World Record by Three Cirque du Soleil Teenage Performers

 This article used to be part of my Cirque du Soleil Primer article, but I decided to remove it from there and make it its own article instead. Note that this World Record was already set in September 2007, much over 1 year ago. 

Highest Circus Act Ever Performed

Did you know that three of Cirque du Soleil's contortionists, Natasha Patterson, 10, born in San Francisco, Julie Bergez, 14, from France and Dasha Sovik, 15, from Russia, who perform in KOOZA, the Cirque's latest touring show, attempted to and actually set a new Guinness World Record™ for the Highest Circus Act ever performed?

Well, they did just that on September 25, 2007 at the top of Toronto's CN Tower, the World's Tallest Freestanding Tower. This feat was performed in the Glass Floor observation deck, 342 meters (1,122 feet) above the ground and as high up on Toronto's CN Tower as you can get as a human without getting into serious trouble.
 
The CN Tower-Canada's National Tower- is standing tall as the defining landmark of Toronto with a total height of 553.33 meters (1,815 feet, 5 inches). This means that the record by the three teenage girls from Cirque du Soleil can be broken, but it would have to be a much windier and chilling performance in lofty heights and exposed to the elements, or somebody has to build a higher tower. Not an easy task obviously, because the tower was already built in 1976 and nobody built a higher one in over 30 years yet.

Watch full video of this performance on YouTube.

*Note: Natasha might have been 11 and Dasha 16 already when they made the performance on September 25, 2007. I don't have their exact birth dates to say for sure.

Another World Record by Cirque du Soleil

There was another World Record that was set by Cirque du Soleil on June 16, 2004 for the most people walking on stilts at the same place and at the same time. Cirque gathered 544 of its employees at their corporate headquarters in Montreal, Canada and set the new record.

I wrote about this in a separate article, if you want to learn more about this (including a some video material).

It has long been taken away from Cirque since then. The record was 625 by May, 2009. Cirque attempted to recapture the record on June 16, 2009 at 5 locations worldwide simultaneously, in Orlando, Florida;  Moscow, Russia; Montreal, Canada; Macau, China and of course in Las Vegas, Nevada. If they succeeded or not is still undetermined. The auditors of the Guinness Book of World Records are still counting :).

From the description of their video of the 2009 event at Facebook.com

Worldwide Cirque du Soleil cast, crew and staff went to great heights to attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people to simultaneously walk on stilts on June 16, the date of its 25th anniversary.

In Las Vegas, nearly 300 Cirquesters took over the sidewalk in front of Bellagio to attempt the 328 foot distance on stilts that had to be at least 12" off the ground. Stay tuned to see if we broke the record. But even if we didn't, everyone had a great time!!!

However, the 300+ stilts walking Cirque du Soleil employees in front of the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada was a spectacle nevertheless and I am sure that people in Vegas and the other 4 locations worldwide had a lot of fun, world record or not. You can watch a 1:34 minutes video of the 2009 event at Facebook.com or Watch the video on YouTube .

Back to the Cirque du Soleil Primer

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC and CirqueDuSoleilGuru

Roy/SAC Intro Development

When I decided to pack my collections of scene art logos and pixel art fonts to make them public for others to download, I got the idea to create a nice little intro that comes with the packages. Following an ancient tradition in the scene, an intro does serve the purpose to announce the release and to relay greetings and messages to fellow sceners. The intro (or Cracktro), which is short for "Crack Intro") pre-dates the text NFO files by many years. In fact, NFO files are something that was developed pretty late in the game and was only extensively used for releases on the PC.

NFO files were pretty much a novelty on machines like the Commodore 64 and also not common for the use in releases on the Commodore Amiga. I created a NFO file and file_id.diz for my collections releases of course.

Anyhow, I created an Intro with the help of the OSDM (OldSkool Demo Maker) intro engine developed by the fellow German scener with the name Peace/Testaware and released my collections with that new intro of mine.

As always, I was not 100% happy with the results and started tweaking, changing and expanding things. Here are the results of that tweaking and one intermediate version that will probably never be used for a release ever. The current version will most likely be used for any update to the current packages or for some new collections (I have a lot more stuff floating around here than just logos and fonts hehe).

Current Version 4.5 of the Intro

Code: Peace/Testaware
Design, Graphics, Concept & Direction: Roy/SAC
Music: Mantronix/Razor 1911

• Watch on Vimeo
• Watch on YouTube
• Download Video Version in AVI Format (263 MB)
• Download Win32 Executable (370 KB)

Previous Versions of the Intro

The credits for the previous versions of the intro are slightly different. I used a different intro tune there.

Code: Peace/Testaware
Graphics, Design and Concept: Roy/SAC
Music: track "Cognition" by Jozz/TRSI

Version 1	Version 3
Watch on Vimeo Watch on YouTube Download Video in AVI Format (63 MB) Download Win32 Executables	Watch on Vimeo Watch on YouTube Download Video in AVI Format (54 MB) Download Win32 Executables
Note: You can always download the AVI version of the intro at VIMEO.com. Look to the lover right of the detail page for each of my videos there.

I thought it was a nice idea to include greetings to most of the guys that I knew and dealt with in the scene and still remember, so I started creating a list to collect all the handles of those folks and included them in the second scroller (the smaller copper-bars scroller at the bottom). Most folks are from Germany, especially Berlin, where I grew up, but it also includes some folks from other countries in Europe, Israel, Canada and the United States.

