As PR person for the Toxic Zombies I created a little "press release" for
our demo and sent it along with our first production--UNDEAD--to a few demo
groups.  The purpose of the letter/disk was to call attention towards our
group and help get the demo spread.  There are actually 2 versions of the
demo...the one I sent most of the groups was actually a pre-release and was
a little buggy.  The version number of the real release appears at the
bottom of the text file that accompanies the demo.

Along with sending the press release to demo groups I also mailed it to
a few magazines--Boardwatch, Dr. Dobbs Journal, Game Players PC Entertainment,
PC Games, and a few others.  Boardwatch and Game Players actually printed
something while Dr. Dobbs Journal was interested but nothing ever came of
a piece I wrote for them. [See ddj.txt for the Dr. Dobbs article and
pc_ent.txt for the article that appeared in Game Players PC Entertainment.]

BOARDWATCH MAGAZINE--August 1993

The front cover of this magazine listed what was inside the mag and one of
the headlines read "DEMOS Not What You Think  A New Cult Art Emerges Online."

Inside on pages 60,61 under the INTERNET NEWS section there was a little
write up by Jack Rickard.

DEMOS - NOT AT ALL WHAT YOU THINK

We recently received some information about something termed "DEMOS" that
are really quite new in the U.S.  They have NOTHING to do with demo or
crippled version of software products.  And they have been pretty big in
Europe apparently.  And we found them quite captivating, not only for what
they are, but how they come to be.

Demos are the data version of Music Videos.  Also known as "intros" these
are short graphic animations set to music.  They are almost exclusively done
by young hacker types who form "groups" very much patterened after musical
groups.  Often, group members are spread across a continent, and usually are
international.  Each group member does part of the coding to create a little
music video.  The resulting files are quite largish--often on the order of
a megabyte.  They have no purpose other than as a work of art.  I suppose
you could say they "demonstrate" video monitor hardware, soundcards, and the
usuefulness of the multimedia concept, but that really doesn't seem to be
the heart of it.  It is an artform made up of viciously agressive program
code, swooping and colorful geometric shapes, and music.  Given the very
impressive improvement of video games, with their introductions that include
really nice graphic screens and music, it is related to game software
development, but seems to focus on the pure art withouth the game.  Often
they run for five or six minutes, and we found them enormously entertaining.
Devoid of much of a message other than a tout for the group and maybe a
list of group members at the beginning or end, they are eye and ear candy
for the PC.

Dan Wright of Plantation Florida has taken it on as a mission to bring demos
to the U.S.  Apparently demos were pretty big for the Commodore computers
anyway, but are beginning to appear for MSDOS machines.  Wright has helped
to establish three ftp sites for archiving demos--ftp.uwp.edu,
wasp.eng.ufl.edu, and ftp.sun.ac.za.  Each site has the identical directory
/pub/msdos/demos which currently holds about 120 of these programs--ranging
in size from 17kb up to over a megabyte in LZH compressed format.

According to Wright, the "best" demos currently available include Amnesia,
Crystal Dream, Delusion, Facts of Life, Panic, TechnoHolic, and Unreal.
Apparently, a new Crystal Dream 2 release is imminent and rumored to be the
"greatest demo ever released."  So we popped the Crystal Dream demo to have
a look.  The program was over a megabyte compressed, and we were suitably
impressed.  A fairly plain CRYSTAL DREAM appeared on screen, melted into
some striking colors, and the show started.

The sound from the internal speaker on our PC was not impressive.  We could
make out the music about well enough to know that IT was and that we needed
a SoundBlaster card pretty badly.  The README file had warned us about this,
and we were a bit aware of it anyway.  But the screen graphics were quite
stunning, a brief blaze of fractal colors gave way to an outer space scene,
with spaceships, and various polygons and geometric shapes flying about in
pretty grand profusion, changing colors, morphing into other shapes, etc.
A checkerboard surface appeared, and objects floated and moved over with
corresponding shadow work beneath.  A helicopter shadow appeared, followed
by the helicopter itself lowering into view.

Demos are created by groups with names like Triton or Toxic Zombies.  They
have gatherings of sorts in Europe at such things as the TCC gathering in
Sweden or ASSEMBLY '93 gathering in Helsinki.  They are in the process of
creating a BBS network called the Creative Demo Network or CDN to distribute
demos.

Wright himself is a member of the Toxic Zombies, made up of eight programmers
age 19-27 with two from Europe and six from the U.S.  This exerpt from their
"album cover?"

