So, it's been four years since the last volume of MindCandy, and you've already forgotten what the demo scene was? For shame.. but we'll help you out.

Since the dawn of home computers, there have been tinkerers. Users who aren't satisfied with just.. using them.. but hacking them, exploiting them - making them do things they weren't expected to do. Enter demo sceners, the bastard children of artists and hackers. A demo is, obviously, a demonstration.. a few minutes to present everything a group is capable of doing with a computer, while making it entertaining for an audience. How they entertain is up to them.. do they make a thematic, movie-like demo? A pure hardware-crunching gallery of objects? Or do they take what we consider "bugs" and mash them into a form of abstract art? There are no laws in demomaking, just freestyle code, music, and graphics.

Demo parties are events where these demo freaks go to meet and compete. Competitions lure entries with reputation, audience feedback, and of course, prizes.. growing bigger as commercial firms scout the parties for future talent. Yes, it's true.. this underground scene, which seems so anti-establishment and anti-LAN-gamer, indeed produces workers for the computer and video game industry. But better, they feel, to produce than to consume. And besides, aren't demo parties more fun than university theses?

And when we speak of the demoscene, we'd better not forget about the Amiga computer. Commodore's 16-bit multimedia wonder took all by surprise, putting the PC's sound and the Mac's display to shame. What made it kick, of course, were its special processing chips on its motherboard, to make color shifting, polygon filling, and multichannel sound playback faster than the competition. This is where the demoscene had its fun - digging into the chips, in Assembler language of course.. finding new tricks only an Amiga could do. The assortment of games were icing on the cake - something to outdo, or at least crack. When the PC demoscene grew in the early 90's, they were already years behind the Amiga in experience and design. Only through faster processors did the PC finally outdo Amiga - in 3D demo effects, at least. When some Amiga sceners abandoned their unique style to compete with 3D PC demos, they became irrelevant. But today, a new Amiga demo now and then comes out of nowhere to teach the PC scene a lesson in demomaking - it's not the number of polygons that counts, it's how you use them.

Is it all coming back now? Good :) Now it's time for some website links.