The Delight of Eternal Might: the history of Fairlight (part 1)
RECOLLECTION issue 3
Presented by Jazzcat
Special thanks to various members of FairLight & The Shark
FairLight has survived the ages and hit nearly ever major computer format in one way or another since their inception in 1987. It has become a name that has earned respect and praise from both the pirating and demo scenes, achieving two decades of activity on multiple platforms.
First published in Recollection edition three, this is the most comprehensive journey into this Swedish legend ever published, taking you to the roots of the group before it was born right up until the present time.
1. EARLY DAYS: THE TIMES OF WCC AND SCM.
(1986-1987)
West Coast Crackers (WCC) was founded on 19th September 1986 by Zeb, Mr. Pinge, Waco, HJ and Nobody. WCC was created by the members of Swedish Copy Masters (SCM) who renamed the group to WCC to honour the members coming from the West Coast of Sweden. The group rapidly expanded as a result of taking in some members of We Against Software Protection (WASP) on the 10th of October 1986. The new members included No.1, Sir Galahad, King Arthur and Lancelot. In the next few months WCC released quite a few cracks for titles such as Glider Rider, Judge Dredd, PSI Warrior II and Fist II. They showed the early signs of becoming a well-rounded group with the release of a number of demos also. Their reputation soared to new heights, building on their existing status already established under their former name Swedish Copy Masters.
WCC organised a meeting called 'Hacker-party' in Gothenburg between the 19th and 23rd of December 1986. Members were present but also some of the members from SCC (Swedish Cracking Crew) and Triad turned up. There were some disruptions at the party that were caused by Inferno and Covenant of SCC and also Ixion and 3D of Triad. The members from SCC were uninvited to Zeb's flat (where the meeting was held). The first demo from WCC discussing this was entitled "Hi-Letter 3" and later discussed in Mr. Pinge's "WCC's Revenge". Basically SCC was accused of re-cracking, (i.e. Soldier One and Sigma 7), and lame behaviour during the meeting. Triad brought their so-called enemies to the party and released "Location Demo" which makes fun of the location of the members of WCC.
INFERNO/SCC: "The only problem at the meeting was that both SCC and Triad thought that certain people from WCC's Kalmar-section had a crappy attitude. Shortly said, they weren't very social (quite boring actually) and didn't let us use any of the computers they had brought along. The result was a fast hack the same night by 3D (Triad) where both Triad and SCC ragged down on WCC. The theme was that they called themselves West Coast Crackers while actually having members from e.g. Gothenburg, Falsterbo, and Kalmar (for example, Kalmar is located in the South East). It was a joke really but it wasn't received like one. :) I don't think the anti demos or the angry scroll text that followed were that serious and I guess both sides mostly thought it was fun to be a little destructive."
West Coast Crackers were quite successful in their own right, becoming a solid group with releases including 1943, Delta, Aliens, Arkanoid and Uridium. Their member list consisted of: Crusader, HJ, Janitor, King Arthur, Lancelot, Marwin, Mr. Pinge, Nike, No. 1, Nobody, Sir Galahad, Sparrow, Waco and Zeb.
Activity levels for the young teenage data-addicts were buzzing and a new plan was afoot.
2. THE BIRTH OF FAIRLIGHT - Choice of the Anti-Communist Generation
(1987-1988)
WCC eventually disbanded due to disagreements between members and what can basically be called a clash of egos. When the group became divided and two key members left, two new groups emerged, FairLight and Relax. FairLight was founded by No. 1 and Sir Galahad on the 17th of April 1987.
STRIDER: "Sir Galahad and I (No. 1, at the time) were driving back from Öland Island after a WCC meeting. We had some differences in leadership at the meeting but I can't remember what about. Maybe it was about who to let in, who to not let in, or the direction of the group. Not sure..."
It appears that during the internal WCC meeting arguments arose out of simple things such as who was going to sleep in the only bed available in the small house that had been rented for the meeting. Of course No. 1 wanted to use the bed, but since WCC was not "his" group, he had a hard time asserting himself. So the meeting was quite sour, to say the least. The group name was discussed by both members during a train ride from the meeting back to Malmö. The name was decided on for two reasons; one was taken from the FairLight CMI synthesizer which No. 1 saw Jean-Michel Jarre use on some of his records and the second was a reference to the Spectrum port of the game called 'FairLight'. In the early days No. 1 had an idea that members should use handles from the characters of J.R.R.Tolkien's Middle Earth (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Simarillion etc). No. 1 changed his handle to Strider and Sir Galahad chose Black Shadow as his. Although many of the original FairLight members followed this style, over time some members who joined were allowed to keep their non-Tolkien related aliases.
STRIDER: "Sir Galahad and I decided it was time for a new group and came up with the name FairLight based on a popular synthesizer used at the time by Jarre. We also decided to pick new names based on The Lord of the Rings. I picked Strider and Sir Galahad became Black Shadow. We were teenagers at the time and this was a popular book Black Shadow got me into during those years. We also added The Sarge, an artist who was one of Black Shadow's local friends. For WCC, this move was the beginning of the end. Some came to FLT where others went with Mr. Pinge to Relax and eventually to Triad. We had a great time in WCC but Black Shadow and I wanted to go our own way."
Most of the other members of the dissolved West Coast Crackers created the crew called Relax which did not last long and disbanded some months later. The guys who founded Relax were Janitor, Mr. Pinge, Crusader, Sparrow, Nike, Marwin and The Boss. When Relax came to an end most of the members were absorbed into Triad.
JANITOR: "I know very little about what happened in the first year since I never climbed the lamer-ladder the hard way. I spent my time working through every corner of my little 64. Early '87 I joined the WCC which by then was rather unstable. Soon WCC split into RELAX and FairLight. After a while RELAX and TRIAD were merged following the retirement of MR.Z."
