Oldschool demos getting vendor locked?
category: general [glöplog]
Hello fellow demo makers (not that I've made any demos - still working on it)
One thing that has been kinda curiousing me out about you l33t h4x0rz that make demo for totally oldschool retro retro machines: Aren't you a bit bummed out that your work is being tied to a platform no longer commercially manufactured? That many people can't even experience your demos on real hardware since they don't have access to it?
I totally get the appeal of these restricting platforms, and the possibilities when targeting fixed hardware. But I would want people to actually see my wonderful creations, which means supporting mainstream platforms? Not necrophiling around with retro hardware.
Oh, and sorry if this topic has been up before.
One thing that has been kinda curiousing me out about you l33t h4x0rz that make demo for totally oldschool retro retro machines: Aren't you a bit bummed out that your work is being tied to a platform no longer commercially manufactured? That many people can't even experience your demos on real hardware since they don't have access to it?
I totally get the appeal of these restricting platforms, and the possibilities when targeting fixed hardware. But I would want people to actually see my wonderful creations, which means supporting mainstream platforms? Not necrophiling around with retro hardware.
Oh, and sorry if this topic has been up before.
and then got invented videos and it was good.
Yeah. But you still doing all your development on and building up knowledge about dead hardware?
Personally, I really love demos on obscure hardware. Especially if they're good and the hardware hasn't really had a demoscene. Thats probably one of my favourite things.
(Someone please do a demo for the Mega Duck :)
Also, case in point, Team Pokeme reverse engineering the Pokemon Mini. Not only was the demo actually quit enjoyable, the effort they had to go to to make the thing was fricking awesome. I loved the wild compo entry where they detailed the reverse engineering process was as aweome, if not more so, than the demo.
With all the issues like Nvidia vs. ATI vs. Intel gfx chips, DLL and operating system versions, and massive hardware requirements there might not be a big difference in the accessibility between oldskool and modern platforms :)
To be fair, there is always Ebay for getting hold of retro hardware - and most of it is quite plentiful too and available for reasonable prices. Whilst I'm sure (unfortunately) a fair amount of it was trashed by previous owners and taken to the local rubbish tip / garbage point, a larger amount of retro kit was simply put into the attic or cellar in people's houses and forgotten about, until the property changed hands and the clearance people would find the kit and advertise it on Ebay or somewhere similar.
I guess it depends on the target platform though and how relatively obscure it is. Platforms such as the A500 or the ST can be obtained for around 20-30 euros and a similar amount in sterling, depending on the deal and what is available with it. Not so well-known platforms do increase in price depending on their rarity value.
Added to this, devices such as the HxC are very useful additions too, in terms of loading the prods onto a real machine. This makes a much better experience than emulation, even though emulators themselves do have some uses, particularly for development.
I guess it depends on the target platform though and how relatively obscure it is. Platforms such as the A500 or the ST can be obtained for around 20-30 euros and a similar amount in sterling, depending on the deal and what is available with it. Not so well-known platforms do increase in price depending on their rarity value.
Added to this, devices such as the HxC are very useful additions too, in terms of loading the prods onto a real machine. This makes a much better experience than emulation, even though emulators themselves do have some uses, particularly for development.
Even if not manufactured anymore, these old computers you can get for <100€ (even including the HxC or whatever hardware you need around them). Much less than what I'd have to pay for an up to date PC every two years to watch all the PC stuff these days.
There are also videos and fairly good emulators for the not-too-obscure systems.
And, it's much more easy to do "best demo on platform" when you're the only scener messing with it, right?
There are also videos and fairly good emulators for the not-too-obscure systems.
And, it's much more easy to do "best demo on platform" when you're the only scener messing with it, right?
When that machine (or machines) was a part of your teen period, when you were hanging around on pardeys or at school with dudes, you steel keep in touch with and share great memories, when you see all the soulless HW, some stupid OSes which need GBs of memory to do some basic stuff. When you put all (and more, I do not mention here) that together - the answer is clear. It is about the passion.
