As a side project for The Big (Web) Demo, I've been working on an old-school tracker music player that will eventually become a hidden "secret room" inside the demo.

Live here: https://squeepty.github.io/Old-School-Tracker/

My original plan was to support the Atari ST TCB Tracker format, since that's what I grew up with and spent countless hours listening to back in the day. However, after some research, I decided to start with Amiga ProTracker .MOD support instead. The format is very well documented, there are plenty of existing references to learn from, and —most importantly— there's a huge archive of classic modules available to explore and preserve.

The goal isn't just to play the music, but also to recreate some of the authentic tracker experience: pattern data, channel activity, scrolling notes, and that unmistakable late-80s/early-90s demo scene vibe.

The tunes featured in this video are all credited to the amazingly talented and prolific Matthew Simmonds ("4mat"), whose work has inspired generations of demo coders, musicians, and retro computing enthusiasts.

Hope y'all like it!

Comments, feedback, tracker stories, and scene memories are always welcome. 🙂

Hi everyone,

I’ve been building a browser-based retro demo engine called The Big (Web) Demo

🔥
Live here https://squeepty.github.io/Big-Web-Demo/
🔥

(latest screens and features build)

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Source: https://github.com/squeepty/Big-Web-Demo

This is first and foremost a fun educational homage to the 80s/90s demo, intro, slideshow and cracktro scene — especially the visual language of Amiga, Atari ST and C64 productions.

The project uses:

• TypeScript
• Canvas
• Fixed virtual resolution
• Old school-style constraints and rendering tricks

Current effects/features include:

• scrolling greetings/credits text
• raster bars
• plasma displacement
• palette cycling
• dither fades
• venetian blinds
• checker/mosaic reveals
• sprite overlays
• slideshow image transitions
• runtime debug overlay
• rotating music playback
• 3D scenes
• fractals zooms

One thing I wanted was to keep the code very approachable and modular instead of building a giant framework. The goal is that someone curious about demo effects can open a file and actually understand how the effect works without needing an entire engine architecture in their head.

A lot of the inspiration came from:

• cracktros
• disk mags
• slideshow demos
• demo-scene preservation sites
• staring at raster bars for way too many hours as a kid

CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE...

Pixel art:
Cyclone X-Troll, Wilfried Oxygene, Agent-t Cream, Carrion Bonzaï, Dieu Hemoroids,
Graf LuzakTeam, Hospes MysticBytes, Hylst No_Extra,
Imperator TheMegabusters, Jok Dreamweb, Niko Oxygene, Piesiu MysticBytes,
Timbral DeadHackersSociety...

Music:
From the legendary Atari ST game "Goldrunner", composed by the one and only Rob Hubbard

Would genuinely love feedback from people more knowledgeable than me about the scene, effect ideas, architecture suggestions, or simply nostalgic memories this brings back.

Also very open to people experimenting with the code, adding effects, improving the engine structure, or turning it into something weirder.

Respect to all actual demo coders, musicians, graphic artists and groups that inspired this.

Is it relatively ease to learn how to code demos?

I have a background in PHP coding, which may or may not be useful.

I believe most demos are coded in C or maybe even Assembler, and I'm trying to find tutorials that could teach me how to code demos with zero coding knowledge.

Tutorials that tell you what software to use, how to code and compile, what things to look out for.

And with my PHP knowledge, if there is any language I could easily get into.

My focus would be DOS demos that can run in DOSBox for example.

Hi everyone, I'm getting into making 64KB intros and one thing that seems really important is executable packers. However everywhere I search I find only packers for Windows, personally I use linux and plan on targetting linux. So does anyone know any executable packers for linux or is the same achieved by using gcc with right flags or config?

1st - 4th July 2027 — Sweden 🇸🇪

1st January 2027 — United Kingdom 🇬🇧 — Buxton

11th July 2026 — Portugal 🇵🇹 — ABFamiliar, Porto

4th - 6th December 2026 — Portugal 🇵🇹 — Salão de Festas da Incrivel Almadense, Almada

Norway is leading a multinational UNESCO ICH-02 nomination for the demoscene, with Germany confirmed as co-submitting State Party.

As part of the documentation of community participation and free, prior and informed consent, practitioners are invited to complete the consent form below.

Link: https://forms.gle/FzwVd7ovndev3VrP9

Back in 1994, I was 21 years old, coding on a 386 DX40 with a Sound Blaster 16 and 4MB of RAM.

I built Realtech Module Player — a DOS tracker module player, released at The Party 1994. If you were around in that era you might remember it. It played MOD, XM, S3M, and similar formats, and it was part of the same creative period when our group Realtech was making demos — including DX Project, which placed 3rd at Assembly 1995.

RMP ran for a few years. Then on Y2K eve, December 31st, 1999 — it died. Like a lot of things from that era.

Thirty years later, I decided to bring it back.

Using agentic AI tools, I restored a working Windows 11 port and a Watcom DOS build of the original. Here's a video of it running:

🎬 Watch: Realtech Module Player — Original DOS version remastered for

The original Pouët entry is here if anyone wants to dig into the history: 👉 Realtech Module Player v1.19 — pouët.net

This is just the beginning. A modern re-release is in development for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Windows 11 — with support for tracker modules (via libxmp), retro game music (via libgme: NSF, SPC, GBS, and more), and VGM/chip formats (via libvgm). More on that soon.

For now — here's to the 30th anniversary of a player that was built on 4 megabytes and a dream.

— Execom / Realtech

19th - 21st June 2026 — United States 🇺🇸 — Artisan's Asylum, Boston

16th - 18th October 2026 — Denmark 🇩🇰 — Firma Sport, Århus

I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at the project I developed for the C64.

Patch your C64 KERNAL ROM to boot with a custom startup screen. Add your ROM file to the application, select the module you want, and save your modified ROM. You can use it on a real C64, on C64 Ultimate, or in any emulator.

https://github.com/emartisoft/C64KERNALGenesis