This list is in progress, and will be updated as events are scheduled.
This year we bring you the North American debut of famed Polish chiptune artist, Yerzmyey! Yerzmyey is a very talented musician who has been producing chiptunes since 1989, and is best known for his work on the classic AY-3-8910 soundchip found in the ZX Spectrum 128K and Atari ST. Here he'll be playing a number of his favorite compositions on real retro hardware. Notorious for having multiple classic machines playing at once, come watch as he creates a spectacular audio/video "orchestra" to delight you with those wonderful bleeps and bloops.
Come to hear engaging discussions on topics across the demoscene.
Beginning in 1968 at Brown University, Thomas Banchoff collaborated with computer scientist Charles Strauss to produce vector graphics animated films of surfaces in four-dimensional space for research and for teaching, starting with "The Flat Torus in the 3-Sphere". By 1978 their film "The Hypercube: Projections and Slicing" had won an international award and their films were presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki. Five years later, their raster graphics film "The Hypersphere: Foliation and Projections" was featured at SIGGRAPH. Thomas Banchoff joins us to show clips from these films and discuss the progress of computer animation over this time, especially the participation of student assistants like Scott Draves (CMU PhD 1997).
Since the dawn of personal computing (and even a little before), people have tried getting computers to play sound, with varying degrees of success. This talk will use chiptunes, pieces of music composed for computer sound hardware, in order to explore the progression of computer audio technology from early attempts using carefully timed code and radio interference to much more recent audio synth chips, and everything in-between. If you've ever wondered why many old computers sound so distinct from each other, this talk will answer that question!
OK, so demos are cool, but why are the graphics on those retro demos so cheesy compared to what your game console, or even your phone can do? Is that funny looking 80s computer you found in the basement worth messing with? Is there a sane reason for 2-letter UNIX commands? This talk will cover the answers to these questions and many more with an overview of cool developments in computing from the early days to today, focusing mostly on the 1970s through the 1990s. You should attend if you would like to learn more about the history of computing (don't worry, it won't be all names and dates, and there's no quiz at the end), various retro computers, and some of the seemingly arbitrary design decisions that remain with us today.
No more toy languages! Sometimes you need to roll an interpreter and only Turing- completeness will do. Interpreters are a natural way to structure a demo framework or a game logic engine, and Lua, Python, or Tcl won't always cut it. I will walk you through my trials and errors implementing a full object-oriented programming language. This talk is the missing manual for the gap between simple interpreters and complex compilers.
The CPC was a later entry to the 8-bit marketplace by the British company Amstrad. While not successful in American markets, the CPC was rather popular in Europe. It led the market in some countries like France, and held a strong second place after the C64 in Germany. The talk will cover the CPC platform, its components, limitations, capabilities and use. See what European kids got to play with, and adults could use as a home office computer, in the 1980s.
We'll also have several special exhibits throughout the weekend!
2015 marks 30 years of Amiga! Join us and many others around the world in celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Commodore Amiga computer, the first "multimedia PC," that revolutionized home computing. To mark the occasion, we've put together a tribute to the Amiga's legacy, complete with historical artifacts, special demo screenings, classic Amiga music, interactive exhibits, and more. Come check it out!
Second Reality is a famous demo released by the group Future Crew that runs on PCs in DOS. Though rarely regarded as the greatest demo ever released, it has reached a highly influential cult status and is a must-watch for anyone. Since its release in 1993, many demo groups have paid tribute to this seminal work with a variety of remakes and homages for all sorts of machines. We'll have some of the best of them running as a playlist for your enjoyment.
Our yearly retro gaming room returns! Play from hundreds of the games you fondly remember on authentic hardware, including:
We'll be running a tournament in our gaming room. Do you have what it takes to be the best?
Come celebrate the spirit of the Demoscene with live screenings and competitions.
No demo party is complete without the chance to write your own demos and submit them to be screened and voted on by the audience! We have several categories - check the compos page for more info.
Throughout the weekend, we'll be offering live showings of demos running on real machines, old and new, from the CMU Computer Club's large collection -- Amiga, Atari, Commodore, PC, you name it! We'll be showing both eternal classics and recent releases. Check the schedule for more details and times!
Loud, flashy, and generally seizure-inducing, rave demos are the demoscene's link to the techno/rave culture it grew up within. These might not be for everyone, but they definitely have devoted fans. We'll be giving these their own room for your enjoyment!
We are also looking for volunteers to give talks or lead workshops at Demosplash this year, so if you're interested please fill out the form below!