Long List of Personal Greeting (Alphabetically)

Ace , Acen , Ados , Akim , Alf/ACC , Alf/Melmac , Alien/Nostromo , Alphatron , Amblin , Amok , Angel Death , Antibody , Argon Factor , Asphyx , Axess , Bacchus , Bad Boy , Beatmaster , Ben Garrett/Defacto2 , Bionic , Black Spyrit , Blacklord , Blaster , Brian O Neil , Brockhaus , Bug Lord , Busy Bee , Buttcher (Berlin) , Bymn , Caihai , Camel Joe , Capone , CC Catch , CeeJay , Censored , Cercyon , Chester , chub DrUid , Coast , Cosmic , Count Zero (Berlin) , Crackfield , Creator of Hell , Crypton , Cyber Brain , Cyric/DOD , Cyz , DAC , Dalezy , Darkside , Datacrime , Deathbringer , Deathwalker , Deleter , Deryll , Dipswitch , Dr.Acid , Dr.Lazy , Dragnet , Dream Design , Dusty , Elvin , Elvin Knox , Elwood , Exterminator , Fan Fan Latulipe , Fatman , Feldmann , Ferrex , FFC , Firebird (Berlin) , Fli7e , Fox , Frank Borally , Frog , Fulcrum , Garfield , Gee , Giovanni , Glink , Goonie , Grap , Gregory , Grymmjack , Guiver/EXS , Gumbo , Hagman , Hetero , Iceman , Iceman/WOF , iD MUD , Idefix , Idiana , Intruder , Jagor , Jaset , Jason Scott/Textfiles.com , Jester Radics , Jkowall , Johnny Cyberpunk , Kaethe , KC Kid , Killer , Kobold , Kral , Krazy Nomad , Larry ILG , LBM , Leecher JTC , Lemming , Logic , Lord MX , Lord Scarlett/SixteenColors.net , LTD/BLH , Mach One , Mad Danger , Mad Mac , Madmax (Berlin) , Madmax/CPI , Magician , Magnum , Marky , Matador , Matt , Maverick , Max/DOM , McLoud , Mefis , Menion Leah , Mitfit , Monday , Monster , Mozart , Mr.Axxess , Mr.Diesel , Mr.Lightning , Mr.Mad/NRG , Mr.Mixx , Mr.Rox , Mr.Swapper , Mr.Twister , Neon , Neophyte , O-Dog , Oliver Stone , OSHO , Overdoze , Palladin , Paragon , Paso , Pennywize , Pilot , Pitbull/RZR , Pitty , Poldi , Proton , Psychofox , Puschel , Quickmix , Rad Man/ACID , Radiocity , Rainer/AFL , Rainer/SAC , Raiser , Ramses , Ranx , Ratso , Rave , Rescue 911 , Retaliator , Rhett Jones , Ripwave , Roach , Rowdy , Royal Knight , Salty , Sextronix , Shamen , Shockwave , Shot , Skin , Sky , Slash , SLE , Snoop , Snoopy , Sonic , Spacerat , Sparky , Speedlock , Spoon , Sporky , Squizzy , SSC , Starx , STB , Stone , Stonehedge , Stryker , Suicide , Svenzzon , Synec , Term , Termi , The Barrier , The Driver , The Outlaws , The Punisher , The Shark , The Syndicate , Thunder , Thunderhawk , Tic , Toast , Toony , Toth , Toxic Trancer , Trans/BF , Trinitron , Trixter , Tronics , Trouble , Twin! , Twinbit , Twister , UCI , Ufonaut , Ultimate , Ultimate Warrior , Uridius , Urmel , Vax , VFast , Vincent , Virago , Werner , Wessi , Whiteheat EXLC , Wilkins , Wing , Wizard , Xan , Xeek , Xerxes , XLR8OR , XOX , Z80 , Zerovision , Zippoid , Znake , Zyrix

If you have any comments or feedback to the intros, let me know and post a comment below.

Thanks and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Scene Pixel Art Logos Collection Vol.1

I blogged about scene pixel art logos last December and about the Flickr.com collection where I posted many scene logos and more.

I collected a lot more logos since then and I did not update the Flickr.com collection yet. The main reason for that is the inability for me to avoid uploading the same logos again that I already uploaded to Flickr before. Flickr does not provide any option to de-dupe images within an account, collection nor set (bummer).

So I decided to pack everything up and make it somewhat of an official release. I saw Ben Garrett's logo pack for Defacto2.net and pretty much copied his format hehe. My collection includes the Defacto2.net collection entirely (as of May 2009), unless Ben added a significant amount of new logos to his collection since I last synchronized it with mine.

My Scene Pixel Art Logos Collection of over 6000 logos for over 1500 groups, bbs, demos and more from the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and PC demo and warez scenes.

The collection can be downloaded at my Mediafire.com account. The ZIP archive is about 162 MB in size.

The release was created like a standard scene release, the collection itself was compressed with WinRAR and the RAR file was then packed with WinZIP. The Zip file also contains the release NFO file, File_ID.diz and a small intro for Windows. You can watch the intro as video capture and the NFO + File_ID.diz below.

Download and Spread RoySAC-LogosPixelArtSceneVol1.zip!!!

I hope you will enjoy this pack.

 

The release Intro

Backup Link to video on Vimeo.com
Download this video in AVI format

Credits for this little intro:

Code: Peace/Testaware
Graphics and Design: Roy/SAC
Music: tune "cognition" by Jozz/TRSI

The Release NFO File

     ───────── ▄ ▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄  ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄ ▄ ─────────
     ·R·E·L·.·  ▄ ▄▄▄▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀███ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀███ █ ███ ▀ ███ ▄▄▄▄ ▄  ·2·0·0·9·
     ─────────── ▄ ▄▄▄ ███ ▄▄██▀ █ ███ █ ███ █▄ ▀▀▀▀▀███ ▄▄▄ ▄ ───────────
                    ▄▄ ███ ▄ ███ █ ███▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄███ ▄▄
                       ▀▀▀   ███ ▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

                         Roy/SAC presents

                    Scene Pixel Art Logos Collection V1.0


              Packaged and Released on June 17, 2009


      ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
              Release Notes:


              Over 6200 Images for over 1500 Groups, BBS, Demos and more
              from the Commodore 64, Amiga and PC Demo– and Warez Scenes
      ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
              Installation:


