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Presented in its entirety is the Oldskool section of "MindCandy Volume 1: PC Demos", a DVD I produced back in 2002 showcasing the best of the underground PC DOS demoscene, with the full cooperation and consent of the original authors. Along with Dan Wright, Andy Voss, Jeremy Williams, and Pim Van Mun, I felt that these works of computer art were worth showcasing to the entire world, so we set out to produce a "best of" video album of some of the best demos. Some of the creative ideas showcased in these works hadn't been seen at the time they came out, and some haven't been seen again, having perfectly captured the underground creative programming scene of the 1990s. The DVD sold out after two pressings, at which time we released the content for free. What you're seeing here is a 1080p60 conversion of the original Oldskool content of the 480i DVD.
If you take anything away from this at all, just remember that all of these programmers (and artists, and musicians) were working "without a net": Without Microsoft Windows, 3-D accelerators, or even MP3/OGG files to store a complete soundtrack, these artists had to do everything in software, from the 3-D rendering to the realtime mixing of multiple tracks to form the music. (And it's not just programming and music -- there is some amazing original artwork on display, especially given that the artists were usually limited to 256 colors at a resolution of 320x200 pixels.)
With one exception, we ordered the demos chronologically. You can see early attempts to figure things out (with PC speaker music!) in 1991, then you can see giant leaps in technique from 1993 onward, ending in complex software realtime raytracing and raycasting techniques in 1998.
There were NO EMULATORS that supported video capture when we produced this DVD -- no MESS, no DOSBox -- so everything you see was captured from the actual target hardware itself using a variety of hardware. Everything from a 386sx to a Pentium Pro was used, with the appropriate system chosen for each demo. This is how the demos actually look on real hardware!
Track list:
00:00:00 Second Reality by Future Crew, 1993
00:09:14 Megademo by The Space Pigs, 1990
00:15:26 Cronologia by Cascada, 1991
00:29:26 Unreal by Future Crew, 1992
00:41:00 Amnesia by Renaissance, 1992
00:49:28 Panic by Future Crew, 1992
00:53:39 Crystal Dream 2 by Triton, 1993
01:02:32 Show by Majic 12, 1994
01:10:12 Verses by EMF, 1994
01:14:42 Dope by Complex, 1995
01:22:37 X14 by Orange, 1995
01:26:30 Stars: Wonders of the World by Nooon, 1995
01:32:49 Reve by Pulse, 1995
01:37:01 Paimen by COMA, 1996
01:39:58 Inside by CNCD, 1996
01:43:00 Megablast by Orange, 1996
01:47:25 303 by Acme, 1997
01:51:51 Saint by Halcyon & Da Jormas, 1997
01:56:17 Square by Pulse, 1997
02:00:16 Riprap by Exceed, 1998
FAQs:
Q: Why is the video not fullscreen?
A: Because all of these demos were created on, and for, a 4:3 monitor. Stretching them fullscreen would have just made everything look squished. Also, some demos use the overscan/borders, so we chose to preserve everything the way it was.
Q: Why is there some noise in the video?
A: Because these were all live captures from VGA in 2001, and some analog noise was part of the signal path.
Q: Why is Lizardking's music missing from Crystal Dream 2?
A: Because BLEEPSTREET Records made a false claim for the music, so I removed it so they couldn't make money from the video. I provided *signed release forms* for our usage of the music back in 2001 and they still stuck by their claim. Not cool.
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