[HN Gopher] Demoscene accepted as UNESCO cultural heritage in Ge...
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Demoscene accepted as UNESCO cultural heritage in Germany
Author : quakeguy
Score : 796 points
Date : 2021-03-20 12:19 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net)
| spoonjim wrote:
| The UNESCO listing is a pretty big tent so this feels right. It's
| not a Taj Mahal or Sydney Opera House but only a few things are.
| tgguhg wrote:
| It's not a vague "UNESCO listing" in the same category as or
| competing with built heritage. It's specifically being recorded
| as _intangible_ heritage, which is a category that covers a lot
| of interesting traditions, many fairly humble, such as craft
| techniques.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Intangible_Cultural_Her...
| varispeed wrote:
| Beautiful times. I especially loved swapping - that is you got a
| list of people and their addresses from a magazine and you saved
| on disks your favourite demos and zines (preferable those nobody
| else had) and then you added some random stuff for example label
| off your favourite drink, wrote some poems, maybe added a dried
| flower and so on and then you also added postage stamps. Then you
| were hoping that whoever received it on the other side liked it
| and he or she would have sent you something else. Sometimes you
| would just just pass on the disks you received and just added
| your name to a txt file or some funny looking directory. There
| was also a trick to put a glue over your stamps and it was the
| custom that the person would send you those stamps back so you
| could then dissolve the postage stamp and reuse them :-) The
| internet somewhat killed this unfortunately. Decades later I
| still remember the feeling of a postman holding packages in his
| hands from various places in the world and the excitement, what
| am I going to find? I miss that.
| zepesm wrote:
| stamps back!
| IgorPartola wrote:
| You might enjoy Reddit's secret Santa thing. It's not demoscene
| oriented of course but the idea of sending and receiving random
| cheap gifts is neat. Plus a number of celebrities participate
| and when was the last time you participated in a gift exchange
| along with Ian McKellen?
| morsch wrote:
| Presumably the risk of receiving a bag of poop is suitably
| low?
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I participated this year and I wound up with a full book
| trilogy in a genre I really like and I wound up buying
| someone a relatively new video game for their current
| console. It was a very pleasant experience and I will now
| likely participate further.
|
| I think they've done it for 8 years now to good success.
| Semaphor wrote:
| It's been some time since I took part, but besides one time
| (got a very simplistic board game for children) I got
| something cool and fitting every time. I actually still
| have the motivational sloth poster "live slow, die
| whenever" hanging in my office :)
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The much bigger risk seems to be that you don't get
| anything. But they have strict rules and if you don't send
| your gift you can never do it again.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Thankfully. Seems like the bigger risk is of the Secret
| Santa not actually sending anything; I'm hesitant to do it
| because I know I'll be that asshole who spaces out and
| forgets about it.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| In Germany we had pink PLK cards, which you got without an ID
| and where you could sent packages to (I held on to mine for a
| very long time).
|
| One day the police was waiting in front of the post office and
| got a friend of mine.
| weinzierl wrote:
| Grew up in West Germany when the Demoscene was at it's
| height, but never heard of "pink PLK cards". Could you give a
| hint what that is?
|
| EDIT: Found it "Postlagerkarte"[1], I have heard that term
| before, but never was aware what it was. It feels strange
| that at a time you could do things easily, legally and
| anonymously, all at the same time. As a minor, at that. Let
| alone anonymously _sending things to strangers_. Admittedly I
| miss that world more than the Demoscene.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postlagerkarte
| ludwigschubert wrote:
| Take a look, first-name-fellow! :D
| https://gotpapers.scene.org/?p=849
| weinzierl wrote:
| Thanks, excellent article - no questions left. _Gunter
| von Gravenreuth_ also rings a bell, haven 't read that
| name in a long time.
| bonzini wrote:
| This has to be one of the most cryptic comments I have ever
| read! :D
|
| What is a PLK card, and what did your friend do?!?
| ludwigschubert wrote:
| EDIT: I shouldn't have run to Wikipedia; much better
| explanation at scene.org (go figure):
| https://gotpapers.scene.org/?p=849
|
| --
|
| PLK = "PostLagerKarte", literally "mail storage card". It
| was (abolished 1991) a way to receive letters anonymously;
| like a P.O. box without your name attached to it. The
| [Wikipedia
| page](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postlagerkarte) even
| explicitly mentions its "illegal usage in the computing
| scene", so GP was likely referring to his friend using
| their P.O. box for (illegally) cracked software.