              Simply UnRAR the file "Logos Pixel Art Scene.rar"
              It should automatically create 27 sub folders named
              Logos 0–9, Logos A .... Logos Z


              Below that are sub folders for each Group, Demo, BBS etc.
              where you can find the logos that I collected for each of them
              to this date. There are duplicates, where I am slowly but steady
              working on eliminating, but I rather have a logo twice or more 
              than not having a logo at all. :)
      ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
              Greeting:
              Defacto2.net, Scene.org, Textfiles.com, Pouet.net
              Demoscene.tv, GfxZone, Intro Inferno, C64.org, OSDM, 
              AMP, Edge, Sizteen Colors, Flashtro, Old–Skool.net,
              Untergrund.net, Bitfellas, Exotica and everybody else who 
              works on preserving the rich history of the scene and makes 
              it accessible for future generations to enjoy.


              Group Greetings:
              Blocktronix (thanks for keeping the ANSI scene alive and kickin)
              CPI (Oldskool forver!)
              RoORS (nice DVD Release)
              Andomeda Software Development (Your demos rock! Period!)


             Personal Greetings to:
              Madmax/CPI, Peace/Testaware, Smash/Fairlight, Shamen/Dytec,
              DaLezy, Dipswitch, Mandibular Joint Dysfunction, RaD Man/ACiD,
              Jason Scott/Textfiles.com, Ben Garrett/Defacto2, my blog readers, 
              Lord Scarlet/SixteenColors, Zerovision/Blocktronics and everybody
              else I know and forgot to mention :)

      ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
              Check out the intro in this release "LogosCollectionIntro.exe" :)


              and don't forget visiting http://www.RoySAC.com
              and to check out my blog at http://www.roysac.com/blog



   Additional URLs you might want to check out
              
   Over 300 demos, cracktros and other scene related videos
   http://www.youtube.com/sacreleases


   Scene Images of all sorts
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/cumbrowski/collections/72157611288618058/
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/cumbrowski/collections/72157612320706642/
           
   My Mediafire.com file share related to the scene, tons of files to download!
   http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b570d9e07985879c7069484bded33bcd06b0971baa3373fa


   My ASCII Art Academy to learn more about classic Text Art
   http://www.roysac.com/learn/


   Links to other useful resources online to learn more about the scene
   http://www.roysac.com/roy_links.asp

              Signing off!
         
              Roy of Superior Art Creations, CPI, Dytec, Razor 1911, TRSI, TDU–Jam, PNS

The Release File_ID.diz

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄   ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄  ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄
 ▀▀▀▀▀▀███ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀███ █ ███ ▀ ███ ▄
 ███ ▄▄██▀ █ ███ █ ███ █▄ ▀▀▀▀▀███ ▄
 ███ ▄ ███ █ ███▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄███
 ▀▀▀   ███ ▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
            Roy/SAC presents
 Scene Pixel Art Logos Collection
 ───────────────────────────────────
 Over 6200 Images for over 1500
 Groups, BBS, Demos and more
 from the Commodore 64, Amiga and PC
 Demo– and Warez Scenes
 ───────────────────────────────────
 Packaged on June 17, 2009
 and don't forget visiting RoySAC.com

Update! Scene Fonts Collection Vol 1.0

I also released "Scene Fonts Collection Vol 1.0"

A collection of over 600 font sets from demos, intros, cracktros, demo makers and other sources from the Atari ST, Amiga and PC. The collection is 37 MB in size and can be downloaded from my MediaFire.com account as well.

Download and Spread roysac-scenefontscollectionvol1.zip

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The First Demo That I Saw in my Life

This post falls into the category "old personal history of mine". I thought that write once more about how I experienced things, especially because I grew up behind the Iron Curtain in the former communist part of Germany, the DDR or GDR (German Democratic Republic).

People always ask me how it was like, so here is a story that describes one aspect of it, a very specific one though. Not everybody will be able to relate to it, but if you know what computer demos and crack intros are and interested to hear more about it, stick around.

Computer Tales from the Former East Germany

Back in 1987, two years before the Wall fell in Berlin, when my dad was allowed to take the Commodore 128D computer (with monitor and 9 needles printer) home to be able to use it for work there, I thought that this was the happiest moment in my life.

I always wanted to have a computer since I got exposed to one for the first time in either 1985 or 1986 (That first computer wasn't a Commodore, it was actually an Atari 800 XL with Datasette tape without any turbo load hardware tweak). There was no Internet and also no tech support to call, because that support did not extend to the area of the former East German state at that time.

The only thing to go on was the user handbook that came with the computer.

My dad gave me one empty floppy disc (remember, the C128D had a floppy drive build-in) for me to use, which was a awful nice thing to do for him, considering that it was incredibly hard to buy those in the former GDR. The black market price for one 5 1/4 inch double density floppy disk ranged between the equivalent of $100-$200.

First on my mind were of course computer games. I was 13, so what else would you expect. Well, I didn't know anybody else who had a C128D or C128 computer or heard of anybody who got one and the C128/D computers were different from the Commodore 64. You did not get the familiar blue screen with light blue borders and font when you booted the machine up.

So there were at first only two pieces of software that I could use. 1) The "Star writer" software that my father used for work and 2) the build in C128 BASIC interpreter to run C128 BASIC code (which I did not have yet).

A text processor is fascinating for about a day or two and then gets awful boring so I decided to see if I could do something more interesting with that build in BASIC compiler. Luckily for me, the user manual contained the list plus a brief description of the available basic commands.

I thought to myself, If I don't have a game to run on the machine, then I will change that by writing my own. Well, it was a bit more complicated than I thought, but I made good progress to the point were I experimented with the advanced BASIC features such as Sprites and drawing functions.