Yes, WE are the Toxic Zombies of the demo world.  Doing what other groups do
but with an added "toxic" twist.  Formed late in 1992 our group consist of
eight members.  Our formation was brought about via the internet system when
various people responded to a text file I placed on the "demo site."  Pascal
and Krister come from abroad (Europe) whiel the rest of our members reside
in the U.S. of A.  We are male and female students ranging in age from 19 to
27.  Distance, school, graduation, and in some cases jobs hinder our progress
yet nonetheless we continue.  Survival is a Zombies basic instinct--WE shall
survive.  So, we anticipate you will still be around for our future
productions but till then enjoy this "undead" Toxic Zombies production.
Take it black, Dan Wright/Pallbearer

Sounds like internationally cooperative programming groups are producing
cult art witha following--entirely based on computer graphics/music.  New
to me.  For further information, contact Dan Wright, 1320 NW 76th Ave.,
Plantation, FL 33322; Internet--dmw@sioux.ee.ufl.edu.

end of article.

Obviously some things are a little out of date in the article (i.e. my E-mail
address).  A few letters followed up the article in the next several issues:

BOARDWATCH MAGAZINE--September 1993

Letters to the Editor (pages 19,20)

Hi Jack,

Read your recent article on demos in Boardwatch.  What a timely (coincidental)
thing--I recently tried out a couple demos on a friends machine that happens
to be equipped with SVGA and a SoundBlaster.

I can guarantee as much as you enjoyed viewing the demos on a computer with
the PC speaker, the experience is ten times as intense once you have a SB
hooked up.  One demo was all it took to convince me that I _had_ to get
this sound board for my next computer (which I am buying this weekend).
Anyway, for the hundred bucks, you should treat yourself to a SB.  I'm not
being paid to say this or anything, but the combination of slick graphics,
amazing sound, and little good programming yields a REALLY excellent
experience.  Dim the house lights, crank up the speakers and you've got
yourself a tremendous show.

Good luck & as usual, great mag.

Pete Zurich
p-zurich@uiuc.edu

Pete;

I think something like "demos" or "intros" will finally get sound cards off
the ground in a big way, and get them universally installed.  We had some
amazing response to the article on demos and plan a followup for an issue
soon.  John Smith of Gravis sent us CRYSTAL DREAM II demo with one of his
superb Gravis sound cards and yeah, we're a little wowed.  Crystal Dream
demo, by Triton, was reviewed in our August issue.  We have it on the
Boardwatch BBS now as CD1.ZIP and the Crystal Dream II demoas CD2.ZIP.  We
think this is an emerging new art form, and we predict big things for this
stuff in the future.  If you haven't seen these, grab them and run them
now, before they mature and get really interesting.

Jack Rickard

After seeing this letter and the article I decided to drop a line to Jack
and inform him on the latest demonews.

BOARDWATCH MAGAZINE--November 1993

Letters to the Editor (pages 20, 21)

Hey Jack:

Thanks for taking the time to announce "demos" to the public via your
*BOARDWATCH* magazine when I sent you the "internet demo site press release."
I have received at least 15 E-mail messages, five letters, and two phone
calls as a result of my name and address being printed.  I have done what I
can to provide these people with demos and information on demos to help the
demo cause.

As you have heard (from the letter you responded to in your September issue)
there is a great interest in "demos."  I was luckly enough to have some
people send me the article/cover and letter column relating to demos thus I
can now respond to what you have written.  Let me do that now.

Comments on the DEMO article:

Actually demos are not "quite new" unless you consider early to mid 80's
new.  I believe demos started on the C-64 and some (even myself) believe
demos grew out of crack screens on commercial software.  I have collected
demos on the C-64 since 1987 and have some dating back as far as 1986--
the older they become the harder they are to find because many "elite"
persons who collected software deleted anything considered lame/old.  On
the same note the newer demos made older ones seem like "shit" because
they--older demos--often got deleted unless the person was a serious
collector.  Another problem that plagued the C-64 was the NTSC/PAL
compatibility.  And since may demos come from Europe (PAL) most didn't (and
still don't) work on our NTSC computer and were deleted.  The "true" history
of demos is a gray area for me.  Demos also exist on the Amiga, Atari ST,
Apple GS, and of course the PC.  Other machine include Macintosh (probably
very few--no real ones besides "stacks" which I have seen), and SNES (so
I have heard).  Other possibilities include Atari 400/800, Apple II, Vic,
and the TI Sinclair though I have never seen any demos on these early 80
machines.

