eastern Conference demo competition in April 1995.Among others, it features Doom corridors, torus, sphere and other 3D effects synchronized to a fast paced Techno music soundtrack.- External links :* on...
by Freezers (winner of Eastern Conference 1995 demo competition) - Nine FingersNine Fingers9 Fingers is an Amiga demo by Spaceballs, which came in fourth in The Party 1993 demo competition. In many ways, it is a successor to State of the Art, sporting the same kind of vector graphics...
by Spaceballs (4th at The PartyThe Party (demo party)The Party was an annual demoscene event held from 1991 to 2002 in Denmark. It was one of the first events of its kind and set the trend for many other demoscene parties in Europe.-The early years:...
1993 demo competition) - State of the Art by Spaceballs (winner of The PartyThe Party (demo party)The Party was an annual demoscene event held from 1991 to 2002 in Denmark. It was one of the first events of its kind and set the trend for many other demoscene parties in Europe.-The early years:...
1992 demo competition)
External links
- Amiga Demoscene Archive
- [ftp://ftp.amigascne.org/ Amigascne FTP site]
- BitWorld Amiga Demoscene Database, Database of over 20000 demos for the Amiga. There is also an alternative search frontend at ExoticA
- Scene.org
- Classicamiga.com - Amiga Demoscene directory
- Amigademos.org An archive of Amiga demos