The first months of FairLight were spent releasing quite a few cracks. Their first crack was Samurai Trilogy which was followed later on the same day with 500cc Grand Prix. Their very first outside recruit was Night Hawk, an unknown friend of Black Shadow. Their most significant early recruit was Gollum, formerly known as Junior from Crackforce Omega (CFO) who was a coder and cracker and joined in July. He also changed his handle to Gollum at this time. In the third quarter of 1987 they recruited a sysop called Zike (previous Mawda/The Silents/XL-Crackers) who launched their first bulletin board system called 'The Pleasure Dome'. The group expanded in October with two new recruits, Woodo (formerly known as Crap/Razor Express) from Denmark and The Hobbit (formerly known as Anubis) who was a graphician from Belgium. They were followed soon after by The Sarge, Excalibur, Gandalf (who was to be later known as Lord Blitter on the Amiga) and Wilfo.
During these early months, Woodo and Gollum coded a crack intro for FairLight which was used frequently. It featured the catchy main melody from the game 'Druid II' composed by David Hanlon. The intro became one of the most famous on C64 and became an icon for the group with many variants of it being created over the ensuing years. In fact, it became so iconic that when people hear the intro tune, they tend to think of FairLight rather than 'Druid II'. Some people still get goose bumps when watching this intro, even members of the group.
BACCHUS: "Very few intros give me goose bumps, and this is one! I would agree this is not the best intro ever done, but the idea of an intro is a really compact piece of code that adds the crackers sign to the release without adding to much weight. In the days of Gamer's Guide, there was a ranking on size and even if we had access to crunchers better than what most people had, why waste this head start on a bulky intro? It's SUPER efficiently coded and the tune stays with you. It for sure does what an intro should."
Strider's two brothers, Aaron Deveraux (later shortened to Aaron) and Richard, were to later also become involved, which helped shape the group in the early days as they perfomed a lot of data-work from their home basement. From this downstairs data room they sold C64 software by advertising through Datormagazin and other Swedish publications. They openly called their shop "FairLight". STASH recalls: "I remember back in the days when I first ever saw any pirated warez on the C64. My brother was friends with Richard, the youngest of the Krvaric brothers. This was also the first time I had ever heard of and saw a BBS. When I was old enough, my brother took me with him to visit. This was when WCC was still alive and Strider was called No.1. It was really cool to get my hands on new releases from them as I got it a lot faster than the other kids from around the block. My very first spread disk when I started was a disk I got from Richard. Strider was a bit older than me so I never really talked to him. I remember meeting Ogami at the house of Krvaric and also Aaron, he was a fun dude as well. :)
The cellar of the house was some kind of holy place for Strider, so most of the time I was there it was when he wasn't home. :) We could spend hours playing games or watching demos. Other nice memories I recall was when Strider visited my brother and he brought with him his latest release which was IK+. So, basically my swapping time started just because of the three Krvaric brothers, good times!"
Towards the end of their first year Black Shadow got more and more active on the Amiga, but still found time for a few cracks on the C64 now and then. In November the group gained Dragonlance as a swapper. Gandalf left the active scene for the Amiga where he became known under the new handle Lord Blitter. On the 18th to the 21st of December they co-arranged a copy-party with Triad in Stockholm, which ended the year with a demonstration of Swedish power combined. This party was held at a school in Stockholm, with around 180 guys showing up. Since the school was three floors, with an open space in the middle, the arrangers had divided the visitors into three floors; the most elite groups were on the top floor, with the lamest groups on the bottom floor.
I asked HO/Science 451 about any animosity between Triad and FairLight at the party:
"I couldn't find the invitation anywhere, but if I remember correctly, the party started out as a Triad party, but then branched out as a joint venture between Triad & FairLight. Keep in mind that this is almost 25 years ago, so my memory could be playing tricks with me, but I have a vague memory of the party being referred to as "the Triad party" at one time or another.
The party itself was a bit interesting since it was both an elite-party, and an open-for-all-party. There were three floors in the school they used for the party and on the top floor were the elite groups (FairLight, Triad, Dominators, Science 451, etc -- can't really recall all the groups) and the second floor had known groups that weren't considered top teams at the moment, mostly Swedish groups. The bottom floor was for the locals, the unknown groups, the lamers (god, I really hate that word) etc.
I was late for the party, since I had to visit my grandmother's funeral on the Friday, so I arrived fairly late on the Friday and everyone else had already arrived. There were no conflicts at the party as far as I can tell, but since most groups had a room to themselves there wasn't as much inter-group mingling as there was on some other parties.
As for the Triad vs. FairLight conflicts, I only have an outsider perspective on this. But, basically, before WCC split up (to form FLT & Relax) there were three major groups in Sweden; Triad, West Coast Crackers (WCC) and Swedish Cracking Crew (SCC). SCC had a conflict with Triad (or mostly with 3D/Triad and the Stockholm-based members as I remember) and during a WCC-meeting some Triad-members were invited to visit.
The surprise in that meeting was that the Triad-guys brought some SCC-members, without telling (and without informing WCC that their conflict was ended). This caused some bad blood, which I think was carried into both Relax and FLT. Like most conflicts, this was more between members (3D was known for being good at what he did, but also for creating conflicts now and then) and if it had been a major conflict you never would have seen Relax joining Triad soon after. Also, my impression is that some of the conflicts were "staged". Both Triad and FairLight were gunning for the "Sweden's #1" and it looked good to show some conflict in scrollers. Anyway, back to the party. Yes, there was alcohol on the Saturday. Some Triad guys went out and bought some beer (my impression was that it was "folköl" a slightly weaker beer (maximum 2.8 %) and there was some drinking. I really wasn't in the mood for partying (coming from a funeral) and at that time I preferred wine (and I actually brought a bottle, but someone accidentally smashed it) so I didn't partake much in the drinking. But, since a lot of people was away drinking (where? not in our room at least, not sure where they sat) I spent my time talking to some of the people who weren't away, such as Natas from SSS, some of my contacts in Denmark, etc."