In a stroke of luck, one of my class mates heard/read somewhere that the C128D is supposed to be 100% Commodore 64 compatible and that it could be switched to the C64 mode with the command "go64" (or was it "go c64"?!, something like that). I couldn't wait until school was over and my abilities to concentrate on what my teachers said was out the window that afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Back home I tried it and it did not work. What? That cannot be, my C128D was not one without that compatibility I told myself and tried it once more, using different variations of the command with different spellings until the screen flashed and the familiar blue C64 screen appeared with the text "**** COMMODORE 64 BASIC ****, 64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE, READY. followed by a blinking Cursor. Hooray! Getting Software was now relatively easy. It only took a friend with a C64, his Datasette (nobody else who I knew had a floppy drive), cassettes with games and to figure out how to transfer a program from the cassette on to my floppy disk.

The first 3 things were relatively easy to get, 4 was a small hurdle I guess, but I did it and cannot remember how it worked, so it might not have been such a big challenge after all.  I think I was not able to transfer all games that I wanted, but I could be wrong, because maybe I was able to copy it, but not able to play it. You have to know that the C128D from my dad's work did not come with a game joystick (dough). There was also no way for me to get one elsewhere. I did not have the financial resources to buy one for East German Money (which would have cost probably 100 or 1000 times my monthly allowance) and as every other East German citizen, I was short on West German money (Valuta) as well. So... NO Joystick.

I remember playing Pole Position, Amidar (or Omidar), Hero, Little Computer People, some ugly Pinball game where I forgot the name and some other games that I cannot remember. There was a Submarine (U-Boot) game that my dad loved to play, but I cannot remember its name to find something like it on the PC for him. No, it was not a simulation game like Silent Service. It was an arcade game. If you got an idea what it could have been, let me know. I'd appreciate it.

Anyhow, I remember that I was not able to play on this computer my all-time favorite 8 bit computer game, which is International Karate (the original), bummer, but nothing is perfect, right?!

The First Demo that I Recognized as What It Was

A friend left me for a few days the datasette and a bunch of cassettes that I could check out what I want to copy on to my floppy, which suddenly became very small and somewhat limiting.

I did copy a program called "Shade", which did not serve any apparent purpose, but looked good and had a fabulous sound unlike anything that I heard before on any computer. It got lost and it took me over 20 years to find out exactly what that program was (It took me only about 10 years to find out what the music was and who created it).

The program was the  Demo/Intro called "Shade" by the group "Newlook" for the Commodore 64 (C64) from 1987

It uses the song "Shades" by Chris Huelsbeck (download MP3 version) which won the open music contest by the German computer magazine/software publisher Markt & Technik in 1986 and launched his career of becoming, next to other musicians such as Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish or Martin Galway, one of the most popular and successful musician on the Commodore 64 Home Computer.

• Video capture with enhanced sound (39 MB) or watch video online at Vimeo.com
• Video capture with original sound (26 MB)

He created the sound tracks for the games R-Type and The Great Giana Sisters, which are also in the Top 100 popular sound tracks on the Commodore 64 ever (Top 100 by http://www.hvsc.c64.org/)

This was the first "Demo" that I got exposed to and recognized as such. It was an independent piece of software, all by itself, like any game or software application that I (or my dad) had at that time.

But compared to games or software applications does this program not serve any practical purpose or function other than to just look at it and enjoy it for what it is. The school of the company where my school sent its students to for the in East Germany mandatory "PA" (Produktive Arbeit), "ESP" (Einfuehrung in die Sozialistische Production) and "TZ" (Technisches Zeichnen) education (and also offered voluntary classes in Computer Sciences, where I got to learn the programming language BASIC for the East German home computers KC-85 1 and KC-87, which looked identical and I don't know what the difference was between them), got for themselves a Commodore 64 computer, which they only used in special occasions. At one of those occasions I brought a copy of this demo with me to show it to the teacher and to follow students, to demonstrate the capabilities of the machine, which was a difference like day and light, in graphics and sound, compared to the first versions of the East German KC computers.

I just started English classes so could not translate the scroller text. The English abilities of the teacher were obviously also limited, because not a single eye-bow was raised during the presentation of the show.

Reading the scroller today makes me smile, when I look back to this moment and what could have been the consequences, if the teacher would have been able to understand the text. :)

The good times were unfortunately much too short in my opinion. It only lasted for a few months when my dad had to take the computer back again to the office. Gosh, what I would have given for not loosing it... a leg, probably. I didn't need a leg to use the computer. Makes sense, right?! Aehm... well, maybe not and sacrificing a leg of mine would also not have helped to get the computer back :(.

The First Cracktro that I Recognized at Was It Was

I don't remember any Cracktros from the Atari 800 and would not place a bet for any money on the question if there were any at that time (1985-1989). In 1987 Commodores popped up everywhere. The Atari 800 was a lonely hero in my world in the years before, the only home computer that knew about and that it existed.

I was frequently at another friends home who owned a Commodore 64 (do you see a pattern emerging here? hehe) . Anyhow, he had a lot of games from the start where I never found out from where he got them himself. Games were not sold in East Germany, nor any other piece of software for any computer from a capitalist country. Every software, with the exception of any software that might have come with the computer hardware package itself, was a pirated copy and there was nothing anybody could have done about it.

I had copies of games for the Atari and later Commodore 65 myself, even though I did not own a computer myself. Well, my knowledge of the computers that I never had and the software that I DID had was helping me to make new friends easily, especially with folks who just got one for themselves from somewhere with no or only one-two pieces of software and no knowledge about what to do with it. I was able to help them and was able to use their computer for a limited time at least in return. I even got contacted in a few instances by somebody who got referred to me by somebody who I knew or also just know a another person that I knew, short strangers who I only knew little or not at all until that point. I was almost functioning like a BBS (my parents had the phone and people called to “download” some software from me and find some help for how to use their new precious piece of microelectronics. :)

But back to my friend that I mentioned before I spun a bit off topic, who was already my friend before he had a computer by the way (I mention that to avoid that some of you might started to get a wrong idea about me and how I was choosing my friends as a teenager hehe).

