Ancient C64/Amiga Pirate Materials

Thanks to a generous donation by an anonymous veteran, we are happy to present you the oldest scene materials that have been displayed on “Got Papers?” up to now. They stem from a time when the Amiga home computer was new and exciting, when the boundaries between “legal” and “illegal” were virtually non-existing, when it was perfectly okay to sell cracked games and still be a respected scene member, and when some of the nowadays legendary cracking groups were still in their infancy. These artifacts are so ephemeral that it’s only by chance that they survived until now. These ten stickers and paper cuttings are just one portion of the materials donated. Watch this space for more.

• 1001 and the Cracking Crew sticker, between 1985 and 1988 [metadata]
• “Commodore Amiga – Computer des Jahres 1986” sticker, 1986 [metadata]
• Antitrax 2010 sticker, around 1987-1988 [metadata]
• Bamiga Sector One sticker, around 1987-1988 [metadata]
• “Die ganz persönliche Zulassung” – sticker by the Chaos Computer Club, 1980s [metadata]
• Fairlight sticker, 1987 [metadata]
• Future Projects 20550 flyer, between 1985 and 1988 [metadata]
• Mc. Crack sticker, between 1986 and 1987 [metadata]
• Radwar Enterprises 1941 sticker, between 1985 and 1990 [metadata]
• Police cartoon of unknown origin, 1980s [metadata]

Volunteers Wanted!

Since its launch in April 2015, “Got Papers?” saved nearly 200 artifacts from the mid-1980s to the present from sceners‘ shelves, basements and attics, scanned them in high resolution, supplied them with metadata, and put them on ftp.scene.org to be preserved for future generations of sceners and scene researchers alike.

The problem, however, is that there are about just as many artifacts waiting to be processed and categorised, and there is more and more coming in every week. As much as I am thrilled about the fact that the project evoked such a massive response, it turns out that it’s quite hard to maintain it as essentially a one-man-project, and this is why I’m wondering whether there are any volunteers that would like to help me in this undertaking.

The task would be to process and categorise digitised images, do research on them via the existing demoscene databases, enter the available info into a metadata sheet, and rename the files according to a particular system.

The ideal persons would

• have a deep interest in the preservation of scene history across platforms;
• have at least basic knowledge of scene history on some of the main platforms;
• be familiar with the most important scene databases (Demozoo, Pouet, CSDb, Kestra Bitworld, Mags.c64.org);
• possess good English skills in writing;
• have some free time on their hands and be able to stick to commitments agreed upon (you take over responsibility over only as many images as you think you can manage, but if you do, please try to get them done in time).

Even while the project is officially endorsed by a university, unfortunately there is no funding involved (yet), neither for me, nor for any other participants. However, you will, of course, be listed on the website as part of the team, and generations of sceners will be thankful for your contribution to preserving their history.

If you are able and willing to help, please do get in touch.

C64 Votesheets (Fzool Collection #1)

This is the first of many additions from Fzool‘s collection. Active in the C64 scene in the 1990s, he provided us with over 100 disk covers, votesheets, flyers and many other fascinating artifacts from a period when the lion’s share of cracking activities took place on the PC and the Amiga, while the C64 remained to be a crucial demoscene platform. The first instalment consists of votesheets for C64 diskmags.

• Arachnophobia votesheet, 1997 [link]
• Attitude #2 votesheet, 2000 [link]
• Blasphemy votesheet, 1990s [link]
• Channel II votesheet, 1999 [link]
• Colony News votesheet, between 1997 and 1999 [link]
• Dimension votesheet, 1998 [link]
• Domination votesheet, 1990s [link]
• Insider votesheet, 1998 [link]
• Mozkit votesheet, 1999 [link]
• News Press votesheet, between 1998 and 1999 [link]

News 3/1989 – Another Lost Cracker Mag Resurfaced

After providing us with News #7/1988, Se7en came up with one more issue of this classical German C64 cracker magazine. Issue 3/1989 (May/June) encompasses 36 pages full of news, interviews, copyparty reports and random nonsense. Amongst other things, it features a German translation of the legendary “Crackin’ Comic” by Hobbit/Fairlight.

Download the issue >>> here <<<, or have a look at the details and credits at Demozoo.