Once the hangover of the party had subsided, a new year sprang upon an unsuspecting audience. For the commie-killers it began with the departure of Woodo, who left the scene to work on games. He released a small note entitled "Woodo is dead!!!" (written using his own tool Woowriter) to announce it. His place was temporarily filled by a sub-group The Platoon (TPL), consisting of HAM, Brain and Orco, however their cracker HAM, who joined in February, left pretty quickly. Dragonlance also ceased to be a member sometime around January/February of 1988. Surprisingly this meant that, at the beginning of March, only Gollum and Strider were left as active C64 members. On the 14th of March Strider released his 'final C64 crack' and left to work exclusively on the Amiga. He returned for a couple of cracks in April and May, but was eventually gone for good. Gollum was now the sole active C64 member, holding the flag aloft valiantly despite the odds stacked against him! I remember this time quite well as one of my favourite games was released under the FLT label by the name of Gothik. The x-rated scroll text of the crack intro still echoes in my mind and it made me start to consider an intro even more so that the game crack itself. With the focus on the Amiga, the situation on C64 looked grim but fate shone brightly on the future of the group as Gollum managed to recruit the Swedish members of Front in July, gaining three new crackers called Sauroman, Olo, Getafix and Audrey as graphician (the latter left the group for a crew called Life after only one month).
The year was quite a big one for the group, not only through membership changes but also with their releases. Coming out in 1988 were big titles such as Predator, Rastan, Platoon, Batman, Cybernoid, Rolling Thunder, Ikari Warriors and Target Renegade. One of the most memorable FLT moments as well as one of the biggest cracks in their history was The Last Ninja II, released in October 1988...
STRIDER: "Last Ninja II was soon to be released and we were frequently checking with our store. The game was finally released so I ditched school and got on the bus to go home, and I called Gollum at the time and I asked him whether he could put it on disk if I gave him the tape version. As time was of the essence I had to get it to him quick so I found the train schedule. I took the bus down to the train station that was headed to Gollum's city. I gave the conductor some sort of incentive like chocolates or whatever so he would personally give the package to Gollum. The conductor agreed but those were different times when security wasn't such a focus. I would have taken the train myself though had the conductor not agreed as this was such a huge release. Gollum worked all night... and I stayed up out of sympathy as well to make sure he wouldn't fall asleep. I'd call him every hour or so and by the morning he had it on disk. Then he posted it to all his contacts."
3. IMPORTING and EXPORTING
(1987-1990)
Back in 1987, FairLight exclusively sent their releases to Fucked Beyond Repair (FBR) for USA importing. Trading with the USA was significant at the time because once a game reached the USA BBSes it could then be spread back into Europe faster than using standard postal mail. FairLight was one of the few European groups at the time to have modems of no less than 1200 baud. Making them more attractive to USA groups, FairLight was also releasing a lot of the multi-loading games, that at the time, were considered some of the most sought after games.
Around 1988, a new trend was emerging in Europe that saw Europeans useing AT&T, MCI, or Sprint calling cards to call long distance. Due to difficulties for USA companies to trace European lines as well as complications with international law, phreaking Europeans were relatively safe during this time. Having such cards was particularly liberating to Europeans as they could now call BBSes and Europeans. However obtaining such cards was quite difficult and involved USA groups supplying the calling cards in exchange for exclusive trading.
The FBR-FairLight relationship was strong, but perhaps due to arrogance, FBR failed to adapt to the changing times which would prove to be a costly move on their part. TBB/FBR: "The relationship between FBR/FLT was a rocky one. The deal was that we kept them supplied with AT&T's and they would stay exclusive with us. The guys in FairLight had big heads but they were good, and we wanted to trade them because of their quickness and quality." Realising the demand, an up and coming importing group named International Network of Chaos (INC) began to contact FairLight in an attempt to convince them to trade with INC instead of FBR.
THE SHARK/INC recollects: "FBR was not supplying many cards to FairLight at the time, and if they did, they were cards that were spread on the scene thus giving them a short lifespan. Meanwhile, my group started to supply Strider regularly with exclusive cards only used by FLT which could often last 2-3 weeks a piece depending on how many group members they spread the cards to. There was already bad blood between the new leader of FBR (Oahawhool) and INC due to one of my members, The Butcher, having a falling out with Oahawhool. Although FBR sensed that INC was trying to take FairLight from them, I know first hand that Oahawhool had little respect for INC and never thought for one moment FLT would drop them. I think he thought the FBR name alone was powerful enough move mountains. His big mistake was not realizing that although cards were important on the C64, they were even more important to the European Amiga scene due to modems being more common in Europe compared to the C64 scene. So one could say that through FLT's Amiga aspirations, INC was able to secure FairLight as a C64 trade partner. I do recall how sad Strider was to give Oahawhool the news as they were friends, but at the same time Oahawhool was neglecting FairLight as Oahawhool wasn't supplying cards and only seemed to show interest in FLT when they had games which was offensive to Strider."
INC and FairLight remained trading partners until early 1990 when INC retired.
4. HOWDY HACKERS! - PART I
(1988-1990)
1988 was coming to an end and the Alvesta Party had reached it's climax with "Love This Now" by Horizon and "Bonanza" by MDT finishing neck and neck. "Demo Of The Year II" came out in December and there was high anticipation for further action in 1989 in what is now considered "The Golden Era" by a large number of people. During this time Strider became more focused on the Amiga and felt that the group could do with some extra support at the helm.
