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please help me find a demo I saw as a kid!

it ran on DOS and had probably 320×200 or 320×240 VGA/MCGA visuals IIRC.
I have seen it around 1999-2000 but it was definitely an earlier (probably early to mid 90s) release.
It had a 3D “dot ball”, possibly bouncing on a textured surface, which also transformed itself (rearranging the dots) into other shapes, I remember an hourglass or diabolo shape (two opposing cones or half-spheres touching at a point).
It also had a scroller (straight movement, no sine, no bounce, IIRC) written in a fancy red font, which had greetz including Jeskola Productions.
It was located in a folder named “BA” on the PC I saw it on, which may have been either an abbreviation of its actual title, or just a placeholder/keysmash.

does anyone have an idea what this could have been? it’s eating away at me for a quarter century already…

I remember an amiga demo with dot ball I think bouncing between two sides V.

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1158

there are 3D dot objects here, with morphing, including a ball and an hourglass, and also "jescola" in greets :) But some things are different from your description.

Just try to watch demos from the 92-94 demoparties.

this isn’t the one, but thanks — I have tried looking for it, but the sheer amount of unrelated demos made my head spin and the task look like finding a needle in a haystack.
I had a CD containing the contents of that PC saved (it was my father’s) somewhere — he doesn’t remember the demo and I am not even sure about that save including it…

if it helps anyone, I think it switched to a higher rez (640×…?) for the scroller part (but I may be misremembering). that Majic demo actually matches the style I remember pretty well, but not the exact effects.
I also remember a logo distortion effect, which looked like graffiti lettering and I couldn’t decipher what it actually read. IIRC it stretched and squeezed the logo vertically.

Mindcandy was a good collection.

On a personal note, Jumala the finish "god" seems to be instrumental in several quality things in scene. Oskari was with this one (Buzz) and Roz (Rave Network Overscan).

It might be a bit of a "scene-god" if anyone wants to try. (I do not believe in biblical gods, so it is not for me.)

You've described roughly 50 different demos. If it isn't the Spacepigs Megademo (which uses high-res for a vertical scroller), then watch all demos between 91 and 94 (I disagree with the prior point to watch all "demoparties" because a lot of demos were released outside of parties before 1995) and you should find it pretty quickly.

There is an "eXodemoscene" distro you can use to quickly smash through them: https://wiki.retro-exo.com/index.php/EXODemoScene

I feel like that should be the LAST solution Trixter! :)
I guess if you want to be sacrilegious you could just watch the demos at 2x speed or maybe not even watch them and just skip through them until you get the one. Of course if you find it please post about it here, I'm invested now! (^v^)

If they did greet Jeskola, then we're looking at something 1993 or later, if that helps.. and probably Finnish, but not necessarily. I swear at some point someone brought up a project to make a searchable catalog of group greetings, but I might be crazy.

First demo I checked was Mystic by TSI, which does have a morphing 3D dot sphere (I don't know *how* I remembered that!), but not into an hourglass or cones. It has red text at the bottom toward the end but it scrolls up, not across.. so this isn't it.

@7id: thanks :)

No it was this demo. Jeskola was with Jumala. Other groups at the time also refer Jumala such as Trauma. Also indicating it is symbolperfect for Scene. (Meaning you can use it symbolically even if you do not believe much.)

(Trauma - Gateways, a 1st 98, may even be about me.)

I tihnk I even saw a Nina II in an Assembly Party video, probably with this finnish Jumala!

Deu may also work (The Barcelonan God, known through Queen).

It may also be a progression from Jumala to Deu overall. Jumala being early scene, and Deu being later scene.

P&L !