Promoting Demoscene In INDIA :)
category: general [glöplog]
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Yes, the ex-USSR scene never had the Amiga
But it did have Amiga groups. (Probably soldered an Amiga together from a few Spectrums and off they went!)
https://demozoo.org/groups/7400/
https://demozoo.org/groups/8883/
Alright then.
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If you arrived around 2000 or so, you were already in the PC scene
I first found out about the demoscene around 1995, and instantly became a demo maniac :) Sure, I only started releasing stuff a bit later, but still.
Fun fact: up until 2001 I literally had no idea the scene even existed on the ZX Spectrum, can you believe it? I honestly didn’t even know anyone was still using that computer. Didn’t know a classmates with a Spectrum, lots of them had PCs though. Well... I did play a bit on a Speccy back in the 80s (in clubs, and at a friend’s), but in the 90s I never came across them.
None of the russian PC diskmags (the ones I read, at least) ever mentioned ZX Spectrums, but they did write about Amiga. So yeah, I knew about the PC scene, I knew about the Amiga, but I had zero clue about the ZX-scene.
So again, my own firsthand experience doesn’t quite match up with your claims. What I’m saying is, things weren’t all that clear-cut, even in the grim post-soviet reality.
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how do you explain the lack of a demoscene in the USA
I believe it in part comes down to (lack of) cultural precedent. A hacker culture already existed in the US during the home computer boom, sprung mainly out of academia and intertwined with the 60's counterculture, centered around things like Unix and Lisp, and the tinkerer/maker culture that had popularized the Altair and spawned Apple. This had already established what was cool to do with computers and could easily absorb newcomers. This early computer culture was much smaller in Europe.
Because of this, the US also had a larger hard- and software industry which not only had much more political influence but also a greater pull on young talent. We can see something similar in the UK, which had a disproportionately small scene considering how popular home computers were there.
Mainland Europe had no cultural precedent, weaker computer industries and many of the countries, such as the Nordics, were relatively culturally isolated. It was a perfect mix of circumstances for kids to invent their own thing.
Just my two cents.
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But it did have Amiga groups.
I see you're into nitpicking. Have you ever heard that exceptions strengthen the rule? Yes, there are Russian Amiga prods... few and far between. No, they did not build their Amigas. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the difference between "all, without exception" and "generally".
If you first met the demoscene in 1995, then you're already a latecomer by some standards. (So am I.) It is, of course, perfectly conceivable that you had no knowledge of the Speccy scene. To bring an analogy, Hungary has a very strong Commodore Plus/4 scene, but they rarely appeared at PC/Amiga/C-64 demoscene parties.
grip, you're on to something, this is indeed a likely factor.
@tomcatmwi:
I was pushing back against the claim that "the ex-USSR scene never had the Amiga". That sounds pretty absolute to me. If it had been phrased as "the Amiga was underrepresented on the ex-USSR scene", I wouldn’t have objected.
A latecomer to what?
As I know now, the ZX scene in Russia was thriving back then. It was just a different crowd. For me, as a PC owner, it wasn’t all that interesting; and for them, the PC scene wasn’t interesting either, since they didn’t have PCs. It was basically a tech divide.
It really depended on the city, as Manwe already said earlier.
I was pushing back against the claim that "the ex-USSR scene never had the Amiga". That sounds pretty absolute to me. If it had been phrased as "the Amiga was underrepresented on the ex-USSR scene", I wouldn’t have objected.
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if you first met the demoscene in 1995, then you're already a latecomer by some standards.
A latecomer to what?
As I know now, the ZX scene in Russia was thriving back then. It was just a different crowd. For me, as a PC owner, it wasn’t all that interesting; and for them, the PC scene wasn’t interesting either, since they didn’t have PCs. It was basically a tech divide.
It really depended on the city, as Manwe already said earlier.
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the ex-USSR scene never had the Amiga
Yes. And Russians don't play baseball.
Oh wait. There's actually a national baseball team.
Does it mean Russians play baseball? That baseball is pretty common, just like in the USA?
Weird because the original statement was pretty absolute...
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A latecomer to what?
A latecomer to the first golden age of the demoscene, where it all solidified. I also went to my first party in 1995, and never realized how much happened before me. Not until I got into the Amiga and began researching it. Turns out all the big and famous PC demos in the first half of the 1990s would've been fairly average on the Amiga scene. Second Reality would be a prime example. It's an exceptional demo, but pound for pound it would be just a good one, one of many on Amiga.
