Non-scener's confusion about the scene
category: general [glöplog]
Quote:
Through this perspective: how is picking a lock the same as creating a lock?
I bet a master lock-pick knows a lot more about locks than a whole copycat chinese factory that produces them. Same way a master hacker knows a lot more about an OS than the code-monkeys that produce it.
Quote:
I know you are not dumb. Then, why are you playing dumb? You provide a link to an event that called itself a “copyparty”. Then you (I guess) “accuse” me of “not allowing” that same event to be called a demoparty. Did I get this right?
No, and that wasn't even directed at you. Excuse accepted.
I'm wondering what makes anybody here think that demos wouldn't have been copied at a copy party. As if having "copy" in the name infers that only cracks could be copied. Do you think people would go home without the demos?
I'm referring to what I try to learn and understand from watching productions, reading scrollers, and doing interviews. I'm very sorry if that gives a different picture from what is frequently getting purported. I can't help it. I have been talking to people who were at Danish Circle Copyparty 1, to name just one example. You can only get an increasingly accurate picture by collecting information, anecdotes, watching the actual stuff.
And of course there's not just one possible interpretation. OTOH I am not someone claiming this here would have anything to do with science.
That's why I introduced the topic to you with "we can not agree that demos evolved from intros, demos as a form predated intros to cracks."
That's the basic result and outline from my research.
By now we are even inside the C64 scene - so not taking other demos which much more clearly predate intros into account anymore. And still demos did not evolve from (crack) intros. They both evolved at the same time from the same bunch of computer enthusiasts. And their stuff got copied at parties.
Quote:
I'm wondering what makes anybody here think that demos wouldn't have been copied at a copy party.
Nobody thinks that, but a demo being copied at a party does not a demoparty make.
Okkie, you are right. But perhaps the seven demos released there make it a demoparty. Or part demoparty?
And I told you that there were more people attending than listed at CSDB. Because that would have been a phenomenal ratio of demos to party attendees, of which we can only dream today :-)
And I told you that there were more people attending than listed at CSDB. Because that would have been a phenomenal ratio of demos to party attendees, of which we can only dream today :-)
I was under the impression that we were not merely talking about “demos” in general. As in “audio-visual demonstrations on a computer”.
Commodore did xmas demos. Atari did neochrome flying bird and such. Mical and the gang did Boing ball. These are all demos. Plus, a lot of people made demos at home. By themselves and for themselves. A lot of them were BASIC demos.
But I thought we were talking about demos in context of something called “the demoscene”. Now, these demos came to follow a certain set of unwritten rules, have a certain style. And were almost exclusively built in ML. Required ML knowledge to code effective C64 demos had to come from somewhere. As there were not enough readymade demos to analyze, it’s natural to assume this knowledge came from cracking and analyzing the cracks. I can’t understand why are the two of you so enthusiastically opposing this conventional common knowledge, this general consensus, or this “myth” as you call it. What’s in it for you? Sometimes it seems to me you only want to raise dust. Be controversial. Be the enfant terrible of the scene. Again, this feels to me like some social art performance.
Commodore did xmas demos. Atari did neochrome flying bird and such. Mical and the gang did Boing ball. These are all demos. Plus, a lot of people made demos at home. By themselves and for themselves. A lot of them were BASIC demos.
But I thought we were talking about demos in context of something called “the demoscene”. Now, these demos came to follow a certain set of unwritten rules, have a certain style. And were almost exclusively built in ML. Required ML knowledge to code effective C64 demos had to come from somewhere. As there were not enough readymade demos to analyze, it’s natural to assume this knowledge came from cracking and analyzing the cracks. I can’t understand why are the two of you so enthusiastically opposing this conventional common knowledge, this general consensus, or this “myth” as you call it. What’s in it for you? Sometimes it seems to me you only want to raise dust. Be controversial. Be the enfant terrible of the scene. Again, this feels to me like some social art performance.
Quote:
I'm wondering what makes anybody here think that demos wouldn't have been copied at a copy party. As if having "copy" in the name infers that only cracks could be copied. Do you think people would go home without the demos?
I would very much like other people to comment on this antics performed by bifat. This is pure Trumpism cookbook.
