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Revision as of 13:20, 14 November 2002 by Tzartzam (talk | contribs) ("The Care Bears", "The Lost Boys")(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Demo Scene is a curious sub-culture that came to prominence during the rise of the 16 bit micros (The Atari ST and the Amiga). Demos began as a software cracker's "signature"; when a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would credit themselves with an impressive-looking graphical introduction or intro. Later, the intros became so involved that they evolved into their own subculture independent of cracking software. The main aim of demos was to show off the abilities of the writers' machines and were often deployed in the "Platform Wars."
Demo 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 routines would consume and how best to squeeze as much activity on the screen as possible.
Most demos were written by "crews" with interesting names (e.g. "The Care Bears", "The Lost Boys") usually including at least a coder and a graphics man and a musician.
For a list of demos see Amiga Demos and Atari Demos.
The demo scene still exists on the PC, C64 and Amiga markets, although the large variety of hardware makes it harder to compare demos. Several of the 3D benchmark programs also have a demo or showcase mode which also derives its roots from the days of the 16 bit platforms.