Tech divide, indeed, and there, you said it. There's no such divide in the Western demoscene.
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If you first met the demoscene in 1995, then you're already a latecomer by some standards. (So am I.) It is, of course, perfectly conceivable that you had no knowledge of the Speccy scene.
Russian ZX Spectrum demoscene was in an embryonic stage before 1995. The first Russian demoparty has been held in August 1995 in St.Petersburg, and there was Amiga intro already, as well as Wild video made on Amiga. Plus a few beginner-level C64 demos, as well as few nice PC demos. No ZX Spectrum at all!
I also was not familiar with exUSSR ZX Spectrum demoscene before 1995, because almost nothing interesting was released by Russians on this platform back then. So it was more natural to switch from BK 0010 (1980s) to PC, since there was the developed demoscene community on PC. We had STMOD in 1990, so we collected STMs and MODs even before ZX Spectrum became so popular in exUSSR.
TomCat, I suppose some guys from exUSSR ZX demoscene may told you stories about 'strong ZX scene' in late 1980s – early 1990s, but in fact it was not demoscene. It was DIY-community you and BiTL both told. I have no idea why they call it 'demoscene'.
So, in Soviet Russia you became a demoscene pioneer right on IBM PC :)
it's funny (or rather actually quite appaling) to see how someone from the outside tries to explain oldschool ex-ussr demosceners themselves (and manwe is clearly someone who has been there from the very beginning) how their scene actually was and worked.
sorry, aspirus, that your thread got so derailed. i'd be very curious myself to find out more about indian creative computing, as there is very little known. during my demozoo-related excavation, i merely found one or two indian pc warez bbs's from the 1990s (you can search for "india" on demozoo). as for indian computerisation as such, there's an excellent historical [monograph](https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835352674-digitale-unabhaengigkeit.html) by michael homberg which came out recently, but unfortunately it's in german. as far as i know, a translation is in the works, though.
sorry, aspirus, that your thread got so derailed. i'd be very curious myself to find out more about indian creative computing, as there is very little known. during my demozoo-related excavation, i merely found one or two indian pc warez bbs's from the 1990s (you can search for "india" on demozoo). as for indian computerisation as such, there's an excellent historical [monograph](https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835352674-digitale-unabhaengigkeit.html) by michael homberg which came out recently, but unfortunately it's in german. as far as i know, a translation is in the works, though.
It's a discussion, dear dipswitch. I'm not "explaining" anything but my understanding of the matter, and I'm open for revision. What's appalling to you is irrelevant.
So what you're implying is that a DIY scene, although pre-dated the "real" demoscene, converged into a different direction, although with some overlap, and the "real" demoscene did not actually build on this early scene, but the Western patterns and traditions?
I'm aware of Enlight of course, and I just met its organizers - they're now organizing Chaos Constructions. The DIY Spectrum scene and the "real demoscene" are both present.
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Russian ZX Spectrum demoscene was in an embryonic stage before 1995.
So what you're implying is that a DIY scene, although pre-dated the "real" demoscene, converged into a different direction, although with some overlap, and the "real" demoscene did not actually build on this early scene, but the Western patterns and traditions?
I'm aware of Enlight of course, and I just met its organizers - they're now organizing Chaos Constructions. The DIY Spectrum scene and the "real demoscene" are both present.
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A latecomer to the first golden age of the demoscene, where it all solidified.
Oh, god! How I love these talks about the ‘golden age’ of the demoscene :) But usually you hear this from old-timers who left the scene around ’90 or so and never looked back, and they assume that everything died when they left. It’s kinda weird hearing it from a guy who only joined the scene in ’95 :)
I don’t agree. Before ’95, the demoscene was actually in its puberty phase. The second half of the ’90s marks growing up, and the early 2000s the student years, basically a new era.
And the ‘golden age’ is different for everyone :) It’s whenever it felt the most awesome to you - that’s your golden age.
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Second Reality would be a prime example. It's an exceptional demo, but pound for pound it would be just a good one, one of many on Amiga.
