demoscene

1 definition found

demoscene - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  demoscene
   /dem'oh.seen/
  
     [also `demo scene'] A culture of multimedia hackers located primarily
     in Scandinavia and northern Europe. Demoscene folklore recounts that
     when old-time warez d00dz cracked some piece of software they often
     added an advertisement in the beginning, usually containing colorful
     display hacks with greetings to other cracking groups. The
  demoscene
     was born among people who decided building these display hacks is
  more
     interesting than hacking -- or anyway safer. Around 1990 there began
     to be very serious police pressure on cracking groups, including
  raids
     with SWAT teams crashing into bedrooms to confiscate computers.
     Whether in response to this or for esthetic reasons, crackers of that
     period began to build self-contained display hacks of considerable
     elaboration and beauty (within the culture such a hack is called a
     demo). As more of these demogroups emerged, they started to have
     compos at copying parties (see copyparty), which later evolved to
     standalone events (see demoparty). The demoscene has retained some
     traits from the warez d00dz, including their style of handles and
     group names and some of their jargon.
  
     Traditionally demos were written in assembly language, with lots of
     smart tricks, self-modifying code, undocumented op-codes and the
  like.
     Some time around 1995, people started coding demos in C, and a couple
     of years after that, they also started using Java.
  
     Ten years on (in 1998-1999), the demoscene is changing as its
  original
     platforms (C64, Amiga, Spectrum, Atari ST, IBM PC under DOS) die out
     and activity shifts towards Windows, Linux, and the Internet. While
     deeply underground in the past, demoscene is trying to get into the
     mainstream as accepted art form, and one symptom of this is the
     commercialization of bigger demoparties. Older demosceners frown at
     this, but the majority think it's a good direction. Many demosceners
     end up working in the computer game industry. Demoscene resource
  pages
     are available at http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/ and
     http://www.scene.org/.