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I want to promote and establish the demoscene culture here in India. If you are an Indian, reach out to me on discord (@aspizu). Drop any ideas to promote demoscene in India. what demo groups or parties exist in India? is there a india-specific forum?

Now, that's an interesting project. I'm not aware of any demoscene activity in India, ever. There are some traces you can follow through.

You guys missed the home computer revolution of the 1980-90s. Neither Commodore nor Atari ever established a presence in India. This absence also eliminated the possibility of the demoscene to appear. The demoscene is the Amiga, and Amiga is the demoscene, everything else is more or less just a spinoff. Even the PC scene. (Flame me...)

However, the ZX Spectrum was big in India, as far as I know. There was a small but dedicated scene of kit builders too. This wasn't exactly "the" demoscene, as we know it in Europe, but comes very close to the Russian / ex-USSR demoscene. My research shows there were Indian ZX Spectrum kits and clones called CID 300, Drona and Deci-Zebronics. A few Russian Speccy clones were exported to India in the 1990s too, but we're really talking about only a dozen or so. I have no information on who received them. The BBC Micro was also reportedly fairly popular, probably because the leftover stocks were sold in India after its failure on the British market.

Either way, don't think of anything big. At best, this means a few scattered enthusiasts in that huge country, who probably never even knew each other. It's hard to call it a "demoscene".

As you're aware, computers only became widely available in India in the late 1990s, when they were perceived as work tools. The make-do approach of earlier years were already mostly gone. If there were any Indian demos since this time, we would've heard of them, because they would've either approached European demogroups, or submitted productions to European demoparties.

This also answers your last question: there is likely no India-specific demoscene forum.

Please come back and tell us if you find otherwise. We're keen to hear about demosceners around the world, particularly in places where we never seen anything coming from.

Sigh.

Ignore what Tomcat is saying about everything else than Amiga being just a spinoff. Pretty sure they're just trying to rile people up at this point.

There's a HUGE amount of platforms. Even the TIC-80 and other fantasy computers are valid platforms for the demoscene, to the point there's even separate competitions in many cases. All platforms are valid. Not just the one platform a single grumpy old fart just happens to like.

Since you're already on Discord, check out the Demoscene discord, it's a bit easier to talk about the scene in a more ad-hoc way. https://discord.gg/WEFEk6b38B

While there aren't a lot of Indian demosceners (which makes sense, since it wasn't really popular over there), I do find around 12 people that have their country set to India on Demozoo. https://demozoo.org/api/v1/releasers/?country_code=IN

You could start with doing vintage computer events, or even just general computer events focused more on creativity, and then go from there. Maybe show off some modern PC demos, or even Speccy demo's as there were some popular Speccy clones in India. There's bound to be some people showing up, even if it's just for the nostalgia factor.

Or you could just do "shader coding jams". There's plenty of resources like Shadertoy and Bonzomatic which you can use for that. It's all valid. :)

There apparently were also some "college tech fests" in India, which seems to be quite close to the Demoscene mentality and feel.

In other words: Try organising some small computer-related events with friends.
Don't listen to those that are saying "oh try to find things on your own and btw come and tell us if you do".

It has to start somewhere. Hell, who knows, you might even start your own community which might get bigger over time.
It happened in Japan with Tokyo Demo Fest. It could happen in India as well.

did a video about it:
https://youtu.be/uVincEcqKIU

I’m curious, in your opinion, how was the demoscene in the ex-USSR different from the European one? (besides Amiga)

Even though it's not about the demoscene, I've found this article to be a fascinating read and I imagine there are many parallels:
https://hackaday.com/2015/08/03/hacking-the-digital-and-social-system/

Zavie, about that article. The author is a computing legend in Yugoslavia. However, that text is full of inaccuracies. (1) Yugoslavia was NOT a totalitarian state which becomes obvious in the text where he says he orders Intels, Zilogs and a TRS-80 from the USA whenever it suits him and (2) it’s simply not true that you couldn’t buy computers in Yugoslavia (in the 80s). I myself bought a C64, Atari ST and an Amiga effortlessly in Yugoslavia in the mid 80s. Plus there were like a dozen or so locally made computers by that time. There’s this Galaksija creation myth “You couldn’t buy a computer in Yugoslavia, so Voja made one from scratch”. It’s nice and romantic, a true indie documentary material, but it’s a myth. Or it’s perhaps all about older times, before me, like late 70s, in which case it really has nothing to do with the demoscene. By mid 80s, of course you could legally buy all sorts of computers in Yugoslavia, one just needs to look at the computer magazines from the era with all the hardware ads. Sorry for this rant, back to topic.

