What got ya in to the scene
category: general [glöplog]
Simple: By watching screensavers make so many patterns by it's self I did a researsch all the way to Gizmozone.com and ended up here.
Well. I was waiting for my book to come out concerning this subject, so here is a small spoiler about it:
Back in the early 90's I was approached by a man in a park, during our conversation he implied to me that he was from the CIA. That's right, the big C, I and A. He expressed the growing concern to me in the matter of national security - that was wastly growing from middle europe and scandinavia. He told me that communists were trying to take over the control in the western parts of the world, by getting together in small meetings, with a proper name "Party". And I was a obvious canditate for infiltrating this community.
During the time of 92, I was most probably brainwashed, leaving no memory at all from one weekend. So, I leaped, gave myself a new name, nationality, and I am still on the run, eventhough times of cold war are over, according to official sources.
I am still here, without the clue who I really am, getting this puzzle together to try to figure out my true identity.
So. The real question is, what movies I have been watching lately ? :)
Back in the early 90's I was approached by a man in a park, during our conversation he implied to me that he was from the CIA. That's right, the big C, I and A. He expressed the growing concern to me in the matter of national security - that was wastly growing from middle europe and scandinavia. He told me that communists were trying to take over the control in the western parts of the world, by getting together in small meetings, with a proper name "Party". And I was a obvious canditate for infiltrating this community.
During the time of 92, I was most probably brainwashed, leaving no memory at all from one weekend. So, I leaped, gave myself a new name, nationality, and I am still on the run, eventhough times of cold war are over, according to official sources.
I am still here, without the clue who I really am, getting this puzzle together to try to figure out my true identity.
So. The real question is, what movies I have been watching lately ? :)
Back to the future I & II & III
willow
Star Wars Episode 4,5,6
??
willow
Star Wars Episode 4,5,6
??
Games brought me to the scene. A few years ago, I saw some zip files in a directory while browsing the content of a well know pc-game magazine cd-rom. Unzipped the stuff and saw an .exe file called "wmind.exe"... That was it. I just didn't had the slightest idea of what a demo could be, but I had some (poor) knowledge of what realtime was; and damn, that thing was realtime!
I then watched hundreds of demos, main part of it coming from the same gamers magazine cd-rom (I had no access to the internet...). I always thought that using sound/music and graphics was resulting in something even better than simply listening to some good music alone or watching beautifull pictures; demos do all that, sometimes more successfully than other times though, I'll agree!
I then watched hundreds of demos, main part of it coming from the same gamers magazine cd-rom (I had no access to the internet...). I always thought that using sound/music and graphics was resulting in something even better than simply listening to some good music alone or watching beautifull pictures; demos do all that, sometimes more successfully than other times though, I'll agree!
well, for i'm into the scene, blame farb-rausch's "fr-08" :)
Same here, I was going to denmark where I saw fr-08 on my brothers system, And I stood in awwww for 11:15 sec. through the whole thing.
Programming BASIC graphic routines, scrollers, and tweaking code in magazines on my Apple ][e back in 1983-1985 probably got my mind firmly rooted into the mentality of what demos are. Doing ANSI and VGA art in The Draw and DP2E furthered my appreciation of the visual side. Stuff like State of the Art, Hardwired, Arte, etc. on the Amiga, though, made me realize the potential. Demos became an instant addiction after those fateful days in the early 90's.
gaaah. just noticed.
"we even had our first release on FLaG2002"
damnit, FLaG2000 that was, not 2002...
"we even had our first release on FLaG2002"
damnit, FLaG2000 that was, not 2002...
inside by CNCD
i think it was on some CD..
mom and dad
As VindicatioN, I had an Apple ][e in 1984, and no games at all. I started coding it. Then, I got an 386 in well... 91, I guess. I started coding, and after a couple of years I got the knowledge of demoscene (I think it was 1993 or 1994) and I formed my own group. After a group fusion, we changed our name to "Spinning Kids".
Even if the group is rather old, we started producing real demos/intros in 1997.
Even if the group is rather old, we started producing real demos/intros in 1997.
started on a shiny afternoon at a friend's house. we were supposed to ride our BMX. While waiting another friend to come (who never came), my friend showed me up some "things" on his brother's Atari ST... It was demos.
I was fascinated. One day I discovered the Amiga... First thing I saw on it was Unreal, the game. Then a "dragons megademo" and everything started...
