Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixb.cc.columbia.edu!es1
From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Subject: Re: AMIGA DEMOS: Europe VS. USA
Message-ID: <1991Apr22.224818.25351@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Keywords: demos
Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Reply-To: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Organization: Columbia University
References: <20691@brahms.udel.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 22:48:18 GMT

In article <20691@brahms.udel.edu> jon@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Deutsch) writes:
>
>About amiga demos:
>
>There are a lot of them.  They have been getting more and more complex.
>They are becomming competitive!  And *most* of the solid-vector/wild copper/
>blitter-mania demos are all coming from EUROPE!  
>
>Why is this?  Is this a cultural thing?  Demos from the States tend to be
>of the 'movie' genre or 'showanim's.  This type of demo is entertaining,
>but (hopefully) doesn't display the talent and mathematical ingenuity that
>Americans like to claim they possess.
>
>It just seems to me that from the evidence I've been shown,
>
>-- Europeans tend to walk on the wild side of coding,
>   while Americans are happy making their nifty utilities and short movies.
>-- Europeans tend to display more graphic, production, and music
>   talent than Americans do in their code.
>-- Europeans seem to get the 'head start' on computing, seeing that the
>   average demo-writer in Europe is still in his teens.
>-- European demos are very creative.  Some demos are very entertaining.
>-- European groups are competing -- who can make the coolest demo!?
>
	Part of it is that Amigas aren't as big in America as in
Europe, but I think the difference is as you say. In general,
American demos have some focus, some storyline, and the
computer's graphics work around that. The European demos are
usually more kickass demos that use copper list tricks to get
mindboggling graphics and animation. The American style is more
'creative' I think and the European is more technical know-how
and hacking.
	It doesn't seem that the two can be merged easily, at
least not if Europeans keep coding for 512K Amigas with one
drive. I mean, how much data can be stored in a boot-block. 8-)
That seems to be the main limitation at this point. American
demos are often 1-2MB, or more, that were created on 8MB systems
using hours and hours of ray-tracing or cartooning.
	It also seems that digitized graphics are bigger in the
US, where as rock-music is bigger in Europe.
	-- Ethan

Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb
A: None. It's a hardware problem.