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Mars DOS demo by Tim Clarke (1993)

Name: Mars DOS demo by Tim Clarke (1993)
Description: A one-minute capture of Tim Clarke's 1993 'Mars' DOS demo, a roughly 5 KB program that renders a navigable terrain landscape in real time.

Sean Barrett

Demos

YouTube

2 HN users recommended this demo2 months2016–2025 score 2.5

Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Remembered fondly as a tiny, efficient demo that inspired graphics programmers and is a benchmark for modern terrain rendering.

A one-minute capture of Tim Clarke's 1993 'Mars' DOS demo, a roughly 5 KB program that renders a navigable terrain landscape in real time.

“I saw Mars demo which hooked me forever on the path of graphics programming.” (HN, 2016)

1 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 3 citations · Demos

Demoscene & retrocomputing Computer graphics & rendering Demos Computing History & Culture

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@Keyframe Jun 2016 Strongly recommends

on HN thread Source code for 4kb demoscene production “Elevated” released

Second Reality was the best. First demo that I saw was Spaceballs' State of the art [link] and I vividly remember of thinking 'wtf is that, a video or what?' and then Second Reality a year later or so - [link] But then (I look all and every demo out there by then at the age of 13) I saw Mars demo [this video] which hooked me forever on the path of graphics programming.

Demo that inspired a career in graphics programming

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@reconnecting Jul 2025 Recommends

on HN thread MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

It's amazing what people achieved with the resources of the '80s, creating fairly enjoyable visuals using extremely limited technology. Another example from the early '90s is MARS.COM (1) by Tim Clarke (1993). Just 6 kilobytes and 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 (2). 1. [this video] 2. [link]

6KB terrain demo running at 30+ fps on a 286

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Citations, criticism and jokes

@cousin_it Jan 2016 Cites it

on HN thread Voxel.css

Voxels are the most expensive way to model a 3D shape, and browser CSS is the slowest way to render a 3D shape. These two were made for each other. The next step is to reimplement the Mars DOS demo [1] using voxels in the browser, and marvel at the slowdown compared to 1993. It's discouraging that we're supposed to cheer for progress even when it's headed backwards. [1] [this video]

Efficient 1993 terrain demo contrasted with slow modern CSS voxels

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@marcusjt Jan 2020 Cites it

on HN thread Terrain rendering algorithm in less than 20 lines of code

Here's a video of it in action, for those unfamiliar, the poster had also included a link to its location at Pouet [this video]

Shows the terrain demo in action

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@velosol Jul 2023 Cites it

on HN thread Demoscene accepted as UNESCO cultural heritage in The Netherlands

Thinking about demos brought me right back to probably one of the first things I downloaded, the 'controllable' Mars demo [1,2]. I zoomed around that landscape in the way a child can pour hours into what anyone older would view as painfully repetitive. Based on the YT comments it's been done at shadertoy too: [link] [1]: [link] [2]: [this video]

Controllable Mars demo remembered fondly

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