BACCHUS: "I got into the group on December 1988. Andreas Svensson (Mr.Lead, who became Grayhawk when joining FLT) swapped with Strider and he was the one that was brought in with a few friends. Gollum wasn't too happy about it, but I think looking back it was a fairly okay move. We had formed Oneway but were only to leave one week later! I was the spokesperson for the Oneway guys that joined in December it was kinda natural to keep that up."
On the 13th of December Strider asked Mr.Lead together with Bacchus, Mr.Wedge, Questor and Ade to join the ranks of FairLight - all former members of Crackers & Programmers Unlimited (CPU) and Oneway. Strider wanted the guys who joined to rename, fitting into the history of Tolkien related handles. Some changed their handles. Mr.Lead became Grayhawk, Mr.Wedge became Wedge (Strider wanted him to be "The Dark Overlord" but he did not like that) and Ade renamed to Phred (who was later kicked for serious laziness).
The first crack Bacchus made for FairLight was "Batman - The Caped Crusader". Strider envisioned Bacchus not only as a cracker but having leadership-material (with experience as leader of CPU and spokesman for Oneway), it soon became evident that Strider was taking a backseat and that Bacchus would lead the group. Shortly after the beginning of the New Year Bacchus was more or less left to run the C64 section of FairLight, he was the natural successor of Strider but did nothing without his approval.
BACCHUS: "Regarding leadership, there was no formal handover. A key success of the group is that it was WELL established when I took over and my key task to maintain and develop. During my period we maintained a leading group, with highly regarded individuals doing good jobs for the group (this being both in terms of crack, spread and also the demo section).
The key challenge was setting up a group with the expectations it had but with members busy in other areas. Gollum and The Sarge doing their games and with Strider, Black Shadow and the others active on the Amiga. Quite frankly - the core from my group Lunds Cracking Team that one week was the spine of Oneway, the next week became the spine of FairLight (on the C64).
I'm very much a playing coach - the role model, setting standards. Barking from the side is easy (swappers kind of leadership) but if you do the key part of the production yourself it hard for any member to get away with laziness. I was much into bringing promising people in, and let them bloom in the group. Some other group leaders only brought in people who had already bloomed in other groups, and most of them had their prime in the other groups. It's like Swedish ice hockey players playing in Swiss clubs. The requirements are lower and they already proved themselves so get fat and lazy.
I wanted them to bloom in the group and allow FairLight the benefit of being the group where they enjoyed their prime!"
1989 was another big year for the group, this time under the guidance of Bacchus with Strider and Aaron in the background. The group had established themselves as a cracking powerhouse and also started to shine as a demo force too. On New Year's Eve the commie-killers recruited Rowdy (coder and cracker), Dino (coder) and Viper (cracker), all of which proved to be valuable. Viper had a way with words, was a cracker and was the leader of Heptagon. There were two big months of recruitment - firstly in February they inducted Pernod, a quality coder who would move on later to become very popular in the Swedish demo scene. In March Viper helped get in some ex-Heptagon members such as Salt who renamed to The Alchemist (a highly qualified cracker that boosted the cracking section). Pepa - a hacker who actually did very little for the group and was removed soon after joining. Bolstering the group further was Judge/Sphinx, a good coder who debuted in March with the FLT demo "Digesta" released at the Ikari & Zargon Party in Slagelse.
May '89 saw the group travelling to the Horizon and Equinoxe party in Eskilstuna where Seagull and Smirnoff from Absolut Vodka Team (AVT) were recruited. FairLight came third at the demo compo with Pernod and Judge's "Algot's Revenge" and later in the same month they came second with the demo "Megabmxninja" at the Defiers Party. BACCHUS: "MegaBMX Ninja is driving a joke to the extreme. Judge invented this bird of chars and we had a brutally fun weekend with some 15 people in my 27 M2 flat in Lund. Then that little char-bird was taken into a full demo part. Released on it's own I guess."
Towards the end of this busy month Viper was visited by the police for credit card fraud. VIPER: "I was accused by Elric/Agile, freed of all charges and released two days later. He succeeded quite well, the phone rang off the hook for weeks with angry people accusing me for whatever lies and stuff. :D Until everyone found out that Elric just blabbed his head off to the police. My involvement in the program 'Credacalc' and cracking the credit card algorithm was purely for fun. Then I was visited by the police again, they seized all my equipment for all kinds of fun accusations, all I got back so far was my phonebook. I was accused for doing computer stuff for "the mafia", very funny!" During this period, Karl XII/Agile made an appearance on Swedish national television selling out the Hacking/Phreaking scene. He explained the easiness of cracking the credit card algorithm and showed the incredible lack of security in the general use of credit cards. As a result, the police hit the scene hard, not only taking down Viper, but also busting Injun Inc., The Alchemist and Bacchus amongst others. BACCHUS was one of the only guys not getting a sentence, he recalls: "K12 is a strange guy so he did it to show off I guess. Elric was talking a lot and gave the list of names to save his own ass". PERNOD recalls those times as well: "At the time when phreaking and stuff were most popular, some people in the scene were caught and put on trial. Bacchus was 'kinda' involved so I went over to his apartment and pushed the button to the door-phone (he couldn't see me there) and after he answered I said, with a very mature voice:
- Hello, I am Lt. John Doe from the county fraud squad. I believe we have to talk!
Bacchus said "yes of course, come on up!" when I had walked the stairs up to Bacchus' place he opened the door, and boy was he upset!!!! He bought it all."
In late October the group organised the Transcom & FairLight Copy Party which was held in Paris, France. However, unlike the other parties organised by FairLight, this one was the least successful with mainly Amiga guys showing up and hardly any Transcom members at all. Nevertheless, some cool demos were released as well as Goblin/Genesis*Project stealing the original of Cabal from a group called the Yankees and releasing it live at the party.
