pouët.net

Now that the summer holidays are beginning, here are some examples of a rather forgotten genre of swapletters – tourist postcards! 1980s’ sceners were mostly teenagers, so, besides chasing up originals to crack, doing fascinating things with computers, and travelling to the occasional copyparty, they also attended school, had arguments with their parents, and, of course, went on vacation. The fascinating samples provided by Honey, Skylab, and Lynx show that they did so with mixed feelings: One the one hand, they enjoyed the holidays, but on the one hand, they were anxious about missing out on latest scene news. So, even in such a fascinating place as Leningrad in 1988, one scener was more concerned with ongoing C64 game projects at home than with the perestroika mood around him. Another common trait was the fascination of teenage sceners with half-naked women – so keep in mind that some of the images are rather NSFW. But most importantly, these postcards testify to the strong sense of friendship within the scene: Despite the fierce competition, the protagonists found time to simply send regards to their contacts around the world, whereever they went.

CLICK:

Maldives, Barcelona, Ibiza, Greece... Birkenhead. Someone definitely drew the short straw there :-D

Or, maybe, someone just left the EU? :)

Today, we give you some stickers, disk covers, and paper notes which hedning managed to secure from the collection of Zeta, a cracker, coder and musician who was active in the Swedish C64 scene in the late 1980s. Some well-known and some less-known names from the Scandinavian and international scene. Enjoy!

CLICK:

It’s no secret that crackers and demoscene coders produced their own tools – not just for internal purposes, but also for others to use, and even to buy. Today we bring you a selection of scene-related manuals that reached us during the past months - including the one from the legendary 1001 Card Cruncher!

CLICK:

After presenting you the first batch from the Honey/1001 Crew collection a while ago, here is the second instalment. The letters stem from the period between 1986 and 1987, when many of the C64 crackers and groups that later should become legendary were in their infancy, yet Honey was already a star due to his legendary stunt of breaking the screen border and the subsequent media attention. Among the letters’ authors are names like Mr. Pinge/Relax (later of Triad), Irata/Red Sector Inc., and The Mercenary Cracker aka Charles Deenen.

CLICK:

Thanks to the preservation efforts of AVH/Radwar, we present another lost issue of the legendary Illegal magazine. Issue 21, released in September 1987, is mostly written in German and features news and gossip from the C64 cracking scene alongside with game reviews. Due to the fact that the scanned original consists of unnumbered A4 sheets folded in half, we cannot be certain that the order of the pages is correct. Also, the copy quality is rather bad, but it’s probably the only copy left.

CLICK:

A while ago, in proper mail swapping fashion, we received a few thick envelopes from London full of scene artefacts. The sender was Cupid, a prolific C64 graphics artist and diskmagazine editor active in the 1990s, and nowadays a sought-after IT professional. Today, we present you with some stickers and votesheets from his collection.

CLICK:

The Atari scene was largely absent from “Got Papers” until now – but luckily, Atari scene archivist Lotek Style provided us with some demoparty and meeting invitations, flyers and tickets from the 1990s, including some rare ones. A particularly interesting tradition of Atari parties seems to be the translation of the invitations into multiple language, demonstrated by the rather awkward German flyers in this batch. Hopefully we can present more Atari stuff soon!

CLICK:

While going through the letter archives of Honey/1001 and Skylab & General Zoff/The Movers, I stumbled upon two letters that stood out from the rest – not because the authors were particularly “elite” or because they revealed some spectacular secrets, but because they were sent from late-socialist Yugoslavia. These artefacts from a long gone past point to a less-known aspect of the early cracking scene that ought to be explored in depth: The transnational connections between cracking groups in the “centres” and semi-commercial software piracy in the “periphery”.

CLICK TO READ ON:

Our quest for lost issues of the legendary papermag “Illegal” continues – and we just got a big step closer towards “catching ’em all”. Thanks to AVH/Radwar, here are issues #28, #32, #34, #35, and #38 (the last one). Stemming from between 1988 and 1991, the magazine’s phase of highest influence in the C64 cracking scene, these issues feature graphics by Hobbit/Fairlight and, inbetween a lot of silly nonsense, a wealth of materials and information on the scene.

CLICK:

I know it's silly really but I'd love to see some fakies (Jiffy bags with bookbinding tape or other high quality clear tape over the stamps so that the postmarks could be wiped off and the whole thing reused by your contact). Indispensable to us postal traders too poor for modems circa early 90s. Although the postmark could be wiped off, they always picked up other random international marks / air mail stickers /etc.

