Some demoscene artefacts are truly bizarre. Such as this flyer for the Amiga demo Hideous Mutant Freaks by Spaceballs, spread at TRSAC 2001 in a print run of 20 copies – done with water colors and a stencil on hygiene bags. Thanks go to Arcane/Haujobb for photographing this rare gem for us. Hi-res photos can be downloaded here.
The cracking scene was highly competetive, and “flame wars” were a common phonomenon. While most of them were fought digitally – through intros and scrollers, some of them were carried out on paper as well. Groepaz/Hitmen provided us with a hand-drawn, photocopied comic strip that was presumably spread at one of the legendary Venlo meetings in 1989. It poked fun at German C64 cracker Spitfire/Action, who was accused of “freezing”, i.e. using a special cartridge module to help him doing his cracks. “Freezing” was against the ethics of the scene, which expected of crackers to be skilled enough to do their cracks “by hand”.
Download the scan >>>here<<<.
As a bonus, Groepaz also provided a scan of the June 1999 members’ newsletter of the German C64 group The Stock International, which can be downloaded here.
Old French Amiga demoscener leZone/Marshals scanned an incredible amount of demoscene paper artefacts from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s for our project. This is just the first batch of his kind contribution. Watch out for more, but please enjoy the following for now:
• 3S (Sea, Soft and Sun) 1996 flyer [link]
• Buenzli 14 (2005) flyer [link]
• Buenzli 14 (2005) lighter [link]
• Buenzli 14 (2005) visitors’ map [link]
• Buenzli 14 (2005) votekey [link]
• Bugs Party 1995 invitation [link]
• Bugs Party 1996 invitation [link]
• Farwest 3 (2001) invitation [link]
• GASP 1995 invitation [link]
• GASP 1995 timetable [link]
• JFF Convention 2 (2001) badge [link]
• Lucky & Tigrou Party (LTP) 4 (2000) votekey [link]
Illegal, founded by German C64 cracker and editor Jeff Smart in 1986 and running until 1991, is considered to be one of the oldest (or possibly the oldest) scene magazines. Unlike many other mags of the time, Illegal provided a fairly balanced picture of the C64 scene and did not just promote one particular group. It had an international staff of writers, and a likewise international outreach. Released on paper, the magazine reached 38 issues, and gained immense popularity: while the first issue had a print run of ten copies, later issues could reach an initial print run up to 1000 (while this initial print run could be again photocopied and spread by sceners). Despite this immense contemporary outreach, most Illegal issues fell prey to the pre-internet black hole. Only five (!) issues (18, 19, 29, 30, 31) survived as (low-quality) scans, thanks to mags.c64.org, while further 14 issues (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38) were typed up by several people over the years – obviously missing the layout and the graphics, which were often drawn by the legendary Hobbit/Fairlight. The first 17 issues (from 1986-1987) are completely gone.
Obviously, this needs to change. It is certain that the missing Illegal issues are scattered over scene veterans’ basements, attics and memorabilia boxes. King Fisher/Triad is a case in point – while moving house, he discovered a copy of Illegal #37 from April 1989 (which up to now only survived as a type-up by Strider/Fairlight), and kindly scanned it for us. This issue features, among other things (and some rather questionable teenage humour), an early interview with Manfred Trenz and Andreas Escher, the makers of the legendary game Katakis.
You can download the issue (b/w, PDF) >>>here<<<.
If anyone who reads this has any issues of Illegal in his or her possession, even if it’s the ones that are already scanned, please do get in touch!
