The Amiga computer was launched in 1985 as an advanced personal and gaming computer. Many hobbyist computer programmers, graphic artist, and musicians took hold of this platform and created spectacular programs to show off their talent and the Amiga's capabilities. Over the past several decades, many talented individuals created amazing works of art unseen and unknown to world outside the small Amiga computer and demo scene. The Amiga only survived for a decade, but these demonstrations will live on forever. This second volume of MindCandy explores the world of creative real-time animated music videos created to run on the Amiga computer platform. The DVD covers fifteen years of demo evolution with thirty of the best Amiga demos created. All the demos were captured or rendered using original Amiga hardware. This disc is the result of four years of on-, off-, and very much on-again work by four people and many helpful others.

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Audio commentary Each demo has an audio track discussing the demo, from either the original demo creators, other fans and experts, or ourselves. Subtitles By popular demand from our non-native-English-speaking friends, the commentary is now accompanied by subtitles, in no fewer than three languages: English, French, and German. Original and 5.1 channel soundtracks All demos feature both the original stereo soundtrack, captured straight from Amiga hardware, and a surround sound track, rebuilt from the audio samples contained within the demo music files. 12-page full color booklet Once again the package contains a large booklet, with info on every demo, along with a timeline of Amiga demos, credits, and various other tidbits of information. Production notes Volume 2's production notes go beyond the first, with a full audio track, photos, and in-progress screenshots and animations. No enthusiast (read: geek ;) ) stone is left unturned, as we share just how much a pain reviving old hardware can be. New playback modes For fun, we've added two new playback modes - shuffle, which plays demos back randomly - every time you put in the disc - and jukebox, which allows you to play up to a dozen demos in the order you want. We used a few tricks to get them working on all DVD players, but isn't that what demo coding is all about? Animated menus In addition to the "multi-demo" select screens, now the main menus get some new animation. Prepare for the unexpected!

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A 19-minute film, created exclusively for MindCandy Volume 2: Amiga Demos by Blue7 Media

The "demo party" has deep roots in the underground realm of home computing. First, kids gathered in school gyms and empty halls to trade copies of the latest games. They presented themselves as "cracker" groups and put little intros in front of the games on the disks they spread.. until the police showed up! Those who took the intro making more seriously (as well as the law!) continued meeting in larger halls with like-minded chums, now competing to see who can get the best code, music, and graphics out of a computer. Almost as weird and wacky as the partygoers themselves were all the tweaked and customized Commodores, Ataris, and PCs brought together. In the days before LAN, floppy disks were swapped from machine to machine.. and hurled into the air, in more extravagant outdoor competitions.

In 2003, shortly after the release of MindCandy Volume 1, the crew embarked on a trip from America to Germany, to witness one of the largest and last of the traditional demoparties - no gaming, no outside network. This new event was called Breakpoint, a successor to the wildly successful Mekka & Symposium which united countries and computers into one informal melting pot of drinking, dancing, and freestyle computing. Not knowing quite what to say, the crew just turned on their cameras and microphones and let the experience document itself.