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HISTORY                                       
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                                 DEMO HISTORY
                                       
   Disclaimer: The following history is from my memories of growing up in
   the demo scene as it evolved around me. If there's anything blatantly
   wrong here or I forgot something, I apologize, and encourage you to
   email me so that I may correct it. 
   
   Demos have been around as long as personal computers have been
   popular, but they didn't become a regular occurance until about 1983.
   Demos started as a small program that, sadly, was used to identify who
   had cracked the game you were currently (illegally) playing. They were
   a good test of the programmer's abilities, because they had to fit in
   a *very* small space, usually 256 to 1024 bytes. Obviously, they were
   all coded in either assembler or machine language. Around this time,
   they mainly started showing up on the Commodore 64, and the Apple ][
   computers, being the most popular home computers at the time.
   
   Around this time, a gradual shift occured, from people cracking games
   to writing graphic/sound demonstrations that showed off the computer
   they had just learned to program. Sure, cracking games was still
   popular, but some people decided that learning about the machine and
   using it as a tool for creativity was "cooler" than cracking one
   dime-store game after another. Around this time, in 1984-1985, the
   first demos were born, as people willing to show off their computer
   and programming skills learned new ways to wrestle more power and
   speed out of the computer. Early demos showed up on the C64, the Apple
   ][, and the Atari 400/800/XL computers. And then came the Amiga.
   
   When the Amiga computer from Commodore hit the home-computer scene in
   1985, it was not very well received initially in the USA, but it took
   off like wildfire in Europe. It was manufactured and sold primarily in
   Europe, and made its way into many households. The Amiga, however, was
   different: It was the first low-cost, home computer built for
   multimedia--which, back then, was a term almost unheard of. It had
   incredible sound and graphics capabilities, and shipped with a
   multi-tasking operating system. In fact, here's how many home
   computers ranked in 1985:
   

              Sound                   Graphics
              ~~~~~                   ~~~~~~~
Apple:        single timer (beeper)   16 colors, low res, two video pages
                                      8 colors, high res, two video pages

Apple ][/gs   15-channel digital      Low-Res:  16 colors, 2 pages, 40*40
              sound (stereo)          with 4 lines of text
                                      High-Res:  4 colors (8, but some
                                      repeat), 2 pages
                                      Double-High-Res:  16 colors, 2 pages
                                      Super-High-Res (][gs only):  16 colors
                                      per scan line, out of 4096 colors

IBM:          single timer (beeper)   16/64 colors, low res, two video pages
                                      16/64 colors, high res, one video page

C64:          three-voice synth       16 colors, low res, multiple video pages

Mac:          four-voice digital      Black & White, high res, one video page
              sound, mono

Amiga:        four-voice digital      32/4096 colors, low res, multiple video
              sound, stereo           pages

                                      64/4096 colors, mid res, two video pages

                                      4096 colors, mid res, one video page

   Clearly, the Amiga was the machine to program anything graphical on,
   like games and presentations, offering the best well-rounded graphics
   and sound and speed. It was the clear upgrade path for many people
   wanting more from a computer than the aging C64 could give them.
   
   The demo "scene" flourished on the Amiga, mainly due to the fact that
   the computer was fast and chock-full of "cool" hardware tricks, like
   multiple video pages, multiple resolutions, four-channel digital
   stereo sound (music sounded like *music* for a change), and nearly
   complete control over the graphics hardware--down to the point of
   offering multiple resolutions on the same screen! The Amiga demo scene
   pumped out revolutionary products from 1988-1990, and it was at this
   time that the PC scene was born.
   
   Around 1990, people on the IBM side of the computing world were
   noticing the cool things an Amiga could do and wanted to create a demo
   scene of their own. Initially, it was fairly easy to write demos on
   the IBM: the machine had more CPU power, and the graphics weren't too
   bad (EGA was fast but only 16 colors; VGA was slow but had 256
   colors). In fact, demos went pretty well in a minimal fashion, but
   there was one problem: the sound was terrible. There were four (young
   and shaky) sound "standards" at the time:
   
     * Adlib (9 voice synth) 
     * Sound Blaster (9-voice synth, 1 voice digitized) 
     * PC Speaker (beeper) 
     * LPT DAC (also known as "Covox") 
       
   The PC Speaker was attacked first, being the only sound device that
   everybody had on their PC. All results, while sometimes clever
   (creating chords from quickly arpeggiating three notes in the chord),
   sounded terrible, for the most part. One good attempt is found in the
   file YO!.ZIP by Future Crew. (A small note--that's *text mode* you're
   looking at. Many groups *today* would have a hard time doing that! :-)
   The LPT DAC was attacked next, and was very popular--you could get
   good sound out of it, and you could build one yourself for about $10. 
   
