.-. ____
.--..` | / `
\ ` `. ___.--| _.\ /``\
`-``. \ `...----```' |` ...__/
a p h l o g `. `, \ ____ | _.-`
`\. `+,.--+---.+` ``-.|+_______.-.
p o s t .. ,_ / `.| ,.__ `. \----\ |
..`` | . | ``/ `. | \`. \ \.-----'/` /
.` `. \`. .` \,`. \ |+ \.` |_ ` / .`
.` \/ |/ \._\ \ ``` ./ ```'+`` ..' _|
,` | `` \.._ `. | .' __.' |
\ .. |+``._ `. `. `.+``\. | `.--' |
\ .. .`/ `. /.| |`..\ `. \ / `| |
\ .' \ / / .`./ | | `.. \\ \/____...`|---,. |
`. / \/ | .+`` .'| `, \\ \`. | /`. `.|
``' / .` ..' | \ ` | \ \ ,____/, ```..'
/.` ..' |` `., | \.\` / |
//` .' ,-```--..,\, |.`` \\ |. /\__'
.' .' `++ \\ `'
.' .' about `\ ( yarr )
,` .' `.
_.`.`` .' `.
/ | W A R E Z C D ' S \
| ../ \ `.
`` \. .' Once upon a time, in a land far away -or- to `.
`-' put it more specifically -me, in the mid-to-late `..
90's, in Belgium. Dragging myself out of bed every morning, much
earlier than I think is reasonable, get dressed - fuck breakfast,
ain't nobody got time for that, walk all the way to the end of a
long street of row-houses, to a pedestrian tunnel under the train
tracks, covered in graffiti, smells slightly like pee. Only to
emerge from the tunnel, and catch a glimpse of a departing tram. The
tram I needed. I run, but to no avail. It's gone. It's raining, and
cold, and because this is the desolate terminus, at the edge of
what's considered downtown, there is no shelter. 15 minutes later, I
finally would make it onto the tram. Eventually as the tram makes
it's way into the city center, more people hop on at every stop -
looking miserable,- every single one. Eventually it is cramped full
of people like sardines in a can. When my stop comes up, I barely
make it out of the over-crowded public transportation vehicle, get
slightly beaten up along the way - some more walking, to eventually
make it to school, half asleep and resume my nap that was so rudely
interrupted, in a hostile and much more uncomfortable environment.
Rinse. Repeat. Every. Day. After 2 hours of trying to ignore the
harsh sounds of rebelling youth, and dodging objects and blows,
eventually the bell rings signaling it is time for a break. I'd be
the last to leave, typically, in order to avoid people as much as
possible. Some guy signals me to come over. I know him. He's the
dude with the goods. Finally. Perhaps the day won't be completely
miserable. He reaches for something inside of his bag and hands me a
thicker-than normal cd jewel case. It's one of those 4 cd in 1 case
type of deals. Within the case is a cover with some cool looking
art, with references to some recent movie or whatever, and the text
'Crazy Bytes' - I immediately flip the thing around and start
studying the list of software and games on the back. Excitement! 20
Euro's, says the guy who handed me the disk. I hand him some cash,
and walk away with the cd set, still looking at the back and reading
through the list of software, wondering what wonders will await me
when I get home.
This pretty much describes the typical experience I had back in the
day with Warez CD-rom's. There was internet, but it was very slow.
Sneakernet was the best, and quickest way go get a big chunk of
software. But we were kids, and there was no way we could afford any
of the big box stuff on display in stores. These cd releases were
our one and only way of obtaining software and games en-masse.
There was a few series of disks like this, these were the major ones
I could get at the time:
* Crazy Bytes
* Bits & Bytes
* Twilight
________________________________
_.-~=' T h e E x p e r i e n c e `=~-._
`--------------------------------'
But these were more than just disks with software. For one, they all
were centered around some sort of theme. Crazy Bytes' theme was
movies and/or tv shows. Each release would be named around a movie,
and have related artwork on the box, and in the menu.
When you popped one of these disks in, first you would have to know
how to install the menu. In order to smuggle these disks across the
border, the pirates would hide the fact that they are warez cd's in
various ways - for instance, the software was often compressed and
encrypted and made to look like image files or some other sort of
file - Often they would pose as porn disks. (Kind of makes you
wonder what kind of a society we live in, if software has to pretend
to be porn to make it across the border) - and there was some sort
of executable posing as something else, where you could enter a
special key combination + password to get into the real installer
that would install the menu for the disk set.
Then, once you've got the menu installed, it would often open with
some over-the-top demo-like movie playing back, and then eventually
drop you into an easy to navigate menu listing the software and
games you could install. The menu's almost always had background
music playing too. MP3's were still relatively new, and seeing
actual video playback on a computer would still blow me away every
time. Selecting a menu item would give you a description of the
software or game, often even a rating and/or mini-review, and often
with the nfo & obligatory scene ascii art. All things added
together, these things really were an experience!
_______________________
_.-~=' A r c h e o l o g y `=~-._
`-----------------------'
In recent years I've been trying to re-create the collection of
these disks I had back in the day. Thankfully archive.org hosts a
big chunk of them (for now anyway - it wouldn't surprise me if they
vanish some day- so I made sure to download as many of them as I
can) (as an aside, it wouldn't surprise me if archive.org in general
either vanishes or has to delete a lot of it's content because of
overzealous copyright enforcement one of these days - you know how
people usually don't realize when they are living in the 'golden
age' of something unless it's over? Well, now is the golden age of
archive.org - go donate to them and leech as much as you can grab
while it's still there!)
* https://archive.org/details/software?query=crazy+bytes
* https://archive.org/details/software?query=bits+bytes
* https://archive.org/details/software?query=twilight
There are others, I didn't interact with at the time
A few notable ones are:
* The Legacy
* HolyGrail (mac warez)
(These can also be found on archive.org )
Because these things were released at regular intervals and packed
with the latest greatest software and games of the time, another fun
side-effect now, is that each of these disks serves as a little time
capsule of long forgotten software. Indeed, when going through these
again, I thought I for sure remembered all the software that was
around at the time, but that only seems to apply to the big name
things, because there was a lot of fun stuff in these that I don't
even remember seeing at all. There's some things I can't even find
anything online about. That alone makes these of special use &
interest to retro-computing enthusiasts today.
_____________________________
_.-~=' T h e D a r k S i d e `=~-._
`-----------------------------'
Of course, it isn't all sunshine and roses. There was definitively a
dark side to these things, beyond the fact that software piracy is
not exactly legal. Back in the day, the guy I used to buy these from
always had these crazy stories that sound like from some bad mobster
flick. I always figured he had seen too much scarface. But lately I
found out that there was some truth to the stories. A Dutch guy who
used to run the Twilight series went to jail for all sorts of bad
stuff (physical assault, extortion,...) - apparently some of these
groups didn't quite get along, and when money got involved, the
criminal aspects escalated, which is a shame for something that
started out of fun and creativity.
You can read more about that on wikipedia here:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(warez)
Here is a talk from 2013 on Twilight:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOAgSYei-xo