The subcultures of obsolete microcomputers

Intel advertises the first-to-market general-purpose programmable processor or microprocessor, the 4-bit Intel 4004. Its main uses were in calculators, some early automatic teller machines, and other embedded devices.

Busicom (formerly Nippon Calculating Machine Corp) first commissioned the 4004 as part of a chipset for its 141PF Printing Calculator. The 4000 chipset comprises four branded components: the 4001 read-only memory, 4002 RAM, 4003 shift register memory, and the 4004 processor.

Intel released the world's first 8-bit microprocessor, the Intel 8008. Despite the branding, it was not an 8-bit extension of the 4-bit Intel 4004 but a new architecture.

Computer Terminal Corporation of Texas commissioned the new Intel chip for their cost-effective Datapoint 2200 computer terminal. Designed as a dumb terminal, CTC realized it could also operate as a programmable device with a central processing unit.

Manufacturing issues with the 8008 and deadlines meant that the Datapoint 2200 ditched the CPU. Instead, CTC followed the common practice of building the internals from discrete transistor-transistor (TTL) logic.

In 1972, the PLATO system IV network came online as the second iteration of the University of Illinois's class-room education platform. Its concept is to provide computer-based education on various broad subjects, not just computer literacy. This objective affected the network's design, end-user terminals, and software, leading to many computing and computer game design firsts.

The terminals connect to a supercomputer mainframe that eventually could support over 1,000 simultaneous users in various universities, colleges, and schools throughout Illinois and later setups out of state. However, the terminals and the special-purpose programming language used to develop the software make the network unusually special. One cannot overstate how advanced this platform and software is in its time.

Each monochrome terminal supports vector and bitmap graphics and offers an exceedingly high resolution of 512x512 pixels! This was twelve years before the Apple Macintosh System 1 operating system, which only provided 512x342 resolution. The terminals and software provided keyboard text and user-friendly touchscreen input almost 40 years before the modern tablet.

Equally as important was the TUTOR programming language used to develop software on the platform. Designed for non-programmers and educators to build coursework delivered on the network, the language allowed easy access to all terminal and network hardware elements, such as vector and sprite graphics, custom fonts, communication, and touch input.

The photo shows a boy named Reid playing a touch game called PICTURE SHOW. The PLATO IV had an optional audio peripheral that, in a 1977 report, stated it was of poor quality and unreliable. Still, the image has to be one of the earliest examples of interactive multimedia, edutainment software and touch-first design. Also, conflicting metadata makes it unknown if the photo is from 1972 or 1976, but a 1975 photo of a girl of similar age using the same terminal model, headphones and touch exists, maybe interacting with the same software?

Not long after the rollout of the PLATO IV system to various locations and the creation of specific software, online communities of friends and users started to develop. Most probably a first, people intentionally used the network outside of class or work to hang out, chitchat with others, and play multiplayer games online.

This all began with the August release of Notes by David Woolley, a 17-year-old student and programmer. He was asked to develop an app allowing PLATO users to post bug reports and for staff to reply with back-and-forth communication. A year later, Personal Notes by Kim Mast was released, allowing users to have private notes and, more importantly, to send notes directly to individuals as electronic messages.

Doug Brown released Talkomatic in the fall of 1973. This program allowed multiple people to occupy a chat room and talk in real time. Each user had their own window, and the text characters printed as they typed. After its success, the PLATO staff incorporated a form of direct chat into the system, allowing people to notify and page others for a real-time one-on-one chat like an instant message service.

At the start of 1976, Group Notes became the final evolution of the Notes concept, with the advice and feedback of many users and David's work. Groups allowed unlimited public and private notefiles for broad subject or topic-orientated discussions, such as books, music, movies, religion, science fiction, etc., years before Usenet or the CBBS.

Some people also used notefiles as a form of blogging, such as The Red Sweater's Newsreport or Dr. Gräper's =grapenotes=, and these could be inserted with emoticons.

It seems out of the gate that various students and possibly staff started using the TUTOR programming language in 1972 to create multiplayer games on the PLATO IV. Titles include Chess, Dogfight, Backgammon, LIFE, Darwin1 and Moonwar. In Computer Lib/Dream Machines, Ted Nelson extensively wrote about his visit and use of the PLATO IV in 1973 and dedicated a couple of pages to the games he uncovered on the network back then.

The most famous early multiplayer game on the PLATO was John Daleske's Empire, released in May 1973. The original game supported up to eight players in a competitive strategic economic simulation.

A revised edition of Empire II was released in September and offered 50 simultaneous players in eight teams a new game mechanic: spaceship tactical combat. The older economic simulation game was taken over by Silas Warner and redeveloped as Conquest. John gave an optimization update to Empire II, which became known as Empire III, with the same gameplay but on a much bigger playfield.

Inspired by the 1974 publication of Dungeons & Dragons, numerous authors created fantasy, computerized role-playing games (CRPG) on the PLATO system. Titles such as The Dungeon, The Game of Dungeons, Orthanc, Moria, and various games called Dungeon began in that year or 1975.

Unlike the solo CRPG games that were developed on microcomputers years later, these games, even when played solo, had a solid online component with competitive high scores, active player listings and permadeath. Games such as Moria and later Avatar offered players to play together in co-op as members of a party exploring multiple levels on a large playworld.

Brand Fortner's Airfight from 1974 was a 3D combat flight simulator in which you did your best to take out the enemy being flown by human opponents in a multiplayer death match. The title is believed to be the first of the flight simulator genre. Meanwhile, 1975's Panther by John Haefeli looked much like Atari's arcade Battlezone from 1980, except you played against online humans!

Yet all games created on PLATO were passion projects by their authors. Unlike the pay-the-hour commercial online services that came much later or the physical media sale opportunities that would eventuate on microcomputers, the PLATO author had no means of monetizing if the thought ever crossed their mind.

Intel released the 8-bit 8080 CPU, its second but far more successful 8-bit programmable microprocessor, and the first mass-produced CPU suitable for personal microcomputing. The 8080 and its later descendants, both from Intel and competitors, meant the 8080 architecture came to dominate the 8-bit CPU market of the 1970s and 1980s.

This CPU became the processing heart of the earliest popular microcomputers, the Altair 8800, the Sol-20, IMSAI, and later in arcade machines, such as the cultural phenomenon that was Space Invaders.

The worlds first popular microcomputer appears on the front cover of Popular Electronics in the USA, the Altair 8800 by MITS running on the Intel 8080 CPU. Even for the time, the Altair was a primitive device, requiring toggle on/off switches for input and blinking red LED lights for output, and there was no way to save programs. But it was the first widely available programmable computer that didn't cost an arm, a leg, or a house.

Eventually, with the system's popularity and its use of the modular S-100 bus interface, an upgraded Altair platform allowed for storage, teletype-keyboard input, printer output and displays.

While many technology clubs of this type for sharing ideas were common, this Silicon Valley, Bay Area group became famous for its numerous members who later became industry figures.

