sometime last week (or this week? i've no way of knowing) i discovered a mostly dormant (but not completely!) underground tech nerd community called the demoscene.
but what is the demoscene? i certainly had no idea going into it, but anything retro tech-related i love, so of course i had to learn...
essentially, the demoscene is a community which had its beginnings in piracy, as strange as that may sound; back then, many programmers developed keygens in order to make software which required an acivation key accessible to those who didn't have one.
these programmers didn't want these keygens to be the only way they displayed their technological expertise, though. thus, they'd add little watermarks that would display upon opening a keygen software. there was something special about these watermarks, however: they were specifically made to push the limits of the system that they ran on. a lot of these "watermarks" would include impressive displays of what these programmers could do with the technology along with catchy music (some of the music that can be played on this website is actually keygen/demoscene music!).
eventually, these watermarks evolved beyond the boundaries of keygen software and became known as "demos"; hence, "demoscene". as it grew in popularity, there began to be conventions held for developers to show off their demos.
most developers of these demos are situated in europe, but they can be found anywhere around the world. note that the demoscene was mostly active around the 1980s and 1990s, and thus many of these demos are developed for very primitive hardware. however, the demoscene is still active today; just not nearly as much as it was around this time. it seems to be very much of a "you had to be there" kind of thing...
furthermore, because this primitive hardware laid the foundation for the demoscene, today's demos are still using this same hardware; what's more, new ways to push the limits of said hardware are still being found in the newest demoscene conventions! it's amazing what a bunch of dedicated tech nerds handed some of the most limited technology can do...
please keep in mind some of my information may be somewhat inaccurate seeing as i've only just started learning about this. if you'd like to know more about the demoscene, a good source is demoscene.info!
additionally, if you'd like to see an example of a demo, i'm quite fond of this one from 1991. check it out if you like!