Who thought of a PC as a multimedia device? (Demoscene)

 

    Spoiler alert: It was the PC/Amiga/C64 Demo Scene guys.

    Have you ever heard of the Demo Scene? I'll give you the "Major Version". Basically, technologically curious people (hackers) would get together, create original music and rendered animation in to a video collage that seemed like it was way beyond the capabilities of the PC's of the time. They would create and code new software, MIDI and MOD trackers, custom UI graphical engines, all from the base assembly code. If they liked something from another platform or program, they would hack all those components together in their own amalgamation of what they would need to get the job done. Some of the best well known sound editing software today is based on their ideas of the time. See below for a few great examples of the Demo Scene from the artists from Future Crew:

     Before the demo scene was even considered a thing, hackers were looking in to ways at pushing the limits of their home computers. Game developers and Software Engineers took notice of these kids in their bedrooms creating the unthinkable, and hired from these small groups of guys, creating some of the founding programs considered essential to software engineering: Futuremark, ID, Remedy, Bugbear Entertainment, Bitboys, Epic Megagames.. the list goes on. Innovations we take for granted today, like full motion video, 60 FPS rendering, and sound samples in music and games, were not implemented at the time and changed the way we think about PC as multimedia engines in our day-to-day lives.

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Quick post today! Lots going on. Happy New Year!