Besides, what does it give you to produce stuff on the modern HW? Fame? Money? Who is gonna watch it and really appreciate your work before juming on another free online-video? You code, produce for inner excitement, not for the recognition.
And if you know how to code i.e. in 6502 asm, you can easly learn another language.
Take care and be well =). Have a sunny sunday =).
Besides, what does it give you to produce stuff on the modern HW? Fame? Money? Who is gonna watch it and really appreciate your work before juming on another free online-video? You code, produce for inner excitement, not for the recognition.
And if you know how to code i.e. in 6502 asm, you can easly learn another language.
Take care and be well =). Have a sunny sunday =).
That is a very good point sim. About the hardware and the emotions towards it.
So, it doesn't sound like it's a problem for you at all? Having your creations tied to hardware that is going extinct?
So, it doesn't sound like it's a problem for you at all? Having your creations tied to hardware that is going extinct?
Who cares? It's about fun. And passion as sim said. Period ^^
While I'm very much looking forward to see my first demo played on the bigscreen at a party soon and watching people's reaction to it, to me that's not the main reason for coding a demo on a retro platform. I know not many people will watch my prod on real hardware, and I also know that learning the intricacies of 'dead hardware' won't help me much with current machines, but so what? I have tons of fun fighting restrictions of a completely different kind than a 'modern' demo coder has to deal with (e.g., no framebuffer...), and it's an interesting piece of history that makes me appreciate what developers back in the day managed to accomplish. It's the journey that counts.
Besides, with a very limited amount of spare time, it's less to learn and more realistically for me to actually finish something worth the audience's time. I already have enough material so I can be an active participant at Revision for a change instead of only a consumer. That wouldn't be true if I had to learn modern 3D stuff instead of 'only' the weird, but less complex architecture of my dead hardware. ;-)
Fun is where you find it.
Besides, with a very limited amount of spare time, it's less to learn and more realistically for me to actually finish something worth the audience's time. I already have enough material so I can be an active participant at Revision for a change instead of only a consumer. That wouldn't be true if I had to learn modern 3D stuff instead of 'only' the weird, but less complex architecture of my dead hardware. ;-)
Fun is where you find it.
no framebuffer..... let me guess.... 2600? what do I win? :)
Hello Paldepind,
No. You're confusing retro hardware (physical) and retro coding (state of mind) : the fact that fewer people will look at a demo than play flappy birds today is not solely tied to accessibility of hardware platform. So if you are really " finding joy in learning and creating", do not worry about commercial ties of a platform being supposedly extinct or having a 1% of all operating system market share such as Linux you use.
Also relative placing in society through group acceptance seeking sociologically peeks around the teenage years often when one is yet incapable of feeling passion (replacing one by its subject in importance). Thus it would be difficult for anyone today to explain to you why there is still a point in learning a dead language such as the latin language for example considering mainstream practices such as texting.
snicker: intransitive verb \sni-ker\
: to make a short, quiet laugh in a way that shows disrespect
: laughter. indicating derision or perhaps an immature reaction to lewd material, can have connotations of being mean spirited - laughing at someone else's expense
Ouch. As a "free software enthusiast" you need not show disrespect towards other enthusiasts or perceive them as a threat. Did you ever consider that "creative coding" might suit your needs more than democoding.
Quote:
"bummed out that your work is being tied to a platform no longer commercially manufactured"
No. You're confusing retro hardware (physical) and retro coding (state of mind) : the fact that fewer people will look at a demo than play flappy birds today is not solely tied to accessibility of hardware platform. So if you are really " finding joy in learning and creating", do not worry about commercial ties of a platform being supposedly extinct or having a 1% of all operating system market share such as Linux you use.
Quote:
"I would want people to actually see my wonderful creations"
Also relative placing in society through group acceptance seeking sociologically peeks around the teenage years often when one is yet incapable of feeling passion (replacing one by its subject in importance). Thus it would be difficult for anyone today to explain to you why there is still a point in learning a dead language such as the latin language for example considering mainstream practices such as texting.
