Platforms
There are demos available for a great variety of computing platforms. Currently, most new demos are native-code programs designed to run on PCs under the Microsoft Windows operating system, but demos are still actively being made for many other machines including old and new computers, consoles and mobile devices such as PDAs, mobile phones and pocket calculators.
The main historical platforms include Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, and demo competitions for these platforms are still relatively common at today's demo parties. There are even demos running on such diverse platforms as VIC-20, Commodore Plus/4, Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Amstrad CPC, Macintosh, Game Boy, GP32, PlayStation and MSX.
Unlike mainstream retrocomputing, the activity of creating demos for old computers is more commonly associated with technical challenge than nostalgic feelings. The accomplishment of new and groundbreaking things is a major driving force on the demoscene, and the limits of various pieces of "obsolete" hardware are still being pushed forward by several groups. Even many PC-oriented democoders do some programming on more restricted platforms in order to get in touch with ways of democoding that are no longer available on modern PCs.
In the 1990s, it was still quite common for different platforms to have more or less separate demoscenes. When users of different platforms participated in a single event, it was considered obvious to split the competition categories for each supported platform (e.g. having separate demo and intro competitions for the PC and the Amiga). Nowadays, the availability of decent emulators and video captures have brought the different scenes closer together.
Alternative platforms include BASIC interpreters, Java applets, Java ME, Macromedia Flash, JavaScript, PHP and even Microsoft Office. Software platform restrictions like this, however, have not earned the respect from the majority of demosceners.
Read more about this topic: Demo (computer Programming)
Famous quotes containing the word platforms:
“I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions .... You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.”
—Barbara Bush (b. 1925)