Everyone has heard of the infamous Commodore Amiga from way back in the early nineties, a computer that was so far in advance of any other machine around at the time, mind blowing GFX, amazing 4 channel sound, rediculously playable games and not to mention it's great looks. Little did we know at the time but this machine was to change the computing world forever.
A long way from the commercial side of it and the massive game sales, underneath one of the best selling computers ever made lay this strange but wonderful world, a place that was free from commercialism, free from the contraints and expectations of a business world that would inevitably bring this great machine to it knees. This was a world were people got back to basics
and used the computer for what it was intended - fun! The "scene" as it was know sounded and probably still sounds a bit weird now to an outsider, but to be part of it was a fantastic journey of discovery, amazement, friendship and loyalty.
An underground cult existed where groups were born made of up of hobbiest programmers, musicians and graphic artists who would get together and spend weeks, even months producing "demo's" which can only be described as works of art and ultimately pushed the Amiga to it's limit in terms of coding, music and graphics.
These demos basically consisted of showing the world what each of the members could do in terms of talent! Believe me, most of these guys were talented and the scene became a sort of production line for eventual game programmers, musicians and graphic artists. It's not surprising to know that quite a few of the games we play today
on our PC's or consoles are developed by guys who originally learnt their trade in or around the Amiga Scene.
The likes of Core Design - developers of Tomb Raider, had coders and musicians from the Amiga scene. Jesper Kyd, from The Silents and musical author of great demos such as Hardwired and Global Trash is now a full time games musician having worked on titles such as Hitman, Minority Report & MDK2 and Nightshade of Crusaders eventually became head of music for SCEE.
Massive conferances or "parties" as they were called were organised all over Europe, where groups would come from far and wide to get together and show off their latest pieces ot art. Hundreds of guys, even thousands in some of the big Scandinavian parties turned up to talk everything Amiga, swap all the latest demo's, all the newest utilities, enter all the competitions and just generally have a laugh. Above all, it was a social event and friends were made all over Europe.
Like I said, it must sound pretty strange to someone who wasn't involved but it was staggering to part of it all! It was an era in computers that changed us all forever, to be part of it felt special. It still amazes me to this day how much a computer can affect peoples lives as much as it did. This site hopefully will preserve some of the those special moments that made the years from 1988-1995 such a fullfilling time for us all.