Demoscene

The demoscene is an international computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos: small, self-contained computer programs that produce audio-visual presentations. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.

The demoscene's roots are in the home computer revolution of the late 1970s, and the subsequent advent of software cracking. Crackers illegally distributed video games, adding introductions of their own making ("cracktros"), and soon started competing for the best presentation. The making of intros and standalone demos eventually evolved into a new subculture, independent of the gaming and software file sharing scenes.

Concept

Prior to the popularity of IBM PC compatibles, most home computers of a given line had relatively little variance in their basic hardware, which made their capabilities practically identical. Therefore, the variations among demos created for one computer line were attributed to programming alone, rather than one computer having better hardware. This created a competitive environment in which demoscene groups would try to outperform each other in creating outstanding effects, and often to demonstrate why they felt one machine was better than another (for example Commodore 64 or Amiga versus Atari 800 or ST).