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Anything else than demos?
The scene is not only restricted to the production of demos. There are
other types of software being produced. Here is a list of the most
common categories with explanations:
Diskmagazines: Diskmagazines was originally spread on
floppydisks, since few people had harddrives, and therefore they got
this name. The diskmag is generally a forum for sceners, where they can
discuss various topics through articles. Through the years it has also
included trading advertisments, charts over the most popular sceners,
non-scene forums, news, and rumours. There are still being
diskmagazines being released for the Amiga, but not as much as it used
to.
The diskmag is not spread as a textfile, but is a standalone program
with graphics and music incorporated. Here is a picture from a diskmag
to illustrate this:
Defy 6 by Cydonia
Intros: Intros can be looked at as small demos.
They come in different sizes, but the most common ones are 4KB, 40KB
and 64KB. You can also find 256B intros, but they are not common.
During the last decade, coders have worked really hard with intros, and
they manage to cram music and stunning effects into only 4KB. If you
would like to see examples of such kind of work, productions from
groups like Ephidrena, Spaceballs and Push Entertainment is
recommended.
Musicdisks: The work of the musician. It is simply a
collection of songs made by one or more musicians, glued together with
a user interface, made by the coder.
Packs: Packs has disappeared more and more the last
decade due to the Internet getting widespread across the world. Packs
is simply a collection of stuff, mostly small executable files, that
traders (both modem- and mailtraders) have collected. It can also
contain articles, charts, advertisments, and other bonus stuff. In most
cases they were made for a single floppy disk and consists of a coded
general user interface.
Dreams 26 by Apathy
Packs contains mostly intros, which can be characterized as small
demos, but here are other kinds too. Musicpacks, which is based around
songs, and ascii-packs, where textfile logos are provided, can be seen
as examples of this.
Slideshows: This kind of production is the pride of
demoscene graphician. The aim of the program is to provide a selection
of pictures from one or more artists. An interactive interface is
usually provided in newer productions, where the user can browse
through the contents.
These are the most usual kinds of programs that
demosceners make. If you decide to go hunting for some demoscene stuff,
you may encounted productions labelled dentros, funtros, and lametros.
The only thing that needs explanation here is the first one mentioned,
which can be described as a hybrid between an intro and a demo.
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