Quote:
It’s not about what should be called what, it’s about the part of the consensual definition of the demoscene, the part that says it emerged from the crackerscene.
It's not about what it should be called, as long as it's called the cracker scene!
To the original post which is over half year old:
The general public did not have widespread access to the internet during the early days of the demoscene. Instead, demos, software, and games were often shared by coping disks between friends or getting them from magazines. BBSes were the primary means of accessing data from long distances.
Even when the internet became available, it took a while for it to become the primary source for downloading demos. Streaming platforms like Youtube also took time to develop, not to mention the need for sufficient storage space at that time. Its helpful to read up on the history of computers to understand the background while researching demo art from the past.
Alot of art that came from the demos of the time was not only based on artistic creativity but also shaped by the technical limitations of the computer/platforms. Early demoscene artists had to work within the constraints of the hardware and software available, which led to innovative programming techniques and unique visual styles. Today, the demoscene keeps that spirit alive not only by pushing boundaries of modern technology, but also by continuing to code on older platforms.
The general public did not have widespread access to the internet during the early days of the demoscene. Instead, demos, software, and games were often shared by coping disks between friends or getting them from magazines. BBSes were the primary means of accessing data from long distances.
Even when the internet became available, it took a while for it to become the primary source for downloading demos. Streaming platforms like Youtube also took time to develop, not to mention the need for sufficient storage space at that time. Its helpful to read up on the history of computers to understand the background while researching demo art from the past.
Alot of art that came from the demos of the time was not only based on artistic creativity but also shaped by the technical limitations of the computer/platforms. Early demoscene artists had to work within the constraints of the hardware and software available, which led to innovative programming techniques and unique visual styles. Today, the demoscene keeps that spirit alive not only by pushing boundaries of modern technology, but also by continuing to code on older platforms.
Quote:
Quote:It’s not about what should be called what, it’s about the part of the consensual definition of the demoscene, the part that says it emerged from the crackerscene.Maybe the point is that you think the early proto-scene should be called crackerscene, while i think it should not, neither crackerscene nor demoscene?
In my view, it is precisely about what it should be called.
1) Crackerscene was first, then the demoscene spawned of from it and did their thing
and
2) There was a single proto-scene that made and then copied both cracks and demos at their parties, then that scene diverged into what we now call cracker- and demoscenes
are very different assertions.
When taking the emergence of the first copy parties as an arbitrary point of when one can call it all a scene, looking at what was actually copied could serve as a rather good reference point.
I am convinced that at those very early parties, including the first one wherever whenever it was, not only cracks (along with their intros) were spread, but also scene-made non-commercial standalone productions satisfying the current definition of "demo", however simple in tech and comparatively few wrt cracks. (Copied along with VHS movies, porn of all kinds, magazines, whathaveyou.)
Now, the historical record may be spotty at best with early demos, because most likely most of them weren't so convincing as to be handed down the times. And yet some rather early examples made it.
If the point is somewhere else, that scene-made non-commercial productions only are truly "demoscene" when having that distinct intro-ish style with rasterbars, scrollers, teenage texts and running in competitions... then that seems a bit like circular reasoning to me.
In other words, i deem the two scenes as same-aged siblings, not parent and child.
@Krill:
Cool. Thank you for educating the world. I think this commendable effort of yours would have larger impact if it was directed where it should be.
My advice: use that diligence and do something useful for this holy quest for the real truth. Here’s the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
Edit it. So that it stops misguiding both researchers as well as lamers like me.
Here, I pinpointed the part with the “false myth” you’re crusading against for you. It’s the second paragraph under the “History” section:
“Demos in the demoscene sense began as software crackers' "signatures", that is, crack screens and crack intros attached to software whose copy protection was removed.”
Additionally, if I may suggest: If you really want to take this a step further, you should perhaps request for existing research papers on the demoscene that repeat this “false myth” to be revised, so that new research papers citing the old papers don’t surface.
Cool. Thank you for educating the world. I think this commendable effort of yours would have larger impact if it was directed where it should be.
My advice: use that diligence and do something useful for this holy quest for the real truth. Here’s the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
Edit it. So that it stops misguiding both researchers as well as lamers like me.