Quote:
"l33t h4x0rz[...] necrophiling around with retro hardware"
snicker: intransitive verb \sni-ker\
: to make a short, quiet laugh in a way that shows disrespect
: laughter. indicating derision or perhaps an immature reaction to lewd material, can have connotations of being mean spirited - laughing at someone else's expense
Ouch. As a "free software enthusiast" you need not show disrespect towards other enthusiasts or perceive them as a threat. Did you ever consider that "creative coding" might suit your needs more than democoding.
Sounds like the OP is a fucking troll.
How fucking insulting.
How fucking insulting.
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That is a very good point sim. About the hardware and the emotions towards it.
So, it doesn't sound like it's a problem for you at all? Having your creations tied to hardware that is going extinct?
Thanx.
No, the HX is not a problem for ppl who are/were in the so called scene since late 80s/early 90s. I permit give you a situation, which was mentioned here bouve by Kylearan.
Lets assume you are doing stuff for the recognition. Imagine Imagine a copy party. Why CP? Since you want to produce for the ppl. and have wider feedback (or even gain a small fame;) It is just an example, since, and all we agree feedback is very important to all of us. Even a "small" "wow, that was niiiice" or 'I like it".
So we are the the CP, in front of the bigscreen. You are releasing a demo. And what? The ppl are applauding (or not ;)). For them, it is not too important what the platform the demo was produced for.
True, on the modern PC you may have a wider feedback, sicne all the guys out there know (more or less) that a PC is full of "that" electronic, unlike the case of the computers which are not produced anymore.
But as I said, the ffedback at the CP is sth incredible. I would say even better, since it is given by thouse who know the thing =).
The rest is up to you, whether you wish to code/pixel,compose on C64, Atari, Amigahhhh, PC. But the result in you is the same = you evolue, you learn, you move on, you design, share and... have the feedback (you are more or less waiting for =).
=).
I wrote an article about that topic back in 1998:
http://www.hugi.scene.org/online/hugi11/demosart.htm
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Demos - Art of the 21st Century?
Written by Adok
People in the demoscene have always had doubts whether what they did really made sense, and they consealed themselves behind the fassade of claiming to become the artists of the 21st century but that the reason why demos aren't a topic of public interest is just that the outer world hasn't discovered them yet. With this belief the scene has been running for two dozend years now. Still it is underground culture, art with no importance in the public, nowadays even less importance than it used to be in the highflies of the mid 80's and early 90's home computer generation, when the highest amount of the computer users were freaks that understood their system quite well and were interested in technology. Then you could really amaze people by showing what you produced from the limitied capabilities of the hardware. This has changed on the PC of today: Hardware isn't really limited, coders get lazy and don't give a damn about optimizing for a special configuration, demos have just become a piece of computer art without a major emphasis on the technical aspect. Which is what the scene wanted, actually.
Now however the PC scene is confronted with the question: Which operating system to choose for a new demo platform? Windows 9x? "Nah, too lame, too messy, too big, no neat code possible, just sucks. Let's either switch to an alternative platform such as Linux or stay with DOS."
That's the attitude of the majority of the scene - and that's the reason why demos will never become the Art of the 21st Century unless something basic changes. Art that wants to become popular always has to be mass culture. DOS isn't mass culture. Not any more.
Even worse: People who waste their talents on systems like Amiga or C64. Great people, great systems - but no audience, no possibility of becoming famous, of reaching the high aim to be the Art of the 21st Century. The fruits of their gifts are limited to a small, small public that is steadily becoming smaller with the development and mass-marketing of new, popular systems.
Who needs demos? People can't get impressed by demos that easily anymore. They know too much of that stuff from animations, rendered sequences and Full Screen Movies in computer games, music videos or cinema. Such animations are way easier to produce than a coded, optimized and stable demo with the same content. You need basic knowledge of math and computer technology to figure what a demo is all about. To learn what the impressive things about demos are and why there is a bunch of nerds that is fascinated by them, you even need to have made one yourself.