   And in the beginning of 1990, a couple of talented people realized a
   clever trick: The IBM was fast enough to mix, via software, the four
   channels that an Amiga could output natively. People got to work on
   it, and the earliest attempts were primitive, but new:
   
     * ScreamTracker by Psi/FC (1990) 
     * Future Crew Slideshow (1990) 
     * SpacePigs' MegaDemo (1990) 
     * TrakBlaster by Voltar Zinke (MOD Player) (1991) 
     * VectDemo by Ultraforce, (1991) 
       
   Trivia: Some of the above people have gone on to make games or
   commercial products:
   
     * Tetra Compositor, Octa Compositor (A former member of Ultraforce) 
     * Pinball Fantasies PC (SpacePigs) 
     * Jazz Jackrabbit (Arjan Brusse, a former member of Ultraforce) 
     * TrakBlaster Pro (Voltar Zinke) 
       
   (More history will be added at a later date.)  

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EFFECTS                                       
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                                 DEMO EFFECTS
                                       
Click on any hot-link here to see an example of the effect being talked about.

  Note: All the graphical examples came from actual PC demos. Nothing is faked
  here. You can find the original demos (as well as source code for the effects
  listed) at ftp.cdrom.com or other demo anonymous ftp sites. If you need more
  help than the source code can provide, you can try some related Usenet
  newsgroups.
  
   Vectors: The cornerstone of many demos, Vectors are any solid object
   that is presented in three dimensions (i.e. "3-D"). There are several
   types (listed in order of development):
   
    1. Shaded Vectors: 3D objects that are light-source shaded in some
       way. (Screenshot from Airframe / Prime) 
    2. Delay Vectors: Objects that fly around the screen, leaving a faint
       trail behind. Delay vectors can be made up of either dots or
       lines. (Screenshots from Crystal BBS intro / Xography and Show /
       Majic 12) 
    3. Glenz: 3D vectors that appear to be made out of glass or
       transparant material. 
    4. Slime Vectors: A vector object that is copied to the screen with a
       sine/cosine variation, making it look like it's "slimy." 
    5. Anti-aliased Vectors: When sides of a vector touch that have
       different colors and are "smoothed" along the lines. Not very
       common, but effective. 
    6. Gouraud-Shaded Vectors: A vector object that is shaded on a
       surface-by-surface basis. (Screenshot from Cyboman 2 / Complex) 
    7. Phong-Shaded Vectors: A vector object that is shaded on a
       pixel-by-pixel basis. Very impressive, but hard to optimize for
       real-time. 
   
   Copper: A wavy colorful effect created by modifing the scan rates of
   the horizontal and verticle beams of the monitor in real time. This
   effect gets its name from the graphics chip in the Amiga computer (the
   "copper" chip). Click here for another example of copper effects.
   (Screenshots from Show / Majic 12)
   
   Cross-Fade: When one screen or picture fades into another, i.e. both
   pictures fade in and out at the same time. (Screenshot from Delusion /
   Sonic-PC)
   
   Tunnel: The visual effect of flying down a tunnel made up of dots,
   solid lines, or other elements. (Screenshot from Show / Majic 12)
   
   Fire: An effect that resembles fire or flames rising up the screen.
   (Screenshot from Inconexia / Iguana)
   
   Interference: A shifting display resembling a moire effect when
   interference pattern is created by overlapping two or more concentric
   circles.
   
   MandelZoom: A display of a fractal picture that zooms inwards in real
   time. (Actually, hardly any of these zooms are real-time; they just
   look like it. They're really zooms into a big bitmap of a
   pre-calculated fractal.)
   
   Plasma: A shifting display of colors. (Screenshot from Delusion /
   Sonic-PC)
   
   Rubber Cube: A cube that appears to be made out of rubber.
   
   Scroller: A text message that is presented in an interested way, such
   as scrolling horizontally from right to left, dripping down onto the
   screen, etc. (Screenshot from Delusion / Sonic-PC)
   
   Shadebobs: Circles or squares that, when displayed over each other,
   turn into different shades of color. This effect is fairly overused.
   (Screenshot from Delusion / Sonic-PC)
   
   Sine Flag: A variation on a sinus pattern; used to display a wavy
   flag.
   