Here, I pinpointed the part with the “false myth” you’re crusading against for you. It’s the second paragraph under the “History” section:
“Demos in the demoscene sense began as software crackers' "signatures", that is, crack screens and crack intros attached to software whose copy protection was removed.”
Additionally, if I may suggest: If you really want to take this a step further, you should perhaps request for existing research papers on the demoscene that repeat this “false myth” to be revised, so that new research papers citing the old papers don’t surface.
Everyone is right in their own way here (some more, some less). A bit of my own reminiscing. In the 80s, me and my classmates in a small rural village elementary school started getting copies of games collected on cassettes. Back then no one talked about piracy and copying games was just a normal thing to do (even the parents were excited, as it meant money well saved).
At some point the screens before the games started to catch our interests, and when actual crackintros appeared, something about them made a big impression. So we formed our own group (as a little kids, it was just playing) and no, we didin't want to start cracking games, we wanted to make those cool little intros.
And all this without any knowledge of any bigger scene, that was just fun and felt cool. I remember we somehow managed to make at least one little product with ripped assets, it was kind of a fucktro towards an annoying old man living next door (I even remember the product's name, it was "Pentti nussii ikkunassa"). Years later we found out that the same had happened also elsewhere, made contacts, and eventually some of us ended being part of the "real" scene.
So, did the crackerscene develop to the demoscene? Maybe partly. But did it provide the initial push, inspiration, and enable the scene to develop to the extent that it did? Without any doubt.
At some point the screens before the games started to catch our interests, and when actual crackintros appeared, something about them made a big impression. So we formed our own group (as a little kids, it was just playing) and no, we didin't want to start cracking games, we wanted to make those cool little intros.
And all this without any knowledge of any bigger scene, that was just fun and felt cool. I remember we somehow managed to make at least one little product with ripped assets, it was kind of a fucktro towards an annoying old man living next door (I even remember the product's name, it was "Pentti nussii ikkunassa"). Years later we found out that the same had happened also elsewhere, made contacts, and eventually some of us ended being part of the "real" scene.
So, did the crackerscene develop to the demoscene? Maybe partly. But did it provide the initial push, inspiration, and enable the scene to develop to the extent that it did? Without any doubt.
@Daddy Freddy:
This is exactly like my own personal experience, as I described earlier in the thread. Thank you for sharing. I heard at least 10 similar recollections.
If so many people can agree from their own experience that the crackerscene provided “initial push and inspiration” and let me add “knowledge and distribution channel”, then when doing a cultural research article, it’s perfectly natural and accurate to state that “Demos in the demoscene sense began as software crackers' "signatures", that is, crack screens and crack intros attached to software whose copy protection was removed.”
Like @okkie said: it seems some STEM minds fail to understand how digital archeology and cultural studies work. And, dear naysayers, please read the Wiki sentence carefully. It says “demos in the demoscene sense” not “computer demos in general”. I’m surprised your detail oriented minds didn’t pick up on that. Thank you.
Quote:
At some point the screens before the games started to catch our interests, and when actual crackintros appeared, something about them made a big impression. So we formed our own group (as a little kids, it was just playing) and no, we didin't want to start cracking games, we wanted to make those cool little intros.
This is exactly like my own personal experience, as I described earlier in the thread. Thank you for sharing. I heard at least 10 similar recollections.
If so many people can agree from their own experience that the crackerscene provided “initial push and inspiration” and let me add “knowledge and distribution channel”, then when doing a cultural research article, it’s perfectly natural and accurate to state that “Demos in the demoscene sense began as software crackers' "signatures", that is, crack screens and crack intros attached to software whose copy protection was removed.”
Like @okkie said: it seems some STEM minds fail to understand how digital archeology and cultural studies work. And, dear naysayers, please read the Wiki sentence carefully. It says “demos in the demoscene sense” not “computer demos in general”. I’m surprised your detail oriented minds didn’t pick up on that. Thank you.
Daddy Freddy: Can you give us a year?
Sorry for being assumptive, but this sounds like you're hailing from Finland, which was one of the absolute earliest hotbeds of the scene.
Sorry for being assumptive, but this sounds like you're hailing from Finland, which was one of the absolute earliest hotbeds of the scene.