I was fascinated. One day I discovered the Amiga... First thing I saw on it was Unreal, the game. Then a "dragons megademo" and everything started...
definitely stash introduced me into a new world...
when i've finished saw it i tought... "wooaaa if they can do things like that in c/asm i can do them too, and i already know c/asm, let's start learning gfx programming" ;)
when i've finished saw it i tought... "wooaaa if they can do things like that in c/asm i can do them too, and i already know c/asm, let's start learning gfx programming" ;)
From the unix scene
Well my own story is closelly related to Optimus' story, since he made me to join the demoscene. But let me explain:
Back in 1999, i was a fan of a greek pc magazine, named "PC Master". I liked it because of it's way of expressing and because it wasn't a "serious" magazine. They were doing jokes and they had fun and all of these were passed on the magazine too. So i wasn't missing any issue. In the last months of 1999, PC Master gave some interesting windows demos (later i learnt from the magazine's forum that Optimus made them to give these demos). I watched them and i liked three -key- facts: 1) they were very small, 2) they had beautiful graphics and 3) their music was amazing. I want to note here that until then i was listening only MIDI music. I knew the MOD fileformat from my 286 (1994?) times but never actually knew more. I had an old player (MP2 IIRC) that was playing MOD files thru the PC speaker (something that amazed me since the only sounds i were able to produce were from the Sound procedure of Turbo Pascal). Anyway, all of these made me to like this kind of software. But i didn't knew what it actually was. I was thinking that it was extremelly compressed videos made with 3D Studio or something (back then i had the idea that every amazing 3d presentation was made using 3d studio :-p).
One year later (2000), after a cut of about 1-2 years, i've got internet (due to phone bills - right now i also don't have internet from my home because of the *exactly* same reason ;-) again. Until then i didn't knew much things about graphics programming, etc. I was doing stuff like -silly- text parses and simple data bases in DOS. The same period, i read an article in PC Master about demoscene from someone called "Michalis Kargas" (Optimus). I really got excited with his writings. The article was very big (:-P) and it contained a lot of web pages. I was lucky because -as i said- i've recently got my internet connection back so i went to all of these pages. I've found some stuff and i've got some intros (my connection back then was very slow for downloading stuff over 2MBs and i didn't wanted to wait). After my little search i decided to get in contact with Optimus, so i sent an e-mail to the address he was giving in the article (many article writers in PC Master are giving their e-mail addresses with their articles). He replied very fast, for my standards back then (actually in 2 days IIRC). I remember that with my e-mail i sent him a very small text-mode intro that i coded for the case. In his reply, he said that he thought that i was able to do only textmode stuff, so in the next e-mail i sent him a simple water effect with bouncing text in the whole screen and background MOD music (however the water effect and the player were downloaded from the internet - something that i mentioned and credited, of course). To be exact, my reply was IN the intro and not in the e-mail :-). Anyway. That what i liked in the demoscene thing (a fact here: in the beginning i was thinking that "demoscene" is the name of the productions not the scene itself - Optimus said me later that demoscene is the scene and demo the production) is the programming. I always liked programming (i'm programming my PCs from my first seven years) and demoscene seemed something different from the usual database shit that i was working until then. Actually, it was and it took me a long time to understand some basic things about graphics programming (and i still don't know much, but this happens not because they're many but because i'm working in many other thing except demo-stuff and i don't give all my time to learn gfx coding - and of course because i'm lazy too).
After some contacts, i lost for a small amount of time my interest but in 1-2 months a channel in IRC came, #demo-gr (in the greek irc network) where all demosceners were able to meet each other and of course Optimus' mailing list (right now these are the key meeting points of the greek demoscene). Me, Optimus and Nuclear made the Lab and then iM and Amigo joined (later me and Optimus leaved the Lab and made Nasty Bugs with the today's great success :-p). It wasn't long until the first -after a long time- greek demoparty organized and with that party (Digital Nexus 2001) and our first release (Atsou, code by Optimus, gfx by myzelf) i felt that i was totally inside the demoscene :-).
And this is how i came in. I liked the fact that i joined at the time when the greek demoscene was getting stronger again after a period of death. It were many circumnstances that made this rebirth: ASD decided to come back (Navis/ASD finished his univ), Optimus made the mailing list, aMusic made the #demo-gr channel, PC Master added lots of stuff about demoscene, etc. The strange is that all of them happened almost at the same time so we didn't had only 2-3 persons but we started with almost 10-12 persons. Not a big number when compared to other scenes, but don't forget that Greece is a small country and we are getting last in EU charts when it comes to technology :-).
Just for the history: my first demoscene experiences were (i don't remember the exact order): Jizz/TBL, Stash/TBL, Moai/NoMad and 1-2 other NoMad demos. Back then i liked NoMad for their demostyle (today i like the oldstyle generally).
That's what i had to say :-).
Back in 1999, i was a fan of a greek pc magazine, named "PC Master". I liked it because of it's way of expressing and because it wasn't a "serious" magazine. They were doing jokes and they had fun and all of these were passed on the magazine too. So i wasn't missing any issue. In the last months of 1999, PC Master gave some interesting windows demos (later i learnt from the magazine's forum that Optimus made them to give these demos). I watched them and i liked three -key- facts: 1) they were very small, 2) they had beautiful graphics and 3) their music was amazing. I want to note here that until then i was listening only MIDI music. I knew the MOD fileformat from my 286 (1994?) times but never actually knew more. I had an old player (MP2 IIRC) that was playing MOD files thru the PC speaker (something that amazed me since the only sounds i were able to produce were from the Sound procedure of Turbo Pascal). Anyway, all of these made me to like this kind of software. But i didn't knew what it actually was. I was thinking that it was extremelly compressed videos made with 3D Studio or something (back then i had the idea that every amazing 3d presentation was made using 3d studio :-p).
