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What are the earliest sightings of the term "demo" with the modern meaning of audiovisual sculpture entirely for its own sake, so not an intro and not a strictly "technical" demo?

We have just watched some C64 demos of our own group, TEK. Our founder Banana was in 1986 using "program" or "proggy" in scrolltexts, and by 1987 he was using the term "demo". But the 1986 productions were already demos in the modern sense, just for their own sake, not intros to something. On the other hand, our demos sometimes contained "tech demo" parts of Banana's sample-enabled music routine ("Jammaster"), and the term may simply have been transferred to the whole production as pars pro toto.

An interesting aspect of our group history is that TEK was a confluence of mostly single guys under three-letter group monikers each, but the founding concept seems to have been to unify them as a demogroup in the modern sense, and the birth date for this concept was somewhat arbitrarily set to January 1987.
As unlikely as it seems, I was just wondering if TEK might have been the inventor of the demoscene in the modern sense. :-)

there were several threads already regarding finding the first demo, with different definitions of what qualifies as demo, eg.: https://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=11445&page=1

Interesting.

Indeed back in the mid 80s it was a program. First "demo" term I heard was in late 1987. It was not on the C64 scene.
From my personal research ;) and deduction, it might have come from "demonstration, demonstrating program".

As for the THREE letter group's name.
I think, as to my personal research as well, it most probably came from the graffiti scene, where (till today, but might be mistaken) the groups still use and have from 2 to 3 letters acronyms. Yes, there are longer names but the 3 letter was/is a main concept.

here's one from 1985, called "Crazy Demo": https://csdb.dk/release/?id=85416

I always thought this came from the need to fit your cracking group's name in C64 file listing.

My first guess would be that commercial companies first distributed "demo programs" and the name was picked up by the scene from there. I don't have any sources to back this up off the top of my head though.

It's named after the first person to ever make a demo, Jeff Demo.

Some of our members had affiliations to the graffiti scene, and several did sample demos before, i.e. productions consisting mainly of sampled loops of music. In 1986 demos in today's sense were clearly in bloom already. I think what sets even TEK's earliest productions apart was that they did gfx and music themselves and started sending their contacts demos, and tried to entertain, not only with music but also with scrolltexts and selfmade cartoonish gfx and jokes - to set themselves apart from just (boring) warez. A big leap forwards in my opinion.

It would be as well for the Arcade games' Hall Of Fame, or Hi-Score lists.
But here, in fact, the original Japanese score-lists (in such a games as Senjo no Okami, Gun Smoke by Capcom, and some other ones) had more then 3 characters. It is only in their American and, in consequence, European releases the long score-lists were replaced by 3 letters. Most probably to avoid some bad language.

As it was in case of the PuckMan game.
Pakku is in fact a japanese onomatopoeia sound for eating. But US Namco division, knowing that US young brats would certainly change the "P" letter for "F", the non-nippon release was renamed simply to PacMan. Well, the choice was obvious ;)


Hehehe. Yes, it is often a case. Both art scenes are, in some cases, really, really close.


That's from where the so-called demos started, I think.
If you observe the old (Late 70,early 80s) Apple II, Atari XL scene, the crackers had only a small text-line to, at most, a static screen to promote their efforts. Fortunately, there were more ambitious freaks and put more effort in to their work.

That's what I heard on an ancient demo-scene radio station back in 1983.

Demo used to mean people but people in Rome started to demonstrate and then this new meaning was extended to any kind of demonstration (not just political). These both meanings from the Antiquity are still present in modern languages (ie. demography vs. demonstration etc.).

Sighting: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=105308
Huge scrolltext (located at $2900) with endless greetings list, including clear distinction between the terms "demo" and "intro" already in place. So "demo scene" was clearly a thing in 1986. Or even earlier, what do you think?

I think we should phone Jeff

Interesting.
Intros back then were, iIrc, just a simple screens with a scrolly, or a black screen with a scroller with no rasters nor sprites flying around.

Demos had the opposite, thingies were moving around. Even if in one color.

I think it is difficult to separate them. For ex. 1001 crew got rid of borders ;), but they were hackers/crackers. But it gave a great opportunity for demo ppl to use this trick!

Wasn't the first demo the »Hafenstraßedemo« in Hamburg? :o)

Sim: That's what I mean. I'm fairly certain that the term demo was always universally understood (from tech demos, demo versions, etc.), just very few with today's meaning - with an artistic undertone - were made in the very beginning. I was looking for the first emergence of demos with not only all the usual demo attributes in place, but also with an awareness of a new kind of genre and scene around it. TEK is among the very first of that kind, and certainly the world's oldest active demogroup.

I could almost have guessed who posted that before seeing the nickname :D

Jeff Demo?

Triad possibly beat TEK as the oldest demogroup still in service by some weeks if they're forgiven that they didn't have their act together with regard to music (their 1986 prods used Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway tracks). "Demo of Triad" scroller states that no cracks were made for Triad yet, so this must be autumn 1986, about the same time as IBM Music VII.

Demo of Triad (1986, no date found): https://csdb.dk/release/?id=30076
IBM Music VII (1986, no date found): https://csdb.dk/release/?id=105276
Another 1985 protodemo with Martin Galway music, Seven-Up Crew: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=13468

The boing! demo on the "Workbench demos" Amiga 1000 disk probably helped popularize the term "demo" to mean a (comparable) audiovisual non-interactive demonstration and also influenced the contents of scene demos.

Of course it was a technical demo, but distributed like this without much context (of a research paper for example) it may also have helped create a new understanding for the word.

What about Razor 1911?

Another 1985 demo from the older thread https://csdb.dk/release/?id=19103

The Thomson TO7 had a tape called "Demonstration" in 1983, showing the machine capabilities with streaming audio from the second track of the tape.

http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/vitrine-demonstration/index.html

So it seems the terms pre-dates the demoscene usage by a few years?

Razor1911 in 1985 looks good, with scroller and greetings, but no gfx and I wonder who did the music (Dr.J = Dr. Jekyll?): https://csdb.dk/release/?id=47085
None of their 1986 titles seem to have own music, same with FCG and f.ex. TCC. Looks like a self-declared "group" making a "demo" with own music, gfx and effect before fall 1986 (and not just once) wins the title of the first demogroup hands down, well, according to this definition. =)
Yellow demo by TCC (1986): https://csdb.dk/release/?id=16619
PulkoMandy: I agree, "demonstration", short form "demo" was a term understood long before. First applied to tech demos, later a showoff of individuals' or a group's capabilities started to sneak in.

Showoff wasn't the right term. More like fun in doing cool not-seen-before things, and at the same time getting recognition for this. Hugely and irresistibly motivational.

Does the legendary Bogg count as "non-ripped" music? :) https://csdb.dk/release/?id=46605

Rhaa Lovely https://csdb.dk/release/?id=4987 by The Judges at least counts as everything is made by members of the group.

But i dunno if i'm anymore in the topic really.