|
| Here's a shot at translating that Wikipedia paragraph:
|
| > Until their abolition, PLK cards were especially popular
| in the cracker scene because, compared to a regular P.O.
| box, no personal data had to be shared with the respective
| post office. PLKs were primarily used for anonymous sending
| and receiving of pirated software on floppy disks.
| [citation needed imho] The PLK addresses themselves were
| often listed digitally in the cracktros.
| detaro wrote:
| pretty much a temporary "PO box" you could get anonymously.
| You bought a card with a code from your post office, and
| then people could send stuff to the post office addressed
| to that number, and the card holder could pick them up.
| Relatively popular with the cracker/warez szene.
| Bolderman wrote:
| Oh man, the stamp trick was so cool!
|
| I had a PO box where all the packages were sent to. I still can
| remember how excited I was, riding my bike (I was 15) to the
| postal office and open that treasure chest full of foreign
| packages. I'm from The Netherlands and did a lot of swapping
| with people from Belgium, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
| Yes, real good times with a lot of friendly people.
| ludwigschubert wrote:
| It's funny how there are regional differences in how to avoid
| the postage fees. I remember friends switching sender and
| recipient on the letter and then not using any stamps
| instead. (Not that I ever tried that myself.) I had never
| heard of the glue trick. :D
| exlurker wrote:
| Oh, how I envied those PO Boxes you guys got down in Europe -
| Up north, it was practically impossible to get one of those
| for non-businesses, and especially a no-go for broke
| teenagers!
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| I worry about anything heritage-/tourism-related being deeply
| conservative and possibly resulting in things getting fixed down
| or watered down, or otherwise ceasing to evolve/getting tied up
| with national/international bureaucratic apparatuses. But the
| people involved seem to be happy from what little I've seen (as
| an outsider), so it's probably ok here?
| DocTomoe wrote:
| In that line of argument, we should destroy historic monuments
| and art museums, because they hold back art, and any building
| older than 30 years, because they hold back modern
| architecture.
|
| Preserving something good does not mean not accepting new
| developments. And sometimes, especially with architecture,
| "something good" can be an ensemble of stuff - e.g. you don't
| put a modernist glass/steel building on the town square of a
| picturesque medieval town.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| That's a fair point, though I think you're intensifying and
| extrapolating my feelings too far :P
|
| For some cultural/creative practices that are dear to me, I'd
| be ok with seeing them die out than become
| bureaucratised/preserved/reified. On the other hand, I love
| classical music, which could scarcely be less
| institutionalised and sclerotic, and I value historical,
| ethnographical and scholarly work about culture. I have all
| these slightly-conflicting feelings at once.
| the_af wrote:
| I'd rather they were preserved. I was never part of the
| demo scene (wrong continent, wrong age) but I feel amazed
| by it. I'm also interested in early home computers and
| early computers in general, and so I wish them to be
| available in some form I can touch, for example museums.
|
| It's tragic how much stuff related to computers, their
| history and their software we've lost already.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'd wager the demoscene is pretty conservative to begin with.
| All the comporules and jargon derive from the Warez/cracker
| scene in the late eighties and haven't really changed much
| since - only the capabilities of the hardware has.
|
| Eg: an "intro" means a demo made against a size limit. It's
| called an intro because cracked games were spread with little
| introductory animations (sine-scrollers, chiptunes, you know
| the drill) by the cracking groups. These couldn't take too much
| space lest the game got too big to easily distribute. Then,
| people started making intros without having a game to
| distribute them with, and the rest is history.
|
| But that's >30 years ago now and we still use the same term and
| the same size limits (4k, 64k) as back then.
| xallarap wrote:
| foreach x in UNESCO/cultural_heritage cancelculture(x)
|
| Or does this mean that it's exempt?
| gsmo wrote:
| I believe this may have been the grandaddy of demos in Europe:
|
| Sodan & Magician 42 - TechTech - Amiga Demo
| https://youtu.be/mB5CujcTN8A
| SeeManDo wrote:
| Farbrausch!
| quakeguy wrote:
| Blinkenlights!
