MindCandy: Volume 2 Amiga Demos Has Sold Out! So It Is Now Available For Free Online.

The Amiga computer was launched in 1985 as an advanced personal and gaming computer. Many hobbyist computer programmers, graphic artists, and musicians took hold of this platform and created spectacular programs to show off their talent and the Amiga’s capabilities. Over the past several decades, many talented individuals created amazing works of art unseen and unknown to world outside the small Amiga computer and demo scene. The Amiga only survived for a decade, but these demonstrations will live on forever.

“MindCandy Volume 2: Amiga Demos” was a DVD project by Hornet, Fusecon, and Blue 7 Media, started in 2003 and completed in late 2006. Free preview discs were given away at the Assembly 2005 demoparty, featuring an Amiga Workbench-style menu (you can still get the preview .ISO, search for “mindcandy” at www.scene.org). The final DVD was officially released on January 16th, 2007.

Over five years later, as of May 1st, 2012, MC2 has officially sold out! To celebrate the occasion, we are releasing both the PAL and NTSC versions under a Creative Commons license. Details of the license are below.

This archive contains the same full dual-layer .ISO image that the retail disc contained, including the layer break in the right place. Also included are the DVD case cover, the full booklet, and even the images we used for our stickers. So if you missed your chance to experience MC2, fret no more! We’ve also thrown in some reviews we got from Amiga Power and c’t magazine.

We had to capture RGB video in as good quality as possible (the video had to come directly from the Amiga RGB port) using 2004-era technology on a small budget, including an uncompressed workflow to avoid any generational artifacts. The NTSC video is 720×480 @ 29.97i (interlaced) while PAL is 720×576 @ 25i (both in 4:3 aspect ratio). MC2 was mastered for CRT tube televisions, but should still look great on any output device.

MindCandy Volume 2 was a very successful release, having sold 3000 copies (1000 NTSC and 2000 PAL). The sales of MC2 provided the seed money to make MindCandy Volume 3, our Blu-ray high-def follow-up to our first PC volume, so the project gave back to the scene community not once but twice. MindCandy Volume 3 is still available – visit http://www.mindcandydvd.com/3 to get your copy!

We hope you enjoy MindCandy Volume 2 as much as we enjoyed making it.

LICENSE:

The work “MindCandy Volume 2: Amiga Demos” (both PAL and NTSC editions, including the print materials in the archive) is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

This license allows you to freely copy and view the work provided you do not sell it, attempt to transform it, or reference it without attribution. For more details on this license, please visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Read the release NFO:

http://scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fdemos%2Fcompilations%2Fmindcandy_2_final%2Fmindcandy2.nfo&fileinfo

Download the DVD from:

Legit Torrents: http://www.legittorrents.info/index.php?page=torrent-details&id=a9f35c70b29708bb0af77dad926380aadfad483b

Scene.org: http://scene.org/dir.php?dir=%2Fdemos%2Fcompilations%2Fmindcandy_2_final%2F

MindCandy 3: PC Demos 2003-2010 Blu-Ray+DVD Is Available For Shipping This Week

MindCandy 3 takes these poetic programs of the computer world to the next level: Each of the demos has been optimized scene by scene or even rewritten just for MindCandy (thanks to ryg, Haujobb, Satori, Cubic Team) in order to achieve perfectly smooth 60 frames per second in a mind-blowing “better-than-realtime” visual quality on HD video. It will push the limits of your Blu-ray player and HD(TV) with its spectacular audio-visual effects. MindCandy 3 is a best-of-the-best look at what imaginative amateur programmers, musicians and graphic artists can do with an off-the-shelf personal computer. The demos produced are often shown at parties throughout Europe, and are created to push the PC to its limits while impressing the audience.