The demo section worked independently from the cracking section with Bacchus checking on progress every now and then. One of their big demo hits this year was "Rutig Banan" which rightfully gained the number one placing at the Light Bålsta Party in November ahead of groups like Flash Incorporated and Light who were also strong forces in the C64 demo world. The demo showed a talented combination of skill from the likes of Pernod, Judge, Mr.Wedge, Danko and The Sarge and featured some hardcore effects that were big for 1989!
DANKO, on his memories from the Bålsta party: "I started fussing about more seriously with 8-bit sampling at that party with a guy called Dino, also in FairLight, and we broke into an office there and most Censor guys got kicked out. And one guy was chased by looooots of angry guys (because he was hitting on a girl) from a hamburger restaurant to the school, we saw him running like nuts and a huge mob after him. It was kinda funny. We just went out there, the mob stopped and left. And there was this guy from Holland who was very sick...... He was sleeping, and so we dipped two big fries in tomato sauce and stuffed them up his nose. Then we put him in a shopping cart, and started running like nuts in a very long hallway. We woke him up halfway and he could see himself being thrown towards the stairs, so he was screaming a lot the instant he woke up. Then we stopped the cart just halfway over the stairs. Fun times."
Christmas 1989 was dire for the Swedish might, with their Belgian member Hobbit leaving the scene. Misery turned to woe as further departures occurred with Danko deciding to leave (later to become quite a famous musician in Censor) and Pernod and Judge deciding to try their luck with Horizon (as most know, that venture is another scene success story). This left FairLight without much of its former demo-power and the search began for replacements. The Alchemist had been back for some time, though under an 'anonymous' handle, but began signing his own cracks again in December. On the cracking front The Alchemist replaced a very busy Gollum, who together with The Sarge was busy making the game "No Mercy", under the label Twisted Minds (which got released through Double Density and Digital Marketing). On the cracking front they were still pumping with titles like Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Hard'n'Heavy, Ghouls'n'Ghosts just to name a few. During this time, Bacchus worked in a computer shop, contrary to certain views, it seldom produced first release originals for the group.
1990 was the dawn of some big changes within the group, following the departure of some members. BACCHUS: "Pernod and Judge was a major blow. They were the spine of the demo section so I was seriously pissed when it happened. Bringing the Mute 101 guys (mainly Tron) was hence a very lucky save for me." The search for new demo-making members eventually turned them to the Danish demo subgroup Brain Using Demo Section (BUDS) from Nobodies Are Taking Over (NATO), who first collaborated with FairLight before becoming full members soon after (Maduplec, Conix, Tiger, Greco). The NATO connection continued further, when FairLight and NATO went into a very short lived cracking cooperation around March. BACCHUS: "Grayhawk was in contact with Megasnail. He is a REALLY talented guy, check his intros to see example of some pretty amazing stuff when if comes to writing efficient code using illegal ops and the lot. Anyway, he joined together with Maduplec."
Swedish coders Dino and Rowdy joined from Altobrows on New Year's Eve but they could not announce it until Rowdy's "Official Version" demo was released in March. It was also around this time we first saw ads for a FairLight board, 'The Boardgazm'. Further good news for the pride of Sweden was the return of Hobbit to the scene, who also rejoined Transcom at the same time. Whether he was to do anything at all for FairLight was another matter, but the mere presence he had in the scene with his fantastic artwork did wonders for the morale of the group. Swedish cracker Viper was kicked from the group in March due to extensive lying - I tried to convince Viper to write a statement from his side on the whole matter, after repeated attempts I have given up, however he did mention: "Just one thing, see to it that what you write about me is the TRUTH. Everyone else has failed so far. Of course it was a good time from the start but then some members stole stuff from me and started to bullshit me, and it somehow got the grip of the whole group - isn't life great!". BACCHUS comments: "Viper ran Heptagon before joining, and I willingly admit that he was the one digging up people like Pernod, Seagull and Judge for us and when joining he also brought in his team with Gerwin (RT at the time) and The Alchemist (Salt as the time as we discussed earlier). He didn't code, and he was at best an average cracker. His key part was being a spreader and a guy with many contacts and he arranged one of the productions of T-shirts for the group. I don't have any reason to slander him, and he did have some merits that I don't want to take from him. His problem was (and most likely still is) that he can't tell true from false. I thought we were mighty kewl at first but eventually you find is strange that if I had been in the US he had been on the moon. He could always top your story, no matter what! And he was a true master covering it up, giving you a trustworthy explanation. Honestly; it takes a really smart person to do it well as he did it!". Still to this day the rift between Viper and FairLight continues; showcasing one of the internal disputes that a mega group is bound to have.
In a course of events that is best described as 'what could have been?' the guys from BUDS decided to return back to NATO, the reason why? MEGASNAIL: "I returned to C64. So they rejoined Nato. I persuaded Ulrik and he spoke to the rest of the chaps." The Brain Using Demo Section was more like a trademark for Maduplec's best work, than an actual group. Members inside this trademark as explained earlier were Maduplec and Conix.
5. IRRESISTIBLE FORCE MEETS AN IMMOVABLE OBJECT
(1990)
Of all the wars that FairLight had on the C64, none were more furious than FairLight versus Censor, easily on par with the famous American war between Eagle Soft Inc (ESI) and Untouchable Cracking Force (UCF).