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Sadly all my CPC/Amiga demos are lost to time.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| What was your CPC pseudonym?
| unixhero wrote:
| If they were submitted to demo parties or shared in another
| fashion, the demoscene has it at pouet.net or demozoo.net or
| scene.org
| acd wrote:
| I love computer demos! Is there any good page / book / videos on
| how to make effects such as sinus scrollers, vector graphics and
| effects?
| dominicjj wrote:
| For old school effects there's a pretty good page here with
| full source:
|
| http://demo-effects.sourceforge.net/
| adamnemecek wrote:
| I always wondered why demo scene was so culturally impactful in
| Europe but not in the US. I wonder if it's due to the fact that
| Amiga was a lot more popular in Europe than US.
| mjul wrote:
| The Amiga was definitely a big factor.
|
| For one it was a "cathedral", not a "bazaar" in the sense that
| it had more or less the same hardware on all models.
|
| The hardware was nicely balanced: small enough that you could
| learn it all, yet complex enough to keep tweaking and pushing
| its limits for a long time.
|
| It also had a long life, so you could get really good at it.
| People were using their 500s from the 80s well into the 90es.
|
| Contrast with his to PCs where there was a plethora of
| different hardware components for CPU models, graphics and
| sound - a "bazaar".
|
| At the early stages the standardised Amiga was just much easier
| for the devs.
|
| Later the PCs became so powerful that the energy moved there
| anyway - but I still remember the shock of the terribly messy
| instruction set on the PCs after switching from the nice and
| clean 68k.
|
| For me personally that was when I stopped. It was simply not
| joyful to work with.
| chihuahua wrote:
| That's funny, I had the same reaction to the difference
| between the 68k and 80286 instruction sets. I enjoyed writing
| 68k assembly on an Amiga 1000. Then (around 1990) I got a 286
| PC and looked at an assembly language book in a bookstore. I
| put the book back on the shelf and thought "this is horrible,
| I don't want to deal with this mess".
|
| I thought it was just me.
| vidarh wrote:
| Similar story here. I actively opted for M68k assembly over
| higher level languages on more than one occasion. Then I
| switched to Linux on a PC, took one look at x86 assembly
| and didn't touch assembly again for many years.
| vidarh wrote:
| The demo scene was big on 8-bit machines "long" (by 1980's
| home-computing time scales) before the Amiga became a big
| factor.
| krrrh wrote:
| Some cultural evolution is quite random and idiosyncratic. The
| US had a way big photocopied zine subculture in the 90s, and
| reading these comments I can see a lot of similar patterns of
| young people mailing and sharing their creations amd
| expressions. Sometimes a few influential individuals or events
| can really kick off a wave of cultural innovation, but I also
| think that the spread of Kinkos in the US during the 90s and
| them hiring a lot of low-wage kids who would scam copies for
| their friends and siblings laid the groundwork for zines in the
| way that Amiga's market efforts in Europe did for the
| demoscene.
| varispeed wrote:
| My view is that mainly because of so many different countries
| in Europe it was much more interesting to see what someone
| across the border could do and it was kind of a healthy
| competition and interestingly it was never based on
| nationalism, but on simple human difference of perspectives. It
| was a pure art, expression not motivated by money but from the
| will to create and impress. To push computers of the time to
| their limits, create something thought to be impossible. I wish
| these principles were applied in modern software development.
| For example why do we need few GHz CPU and GBs of RAM to run a
| text editor?
| herodoturtle wrote:
| There was quite a strong underground demoscene in South Africa
| - and Amiga was relatively popular (Amiga 500 if I recall). So
| perhaps you're right?
|
| I certainly miss those days!
| _the_inflator wrote:
| After almost 40 years I came to the realization, that Europe
| hacked everything away (C64, I as someone from Beastie Boys can
| confirm), while in the United States they had developers that
| tried to figure out from the beginning how to commercialize
| their work, thus shareware etc. was born. Doom for example
| would have never earned a dime in Germany. Also VisiCalc etc.
| Professional software had a tough time especially in Europe.
|
| My point of view. So hacking was and stayed your main option in
| Europe during the 80th, 90th.