Are you building your own computer? Terminal? TV Typewriter? I/O device? or some other digital black-magic box?
Or are you buying time on a time-sharing service?
If so, you might like to come to a gathering of people with like-minded interests. Exchange information, swap ideas, talk shop, help work on a project, whatever...

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released The Apple Computer, later rebranded as the Apple I. It was a single-board device for electronic hobbyists with a MOS 6502 CPU, 4KB of RAM, and a 40-column display controller.

Unlike the far more popular Altair 8800, The Apple Computer wasn't usable out of the box and didn't come with a case. However, it did offer a convenient video terminal, cassette, and keyboard interface, but requires owners to supply peripherals for input, output, and storage.

The board is a commercial failure, selling less than 200 units, and could be considered more of a prototype for the company and third-party investors. The following year, the product line was replaced with circuit boards housing an Apple II.

The choice of the new MOS 6502 CPU showed foresight, as it became the foundation of many successful microcomputers and consoles.

• Atari 2600 ¹⁹⁷⁷
• Apple II ¹⁹⁷⁷
• Commodore PET ¹⁹⁷⁷
• Commodore VIC-20 ¹⁹⁸¹
• Commodore 64 ¹⁹⁸²
• Nintendo Entertainment System ¹⁹⁸³

The Commodore PET, Apple II, and the Tandy TRS-80 became the first successful microcomputers marketed to a mainstream consumer rather than an electronics hobbyist. By the end of the year, a potential customer in the USA could walk into a mall or specialist retail shop and walk out with a complete personal computer ready to use. However, in 1977, things began slowly for Commodore and Apple.

In the January 1978 issue of Creative Computing, the article, Home Computers: A look at what's coming, didn't even review the Apple microcomputers; instead, it previewed affordable machines by RCA, Bally, and National Semiconductor, none of which are well known today.

Commodore was the first to announce its machine in January at CES, but shipping only occurred in mid-October. Even then, the numbers were tiny, with the end-of-year batches reaching just 500 boxed machines.

Apple didn't fare much better, as its revenue until the end of September 1977 was just USD 774,000, which includes sales of both the Apple I and the mid-April launch of the Apple II. Its December 1980 stock perspective states, Net sales in fiscal 1977 occurred primarily in the fourth fiscal quarter and consisted principally of sales of the basic Apple II mainframe computer. Given the expensive Apple II is priced at $1300-2600, the number of machines sold could have been in the hundreds.

Sales of the Tandy were considerable. It was announced at the end of July and priced from $400 or $500, including a display. It was widely available nationally through the thousands of RadioShack retail stores, and took 10,000 unit orders in the first month, birthing the microcomputer revolution! The November 1977 issue of ROM announced, Radio Shack is for real with its realistically priced (if not so named) micro. The ready-to-plug-in-and-run TRS-80 sells for $599.95 complete with a fifty-three-key keyboard, regulated power supply, interfaced cassette recorder, and twelve-inch video display monitor. As if the low price isn’t enough, the real marketing con is the instant availability of five prerecorded programs. For a complete library Radio Shack is still the premier purveyor of ready-to-run systems with something to run. Applications software so far includes the demonstration blackjack and backgammon cassette that comes with the unit as well as a payroll program, a math education program, and a personal finance program. More on the way. All on prerecorded cassettes. At your local Radio Shack.

Creative Computing would report on the sales up to mid-1978, saying Commodore had shipped 15000 PETS, Tandy had shipped somewhere between 8000-20000 TRS-80 machines, and calculated that the secretive Apple had shipped 25000 units.

Digital Research releases version 1.4 of CP/M, the operating system for the Intel 8080 CPU.

In 1973, Gary Kildall, an occasional consultant for Intel's microprocessor division, began collecting hardware that would form a complete microcomputer system based on the new Intel 8080 CPU. This was in the era before off-the-shelf systems could be found.

Gary needed a way to link all the hardware components together in software, so he wrote a simple operating system in a high-level programming language he had created for Intel, the Program Language for Microcomputers or PL/M. The new operating system was later given the name Control Program/Monitor, more commonly called CP/M.

Gary attempted to get Intel involved in his pet project, but they showed no interest. This wasn't surprising, given the limited availability of microcomputers and Intel's own operating system development for the 8080 CPU, the Intel System Implementation Supervisor.

After the rejection, Gary and his wife Dorothy went out on their own in 1974, forming Intergalactic Digital Research to further develop and market the software. Initially, marketing it directly to hobbyists, but later discovered the new market of hardware manufacturers. In 1975, several small companies were selling microcomputers to hobbyists, which included both custom hardware and their own simple operating systems. However, developing system software was time-consuming and expensive, so many of these small companies adopted Gary's CP/M. By doing so, they could focus on the hardware, and the CP/M platform evolved into a de facto standard.

CP/M was an 8-bit operating system that worked on 8-bit microprocessors like Intel's 8080 and the Z80 by Zilog. However, in 1980, a couple of years after Intel's first 16-bit processor entered the market. It was not Digital Research, but a small hardware manufacturer named Seattle Computer Products, that was one the first to release a purpose-built 16-bit microcomputer operating system, 86-DOS. A scrapy and rushed system that was patterned after CP/M version 1.4, but was incompatible due to the methods it used to handle disk data.

86-DOS would be purchased by Microsoft for a secret IBM contract, and rebranded as PC-DOS for the IBM PC. Microsoft would rewrite the software from scratch and release it as Microsoft MS-DOS v2, but it still kept the same CP/M patterns and commands. Controversially, MS‐DOS would take over the markets of both Digital Research and IBM, and become the basis of Microsoft Windows, later evolving into the Windows Command Prompt. And while there were hundreds of enhancements to MS-DOS, the Command Prompt and the more recent Windows Terminal, for backward compatibility and user muscle memory, Microsoft always kept the original CP/M design patterns. Modern annoyances or features such as drive letters, the use of back slashes, three-letter filename extensions, CR+LF newlines, the end-of-file marker, and commands: DIR, REN, TYPE, etc.

Intel released the 16-bit programmable microprocessor, the Intel 8086, which began the x86-architecture and Intel PC platform.

In July 1976, the startup Zilog launched its first product, the Z80 CPU, an enhanced, cheaper and software-compatible 8080 clone. Eventually, the Z80 became one of the most successful 8-bit CPUs. Months later, Intel released the 8085, an update to the 8080 CPU line, improving circuitry power requirements and reducing implementation costs.

The development and launch of the 8086, a software-compatible 16-bit implementation of the 8080 and the 8085, is a direct response to the Z80 and the market of clone CPUs. However, the 8086 failed to dominate an industry saturated with more affordable 8-bit hardware.

While forgotten today, cassette tapes were the popular medium of publishing retail software on microcomputers in the late 1970s. Compared to the more expensive floppy disks, compact cassette tapes were less durable and harder to pirate due to their analog nature, but were terribly slow when used for data.