If you are not interested in making progress, your reasoning becomes circular, in this case by citing Wikipedia, you label purporters of dissenting ideas with derogatory terms, accuse dissenting arguments of bad methodology, assume personal backgrounds of participants, intermix archaeology (which is material science) with cultural studies. Expect any amount of ridicule for that.
For making progress, let's delineate the issue as much as possible to agreeable terms. For the sake of simplicity,
- let's call it just scene, not demoscene or cracking scene. For a start.
- let's talk about just the C64, leaving out other platforms before 1985, which is certainly problematic, but can be discussed elsewhere.
- let's assume that there's a continuity between the 1985 C64 scene and what we have today.
Can we continue in this basis?
For making progress, let's delineate the issue as much as possible to agreeable terms. For the sake of simplicity,
- let's call it just scene, not demoscene or cracking scene. For a start.
- let's talk about just the C64, leaving out other platforms before 1985, which is certainly problematic, but can be discussed elsewhere.
- let's assume that there's a continuity between the 1985 C64 scene and what we have today.
Can we continue in this basis?
Quote:
And all this without any knowledge of any bigger scene, that was just fun and felt cool.
I similarly remember a guy, still in primary school, who pretended to be an employee at one of the bigger game developers at the time, so his "intros" could piggyback on their fame.
4gentE: Without a doubt most people coming in later and over many years were young kids first interested only in games and only later in creating things themselves. If the common assumption is that this quantitative not qualitative view constitutes the beginnings of the demoscene, then naturally you come to the conclusion that scene-made demos must be crack-intro inspired.
My assumption is that already in the very early proto-scene days, when copy parties became a thing, scene-made non-commercial demos already existed and were copied along. Made by not-quite-children-any more, who may or may not have dabbled in cracking at the same time or group. Those somewhat older people may not have been as numerous by far as the constantly incoming youngsters, but i'm pretty sure they existed, produced and released not only cracks but also stand-alone demos.
Thus my stance.
And, please, for the love of God, tone down your belligerence to something more civil.
My assumption is that already in the very early proto-scene days, when copy parties became a thing, scene-made non-commercial demos already existed and were copied along. Made by not-quite-children-any more, who may or may not have dabbled in cracking at the same time or group. Those somewhat older people may not have been as numerous by far as the constantly incoming youngsters, but i'm pretty sure they existed, produced and released not only cracks but also stand-alone demos.
Thus my stance.
And, please, for the love of God, tone down your belligerence to something more civil.
bifat:
Taking a sample of ~40 cracks from 1983, it seems Germany is dominating and didn't see any Finns. In addition to Pure-Byte are there other examples of significant Finnish groups from pre-Amiga period?
Stopping at the year 1985 and limiting ourselves to C64 may be a bad idea since it's possible to claim that demoscene really came into existence a few years later when first classic demos were released.
Quote:
Sorry for being assumptive, but this sounds like you're hailing from Finland, which was one of the absolute earliest hotbeds of the scene.
Taking a sample of ~40 cracks from 1983, it seems Germany is dominating and didn't see any Finns. In addition to Pure-Byte are there other examples of significant Finnish groups from pre-Amiga period?
Quote:
Can we continue in this basis?
Stopping at the year 1985 and limiting ourselves to C64 may be a bad idea since it's possible to claim that demoscene really came into existence a few years later when first classic demos were released.
la_mettrie: you're right, what I had in mind were hybrid groups like Finnish Gold and Byterapers, which came into existence only in 1986. Yes according to my theory Pure-Byte is a formative entity for demomaking, and this was probably biased.
Yes, but if we do not have a starting point we can all agree on allows for continuity up to this day, then the discussion is moot or might be shot down. If we look at the 1984 HEC production on Atari XL (and several others), then the case is clear anyway. The argument will be: That's not our scene.
So I'm suggesting to exclude that and begin the search on C64 in 1985. We have demo-only groups in 1986 in my opinion, and already a party at which demos appear in great numbers in 1987. You and me have found productions, both demos and intros, with the complete feature-set from 1985. This sounds like the best evidence we have at the moment.
Quote:
Stopping at the year 1985 and limiting ourselves to C64 may be a bad idea since it's possible to claim that demoscene really came into existence a few years later when first classic demos were released.
