A Pirate’s Lament from the Barras

First of all, some exciting news: Zippy of The Medway Boys, a legendary Atari ST cracker from the early 1990s, scanned a substantial part of his letter archive for us. These letters will appear here in the very near future. For today, we have chosen a very peculiar document from his collection: A leaflet, approximately from 1992-1993, distributed by commercial software pirates at the notorious Barras street market in Glasgow, Scotland. After one of the usual Christmas time police raids, the announce the end of piracy at the Barras and deliver a lengthy rant against the industry, politics and the media. As Zippy notes, however, “of course they were back the following week as usual”. Something like this is really hard to find, as there is an abundance of voices from scene members of that time, but hardly any from commercial pirates. So, enjoy this historical document! Included is also a contemporary newpaper clipping about the FAST and police investigations against piracy at the Barras. You can download the hi-res scans here.

Swapper’s Tools

Every scene trade – coders, graphics artists, musicians – has its tools. Usually, we think about digital tools in this context. Today, however, we present you some physical tools – the tools of a 1980s C64 swapper. Skylab & General Zoff of The Movers provided us with a bunch of original objects that were crucial to maintain software circulation via floppy disk and “snailmail” – envelopes, express mail stickers, a disk hole puncher, customs forms, and many more. Click on the photo below for detailed descriptions, or go to our archive to download a high resolution image. Thanks go to Esther Laurenciková for the photo, and to Spot/Up Rough for fixing the captions.

Honey/1001 Collection Pt. 5 – Letters from Thor & Zeus

We start the new year with another instalment of the Honey/1001 Crew letter collection – namely the letters he received from the British cracking duo Thor & Zeus of Teesside Cracking Service (TCS). TCS was an established C64 group, known and respected well beyond the UK. Coders and crackers Thor & Zeus were known and cherished by their swapping partners for their long and friendly letters. Thus, it’s a real pleasure for us to being able to put some of them online. Stemming from between 1987 and 1988, the correspondence is a treasure trove: not only regarding information on the European C64 elite of that time, but also when it comes to the development both Honey and Thor&Zeus went through during that time – from crackers to professional game developers, while still remaining in touch with the scene.

More letters from the TCS duo, namely those sent to the German C64 group The Movers, will go online soon. For now, enjoy these letters to Honey in the gallery below. If you want high-resolution scans and metadata, go to the archive page and scroll down to “thor…”.

Arny’s Letters, Pt. 2

After bringing you the first batch of Arny‘s letters a while ago, here is part two. Arny, also known as Icon, is a C64 scener from Austria, active in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a graphics artist and swapper in the groups TSK, Cosmos, and the latter’s game development spin-off Cosmos Designs. This update features letters he received while being active in Cosmos, and span from 1988 to 1990. Arny maintained a broad network of contacts, ranging from Hungary to Finland. This rather large update, the images of which you can view in the gallery at the bottom of this post, includes letters from:

• Cancer/Mode 2 (Denmark), 12.7.1989 [scans&metadata]
• Crazy Banana/Lazer (Austria), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Critter/Knickers (Sweden), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Dio/Helloween (Austria), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Entrail/Coolex^Shockwave (Norway), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4]
• Exiz/2000 A.D. (Denmark), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Flash/Array^The Crush Crew (Netherlands), 1988-1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Glerc/Science 451 (Sweden), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Grayhawk/Fairlight (Sweden), 28.9.1989 [scans&metadata]
• Hazor/Beyond Force (Finland), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Hitcher/Helloween (Austria), 1988 [scans&metadata]
• I-Man/Vision^The Zero Boys (Sweden), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Marfiosi/Baboons a.k.a. Spike/2000 A.D. (Denmark),
1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
• Mason/Unicess (Denmark), 1989 [scans&metadata]
• Mastermind/Soldiers (Hungary), 21.2.1990 [scans&metadata]
• Max/Browbeat (Finland), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Mik/Pulsar (United Kingdom), 1988-1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4]
• Mr. Smart/Contex (Denmark), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4]
• Mr.Alpha/Dynamic Projects (Austria), late 1980s [scans&metadata]
• Mr.Wax/FBI Crew (Hungary), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Orc/Black Mail (Netherlands), 1989-1990 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Peter/Crazy (Germany), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3]
• Razor/Oneway^Raw Deal Inc. (Sweden), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
• RT/Jukebox^Fairlight (Sweden), 1988-1990 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• Sentinel/Zargon (Denmark), 1988 [scans&metadata]
• Servant/Byterapers^Contex (Finland), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Simex/Noise (Sweden), 19.7.1989 [scans&metadata]
• Spacie/Oneway (Sweden), 14.8.1989 [scans&metadata]
• Stanz/Dominators (Sweden), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2]
• Walter/711 (Germany), circular letter, 1988 [scans&metadata]
• Warbird/Cheyens (Denmark), 1989 [scans&metadata: 1, 2, 3]
• Wido/6th Sense (Netherlands), 1989 [scans&metadata]