Most seem to agree that the best demo productions exist on the Amiga with
the PC being a few years behind--amazing huh.

All the big demo parties--which usually draw over 1000 enthusiast--are in
Europe.  To my knowledge no such party has been successfully done in the
US.  Probably because of the smaller interest--but maybe that will change.

I really enjoyed the write up.

Comment on LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (September).

The first demo I saw was Fishtro by Future Crew in May of 1992.  This demo
made good use of the SB the system was tested on.  In fact the Sound Blaster
is the card most demo groups supported then (late 80's early 90's) and still
support today.  It is hard to say what demo was the first to support stereo--
I tend to believe it was a BBS intro/demo called "fantasia" with an airwolf
type tune.  Sure enough, once the SBpro was released the stereo demos were
soon to arrive. Now, stereo music is a given in demos--at least major
productions. Many groups are supporting the gravis Ultrasound) because it
is a "less CPU intensive" (i.e. the computer is interrupted less often to
update the music allowing for more time to be devoted to code) card with 32
channels. Well, this is how I understand it to work.  It all boils down to a
more "programmer friendly" card thus is being widely accepted by the demo
culture.  Gravis's support of demos has greatly helped the cause and will
surly help their business in the long run even though many magazines have
written the GUS off.  Proof of Advanced Gravis's interest lies in their
attending/sponsoring of Assembly '93 in Finland--not to mention their
giving you and certain "top rated" demo groups their sound card.

Some final notes:

I noticed you mentioned doing a follow-up--sounds great--so I figured I
would fill you in on a few tidbits to help you in your article (again).
Sources of information include:  Book--"Walkthroughs & Flybys CD" by
Phil Shatz which contains 1 chapter on demos--, various issues (?) of
"PC Format" magazine (UK publication) which contains demo reviews, "Game
Players PC Entertainment" NOV/DEC 1993 issue (I was told), "Dr. Dobbs
Journal" DEC 1993 (Tentative), the USENET newsreader group comp.sys.ibm.
pc.demos, and of course the internet demo sites--ftp.uwp.edu, ftp.eng.ufl.edu,
ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/msdos/demos.

There is also a E-mail list of many demo groups being put out that can be
found on the internet demo site.  I was lucky enough to attend Assembly '93
with a few friends and will admit the new demos being released are a "step
ahead" of the UNREAL and Crystal Dream of last years contest.  The top four
PC demos were:

1) Second Reality
2) Optic Nerve
3) Elements
4) Saga

Some DEMO BBS's:

Programmer Oasis (TX) - (214) 328-6142
Quantom Accelerator (ND) - (701) 258-0319
Spasmotron (Canada) - (514) 744-5718
The End of Time (SC) - (803) 855-0783
Witch's Brew (NC) - (919) 942-3170

[Something strange happened in the transfer of this file while I was
uploading from my 1200 baud modem on my C-128.  I never ended up correcting
the article before I sent it to Boardwatch thus the --***-- remained in
the article where the missing text would have appeared.]

Saga, one --***--ndscape scenes.  Bevis from the infamouse "Bevis & Butthead"
show makes a guest appearance, Second Reality (aka Unreal 2) is due to be
released early October and contains some of the most amazine stuff never
before seen on a PC--even Surround Sound if you have a GUS.  On the same note
UNREAL will be re-released with GUS support.  Optic Nerve will most likly
make it out late October and I have no idea about Elements.

This is all I have to say in this informal "press-release" and hope it helps
you in your follow-up article on demos.  I have not been as "up to date" as
I would like on demos because of my lack of PC availability.  But, be on the
look out (in the near future) for a demo CD and possibly a demo BOOK which
will cover code, history, and the demo revolution.

Update--I hear the second reality demo will be released OCT 9th at a party
in KERAva FINLAND.

Down & Away,

Dan Wright
dmw@eel.ufl.edu

Dan:

Thanks for updating us on the demo scene.  The "newness" is a function of
platform more than calendar.  I think we are going to see sound cards
become more common on PCs.

Why don't I just publish your letter and we'll be there.  I can't wait to see
those top four new demos you listed.  We've got screen capture down to
something of an art here at Boardwatch, but most of the demos seem to defeat
our best efforts.  The stories suffer from lack of a sense of what is visually
going on.  We're rather describing Michelangelo by waving our arms here.  Any
pointers you might offer to making the grab would be appreciated.

Jack Rickard

end of letters.

Early 1995 I sent an ESCAPE CD and another letter to Jack regarding demos.
I do not believe anything on demos was further printed after the above
mentioned article and letters.

