Demonic (frequently stylized as “Demonic Productions”) was an underground BBS modding and coding group founded in late 1996 and remaining semi-active until around 2006.
In BBS terms, modding describes making modifications to BBS software (or an individual BBS setup) in order to customize its appearance and/or functionality. The modding scene consisted of SysOps, programmers, and other hackers with a passion for producing these modifications for public consumption, typically releasing and distributing them as part of a modding group, similar to the other groups, such as art scene groups, demo groups, and warez/cracking groups, that sprung out of the underground computer scenes in the 1980s and 1990s. These modifications themselves were released in a wide variety of formats, from source code snippets and guides and tutorials, to compiled programs such as standalone utilities and “door” programs.
Demonic originally sought to pair simple yet creative mods based on replacement display files, menu files, and scripts for specific BBS software with larger, more complex, multi-software doors and utilities, with an early focus on above average artwork and releasing source code, which was relatively uncommon at the time. Uniquely, Demonic also had the support of many BBS software authors, with members involved in closed testing for projects like iDT’s Iniquity releases, Team ITC’s INSTiNCT BBS, and Nivenh’s (and later Horrid’s) Impulse, and even counting Voivode (Illusion) and g00r00 (Mystic) among our ranks.
Unlike many such groups, Demonic sought to carry on the tradition of releasing art scene style mod “packs” as popularized by groups like Illness, FiRM, Cream, and TRiC, collecting various unreleased productions into a single archive. We originally released packs every other month but quickly lost any semblance of a consistent release schedule, ending up with 7 total packs before switching to an individual release model in late 1998. By the time the group finally burned out we had over 220 releases under our belt, supporting BBS software such as Daydream, Eternity, Illusion, Impulse, Infusion, Iniquity, Instinct, Mystic, Nexus/2, Oblivion/2, PCBoard, Renegade, Synchronet, Telegard, and WWIV.
As of September 2022, Demonic has been resurrected!
View and download our current releases here (updated 12/2024)
Stay tuned for articles about Demonic’s history, information about its releases, both new and classic, and much more in the coming months!
Other notable articles related to Demonic:
- Demonic Newsletter 4/2023 Edition – Group updates from April 2023.
- Demonic Newsletter 9/2022 Edition – Group updates from September 2022.
- Demonic is back! – A quick news post about Demonic’s resurrection.
- All posts tagged with Demonic.
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1. Demonic by Kargus, released in Demonic #6 – 6/98 (1998)
Went on a nostalgia trip and ended up here. I see there is a new version out of Mystic BBS. Just downloaded it to have a look. Will be back..
glad to see the gang is getting back together! i’ve also been back into retro stuff heavily recently
after all this time theres never been a slicker board than Distortion.
wonder why that is?
Ha! I mean, there are plenty of equally or (maybe) even more awesome boards out there, but Distortion has staying power, at least. 😉
Wow what a trip this nostalgic BBS software is …..love it and miss the 80s and 90s
Hey, today I checked out my telnet clients again to connect to a BBS I found.
I love the look and feel of Netrunner. It’s just cooler than other Telnet clients I think.
Any chance you could find a way that it’s possible to enter a colon : (for port) using german keyboard (in windows)? I tried all the keys and it drove me nuts (lol) until I found out it’s only possible using the english keyboard. That’d be great, cheers!
That’s an interesting one! I’ll pass that along to g00r00, the author of Netrunner. Some other TCP/IP clients use a space instead of a colon (as-in “host.com 23”) so perhaps that could be an option.