| toolslive wrote:
| Yes! I made some of those demos in the 80s as a teenager, not
| even realizing there was any value in coding. I was going to
| be a metal god or a mechatronics engineer, which ever came
| first.
| mjul wrote:
| Another important aspect was the social networks of the time.
|
| We had computer clubs in many cities. Clubs had their zines.
| These were focal points for meeting other would-be sceners.
|
| The demo scene was organised in groups with members spread
| around the country, so we would go to some of the many "copy
| parties" in the weekends to meet and show off coding skills or
| music or puzzle over reverse engineering games.
|
| The dense European geography and good public transport was a
| big factor, too. Without a car and not old enough for a
| license, I remember taking the bus to Viborg to hang out with
| people from their big computer club for the weekends, some of
| whom had published games commercially. This was a great
| inspiration, too.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I would also argue that in the US, startup funding and
| entrepreneurship is a lot more available to people considered
| to be "inexperienced in business" by traditional banks, leading
| to creative energy in Europe instead flowing into more artistic
| endeavours.
|
| Also, note how the vast majority of demoscene groups were in
| Scandinavia, places with long winters.
| jng wrote:
| US culture is way more inclined towards business than European
| culture. American tech-enthusiasts were thinking about how to
| make money. Some European enthusiasts were, too, but not at all
| as singled-mindedly as US ones, no wonder the US owns the tech
| industry today. Games were a big driver for everyone on both
| sides, so both sides got a significant piece of the pie there
| (Asia was way too far back then, and arguably ahead of either).
|
| I started learning to program in 1985, was part of a somewhat
| relevant demo group, attended The Assembly '94 in Helsinki,
| helped organize some enocounters in my country, etc...
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| Unsurprisingly Free/Libre Software developers tend to be
| based in Europe (as percentage over population of
| developers).
| fireattack wrote:
| As someone not from Europe (nor the US), this is literally the
| first time I've heard demoscene.
|
| After reading Wikipedia article I'm still a little bit
| confused. Could someone do a ELI5?
| HoverSausage wrote:
| It's a way programmers have to show off, have fun or be
| artistic. You write a programme but you restrict yourself in
| some way such as creating it for a 1980s era computer or by
| file size say the entire thing has to fit inside 4KB or some
| other extreme limit, and then you try to do things using
| visuals and/or music that you initially wouldn't think are
| possible.
| dagmx wrote:
| It's a challenge to see who can get the most impressive
| visuals in a specified size of memory or other restrictions.
|
| It dates back to when early games and software were pirated
| by teams. Each team would try and leave their intro video in
| the game as their signature, trying to one up each other.
|
| Then it just turned into it's own form of competitive
| Development.
|
| Basically you get some incredibly small amount of memory, and
| it's about trying to be as clever as possible to get the
| coolest visuals in there.
|
| Many prominent graphics engineers were involved. Some of them
| even worked at studios like Pixar, making things like the
| vegetation systems on Brave.
| kroltan wrote:
| The simplest explanation is that it's people making programs
| for the sake of it, not for any practical purpose.
|
| And such people (as people do) tend to coagulate into a
| community around that interest, sharing results and
| techniques and overall socializing!
|
| I'm from Brazil and wasn't even born yet at the time, but if
| you want to easily see a bit of what demos were, one of their
| "modern equivalents", so to speak, would be Shadertoy [1].
| There are also videos of old demos, and I'm sure there are
| archives of the programs, but I haven't searched for them
| either.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Why would anyone care what UNESCO bureaucrats proclaim is
| cultural heritage?
| ahiknsr wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY5Vrc5G0lk -> Debris, winner of
| the demo competition at Breakpoint 2007 in Bingen, Germany.
| SirYandi wrote:
| I've still got this on one of my old hard drives, it's
| something like 150kb if I recall. Really quite amazing.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Damn!