Andrew McFadden wrote about copy protection program routines found in some of the first Apple II games that were published on cassettes. He discovered the following games had some form of copy protection.

• 1978 Personal Software, Microchess 2.0
• 1978 Softape, Instant Library: Module 6 (Blackjack)
• 1978 Softape, Sargon II
• 1979 Hayden Book Company, Sargon II

Roland Gustafsson, an early creator of disk protection schemes on the Apple II, stated in a 2014 interview that the first copy protection he discovered in the wild was the cassette tape release of Flight Simulator. The game was developed in 1979 by Bruce Artwick and published by subLOGIC in either January or early 1980.

Roland would graduate from high school in 1981 and work freelance to develop custom disk copy protections for SSI, Brøderbund Software, Gebelli Software, and Silicon Valley Systems. And for SSI, he would create RDOS for the strategy game publisher, a custom protected disk operating system that used a tiny memory footprint and was very fast. A similar, performant self-booting custom disk operating system concept got popular on the IBM PC in 1982.

The correspondence for Creative Computing January 1980 wrote, ...pointed out some software problems that are also appropriate for Apple owners. The particular problem has to do with protected software. That is, software designed to prevent you from making copies or changes, or that destroys itself if you make such an attempt. If software theft is a real problem then there is possibly some advantage to the seller. I say possibly because a good programmer can “fix” the software anyway. And, with special equipment, anything that is recorded on a magnetic surface can be copied onto a magnetic surface. For the most part, the attempts to prevent theft will only cause problems for the purchaser. If the software can’t be copied for back-up then the user has to buy another when the original wears out.

Later in the year, the Creative Computing article, TRcopy and the Pirate contained, The instruction book stated that TRcopy couldn’t be used to copy itself. Hmmmm. Of course I tried and they’re right. ... That the programmer of TRcopy felt the need to build in a self-defense mechanism says something very interesting about the program ... and about the state of the software industry in general. Let’s face it. TRcopy and the others, Duplik, SYSCOP, COPSYS, Clone, etc. are the computer world’s software answer to the Xerox machine. They are programs designed to violate copyright laws.
I took my TRcopy to a local Radio Shack. With the manager’s help, I managed to copy nearly $200 worth of software onto a $2 cassette tape inside of twenty minutes. TRcopy, thus, becomes an interesting means of shoplifting. It is also curious in that the local Radio Shack isn’t out anything. They’ve made a $2 sale, where they probably wouldn’t have made the $200 sale. Perhaps TRcopy should be illegal. Still, the program is irrelevant. (The Xerox machine isn’t the counterfeiter.) The duplicating programs are inevitable and the fact it can be done means that it will be done.
It is a mark of the maturity of our industry that we have finally produced our own pirate industry.

Using the contemporary print media of the era, we can propose that copy protections for floppy disks began appearing in software in late 1979 and became commonplace in late 1980.

The October 1980 issue of Byte wrote, While attempts to eliminate software piracy are commendable, they very often fail because of the cleverness of personal-computer users; many take the anticopy measures as a challenge. The problem lies in making the protection scheme easy enough to be affordable, but complex enough to work.

SoftTalk January 1981 interviews an executive of California Pacific. Good copy protection has a high priority at California Pacific. In areas where Super Invaders was sold on cassette and unprotected, Trilogy (ed: with disk copy protection) outsold Invaders ten to one. The article writes, California Pacific's Super Invaders hit northern California in mid-October of 1979 and Trilogy* followed in December. *Bill Budge's Trilogy of Games

The debut of HardCore Computing was published in June 1981, with the articles written earlier. Of note is the piece found on page 10, bit copy programs - that will copy the uncopyables by Karen Fitzpatrick. It writes, A bit-copier is a MUST for anyone who purchases protected software and goes on to review three floppy duplication programs:
Locksmith by Omega Software Products first published in January 1981.
Back-It-UP by Sensible Software, from 1981 that offered quick & dirty+old faithful.
Copy II Plus by Central Point Software from 1981.

On page 12 the article contains the table Who Copied What? and lists a collection of Apple II software tested, all of which must have some form of disk copy protection.

• 1980 Dec Brøderbund Software, Apple Galaxian
• 1980 Dec California Pacific, Akalabeth: World of Doom
• 1981 Feb Hayden Software, Reversal
• 1981 Apr Highlands Computer Services, Creature Venture
• 1981 May M.D Software, Disc-O-Doc disk utility advertised on page 60 of Softalk May 1981
• 1980 Nov Micro Lab, The Data Factory a database application
• 1980 Dec MUSE, ABM: Anti-Ballistic Missile Game
• 1979 IUS, EasyWriter co-authored by notorious phreaker John Draper
• 1980 Sep On-line Systems, The Wizard and the Princess
• 1980 Dec On-line Systems, Mission Asteroid
• 1981 Feb Personal Software, Zork: The Great Underground Empire
• 1980 Sirius Software, Both Barrels
• 1980 Nov Sirius Software, Cyber Strike
• 1980 Sirius Software, E-Z Draw
• 1980 Dec Sirius Software, Phantoms Five
• 1980 Dec Sirius Software, Star Cruiser
• 1980 Dec SSI, Computer Air Combat
• 1980 SSI, Computer Ambush
• 1980 Sep SSI, Computer Quarterback
• 1981 Mar SSI, The Warp Factor
• 1980 Top of the Orchard, Bill Budge's 3-D Graphics System and Game Tool

Software written for either CPU often gets quoted as 8086/8088 compatible.

Also in June on the 18th, Microsoft published BASIC on the x86 platform. Microsoft BASIC and its many revisions were the first killer applications for Microsoft in its early years. Microcomputers were often sold to enthusiasts or businesses, but the software availability for these machines was lacking. So many owners resorted to building software, and the BASIC programming language had an easy learning curve. Though Microsoft didn't invent the language, its implementation was considered the gold standard.

It's easy to imagine software piracy in the early microcomputer era as online exchanges. Online digital services existed in the late 1970s ~ early 1980s, and one might assume that is how piracy was always done. However, that is not the case, both due to the hardware limitations of the time and the hyperlocalization of computer users. While some modems existed, they were unusable with file transfers for most, and unaffordable hard drives were very rare. Many online providers such as computerized bulletin boards, only facilitated message posting and replying.

Some people did used those online messaging services to coordinate in-person meetups, to converse, share ideas, programming, and of course, exchange commercial software. This coordination wasn't exclusive to online digital services; traditional advertising in newspapers, print magazines, and paper flyers was far more popular, and local computer clubs would advertise themselves, renting out venues and meeting regularly.

The October 1980 of Softalk Pirate, Thief. Who Dares to Catch Him? is one of the first to document the problem of software piracy, which is described as very young, and it can be stopped.

