Since 2002 there’ve been annual ‘scene.org awards’. Organised by people from the demoscene and with a changing jury every year, these are the most acknowledged annual awards for insiders – the Grammy’s for the demoscene. Here are the 8bit nominations from their list.

What could you say in 256 characters? To get an idea; it’s a little more than one and a half text messages on your mobile phone. Now if you had to program something in 256 characters, what would, or maybe mostly could that be?

The practice of introducing artificial limits on already naturally limited hardware is something that has grown to become an artform of its own in the demoscene. In 2006, at the annual Breakpoint party in Bingen, Germany, this artform had one of its finest hours.

“Relations between Soviet Russia and computers were always a bit obscure, especially, when it comes to foreign models, not officially exported in Russia. But, if one wants trace the roots of Russian demoscene, especially on spectrum, one should dig into 80’s, when the first generation of radio amateurs built their first machines.”

The 8bit communities have adapted to trends like podcasts. Since 2008 has nearly ended, it’s time to mention a small selection of those wonderful compilations which are a must-have on your mp3 player.