I suggest ignoring newcomers with limited understanding of the demoscene and its history, but unlimited attitude. They often mistake this community for their own subreddit and think visiting a few recent demoparties makes them hot shit. Yes, the Amiga is the origin of almost all demoscene traditions. Emphasis on "almost", which, to address the limited understanding of the aforementioned beginners, means not all, but the majority. Every other platform, including the TIC-80, traces back to the Amiga. Speaking of which, the TIC-80 is a nice gimmick, but at which party does the crowd scream its name? None, that's what. I suggest mistaken beginners to actually study the history of the demoscene, and not just assume that two days at an infodesk at some party awards them true credit.

Now for serious questions:

During the 1980s-90s, computers were next to impossible to obtain there, particularly if you were a teenager. But they still had Zylog Z80 chips, electronics and soldering irons. The ex-USSR scene began with ZX Spectrum clones being assembled by hand, following schematics printed in radio amateur magazines. Some small scale manufacturing also existed, and they created some funny bootleg ZX Spectrum machines. Later these computers were upgraded with various custom chips and other hardware, such as homebrew sound cards (from OPL3 to Covox), more RAM, graphics and what not. There were some fairly standard machines with names (Scorpion, Pentagon, etc) but they were still usually made by hand, by skilled enthusiasts.

Therefore, the ex-USSR demoscene developed along a very different arch from the European. They were aware of us, of course, but they did their own thing. Hardware building and hacking became a main activity, far more important than in Europe, where it's a side activity. The lack of illegal cracking scene traditions led to changes too. For example, most sceners don't have handles, or don't use them like we do. Diskmagazines were rare, paper magazines were more common. In the end, the ex-USSR scene is still primarily a ZX Spectrum scene. I would say much more so than the European scene is still an Amiga scene. Most notably perhaps, since there's adequate Russian vocabulary to express computer-related terms, most Russian sceners never learnt English, and only communicated with other Russian speakers. This is basically why you see few Russians around here or other scene forums.

At the end of the day, the ex-USSR scene is founded on the very same ideas of friendship and cooperation, but the traditions and the technical background is curiously different. It's like Australian wildlife.

Whatever you say Tomcat. Whatever you say.

we have demoscene prods from 1978+.

So, is there an “official” agreement?

1) ALL realtime computer demos are considered part of the demoscene
2) NOT ALL realtime computer demos are considered part of the demoscene

I personally always thought (2) was true.

Yes, we have demos from 1978, but they appeared before the term "demoscene" even existed. Similarly, people have been writing and drawing on walls since walls existed, but graffiti did not exist until the 1970s. After that, everything was retroactively considered that. But if you went back to just 100 years in time, nobody would've recognized this word.

The demoscene isn't only about demos. It's a network of groups and artists, and a wide range of cultural artifacts and traditions. Even if you shit blood and scream all day, most of these traditions originated from the Amiga scene. Then again, *most*. Runner-up is the C-64, but it's largely and primarily was responsible for establishing the cracker scene, and less so the demoscene.

Did you know? You can express disagreement without being condescending. Try it one day!

I’m not really trying to change your mind or deny how important the Amiga was for the demoscene… but just to be fair, I’ll add a few remarks.



I don’t really want to dive into the 80s. After all, how many people here actually became demosceners back in the 80s? :) But in the 90s, getting a computer in the ex-USSR wasn’t really a problem. As long as you had the money. But computers weren’t free in Europe either.



In fact, the factory mass production of ZX Spectrum clones in the post-Soviet space was quite extensive. It’s hard to call it small-scale. Also, everything you wrote about the Spectrum applies just as well to the countries of Eastern Europe.



No idea where you got that from, but that’s totally wrong. We (ex-USSR sceners) use our handles even when talking face to face :)



I think I get it. You’re mixing up the post-Soviet community of Spectrum and other retro hardware fans with the actual demoscene. And yeah, the "Soviet" ZX scene is pretty specific, especially nowadays. So it looks like your research is focused on that DIY-scene and doesn’t really cover the rest.

In reality, the PC scene in the ex-USSR in the 90s was just like in Europe - diskmags, demos, demoparties. We did everything the same way as in Europe. There were demoscene BBS, FidoNet communities. There were PC groups, and Amiga groups too. Amiga groups from the ex-USSR even won prizes at Assembly more than once (you probably just don’t know where the authors were from). In short, it was very similar to the world demoscene.

It’s just that I don’t think it’s really fair to compare all of Europe with all of the ex-USSR. That’s a lot of countries, and the demoscene was very different from place to place. Finland is one thing, Serbia is a bit different, right?