Just One for My Buddy. Apple ownership calls forth the enthusiastic brand loyalty once only associated with a particular make of automobile. But concomitant with the explosion of products to support the Apple has come an acquisitiveness on the part of many users that threatens the future health of the industry. These owners either become, or trade with, software pirates.
Starting by making copies for enthusiastic friends, some personal computer users move on to cranking out tens to hundreds of copies that they nonchalantly pass on to their friends' friends and mere acquaintances. To those who buy their goods, software pirates are great money savers; to their victims in the industry, they're thieves.

User Groups Under Fire. Many manufacturers and retailers believe that user groups, at least those computer clubs whose members meet to swap information and programs with each other, are the most common perpetrators of unlawful copying. When microcomputers were first introduced to the home, few were able to use them with a great deal of efficiency. Because information and help were scarce, the best way for owners to learn more about their new investments was to meet and share ideas with other owners. As computers gained popularity, user groups expanded in size and proliferated. Exchanging information and homemade programs was fine; the problems arose when group members began trading commercial software as freely as they did their own.

Piracy in the Retail Ranks. Although the vast majority of retailers depend on software sales as much as computer sales to make their nut and would easily see the long-range consequences of ripping off their suppliers as disastrous, a few do not, and these few cause painful times for manufacturers. Some dealers won't order a new product; they won't risk money on products they have to buy sight unseen, especially when, as .is the policy of most software companies, they have no recourse if they cannot sell what they purchase.
Instead, several retailers chip in and purchase one original from which they make copies for themselves. The dealers who like the product after running their copies may decide to place orders. But some dealers, even when they consider a program a winner, still won't purchase any for their stores. What they might do is make and sell copies of their copies.
Lipson of Progressive thinks retailers are the major perpetrators of software piracy. He refers to several retailers who never fail to order one copy of any new software product he produces. But none of them ever reorders a program. A customer on the brink of buying a system says he'll buy it if he can have this or that program with it. Naturally, the retailer agrees, and the computer sale is made. But instead of taking financial responsibility for the plum and throwing in the program at his own expense, the retailer makes the customer a copy and retains the original.

Tim Paterson worked on a project at Seattle Computer Products to create an 8086 CPU plugin board for the S-100 bus standard. Needing an operating system for the 16-bit Intel CPU, he programmed a half-complete, unauthorized clone of the CP/M operating system within four months. He called it QDOS (Quick and Dirty OS), and it sold few copies.

Initially, QDOS got bundled with an Intel 8086 CPU and hardware package for the S-100 bus. But after poor sales, the OS was promptly renamed with the more business-friendly 86-DOS.

SCP 8086 Monitor 1.5
>B
☺︎
86-DOS version 1.00
Copyright 1980,81 Seattle Computer Products, Inc.
Enter today's date (m-d-y): 01-01-80

COMMAND v. 1.00

A:chkdsk a:
              19 disk files
          245760 bytes total disk space
          146944 bytes remain available

               0 bytes total system RAM
         1036448 bytes free

A:edlin news.doc

EDLIN version 1.00
End of input file
*_

Available in November 1980, the famed Motorola 68000 is the 16-bit successor to the 8-bit 6800 CPU from late 1974. The Motorola series competed and operated in parallel with the incompatible Intel chips for the burgeoning microprocessor market. And like Intel, Motorola found its 8-bit chip designs reversed-engineered, enhanced, and undercut by its other competitors.

But the 68000 was the 16-bit chip of the 1980s, powering everything from the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Sega 16, the SNK NeoGeo, and various arcade games.

Significantly, it was at the heart of a future generation personal computing platforms, the Apple Lisa ¹⁹⁸³, Apple Macintosh ¹⁹⁸⁴, Atari ST ¹⁹⁸⁵, and the Commodore Amiga 1000 ¹⁹⁸⁵. These incompatible systems offered high-resolution graphics and their own mouse-driven GUI operating system as standard. At a time when the typical microcomputer or PC relied upon dated, user-hostile text interaction.
A>_

The earliest-dated crack is probably on the Apple II. A likely example is Cyber Strike broken by The Tornado in November 1980. The static crack credit and text art is loaded at the start of the game before the game's title screen.

The game is authored by Nasir Gebelli and published by Sirius Software, a company formed in 1980 and known for their disk copy protections. The game also entered the Softalk Bestsellers November 1980 charts at position 6, meaning the game likely went on sale in October or November.

• Pulsar II / Worm Wall 1981, Sirius Software for Apple II Sliced by -The Razor- April 1981
• Crush Crumble & Chomp 1981, Automated Simulations for Apple II Broken by The Pirate 09/26/81
• Submarine Commander 1982, Thorn EMI for Atari 400/800, Cracked 1982 by The Code Cracker
• Alien Swarm 1982, Inhome Software for Atari 400/800, Copyright Disks Ahoy 1982
• Dung Beatles 1982, Datasoft for Apple II, Broken by Black Bart March 1982
• Apple World 1980, United Software for Apple II, (c) cracked 1982 by The Mulcher ][
• Flockland Island Crisis 1982, Vital Information for Apple II, cracked (c) 1982 by mr. krac-man
• Type Attack 1982, Sirius Software for Apple II, (B)1982 Broken by Krakowicz NY
• Hard Hat Mack Oct 1983, EA for Commodore 64, cracked AD 1983 by Oleander
• Space Sentinel 1983, T&F for Commodore 64, broken by mike freeze 830915

Microsoft Adventure is an IBM PC port of the text game Colossal Cave Adventure.

Adventure was a highly influential and popular text-only adventuring game of exploration and puzzle solving for mainframe computers of the 1970s. Will Crowther wrote it in FORTRAN for the PDP-10 system and Don Woods at the Stanford AI Lab in California later expanded it. The game created the interactive fiction genre, which later led to graphic adventures and story narratives in video games.

In 2014, the Computer History Museum published the source code for this operating system edition, and Microsoft later made a GitHub repository.

The first set of published games on the PC platform is sold without IBM's involvement.

• Brøderbund was one of the major publishers of the Apple II.
• The Avalon Hill Game Company is the famed war and strategic board game publisher. 
• Strategic Simulations, Inc. acquired the Dungeons and Dragons computer game license and became a pioneer of the CRPG genre.
• Windmill Software was one of the first developers to create games exclusively on the PC.
• Orion Software created some of the earliest games on the PC.
• Spinnaker Software

The following year saw some major arcade and video game publishers release software on the PC. Despite the business-centric marketing of the platform, game software sold on a floppy disk was a popular seller. For publishers, it is less risky than manufacturing the expensive cartridges required by some other game systems.

• Atarisoft was the publishing arm of the computer, console, and arcade game maker.
• Infocom founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff and students to create story narrative games.
• Datasoft created licensed film, television assets, and arcade ports.
• Mattel was the creator of the Intellivision console and numerous games.
• Sierra On-Line became one of the biggest PC publishers of the 1980s and the flag-barrier of the graphic adventure genre.

Later in the year, due to a fear of civilian hackers, the systems associated with the US military were to disconnect again and join a new isolated Defense Data Network (MILnet). The few remaining non-military systems that adopted the TCP/IP protocol standard formed the basis of the new ARPA internetwork or APRA Internet.