Some of the fakies that crossed my letterbox had serious providence and had made multiple trips around Europe, often ending up with multiple repair jobs and enough stickers to look like a typical modern-scener laptop lid. I used to really love the fakies as well as the awesome wares inside.

Surprised none have been submitted yet, at least I don't see any when browsing. Really wish I'd kept some of mine. Anyone out there still got a stash?

@Fell: since traders used to send these stamps back and forth ("stamps back"), and then threw them away when they started to look too shabby, it's something pretty hard to come by. I have a whole box of envelopes from the Movers collection, which are still to be scanned, but they either have their stamps cut out, or have simply normal, unmodified stamps on them.

Awesome work btw with this project, keep up the good work!

Here are some new additions to the archive: demoparty materials from the 1990s to the 2010s, donated by Thoron (Finland) and Willy (Poland). Now we have an nice collection of visitor badges from the Riverwash and Symphony demoparty series, two more visitor brochures so typical for 1990s demoparties, and two AltParty 2008 posters – one of them announcing the legendary EBM band Front 242, who really played a gig there.

CLICK:

We are very happy to have another swapletters archive at our disposal. Austrian C64 scener AD/Alpha Flight sent us a large box filled with letters from back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was known as Rough, lived in Germany, and was members of illustrous groups such as Chromance, The Ancient Temple, and Hitmen. Today, we give you the first batch of this rich collection, reflecting the scope of Rough’s contacts and bearing some scene history gems – such as two letters by the legendary Hungarian scener Mr. Wax; a circular letter of a C64 coder offering his intro programming services for money; or the invitation letter to an obscure copyparty.

CLICK:

“…so keep the paper-letters!”, insisted Hungarian swapper Messerschmitt in a letter to his German penpal Gentleman (also known as Risk and Galahad). And, luckily, he did! We are happy to put online his small paper archive, containing Amiga scene materials from the period between 1994 and 1998. Apart from letters from all over Europe, there are some demoparty– and diskmagazine-related flyers and, most interestingly, a nice collection of Ami-Expo/World of Commodore/Computer trade fair tickets. These trade fairs, held in Cologne/Germany, were an important meeting point for sceners.

CLICK:

Nice! Good to see more high quality scans.

Finally, here is part 3 from the vast collection of letters kindly given to us by Honey of 1001 Crew. They stem from 1986-1988, the heyday of C64 the cracking scene, and among the authors you can find prominent figures such as Weetibix/Scouse Cracking Group and Ixion/Triad. The letters allow a glimpse into the inner workings of the international C64 cracking circuit, full of high passion about greeting lists, flame wars, stolen trade secrets, and, last not least, friendship across borders. Enjoy, and expect more very soon!

CLICK:

Haha, to see some of my old swap-letters in the Gentleman-Collection...undescribable!
I wonder if more of my old letters will turn up in the future!

Thanks again for doing all of this! ♥

signed...
cOcOOn/Vision

gotta ask Immortal Rat if he still has the sketch he drew in Rábaparti (us some sceners went to camping) of all of us lying around, in about 3 minutes. it looked amazing, it features dfj, tomcat, vickey, dc-1, voy, me etc.

Many active demosceners know XXX as a tireless organiser, being a driving force behind the Haujobb demogroup and the Evoke demoparty, and a well-known party animal. Far less known, however, are his roots in the early 1990s Amiga scene as a member of the group Agnostic Front. A while ago, XXX provided us with some scene stickers from the time period, which we are finally able to put online. Of particular interest is the “Business Rules… and Friendship sucks” sticker from 1993. This sticker, a poignant commentary on the elitist thinking and commercialization of the early 1990s Amiga scene, was produced by the “Friendship Movement”, an alliance of Amiga groups initiated by the group Spreadpoint. The background of this initiative can be read in an article in the Amiga diskmag Stolen Data from 1990.

CLICK:

got one of the “Business Rules… and Friendship sucks” sticking on one of my diskboxes :)
very nice ANIMATORS sticker!

thanks for the awesome job dudes <3

After a break, we can present you another instalment of the vast New Balance Bochum / The Movers collection. This time it’s not just letters, but also party invitations, stickers, and other artefacts from the European 1980s C64 / Amiga cracking scene. There are highly interesting materials among these papers, such as shopping lists for originals in London; a contemporary memberlist of Elite (which was kept secret at the time); an early circular letter from Fairlight; Venlo party tickets; and much more… You can find detailed information on many of the documents, including details provided by Skylab, in the metadata sheets.

CLICK:

Hi dipswitch :). A lot of great works here. Did you scan my badges already? Cheers!