If we agree with the statement that existence of demos doesn’t mean the existence of the demoscene, then we shouldn’t count home-brew assembling of ZX Spectrum clones as the demoscene as well.

The activity described by TomCat was not the demoscene in any way, it was just radio enthusiasts community.

Of course, we had our own graphical demos in late 80s in the USSR, some of them were published in magazines in form of BASIC sources.
We also had our own superstars among game developers, they used real names (like Savin Wladimir) plus strange nicknames (like SW corp.)
All of this happened on uniq Soviet computer called Elektronika BK 0010 (released in 1984), BEFORE Spectrum clones came to USSR.

Well, which period of the 90s, and which part of the ex-USSR? I can assure you, in the early 1990s, a computer was quite a luxury. "As long as you had the money" is indeed the keyword here.


Why yes - there were a bazillion clones, and some were mass produced, but in what numbers? And what quality, while we're there? Spectrum clones weren't rare at all, every former Soviet bloc country had dozens of types. As a matter of fact, Wikipedia even has a long list of them, and this list isn't even complete. Manufacturing figures don't translate to availability though. So yes, you're right in that mass production technically existed, but could you just walk into a store and buy a Spectrum? Uh yes, I guess, if you knew where to go.


The way I observed it, Russian sceners prefer to use their real names, and nicknames usually appear in productions only. Gamers tend to use game tags though, for obvious reasons.


Exactly, I am talking about the retro & Spectrum scene. I'm aware that a PC demoscene also exists, and it's far more similar to the European demoscene. But see, this is another significant difference. In the European demoscene, retro and current form a singular demoscene, often with people active on multiple platforms. That's not the case in Russia by far and large, even though there's an overlap.


Well, the question was how I see the ex-USSR scene different. This is how.

This is correct - but then, actual demoscene appeared on ZX Spectrum clones.

People tend to consider the cracking scene as the origin of the demoscene, but I can not fully agree. Collecting crakctros doesn’t mean the scene activity, since people also collected ripped game music, graphics, digitised photos, ASCII art – all before the first real demoparty, held in 1991.
In 1991 the first full-scale demo was released on Elektronika BK 0010. Since then, a lot of demos was made with no any connection with cracking scene. And of course a lot of diskmags were released (we’ve called them ‘computer papers’ :)

Sorry, TomCat, I don’t think so. I bought Elektronika BK 0010 in 1991, when few of my friends already had it in their homes. Next year I bought 286 PC from my friend who switched to 386. Computers were available in the late USSR, and easily accessible in schools. Not in small towns, of course – I’m talking about Moscow.
As for ZX Spectrum clones, they also appears in late 80s, but the golden age is 1993-1998. exUSSR PC scene was already well developed.

As far as I know from interviews with demosceners from various European countries, it was like this everywhere. The only difference is that the post-Soviet countries lagged about five years behind in terms of computerization.

Not all famous demosceners started on Amiga, some began on PC. You’re not gonna tell me they’re not real demosceners, right? :)



That’s how it is now. The demoscene community is aging and getting smaller, so who even splits by platform anymore? Actually, the same goes for the ex-USSR, many demosceners and groups today are multiplatform.

But back in the 90s, even in the European scene, the split between the PC scene and the ‘oldschool’ scene was pretty obvious. Most PC groups released stuff only for PC, hung out only with other PC groups, and in their demo greetings they listed only PC groups. Same for Amiga groups. It was the well-known PC vs Amiga rivalry. "PC suxx", "Intel outside!", etc... Although I should say, the PC scene didn’t throw crap in return, they simply made PC demos :)

Nowadays, it doesn’t really matter. Although I could still spark a flame war with this question: if the demoscene = Amiga, then why is the best demo of all time Second Reality? ;)

P.S.: By the way, how do you explain the lack of a demoscene in the USA, where access to computers (and Amiga in particular) was definitely no worse than in Western Europe?

By the way, my nickname was ‘Amp’ since 1988, when I started to draw comics :) In 1991 I used this nikname to sign my first programs for BK 0010 (games and demos), my friends also used nicknames. I changed ‘Amp’ to ‘Manwe’ in 1994, joining PC demoscene.
In fact, we had well-developed PC/Amiga scene in Moscow in 1994, while there was a parallel reality: St.Petersburg with its ZX Scene. I prefer not to mix them.

Exactly - and that was a huge lag in those years!


I never said that only the Amiga was a real demoscene machine, or only those who started on Amiga are real demosceners. I said most demoscene traditions originate from the Amiga. The Amiga was the platform where the demoscene matured and obtained its final form. If you look at early PC demos, you would find that they pretty much imitate Amiga demos in every way. In fact, the PC only started to gain on the Amiga around 1993-94, in an artistic meaning. Even then, it was basically a continuation of the Amiga scene on a different platform.


