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this is wicked! gonna play about with it live real soon

I stand corrected! I remember you from 8bc, environmental sound collapse! how have you been?
so what places were the stalwarts of the scene in the early 2000s then?

Sycamore! I remember you also. I think we were both starting out at the same time. How you doing, got any new music out?

I'm not the most qualified person to speak on this (I only discovered the scene in 2007) but I can paint you a rough timeline:

1980s/90s - actual demoscene / hardcore OG chiptuning. google or wiki demoscene and you'll get an idea of how chiptune/8bit music was actually born

begin of the 2000s chiptune began to establish crossover appeal. ease of use plus relatively famous artists (beck, Björk, crystal castles) led to (for example) the babycakes (a scene-kid/emo/??? clothing brand) endorsement, with artists like henry homesweet (a lovely chap whom I met in my hometown or Norwich once) playing huge raves. sabrepulse also had some pretty big internet fame, followed by colonopenbracket etc. there was definitely a lot of emo/scene-kid hype towards 2006-2010.

throughout the early 2000s 8bitcollective was active, 8bitpeoples put out some fantastic records with growing publicity, 8bitfest was putting on awesome lineups. nonfiniteelectronics and kitsch bent were enabling basically anyone to make chiptune who had 80 quid to spare. every week a new form of pro sound or backlighting was being discussed and perfected. I was very active on 8bc, the scene was basically my life 2007/2008, and it was a great time (for me at least) to be in the community. although a lot of the older heads were already complaining about how mainstream it was getting, that n00bs were asking the same questions, that all the music was just uhhn-tiss uhnn-tis.

so basically, the scene was born from a fringe-movement, and experienced a temporary boom in popularity due to mainstream adoption. 8bitcollective closing didn't help (man, I was fucking gutted when it went) and over the years more and more of the pillars crumbled. so we've essentially come somewhat full circle to where the movement started.

I'll be honest though, personally I see a lasting impact from these years of 'boom'. I was just recently visiting a mate at his uni department and saw two kids with "I my gameboy" stickers, my mate introduced me to them as they're both getting into chip tunes and had some questions. didn't see anyone into 8bit when I did my degree 7 years ago, and when I was gigging 8bit stuff I never once met someone who knew what the hell I was doing. I feel the public consciousness has definitely absorbed chiptune, but the actual scene has reverted to being more nerd/hardcore, which I think is a good thing. I came to 8 bit via Mark Denardo and the Mark VII hiphop remixes, but I may not have stuck around had it not seemed so alive and accessible, I'll be honest.

So, to answer your question:
In my opinion, chiptune is as it always has been. It just went through a bit of a hype for a few years.
Anyway! This is all just the subjective view from a dude who played a lot of gigs in bumfuck norfolk when he was a teen. might look completely different to someone closer to the heart of the scene (New York? Central Europe?)

man, can you please respond to emails?
i was wondering if you'd sent of the microkontrol yet..
cheers
x

if you pay for postage, i'll send several of these your way
i have around 7  back pcbs