{"id":82,"date":"2015-05-05T19:04:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T19:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=82"},"modified":"2024-05-24T09:04:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T09:04:57","slug":"the-quest-for-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"The Quest for &#8220;Illegal&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Illegal<\/em>, founded by German <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Commodore 64, the most popular 8-bit home computer, produced between 1982 and 1994'>C64<\/abbr> <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='someone who removes the copy protection of proprietary software'>cracker<\/abbr> and editor <a href=\"http:\/\/csdb.dk\/scener\/?id=2111\">Jeff Smart<\/a> in 1986 and running until 1991, is considered to be one of the oldest (or possibly <em>the<\/em> oldest) <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='self-referring term for the cracking scene and the demoscene'>scene<\/abbr> magazines. Unlike many other mags of the time, <em>Illegal<\/em> 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 <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='self-referring term for members of the cracking scene and the demoscene'>sceners<\/abbr>). Despite this immense contemporary outreach, most <em>Illegal<\/em> issues fell prey to the pre-internet black hole. Only five (!) issues (<a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/117905\/\">18<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123049\/\">19<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123341\/\">29<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123342\/\">30<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123380\/\">31)<\/a> survived as (low-quality) scans, thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/mags.c64.org\">mags.c64.org<\/a>, while further 14 issues (<a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123050\/\">22<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/120465\/\">23<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/20399\/\">24<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/120473\/\">25<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123051\/\">26<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123053\/\">27<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123242\/\">28<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123475\/\">32<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123381\/\">33<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123467\/\">34<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123474\/\">35<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123476\/\">36<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/134592\/\">37<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/demozoo.org\/productions\/123477\/\">38<\/a>) were typed up by several people over the years &#8211; 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Obviously, this needs to change. It is certain that the missing <em>Illegal<\/em> issues are scattered over scene veterans&#8217; basements, attics and memorabilia boxes. <strong>King Fisher<\/strong>\/Triad is a case in point &#8211; while moving house, he discovered a copy of <strong>Illegal #37<\/strong> 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 <em>Katakis<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You can download the issue (b\/w, PDF) <strong>&gt;&gt;&gt;<a href=\"https:\/\/files.scene.org\/view\/resources\/gotpapers\/magazines\/illegal37.pdf\">here<\/a>&lt;&lt;&lt;<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If anyone who reads this has any issues of <em>Illegal<\/em> in his or her possession, even if it&#8217;s the ones that are already scanned, please do get in <a title=\"contact\" href=\"http:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/?page_id=15\">touch<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illegal, founded by German <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Commodore 64, the most popular 8-bit home computer, produced between 1982 and 1994'>C64<\/abbr> <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='someone who removes the copy protection of proprietary software'>cracker<\/abbr> and editor Jeff Smart in 1986 and running until 1991, is considered to be one of the oldest (or possibly the oldest) <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='self-referring term for the cracking scene and the demoscene'>scene<\/abbr> 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. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-additions","tag-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpapers.scene.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}