This kind of made me sad.

The demoscene was all about human ingenuity getting the most out of the machine. It was about showing off how good your crew was at making things from nothing but their minds.

Now, it too, has been swallowed by the AI that is destroying this entire mode of being, the joy and creativity of writing code, of solving seemingly-impossible puzzles with ones mind.

My favorite creative and intellectual outlet is dying off and its killer is wearing its corpse as a costume.

For these four demos I don't know, but part of the challenge was certainly working within the constraints of the machines of the day. The Furture Crew demo I believe comes in at 2.5MB and ran on a 1993 PC, so probably 8MB of ram at the most. Running it in the browser is probably at least 20 times the memory.

It's really cool to be able to rewatch these demo, but the spirit in which they were created is somewhat lost.

I feel the same, it sucks. All you can do is carve out a space for yourself doing the things you enjoy, and don't let the AI grifters tell you that AI is the only way and everyone else is "cooked", no one will be writing things by hand, etc etc. God that rhetoric is depressing.

I write demos and games as a hobby predominantly for MS-DOS and machines ranging from the 386 up to the Pentium (soon to add 8088/286 to that list) as well as old consoles like the Sega Master System and other random platforms (like ARM-based kids toys like the Leapster Explorer).

Right now I'm working on an EGA production. I could just get an AI to generate a lot of the code for me or give me all the answers, but instead, I have my Programmer's Guide to the EGA/VGA/SVGA by Ferraro and another reference open on my desk trying to understand the CRTC so I can create a custom video mode. I live for this stuff and want to fully understand what's going on in the hardware. I like the creative aspects of making demos and games but I also like the technical aspects, and understanding the platform and the deep details.

When I spend too much time reading HN or X and see too much of the AI stuff, it really bums me out, so I have to detox by unfollowing/ignoring and getting back to my projects.

The C64 scene is still surprisingly active, and they usually do the seemingly impossible on such a limited hardware, while remaining incredibly creative (in how many ways could you phase out the C64 BASIC screen and show your demo't title?...). After the PC golden era I've been interested in the C64 only for a very, very long time, and I have not regretted it.

> the joy and creativity of writing code, of solving seemingly-impossible puzzles with ones mind

Find tougher puzzles then

You just don't understand, it's the prompt and knowing which foreign work to endless rehash that's the new creativity now. There's taste in knowing what artist to steal from!

/s if that wasn't obv.

Who's going to show up to the next big demo party (like the ones they arrange in Europe), having e.g. hand coded 68k assembly or done some highly impressive 4k demo, having been intimate with every single instruction?

It's the eternal sloptember, but for humanity.

Maybe it will just pass? Eventually maybe people will get bored of this consumerist mode of creation, of projects born with no vision or craft, made with the tastefulness of a kid smashing together their favorite toys. And when the majority finally agrees these stunts are a corrosive influence on the community, we can just approach it as a moderation problem, figure out some system of vouches and reports, or downsize and our communities until trust again becomes tractable, maybe even coming to appreciate some tactical slop as a stepping stone or a proof of concept to be eventually reverse-engineered into a maintainable human project.

What makes you say this? Just because someone used AI to port some classic productions to the browser (which is actually pretty cool), doesn't mean that AI has taken over.

AI slop productions tend to be frowned upon, or even banned, writing code and using cool tricks to to what seems impossible is still a big part of the demoscene, in particular in the sizecoding, oldschool and wild categories. Clever use of AI is a debated topic, the demoscene is about pushing the limits of current technology, and AI is part of current technology. There is also the question of using AI for tooling (modelers, compressors, test harnesses, etc...), as in, will you stop using a particular IDE because it is written with the help of AI, even if it is good?

But still, most productions are hand made.