In early 1990 a war of words had started between some members in Censor (Bob, CRT and Dr. Cool) and Strider's young brother Aaron. This continued to simmer and then finally boiled over - which made it official; a war between two Swedish scene giants had begun. The usual slag fest expected of a scene war continued through the scroll text of crack intros. Eventually Censor stumbled across FairLight's Intro Editor and started releasing bugged games under the FLT-label. FairLight struck back hard and decided to take things even further at the Horizon Easter Party in April. A little release at the party fuelled the war with Censor to another level. Aaron stole some unfinished demo files (intended for Wonderland 6) from Censor and released them as modified versions. He did this by stealing a password from Slaygon/Censor and logged on to their BBS 'Testure' to check their private drives. JERRY/Triad was not impressed: "That kind of behaviour is outrageous. I, personally, will support Censor 100% when they go to war against Aaron". BACCHUS wrote in Mamba Issue #8: "A demo part was released and it was said to be from Censor. Right, it was Censor's unfinished code you all saw. As Jerry of Triad got mad at me I felt ashamed of the occasion and have this to say to the world: I wasn't the one who did it but, never the less, I take full responsibility for the occurrence. I gave the clearance signal for our censor killing wolves to bite the meat they were given. I now admit that it was a bit naughty of us to do such a thing, but I admit our step over the line. After all, I keep calling myself 'a noble knight' and I intend to be here. So, I hereby send an apology to Censor for this, and only this. Not because I feel they didn't deserve it, but for reasons like - we don't drag our name in the dirt but messing around with piss ants like Censor and - I wouldn't risk the friendship of Jerry/Triad for something like this..."
As a result of the ragging and demo parts being released, a federation against Aaron was created called All Against Aaron (AAAa). Groups joining this federation were Censor, Faces, Mute 101, Dynamix, Rizing, Royalty, Tera, Unit 5, Vision and Warrant whose sole purpose was to ensure that Aaron left the C64 scene completely. Censor re-cracked Asterix under the FairLight label using their intro editor and in turn FairLight replied with "Censor Invaders +2" by Bacchus (which is a Censor version of the Invade-A-Load game. Mute 101 were also active participators against Aaron, especially with their magazine, Dick Almighty (100% media propaganda but fun nonetheless).
Their long war with their fellow Swedes (aka the "press-play-on-tape-crackers") finally ended in October after conference calls and negotiations between Bacchus, Bob and Aaron. The two groups decided to collaborate on a small peace demo called "Eye Damage". The war featured much ragging and also some demos, like the hilarious "Censor Logo Destruct Editor" (aka Die Hard Censor, of which 3 of them were released), "The Cool Dentist", "H.T.M.A.A.S.W.H.H.D.A.T" (How To Make an Aaron Suffocate with His Head Down a Toilet) and "Eardick Aaron". BACCHUS: "Press-play-on-tape crackers were to indicate that they had routines for transferring from tape (bypassing the loader). Any idiot can run such a program to dump the content of a tape, again assuming that they were idiots. Routines done by someone else that is (K12 had made a really good set of transfers)."
Despite the war being 'officially' over, some skirmishes still took place. The main one that most people may have forgotten about occurred at the Censor Party 1990, which took place on the first weekend in November in Gothenburg. The party was big for the Censor guys, in the sense they wanted a booze-party only. Members of Censor went and confiscated all the alcohol people had brought along to the party and took it to the Censor room and drank like crazy. Particularly drunk were Dr. Cool and Adrian. During the party Aaron/FairLight had stuck FairLight stickers all over the place as well as breaking into the storeroom at the school where the party was held and stealing some calculators. Dr. Cool was really upset about these facts and confronted Aaron. He forced him to peel the stickers from the walls and return the calculators. He then hit Aaron with a retractable baton, Aaron fell to the floor and Dr. Cool dragged him down some stairs and outside and then proceeded to dish out more punishment. It was quite a severe beating. Dr. Cool was quite aggressive, often getting into fights that he created himself for the pure adrenaline of fighting. Aaron and Dr. Cool were the worse combination of scene characters you could imagine, Aaron with the arrogant and at times foolish attitude and Dr. Cool with his Nazi like behaviour. Surprisingly, this fight did not reopen the old wound between Censor and FairLight but can be seen as the final action between the two groups of any real significance.
6. THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD
(1990-1991)
1990 was shaping up to be an interesting year indeed as it really showed that the old FairLight had departed and a stronger version of the group was starting to take shape. Membership churn continued at a brisk pace with Finnish sceners Servant (supply) and Rockstar (crack) joining in from Contex at the Swedish Elite Easter Conference; only to leave again in late May to start a new group called Extasy. Both of them felt a bit uncomfortable in the group and when Contex disbanded it was the perfect opportunity for them to leave and together with ex-Context members form a new crew. Back in those days being 'elite' was a big deal, particularly in the cracking scene, lots of guys would boast about being elite but most were average to say the least. Elites would not exist if it was not for the lamers, of which there was a plentiful supply. Admiral/Transit demonstrated his ability to be lame in May by pretending to be a member of FairLight as well as Genesis*Project and F4CG.
The cracking section was bolstered further with RT changing his handle to Gerwin and joining in but the demo section had a loss with fellow Swedish graphician moving on to Dynamix. Around this time there was a brief war with Mute 101. The group had been in war with the FairLighters before but they had the support of Censor and other groups. This time around they were alone and the war only lasted for around 3 days. The main offenders were NRJ and Apache.
In June, something dramatic took place. Bacchus announced he was going to quit as he had found the girl of his dreams (who would later become his wife and mother to his three children) and was leaving the scene. His girlfriend was due to return to him via the InterRail in Summer, giving Bacchus one full month of freedom before he commenced law school and a serious relationship. Bacchus announced that he would devote his entire free time during this month to crack games under the FairLight label to leave a final impression on the scene audience. This announcement was a pivotal moment for the group sending shockwaves through the very spine of the group. The news of Bacchus leaving almost immediately caused two members/close friends to leave the scene as they found not further reason to continue, these guys were Rowdy and The Alchemist. Whilst this was a big loss to the group, Bacchus just could not put the C64 away and continued to operate in the background. Recruitment continued with Ghost (crack) joining in from Ruthless (his stay was a brief one as he soon left again after only a few days). Another cracker showed up, signing his cracks as the 'Wild 1', the true identity of this interesting character was eventually found out to be Watchman. He used this handle as he was in Rebels under his real handle, eventually when Rebels disbanded later that year he joined completely and the Wild 1 was no longer of any use.
