Fav Cracker!!

[WayneK]

Gaston is definitely one of the best, very few (if any!) of his cracks weren't 100%.
I also like the intro you mentioned, although mainly for the stunning logo (otherwise it's just a sinescroll) - unfortunately as the crackers became busier cracking (surprisingly!), they stopped producing their own intros.
FFC made 1 or 2 decent intros when he was in Tarkus Team/Black Monks that I can remember, and going further back Eurosoft produced a very nice trainermenu for Operation Wolf (for Lightforce? can't remember) before he became quite as prolific at cracking (during Paranoimia, then Skid Row years).

Galahad, I guess you were a little late to the party regarding the poll (1992+? I'm sure you were cracking before this but not (m)any releases?), don't think anyone is doubting your skills

[Macca]

My fave has to be Galahad. Mainly for persisting with the evilness that is Player Manager and actually making it work

I also liked Fairlight back in the day - I liked the 'THX' type intros on some of the games as well.



M.

[fuzzylogic]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

you forget the fact that along all the private users who, according to you, just download everything, pc's have a huge professional user base, which in general doesn't use pirated software - this helps keeping the pc and developers alive..

I said that today everyone is able to get pirated stuff within minutes whereas in the early Amiga and c64 days it was not so easy to get all titles you always wanted to have. Also, do not underestimate the professional user base on the Amiga and also on c64, atari, cpc etc.. Well not comparable nowadays but PCs are more common than computers that time you have to admit.

I still believe that companies are facing more -at least- the same piracy than back in the days. And this includes audio cds, consoles, and movies aswell.

But they are still alive.

Originally Posted by n00w

The main reason why the Amiga was dead is Commodore.

I totally agree, in fact this is what I wanted to say in my initial post. Not the bad crackers or piracy is the problem. The problem is plain simple: the hardware was not attractive enough for ppl to buy and therefore not attractive anymore for companies which of course need alot of installations of the hardware to sell games, programs and the like.

Amiga is mostly proprietary hardware, like Apple, but Apple was clever enough to survive and to push its hardware by making innovations. And now innovative devices. This is the fault of Commodore, my fault by copying some games and tools.

Oh btw - back to topic, my fav cracker is Phil Douglas

[n00w]

Originally Posted by Predseda

I liked Crystal cracktros most, but I absolutelly have no idea who was behind Crystal.

Mainly Scott and IBM as organizers, at least when I was in. IBM was also the famous cracker. For cracktros see Melon Dezign, Danish-French demo group which was mainly created after the demise of Alliance Design, which did the same for Quartex. There were other members of Melon Dezign coming from various horizons. Organizers were Seen in Denmark and Walt in France, with whom I've been friend for 15 years. Bannasoft, the Danish coder, was also the cracker Harmonica. All of them came to my place near Paris, as I've been also a not-so-active member of MD, doing essentially musics for my pleasure and sharing a few ideas. All including IBM at a different time when in Paradox, but Scott who I may have had only once on the phone if it ever happened.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Ahem, I was a cracker for a few groups whilst you were still active.

Sorry for this, there's no intent from me to be rude or to underrate/undermine your work. Vaguely heard about you at the time but it was very far from my occupations.

Before I was busted late 1991 I did have a larger view of who was on the scene and knew personally a lot of people not only direct collaborators but also in many other groups. After this I didn't have anymore pirated stuff at home, stopped participating on the BBS's as I had no more modem, and completely reorganized things so that I had in fact several modems at friends' places, but they (and the organizer) were those who knew what was released and I was just properly informed at the right time.

In fact I was just interested in doing my supplier's job in the best and cleanest way possible, thus worked directly with the crackers themselves when it was the most appropriate, and had a narrowed view of the scene. From my own practical point of view, Fairlight in 92-93 were only suppliers who were competing on the marketplace and I did not intend to let them beat me on any game. Which may have happened a few times, of course...

Originally Posted by Macca

I also liked Fairlight back in the day - I liked the 'THX' type intros on some of the games as well.

Potentially interesting stuff for you [ Show youtube player ]. Limited edition, dangerous inside never spreaded on BBS's, as far as I know.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by n00w

Sorry for this, there's no intent from me to be rude or to underrate/undermine your work. Vaguely heard about you at the time but it was very far from my occupations.

