Propaganda 13 ch04

 T   I
 The Interview

________________________________________
 Who will face the wall this time?
 Who is interesting enough for you guys?

 Well, tough question, but as I began
 to gamble with idea, I realized it'd
 come better our digging up oldies,
 having them reflect on today's scene.

 So I dug, made a few phone calls to
 some of my old friends, far back.
 I talked to them, and this one was
 the first to slip away from my fingers.

________________________________________



P - STATE YOUR NAME AND WHAT YOU HAVE
    BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THROUGH YOUR
    YEARS OF EFFICIENCY.

S - First of all, in a way I'm very
    grateful for being interviewed. In
    a way it gives me a chance to let
    out air that I've had with me for
    a long time. I go by the name, or
    should I say went by the name
    MR.PINGE and I have been in a few
    Swedish groups since my start early
    1986.

    My years of effiency, haha, were
    during 1986-1989 I guess, and I
    started as a solo-guy, under my
    handle, doing small demos that



    were spread locally. Fortunately,
    I had good contact with a few im-
    portant people here in Sweden at
    that time, and my work was spread
    nationwide. One day, early 1986
    I was located in one of the local
    computershops, when I saw this
    suspicious guy trapped over a 128,
    trying to hide what he was doing.
    What he actually was doing, was
    cracking games, right in the store,
    only to take them home and pollish
    his work. This was NOBODY, one
    of the talented crackers at that
    time. We started talking, and before
    I knew it, we were starting up a
    group, a cracking one of course,
    that was going to be named into



    WCC - WEST COAST CRACKERS. A very
    wellknown Swedish group called
    WASP - WE AGAINST SOFTWARE PRO-
    TECTION teamed up with us, and all
    of a sudden names like LANCELOT
    and SIR GALAHAD were in the group.
    One of the most active guys in the
    group, concerning cracking was of
    course NO.1, who later on became
    STRIDER of FAIRLIGHT. We were
    cracking a lot, and TRIAD, the
    biggest group of all hated us,
    as we really threatened them. We
    had a lot of originals, as many
    of our members were working in
    computershops throughout Sweden,
    and we were getting along terribly
    well with people outside Sweden.



    Oh boy, I had a great time in WCC,
    but things came to an end in March
    1987 and we shocked the whole
    country by splitting up into two
    groups. NO.1 formed FAIRLIGHT (and
    he in fact made his first cracks
    for the group under his old handle
    before changing to STRIDER). Me,
    I did not join FAIRLIGHT, but I
    formed RELAX together with JANITOR
    (who had joined WCC in its latest
    days). All of a sudden we were
    competitors with some of our old
    groupmates, and they were beating
    us. We were struggling with only
    one original a month, while FLT
    seemed to be getting hands on al-
    most everything being put out.



    Then JANITOR made the cracks that
    put us ahead of many, being ROAD
    RUNNER and THE LAST NINJA, that
    were considered very good by many.
    At this time I had gotten myself
    a modem and I was getting along a
    lot with the Yanks, that wanted
    all wares possible. Haha. I re-
    member JANITOR really hated them
    Yanks, while I found it pretty
    funny exchanging wares and so with
    them.

    Anyway, we were having a hard time
    surrviving somehow, while FAIRLIGHT
    did not. When TRIAD gave us an
    offer to join, everything seemed
    to work out. It was pretty strange



    since TRIAD had been our competitors
    and enemies during the WCC-days, but
    it seemed like those days were gone.
    It might have been an easier way
    to join one of the biggest groups
    in the world, but looking back now,
    I know things couldn't have been
    done better, so by September 1987
    we joined up with TRIAD. Being in
    TRIAD was fabulous. Not only were
    they the biggest group in the world
    but it opened whole new dimensions.
    I had been coding a lot for both
    WCC and RELAX, and had put out a
    few demos, but now I could con-
    centrate on the modemworld, that
    was quickly growing. I met a lot
    of nice people through the modeming,



    some that I still keep in touch with
    some that I don't. TRIAD was a dream
    but when JANITOR decided to leave
    and did so with a demo put on THE
    SARGE'S game "Tiger Hell", it some-
    how lost a lot of the magic for me.
    Not very long after that, I said
    farewell to the scene, taking a
    lot of good memories with me, and
    apperently putting a name in the
    history of cracking as I got to do
    an interview like this 5-6 years
    later.

P - COMPARING THE SCENE YOU EXPERIENCED
    TO THE ONE OF TODAY, WHAT IS YOUR
    COMMENT?

________________________________________


S - Oh God, it is pretty hard to com-
    pare the two entirely different
    scenes that have appeared. I loved
    the scene back then. We had a lot
    of fun, even though things were
    very primitive. I mean, apart from
    ILLEGAL there were no other mag-
    azines, and it was always the event
    of the month when it showed up.

    Today's scene seems to have dev-
    eloped into a more businesslike
    thing, but it sounds pretty ex-
    citing with a lot more competition.
    This fixing-thing and boardstuff
    was slowly taking shape when I
    quit, but as it looks now, it is
    plain fact that a firstreleased



    game should be working both PAL
    and NTSC. Also I find it good with
    a lot of magazine being released.
    I mean, not only does it cover a
    lot more of what goes on, but with
    many magazines, competition will
    appear and with that, better mag-
    azines. As I understand it, they
    are very proffesional and give
    very accurate looks at the scene.

