Second Reality: 32 Years of Demoscene Excellence
Thirty-two years ago today—October 7, 1993—Future Crew released Second Reality at Assembly ’93 in Helsinki, Finland. It won first place in the PC demo competition and fundamentally changed what people thought was possible on IBM-compatible hardware. For a generation of developers, including myself, it was the moment that transformed computing from a tool into an art form.
I still remember the anticipation. The modem’s carrier tone. The glacial progress bar as the file downloaded from a local BBS at 14.4 kbps. The nervous excitement of typing SECOND.EXE and hoping my 486 DX2/66 was fast enough. Then the screen exploded with impossible graphics, pulsing to a soundtrack that shouldn’t have been possible on PC hardware.
That moment changed everything for me. And today, thanks to modern web technologies, you can experience it too—instantly, in your browser, without downloading anything: doskit.net/?app=secondreality