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Demos/intros/dentros


Gury

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is there a rule?

 

my personal destinction.

 

intro is a small "demo" which normally contains just 1 or 2 effects. maybe coming from cracking intro back in those days... or intros to disc mags. mostly file based

 

demo

 

mainly covering one disc side and loading stuff from disc while running?

 

dentro kind of mixture...

 

but there is no rule as far as i know.

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There's no hard and fast rules, but generally speaking and in general order of "evolution"...

 

Intro

Seen before cracked games on various platforms, usually announcing who did the cracking and what trainer options are present. In some cases on the C64, ST and Amiga, a second intro will be added if the program is imported to or from the United States. Sometimes they're referred to as a "cracktro", a PC term that has filtered back to the 8-bit scenes and isn't popular with most people.

 

Demo

Blanket term that covers any of the following, but usually refers to a single part or single file production where the part(s) are individual units and stand alone from each other in some way.

 

Megademo

Any demo that multiloads and takes up a significant amount of space on a disk. Each part is stands alone, it loads, executes and quits, either to another part or a loader of some form.

 

Trackmo

The continuation of the megademo concept, originally from the Amiga and spread to other platforms. A series of parts which run with the same soundtrack throughout, loading off disk and decompressing without interrupting the constant flow or stopping the background soundtrack; at the very least it's running the music and a text screen whilst the loader or decompression takes place and in a lot of cases smaller effects with lower CPU overhead execute during these moments.

 

Dentro

Same as a trackmo except there isn't any disk access, all the parts run from compressed data in memory whilst the music plays constantly and each part appears, does it's thing and then passes control to the next.

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Some time ago also the word "Trackmo" was in fashion.

Trackmo is a demo that runs by itself as opposite to the original demos where the parts were loaded after pressing a key (usually a space bar or shift) :-) Nowadays most demos are actually trackmos - and sometimes you even can't distinguish where does one part end and where the next one begins.

Edited by pseudografx
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I don't agree with TMR. A Dentro has disk access, look at all the Amiga dentros. only the polish c64 scene used "dentro" as term for "single file demo". Amiga scene used it as term for "bad demo which is bigger than an intro but we dont wanna call it a demo".

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I don't agree with TMR. A Dentro has disk access, look at all the Amiga dentros. only the polish c64 scene used "dentro" as term for "single file demo".

 

A dentro isn't supposed to have disk access, some people misused the name in the same way some people will call an intro a "cracktro" - others won't use the word at all for the same reason they don't use cracktro. And it wasn't just the Polish C64 scene either, large chunks of the C64 scene use the term, including my own crew since we've released a couple of products we're referring to as dentros and i've yet to see anyone question the use of that term.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Intro

It is a demonstration program that has a limited length. You should include the length when you say "intro", because 256-byte intros are very different from 64 KB intros. Popular intro limits in Atari 8-bit world are: 256 bytes, 1 KB and 16 KB. In PC world these are: 256 bytes, 4 KB and 64 KB. 256-byte intros have usually one effect and no sound. Well-written 16 KB or 64 KB intros can be indistinguishable from demos when you are watching them (see "dentro").

 

Demo

Demo competitions sometimes have length limits, but these are high. For example, Atari 8-bit demos could be limited to 4 * 130 KB and PC demos to 16 MB (I'm not sure about the present limits). It is questionable whether an intro is a demo or not. When you say "Yesterday I was watching PC demos" you probably mean that you watched demoscene productions, including intros. On the other hand intros usually aren't shown in "Demo compo", except for when there are few full-length demo entries.

 

Megademo

Megademo is a demo that consists of distinguishable parts. Megademo parts have different soundtracks, different effects and often are made by different people. Also, often there's a visible loader so you have to wait for the next part to load.

 

Trackmo

Trackmo is a demo which runs continuously without breaks for loaders or rapid soundtrack changes. The design should be consistent and effect changes should be smooth. Megademos are considered "old-school" while all modern demos are usually trackmos.

 

Dentro

The term "Dentro" is used rarely and applies to "big" intros (64 KB usually) that look like trackmos.

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