This article is about the bbs entry on Pouet http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=11365 started by Photon of Scoopex where he asked people to name the first demo ever made. But there were 3 rules that you had to follow.

With the following rules, who can name the first demo?

1. It doesn't introduce anything or serve a purpose, such as a tech demo for a computer or a piece of software - the reason you run the demo is to enjoy what's executed. (Yes, I know this excludes Boing, I'm sticking to it!) I will define enjoyment as having something of what we call an effect: beyond implementing a non-trivial hardware feature (such as logo+scroll or writer). Also this goes for game previews (which may contain effects) because...

2. It must be linked to a scene that is not a game scene, cracker scene, PD scene, mailing list, company, etc., but a demoscene. The link is mostly an absence of reference to the previous, and can be as simple as showing what you made with no words. If words are used, there must be a link in those words to suggest that there is a demoscene, as in...

3. It must have at least one known credit and two members mentioned (of which the credit can be one member), and those members must be (known later as) handles, not real names, and both handles must both be associated with groups that went on to make at least 1 more demo for the same group using the same handles. Oof. (Because of the nature of the challenge, one exception to the "1 more prod rule" (only) is allowed: if they greet groups or handles of groups that later went on to make at least 1 more demo.)

Pretty interesting little trivia game and a couple of people named early sgi tapes like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3HgbQPTj_k. Zplex i think won the game by finding a Apple II demo from 1978 called It`s DEMO by Bob Bishop in 1978 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqPe7pE_5uQ

The first amiga demo is probably The Boing demo 1984-1985 made R. J. Mical and Dale Luck. But that demo violates the first rule though. Maybe the first real amiga demoscene demo that follow Photons strict rules is Two On Two by Headbanger released 1986. I think the famous Juggler demo should be included but that demo violates the first rule also. In demozoo i found a demo called Megademo Disk by United Software Rebels 1987 but that demo seems but that demo seems to be promotion for a PD scene so that gets excluded because it violates the second rule.

Maybe the first amiga demo that fits all the rules is Amiga Demo 1 by 1001 Crew released on 17 march 1987 It’s a very simple demo with a fullscreen copperbars in the background with a picture in the centre and a scrolling text with credits. It is not a very impressive demo but the large background copperbars were probably impressive back then.

But the first demo Amiga demo that I remember watching frequently is Megademo by Phenomena released in june 1989 a nice classic megademo. I also really enjoyed RSI Megademo by Red Sector released in september 1989 really nice music in that demo and the really nice Eddie the Head picture just a very classic demo with lots of parts. That showed what the amiga was capable of. Those are the oldest non cracktro demos i remember right now and there is probably other demos i forgotten. But i tried download some older demo on demozoo but i was not able to run them correctly. For example The Space Demo by 1001 Crew released in 1987 o could not get to work on my amiga. I think i need a A500 with 1.2 kickstart for it to work or maybe it does not work with more than 1 meg ram. I remember some demos being really badly coded. And they did not run if you had any kind of expansions on your amiga.

Photons rules are kind of tough and i think is a little unfair to exclude all of those wonderful cracktros and the famous tech demos from Commodore like Boing demo. But i understand his reason for excluding cracktros because then all the suggestions would be only cracktros. And it was scene demos that he was interested in. Sadly the forum entries did not last that long and there weren’t many suggestions. Maybe the rules were tough and a more relaxed rules would be better idea. And maybe starting with the first c64, amiga and pc demo would be also a better starting point. Because those other obscure demos are hard to find and watch.