The other alternative networks of the era:

• BITNet ¹⁹⁸¹, a cross-continental, research center and university network for file transfers and messaging.
• EUnet ¹⁹⁸², the first public wide area network of Europe.
• Janet ¹⁹⁸⁴, an extensive UK academic network.
• Corporate networks from Xerox Internet, DEC Easynet and IBM VNET.

PROLOK, the first heavily marketed disk copy protection ecosystem for Apple and PCs, was shown at the CP/M '83 conference held in January 1983 in San Francisco. CP/M by Digital Research was a major PC operating system predominantly used by businesses.

Creative Computing reports, Urban Pacific Data Service came out with Prolok, which they say will all but eliminate piracy. Here's how it works. Software producers and others buy Prolock disks, which have a built-in fingerprint, that is, a series of random program encryptions and other devious programming techniques, which protect the program.

There's no confirmation of this, but it seems likely Urban Pacific Data Service was or became Vault Corporation, and in May 1983, filed the trademark for Prolok. The ecosystem was heavily advertised in the tech press, often with the bold claims of the end of software piracy, and became very popular, with thousands of customers at its peak. However, at the end of 1984, the reputation of Prolok was destroyed after the company began promoting the idea of a Plus update to the tool, which enabled malware-like behavior.

Other tools, duplication services and protections from the era,

• Copy-Lock by Formaster for Apple, Commodore, IBM PC
• SUPERLoK by Softguard Systems used by Lotus, Ashton Tate, Sierra On-line
• Xelok by XEMAG for Apple, Commodore, IBM PC
• SECURE-WARE by Remote Systems Inc.
• COPYLOCK by Export Software International (UK)
• Software Protection Device by CSLabs
• Interlock by Electronic Arts used internally for their PC games of 1984-87

March saw the release of the Microsoft DOS version 2. Reprogrammed from scratch to ultimately distance Microsoft from its 86-DOS licensing contract with Seattle Computer Products, as well as any conceivable claims of code theft of Digital Research's CP/M operating system, which was the inspiration for 86-DOS.

MS-DOS 2 included a new special device driver, ANSI.SYS, to allow the IBM PC to view ANSI escape control formatting and color text on the microcomputer. However, the implementation was incomplete, and in typical Microsoft fashion, future updates deviated from the documented standard.

Also, the month saw Compaq Computer Corporation release the first unauthorized IBM PC compatible computer, the Compaq Portable. And Compaq would use Microsoft's operating system.

Around this time, GUI for microcomputing was all the hype within the technology industry and media. In hindsight, this premature announcement from Microsoft aimed to keep customers from jumping ship to competitor platforms and GUI offerings.

It took a decade before graphical interfaces on the PC replaced text in business computing with Windows NT ¹⁹⁹³ and even longer with Windows 95 ¹⁹⁹⁵ before it became commonplace in the home. Other microcomputer platforms, such as the Apple Macintosh ¹⁹⁸⁴, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST ¹⁹⁸⁵ came with a GUI as standard.

The first PC game to use 16 colors, King's Quest, is created by Sierra On-Line and released by IBM. IBM PC graphics cards are limited to monochrome or 4 colors, but the game is released for the new IBM PCjr that displays upto 16 colors. The other pioneering aspect of the game was the pseudo-3D landscape. The player controlled a human avatar from a 3rd person perspective and could use it to walk around set pieces, both in front and from behind, and interact with the onscreen objects.

King's Quest did not run off the PC's disk operating system; instead, the game floppy disk had its own self-booting loader, today referred to as a PC booter. For the time, the game had aggressive copy protection using Formaster's Copy-Lock.

The new Enhanced Graphics Adapter standard from IBM uses:

• 16 colors onscreen
• 64 color palette
• maximum 640 x 350 resolution
• 80x25 character text mode

With the odd exception, most PC games that use EGA only ever support 160x200 or 320x200 resolutions with 4 or 16 colors on screen. There were complications with EGA and its expensive monitor displays, plus the expensive memory requirements needed for higher resolution graphic modes with 16 colors.

While the Commodore 64, or C‐64, would first hit the market in August 1982, manufacturing constraints and quality control issues would result in a tiny number of machines solely in the USA and Japan. At year's end, there were around 50,000 Commodore 64s worldwide or back-ordered, and one million Commodore VIC‐20 microcomputers, the less capable precursor. Of that million, 800,000 were sold in the USA, almost 200,000 in Europe, with half in the UK.

The C‐64 problems are reflected in the press of the time, with Creative Computing reviewing a pre-production unit for the January 1983 magazine, which praised the machine but complained about build quality, especially the television output. The issue features a prime C‐64 advert from Commodore. However, in the subsequent magazine issues, Commodore replaced the new C‐64 ad with advertising for the older VIC‐20. A citation in the April 1983 issue may suggest why, According to Neil Harris, in 1980, 10,000 Vic 20 units were sold nationwide. Toward the end of 1982, Commodore was manufacturing 10,000 Vic 20 units per day. And the new machine, the 64, is back-ordered in the tens of thousands of units.

Another issue that plagued the C‐64 in the USA was the unavailability of the disk drive. Creative Computing wrote in August 1983, You could make an investment in the speed, convenience, and reliability of a disk drive. The only problem with this approach is cost, which in some cases exceeds that of the computer itself. But if you chose not to part with $400 for a drive, you were stuck with the very dreary prospect of cassette storage. Compute! December 1983 would report, We are hearing that 1541 drives are virtually unavailable, and that many drives purchased before the supply dried up suffer from reliability problems and later confirming the nearly total absence of 1541s from dealers' shelves in August and September. A problem for most buyers wanting the drive, [C-64] sales with disk drives are running at 90 percent.

However, the biggest problem for the platform throughout 1983 was the lack of software availability, which was emphasized in many publications. Compute! wrote in August, Although the Commodore 64 has been around for almost a year now, software is still scarce. There are many good programs available, but merchants and customers are frustrated that there aren't more. Ahoy! of January 1984 claimed, The C-64's main failing point has been the relative scarcity of software, and while the computer's sales success is changing all that, the gap between a 64 owner's selection and a IBM PCJr/PC's is wide and not soon to be bridged-if ever.

But Creative Computing was more optimistic, in October 1983 reporting, Sierra On-Line has entered the slowly maturing Commodore 64 software market with three converted Apple games. And in December writing, Not to slight original efforts for the 64, but frankly, the best software packages available for the Commodore 64 right now are translations from the Apple and Atari [game ports]. The top-notch houses, including Sierra On-Line, Sirius, and Synapse, are working night and day to translate their hits for the 64.