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm a (retired? infinitely procrastinating?) demoscener and to be
| frank I've never understood this effort. What does it help anyone
| that some bureacrats somewhere put the demoscene on the same list
| as folk dances, saunas, and "the Gastronomic meal of the French"?
|
| I mean sure, it's impressive that they pulled it off - I wouldn't
| expect whoever decides these things to understand much about
| computer art subcultures, but I don't know what the benefit is,
| to anyone.
|
| EDIT: I just realized that _of course_ the answer is, like
| anything demosceners do, "because we can". What was I thinking?
| agumonkey wrote:
| you're in null demo mode, waiting for v-sync to trigger
| varispeed wrote:
| If something becomes a thing in bureaucrats world then it also
| means it opens a door for receiving funding. Then your family
| member or friend create a foundation or something and then
| apply for those funds. Maybe they ran out of things and figured
| out there was something called demoscene. They don't do it out
| of good will. At least not in my opinion based on experience.
| feralimal wrote:
| And funding is the stealing of money (taxes) from
| individuals, being re-allocated to things bureaucrats like to
| foster. Hurrah!
| lallysingh wrote:
| There's a good chance the funding will come from charities.
| Most likely ones funded by people who made money in
| computers.
| feralimal wrote:
| Nah! They're too busy using their charities to fund the
| guardian, NYT and WHO.
| piva00 wrote:
| Because the market is perfect and will foster the most
| beautiful arts efficiently, right?
|
| There is some requirement for coordination in a societal
| level, taking taxes to fund what bureaucrats like to foster
| is imperfect but so far looks like the better alternative
| than just letting private and profit-driven interests drive
| what's culture or not.
|
| What's your alternative?
| dleslie wrote:
| Some of the best and most innovative art I've seen was
| developed wholly by public funding.
|
| I can't imagine how it is in the USA, where art lives and
| dies by how marketable it is.
|
| It occurs to me that the (newer) experimental art I have
| seen from America was developed by wealthy people with
| loads of free time; the era of wandering jazz and blues
| musicians having long since passed.
| kortilla wrote:
| > the era of wandering jazz and blues musicians having
| long since passed.
|
| That era wasn't government funded either. What's your
| point?
| chmod775 wrote:
| I never understood how people can have views this
| simplistic.
|
| I understand when views lack _some_ nuance, but this is
| absolutely puzzling to me.
| kortilla wrote:
| After you watch your taxes used to fuel wars and murder
| and there is no way to opt out or meaningfully vote for
| anything different, this is a completely rational view to
| take.
|
| Just because the theft is by a group elected by a
| majority doesn't make it not theft.
|
| You can wax on as much as you want about the importance
| of government revenue, safety nets, and defense, but it
| doesn't fundamentally change the fact that the source is
| currently money taken by force from the people.
| halcy wrote:
| It presumably helps somewhat if you want to find sponsors, or
| locations to hold parties, if you can point at an official list
| on which you are and say "look! this is a real thing! important
| people think this is worth doing!"
|
| Other than that, well, there really isn't a downside, so yeah,
| why not.
| bloodorange wrote:
| It also serves to offer some protection against future attempts
| to outlaw it.
|
| Given how much of general purpose computation we lose every
| year to walled-gardens/prisons, I think it might help a wee bit
| now and then.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Well, for starters, now funds can be allocated to preserve
| software and hardware that are necessary to keep experiencing
| the demoscene. Demoscene releases will be archived and - likely
| - added to secure vaults.
|
| 50, 100 or 500 years from now, the ones coming after us now
| have a better chance to experience Equinox, or Fairlight, or
| Melon Dezin the same way we today experience Brugel, or Durer,
| or Cezanne. School classes will analyze the hacks necessary for
| a parallax scroller, and be eternally bored of it. And some
| enthusiasts will copy the techniques.
|
| It's not a bad thing, especially given the demoscene is bot
| extremely creative and absolutely nonexistant on today's art
| market, so will likely have disappeared with the demosceners in
| 20-50 years.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > School classes will analyze the hacks necessary for a
| parallax scroller,
|
| Highly doubtful claim.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Also, it pushes for some preservation of the execution
| environments of these programs. It's now more likely that
| someone will make sure that there's a runnable version of
| qemu (or similar) that emulates well enough to run them.
| zem wrote:
| I think the analogy an earlier poster made with folk dances
| was more accurate. school classes might mention it in passing
| as a subculture, and people who want to know will have
| resources to explore it further.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| TRSI!
| hutzlibu wrote:
| " School classes will analyze the hacks necessary for a
| parallax scroller, and be eternally bored of it."