Again, I don’t agree. I could go scene by scene and prove that, technically and artistically, it was better than anything you could see on the Amiga before. But I think it’s enough to point to the 8-channel soundtrack, which was technically head and shoulders above anything you could hear on the Amiga at the time. Not to mention the content itself. Sure, Amiga demos had plenty of brilliant music. But… it was the soundtrack of Second Reality that really became the calling card of the demoscene :)
TomCat, you've got my point right. I know a lot of Russians who bought a ZX Spectrum clone in 1992 or even in 1995, saw Lyra II and Shock demos and decided to make their own demo. Some tried on Spectrum (but with no significant achievements), while many moved to PC very quickly and continued there. Majority of ZX owners stayed to solder hardware and play games – it's not the demoscene, of course.
On the other side, we had a demo on BK 0010 in 1991. We saw Atari and Amiga back then, as well as early PC demos. ZX Spectrum demos also had some influence on us, so some demo effects was recreated on BK 0010 in 1993.
In other words, you don't need to have ZX Spectrum to make demos in Russia, in late 80s – early 90s. Spectrum came too late, so local ZX demoscene only came to fruition in 1996. Oldest Russian demosceners I know have started in 1988-1991 on BK 0010 or in 1993-1994 on PC or Amiga.
The second wave have started later on ZX Spectrum, without a doubt, but I suppose they tryed to copy demo effects from 'big' platmorms like PC and Amiga. At least those demogroups who became popular. It is impossible to become popular by copying scrollers from 10 years ago :)
On the other side, we had a demo on BK 0010 in 1991. We saw Atari and Amiga back then, as well as early PC demos. ZX Spectrum demos also had some influence on us, so some demo effects was recreated on BK 0010 in 1993.
In other words, you don't need to have ZX Spectrum to make demos in Russia, in late 80s – early 90s. Spectrum came too late, so local ZX demoscene only came to fruition in 1996. Oldest Russian demosceners I know have started in 1988-1991 on BK 0010 or in 1993-1994 on PC or Amiga.
The second wave have started later on ZX Spectrum, without a doubt, but I suppose they tryed to copy demo effects from 'big' platmorms like PC and Amiga. At least those demogroups who became popular. It is impossible to become popular by copying scrollers from 10 years ago :)
Interesting how Tomcat’s post once again drips with pseudo-elitism from every pore, while he tries to split the scene into multiple sub-scenes. For most people in the West, the demoscene began with the C64, so even before the Amiga in the 80s. Back then, it wasn’t even called that yet… so what’s the point of this nonsense?
And this constant bashing of newcomers, claiming they don’t know what they’re doing or that they don’t appreciate the legacy left behind by the oldschoolers, is absolute rubbish and just another attempt to establish elitism we’ve long since outgrown as a scene.
We owe it to the newcomers that the scene still exists at all and to many oldschoolers that it nearly disappeared.
In short: if Aspirus wants to promote the demoscene in India, that’s an absolutely awesome move that deserves support.
And this constant bashing of newcomers, claiming they don’t know what they’re doing or that they don’t appreciate the legacy left behind by the oldschoolers, is absolute rubbish and just another attempt to establish elitism we’ve long since outgrown as a scene.
We owe it to the newcomers that the scene still exists at all and to many oldschoolers that it nearly disappeared.
In short: if Aspirus wants to promote the demoscene in India, that’s an absolutely awesome move that deserves support.
aspirus I will just say I hope to see something from India, that would be very cool! Find some like-minded people and have fun, and ignore dogma.
People, I thank you for Russian scene info, that was very interesting! :)
Anyone else wishes to express their moral outrage over my insights? Open a new topic for it please. Preferably on Bluesky, not here.
Yes, the demoscene has periods. Sometimes activity goes up, like it did around 1994-95, then comes down, and then "the scene is dead" for a few years. Then another upswing follows. This is true both for the scene in general, and for individual platforms.
I don't think so. This would dismiss almost the entire of the Amiga era as "puberty". You're right that everybody has their favorite golden era, but defining the current(-ish) scene as the final and ultimate one, and everything before that just a prelude, is exactly that, defining your own favorite golden era.
Manwe, thanks for clarifying. This is interesting because it's not very obvious from the outside.
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Oh, god! How I love these talks about the ‘golden age’ of the demoscene :)
Yes, the demoscene has periods. Sometimes activity goes up, like it did around 1994-95, then comes down, and then "the scene is dead" for a few years. Then another upswing follows. This is true both for the scene in general, and for individual platforms.
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Before ’95, the demoscene was actually in its puberty phase.
