pouët.net

First link fixed here:https://web.archive.org/web/20170719033522/http://www.vice.cn/read/demoscene-and-media-stories.

Nice read. 谢谢你!

I'm sure that everything is fine with the Chinese demoscene. It's the Europeans who don't know Chinese language and have cocooned themselves in their narrow English-speaking world. China isn't only the world's number one economy, but also the country that created TikTok!

dubious achievement ;)

In any case, the USA has created a lot of things, but what about the demoscene?

Thank you for sharing, that's interesting.

I have lived in china for about a year and a half in a fairly big city (Changsha / Hunan). When I was there I wondered if there were demoparties around but could not find any so instead I attended some kind of game / coding jam which was organized by a private company and which looked more like a way to recruit people than anything else.
So I had no success connecting with the demoscene in China. I don't really speak chinese so the language barrier did not help.

Now my wife is Chinese and she went to her first demoparty last year (Revision). she really loved it !
Her theory to explain the "absence" of demoscene in China is that we european have a more "creative mind" with more free time than people in china to do "these kind of things" while people in china are more "pragmatic" they won't do anything unless it can bring money.

@pengan: I really enjoyed your take on the history of the Chinese demoscene. Thanks for sharing that interesting story.

I was wondering. Did China's decision to make its own computers in the 1980s and 1990s shape how the demoscene developed there? I remember Jack Tramiel once said in an interview that China decided to build its own machines instead of importing popular ones like the Commodore 64 or Amiga. Maybe that decision might also have influenced the growth of the demoscene in China? It might depend on many othe factors as well, but in Europe, the widespread copy-parties played a big role in building the demoscene culture.

Finding out the reason why the demoscene didn’t grow as much in China compared to other countries is an interesting research project.

Aggressor, don’t confuse China with anti-communist Taiwan and British Hong-Kong. China only succeed in economics after capturing Taiwan and Hong-Kong, taking credit for their economic miracle.

As far as I know, due to China’s limited production of ICs in the 80s and 90s, and Western countries' export restrictions to Eastern Bloc, most of the civilian market’s microcomputers in China were clones of overseas models assembled with ICs imported from Hong Kong or Taiwan, especially the Apple II and IBM PC. However, these machines were usually only used in workplaces or schools, as they were too expensive for households.

Cheaper 8-bit machines in the 1980s, such as the Lambda 8300 (clone of the Sinclair ZX81 from Hong Kong) and VTech Laser 310, gained some popularity in China on a small scale.

However, in the 1980s, both cassette recorders and microcomputers were still pretty unaffordable for Chinese families. Even one could cost more than half of an average worker’s annual salary. So, very few households owned both a microcomputer and a cassette recorder. If someone only had a microcomputer but no cassette recorder, they couldn’t effectively store or share their works.

In the 1990s, clones and enhanced versions of the Famicom keyboard became more widespread. However, many of these models still couldn't store users’ data (even don't have a cassette connector). Models equipped with floppy drives emerged in the late 1990s, but there were compatibility issues between different brands.

For kids and teenagers, pirated Famicom cassettes were cheap, had high-quality games and compatible with all models, which prevented the emergence of a community of bedroom programmers.

As far as I know, due to China’s limited production of integrated circuits in the 1980s and 1990s, and Western countries' export restrictions to China due to the Eastern Bloc, most of the civilian market’s microcomputers were clones of overseas models assembled with imported ICs, especially the Apple II and IBM PC. However, these machines were usually only used in workplaces, as they were too expensive for households.

Cheaper 8-bit machines in the 1980s, such as the Lambda 8300 (a clone of the Sinclair ZX81) and VTech Laser 310, gained some popularity in China on a small scale. However, in the 1980s, both cassette recorders and microcomputers were still unaffordable for Chinese families. Even one such item could cost more than half of an average worker’s annual salary. Additionally, very few households owned both a microcomputer and a cassette recorder. If a family only had a microcomputer but no cassette recorder, they couldn’t effectively store or share their creations.

In the 1990s, clones and enhanced versions of the Famicom keyboard became more widespread. However, many of these models still couldn't store users’ data. Models equipped with floppy drives emerged in the late 1990s, but there were compatibility issues between different brands.

For teenagers, pirated Famicom cartridges were cheap, had high-quality games, and were compatible with all models, which prevented the emergence of a bedroom programmer community.

In Asia, for all Commodore models, their influence was very limited outside of Japan. The graphics and sound chips in the C64 and Amiga lacked affordable alternatives/clones, making these machines expensive even in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Korea.

So, from Asian parent's perspective, the Commodore was seen as a pure gaming device, but it was more expensive and more complicated to compared to a Famiclone.

yeah and westerns wipe out 4000 years china power in less than 200 years and keep doing it with 1/4 of its population while working halftime !!!!!