It was at his place during a normal computer gaming session, when I suddenly recognized my first crack intro by a pirate group as what it actually was, a program that did not came from the authors of the game itself, but somebody else who did something to the game that it was possible to do with it was every East German did without having a choice, making a copy of it for somebody else to use on his computer.

I don't know why I did not recognized them before, yeah, never having seen an original in my life ever, makes this task more complicated than you might think.

Also that there was rarely text at first then often in English, which I was just starting to learn made this recognition more complicated.

Anyhow. I have seen that crack intro already a hundred times or more before, but assumed it to be a part of the actual game. Which one was it? Okay, here it is...

It was the Crack Intro titled "Mini Putt" (Cracktro) by the release group Eagle Soft Incorporated (ESI) for the Commodore 64 (C64) from September 1987.

Credits for this intro marvel as far as I know them:

Code: don't know yet
Eagle Image by: Scorpio (Carol) of Eagle Soft
Music (two songs were used interchangeably)

1. Song "Future Knight" by Ben Daglish (download MP3 version)
2. Song "R1D1" by Antony Crowther (download MP3 version)

Video captures of the intro for download

• Video Capture with enhanced sound  (19 MB) - AVI/XVID/MP3 or watch video online at Vimeo.com
• Video Capture with original sound (4.5 MB) - AVI/XVID/MP3

You can download the Demo by Newlook and the ESI Cracktro for the Commodore 64 (D64 and PRG format), the original C64 tunes by Chris Huelsbeck, Ben Daglish and Antony Crowther in SID format and converted to MP3, plus some images, in one convenient ZIP archive (only 17.8 MB) from my Mediafire.com file sharing account here.

Download C64 Disks, Executables, SID Music files and MP3 version of them, of the demo and intro that I talked about in one ZIP archive: C64-CCU-ESIIntro-HuelsbeckShades-D64s-SIDs-MP3s.zip

I hope that you enjoyed my not so short story :)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Dynamic Technologies - Dytec - Introduction Continued

Almost exactly one year ago I did publish a post where I introduced 26 cracktros for the Commodore 64, 7 Cracktros for the PC and 4 Cracktros for the Commodore Amiga by one of my former release groups that is dear to my heard, Dynamic Technologies aka Dytec or simply DTC.

I also created a remix video where I used the majority of Dytec logos that I had and many of the crack intro videos to show off some artistic high-lights of the group.

     ____  _____________ ______ ______   
    /    \/  /  /_   __//  ___//  ___/\  
   /  /  /\   _/ /  /\_/  _/__/  /___\/  
  /_____/ /__/\\/__/ //_____//_____/\    
  \_____\/\__\/ \__\/ \_____\\_____\/    
            C R A C K E D:               

One thing that I noticed was that the few (4) intros that I had for the Commodore Amiga for Dytec, were pretty much all ugly and almost embarrassing.

I was almost certain that there must have been more, since I do recall that we used logos for Dytec that were created on an Amiga for our Dytec PC cracktros.

I always thought that those logos were used first in Amiga productions and were not created for the PC specifically (just like Dream Design did while he was in my art group SAC (Superior Art Creations) and also in Remedy Amiga (and "U.D.O." hehe), still using his Amiga 500 as his main computer and only getting a PC much later).

However, I could not find any of those, when I looked for them last year. I temporary gave up hope, until recently, when I stumbled across new Dytec Amiga releases, which I have not seen before. They also look pretty good actually, nothing I would have to be ashamed of in any way.

Well, I captured recordings for those and would like to expand on my original introduction and list of Dytec releases to provide a much more complete picture of the group.

	The PIT BBStro (1992) Credits Code: Direct Font: Viper Music: Pitty Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Cracktro for Dungeons Avalon 2 (1992) Credits Code: Direct Music: Pitty Font: Viper Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Trainer/Intro (1992) Credits Code: Grain Gfx : Orion, Fuzzi, Bart, Amblin Music: Pitty Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Lemmtro  (1992) Credits Code: Acromancer Graphics: Magnum Music: Pitty Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Ami Expo Invtro (1992) together with Skid Row Credits Code: Paso/Dytec Gfx: Crux/Dytec & Viper/Dytec Music: Vince/Dytec Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	"Bintro in Blue" (1992) Credits Code: Hosot Graphics: Tridi Music: Vince Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Cracktro for Perfect General (1992) Credits Code: Paso Music: Paso Graphics: Viper Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Dynamic Technologies Dentro (1992) Credits Code: Tuner Graphics: Crux & Magnum Music: Pitty Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video
	Unreleased Cracktro (1992) Credits Code: Blade Graphics: Orion Music: R2D2 Watch on YouTube - Download AVI Video Why "unreleased", since it was obviously made public? Well, it was never used for its original purpose ... as cracktro/crack intro for the group, which runs before a computer game that was cracked and then released within the warez scene by Dytec.

Not bad, eh?! Not bad indeed.

An All-Time Dytec Member List?!

While I was looking for the new Amiga productions and where I could download them, I started just for the fun of it, compiling something like a Dytec all-time member list. I did not take it as serious by far as the SAC All-Time Member List, where I spent a significant amount of time researching (and it is still not complete). What I want to say is that my list makes no claim to be complete nor 100% accurate. However, I think that it is better and more than anything that might be already out there. So here it is.. just for the fun of it.

Update Note (02/2010): This list is not complete. I created a permanent page for Dytec, its intros, members and history on my web site, where the member list is updated.