I believe this is because computer platforms began to strongly converge towards each other from around 1997, the dawn of the Internet. The goal was to make computers universal, and get rid of isolated platforms. This was more or less successful.


Modems. That's the very short answer.
In the US, the cracker scene was different. Europeans, who corresponded in snail mail, could allow the luxury to craft elaborate cracktros for their freshly cracked warez, as they only had to go to the mailbox in the morning. Americans, on the other hand, had to upload as soon as possible. It was a race against the clock, not for artistic sophistication. On the other hand, warez was a business, and thus all underground computer activities were seen as business as well. Demos may be cute, but don't make a penny. It's not like Americans never made any demos or cracktros, but significantly less than Europeans.

Demoscene is a subculture indeed. However it seems that in some countries it was just few pioneeers… I love those stories. I really wonder if we have stories of demoscene in Africa ( I know about South Africa ). I live in the Middle East qnd it seems demos and any kind of real time CGI never reach this place. I’m trying to start something here too.

AFAIK the number of Amigas sold in (for example) Italy is roughly equal to the number of Amigas sold in the North America. Stop and think about that. Not UK. Not West Germany. Italy.

Earlier you said, if I understood correctly, that the demoscene in the ex-USSR supposedly wasn’t like the European one because there was no Amiga with its cultural layer. But the traditions and culture of the Amiga demoscene were copied and adopted by demosceners on other platforms. So it didn’t matter whether I was surrounded by Amigas. I watched demos on PC (some of which were made by Amiga people, like Majic 12), read PC diskmags like Imphobia, listened to music disks and collections of tracker music (made both on Amiga and PC), and absorbed the aesthetic. I didn’t need to be a cracker or own an Amiga to understand and love the demoscene.

And no, I don’t use my real name, I didn’t have a ZX Spectrum, I don’t know how to handle a soldering iron, and I’ve been on Pouet for 22 years. In short, by every point, I don’t fit the image of demoscener from ex-USSR, you described ;)



Unexpected argument. Europe had modems too.
As for the commercialization of the crack scene… well, okay. But I’m not asking "why didn’t the demoscene start in the USA?" It doesn’t really matter. Once the demoscene had already formed as a subculture, it was independent of the crack scene and its specifics. And in different countries, demo groups appeared not on the basis of crack groups, but from scratch. So most likely, there are other factors that influenced the popularity of the demoscene in the USA, or, let’s say… in China.
Although, you’d think: a billion people, a huge software piracy and cracking industry. By the law of large numbers, China should have given the world at least a couple of demo groups and a handful of demos :)

Yes, the ex-USSR scene never had the Amiga, but some traditions that originated from the Amiga seeped into their culture. That's what I stated. But the groundwork, which was laid by the ZX Spectrum and hardware hacking, remained solid.

But of course, not everybody began their scene life in those years. If you arrived around 2000 or so, you were already in the PC scene, which was connected to the Western scene much stronger. Then it's a different scene. Quite like how a Western, say, Swedish newcomer around 2000 would've seen a very different world from the ones who began in the 1980s, probably in a cracker group. So your story doesn't invalidate what I said.

As for modems, yes, they existed in Europe too, but BBSes weren't that big in the 1980s, when America and Europe went two different ways. Don't take my word on this if you don't want to. Refer to contemporary sources, like "Illegal", the cracker fanzine of the 1980s. The actual difference wasn't even the actual availability of modems, but free local calls.

The demoscene is largely independent from the cracker/warez scene since the mid-1990s, that's true, but it retained many traditions.

The reason we don't see Chinese demos or warez teams may be manyfold. First, they may be communicating among each other, and only in Chinese. The internet of China is pretty isolated in the first place. Second, they may have a different view on technology, and they may not find demomaking very attractive. On this aspect, I can cite my experience in Canada, where I visited a retro computer meeting in Kingston, Ontario. It was pretty much like a demoscene party without a demoscene. People were building funky rigs, developed games and showcased their restored retro computers. But they weren't ignorant of the demoscene at all! They played demos on Amigas and PCs, in fact, their machines were adorned with demoscene stickers, and some of them were up to date even with intricate details of European scene gossip. They liked demos, just never made any.

aspirus: Sorry about all the tangent discussions.

If you're still around. Noctis and psenough are spot on.

I'd like to add another angle: Join some web/tech meetups, talk to people or even better give a little talk about the demoscene; what it's roughly about, some prods and things you like.... surely that will spike some interest and people will come to you, share things they've done, and generaly ask for more. Then go on from there.

Hope that helps,