|
| I hope not. Forcing anyone into it, kills the spirit of it,
| they were supposed to find. But that would be nothing new
| with classical school, so ..
| skrebbel wrote:
| > Funds
|
| My understanding is that there's no free money attached to
| being on a UNESCO list.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Not directly - but grants now can be argued with "this is
| actually UNESCO relevant". For an organization like the ZKM
| in Karlsruhe (a modern technology/art museum, which I would
| consider a major interest in this development), secondary,
| well-argued grants by local authorities and fonds are a
| major source of income.
| bstar77 wrote:
| Maybe exposure? I wasn't involved in the scene creatively, but
| I did experience it in all its glory in the early 90's. I was
| blown away by the creativity and it was the highlight of
| running my BBS. Your negativity is kind of disappointing, you
| don't have to be so punk about it. We're all old now.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Why the personal attack?
| bstar77 wrote:
| It wasn't meant to be personal. I guess the tone I was
| looking for was lost so I apologize if that's how it got
| conveyed.
|
| Like I said earlier, I was into that scene in the early
| 90's and it was very much a cool kids club, we were doing
| amazing work (I was really proud of my BBS and all of the
| ANSI art I slaved over). This was always an underground
| elite scene that really only mattered to us.
|
| Anyway, I was just trying to say that everyone that
| contributed to the scene should be proud and not diminish
| the great art that was created. My "punk" (as in punk rock
| fan) comment was that you should not diminish or under
| value the artistic contribution of the scene now that's
| it's being recognized by a more mainstream crowd.
| ddingus wrote:
| The comment spoke to behavior, not the person.
|
| This is often conflated into a personal attack, and it
| should not be.
|
| What we do is not who we are, just saying.
| tim44 wrote:
| Ahh yes, the old I didn't call you a b#tch, I said you
| are acting like a b#tch ;)
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| History is worth preserving. When future generations examine
| what kind of art we made, we want them to discover demoscene
| art as part of that. It is a huge disservice to both the
| creators as well as the students by omitting it from the
| historical record.
| blondin wrote:
| this is so the scene could be remembered.
|
| be it unesco, internet archive, the big museums, whatever
| works. as we are losing more and more control over the hardware
| and software that we buy, the scene and anything similar will
| ultimately disappear.
| gcb0 wrote:
| demoscene reason d'etre is antithetical to museums. But i
| think this is very fitting for a time when, as you say, "we
| are losing more and more control over the hardware and
| software that we buy"
|
| This may be a huge ego trip or pure gatekeeping, but I never
| wrote anything that I expected people to run, look at the
| pretty pixels, and be done.
|
| You cannot be truly impressed if you don't know the effort to
| put that art into a tiny file or abuse the hardware in ways
| never seen before. If you never fired a debugger or other
| development/reverse engineering tool, then you missed most it
| had to offer. And IMHO you never connected to the artist in
| any way.
| hrydgard wrote:
| If pouet.net isn't a huge museum, then what is it?
| skrebbel wrote:
| A cesspool of trolls? :-)
|
| (not saying it isn't _also_ a huge museum btw)
| ddingus wrote:
| Great! I love the scene. The art, and fun learning. Technical
| acumen coupled with art can speak to tech in a liberating and
| empowering way.
|
| And new tricks on old hardware. I always muse over what current
| gear could really do.
| [deleted]
| tuukkah wrote:
| The bit of international significance: "As the previous decision
| in Finland helped convince the experts in Germany, today's
| decision is a huge tailwind for the ongoing applications in other
| countries like France, Switzerland, and Poland. And the more
| countries will have listed the Demoscene, the more likely an
| international joint application for the Demoscene to be
| recognized as humanity's cultural heritage becomes."
