As announced earlier – here we go with the first instalment of scans from the private archive of Skylab & General Zoff (of New Balance Bochum/The Movers/Elite fame). A truly fascinating glimpse into the 1980s’ C64 and Amiga cracking scene, with too many highlights to mention them all. For those with basic knowledge about the history of the cracking- and demoscene, or those who experienced these times themselves, the list of authors below will already be enough to realise the significance of the archive – and this is only a small portion of what we can expect from it. As for highlights regarding the letters’ content, I’ll just throw in some random aspects: Scottish crackers in 1986; a note from Strider announcing the foundation of Fairlight; Irata’s original letterhead; cracking tips from Mr. Zeropage; German public phone cheating techniques; anxieties over first place in intro greetings; transatlantic flows of material goods; and many more. Enjoy this first instalment – there is more to come!

• Agent Organge/ACA (USA) to The Movers, ~1987 [metadata]
• Axa/X-Men (Finland) to Skylab, late 1980s [metadata]
• Birdy/Scottish Cracking Crew (UK) to Skylab, 30 July 1986 [metadata]
• CPU/Plutonium Crackers (Germany) to New Balance, 16 December 1986 [metadata]
• Honey/1001 Crew (Netherlands) to The Movers, June 1987 [metadata]
• Irata/RSI (Germany) to Skylab, ~1986 [metadata]
• Laffen/TDF (Norway) to The Movers, 1987 [metadata]• Mr Sulu/Doughnut Cracking Service (UK) to New Balance, 1986 [metadata]
• Mr Zeropage/RSI (Germany) to General Zoff, 2 January 1988 [metadata]
• New Balance to Mr Sulu/DCS (UK) [draft], 1986 [metadata]
• New Balance to Paperboy Inc. (Germany) [draft], 7 August 1986 [metadata]
• No. 1 (=Strider)/Fairlight (Sweden) to Skylab, April 1987 [metadata]
• RGB/The Movers (Canada) to Skylab, 1 March 1988 [metadata]
• Skylab to Irata, 1986 [metadata]
• Stingray (USA) to Skylab, 6 April 1989 [metadata]

NB: If the images in the gallery below appear too small to figure out the details, you can always download high-quality scans at the “metadata” links above! There, you can also find some background info for each letter.

Swappers did not just stick floppy disks into envelopes – they also had to put up with a lot of paperwork. Before the era of online communciation, building up trust and keeping social networks intact meant writing paper letters to your contacts. For sceners who communicated a lot through postal channels, it was an obvious choice to print own stationeries / letterheads for higher recognition value and a professional appearance. The task of writing letters, however, could become a time management problem for “mega swappers“, who sent out dozens of envelopes every day. Thus they printed standard blanks where they just needed to tick boxes. The options available on these fill-out forms, ranging from dead serious to rather humorous, served to evaluate the contacts’ previous sendings’ quality, to communicate requests for further software exchanges, and to get messages across. For today’s update, Goat, Lance, Se7en, and Thorion provided us with samples of such swapper stationeries and blanks, which were common in the late 1980s and early 1990s all over the global scene – from Denmark to Australia, from Germany to Hungary.

• Danish Science letter blank, 1989 [metadata]
• Faces stationery, 1991 [metadata]
• Level 99 (TLI) stationery, 1989 [metadata]
• Rock’n Role stationery, 1991 [metadata]
• Stardom letter blank, 1989 [metadata]
• Syllinor/Chromance stationery, 1991 [metadata]
• The Force letter blank, 1989 [metadata]
• Thorion/Targets letter blank, early 1990s [metadata]

NB: If the images in the gallery below appear too small to figure out the details, you can always download high-quality scans at the “metadata” links above!