One year later (2000), after a cut of about 1-2 years, i've got internet (due to phone bills - right now i also don't have internet from my home because of the *exactly* same reason ;-) again. Until then i didn't knew much things about graphics programming, etc. I was doing stuff like -silly- text parses and simple data bases in DOS. The same period, i read an article in PC Master about demoscene from someone called "Michalis Kargas" (Optimus). I really got excited with his writings. The article was very big (:-P) and it contained a lot of web pages. I was lucky because -as i said- i've recently got my internet connection back so i went to all of these pages. I've found some stuff and i've got some intros (my connection back then was very slow for downloading stuff over 2MBs and i didn't wanted to wait). After my little search i decided to get in contact with Optimus, so i sent an e-mail to the address he was giving in the article (many article writers in PC Master are giving their e-mail addresses with their articles). He replied very fast, for my standards back then (actually in 2 days IIRC). I remember that with my e-mail i sent him a very small text-mode intro that i coded for the case. In his reply, he said that he thought that i was able to do only textmode stuff, so in the next e-mail i sent him a simple water effect with bouncing text in the whole screen and background MOD music (however the water effect and the player were downloaded from the internet - something that i mentioned and credited, of course). To be exact, my reply was IN the intro and not in the e-mail :-). Anyway. That what i liked in the demoscene thing (a fact here: in the beginning i was thinking that "demoscene" is the name of the productions not the scene itself - Optimus said me later that demoscene is the scene and demo the production) is the programming. I always liked programming (i'm programming my PCs from my first seven years) and demoscene seemed something different from the usual database shit that i was working until then. Actually, it was and it took me a long time to understand some basic things about graphics programming (and i still don't know much, but this happens not because they're many but because i'm working in many other thing except demo-stuff and i don't give all my time to learn gfx coding - and of course because i'm lazy too).
After some contacts, i lost for a small amount of time my interest but in 1-2 months a channel in IRC came, #demo-gr (in the greek irc network) where all demosceners were able to meet each other and of course Optimus' mailing list (right now these are the key meeting points of the greek demoscene). Me, Optimus and Nuclear made the Lab and then iM and Amigo joined (later me and Optimus leaved the Lab and made Nasty Bugs with the today's great success :-p). It wasn't long until the first -after a long time- greek demoparty organized and with that party (Digital Nexus 2001) and our first release (Atsou, code by Optimus, gfx by myzelf) i felt that i was totally inside the demoscene :-).
And this is how i came in. I liked the fact that i joined at the time when the greek demoscene was getting stronger again after a period of death. It were many circumnstances that made this rebirth: ASD decided to come back (Navis/ASD finished his univ), Optimus made the mailing list, aMusic made the #demo-gr channel, PC Master added lots of stuff about demoscene, etc. The strange is that all of them happened almost at the same time so we didn't had only 2-3 persons but we started with almost 10-12 persons. Not a big number when compared to other scenes, but don't forget that Greece is a small country and we are getting last in EU charts when it comes to technology :-).
Just for the history: my first demoscene experiences were (i don't remember the exact order): Jizz/TBL, Stash/TBL, Moai/NoMad and 1-2 other NoMad demos. Back then i liked NoMad for their demostyle (today i like the oldstyle generally).
That's what i had to say :-).
Sector..You really narrowed it down : )
yeah
Is it a cultural thing in greece to write long-winded posts? ;)
I blame Plato!
nah, i think that it's more a tradition of our group...
For me I think the first demo I saw was Oxygene - Contrast, followed by Iguana - HeartQuake and of course FC - 2nd Reality.
lol@wade
When I saw video games for the first time in 1981 on AppleII and VG5000, i wanted to play, but quickly i wanted to do my own programs and cheat the games'lifes.
After that I taken more time to look the intro-crack than playing the games, and copy more diskettes of demos than games, so i wanted to do myself these cool things, it was on Amstrad CPC, in 1987, and i do my first demo in 1989 on Amstrad CPC.
After that, i own an Amiga, and enjoying Kefrens-MegaDemo8 lots of hours, and reading demo's scrollings to keep in touch with the demoscene dudes. Then i was a swapper lots of years, cool years of postal diskettes exchange with lots of friendship, but i consider me a part of the scene only since 1994, when i go to some demoparty for the 1st time, and going up to the podium for my 1st prize ;)
After that I taken more time to look the intro-crack than playing the games, and copy more diskettes of demos than games, so i wanted to do myself these cool things, it was on Amstrad CPC, in 1987, and i do my first demo in 1989 on Amstrad CPC.
After that, i own an Amiga, and enjoying Kefrens-MegaDemo8 lots of hours, and reading demo's scrollings to keep in touch with the demoscene dudes. Then i was a swapper lots of years, cool years of postal diskettes exchange with lots of friendship, but i consider me a part of the scene only since 1994, when i go to some demoparty for the 1st time, and going up to the podium for my 1st prize ;)
Was invited to the last 20 minutes of the gathering party 2000, Never knew it was this addicting though.
I Love It!!
I Love It!!