Yes, but if we do not have a starting point we can all agree on allows for continuity up to this day, then the discussion is moot or might be shot down. If we look at the 1984 HEC production on Atari XL (and several others), then the case is clear anyway. The argument will be: That's not our scene.
So I'm suggesting to exclude that and begin the search on C64 in 1985. We have demo-only groups in 1986 in my opinion, and already a party at which demos appear in great numbers in 1987. You and me have found productions, both demos and intros, with the complete feature-set from 1985. This sounds like the best evidence we have at the moment.
This is indeed pure STEM style nitpicking squabble. I failed to realize it sooner because i’m not too bright I guess.
You know, the “question everything” tshirt fashion.
You wear people out and proclaim it victory.
“Circular reasoning” is quickly becoming your brand of Krill’s “False dichotomy”.
No, we can’t continue in this basis, to be honest I personally can’t continue at all because you wore me out, Trump style. You win.
BTW, please allow me to make just a few observations:
Bwahaha what a pompous delusion of grandeur. You sure You’re not Larping?
More of the same. So progress is clueless nitpicking over historical details irrelevant to the big picture with zero understanding of any real methodology. OK. If so, I apologize for standing in the way of that progress.
If I was in your place, I’d edit the Wiki article or otherwise be taken for a charlatan.
One more thing. About “digital archaeology”. Your immature tactics of playing dumb progressed to the level where I’m starting to wonder if you truly are dumb. It’s either that or you’re uneducated. If the latter is the case, allow me to educate you. “Digital archaeology” has nothing to do with the material science you mentioned, and has nothing to do with “using digital technology for archaeology” as Wiki would suggest. It’s a relatively (not really if you follow the field) newly coined term you can bump upon in newer papers in the field of cultural studies, platform studies by MIT press especially if I remember right. Since you like reading old scrolltexts, I’m sure you can deduce what “digital archaeology” means, but you not knowing what it means from the get go speaks a lot to me. Speaks a lot how you seem to never have read any modern research paper in the cultural studies field that concerns computers and computer subcultures. But still you are being careful to sound educated and elevated. Ridiculous.
You know, the “question everything” tshirt fashion.
You wear people out and proclaim it victory.
“Circular reasoning” is quickly becoming your brand of Krill’s “False dichotomy”.
No, we can’t continue in this basis, to be honest I personally can’t continue at all because you wore me out, Trump style. You win.
BTW, please allow me to make just a few observations:
Quote:
purporters of dissenting ideas
Bwahaha what a pompous delusion of grandeur. You sure You’re not Larping?
Quote:
interested in making progres
More of the same. So progress is clueless nitpicking over historical details irrelevant to the big picture with zero understanding of any real methodology. OK. If so, I apologize for standing in the way of that progress.
If I was in your place, I’d edit the Wiki article or otherwise be taken for a charlatan.
One more thing. About “digital archaeology”. Your immature tactics of playing dumb progressed to the level where I’m starting to wonder if you truly are dumb. It’s either that or you’re uneducated. If the latter is the case, allow me to educate you. “Digital archaeology” has nothing to do with the material science you mentioned, and has nothing to do with “using digital technology for archaeology” as Wiki would suggest. It’s a relatively (not really if you follow the field) newly coined term you can bump upon in newer papers in the field of cultural studies, platform studies by MIT press especially if I remember right. Since you like reading old scrolltexts, I’m sure you can deduce what “digital archaeology” means, but you not knowing what it means from the get go speaks a lot to me. Speaks a lot how you seem to never have read any modern research paper in the cultural studies field that concerns computers and computer subcultures. But still you are being careful to sound educated and elevated. Ridiculous.
Consider: 1983, made by pixelsmith (active until 1988).
Quote:
Daddy Freddy: Can you give us a year?
That must've been around 1986 and yes, Finland.
Claiming that the existence of demos turns early copy parties into demoparties sounds no different to me than claiming that occasional gaming at modern demoparties turns them into e-sports events
(talking specifically about copy parties that had a clear focus on copying everything that could be copied without demo compos or the like)
Quote:
Consider: 1983, made by pixelsmith (active until 1988).
A, finally we have a starting point, the demoscene started with the Book of Kells.
Kabuto: Who claimed that? I can find no post i can interpret that way. That copy parties of old and demo parties have different concepts doesn't seem to be contested by anyone.