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The demoscene has its origins in the cracker scene of the
nineteen eighties. Commercial software was modified to enable its copying.
To show their skills the pirates added an intro with visuals and sound at
the beginning of the program. Many of these 'cracktros' were written on
C64 and Amiga and were very small (4k) in size because CPU power and storage
space was very limited. In the nineties the demo scene left this pirate
legacy behind and the cracktros became demos -- a kind of non-interactive
multimedia presentation which is rendered in real time. At the core of the
activity was now the skillful creation of demos, the program routines, sounds,
graphics and animations needed to put such a multimedia piece together.
Different groups with fancy names compete with each other in presenting
new effects and programming tricks. Sometimes they get together in real-life
for demoscene gatherings where they present each other their latest work.
The scene always had its own online hangouts, such as BBSs and IRC channels.
Now, since there is nothing illegal anymore about demos, some well maintained
web portals have been created where new work and articles are featured.
The demoscene could be described as a native digital culture on the net
which has its own history, language and value system. It is a universe of
its own and this short introduction certainly does not do it any justice.
But you can go to some of those web-sites and start exploring this exciting
subculture.
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