Before I was busted late 1991 I did have a larger view of who was on the scene and knew personally a lot of people not only direct collaborators but also in many other groups. After this I didn't have anymore pirated stuff at home, stopped participating on the BBS's as I had no more modem, and completely reorganized things so that I had in fact several modems at friends' places, but they (and the organizer) were those who knew what was released and I was just properly informed at the right time.

In fact I was just interested in doing my supplier's job in the best and cleanest way possible, thus worked directly with the crackers themselves when it was the most appropriate, and had a narrowed view of the scene. From my own practical point of view, Fairlight in 92-93 were only suppliers who were competing on the marketplace and I did not intend to let them beat me on any game. Which may have happened a few times, of course...

I took no offence

[n00w]

Originally Posted by fuzzylogic

I totally agree, in fact this is what I wanted to say in my initial post. Not the bad crackers or piracy is the problem. The problem is plain simple: the hardware was not attractive enough for ppl to buy and therefore not attractive anymore for companies which of course need alot of installations of the hardware to sell games, programs and the like.

Thank you for agreeing but please pardon me, I don't agree with your comment. Some concepts in the hardware were attractive enough for a really good PC maker like Gateway to get interested in its acquisition. Especially there was no preemptive multitasking on PC at the time and the Amiga chipset was the closest to what RISC processors could do, but for a cheap price.

Originally Posted by fuzzylogic

Amiga is mostly proprietary hardware, like Apple, but Apple was clever enough to survive and to push its hardware by making innovations. And now innovative devices. This is the fault of Commodore, my fault by copying some games and tools.

We're talking of the 90's. Apple had a 5% market share, at best. It long struggled with the old Macintosh series before introducing the iMac with mostly innovations based on design and ergonomy.

Technically it was inferior to the best and even average-best PCs at the time, but it first appealled to the graphists and designers who were using Photoshop and xPress on Macintosh since long ago. This population being very anti-PC and comprising a notable number of opinion leaders, Apple did a very good job in marketing the iMac.

Then with their derived cool gadgets (iBooks and collector iMacs) they penetrated the market of family computers for CEOs and top-level executives. At last, as they had a strong marketing know-how in targeting specific populations, they sold cool MP3 devices to the teens' market. Later when they had more money they invested more in R&D which brought us iPhones and iPads. Before that, Apple had a small patent portfolio as compared to large PC manufacturers. IBM still leads with the largest patent portfolio and the most yearly U.S. patent applitions. In addition some of the innovations by Apple were initially patented by companies such as BT and Amazon.com.

Now things are changing fast (see the Nortel bankruptcy/Rockstar deal and to which company mainly the patents were sold), and Google is also in a good position now with its Motorola Mobile acquisition.

PC makers with their standard did compete differently. They all did the same thing and targeted the mass market, segmented as three branches (consumers, SMEs, large corporations), with models ranging from low-end to high-end configurations. Microsoft profited from this for quite a long time.

Too much standardization and categorization for the same basic things oriented towards mass markets finally led to the commoditization of the PC market. Eventually, a few large US/European PC makers died (Gateway for instance) or sold their PC manufacturing units to Chinese/Taiwanese companies (IBM/Lenovo deal for instance). Dell kept the lead thanks to its great mastering of customization vs commoditization, and its excellent knowledge and control of distribution channels. Now everything has gone mobile and is orienting towards more and more hosted (cloud) apps.

This was already anticipated by the dinosaurs IBM and HP at the beginning of the millenium, when they invested large portions in billions in what they were calling at the time "utility computing".

Originally Posted by fuzzylogic

Oh btw - back to topic, my fav cracker is Phil Douglas

Very cool guy indeed, and an excellent cracker for sure. Had the Phil Douglas warper to work with, good one though, was able to recognize some pattern things and also had a few cool built-in parameters. IBM/Crystal warper was of the same kind, if I remember well.

Still these ones didn't compare with the TIC warper which I used sometimes at Quartex. It was truly a monster tool, able to warp anything on earth, but very slow, and unusable for anyone not understanding its cryptic parameters. I'd say it was a completely different approach.

Other approaches were for instance with Blackhawk, very smart, very humble and nice guy. Although he also had his own warper, I've had him make a special warp tool especially for a game and it worked. With The Surge, the approach was different, he was extremely fast in cracking games, so we had a very fast warper for him, but this one couldn't grab the more specific protections. FFC warper, if I remember well, was of the same kind - but FFC could also modify it to grab these.