Similar things as for the code go for the graphics. Today you almost can't distinguish real, hand-pixelled art from scanned, photoshop-retouched crap unless you are an artist yourself. The only light I see is regarding musics. Tunes created by 'music maker' programs of today can't be compared with music by a talented musician. At least today. How much time will pass until this changes?
Long life to the guys of TBL and all the others who prove that the demoscene still has the chance to develop in the right directory.
Think.
- adok^hugi
http://www.hugi.scene.org/online/hugi11/demosart.htm
Due to rock solid emulation, most 8/16-bit platform demos are available for authentic viewing on most modern computing devices and also future-proof in a way modern PC demos most likely aren't. Whether or not people have the actual hardware is not that important, imho, as long as the specs and limitations are known.
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With all the issues like Nvidia vs. ATI vs. Intel gfx chips, DLL and operating system versions, and massive hardware requirements there might not be a big difference in the accessibility between oldskool and modern platforms :)
I can run you a 2h demoshow with Windows demos from '99-2000 that run pretty much out-of-the-box on any modern computer. The effort needed to patch some of them to life isn't much more than making a WHDLOAD version of an older OCS demo. (Admittedly some older .COM dropping 4k-s have fared worse in that scenario, but they're still salvageable.)
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Due to rock solid emulation, most 8/16-bit platform demos are available for authentic viewing on most modern computing devices and also future-proof in a way modern PC demos most likely aren't. Whether or not people have the actual hardware is not that important, imho, as long as the specs and limitations are known.
Emulation and backwards compatibility is always a result of popularity and interest - as long as a demo is running on the same platform as [popular game here], there will be both community (and corporate) effort to keep that platform working. From that perspective I don't worry too much about PC prods - just look at DOSbox.
Which is also the reason for the poor MMX support etc.; not many popular games use and depend on it. Many, many late-DOS-era intros and demos don't run for that reason. Some run partially and slowly on DOSBox Daum, but in general, the situation is kinda bleak. And the number of "99-2000" demos that don't run out of the box (or glitch) is larger than the ones that run without a problem. Most of those run on resolution/bpp combinations that no graphics drivers seem to support anymore. Sure, you can patch them (if you're lucky only the window creating call needs resolution adjustments) and it might work again. If not, you get strange packers, or versions of them that can't be dealt with easily (UPX 1.0x or so?), and yeah that can be solved too, but it gets nasty pretty quickly then. Nobody likes to debug 10 year old hacky demo binaries.
On that front: More groups should release (old) sources for better archiving results and to encourage more native ports. :)
On that front: More groups should release (old) sources for better archiving results and to encourage more native ports. :)
Custom resolutions are supported by both ATI and NVIDIA control panels; I ran the KG2012 demoshow almost exclusively in 320x200 and 512x384. The only glitch I recall having is the infamous pitch-bug on occasion (Louis Lane is one of the broken ones I think).
UPX had only one version that didn't have an unpacker (can't recall the exact version but it's basically what BoyC kept using, the prick ;), and all those versions are forwards compatible. Even if it IS broken, unpacking an executable is a matter of 2-3 minutes with CHIMP/LordPE/etc.
And excuse me, I do like debugging them.
UPX had only one version that didn't have an unpacker (can't recall the exact version but it's basically what BoyC kept using, the prick ;), and all those versions are forwards compatible. Even if it IS broken, unpacking an executable is a matter of 2-3 minutes with CHIMP/LordPE/etc.
And excuse me, I do like debugging them.
Good for you. ;) Also, I never had a panel that could do that. I'm updating my drivers as we speak (oh great, 150MB of bloat and drive-by ads. ;)). Let's see how that goes.
@Gargaj:
If you kept a blog of your fixes, including all the geeky technical bits, i'd love to read it. Of course, bits of it might get repetitive, but you can always link back to previous entries and skip over ground already covered that way.
If you kept a blog of your fixes, including all the geeky technical bits, i'd love to read it. Of course, bits of it might get repetitive, but you can always link back to previous entries and skip over ground already covered that way.