Listed here are the most crucial resources on the history of the cracking– and demoscene – repositories of digitised materials as well as databases on involved individuals and digital artefacts. This list is constantly growing – please feel free to get in touch if you think anything is missing.
DIGITISED MATERIALS
got papers? @ files.scene.org – Here you can browse the artefacts that are digitised in the course of this project – complete with useful metadata.
Scene Letters – Over 1500 scanned letters written by sceners while mailswapping – from the collection of Australian ex-swapper The Heavyweight/Affinity.
mags.c64.org – Our partner site, run by Jazzcat/Onslaught, featuring the probably most complete collection of C64 magazines, including many on paper.
Paper releases @ demozoo.org – Paper releases (flyers, magazines etc.) at our partner site Demozoo.
Retro Commodore – A site offering a large selection of high quality scans of magazines and other materials related to Commodore computers, also featuring a small section of scene-related stuff.
Computer Magazine Archives @ archive.org – A large collection of scanned computer magazines from the early days of home computing.
World of Spectrum – Features a vast archive of ZX Spectrum-related magazines and game adverts.
The Finnish demoscene badge collection – Scans of badges from the Finnish demoscene, assembled by the group Byterapers.
Byterapers’ Historical Photo Archive – Photos from old Scandinavian copy- and demoparties, assembled and scanned by Byterapers.
Cpcrulez.fr Fanzines Papier – Large collection of (mostly French) scanned fanzines/scene-mags/usermags from the Amstrad CPC platform.
World of Jani – C64 Disk Covers – C64 disk cover collection of Swedish blogger Jani.
SCENE DATABASES & ARCHIVES
Demozoo – Our partner site – a new demoscene database featuring entries on individuals, releases and events.
Scene.org – The largest demoscene archive, covering over 25 years of scene history. Hosting the got papers? files.
Pouet.net – The lively demoscene database and forum, a heartpiece of contemporary demoscene discussions.
Commodore Scene Database (CSDb) – The most comprehensive database of scene releases and activities on the Commodore 64 – from the very early days until today.
Scrolltexts.com – The Blogs of the 80’s – A fulltext-searchable database of scrolltexts extracted from over 90,000 Commodore C64 releases.
Amigascne.org – FTP server hosting the most comprehensive collection of Amiga scene releases, including a collection of extracted scrolltexts.
Demotopia / Zxdemo.org – Database of ZX Spectrum scene activities and releases.
SpeccyWiki – Comprehensive encyclopedia of individuals and groups active in the ZX Spectrum scene (in Russian).
Break’s Amiga Demo Scene Collection – Database built by Finnish demoscene veteran Break.
Kestra Bitworld – Comprehensive database on releases and people active in the Amiga cracking- and demoscene.
Icebird Acorn Demo Archive – Archive of demoscene productions released on the Acorn platform.
Game Boy Demospotting – Database of demoscene productions released on the Game Boy handheld console platform and its follow-up models.
CPC Crackers – Resource on crackers active on the Amstrad CPC platform.
Slengpung – Photo site of demoscene events, going from the late 1980s until today.
RESEARCH
Demoscene Research Blog – Blog run by scene researchers Markku Reunanen, Antti Silvast, and Gleb J. Albert. Here you can find out about the latest books and papers published on the crack- and demoscene-related subjects, a list of former and current researchers working on the topic, and a comprehensive bibliography of scene-related publications in several languages.