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2024-07-27 16:00

angelo

Registered: Jul 2024
Posts: 13

Howdy

Hi there. It's my first post here, so lemme introduce myself. I'm angelo, or æn.d͡ʒə.loʊ, or unj, a founder of KSKPD, the group behind polish unesco application.

I'm in process of researching some early-computing stuff, including an idea planted by @Krill and @bitfat, that the default narrative of "In the beginning it was a cracker scene, that developed into demoscene later because $REASONS" might be worth challenging.

I might be asking in various sub-forums questions around data on this site, but while I used to be a part of demoscene as a coder (1995+), I also owned PC exclusively since my first computer in like 1990. I skipped 8bit phase completely, so please bare with me, if the questions sound obvious or straight-up outrageously naive :)

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2024-07-29 17:53

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4732

Quote: do you understand how all of science works?

there is proof - accept it.
no proof - discard it.

dont push your unproven opinion.

Correction: there is proof - accept it, until further/more proof updates/disproves the initial proof and theory built upon the original proof, and an updated, or a new view is accepted by the science community.. And so on.

Science is not a belief, and will change, with hard work towards truth. (At least that was the idea until recent politics took over some of the institutions, it seems. ;) )

2024-07-29 18:03

Oswald

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094

Quote: Correction: there is proof - accept it, until further/more proof updates/disproves the initial proof and theory built upon the original proof, and an updated, or a new view is accepted by the science community.. And so on.

Science is not a belief, and will change, with hard work towards truth. (At least that was the idea until recent politics took over some of the institutions, it seems. ;) )

Correction: you're not correcting what I've said, just adding to it.

2024-07-29 18:05

Oswald

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094

Quote: @Oswald
I admit, your proud ignorance annoys the cr*p out of me.

Your constant personal attacks, grow up man, other ppl have other ideas than you. Why does it make you so angry ?

2024-07-29 18:18

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 285

@Oswald

It’s not a deliberate personal attack per se, I don’t mean to offend you, I’m stating my opinion of you based on observation.

I’m not angry, I guess one reason this stance of yours annoys me is because I see this a lot lately, this lack of understanding of how social science/history, well in fact all science which cannot promptly provide empirical evidence works: You put forth a theory based on what research is available. This theory stands until a better argumented and evidenced theory is put forth, putting the earlier theory to rest. It’s not “a battle of personal opinions”.

2024-07-29 19:20

Oswald

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094

Quote: @Oswald

It’s not a deliberate personal attack per se, I don’t mean to offend you, I’m stating my opinion of you based on observation.

I’m not angry, I guess one reason this stance of yours annoys me is because I see this a lot lately, this lack of understanding of how social science/history, well in fact all science which cannot promptly provide empirical evidence works: You put forth a theory based on what research is available. This theory stands until a better argumented and evidenced theory is put forth, putting the earlier theory to rest. It’s not “a battle of personal opinions”.

again this bullshit.

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

science without empirical evidence doesnt work.

your opinion is not fact.

and your personal attack is not a rational observation.

stop.

2024-07-29 19:58

Mixer

Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 452

Well, I do not know what all the research is or its findings are exactly, but I doubt that it claims that the events unfolded the same way for everyone. So it is not in my opinion correct to impose that finding onto the whole population either or back propagate it to past, or to impose restrictions to a review simply by just dismissing our differing views on the life back then. At worst the new study will replicate and confirm previous result, which would be unprecedented in social sciences I believe.

2024-07-29 20:12

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980

Quoting 4gentE

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 [...]

Copyright on software was explicitly codified in law (and then enforced) in several parts of Europe only as late as the mid-1980s or later, which means that it wasn't a notable thing in the early days of the C-64 scene (much less for earlier platforms).
That early scene did establish means of distribution already, and all kinds of software, scene-made and not, flowed across them.
"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.

2024-07-29 20:20

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Quoting 4gentE

their data pool could be too small

Which in this case I guess will always be a problem.

I'd think in general you can assume that the "idea" of demoscene is maybe "older" – just because the "idea" of software as "intellectual property" and therefore the "idea" of "stealing" / "cracking" this "property" has to be younger than that.

But that doesn't take the social interaction part of the scene into account.

I personally don't know. I'm one of the younger lads here, had never any connection to either scene when I was a kid, but even I as a "none scener" 10 year old did "both":
I "cracked" Turtles II that I got from a class mate by just duplicating one file naming it like the other and I made a lot of "music" in trackers and programmed a ton of (of course unfinished) basic adventures and (tried) to code some "intros" in assembler.

I always imagined that was what the other kids were doing as well – only way better than me :-)

2024-07-29 21:23

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 285

Quote:

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

It’s an approximation. As all definitions of roots of a subculture are. Something had to be written. Oh I don’t know how to put this: There were bands during punk explosion that played trumpets. Or castanets. Or pan flutes. Or acapella. Still, part of the subculture. When history account says that typical punk band consisted of a drummer, bassist, guitarrist and a singer - it’s not wrong. Nobody is denying anybody their personal history. It seems that when making interviews, past researchers into demoscene roots concluded that the largest percentage of interviewed people got into the scene through crackerscene. One way or the other. My personal experience and that of a dozen people whose experience I heard or read state the same: “I saw some intros in front of games, I liked what I saw, wondered how they work, learnt how to change them to my liking, fell for this whole teenage subculture, what with groups like some kinda gangs, the notoriety and all.” So, never cracked a game, but acknowledging the culture that gave them knowledge, maybe style, certainly and an idea what to code.
What Krill suggests (if I’m not mistaken) is that more people got into the scene even earlier through pure democoding. If this is true than the new approximation in a new paper will state that “demoscene developed paralel and only slightly related to the crackerscene.” And I’d be perfectly fine with that. Until then, the old research stands. And that research does not rob anyone of his personal experience for chrissake.

2024-07-29 21:35

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 285

Quote:

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

No, that would be hypothesis. And even hypothesis is not guesswork, it’s a product of inductive reasoning. Scientific theory is something else.

Oswald, it’s not a problem that you don’t understand something, it’s that you don’t want to understand because you wrongly think that you do understand. Trump acts like this all the time.
Imagine if I argued with you about how a pixel plotter is coded. And in my first sentence it becomes obvious to you that I don’t even understand what a pixel plotter is. And I still keep arguing.