5 ms·

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

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.

DocTomoe 6y ago
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.
mjul 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
  The demo scene was big on 8-bit machines "long" (by 1980's home-computing time scales) before the Amiga became a big factor.
- anthk 6y ago
  I remember people still running Amigas and software for it (MPEG1 video players, Winamp clones, NES emulators...) in 1999.
varispeed 6y ago
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 6y ago
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!
mjul 6y ago
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.
_the_inflator 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Kid me had so many c64 games with your intros on them downloaded from local BBSs. Thanks for all the cracks! Adult me wishes she could go back and actually pay the authors of all those games but then again I think most of them weren’t even available in the US...
jng 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Unsurprisingly Free/Libre Software developers tend to be based in Europe (as percentage over population of developers).
fireattack 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
  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.
krrrh 6y ago
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.

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.

DocTomoe 6y ago

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.

mjul 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
The demo scene was big on 8-bit machines "long" (by 1980's home-computing time scales) before the Amiga became a big factor.
anthk 6y ago
I remember people still running Amigas and software for it (MPEG1 video players, Winamp clones, NES emulators...) in 1999.

varispeed 6y ago

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 6y ago

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!

mjul 6y ago

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.

_the_inflator 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.
egypturnash 6y ago
Kid me had so many c64 games with your intros on them downloaded from local BBSs. Thanks for all the cracks! Adult me wishes she could go back and actually pay the authors of all those games but then again I think most of them weren’t even available in the US...

jng 6y ago

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 6y ago
Unsurprisingly Free/Libre Software developers tend to be based in Europe (as percentage over population of developers).

fireattack 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
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 6y ago
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.

krrrh 6y ago

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.