Demoscene - An Introduction

Written by Adok

The demoscene is an international community of computer artists who produce various sorts of multimedia art. The most important category is the demo. A demo is usually a non-interactive computer application that displays a short animation (hardly ever more than 15 minutes) accompanied by music. Another category is the intro, which is essentially a demo with a size limitation of less than 1, 4, 40 or 64 kilobytes.

Demoscene artists, also called sceners, regularly meet at parties where they present their latest creations. The artworks compete with each other in competitions (short: "compos"). The winners of the competitions get prizes. Apart from demo and intro competitions, there are also contests for single graphics, music tunes and sometimes also rather peculiar things such as hard disk throwing.

The electronic magazines of the demoscene are called diskmags because they were originally spread via floppy disks. Like demos, diskmags are executable computer applications with graphics, music and code.

The demoscene is active on a large number of platforms, ranging from game consoles and handhelds to the PC. Historically the demoscene has been especially active on Commodore 64, Amiga and x86 PC. In Russia there is also a big ZX Spectrum scene.

A longer, more detailed introduction to the demoscene can be found at the Hugi Website.

"Magellan" by Farbrausch

"Happiness is around the bend" by ASD