First time I learned about demos was Q2, but I haven't heard of demos in games released earlier than Quake. Or maybe Doom or Doom II. Not sure.

I was recording demos in Doom quite early but I don't remember when exactly and if Quake was out already or not...

Remember how recording while cheating and then replay and the demo showed like it all should have gone without cheats :D

He looks very confident shooting a predicted single shot with his pistol to the side of his enemy there, running straight into his opponent, being nearly clawed to death and slightly dislocated, continue running into a wall with set focus into absolutely nothing while the imp behind him finishes the job!"

yeah, demos were used since d2, if I recall correctly, as an intro.

Mario Kart

He's probably right, mario kart was in 1991, I'm sure Sega own the "GHOST MODE" patent though.
Of course even the earliest games had intros or attract modes showing the player what to do. that could be argued as a demo (mario etc) but I always think of Mario Kart, even if other games probably did something similiar in principal.

I can still see my bowser tearing around Ghost Valley 1!

SMK, probably the best game ever:)

all the id games such as wolfenstein, doom and quake would play demos when left on the menu screen. as do alot of fps games.

the first demo i ever saw was thresh vs highroller, highroller being the japanese q1 champ at the time and thresh completly owning him.
not sure where i downloaded it from though, might have been off a magazines cover cd?

my first demo was of fatality and some1 from babbages CPL which i got off a pc zone cd :)

was awesome! even tho fata's a munter!

I remember how I recorded demos the first time in Decent I which was originally based on the quake engine.

descent didnt use the quake engine.... plus it was out before quake

Maybe it wasn't Descent I, but another version.
It was a very cool game and the demo feature was new to me.

doom was the first game i downloaded n watched a demo in (pomg)