   Texture Mapping: A vector object that is has a texture mapped onto it.
   
   Rotating Bitmap: A texture that is used to "tile" the screen; usually
   rotates. (Also called "tileing" or "rotating tiles". (Screenshot from
   Second Reality / Future Crew)
   
   Vector Balls: A 3D object that is made up of balls. (Screenshot from
   Delusion / Sonic-PC)
   
   Vector World: A "virtual world" that is displayed in 3D (three
   dimensions) and is usually light-source shaded, which adds to its
   realism. (Screenshot from Airframe / Prime)
   
   Voxels: A landscape that's made up of pixels with size and distance
   information. (Screenshot from Airframe / Prime)
   
   Wormhole: A downward rotating spiral that looks like a black hole.
   Done with clever organizing and palette rotation. (Screenshot from
   Unreal / Future Crew)
   
   Dissolve: An effect that puts a picture onto the screen in an
   interesting way.
   
   Fade: All the colors on the screen slowly turn into another color,
   such as black, to "fade out" the picture.
   
   Rotate: A picture (bitmap) that rotates on the screen.
   
   Sinus: A shape or pattern that moves in a fluid pattern usually
   dictated by a sine or cosine mathematical function.
   
   Zoom: A picture that zooms in and out on the screen.
   
   Finally, several effects can be combined to produce new ones. When you
   take a plasma and use it as the texture map for a cube, you get a
   plasma cube. (Screenshot from Second Reality / Future Crew)
   
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MUSIC                                       
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                              DEMO MUSIC AND ART
                                       
Music

   Music Groups are groups of people who compose music. 90% of the music
   composed is tracked with a tracker; the rest is either MIDI or another
   music format. Probably the most well-known music group is the KFMF.
   For more information on music formats or trackers, feel free to visit
   the Glossary.
   
   These are examples of typical music you hear in demos. All sound
   samples are provided in both Microsoft WAVE and Sun/NeXT AU format.
   All samples were taken directly from a playing Gravis Ultrasound, and
   sampled in 8-bit mono 11KHz sound.
   
    
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  Microsoft WAVE file format examples
  
   Chip Music. (130K) (unreleased song by Mark Brown) Most chip music is
   very small, because the name "chip music" comes from the instruments
   used--they are very small, and sound like a cheezy on-chip
   synthesizer. Still, they can escape that genre in rare cases, and
   sound like this sound bite, which is as good as chip music gets.
   (Ironically, the sound byte is 130K, while the source song is only
   25K!)
   
   Mellow Techno. (160K) (from Verses/EMF) This is your "typical" demo
   music. It's dancable, but has more style and structure than regular
   dance or techno music. (Americans consider this type of music
   "european"; europeans consider it cool. ;-)
   
   Rock & Roll. (158K) (from Show/Majic12) Some demos are abandoning the
   traditional demo music and coming up with music that mimics
   traditional styles. This example, from Majic 12's Show demo, is a bit
   like rock.
   
   Techno. (221K) (song by AiRoN Jayder) This is the second-most common
   style of music for demos--techno. Dance music, full of raw energy.
   
   Unclassified. (140K) (from Wired '94 results intro) Occaisionally
   you'll hear music that just doesn't fit into a category. Sometimes an
   experiment, sometimes awkward, but always fresh to listen to.
   
    
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  Sun or NeXT ".au" format examples
  
    (For descriptions, see above.)
    
   Mellow Techno
   Techno
   Rock & Roll
   Chip Music
   Unclassified
   
    
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Graphics and Art

   Much of the art produced by graphicians is hand-drawn on the computer,
   usually with DeluxePaint, one of the most popular paint programs used
   by demo artists. Other times, ray-traced art is used, but this is
   generally frowned upon, because unless it's a fairly complicated
   object, it doesn't take a greal deal of time or effort.
   
   Here is an example of some of the fantastic art created by
   graphicians.
   
   ANSI Groups are groups of people who draw graphics for BBS's, but the
   graphics they draw are entirely made up of ASCII and extended ASCII
   text characters. (This is so the graphics can be displayed in text
   mode, or conviently transmitted via a BBS while on-line.) ANSI is the
   term given the standard color and positioning codes that are embedded
   in pictures to give them color, etc. More recently, ANSI groups have
   been drawing pictures for demo groups. Here's an example of ANSI Art.
   
    Jim Leonard (Trixter / Hornet)
    trixter@mcs.com 