Some people considered the best crackers the ones being able to break anything 100%. Some believed the most productive ones were the best, as everybody could see their names everywhere. But most of the time, it was a matter of strategic planning, tactics and anticipation i.e. quickly assessing facts and playing the right (and available) cracker at the right time, while keeping free good strengths just in case the horrible thing could happen. The best crackers have not always been able to prove they were the best. I take instances of facts for my own rankings, which are of course, very subjective. If you have other facts to share, I'm glad to read them.

@Prowler:

Thank you for mixing posts together. It's easier to read now, and less spam-like (apologies for this).

[Asle]

Originally Posted by n00w

Potentially interesting stuff for you [ Show youtube player ]. Limited edition, dangerous inside never spreaded on BBS's, as far as I know.

Where's this prod ?
Do you have any other material (trainer/cracktro) hidden ?
We certainly would like to know about it !

Sylvain

[n00w]

Hi Sylvain,

That's great I now know who's behind this initiative. I have a few comments which may help you improve the website.

I will help you in documenting stuff I uploaded on the Amigascne FTP. I did it probably in the wrong place, directly in the Delight folder, but I thought the administration tool would log the uploads and report these accurately. I apologize for generally don't reading the f***ing manual!

Also I can help you correcting a bunch of erroneous things for Delight and many other groups. Wrong release names, bad memberlists, typos on handles, etc.

I don't know if you know me but I know you at least from the fact we have a few good friends in common, and it's possible we may meet sooner than you would expect, so I trust we will be able to build upon this.

Please let me know if you would prefer details in private or in the public place of these forums. Not to bother anyone with details, I'd suggest private or even direct contact in another place.

Best regards,
F.

[CFou!]

i am agree with Ian (Codetapper)

As a lawyer I should not write this, but ... there must also be recognized that some companies have made their reputation and thus their revenues thanks to crackers!

Indeed, trying games created by sensitive software, Team17, DMa design or Bitamp brothers .... many illegal users bought after the original!

For example, I discovered Beast with crack and I bought the game and after I bought after all Refection production eyes closed.


I do not think the one in this case ....

[n00w]

Originally Posted by CFOU!

i am agree with Ian (Codetapper)

As a lawyer I should not write this, but ... there must also be recognized that some companies have made their reputation and thus their revenues thanks to crackers!

Indeed, trying games created by sensitive software, Team17, DMa design or Bitamp brothers .... many illegal users bought after the original!

For example, I discovered Beast with crack and I bought the game and after I bought after all Refection production eyes closed.


I do not think the one in this case ....

You are supported by Bill Gates himself in this claim: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/techno...cle2190578.ece

And my little finger tells me that it wasn't the first time Microsoft used similar strategies for their Windows/Office products, although they were the first software company to use IP protection / enforcement broadly to protect their software (see Altaïr Basic history and the reasons why MS were pi**ed off and invented proprietary software - yes they were Open Source at the beginning!). I've also been confirmed some facts 'off-the-record' by a former MS top-level executive (ex-member of the Executive Committee) in the U.S. but as a former journalist myself I will of course protect my source

[Subzero]

me thought this thread is about "fav crackers" anyhow, ill find it funny that people think crackers kind of destroyed the amiga, me always thought its us original suppliers , which were destroying all, while getting them games too fast to them crackers... lol, ahwell its ok with me, but this thread is getting childish imho.
cheers

[Chips]

Originally Posted by n00w

Very cool guy indeed, and an excellent cracker for sure. Had the Phil Douglas warper to work with, good one though, was able to recognize some pattern things and also had a few cool built-in parameters. IBM/Crystal warper was of the same kind, if I remember well.

Still these ones didn't compare with the TIC warper which I used sometimes at Quartex. It was truly a monster tool, able to warp anything on earth, but very slow, and unusable for anyone not understanding its cryptic parameters. I'd say it was a completely different approach.

Between, are you willing to share some of theses warper (and any other crack tools) ?
I already own few of them (blackhawk, quartex, phil douglas...), but i surely miss many of them (TIC...) and don't have the most up-to-date for the one i have.
It would be just for collection purpose since anyway i feel like we have better tools now