I don't think so. This would dismiss almost the entire of the Amiga era as "puberty". You're right that everybody has their favorite golden era, but defining the current(-ish) scene as the final and ultimate one, and everything before that just a prelude, is exactly that, defining your own favorite golden era.
Manwe, thanks for clarifying. This is interesting because it's not very obvious from the outside.
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I suggest ignoring newcomers with limited understanding of the demoscene and its history, but unlimited attitude.
Lovely way of assuming people are "newcomers" while those same people you're talking about have been in the scene for ages. You really aren't the "wise old sage" you think you are, dude.
The only 'unlimited attitude' hurting the scene is this kind of bitter gatekeeping you are doing.
And for the record, the scene didn’t freeze in 1990. Pretending Amiga and the speccy are the only 'valid' platforms just makes you sound out of touch with the last 30 years of demoscene history.
To aspirus: I really hope you manage to get something going in your area. Even if it is just hanging out with friends, watching streams and having <insert local refreshing beverage here>. Maybe, if you're in the possibility, at some point visit a party or two.
Remember that Pouet is not representative of the scene. Especially the BBS is mostly just people yelling at each other.
Would be awesome to see some demos from India! Bring it on!
The way I see it, it's only you who is constantly trying to pick on me, not the other way around. I literally never said any of what you just attributed to me. Your head is a strawman factory, it seems.
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I don't think so. This would dismiss almost the entire of the Amiga era as "puberty".
But did the Amiga era ever really end (for the demoscene)?
If you look at the top Amiga demos made after 2000 (all the way up to today), you’ll see they’re way better than anything from the ’90s. Of course we love the old classics, but… objectively, what sceners create now on oldskool platforms is on a whole different level. So the idea of a fixed "golden age" is definitely debatable :)
Peak scene in pure numbers of sceners was probably somewhere around 1991-1993, when pure scene parties attracted thousands of visitors. It was also an interesting time when 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit machines were all relevant machines in some way, before web browsers and SaaS started dictating what systems you could daily drive and not.
But in my book, the golden era for the "retro" scene is probably now, when people can platform-skip effortlessly thanks to a combination of emulators and having disposable income to spend on multiple machines. And of course modern tooling unlocking things that weren't possible before due to target platform constraints, such as advanced debugging, asymmetric compression, memory utilization, etc.
But in my book, the golden era for the "retro" scene is probably now, when people can platform-skip effortlessly thanks to a combination of emulators and having disposable income to spend on multiple machines. And of course modern tooling unlocking things that weren't possible before due to target platform constraints, such as advanced debugging, asymmetric compression, memory utilization, etc.
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But did the Amiga era ever really end (for the demoscene)?
That's an interesting take. I think it did when the Amiga attained retro status and ceased to be current technology. This didn't stop us from using it, but it's now like driving a veteran car. People love it because they had one when it was a mainstream machine, but few got an Amiga after 1994-5. There certainly was a time when most Amiga users either sold their Amigas or packed them away.
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Peak scene in pure numbers of sceners was probably somewhere around 1991-1993, when pure scene parties attracted thousands of visitors.
Now, that's very true, and it's possibly the best metrics of scene activity.
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But in my book, the golden era for the "retro" scene is probably now, when people can platform-skip effortlessly
I would rather call it a retro renaissance. The old platforms became more accessible. But it didn't make the old computers return. It extended their demoscene life, which is a great thing. Yet still, all remarkable productions on old platforms are generally works of old sceners who were already on those platforms in their heydays. Granted, there are a few GenZ sceners who do nice things, but they're few and far between, compared to GenX.
And now we officially drifted from the topic farther than Columbus from India.
(Hi Manwe, I'm just writing for clarity that I'm not the one you're having a conversation with. Cheers, TomCat)
Those were amazing 2 pages about demoscene in India ;D
@svo: Maybe the next step is to look at the demoscene in the BRICS countries ;)
We should simple be happy one is spreading the scene where its possible. Im meet the scene first in 1988. Yes, back than it was somehow mystery elitism stuff. The world was not the same. But in general, its nice, that this all is still around.
Everybody has also his own story, start or connection to the scene. At the end, its good, its all fine and good. Lets show friends and people all of our legacy if possible.
Stay young !
Everybody has also his own story, start or connection to the scene. At the end, its good, its all fine and good. Lets show friends and people all of our legacy if possible.
Stay young !
