SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: Rob Lion <rnlion_at_its.caltech.edu>
Date: Wed Aug 15 04:54:16 2001

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jeffrey S. Sharp
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 21:49
> To: Douglas Quebbeman
> Subject: RE: SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing
>
>
> On 14 Aug 2001, Iggy Drougge wrote:
> >
> > A demo is a demonstration, showing off your programming/gfx/music
> > talent. The demo crews arrange demo parties where they display their
> > demos and win prices. It's all about pushing the limits of what's
> > possible on a computer.
>
> Somehow I doubt that part of making one of these demos is seeing how many
> bytes you can optimize out of an assembly language loop, or seeing how
> quick you can make that shiny new script parser parse. No, I think I
> would get laughed at...

My understanding is that, at one point at least, it was indeed about
optimizing assembly loops, especially on Commodores and machines of that
era... I've even read about people using disk controllers as coprocessors
and disabling video interrupts and all kinds of crazy things. I think the
"scene" has pretty much died down in the US, and most of the current stuff
comes out of (Eastern?) Europe. There are some interesting websites out
there (which I can't remember at the moment) with downloads of stuff that
claims to make full use of Pentium IIIs, even, but most of it seems to use
junk like DirectX.

-Rob


> --
> Jeffrey S. Sharp
> jss_at_subatomix.com
>
>
Received on Wed Aug 15 2001 - 04:54:16 BST