VCF Talk - How the Demo Scene Works

Thanks for this talk. Comparing the demos with a magic show inspired me to write an article about the relationship between software and magic tricks: https://horizonofreason.com/magic/computer-magic/

Danderzei

I used to own Atari 8bit computers. Some of the hackers placed messages inside commercial software, such as "War to all commodore users" :) I guess there was some jealously bout the Commodore's popularity.

Danderzei

Resolved! I got everything out, ran a few tests, and it's the Super SnapShot IV fast-load cartridge caching it. Nothing to do with the program itself.

The disk drive wouldn't have enough RAM to hold a sample. And you're probably thinking of an SYS command, not a POKE. A brief power cycle would often leave programs in memory since the bootup cycle doesn't actually wipe the RAM, just the parts it needs to. So that's not surprising that you could still run the program using the SYS command. That being said, I think maybe you are remembering your experience a bit exaggerated since there's no way the memory would stay active while powered off for an entire dinner time.

The 8-Bit Guy

They're not pictures, data files in the way that JPG an PNGs are; they're executable programs that continuously draw on the screen in real time. They're actually closer to an anti-virus than to a JPG. You can still download and try, though.

My most mind-boggling C=64 "demo" experience was a file called "wham", which played a digitized version of the last verse of the band's song Freedom, with the flashing border raster bars often associated with assembly code. Doing "LIST" on it showed it to be a BASIC program consisting of a single poke, and typing that poke would play the song snippet again. So I decided to investigate where the song was stored. Taking the floppy disk out of the drive, obviously, did not prevent the poke from from playing the song again. Fair enough. Clearing the program from memory to write a new one did not prevent the poke from playing the song again. Okay. Rebooting the computer did not prevent the poke from playing the song. Interesting. Leaving the computer off during dinner and turning it back on did not prevent the poke from playing the song. Whoa! Unplugging the computer overnight made the poke do nothing when we tried it next morning. That was probably in the early 1990s, I was still quite young, and my best guess is that the demo was storing music in what I heard was internal memory on the 1541 drive, normally used for the drive's cache. I know I have a floppy in the house with that demo, but my C=64's audio out has been dead for years, and I suspect most of my disks may have aged beyond readability, and the disk might not be, you know, labeled. This post seems to discuss a series including the same demo: "https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12644&sid=e260f5acfa2d33a886b89d5d297ae95b"

Wow Those pictures. I have to download them and try them out on my C64 :)

Paul Jacobson

I really liked the comparison to a magic show. I never realized it before but I always do find myself wondering what kinds of tricks, exploits, or illusions are being used. I'm never really impressed if the methods used are obvious. But when I look at a demo and think "wait, that shouldn't be possible." That's the mark of a good demo.

Jace Fuse

Really nice talk

Pietro Zuco

I totally agree with the person that thanked you for everything! You're a very good storyteller also! In my teenage years, I was a real Amiga fan, even after Commodore went bankrupt, and I bought once the CD "Golden Demos", I should still have it somewhere. Back then, amazing effects, but not anymore for the computers of nowadays. Still in that time, an article in the Dutch Amiga Magazine was already thinking that the Demo Scene would be less interesting if you had a '040 or '060 Amiga, because you had "too much resources available" to learn to code efficiently. I think in someway that has definitely become true for the modern software. Why trying to fit it into 64k of RAM, if you have 64 GB available?

MrHammond

Thanks for the cool video. I really like the way you set up and tell stories, in your presentations and videos. It seems like you had a great time. Your videos on topics like this definitely keep me inspired to keep planning for my own NES emulator and software synthesizer for physical synth chips. In that respect, 8-Bit keys is such a cool complementary channel to me!

Jan-Marten de Boer

Ok, here's a video link from Mac84 just in case. BTW his name is Steve. https://youtu.be/1PYrUAD64-s

Angel Amezquita (Angelgreat)

I’m not sure. I met hundreds of people. I didn’t catch everyone’s name.

The 8-Bit Guy

Hey David, did you meet Mac84 at VCF Midwest?

Angel Amezquita (Angelgreat)

Thanks for the talk - I've been in the scene (on PC) for the last 20+ years so I understand the difficulty of trying to explain it to people :) I don't necessarily agree with all of what you said - I wouldn't lump the C64 XMAS demo together with the scene demos - but it's certainly a valid interpretation :) Also thanks for the Pouet mention (I'm the poor sucker running who's been running the thing for the last ~15 years) :D

Gargaj