Handle                  Function            Notes          Platform (A=Amiga, C=C64, P=PC)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acromancer              coder                                        A
Amblin                  graphics                                     A  
Bacchus                 sysop                                           P
Beaker                  swapper                                      A
Blade                   cracker                                      A
Brainbox                                                                P
Brockhaus                                                               P
Christo                 sysop/courier                                   P
Crux                    graphics                                     A
Datacrime                                                               P
Deathwalker             sysop                                           P
Direct                  coder                                        A
Don                     supplier                                     A  P
Dr.Crime                sysop of whq         died in 2000            A
Dragnet                 sysop                                           P
Elvin                   sysop                                           P
Faithhealer                                                             P
FanFan                  sysop                                           P
Fatman                  leader/swapper                            C  A  P  
FCC                     cracker                                         P
Fuzzi                   graphics                                     A
Grain                   coder                                        A
Grizzly                                                                 P
Hetero                  coder/graphics                                  P
Hosot                   coder                                        A
Iceman                                                                  P
Jan                     courier                                         P
Jive                    coder                                        A
Johnny Cyperpunk        cracker                                         P
LBM (Little Big Man)    coder/cracker                              C
Madmax                                                                  P
Magnum                  graphics                                     A
Mainman                                                                 P
Maverick                sysop/courier/supplier                          P
Oliver Stoned                                                           P
Onyx                    cracker                                         P
Orion                   graphics                                     A
Palladin                sysop                                           P
Paso                    coder/music                                  A    
Pitty                   music                                        A   
Proton                  coder/cracker                             C
R2-D2                   cracker/music                                A   
Ramirez                                                                 P
Roach                   courier                                         P
Roy                     leader/sysop/graphics                           P
Shanon                  swapper                                      A  P   
Sharp                                                                   P
Slash                   sysop                                           P
Spoon                   music                                           P
The Clan                                                                P
The Outlaws             courier                                         P
Tic                     coder/cracker                                   P
Tridi                   grapics                                      A
Tuner                   coder                                        A
Turner                                                                  P
Twin!                   coder/cracker                                   P
VFast                                                                   P
Vince                   music                                        A
Viper                   graphics                                     A
Wine                                                                    P
Xerxes                  courier                                         P

And while it is so nice to gather up all this kind of information and publish them here, I'd decided to throw in another goodie as a bonus (or something like that hehe).

A Brief Dynamic Technologies History

... from my Point of View, as I remember it!

1990	Dytec is founded by Fatman in East Berlin on the Commodore 64
1992	Amiga Section was started
1993	Dytec PC Section Started, then merged into TRSI/DRG, which then became TRSI/Faith
1995	TRSI PC dissolves; several TRSI members join Genesis (formerly known as Pentagram). Assault becomes the Utility/Apps division of GNS, Dytec re-emerges as German games division; TDU-Jam is the English CD-Rip division (a German Games CD-Rip division also emerged, but I forgot the name of it). Genesis dies out naturally, since less and less games are being released on floppy disks anymore. Long distance calling across the Atlantic becomes a bigger issue, at the same time ISDN starts to dominate communication at least in Germany. All this causes a natural separation of the TDU-Jam and Dytec divisions, which eventually operate virtually entirely independent from each other. The friendship remained, but you could not speak of "one and unified" entity or group anymore.
1996	TRSI got revived, which is also rooted in Germany. Dytec became for a brief period of time what DRG and then Faith used to be, the German games release division of TRSI. (PC TRSI/DTC (Feb)) This period was only very short lived though and Dytec was once more on its own.
1997	Dytec PC Merge with Vortex and Empire of Darkness to form the new Group Dynasty. The Background Story: Dupes became a major issue, due to the high phone costs that caused the shift of when most trading across boards in Germany occurred to the ungodly hours between 2:00 am and 5:00 am, when phone fees were at its lowest. The major players in the German games release scenes were shattered all over Germany, with Dytec in Berlin, Vortex in the Ruhr area around Essen; Backlash around Hannover and Empire of Darkness in the southern part of Germany. That two or more groups released the same game during the day or evening was not realized before 2:00 am when the cross country trading started. The leader of Vortex, Menion Leah contacted me to discuss the issue. We talked about each groups strengths and weaknesses. Vortex had slightly faster suppliers, but no good crackers. Dytec had some of the best in whole Germany. We teamed up for some trials, where Vortex supplied an original for Dytec to release and Dytec cracked a game for Vortex to release. Those tests worked very well and talks about a possible merger started. Then we thought about an even larger merger. Menion and Vortex had good contact with EOD, to whom Dytec had no contact at all. However, Dytec, specifically me and a long time board and sysop of a Dytec HQ had very good contact to Backlash. My Board was a Backlash site, even while it was Dytec PC WHQ and I knew several of the BLH guys personally and even partied with them (hard). A mega-merger was on the horizon: Backlash-Dytec-EOD-Vortex, but Backlash backed out, because they refused to merge together with the EOD folks for several reasons. The decision was made to move ahead with the merger, even with Backlash dropped out of it. Dynasty was born. The leaders of each founding group became the senior staff of the new found Dynasty. The WHQ problem was solved intelligently by not making any board to the WHQ, but the three former WHQ's of the individual groups to HQ's and former HQ's to basic Distro. Sites. Backlash was the only serious competition for Dynasty. The relationship between the two rivals were mixed. While my BBS remained a Backlash site and I continued to consider several of the Backlash senior staff to be my friends, some ugly flaming occurred, especially between Backlash and former members of EOD on the Dynasty side.  Dytec Amiga and C64 continued to exist.
1999	Dytec PC re-emerged (separated from Dynasty), initiated by The Driver & Shanon. I was retired from the Warez-Scene (I was busted in 1998), but disapproved of this separation/re-launch, but the original founder and highest instance in this matter, Fatman, who was by then also retired, gave his blessings. This revival attempt was short lived though. Why, I don't know, because I was leaving Germany at that time and moved first to Switzerland (in 1999) and then to the United States in May 2000.