While 1983 was an amazing year for Commodore, it was likely due to massive sales of the VIC‐20. It would take until 1984 for the Commodore 64 to solve many of the supply issues, to improve quality control, and continue to see reductions in prices. 1984 would launch or see the start of several dedicated magazines, including RUN and Ahoy! in the USA; 64'er and Input 64 in Germany, and UK's Your Commodore. But importantly, in 1984, the Commodore 64 would see wider support from software publishers, with the new year opening with Electronics Arts Comes To The Commodore and other majors, like Strategic Simulations Inc., following.

The Commodore 64 became the all time, best-selling microcomputer, with many millions sold.

For a while in the 2000s, many in the Demoscene argued that a 1982 Berlin Bear image drawn for the Commodore 64 cracker group Berlin Cracking Service was the first ever Scene intro. However, in hindsight the claim was outlandish for multiple reasons, and either it was fabricated or a memory bias. Unfortunately, memory bias and conjecture are quite common when reflecting on the early Scene.

The Scener, Jazzcat wrote of the cracktro, the group for some time claimed the glory of having the first real crack intro which was the famous screen. Of the image itself, the picture was discovered to be in Paint Magic format which did not appear until 1983.

Paint Magic by Mark Riley, was a drawing program for the Commodore 64 that sold for $50 by Datamost based in north-west Los Angeles. However, despite a ©1983 found in the print manual, the program was likely published in 1984. Given that it was showcased at the 1984 International Winter Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, and the software reviews and reseller ads are only found in the press of 1984 and 1985.

Also, the Berlin Bear image gets used in cracks for games published in mid-late 1984. These happen to be ports of Activision titles that were advertised as Introducing Activision For Your Commodore 64 in the August and September issues of various magazines. Ahoy September 1984 wrote, Activision's Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, forecast in these pages in July, is now available, which dates the use of this Berlin Bear picture.

Regardless of when the Berlin Bear image was created, there are numerous examples of earlier drawings and intros. Today, the obvious counterpoint are the Apple II disk copy-protection cracks that existed years before the Commodore 64. There's the text artwork loader by The Tornado from November 1980. The animated loader created by ‐The Razor‐ for a game repack dated to April 1981. And the Apple cracking groups such as the Midwest Pirate Guild who were using custom logos in their game hacks.

Rick Adams created the Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP), the industry-standard protocol to connect dial-up modems to the Internet. This protocol allowed for the creation of Internet Service Providers, which provided Internet connections over standard copper telephone lines.
In 1987, Rick would also go on to found one of the earliest ISPs, UUNET. Which in the following year would offer the first commercial connection to the Internet.

Below is a mockup, using SLIP in 1993 to connect to a Western Australian university provider.

		WELCOME

login: defacto2
Password:
Last login: Tue June 28 18:44:50
SunOS Release 4.1.3 (CSI) #2: Mon Mar 8 13:58:16 WST 1993

Welcome to cleo.murdoch.edu.au, Academic Services Unit, Murdoch

For user support via email, email to userhelp@cleo

ELECTRONIC MAIL: To access your email, type the command "pine".
LIBRARY CATALOGUES: To access remote library catalogues, type "nis".
GOPHER SERVER: To access the gopher information server, type "gopher".
WWW SERVER: To access Murdoch's WWW servers, type "lynx".

You have new mail.

cleo>█

Authored by Thom Henderson and released sometime in March 1985, ARC quickly took the PC BBS scene by storm by allowing boards and users to use a single application to both archive and compress a directory of files into a single package. The adoption was rapid, with contemporary texts claiming it was in widespread use by the year's end.

Its impact on the scene allowed groups like Software Pirates Inc. to bundle additional help and description files in their releases and would later leave the opinion of including separate BBS ads, intros, cracktros with the release.

ARC - Archive utility, Version 3.10, created on 05/01/85 at 22:34:50
(C) COPYRIGHT 1985 by System Enhancement Associates; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The earliest ANSI advertisement is for the Manhattan based BBS, The Game Gallery (+212-799-6987). ANSI art is a computer art form that became widely used to create art and advertisements for online bulletin board systems.

The output uses ANSI escape codes, a standard Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) pioneered for its minicomputer video terminals. Later, it was used on IBM and other PCs using software drivers and video terminal emulators.

         Hi score 212-799-6987
       ╔════════════════════════════════════╗
       ║∙ █ ∙  ██ THE GAME GALLERY∙ ██ ∙ █ ■║
       ║ ∙██ ∙  █  ∙∙∙ 300 1200 ∙∙∙ ███∙ █ .║
       ║∙∙ ██ ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ ██████ . ███ ∙ ∙█ .║
       ║∙∙ ███ █∙ ██████ ∙∙∙ ██ ...∙∙∙ ███ .║
       ║∙∙∙ █∙∙█∙∙  █∙∙ ████ ∙ ∙ ██████  
 .║
       ║               ......
.............║
       ║∙∙   ∙∙∙∙∙ ∙ .███ ███.█.... █ .███ .║
       ║∙█∙    ████ ∙.█  
  █.███████ .█ ...║
       ║∙██     ███∙ .█  
 
█.█ .......█████║
       ║∙███     ██∙∙.███████.....█ .█......║
       ║∙∙∙∙ ██  ∙∙∙∙.........█████ .█. ████║
       ║∙∙∙∙∙ █    █∙███████████ ....█......║
       ║∙█  ███                █ 
..... ███.║
       ║∙█∙∙∙∙∙∙     300 1200    ...██... █.║
       ║ ∙ ██ ██   212-799-6987  █████. ███.║
       ║∙∙∙∙ █∙∙  24HRS WEEKDAYS   .......■.║
       ╚════════════════════════════════════╝
        For those who use the computer for
        recreation. THE GAME GALLERY.

Razor 1911, the oldest and most famed brand in the Scene, was founded in Norway and has three members. The group released demos and later cracked exclusively for the Commodore 64 and then the Amiga. Co-founder Sector 9 took the brand to the PC in late 1990.

The distinctive number suffix was a fad with groups of the Commodore 64 era^[1].
1911 denotes the decimal value of hexadecimal $777.

NFO information text files are usually distributed with pirated software to provide usage instructions, promote the release group, and occasionally encourage group propaganda.

Software Pirates Inc may have released the earliest NFO-like document for the late 1985 packaged release of The World's Greatest Baseball Game.

Welcome to the Software Pirates, Inc.  version of Baseball
If you are new to the Software Pirates concept of DOS
files of your favorite protected program then you can help
us.  Send us your favorite protected diskette and we will
return it as DOS compatible file(s).  We hope you can help
this worthy cause.  We offer an exclusive money back
guarantee and warranty for the life of the program, if it
should ever fail you.  If you are not new to the SPI
concept, we still welcome donations of your protected
diskettes.

Instructions for playing Baseball.
Baseball is a 3 file set, including this documentation
file.  The other two files are 1.  BASEBALL.COM, the
loader and diskette emulator, 2.  BASEBALL.SPI, the
diskette image These files are distributed under the ARC
format, to retain their consistency.

Starting
Change the DOS default prompt to the drive containing
BASEBALL.SPI and execute the command BASEBALL.
...

