pouët.net

hey bonzaj! yes, i did, thanks a lot for them once again! i just didn't have time to make metadata sheets for them yet.

In previous updates, we treated you to letters from the scene‘s top protagonists. But what about the countless average guys whom these “elites” would usually have considered “lamers”, but who were, in fact, the backbone of the formers’ popularity – by spreading their products and making their names “big” in the first place. The voices of these bystanders and “rank and file” sceners are a blank spot in scene preservation, as they often left no traces in terms of releases. Luckily, with the letter collection of Thorion (a.k.a. Thomas or Smily), we can make a step towards closing this gap. In the letters exchange between him and his Amiga penpals around 1990, one gets a glimpse of teenage computer fans swapping PD software and demos (and the occasional “Raubi”, as in “pirate copy”), following the developments of the scene, teaching each other scene-related skills, and occasionally making it to the ranks of the “elites” (like Thorion himself, who would do a brief stunt as graphics artist in TRSI in 1992 before quitting the Amiga world altogether).

You can download the scans of these 32 (German-language) letters, complete with metadata, here – or view them in the gallery below.

And as a bonus, the collection includes a document from a different fringe of the scene – namely pirate groups who would branch out into the “real” shadow economy, selling software and hardware for hard cash. The detailed advert from the Amiga group Vision Factory, offering all sorts of illicit computer products, can be downloaded here. According to a long-time VF member, this operation was maintained by two members from Northern Germany, without any coordination with the group leadership (and without sharing any of the profits)…

CLICK THE IMAGE FOR THE GALLERY:

Interesting yet funny at the same time =)

There haven’t been any C64 disk covers here for a while, so here are some from Cupid‘s collection. They stem from 1993 to 1998, and include some real gems.

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Nice covers! There seem to be a couple of duplicate links though (the Hitmen and Ingenious Brain links both go to the previous covers instead)

(the scene.org links, that is, not the image-only links)

Today we present you with some more Amiga disks from the collection of Thorion a.k.a. Smily, a German Amiga swapper and graphics artist who was active in the late 1980s and the early 1990s and whose letters we featured here some months ago. Full of stickers and scribbles, they remind us about the materiality of data exchange in the era before the mass availability of the internet.

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Once again we are proud to present a few documents from a rare genre – criminal proceedings against scene members. This time, it’s C64 scener TMA/Abyss Connection who supplied us with documents from the proceedings of the criminal case against him in 1990-1991.

CLICK & READ ON:

Oh, and you can follow Got Papers? on Twitter now: https://twitter.com/GotPapers1337

We’re back with some materials that remind you of the materiality of “warez trading” in the 1980s. In these envelopes from The Movers‘ collection, floppy disks with the newest C64 and Amiga cracks and demos travelled around Europe between 1986 and 1988. Most people reused them and ultimately threw them away, but luckily these guys didn’t. There’s a whole box of them in our office now, and here’s just a small selection – featuring sendings from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

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We’re back from a long hiatus – with some spectacular material! In another instalment of scans from the archive of legendary Dutch C64 coder Honey of the 1001 Crew, we present you with letters that were written to him by a equally legendary scene protagonist: Mr. Z, the founder of the famous Swedish C64 cracking group Triad. Written throughout the year of 1987, these eight long letters are a treasure trove in various aspects. If you are a veteran cracker yourself, or simply someone who is interested in copy protection, you will enjoy reading a top cracker discussing protection methods and their circumvention – especially since in one of the later letters, Mr. Z offers to write the copy protection for Honey’s first commercial game. And this is another aspect of interest for those who are into home computing and scene history: Here, we can observe a generation of elite sceners making their first steps from the subculture into the industry – while still being basically schoolkids, discussing sophisticated code and their first business deals alongside the latest pranks and scene gossip. Finally, the letters document Mr. Z’s pullout from Triad and from the scene altogether – with school and “real life” taking hold over someone whose group was adored by tens of thousands computer kids worldwide.

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Thanks to the efforts of Lotek Style, we were able to receive materials that are among the oldest we have. Old German Atari cracker Arthur Dent from the group Copy Service Stuttgart (founded in 1983-84!) has kept these five stickers for over 30 years. They show that as early as in the mid-1980s, cracking groups were into clever “culture jamming” and appropriated well-known trademarks with a pinch of humour.

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Just wanted to say <3 <3 <3 for this project :) Keep up the awesome work!

Yes, lots of interesting letters etc.

what psonice said!

and those Mr.Z - Letters are GOLD indeed! :)

wau O_O :D

Today, we are happy to present to you the first batch of a new letter collection that was provided to us by C64 scener Arny from Austria, active in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a graphics artist in the group Cosmos as well as its game development spin-off Cosmos Designs. We begin with the letters from the time when he was member of the Austrian group The Softkiller-Crew (TSK) back in 1988.

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After all the 1980s stuff, here are some more-or-less recent demoparty materials for a change. Arlequin contributed a few flyers from the Flash Party in Argentina, which was running from 1998 to 2007 (and is getting relaunched in 2018). Gentleman discovered an amazing graffiti poster from Evoke 1997, the very first Evoke edition. And Hedning contributed some materials from Gubbdata 2016, a cozy C64 party that took place in Sweden – these materials are consciously modelled in 1980s copy-party style. Speaking of demoparties – Outline 2018 is taking place this weekend in the Netherlands, and this is a good chance to have a chat and pass me some scene papers!

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Awesome stuff man, keep up the good work!

Once again, some unusual Atari stuff. Lotek Style gave us the complete run of The New Mutant, a photocopied paper zine by his (nowadays quite well-known) Atari ST demogroup The Sirius Cybernetic Corporation (tSCc). This very peculiar magazine, published between 1992 and 1994 in German language, features content somewhere between music news, cyberpunk themes, and general teenage sillyness. Not much scene content, though – but hey, it’s an early product of a demoscene group.

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H.O from the legendary Swedish C64 cracking group Science 451 gave us a bunch of invitations from Scandinavian copyparties (plus a German one) from 1987 to 1989. These are among the oldest party materials we have here. Expect more from H.O’s collection!

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Another addition to our growing archive of swapletters: Jugger of Panic, a well-known early 1990s Amiga pack editor and swapper from Germany, gave us his letters! Here is a first batch with 15 letters from all over the world, from Iceland to South Africa and Paraguay (!).

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Wonderful work Gleb +team! It brought a smile to my face on a rainy day reading the letters! :)

yeah, reading these instantly kicks you back in time and opens your oldskool-heart! I love it! :)
Those were the Days!

Nice stuff :) that evoke 97 logo rulez btw :)