Did I miss something important? Do you disagree with something that I said about how the events unfolded from my own personal perspective? I am human und thus biased and controlled by emotions. The human mind likes to play tricks on you when it comes to long term memories and remembering specifics from events that lie many years in the past. I did not do a gigantic amount of background checking and research, but I also did not just write everything straight out of my head as and how it came back to my mind. This said, feel free to leave your comments at the end of this blog post below. I won't bite :).

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC (ex-Dytec)

p.s. While I did a little bit of facts checking, I re-discovered my old email signature that I seemed to have used all the time throughout the years 1998-1999 at least. Here it is :)

     Roy / Superior Art Creations                        .  . ..: ... 
     Email: NOT VALID AT THE MOMENT                      . . .:::::..  .
     WWW  : http://www.roysac.com/            .o$$$$$$$$$o. .:::::::::::.
                                                .  .o$ `$$$ "  `"::´ " .o$
     SAC Contacts                              . . $$$ o$P´.o$$$o..o$  $$$
     WWW: http://www.superiorartcreations.com/   : $$$o$o."$$ `$$$$$$  $$$ 
     IRC: #SAC (EFNet)                          .: $$$" $$$$$. $$$$$$. $$$
     FTP: N/A                                    ` $$$  $$$`4$$$P´`4$$P"$$"
     --------------------------------------------- $$$  $$$ ---------- $$$ -
     - --- ------------- ------------ --------- -  $$$  $P´ .::´  .o$" $$$
                                                   $P´     . :´ . $$$ .$$$
                                                             .    `4$$$$P´ 

Copyright Complaint Notice Filings in the Scene? WTF?

It's not that I have already to deal with a lot of crap at the moment that something that just happened a few days ago has to come on top of all of it to "make my day" and "make my head shake in disbelief'".

It started with a big fat screen where you can see the snapshot of below, when I logged into one of my YouTube.com accounts. I was forced to acknowledge the message, before I could do anything else.

I was upset at first, because I thought that once more some idiot would claim something that is not his to begin with to cause trouble and inconvenience for YouTuber's, because they are full of themselves.

Dreyfus - Jarre - Oxygene & The Demoscene

Wouldn't be the first time. I still remember when in February 2008 a company with the name FRANCIS DREYFUS MUSIC came along and claimed the video recording of the PC/MS DOS demo called "Contrast" by the French demo group "Oxygene" from 1996 as their intellectual property that I was supposed to be infringing on. Well, Dreyfus did believe back then that any video with the word "Oxygene" in the title must be automatically infringing on the rights they hold for the music by the French musician Jean Michel Jarre with the same title.

Makes sense, doesn't it? Right ...

Anyhow, I did a Google search for the name of the somebody who claimed ownership of material used in some of my videos. Matt Swoboda, the plaintiff, turns out to be Matt James Swoboda, better known in the scene as "Smash" of Fairlight, Razor 1911, Beam, Insanity, Shadow and a few others.

Realtime Generation

The two video(s) in question used 12 and 45 seconds of a demo from 2008 by Andromeda Software Development (ASD) & Fairlight & Alcatraz, titled "Realtime Generation" (watch demo on Demoscene.tv), where "Smash" actually was one of the guys who created it, thus his claim was not so far fetched and absurd. I don't want to start debates about fair use and all this. I did use a fragment of the demo as back-drop for the intro of two of my amateurish videos with semi-professional background, but non-commercial use. In other words: I spent time on them and didn't receive a penny for it myself.

The full videos in question are available for viewing online and also for download in AVI video format at the following URLs below (in the case that you would like to make up your own mind about the use of the demo material).

Video 1: Download AVI (57 MB) - Watch Video on Facebook (requires FB account)
Video 2: Download AVI (72 MB) - Watch Video on Facebook

Anyhow, I do not intend to start a legal debate here, because that is not the reason why I blog this. My problem is the fact that a scener (Smash) filed an official copyright complaint against another scener, me, for something that could have been resolved quickly via a few emails, a phone or Skype call or chat instead. Since when did this become the means of communication in the scene? The time it took to prepare the official complaint was most likely more than the time it would have taken to check the background of the person behind the videos and to find the means to contact me. I did plaster the URLs to my web pages, including this one and all my other YouTube channels (including SACReleases) on the profile page of the YouTube account that hosted the videos in question (yeah, PAST TENSE is correct here, HOSTED).

Update/Addition: I just also recalled an incident at Dailymotion.com in January this year regarding the same material actually. There was a company called "Toei Animation" who claimed intellectual property ownership of one of the two videos. There was also no advanced email or anything, just a take down based on the claim by that company. I am unaware that anybody involved in the creation of the demo has any ties to that company and that they own anything of that demo. 

Team Mates or Hates?

Gosh, Smash and I were even in the same group once, Razor 1911. Both words in "team mate" seemed to have lost their meaning at one point from what it looks like.

Learn more about my past and present group allegiances here.

Misunderstandings?

I believe that I found Smash's LinkedIn profile and contacted him via the LinkedIn mail system (asking first, if the Matt Swoboda from the UK, is "my" Matt, who I am trying to get in touch with. A Finish scener with the name "Mandibular Joint Dysfunction" also contacted me via Facebook regarding this issue. He did not refer to the actual source of his information for me to check and follow up on, but I asked him to clarify where he heard of this "misunderstanding" (I hope that this is what it is).

The problem with those complaints in YouTube is that they don't go away and that my one account is now in jeopardy of being suspended because of anything that might comes up. YouTube does not care, double check or listens to anybody than a lawyer who threatens with legal actions in writing. I know this from first hand experience, since I got myself already an account suspended once, because of some BS, which caused some major pain in the ass for me, hours and hours of work lost and the unpleasant experience of "talking to a hand" that completely ignores you.

So resolving this "misunderstanding" means for me also that the official copyright complaint (actually two, one for each of the two videos) will be retracted that YouTube will remove those from my account history. Here is how it looks right now. Not very pretty, isn't it.