    When we were around, we cracked
    for the mere fun. Sure, we had our
    quarrels with SCC (SWEDISH CRACKING
    CREW) and TRIAD, but it was never
    at a very serious level. Ehrm.
    It was a naive friendship with
    a lot of devoted 64-people, and



    fortunately things worked out very
    well for us.

P - ANY PARTICULAR EVENTS YOU CAME
    TO MEMORIZE?

S - Man, I have tons of memories. Like
    the one I told you about the guy
    in the shop. I remember the meetings
    we had, especially a WCC-SCC-TRIAD
    meeting Christmas 1986. Everybody
    was pissing each other off, as the
    none of the groups liked each other,
    but still we had a jolly good time.
    (that is the first time I met you
    by the way, Per, and that was an
    event speaking for itself wasn't
    it? Haha!). After that meeting I



    sat down for 3 days coding a "FUCK
    SCC-demo" that featured screens from
    the cool game "Blood n' guts",
    where I could chop the heads vis-
    ually of the members. God, did I
    laugh doing that! Even though
    I really liked both WCC and TRIAD,
    I liked RELAX the most. I mean,
    RELAX was my group, built up by
    me and JANITOR and we were doing
    such a good job. Oh yes, one great
    memory was when IAN & MIC joined
    TRIAD, since they were always my
    favourite demoprogrammers.

P - WHAT DO YOU THINK OF TODAY'S
    TRIAD AND FAIRLIGHT, CONSIDERING
    THE ORIGINS OF THE GROUPS?



S - I think it is shit that two old
    names can still be around without
    the original members. From what I
    heard STRIDER should still be
    taking care of FAIRLIGHT on the
    PC or something, and I guess that
    is OK, but all these people on the
    Commodore 64 don't have a clue. I
    mean perhaps both TRIAD and FLT
    are doing quite a job, but it is
    still not what it once was.

    Funny thing that you tell me, that
    FAIRLIGHT turned out to become
    quite some demogroup. I mean back
    in the early years I remember
    them only putting out a demo
    or two from VODOO.



P - ANY COMMENTS ON THE AMIGA SCENE
    AS IT TURNED OUT?

S - Yeah, I was very interested on the
    Amiga, back in the days when they
    still were producing the Amiga 1OOO.
    I remember RELAX having an Amiga
    section back in 1987, and I was
    pretty impressed with the games I
    saw. My smaller brother, SNOOKIE,
    who formed THE SILENTS on the 64
    and then brought the group to the
    Amiga was active quite a while on
    the machine, and I grew very fond
    of the demos that were coming out,
    and I guess they are still im-
    proving. My brother quit when
    things got out of hand on the



    Amiga, and rightly so, as money and
    all come to corrupt the whole shit.

    I've been told the PC-scene has
    become quite some place, bearing
    resemblence to yesterday's 64-
    scene, but I doubt I could find
    anything in it for me now.

P - WOULD YOU EVER CONSIDERING DOING
    A COMEBACK ON THE COMMODORE 64?

S - Hell no! As far as I'm concerned
    I've done my share on that machine,
    and I probably wouldn't find an
    empty space for me to fill. I could
    probably not crack, and I think it'd
    take some time adapting to the new



    scene, with all the different rules
    that are created as time goes by.
    I'd probably just be another old
    veteran coming back for people to
    look up to, and that is not really
    edible in my eyes. I was considering
    doing a comeback back in 1989, as
    many were pushing me to do so.
    (thanks Per!) When NOSAH published
    it in IGUANA that I was thinking
    of putting RELAX back together, I
    somehow lost track of the project
    and never let it see light of
    day.

P - WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE YOU CON-
    SIDERED GOOD BACK THEN? ANYONE
    PARTICULAR?



S - Well, I remember a lot of good
    friends that meant a lot to me.
    SNOKIE+DEZED+NEWSCOPY/THE SILENTS,
    ARTWORX, HONEY/1001, NSC (NON
    STOP CRACKER), THE LIGHT CIRCLE!,
    IAN&MIC, ALL IN THE SUPPLY TEAM,
    PLUTONIUM CRACKERS, SODAN/TFC
    (Heard he is programming games
    for the Megadrive in the USA),
    MATCHAM/NETWORK(Great Crunchers!),
    EXPLORERS, COMMANDO FRONTIER
    (Somebody say hi to Madall!),
    THE PAPILLIONS, JUST ICE+NIK/IKARI,
    RED SECTOR, MR.Z, all in WCC
    and of course the rest of old TRIAD.
    Speaking of RED SECTOR, I heard
    IRATA had returned to the 64.
    Great! Always nice hearing that



    old people are coming back. What
    if I should restart WCC. HAHA.

P - ANY LAST WORDS TO THE PEOPLE?

S - Not really. Keep up the work and
    the spirit of the best computer
    ever made. I'm proud to have been
    part of it, now take history
    further. Never get seduced by
    the Amiga or the PC. The Commodore
    64 started it all.

________________________________________
Footnote: MR.PINGE started his career
          on his own, formed WCC along
          with WASP and other freaks,
          then moved on to RELAX and



          most recently TRIAD as they
          were the biggest group of
          all. In Sweden, he, among
          many of are looked up on as
          legends that have encouraged
          the Swedish scene as it is
          to day, and it is true, that
          few groups, like WCC have
          meant so much for the
          Swedish Hacker Culture.

          He's made several demos,
          among those "WCC-demo I-IV"
          and "FUCK SCC". If you want
          to obtain these, or simply
          drop him a letter saying hi,
          you can do so through me.
          Address in Editorial.