This Java applet dates back to September 1996, but has been based on a much older demo I wrote for the Acorn Archimedes RISC computer. The character set used to create the text is even older, and probably dates back to my Sinclaire ZX Spectrum days. A more advanced version, Wave 2 animation, can also be viewed.
The Acorn Archimedes demo is a spin-off from a project I did during one of my internships back in 1989. The original program I wrote was a 3D graph drawing application which was updated by a pressure measurement mat consisting of 256 small elements. This mat was used to measure the pressure distribution caused by the human body when sitting on something. Another mat was assembled on top of a bicycle saddle. It was great fun to see the bar graph being updated several times a second when someone actually was cycling.