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Different Types Of Demos
Category
Glossary/Demos

Topic
Here is a cheap undemanding compendium of the most common typologies of demos.

One-file Demo (Demo, Onefiler): is what normally represents a classic demo. A single loading file, generally showing one single screen, or several parts indifferently driven or not by user's intervention. It can differentiate in a vast range of subgenres, from Music Box to Picture Show, Tech Demo and so on.

Intro: size limited onefile demo. There are two cases: a Size Limited Intro due to competition rules (1K Intro, 4K Intro, 256b Intro, examples: Vertical Bars, Stardust); a Crack Intro, small enough to cohabit in one file with a main program, usually a hacked game or introducing a filemagazine, consisting in a cycle running single screen intro. Crack Intros are often called Cracktros, but this is a disputed term in the 8bit demoscene, being largely used in the Amiga and PC Warez scenes, where it indicates a standalone presentation program to be spreaded together with other stuff (examples: Bytesoft Intro is a classic Crack Intro, Intro (Roby YU) can be considered a real Cracktro).

Dentro: halfway between a Demo and an Intro, it consists of several parts, although the whole program lies in one single file, and move on with no need of any interaction (examples: Heartfixer 95%, Killer Among Them).

Megademo: a demo including multiple independent parts loaded in a sequence, usually each part with its own music, which traditionally may require an intervention of the user to procede (examples: Amiga Mania, Crackers' Demo 5).

Trackmo: a Megademo with no need of any intervention from the user, aiming at offering a continuous flow in synchrony with the music, unregarding the occasional loading of separate parts of codes to be run. The term comes from the portmanteau "track+demo", because in order to grant the timeline needed, a loader of physical tracks on the disk ("Trackloader") is used, instead of the usual Kernal loader which follows the file system. Unregarding the original definition, any IRQ based loader system that ensures a synchronized timeline can be used (examples: OVH Is Our King, Promised Land).

Other subgenres: generaly disputed, their diffusion is discouraged but sometimes their definitions can be found yet. Invitro is an intro used as invitation to a party or in general used as call for entries (example: The Beaten Track); Birthro is an intro that introduces a new group or an new user to the scene (example: TTL Is Born); other minor neglectable subgenres are: Wedtro, Xmastro, BBStro.

Keywords
Demo, Intro, Megademo, Trackmo, Cracktro, CrackIntro, Dentro 



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