The new Video Graphics Array standard from IBM uses:

• 256 colors onscreen
• 262144 color palette
• maximum 640 x 480 resolution
• 80x25 character text mode

Rockford is a strange game. It is a port of the arcade game of the same name—a machine created as a port of the then-popular microcomputer video game series, Boulder Dash.

More unusual is the use of 32-color VGA for a home computer port of an arcade game on the PC in an era when ports were done on the cheap using the lowest common denominator four-color CGA graphics. The crossover of players who owned expensive VGA graphic cards and monitors in 1988 who were playing arcade ports was low.

While novel in 1988, BBS adverts like this README.!!! text file would plague releases as spam in the years to come, with boards injecting numerous texts and tagging the releases with their names, often under the guise of documentation or readme texts.

Another Quality Ware Downloaded off:

           S W A S H B U C K L E R S   I I
                 Home of PTL/CPI
                 100 megs Online!
             85 megs Offline, Request!
              All PTL/CPI Cracks FREE
    All other Major Groups cracks Always Online
       Ask your local Sysop for the number..
We are a private system, but do accept the occasional new GOOD user. If you have something to offer, call us. Once on, you won't have to call any further.

If all you want are the Latest warez FIRST call us we have them, or we've just cracked them.

The earliest scene drama known so far involves a release by The North West Connection (TNWC) for the game Paladin. The drama accuses PTL Club of stealing and re-releasing an early game released by TNWC. Scene drama often involves texts that call out other groups for poor behavior, breaking commonly accepted rules, or being lame.

DO NOT TAKE THIS FILE FROM THE ARCHIVE!!!!
Well unlike PTL I won't sacrifice some game code to put up a fancy title screen for the group that released this (TNWC). This is officially out third release, but really it's our second major one since PTL took Paladin and "re-released" it by taking off the doc check.
Anyway - on with the game.  This game is a great role-playing game with some of the best graphics I've seen in an RPG (which is not what you'd expect from Infocom) so enjoy it.

ANSI loaders were text files with ASCII escape control characters to provide color and cursor movement. However, a specific display driver on IBM and other PCs often needed to load at boot before viewing the texts. So, to avoid this, Sceners converted their ANSI artworks into simple, self-displaying applications or loaders.

The Rogues Gallery (+516-361-9846) was a BBS based in Long Island, New York.

Created in Chicago, Pirate magazine was a bi-monthly text newsletter for the Scene on the PC platform and distributed through bulletin boards. It ran for at least five issues between June 1989 and April 1990.

What's a pirate? COMPUTER PIRACY is copying and distribution of copyright software (warez). Pirates are hobbyists who enjoy collecting and playing with the latest programs. Most pirates enjoy collecting warez, getting them running, and then generally archive them, or store them away. A PIRATE IS NOT A BOOTLEGGER. Bootleggers are to piracy what a chop-shop is to a home auto mechanic. Bootleggers are people who DEAL stolen merchandise for personal gain. Bootleggers are crooks. They sell stolen goods. Pirates are not crooks, and most pirates consider bootleggers to be lower life forms...

Pirates SHARE warez to learn, trade information, and have fun! But, being a pirate is more than swapping warez. It's a life style and a passion.

The Cat released this cracktro for the game M1 Tank Platoon. It is the first known cracktro on the PC platform to feature music. But music is in a loose sense, as it relies on the terrible internal PC speaker to produce the melody.

While 8-bit consoles and some microcomputers offered dedicated music audio chips, most famously the Commodore 64 with its SID chip, the IBM PC, which targeted business, did not.

The Sound Blaster audio standard came about in 1990 after the Sound Blaster 1.5 audio card was released by Creative Labs, with the box proudly proclaiming it The PC Sound Standard. It was the first digital audio standard for the IBM PC to be widely adopted on the PC platform, despite its poor quality, mono 8-bit digital audio. Previous audio standards such as the AdLib and the MT-32, were limited to FM synthesis or MIDI-like samples.

The Sound Blaster was the first audio standard widely adopted by the PC platform and was the de facto audio option in games for many years.

The first widely available enhanced PC game on CD-ROM was Mixed-Up Mother Goose, announced by Sierra On-Line in 1990 and released in 1991. The children's game was a high-technology remake of a fun title from 1987, but the CD-ROM remake featured new, enhanced VGA graphics and interface, digital audio with speech, singing, and music.

With the newest technology and a lack of standards for CD media, the box came with two identical discs, one red and one blue. The red disc supported Red Book CD audio, while the blue disc supported lower-quality digital playback samples.

XTC-AD.COM

Splatterhouse, or Splatter House, was a San Jose, California bulletin board heavily affiliated with the International Network of Crackers, the art group ACiD Productions, and the designers of this BBStro, Insane Creators Enterprise.

While there were many earlier PC BBS ads, this was the first that combined music and animation.

The first widely available SuperVGA game was Links 386 Pro from Access. Here, another popular golf simulation pushed the baseline PC gaming requirements with the need for higher-end hardware. The 386 in the title stated the minimum requirement of an Intel 386 CPU when 286 systems were the commodity.

The problem for consumers is that ordinarily, most PC software never took advantage of the enhancements offered by the more expensive Intel 386 or 486 CPUs.

Some caveats to the first SVGA/VESA claim: we are talking about a retail, boxed game requiring a resolution/color depth that a standard VGA setup cannot handle, so at least a constant 600x400 resolution with 256 colors.

Drink or Die became notorious for releasing the CD media for the box retail edition of Windows 95 two weeks before the official worldwide release.

In an era when global, same-day product launches were logistically costly and uncommon, this operating system launch was probably the most hyped Microsoft consumer product ever. Over a decade before Apple cemented the marketing tactic, Windows 95 had fans queuing at midnight in retail stores worldwide.

The release also highlighted a significant problem for software and game publishers: for pirates to get access to the retail packaging weeks before launch meant some company employees were either members of these warez groups or receiving kickbacks.

Years later, competitor Pirates With Attitudes would release the Windows 98 media five weeks and Windows 2000 two months before the official launches! However, a global, coordinated law enforcement effort would take down both groups in the following decade.^[1]

The other Microsoft-sourced releases from DOD during these two weeks were the Windows 95 floppy edition, upgrade edition, Plus Pack, Microsoft BOB, and Word.

Microsoft's biggest and most hyped mainstream product release was hugely successful in the market and finally began the PC's transition away from the archaic IBM and Microsoft DOS (Disk Operating System).

Windows 95 had been a long time coming, over a decade late, and offered a fully graphical user interface as the default. It also introduced the famed Start menu concept that would later become favored by many Windows and, ironically, desktop Linux users.

The first major Scene merchandise was selling a CD-ROM by Razor 1911 to celebrate their 10th anniversary. The disc was a collection of their PC releases from 1991 to 1995 and, including worldwide postage, sold for $40 each, or about the cost of a full-priced, boxed PC game. Before online or consumer digital transactions, buyers had to post the physical cash and an order form in an envelope to a PO Box in Florida.

