Today, we are happy to present to you the first batch of a new letter collection that was provided to us by C64 scener Arny from Austria, active in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a graphics artist in the group Cosmos as well as its game development spin-off Cosmos Designs. We begin with the letters from the time when he was member of the Austrian group The Softkiller-Crew (TSK) back in 1988. With these scans, we are happy to welcome Anna Baumann, student research assistant at the Department of History, University of Zurich, into our project. Thanks to her, the paper materials are going to be digitised much quicker.

Following letters are included into today’s batch:

• Amiga Boy/UNIC (Belgium) to Arny, 1980s [scan&metadata]
• Apollo-1/TAT (Austria) to Arny, 20 June 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Apollo-1/TAT (Austria) to Arny, 26 June 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Flash/Taxi (The Netherlands) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Gambler/VGG (Germany) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]
• OLS/TGC (?) to Arny, 1980s [scan&metadata]
• Storm & Atron (Austria) to Arny, 13 July 1988 [scan&metadata]
• T.C./TWP (Austria) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]
• TSH/ICS (Austria?) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Umberto (Italy) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Waltsi/TNI (Austria) to Arny, 24 July 1988 [scan&metadata]
• Waltsi/TNI (Austria) to Arny, 1988 [scan&metadata]

We’re back from a long hiatus – with some spectacular material! In another instalment of scans from the archive of legendary Dutch C64 coder Honey of the 1001 Crew, we present you with letters that were written to him by a equally legendary scene protagonist: Mr. Z, the founder of the famous Swedish C64 cracking group Triad. Written throughout the year of 1987, these eight long letters are a treasure trove in various aspects. If you are a veteran cracker yourself, or simply someone who is interested in copy protection, you will enjoy reading a top cracker discussing protection methods and their circumvention – especially since in one of the later letters, Mr. Z offers to write the copy protection for Honey’s first commercial game. And this is another aspect of interest for those who are into home computing and scene history: Here, we can observe a generation of elite sceners making their first steps from the subculture into the industry – while still being basically schoolkids, discussing sophisticated code and their first business deals alongside the latest pranks and scene gossip. Finally, the letters document Mr. Z’s pullout from Triad and from the scene altogether – with school and “real life” taking hold over someone whose group was adored by tens of thousands computer kids worldwide.

Read these fascinating letters in the gallery below, or download the high quality scans complete with metadata sheets (which also document the scavenger hunt we had to undertake to provide date estimates for these almost completely undated documents) under the following links: April 1987 // April 1987 (2) // late May 1987 // late June 1987 // 30 July 1987 // August 1987 // September-October 1987 // November-December 1987

In previous updates, we treated you to letters from the scene‘s top protagonists. But what about the countless average guys whom these “elites” would usually have considered “lamers”, but who were, in fact, the backbone of the formers’ popularity – by spreading their products and making their names “big” in the first place? The voices of these bystanders and “rank and file” sceners are a blank spot in scene preservation, as they often left no traces in terms of releases. Luckily, with the letter collection of Thorion (a.k.a. Thomas or Smily), we can make a step towards closing this gap. In the letters exchange between him and his Amiga penpals around 1990, one gets a glimpse of teenage computer fans swapping PD software and demos (and the occasional “Raubi”, as in “pirate copy”), following the developments of the scene, teaching each other scene-related skills, and occasionally making it to the ranks of the “elites” (like Thorion himself, who would do a brief stunt as graphics artist in TRSI in 1992 before quitting the Amiga world altogether).

You can download the scans of these 32 (German-language) letters, complete with metadata, here – or view them in the gallery below.

And as a bonus, the collection includes a document from a different fringe of the scene – namely pirate groups who would branch out into the “real” shadow economy, selling software and hardware for hard cash. The detailed advert from the Amiga group Vision Factory, offering all sorts of illicit computer products, can be downloaded here. According to a long-time VF member, this operation was maintained by two members from Northern Germany, without any coordination with the group leadership (and without sharing any of the profits)…