September dawned on the scene, a new month ushered in times of change for Mute 101. The group disintegrated and FairLight pounced seizing Tron (coder), Terrax (coder) and Sledge (sysop and swap). These members proved to be invaluable to the group to the point of steering the ship out of troubled waters and saving it's future. As Bacchus mentioned earlier, it was a lucky save for the group as during this time a lot of their legal power had been lost, particularly with Pernod and Judge going back to Horizon. Tron was the ideal save here and Sledge was to become a central member in terms of leadership and his BBS 'Warez Aquarium'. SLEDGE recalls the board in its prime: "The most exciting time was 1990-1991. I had so many callers a day that it was incredible. Tron ran the board for a short time between 1991 and 1992. But as he was joining the army, I took it back and reopened it in late 1992. In the beginning I ran C*Base 2.x together with 1 1541 and 2 1581 disk drives on a stock C64 and JiffyDOS, and did so until 1992 when I started it up with 3.x. Then I had a 120MB CMD HD and later on even a 16MB RAMLink. In 1995 I even ran the board on a Flash8 accelerator for a while. The board have used different C*Base mods from Tao, Tron, Cyborg and so on. Tron even coded a C*base replacement BBS software for the PC that was about to be released, but that never happened in the end. The board had every FLT crack and demo ever released on it. Gerwin/FairLight leant his disk collection. I sat and zipped every disk and uploaded it to WAQ. It too ages to do it I remember. FairLight and Hitmen got their own sections for members only. This was a good way to distribute originals, code, gfx and music among the members."
In October a new Swedish coder left the ranks of his local group The Killer Muttons to join FairLight, his handle was Harlekin and he was another lucky score for the group as he was to prove productive. Some of the group visited Censor's party in Gothenburg in November and Harlekin and the others planned a small demo release, but nothing came of it. However he managed to release his three-part demo "Algot" early in December, which became the group's first demo since Rowdy's "Official Version" in March. Also in December the original of the game 'Hellhole' by Interactive was stolen by FairLight live at the ECES 1990 (European Computer Entertainment Show in London, an annual trade show for the European computer and video game industry). This was in turn first released by Bacchus, one of the few first releases for the year from FairLight. Aaron spread the original everywhere with some guys accusing him of leaving out parts of the graphics memory at $F800 (meaning that when other groups cracked the original the game would be bugged, thus no matter how you look at it, the group was portrayed in a superior light - the cracking scene was never about friendships). If what people say was true, it was a dirty yet clever tactic - to rub mud in the face of your opponent and portray your own group in a shroud of glory!
In the months leading up to the close of 1990 Bacchus still could not keep his hands off the C64, despite having officially left the scene, and several cracks from his hand appeared in October, November and December. At the end of the year, nearly the entire group travelled to Odense to attend Dexion's X-Mas Conference party, and the group released their third and final demo for the year, "Vir Optimus" which placed 6th. It was their best demo for 1990 and featured code by Bacchus, Tron, Rowdy and Terrax. Strider also made a nostalgic return for some of the scroll text in this demo.
1991 began with the communistic Soviet forces storming Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence. FairLight were able to kill even more of these commie bastards than usual as Bacchus decided to face the fact that he could not stay away from the scene "I'm not 100% back, but I'm not 100% gone either" he wrote in a scroller.
Triad had released their new magazine "Gamer's Guide" late in 1990 and the magazine had quickly became an integral part of the cracking scene, shaping the way that people released their cracks and making crackers strive for improvement. The idea of 'The Guide' was that of Injun Inc., and it caused some motivation in the ranks of FairLight. BACCHUS: "It was the key driver for me. I was later in the year totally in it for the competition of being on the GG lists - the objective reference to how I did as a cracker. We rarely had the games soon enough to compete on the first release scene so this was the area where we did really well". During this period FairLight cracks became even sharper in size, trainer amount and bug fixing. A good example of quality difference is Dragon's Kingdom from Wild 1/FairLight having 6 trainers and sitting at only 98 blocks, compared to the version by Destiny with only 2 trainers and 167 blocks.
The cracking duo Duncan & Turner started releasing games in early February, but this was in fact just Rowdy under a different handle. I approached ROWDY on the matter of this handle and why it was created: "Well, we started to make a game while in Altobrows and a friend with a non-computer background made the graphics outline for it. He needed a handle and a lot of respected demo teams worked in pairs - Ian & Mic, Ash & Dave etc. It felt kind of natural that I also had a "legit" handle so there it was - Duncan & Turner. Of course the game is still subject for "heavy regression testing" - a term I used to keep Bacchus off my back... Anyway - there was no need for a legit handle so I used it on some cracks to create a fuzz instead. I also used "FunkLord Freak Factories" and "3xF" on some stuff... 801 DC/Triad and I had great plans for that name but then he died in a tragic accident in June 1991. Then I used it more as a tribute to him. Unfortunately most of the stuff is still on my work-disks..."
During March the group gained two new members. A new supplier from England joined called Suckpipe, who improved the original situation with the hope of bringing in a lot of new games. Secondly there was the joining of Flood/Antic, he was a sysop and brought with him his BBS 'Wonderland' to add to the FairLight 1200/2400 fleet.
