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Pure Bollocks Issue 21_006
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PURE BOLLOCKS REVIEW OF THE SCOTTISH SCENE!
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by <GENIE> of NETWORK TRASH!
Yes, we mean Scottish- repeat after me- SCOTTISH, SCOTTISH, SCOTTISH! None
of this 'English' scene with Scottish groups that Amazine keeps going on about!
Sorry Mad Vision, but there's more than one country in Britain! In this review
we're going to go on about something we know about here. If we don't include
you here, then we're sorry- contact us! Quite a lot of the groups here have
members elsewhere in Britain. Afterwards, we'll talk a bit about various
outlets which deal in their wares, but first, the groups list....
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** CYNIX **
Still one of the best and most active cracking crews in Scotland, but they're
calming down, and might be dead within a year, who knows! There's 1 cracker
left- the Milky Bar Kid or Absu or whatever he's called now.
** LEMMINGS **
This is a group with members in Scotland (Potsan) and England (Pele). Pele does
most of the cracking, but Potsan also does the occasional crack and codes some
stuff like his 'Boot Crazy' utility. Potsan has also released a couple of menus
with other people. All the cracks are minor league stuff- don't expect Epic
cracked by this group.
** THE PIXEL TWINS **
This is currently the main demo crew in Scotland with about 6-7 members. Their
stuff is nearly always STE only, and they have converted the Scoopex 'Mental
Hangover' demo from the Amiga onto the STE! One of the coders, DML, works as a
professional programmer.
** FINGERBOBS **
This is the other main demo crew in Scotland, mainly from Aberdeen Uni. They've
done guest screens for Inner Circle's 'Decade Demo', and did a couple of
screens for the Ripped Off party demo.
** TOP NOTCH **
This is a new crew composed of STOS coders ACO and Wheee the Fibble. Under their
old names they released the 'Cunning Demos' and under Top Notch they released
their STOS extension 'Misty' on ST Format, and their 'Misty Demo'. WTF is now
the ST Format STOS correspondant.
** DIMENSION ZERO **
This is a mainly STOS coding crew who are also active on the Amiga! The main
coder is Michael Lynne. They have done a guest screen for Top Notch's 'Misty
Demo' and are working on their demo called 'Evie the Dog' (I think that's what
it's called!)
** BLUE HARVEST **
Originally just the name which Red Five released his modules under, they've
recently become a slightly less lame demo crew. We know this because one of
the coders, Agrajag, turned up at the Ripped Off party in September and spent
most of the time trying to get a chessboard effect working on a demo screen!
He's also written a couple of articles for Ledgers. There's also another
coder in BH, but we don't know his name. Red Five's module got 3rd place at
the Ripped Off party module competition. We've heard that they're also overdue
with a digi-music demo!
** DIGITECH **
This is a demo crew with only 3 members as far as we know. They are Shift and
Data- both coders, and another member we don't know much about. We are told
that they have done a guest screen for Dimension Zero's STOS demo- but they're
an assembler group, so I assume their guest screen's also in assembler!
** TOUR DE FORCE **
We don't know too much about this group except that they have a coder called
Darkman and they are supposed to be writing a guest screen for the Untouchables
'Cheese and Biscuits' demo!
** NETWORK TRASH **
Not an ST crew, but a secret network crew based mainly in Glasgow University.
See the features elsewhere in the magazine. I thought I might as well mention
them! (Anyway, lots of them have STs as well....)
** HOPELESS LAMERS **
I've seen 3 menus from this lot, and I still don't know if they're serious!
They crack ancient games, pack them and stick them on a disk with a ripped
intro, and make them look as though the entire disk is ripped off, but they
also include a DOC file in a folder telling how the games were cracked! Very
strange crew, mainly led by Bip.
** SUB HUMANS IN TURKEY **
Yes, this lot are still going! Three of them turned up at the Ripped Off party
so we know! They used to be know mainly because of their frontman EGB doing
menus for Automation, and the infamous 'Pissflaps' porno game! They all appear
to be in the business of making games now... Maybe expect 'Pissflaps 2'?!?!
** THE FORCE **
This lot do compils menus of all the latest cracks, we don't know if they're
still going, but we did meet Skelly and Leasky from the group some time ago!
** G - FORCE **
I've still got a couple of menus from these guys. They were compil menus made
up by guys at the Barras in Glasgow for their stall. I think they're quite
definately dead now, and are no relation to The Force.
** ST FACTORY **
Talking of stalls compil makers, the infamous ST Factory (As seen in the Daily
Record) stall in the Barras did a couple of CDs under their name, with games
packed and single-filed and a menu added using utilities off their own
catalogue!
** THE NEW GENERATION **
Another games compil maker! I've got 2 menus by this bunch, and they both use
the crappy old Medway Boys menus! But they're relatively up-to-date on games.
I think they might be dead as well....
