Exactly 30 years ago, a huge demoparty took place for the first time in Aars, Denmark:
The Party!
And... it became legendary in the #demoscene history. (thread)
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The Party was organized by local demo groups: Anarchy, Crystal and The Silents. It was a 99% Amiga party and all major Amiga groups turned up.
During 3 days 1200 sceners gathered (1000 were expected). Most came with their computer & CRT screens!
As you can guess, there was a lot of demos released, and while there was an incredible amount of release each year back then, 3 demos are landmarks in the whole #demoscene.
If you were an Amiga user, you know at least two of them...
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Global Trash II by The Silents is 30 years old today.
This is the first "video-demo" ever, built with broadcast tools (Quantel Paintbox, video mixers, broadcast VCRs and SGI, I guess). It was released on VHS.
It's the "sequel" to Global Trash, released 8 months before on Amiga.
Later, a category was created for videos and anything that don't fit in regular demo competitions: the Wild competition!
So this is actually the first "Wild"...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=k7KxZfu0NcA
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Odyssey by Alcatraz is 30 years old today.
This is a HUGE demo: 5 floppy disks and a running time of 34 minutes for the "main part", which is actually a full story taking place in space. So it's more like a movie!
It was considered by many Amiga users as the best demo ever back then. It also showed that the Amiga could tell long stories in 3D.
1991 is also the year Another World was released, so telling stories was all the rage!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4MgScvu0-EM
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Here's two more demos released at The Party so that you can see a bit more what the Amiga demoscene looked like in 1991.
Voyage by Razor 1911 is 30 years old today.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=YMFBAOjuMWw
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Odyssey placed 1st and Hardwired 2nd at the demo compo, that month of December 1991.
Now, 30 years later, which one do you prefer?
Vote!
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There's actually videos of The Party available on the net.
It's in 3 parts, here's the first one. It ends with Global Trash II in live! Enjoy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=v6WtWYmz3iA
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Btw if you ever have videos of parties or demos on tape, I can capture them.
Most video captures of old tapes are of bad quality or improperly done (even the Global Trash II's master was captured improperly, it seems).
See my peertube for VHS/DV/Betacam captures:
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/c/video_archives/videos?s=1
Here's The Party poll reposted because it seems people discovered it a bit late and I can't extend the previous one :)
Which of these demos released at The Party 1991, 30 years ago, do you like most?
@fenarinarsa I am following you from Mastodon, will try and follow from diode.zone too.
@fenarinarsa still, beams on a atari tt
@zwangseinweisung @fenarinarsa Beams is from 2002?
(At least, TSSC's Beams. Which is a great demo, just, not from 1992.)
@fenarinarsa The correct outcome, but perhaps you should extend the poll to allow the folks outside Europe to see it? (:
Hardwired by Crionics & The Silents is 30 years old today.
It took the best of the existing Amiga #demoscene and stream-loaded 20 effects from floppy disk, packaged with perfect transitions, video/audio sync, amazing graphics and music.
Hardwired is a major turning point of the demoscene. Any big demo released after this one couldn't do without good design, transitions and music/effects sync.
https://peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/37jEjiJZew5B1Vvc5bLtJM
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