Easter Bunny was no where to be seen at a private meeting that was held during the Easter period at the end of March, at Bacchus' place in Lund. During the meeting Gollum's return to cracking was announced. Gollum returned in April 1991 with his crack of the Last Ninja III, it was one of the smallest versions available at that time showcasing a stylish come back to the cracking scene. His absence was caused due to his work on his game 'No Mercy' in 1989 and his upcoming game 'Rubicon'. Speaking of which, FairLight released 'The Sarge Show' in the early months of 1991 and in its scroller Gollum and The Sarge hint on their new game Rubicon for the first time.
The C64 scene posed several risks back in the golden days. Long before the rapid speeds of internet we traded via mail and BBS. Aaron had a turn of bad luck on the 16th of July, his packages were sent on by the post office but instead were confiscated due to cheated stamps (stamp fraud using a technique called "lackering"). He was called into the police station for questioning on the 20th but nothing further happened despite several addresses on unsent packs being recorded.
The legal section showed a lot of promise, especially in years to come. In July 1991 Ogami released a small collection called the "Stan Kajman Pictureshow". It was coded by Harlekin and despite having the name Ogami behind the pixels, the highlight of the show was the music by Kristian Rostoen (who unfortunately was not credited in the production; the result of an honest mistake of which was corrected in their next demo). The decision to allow Tron into the group was beginning to pay off. At an internal meeting at Harlekin's place Tron (together with Bacchus, Harlekin and Rowdy) released "Legoland". Their first mega demo in quite some time. The pride shows in their intro... "Howdy hackers!! The wandering souls of the demo lovers have long suffered from the draught in the sea of FairLight demos. Not any more will thy send lingering eyes to the Warez Aquarium for a release from the noble knights of programming fortune. Thy will be done; a new FairLight demo has found its way to your computer..."
The demo captured the spirit of "Quality, Tradition and Pride" and it truly completed the changing of the guard in the group, as a new generation of Legoland linkers ramped up the legal section, headed by the mighty coder Tron. Some trivia about this demo; there were two versions released. One at the internal meeting and then another a short time later which included an extra intro sequence that was not included originally due to time constraints. The meetings themselves created an opportunity to boost group morale and to have a bit of fun. Prior to the meetings at Harlekin's the group would meet up in Bacchus' small student apartment.
Back on the illegal front, the group started producing cooperation cracks with Triad in October and originals were apparently plentiful, judging from comments made by Aaron in the documentation for their joint release of "Turbo Charge" on the 14th. A very strong and persistent rumour was spread that both groups were in official cooperation based on the lack of time FairLight had to crack their originals. The rumour started due to Aaron asking Triad to do some cracks for his spread disks during a period when FairLight crackers were busy working on first releases. The group had to release an official statement saying that the rumour was totally false. They did manage a big first release for 1991 and that was "Speedball II" which was later imported to North America by the NTSC fixing group Empire. The game was quite a special one, easily beating the Amiga version at the time, it was amazingly fast and playable, and the game was something like a futuristic version of football. Further membership shuffling rounded off 1991 with Flood leaving to join Censor, taking his BBS 'Wonderland' with him and a new member from North America called Zapped joining as modem trader.
7. FAIRLIGHT - THE SOFTWARE HOUSE
(1989-1991)
Decades of piracy and demos make FairLight one of the most enduring and well known groups across multiple platforms; but what people do not know too much about is the games that they helped produce. Two of them stand out and both involved the duo of Gollum and The Sarge. In 1989 they had decided to make some serious games for the C64, a step up from the SEUCK (Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit) games that were made by The Sarge when he was in Triad. The banner that this new adventure was to appear under was entitled Twisted Minds.
The first title that the duo worked on was "No Mercy". This was a superlative 'Operation Wolf' clone that played hard and took no prisoners! It featured code from Gollum, graphics by The Sarge and music by Markus Schneider. The game was very enjoyable and contained fresh graphics and game play. Operation Wolf still holds the crown in that genre on C64 but this game did a great job of stealing it in the minds of some! The group released a demo of the game in the December issue of the Magic Disk publication. In 1990 Magic Disk expanded and started releasing its special editions called "Golden Disk" and under this label via Digital Marketing/Double Density, the game was finally published in July. It was protected against those naughty pirates (especially those in "Amok") with Timex V2 by Ivo-Jürgen Müller-Herzeg, Markus Wiederstein and Matthias Heilmann. The game intro contained some words against Genesis*Project, in particular Antichrist. The text was written by Mr. Cursor (Ivo Herzeg) and MWS (Markus Wiederstein) and sent a message that if the game was cracked there would be trouble at the upcoming Radwar party if the crackers were to attend. It was a precursor to further hostile involvement that was to slightly tarnish the release of the next game from Twisted Minds.
"Rubicon" was one of the biggest game releases in 1991. The story of Rubicon concerns a catastrophic nuclear accident in Russia. The player must work through seven levels inhabited by mutated super-intelligent animals in order to diffuse each nuclear reactor. The game was dressed to impress, with an array of phenomenally good graphics and code. It also featured absolutely awesome music by the legendary Jeroen Tel from Maniacs of Noise. It received good reviews from the magazines, but sadly never lived up to its high quality, due to various troubles with software houses Hewson and 21st Century Entertainment. Although the game was released, it never got the full spread as it should have done, which probably contributed to its low sales. The game had average playability and mediocre replayability (at best). In saying that, from a technical view the game is quite special with huge enemy design that will leave you gasping for air (compared to other C64 games).
THE SARGE: "Some parts were interesting to see coded by Gollum from my ideas, such as the lava sequence in the end. If I look at it now it somehow makes me think that the graphics was OK but the game play REALLY sux. No surprise there, we didn't work much on the game being fun..."