** DARK ANGELS **
A real bunch of lame egomanic compil makers and no mistake. Their first 'menu'
wasn't a menu at all but an intro made by the 'Intro Concept' creator!! They
must have got Easyrider, because they are now using the same ancient Medway
menu as The New Generation! They're always pinching 'Top Tips' jokes from Viz
and putting them in their scrolltexts! Here's a top tip for you lot- please
fuck off!
** RIPP OFF MERCHANTS **
What makes me think this is a piss-take? Perhaps the fact that the person who
does these compils is called 'Dildo'??!?! I've got 3 'CD's from this lot, but
they're numbered 567, 581, and 584 !!! They're apparently PD and shareware
stuff only as far as I can tell, but it's quite well packed anyway.
** BIRDY **
Oh this is really ancient! Birdy was a lone cracker and was fairly well known
and disliked by loads of other crackers. He does nothing now.
** QUARTEX **
And thought it was an all English crew! No, there's a Scottish member in
Ruthless' ill-fated group.
** KICK IT IN SOFTWARE **
If you think Ruthless is lame, you should see this - Kick It In Software
('Kick It In' is supposed to be a reference to Simple Minds [the pop group]
incidentally....) just take CDs and rip the menus off! The best example of this
is their 'CD 6'- they have just ripped the scroller! The graphics are still the
same, and say: 'LSD / WAS NOT WAS MENU 10'!!!!! The scrolltext actually gives
away what college this lamer goes, and the name of one of his lecturers and one
of his tutors! We had our suspicions about who this guy was and we checked with
someone studied the same subjects at the college, and we've confirmed his
identity, but we won't reveal his name. Let's just say that Kick It In Software
CD 6 was very much ripping without imagination!
** IMAGINATION **
But this lot win the lameness award! They just sector edited some cracks to
slag off the Dark Angels, and edited their DOC files, then added a desktop
file with loads of disk icons saying that they are 'Glasgow's no. 1 demo crew!'
Actually we now know the identity of the man behind this lame escapade, and we
think you'd be better sticking to running your stall! (If you haven't been bust
yet! [Actually, he wasn't, I just found that out!])
** FAT TULIP **
This appears to be just one person who occasionally releases disks of utilities
and not much else, though he did claim to be trying to join Cynix at one point!
(And don't you deny it! We have the text file to prove it!)
** PRIESTS OF PLEASURE **
A new Edinburgh based demo crew, and the coder is called -Dodo- !!! They've
done an intro for Ledgers disk mag (issue 13), and Dodo appears to code using
- get this - TURBO ASSEMBLER!!
** EGB'S SMELLY SOX **
This person along with Rich Tea did the -really amazing- 'Perpetual Dawn' Demo.
Not only is he a brilliant coder and really nice person, he is also standing
immediately behind me while I type this! Aaaarrrgh! Get off! Aaaaaarrrgggh!
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** PIRATE STUFF **
There are three main outlets for pirate stuff.
1) Mail swappers- groups and group contacts swap all their latest stuff as soon
as they get it. Usually the first to get the latest disks. If you have any
mail swapper contacts- lucky you!
2) Pirate bbs - We're certainly not going to give any numbers away here, but
this is also a fairly up-to-date way of getting stuff, if a little expensive
phone-bill-wise. In fact, we know a certain well known group get all their
stuff now from some boards!
3) Markets- any big market can be expected to have a pirate stall in it
somewhere, though I wouldn't recommend going one in the weeks before or
after Christmas, as that's the most likely times when FAST comes round...
In Scotland, the Glasgow Barras is the place to be, since there's space for
loads of pirate stalls all about the place. We don't know any market in
Britain never mind Scotland where this is the case, even after that major
bust that happened recently, but if you know better, then tell us about it!
** PD/SHAREWARE STUFF **
You can get PD through mail swappers or bulettin boards as well, and also
through various PD Libraries, so we'll give a mention to some PD places in
Scotland:
FLOPPYSHOP - in Aberdeen. Really big, it's even got it's own bbs! (STatic)
CALEDONIAN - in Inverness. It's a bit expensive, but it's got great contacts,
in fact it was one of the first in Britain to get the Phaelon
Gigademo!
STATE 808 - in Carluke. Mainly intrested in music/sample demos.
PHOENIX PDL - This is an unsual one. It's not a normal PDL but a PD stall
run in the Glasgow Barras on weekends. Given that, it's got the
best PD list we've seen- almost as big the the old TLB library!
It's also good for a chat and the odd coder or MIDI expert hangs
around to see what's new. One of our contacts tells us that the
two coders from Digitech, Agrajag from Blue Harvest, Wheee The
Fibble, and even occasionally DML from the Pixel Twins appear
at the stall!
MICRO ZONE - Another Barras PD stall. We've only just heard of it, but it
does PD for ST, Amiga and PC formats!
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So we hope you like this look at the Scottish Scene. If you thought there was
hardly anything happening north of Carlisle, we hope we've enlighted you a bit!
<Genie!>
5/12/92.