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| If they intend to maintain an archive of all the demos ever
| created then I will volunteer one of my old 128Mb USB drives to
| mirror it.
| skrebbel wrote:
| That will fit approximately 1 modern demo, give or take.
| kaoD wrote:
| Demos are still made nowadays. http://www.pouet.net/ lists
| 84845 prods in archive (although that includes tools, engines,
| etc.)
|
| If you want to mirror, https://files.scene.org/faq/ says its
| archive is about 2TB, or about 15625 of your old 128MB USB
| disks :P The archive from 1990 demoparties is already 5GB!
|
| I know your comment was probably tongue-in-cheek, I just wanted
| to share the actual numbers.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > _Today on the suggestion of the national Unesco expert
| committee, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education
| and Cultural Affairs decided to accept the Demoscene as German
| intangible cultural heritage. The decision acknowledges the long
| and living tradition the Demoscene has in Germany, with Revision,
| Breakpoint, and Evoke among other demoparties shaping the
| landscape of major international gatherings of the demoscene for
| decades._
|
| Ah yes, the experts who arbitrary decide such matters based on
| politics and tourist revenue estimations.
|
| So has Currywurst been a part of German culture for decades, but
| apparently it is not included, perhaps because it's fastfood. --
| our overlords move in mysterious ways.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Having experienced the Amiga and PC demoscenes when they were
| happening, this is one of those statements that comes as a
| surprise, but then, after a little consideration, makes perfect
| sense.
|
| It is celebrating a cultural movement during a moment in time.
| drux wrote:
| Second Reality by Future Crew
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTjnt_WSJu8 ( It is considered to
| be one of the best demos created during the early 1990s on the
| PC)
| magicalhippo wrote:
| That one blew me away. Another one I remember fondly is Dope by
| Complex[1], from 1995.
|
| My computer at the time could barely play the the soundtrack
| itself in the tracker, it had so many active channels. The demo
| itself was a slideshow. Fortunately my friend had a 486/DX4
| 100MHz, so I got to watch it there.
|
| To put this in perspective, there's no graphical acceleration
| involved here at all, everything pixel to be done on the CPU.
| And the microcontroller in the coffee maker at work is about as
| fast[2] as my friends 486[3].
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtXxM0pezAs
|
| [2]: https://blog.stratifylabs.co/device/2019-05-20-Dhrystone-
| Ben...
|
| [3]:
| http://www.netlib.org/performance/html/dhrystone.data.col0.h...
| someguyorother wrote:
| And once you've finished that, go to Real Reality:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1f6UE27KTo Second Reality
| without a computer :)
| logbiscuitswave wrote:
| I had a 386/40DX that could run Second Reality, and I was blown
| away. When I upgraded to a 486/66DX2 the first thing I did was
| run Second Reality, and I was shocked at how much of the demo
| content I had missed before from parts being truncated.
|
| Also it's worth noting that a lot of Second Reality's source
| code got released to GitHub several years back:
| https://github.com/mtuomi/SecondReality and here's an
| incredibly deep dive into the code:
| https://fabiensanglard.net/second_reality/
|
| Finally, here's some rare footage of the creation of the
| legendary demo: https://youtu.be/LIIBRr31DIU (English subtitles
| available)
| digikata wrote:
| This brings back memories of visiting the Computer game museum in
| Berlin. It's a small museum dedicated to early computer games and
| also has preserved a number of early demos. Worth a visit if you
| ever find yourself with a couple hours of free time there. Oh
| they also have a working giant Atari and NES controller.
|
| https://www.computerspielemuseum.de
|
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187323-d20352...
| makach wrote:
| This is wonderful! It was a huge part of me when growing up, and
| I still bond with others when we discover our common past.
| machawinka wrote:
| An NFT opportunity for the scammers out there?
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| This comment section is missing something absolutely essential.
| Let's fix that right now:
|
| AMIGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
| ttoinou wrote:
| This news comes right at the moment I am rendering demoscenes 4kb
| intro in 8K60 quality on YouTube :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bE1opaaJ0&list=PLbRiR5PpVy...
| fersarr wrote:
| pretty cool!
| jexe wrote:
| Really excited to see this. Being part of the scene was
| absolutely fundamental to finding passion in tech and
| understanding how creative the process is at the core.
| royjacobs wrote:
| I've enjoyed my time in the C64 and later the PC demoscene and
| I'm amazed it's still going pretty strong. Perhaps not on the
| level it was at during what was arguably its peak in the mid-90s,
| but still.
|
| It has certainly shaped a fairly large group of people currently
| working in our industry, even if they were only tangentially
| aware of the scene (perhaps with cracked games as a gateway drug,
| as it was in my case).
|
| Kudos for getting this organized.
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