HELSINKI, Finland -- You know you're hooked on the demo scene when you get so zoned out staring at the computer-generated graphics melting and morphing and mamboing on the big screen, you end up with a serious case of the munchies.
I did not catch one whiff of cannabis wafting through the halls of Hartwall Areena during the four days and three nights of Assembly '01 the world's biggest demo party.
And beer and other alcohol are strictly forbidden, along with cigarettes. But if you don't catch some kind of buzz at the event, something is probably wrong with you.
There is a giddiness and sense of fun that sustains people long after the adrenal glands are shot and the aftertaste of all those greasy pizza slices starts to seem like a permanent companion. These are young people excited about computers and what they can do, and there's an irresistible first-love infectiousness to that excitement.
"Some people even buy a new hard drive for this party, because the Internet connection is so fast," said Toni Syvänen, a sound man with the Assembly live crew. "I bought a new hard drive for this party, a really big one, 60 gigabytes, so I can download demos and movies and other stuff."
Assembly is all about reaching critical mass. One computer alone is not that exciting. Connect it to 100 others and it becomes something more. Set it up on the same floor where one of Helsinki's two ice-hockey teams plays -- and hook it up with more than 2,700 others on a 1 gigabyte connection, and there is an empowering sense of knocking down walls and limits.
Think Vegas. Looking down from above at the sea of flickering and flashing lights on all those machines with all that computing power, it was like glimpsing a darkened casino floor, long after midnight. There was the same electricity in the air, the same sense of frenzied purpose.
That might mean burning out your retinas playing the network game Counter Strike round the clock, as 15-year-old Mikka Rekiaro claimed to be doing. "I just play about 24 hours a day this weekend," he said with a grin.
He and his friends were proud to show off to me, and explain the lightning-quick speed of the network. The monitor showed a server ping time of just 4 milliseconds, compared to more typical speeds of 100 or 200 milliseconds, they said.
It's hard to overemphasize the cosmic or even spiritual aspect of linking up with all that connectivity and power, like being part of Star Trek's Borg collective. Tapping into the network -- to many, at least -- means being a part of a whole and, contrary to some of the grousing from hard-core demo coders, the young gamers seem mostly in awe of demos.
"It's such a beautiful audio and visual show," said Mikka's friend Mikko Ikola, also 15. "The music and video compos are so beautiful."
But Assembly is a party, and that means a full assortment of kicks. A couple dozen beanbag chairs were stretched out before a screen as big as some art theaters house, showing DVDs of recently released Hollywood movies. Lounging while watching George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg shiver under water in that famous boat movie was a surprisingly effective way to recharge for more demo viewing.
Organizers play up the rave aspect of the event, but they might be overselling that just a bit. As my friend Meghan from San Francisco commented after a late-night visit to the Power Play Saloon dance floor, "There's a real energy. No one knows how to dance. But there's a real energy."
A hit diversion of the weekend was the electric-blue, plum-sized Super Balls handed out by a Finnish firm promoting its planned 3G wireless services. Bouncing the balls activated pulsing red lights within, and so they were bouncing all over the place. I grabbed three to do a little juggling, which made for a cool look.
I did not expect to be nearly so energized by the event. But whether it was playing Quake on a Compaq IPAQ in a simulation of 3G gaming, or checking out the vintage computers at alternative demo parties, the event had an agreeable low-key sense of exploration that was consistently surprising. It was, in short, nothing like the look-at-me hype of all the trade shows a Wired News reporter attends.
Sometime on the far side of 4 a.m. Sunday morning, long after my contacts had dried up and any sense of duty as a reporter was extinguished, there I was in the arena stands, watching the Quake 3 finals. My own video-game career probably peaked with Ms. Pac Man or Asteroids twenty years ago, but I could appreciate mastery when I saw it.
And if I needed a little pick-me-up, there was always more pizza.