The disc was controversial as reselling scene-released software was criminal and frowned upon. But its success meant other group merchandise soon followed suit, with the most popular items being branded t-shirts. Though the t-shirt merch was probably first introduced on the PC scene by The Dream Team with their 1992 T-Shirt Series #1.

The Standards of Piracy Association (SPA) was formed by the groups Prestige, Razor 1911, Mantis, Napalm, and Hybrid.

For the prior 15 years, PC publishers used 5¼ and 3½ inch floppy disks to distribute software, whereas the CD-ROM was now the standard medium for boxed retail games. But CD-ROMs were too large for the Scene to copy, crack, and spread properly. After several confusing and broken releases, an association of groups created a set of standards for releasing CD-RIPs. While floppy disk distributed releases always included the complete and cracked game, ripped CD releases were playable but missing key gameplay features, such as cutscenes, music, instruction manuals, and speech.

CD ripping made an incomplete but technically playable game accepted as a valid pirated release, as this was not the case prior.

the SPA is an agreement between the 5 top PC games groups that lays down the official "rules of engagement" to be used in the battle to release the most

The Orchid Righteous is available in retail. Later, cards from other manufacturers, such as the Diamond Monster 3D, quickly followed, and within a year, the 3Dfx chipset dominated the market.

Before the 3Dfx Voodoo release, consumer PCs' fragmented 3D graphics market needed more software support. 3Dfx coordinated with publishers to target their Glide API with new game releases so gamers had confidence in their Voodoo card purchases.

3Dfx also extended the life of existing PC hardware and broke the endless cycle of aggressive, expensive CPU upgrades to support the current generation of games. A new 3Dfx card would double the resolution, add fantastic color support, and even improve the frames-per-second on what would otherwise be an older machine.

Founding member Hybrid is the first to break the CD-RIP standard rules set by The Standards of Piracy Association with the release of Diablo.

Less than a year prior, SPA had agreed that CD-RIPs should be ripped to a maximum permitted size and titles that weren't possible should be skipped. Release groups often passed over significant games such as Sierra's Phantasmagoria due to their massive size and gameplay reliance on un-rippable video and audio content.

Razor 1911 and famed cracker Beowulf were credited with the release of StarCraft. Together, they released a CD-RIP of the game. However, the package took time to compile and lacked the unique CD keys required to play the desirable online multiplayer.

Well, what can I say. This has got to be one of the hardest titles I have ever ripped. The crack was trivial, but ripping this game involved understanding and coding utilities for Blizzard's file packer. It is ...a veritable nightmare.

The ISO scene is still in its infancy but snowballs after some top groups start releasing with the file format.

Some key events of 1998.

• Razor 1911 merges the separate ISO division back into the Razor 1911 label.
• Fairlight returns after 4-years and is exclusively released with the format.
• The famed couriers RiSC created RiSCiSO to become one of the largest ISO release groups.
• PDM ISO is the ISO division of Paradigm and Zeus.
• DVNiSO is the ISO division of Divine.
• SHOCKiSO is the ISO division of Shock.

Other early users of the format include CD Images for the Elite (CiFE), Kalisto, ISOlation, In Search of CD, and CaLiSO.

Paradigm - we do rips, we do ISO - we do it all with style

The market pioneer, 3Dfx, with its Voodoo 3 GPU, had abandoned OEM manufacturers and decided to produce both the chips and graphic boards in-house. The change, intended to boost profits, led to manufacturing and global distribution shortages and decreased retail shelf space for 3Dfx products.

In the same year, Nvidia released its TNT and GeForce series of GPUs and became the go-to supplier of chips for OEM card manufacturers. Unlike 3Dfx, Nvidia was API agnostic and happy to prioritize Direct3D and OpenGL.

For gamers, the new 3Dfx cards were more challenging to obtain but offered the best compatibility for 3D games of the past few years. Plus, current games ran fast with better frames per second.

The high-end Nvidia products offered improved resolutions and graphic feature sets but poorer compatibility for older games developed primarily for the proprietary 3Dfx Glide API. But by the end of 2000, 3Dfx was bankrupt, having taken on too much debt and railroaded themselves into a dead-end architecture. By April 2002, the company's assets and intellectual property were owned by Nvidia.

The release of Microsoft's Direct3D 8 for all active editions of Windows from 95 through to XP was the beginning of the dominance of the proprietary 3D graphics API, as it is the first release offering compelling features for game developers.

For Microsoft, this helps to lock in Windows as the only operating system for modern PC gaming. Since 1996, prior editions of Direct3D have been clumsy and lacking features compared to the competing proprietary 3Dfx Glide or the industry OpenGL standard. Direct3D was instead a hardware fallback API for developers to support.

Counter-Strike Source, the online multiplayer title, was exclusively distributed on Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform. As no physical media was available, this became a dubious release within the Scene, and many groups didn't acknowledge the Emporio package as a legitimate retail product or a final release. The release of Steam-only games was poorly received due to the ease of supply and constant online patching.

SOME may contend the fact that this is BETA. This is the version that is released on STEAM AS FINAL. You cannot do any better than this. The ... thing with STEAM is they can easily release many patches BUT EXPECT the EMPORiO crew to bring each and every patch CRACKED to your doorstep!

Half-Life 2 was one of the most anticipated games of the decade, and it was the first major game to use Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform. Steam was a massive shift in how games got distributed, and it was the first time a significant game required online activation. Steam often was not well received by the gaming community, but it was a big success for Valve and paved the way for other digital distribution platforms. Half-Life 2 was released simultaneously on Steam, DVD, and CD, but all three formats required Steam activation.

Half-Life 2 was one of the most anticipated games of the decade, and it was the first major game to use Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform.

Vengeance is the first attempt to crack the Steam activation, and it used an unusual Steam client and activation emulator. But while playable, their pirate release of the game suffered with slower frame rates, load times, and the lack of multiplayer gameplay. Vengeance would release the DVD *Retail* version with a tweaked crack two days later.

Farewell © Myth is the final release from Myth, a group founded as Zeus, then Paradigm in 1996 and focused on ripping PC games from CD and later DVDs. By the mid-2000s, broadband use was widespread, and the desire for ripped CD or DVD games with missing content was dwindling. Myth's longtime rival, Class, had already quit in early 2004, and the other major competitor, Divine, finished up the following year.

We believe that the rip scene is one of incredible skill. Not only is there the cracking talent needed to be successful like that of ISO, you must have dedicated coders and rippers to fully complete the task. Much time is needed to perfect a rip like that of Neverwinter Nights. (We'll never forget you old friend) With the faster speed of the internet, equates to less usage of rips and just makes it not worth it. When you are releasing upwards of 30 games a month some months, and you know not many people are downloading them. It hardly gives you the rush of winning the title. We see groups throw out games now with stolen cracks and are completely non-working. These titles are not nuked, as no one even notices anymore, indeed a sad time in the scene.