Parts of these recent threads About the origins of c64 demoscene and Message for 4agentE and to some lesser degree the first examples of rasterbars on the c64 and the amiga are about the "alternative" reading of history.

It appears to me that a "solid" hypothesis with agreed-upon common terminology to be found and then tested against would be in order, as these and previous threads on other forums hint at quite a few misunderstandings between the debating parties.

Most of the authors who have written on the topic were not part of the original scene themselves, so they have had to rely on second-hand sources where conflicting details have already been left out. My aim in this paper is to trace the origins of the story and offer a new perspective to the various reasons that led to the gradual separation of the two scenes.

I don't think there was a cracking scene prior this demo from 1972: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGntYNTSQM
Imho, I think there is a bigger picture somewhere that we need to look for before coming to conclusions on the origin of the demo scene. / Pex

Quoting Pex Mahoney Tufvesson
I don't think there was a cracking scene prior this demo from 1972: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGntYNTSQM
Imho, I think there is a bigger picture somewhere that we need to look for before coming to conclusions on the origin of the demo scene. / Pex

that is an interesting example, i didn't know this one. thanks!

see the literature list.

Tales of imaginary characters from fantasy stories don't count as historical events.

Tales of imaginary characters from fantasy stories don't count as historical events.

I came in as late as 1987 into the C64 stuff. [...] Notable: having non-gaming or non cracking-related stuff on these swapping disks was considered lame. I personally remember seeing some first high class demos popping up on magazine disks in late 87, and that stuff always left the people i knew like "what? no game? boring!".

I’ve heard at least 10 or 20 recounts like this one above. My own memories are similar.

And i believe all the major first demo-effects were discovered by crackers.

Quoting ws
And i believe all the major first demo-effects were discovered by crackers.
Quoting Krill
That makes them coders as well, doesn't it?

Cracker becomes democoder. I think this happened a lot. That's why "demoscene emanates from crackerscene" seems obvious.

No, "only" crackers did not become demo coders. That is absurd.

People who actually did stuff in the 80's are still alive.

So you are one responsible for that unesco crap.
Scene did not need that. We were fine without you.

I'm pissed that people like you are stepping on a work of thousand enthusiasts for personal profits, writing bullshit pseudoscienentific papers, sucking government donations and setting up bullshit studies that teach nothing useful.

disrespect

It is very common that common knowledge is incorrect.

Swapping was around before the copy protections.

They swapped the software they wrote, as simple as that. And it was pretty much what everyone who owned a computer in the 70 and early 80s did. The concept of "copyright" was invented later. Or even the concept of buying it for that matter :)

They swapped the software they wrote, as simple as that. And it was pretty much what everyone who owned a computer in the 70 and early 80s did. The concept of "copyright" was invented later. Or even the concept of buying it for that matter :)

Quote:

They swapped the software they wrote, as simple as that. And it was pretty much what everyone who owned a computer in the 70 and early 80s did. The concept of "copyright" was invented later. Or even the concept of buying it for that matter :)

Reading this, I think I perhaps see where the misunderstanding lies. For some reason when talking about the emergence of the demoscene, I thought we were talking about this subculture that arose in teenage computer user circles in mid 80s mainly on C64. Continued on Amiga, ST and others. Reagan times. When it was already well defined that software (read games) had to be bought. I never included 70s [...]

their data pool could be too small

…but I doubt that it claims that the events unfolded the same way for everyone.

scientific theory is not based on empirical fact(s). it's just guesswork under a different label.

the problem of copying existed from very early on. copyprotections did not come up because of copyright law. it was because of the copying.

Copy protection did not come to be because copyright law was well established and firmly enforced, but for exactly the opposite reason.

"The demoscene", as a separate entity distinguishable from the "cracking scene", did not emerge before the mid-1980s, which doesn't seem to be contested by anyone.

Imho, the demoscene was invented by the media in late 1980s, because they were talking to "cracer scene" people who could deliver them interesting content for their magazine disks. See 64er Sprite Multiplexer Competition 64'er was a very influential, well selling Magazine that focused on things C64 and they had a coverdisk. It is my personal opinion, that this was the moment, when the demoscene came into existence, when Cracer groups formed "legal" sections that only produced legal content to be published and picked up (for money) by magazines. Because magazines could not sell warez. And that way, the whole crime-gang thing slowly turned.

And my point is still that the moment a separate "cracker scene" was born (even if only as handy catchword) was the moment a separate "demoscene" was born, and vice-versa.
Both "emanated" from a common ancestor which had had a "legal section" all along.
Siblings, not parent and child.

While I see how to a certain point this "fervour" question can apply to myself also, may I ask:
Where does this fervour you seem to harbour come from? [...] Why stir the pot for no constructive reason?

I find it very unlikely that a German-language print magazine (or media in general) "invented" the demoscene.

In the late 1980s the legal part of the cracking and warez scene slowly drifted away from the illegal part.

Based on the interviews, there were no sharp borders between different activities before the 1990s: cracking, swapping, intro coding and demos coexisted side by side.

sceners did not somehow “become” interested in pure audiovisual programming, as there were such people right from the beginning.

Bacchus mentioned two groups, Horizon and Ian & Mic, as examples that were not involved in cracking

it was very common that the same people distributed both demos and warez at the same time

Arguably, the distinction is somewhat artificial, as the members of both have simply considered themselves to be in the scene.

it again becomes clear how games, piracy and demos initially co-existed side by side in the scene circles

I guess you'd have to interview the people that started c64 groups in 1982 and 1983, maybe 1984. The idea of a protoscener is interesting. We all started copying and swapping stuff, so it must've started with a copy-scene with copy parties.

@Krill
If I'm not mistaken, You did intro for this mag; how come you dismiss this text nowadays

What makes you assume i ever okayed it and not just condoned it or was even aware of it in the first place? Or that opinions are immutable over time?

Many youngsters came in touch with the scene through intros. The intros were fresh, they were made by teenagers, they were in-your-face, they often looked/sounded better than the games in front of which they stood.

but that only happened later, in the late 80s. If you look at the early 80s, cracks usually got no, or very simple intros. And the few demos that existed were MUCH more interesting than those.

Which means that the swapper network preceded intros. And that this network swapped mainly (intro-less) cracks.

the above hypothesis leaves only around 2 years for these “demos before cracks and intros”

It's not about flipping the timeline.

So maybe interview him as well. My thought is that only people from those early days have first hand stories.

You just won't allow that the fully formed scene exists in mid 1980s and that this scene is predominantly swapping cracks (with intros) and to a much lesser extent demos (which by this time tend to look like standalone intros minus the size cap, wonder why) as described in Newscopy's article.

…I do not believe that we can complete the suggested new research on this thread…

Breathe, reflect, let go, repeat.

The demo scene emanates from the cracking scene

the fully formed scene exists in mid 1980s and that this scene is predominantly swapping cracks (with intros) and to a much lesser extent demos (which by this time tend to look like standalone intros minus the size cap, wonder why) as described in Newscopy's article.