How To Code Demos

One excellent site that has a lot of demo, game, and other programming information is x2ftp.oulu.fi. Another good site is ftp.hornet.org.

Here's an excerpt from Future Crew's infotext that also describes how to program demos and where to get started:

Q: What programs do you use to do your demos?
A: We use the following programs to do our demos; For code we use Borland
   C++, Microsoft C, Watcom C, Stonybrook Pascal and Turbo Assembler. For
   graphics we use Deluxe Paint 2 Enhanced and 3D Studio 3.0. For making
   the music we use Scream Tracker 3.2, and for digitizing the samples for
   our songs we use Advanced DigiPlayer 3.5 beta and Wavelite for Windows.
   Scream Tracker 3.2 and Advanced DigiPlayer are our own programs made by
   Psi. Then we have all kinds of utilities crafted for our needs.

Q: What programming books would you recommend to learn assembler and VGA?
A: This is a hard question, and a general answer is, that any book will do.
   You can get the basics from a book and books are a great reference,
   but when it comes to creating something new, you can't just read it
   from a book. We have all learnt to code the hard way (a lot of
   miscellaneous books and a lot of experimenting). Anyway, here are 
   some of the books we often find handy (there are undoubtably newer
   prints, so check them out):

        Mastering Turbo Assembler, Tom Swan
                Hayden Books 1989, ISBN 0-672-48435-8
        PC System Programming, Michael Tischer
                Abacus 1990, ISBN 1-55755-036-0
        The Programmers PC Sourcebook, Thom Hogan
                Microsoft Press 1988, ISBN 1-55615-118-7
        Programming the 80386, John H. Crawford and Patrick P. Gelsinger
                Sybex 1987, ISBN 0-89588-381-3
        Programmers guide to EGA and VGA cards, Richard F. Ferraro
                Addison Wesley 1989, ISBN 0-201-12692-3

   Also, most up to date are many software 'books', such as interrupt 
   lists from bbs'es. We have also found a lot of valuable information
   in articles and such. In short, there is no magic way of learning to
   code, it really takes a lot of work.

Q: How did you learn to code?
A: Learning to code demos is a long and very very difficult process. It takes
   years to learn to code demos very well. A good way to start is some high
   level language like Pascal or C and then started to experiment with 
   assembler. It takes a lot of time and experimenting to get better, and
   there are no shortcuts (for book recommendations, see a question before
   this). The main thing is trying to understand what you do, then trying
   to change the program to see what you get, and gain wisdom in what's
   the best way of doing things. Learning to code well requires a lot of
   patience, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of time. It is not easy.

Q: How long does it take to make a demo like Second Reality?    
A: The complete time that it takes to make such demo can't really be counted.
   Most of our knowledge is based on years of hard work and on our previous
   works. All of us do little experiments on their freetime and when a 
   "critical mass" is achieved the making of a demo begins more seriously.
   From this point to a final demo (in the case of a major production like
   Second Reality) it takes around three to six months.

Where to find help making demos:

Usenet Newsgroups

• PC DemoScene
• Graphics Algorithms
• Computer Animation
• MS-DOS Programmers