[demoscene] What among hackers is
called a display hack. Classical effects include "plasma"
(colorful mess), "keftales" (x*x+y*y and other similar
patterns, usually combined with color-cycling), realtime fractals,
realtime 3d graphics, etc. Historically, demo effects have cheated
as much as possible to gain more speed and more complexity, using
low-precision math and masses of assembler code and building
animation realtime are three common tricks, but use of special
hardware to fake effects is a Good Thing on the demoscene
(though this is becoming less common as platforms like the Amiga
fade away).
munching squares: n. A {display hack} dating back to the PDP-1
(ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs
a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T
for successive values of T --- see {HAKMEM} items 146--148) to
produce an impressive display of moving and growing squares that
devour the screen....
munching squares n.
A display hack dating back to the
PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which
employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X
XOR T for successive values of T -- see HAKMEM items
146-148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing
squares that devour the screen....
