šļø Amiga Knowledge Base
65,174 curated entries on demos, software, hardware and history of the Commodore Amiga
Demo
A Demo is a real-time computer program that generates audio-visual presentations, combining programming prowess, graphical artistry, and musical composition to showcase hardware capabilities beyond standard use. On the Amiga, demos exploited the custom chipset (Agnus, Denise, and Paula) to create effects like copper bars, bobs, and tracked music using hardware scrolling, sprites, and the blitter simultaneously. The Amiga demoscene flourished from the late 1980s through the 1990s, with groups competing at copy parties to produce increasingly sophisticated effects that pushed the OCS, ECS, and AGA chipsets to their absolute limits through cycle-exact timing and optimized assembly code.