I love the scene. Watching people continue to improve on what is possible every year is amazing and inspiring!
When a system is software driven and open, there tends to be more possible
than we may think!
I first became aware of this on the VCS (2600). Actual capability was combat basically. But, the chips were designed in a permissive way and it turns out if you flog it hard enough, good things can happen!
And seeing those tricks inspired me to explore: Atari, some C64, on my own and that shaped a career of both putting out fires whike making magic happen and here is the kicker: I got paid for it!
...Color Computer 2 and 3, Some C64, Apple 2, GS (dissappointing), PC ( the 8 bit like ones, sorry viler, lol, but I got unfinished business with those machines to do the moment I get something running with an ISA bus.) VCS, 7800.
More recently, e-paper, Propeller other embedded devices.
6502, 6809, 65816, Z-80, 8086, 8088, '386
Even g-code! Made more than a few industrial machines punch well above their weight class.
Unix, Linux, NT, DOS, Microsoft Unix whatever it is called, IRIX, HP UNIX... (I really miss SGI and I never hacked on
All the way back to a 6th grade door knob I found I could unlock just by pure manipulation.
I found the scene via disk intros, then via Internet and have followed ever sense. The art is fast, beautiful, thought provoking and fun.
If we did not have a scene to inspire, challenge, express the rage, party, I thimk we would have missed out on a coupla generations of talent thst could have easily remained latent. My own, such as it is, too.
I have made e-paper run at 13 + FPS and have an asteroids type game almost done.
Lots of extra colors, screen hacks, on most of this list... Copying that which they said cannot be copied... Data recovery, debugging, assrmbly language, machine language... almost all of it influenced by scene members who shared.
Honestly, it is kind of beautiful. Watch, be amazed, investigate, remix if warranted, make magic, share, wash rinse repeat... And with great power comes great responsibility. I never felt pushed to some dark behavior. I felt pushed to learn, play, share.
Nothing wrong with that.
Thank you all you sceners. I sure had fun and may be at a party yet.
I do not believe the scene will die. It will evolve. It will go where the limits are and then push past them.
The DemoScene was always for the love of the game. When we had more of a shared culture (saw the same movies, listened to the same music, etc) it was easier to see things done that can amaze you. pushing the hardware to places it was not thought possible. Now today, and 2SB is a testament to that, there are so many opportunies to do something crazy - hacking an LLM into animal crossing on gamecube anyone ??!?!
Our expectations are also higher - I remember building a ray tracer for the Mac II for my graphics class in '88. I made a movie - maybe 17 seconds long. all in my class when "oooh - ahhh" appreciating the accomplishment. I showed it to my girlfriend at the time and she said "I've seen better on MTV....". The technical merits are drowned out by what is common place on other system. sigh.
I first heard this in 1997, out of my own mouth, seeing the first wave of 3-D hardware-accelerated demos. I felt that removed all of the challenge. Clearly I was wrong, and clearly the scene is not (still) dying.
When a system is software driven and open, there tends to be more possible than we may think!
I first became aware of this on the VCS (2600). Actual capability was combat basically. But, the chips were designed in a permissive way and it turns out if you flog it hard enough, good things can happen!
And seeing those tricks inspired me to explore: Atari, some C64, on my own and that shaped a career of both putting out fires whike making magic happen and here is the kicker: I got paid for it!
...Color Computer 2 and 3, Some C64, Apple 2, GS (dissappointing), PC ( the 8 bit like ones, sorry viler, lol, but I got unfinished business with those machines to do the moment I get something running with an ISA bus.) VCS, 7800.
More recently, e-paper, Propeller other embedded devices.
6502, 6809, 65816, Z-80, 8086, 8088, '386
Even g-code! Made more than a few industrial machines punch well above their weight class.
Unix, Linux, NT, DOS, Microsoft Unix whatever it is called, IRIX, HP UNIX... (I really miss SGI and I never hacked on
All the way back to a 6th grade door knob I found I could unlock just by pure manipulation.
I found the scene via disk intros, then via Internet and have followed ever sense. The art is fast, beautiful, thought provoking and fun.
If we did not have a scene to inspire, challenge, express the rage, party, I thimk we would have missed out on a coupla generations of talent thst could have easily remained latent. My own, such as it is, too.
I have made e-paper run at 13 + FPS and have an asteroids type game almost done.
Lots of extra colors, screen hacks, on most of this list... Copying that which they said cannot be copied... Data recovery, debugging, assrmbly language, machine language... almost all of it influenced by scene members who shared.
Honestly, it is kind of beautiful. Watch, be amazed, investigate, remix if warranted, make magic, share, wash rinse repeat... And with great power comes great responsibility. I never felt pushed to some dark behavior. I felt pushed to learn, play, share.
Nothing wrong with that.
Thank you all you sceners. I sure had fun and may be at a party yet.
I do not believe the scene will die. It will evolve. It will go where the limits are and then push past them.
Our expectations are also higher - I remember building a ray tracer for the Mac II for my graphics class in '88. I made a movie - maybe 17 seconds long. all in my class when "oooh - ahhh" appreciating the accomplishment. I showed it to my girlfriend at the time and she said "I've seen better on MTV....". The technical merits are drowned out by what is common place on other system. sigh.