Here is the video recording of my two little intros that started all this trouble

Backup Link to Video at Motionbox.com

As you can see, I did some modifications to the original video recording of the PC demo to make it suit my own purposes. Could I given credits? Sure I could have, but I didn't for several reasons. First, I didn't know who did what to be able to give accurate credits (I am still not sure about this part).

Furthermore, I only used tiny fragments of the demo and distorted it with effects and content that I created in front of the original video. The 2nd place demo at the party where Realtime Generation won 3rd place did a homage to some well know PC demos as well and also did not properly credited those, but everybody knew which demos were depicted.

I didn't give it another thought actually.

If you ask the question, how I would feel, if somebody would do the same with my art work, I'd say:
"No Problem"  and I actually made that one clear publicly in 2006 with clarifications added to it in 2008.

Update/Addition: I'd say something, if somebody would rip off my stuff and actively run around claiming that he did it. Not saying anything does not mean making a claim. If you want to know if somebody did something himself, entirely, partially or not at all, ask and see what the answer is.

If credits are "forgotten" and the creator asks for them, I would be the last to deny it to him. It usually boils always down to the question where and how to put them, without having the credits taking over the actual piece or destroy the setting where it is in. I added additional credits to stuff where I missed them myself and also asked others to add credits to their stuff, not always myself, but credits to other artists as well. 

Well, I hope that the the "Matt" at LinkedIn who I contacted is "my" "Smash" and that we will be able to sort things out. The LinkedIn profile says that he works at Sony now. Maybe he spent too much time "under some bad influence". Sony's approach to deal with copyright issues is not what I would call "consumer friendly" (I just say "root kit", do a Google search for "Sony root kit", if you don't know what I am referring to).

We will see. I will write another post, if something comes out of this.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

 Update June 9, 2009.

Somebody pointed me via a comment here at my blog, to the original Pouet.net forum thread where it all started (the one "Mandibular" mentioned in his FB message). I joined the discussion there and addressed more comments than I probably should have, but then it wouldn't be me I guess. Anyhow, the discussion seems to have shifted to over there. It's already three pages long, but I hope that this will not scare you off from checking it out anyway. I hope that in all the BS that also seems to be part of the discussion there actually a resolution will be found that makes everybody happy again.

p.s. Also a message by Smaash (misspelled) turned up. It was sent via the contact form at Cumbrowski.com about one day before the videos were already taken down by YouTube. The message was unfortunately sorted away with all those messages about "link exchanges'", "web development in India proposals" etc.  and I didn't get a chance to look at it in time (yeah, my main computer is still broken, I got a new main board, but now miss a power connector for the GFX card fan to the mother board. I was already checking at RadioShack and other stores, including a PC repair shop to get such stupid connector that fits, but nobody has this. I found something online, got that one shipped as well... and guess what, wrong size! Gosh, how many versions of a three pin cooler fan to mother board connector are there?

Gateway still gives a crap. I hope that they will be out of business soon too. Bastards. 

Update June 18, 2009

I had some extensive email communication going with Smash and tried to elaborate the reasons for my rage and what I saw as the biggest problem with his actions. I thought that I made it already clear enough that I also admit that I made mistakes too.  In case that it was not clear for somebody yet, here some quotes from my emails to Matt.

I admit my own mistake. It taught me the lesson that whatever you put anywhere online, publicly or or not public and not protected, will be out there for anybody to find, if you only look hard enough for it. In this case my experiments of the creation of a short video introduction (there are more of those by the way, nothing I would be particular be proud of, but once they are out there, there is nothing I could do about them now). It was used for something small and semi personal to get some feedback and along the way learn how to do things better (testing is one of the key elements in marketing that you cannot ignore or neglect, no studies in the world can replace actual tests) .

Where there was the discussion about it, I provided honest information about the source of the material and included references and credits. Then it was "over" and I moved on. However, the "pilot" or "test" did not disappear how it usually does in the offline world. If it happens online, it's there virtually forever. I did not think about that somebody would even care about those experiments from yesterday, and certainly did not assume that somebody would have any issue with them.

My biggest mistake was to forget that it can look for somebody else completely different and all brand new, because that person just got exposed to it now and stuff in the digital world does not age or decay. It's there, brand new, like on the day it was created. I also did not include ALL details related to every bit of the content, which gave room for miss-interpretations.

Matt understood the issue and said that he will try to retract the complaint at YouTube.com. That was 6 days ago on Friday June 12, 2009, but today Thursday, June 18, 2009 does it still show in my YouTube account the complaint and that my account is not in good standing.

I provided him with a lot of material regarding the copyright issue on the Internet, including some very bad examples where it is clear that the system is completely messed up and a harm to society in general. I hope that he now also understands my rage about the way he acted on the problem.

He is surely not a large corporation like Sony and just an individual like, but he unfortunately acted like a big corporation and used by extension another big corporation (Google) to get things his way. I believe that he was not aware that the corporate system in place today is truly against individuals and often creates significant collateral damage and overall more harm than good.

I also asked him for his advice regarding Pouet.net. I am still undecided, if I should post once more to apologize to the folks who I gave credits for comments that they did not make or if I should just let it be the way it is. My error was pretty obvious (afterwards) and I also was consistent with it, so folks should have been able to figure it out. I did not get a response regarding that from Mark as well. It is kind of odd, because he usually responded within less than 24 hours to my emails, until Friday.

I will send him another email about this blog update. The matter is still not completely resolved, because the main issue for me is still there and that is the note in my YouTube account. :(

Update July 14, 2009 and Conclusion

Matt hold true to his word and also be able to get through to somebody at Google to retract the Copyright complaint as promised. I Just check my YouTube account today to see, if anything changed and yes, the Warning is gone and the status shows "Good Standing" again. Phew... I think that this could have been resolved much easier and without creating as much headaches, but then I believe that everybody involved in this mess, learned some valuable lessons for the future.