The included 3.5 hours playback of demos include…

The Popular Demo [Farbrausch],   Stargazer [Orb & Andromeda],   1995 [Kewlers & mfx],   Wir Sind Einstein [United Force & Digital Dynamite],   Iconoclast [ASD],   Masagin [Farbrausch & Neuro],   Ix [Moppi Productions],   Track One [Fairlight],   Lifeforce [ASD],   Final Audition [Plastic],   Size Antimatters [ASD],   Electric Kool-Aid [Synesthetics],   Theta [Farbrausch],   Deities [mfx],   Passing [Still],   Only One Wish [Fairlight & The Black Lotus],   Bombman [Matt Current],   Nazca [Cocoon],   You Should [Haujobb],   We Cell [Kewlers],   Faded Memories [Farbrausch],   Instant Zen [Synesthetics],   Onwards [Traction],   Metamorphosis [ASD],   Midnight Run [ASD],   Route 1066 [UKScene Allstars],   Agenda Circling Forth [CNCD & Fairlight],   Aether [mfx],   Ferner [Still],   The Beauty [Einklang.net & Extrawelt],   Inflorescence [mfx],   Vokawardoai [Satori],   Chromosphere [SQNY],   Debris [Farbrausch],   Rupture [ASD],   Frameranger [CNCD, Fairlight, & Orange],   Shad 3 [Cocoon],   Into The Pink [Plastic],   Happiness Is Around The Bend [ASD],   Rove [Farbrausch]

In addition the Blu-Ray disc exclusively contains 6.5 hours of extras including these demos …

Frameskool [Equinox],   Heaven Seven (in HD) [Exceed],   Chaos Theory [Conspiracy],   Panic Room [Fairlight],   Elevated [RGBA & TBC]

Both region-free Blu-Ray and DVD discs are sold together in a single package for the introductory price of €16 or around $22 USD. They can be bought from the 16 year-old German online retailer, MAZ Sound Tools. I imagine USA based sellers will be announced soon.

http://www.maz-sound.com/index.php?show=product&id=49

Warez Scene Notice Collection (2006-2010)

Thanks to the efforts of Jason Scott the Warez Scene Notice Collection now has a permanent home on archive.org. You can download a copy of this horribly large 2GB RAR archived collection at http://www.archive.org/details/warez-scene-notices-2006-2010. The collection and others like it (LSD-notices etc.) has been floating around for over a year on various dubious distribution channels so it is great to see it has a more stable home.

The assortment of files contains a hoard of public and private scene notices mainly comprised of audio, video, images and text. To be honest there is not much from the underground scene in there and large tracks of the collection cover notices for foreign language groups, torrent sites, news groups, websites, p2p and the other trickle down distribution means.

It will probably become more of a historical interest in a decade or two.

E-Buzz, gone but never to be forgotten.

This unfortunate news was sent into us on the 16th of April, 2011 by zIPE a friend and former scene colleague of E-Buzz.

One of the real originals (in every aspect) from among others Rebels and Absolute Oktan (Absokt) has left us. Shortly after suffering of a stroke, E-Buzz quietly and in no pain walked over to the other side.

Gone but NEVER to be forgotten.

- zIPE.

You’re Stealing it Wrong: A Presentation About 30 Years Of Digital Piracy.

In late July Jason Scott producer of ground breaking BBS Documentary and maintainer of textfiles.com conducted an hour presentation at the famed DefCon 18 hacker conference. As the title suggest he used his allocated slot to gloss over three decades of piracy evolution using sources donated to him as a computer historian.

What I found most entertaining of this hour talk was his attacking of the reactionary anti-piracy movement and Jason near-mocking the pirate scene’s aggressive self cannibalisation. It lead me to believe he was attempting to convey a striking similarity, of today’s anti-piracy agendas with those of many decades past where history maybe just repeating itself.

Jason’s hour long talk was recently posted online on his Vimeo account.
http://vimeo.com/15400820

Vimeo, http://vimeo.com/15400820

Jason Scott Of textfiles.com Needs Our Help

Jason Scott, the man behind such legendary projects such as textfiles.com and the BBS Documentary is currently engaged in a Kickstarter fund raiser. Recently he was made unemployed and so he is looking for pledges to reach a goal of $25,000, within a month. Using this money to live off he plans to spend the next number of months working full time on his various computer history projects.

If his past projects are anything to go by then this in itself is worthy of a significant donation. Without Jason’s and his supporters’ work over the past decade hundreds of thousands of historic, computer files and computer related documents would have most certainly been lost to the black hole that is data rot.

Kickstarter, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/textfiles/the-jason-scott-sabbatical

Bandido of Drink or Die Fame Gives TV Interview

Hew Griffiths, aka Bandido of Drink or Die fame. The man was caught up in Operation Buccaneer back in 2001. Who spent many years fighting an extradition order to the US, for a crime that would not have warranted jail time in home country of Australia. Was release from a US Federal Prison in Virginia the earlier in the year. Hew has since returned home to Australia and has conducted a television interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Lateline current affairs program.

Under the guise of “Elder of Internet Piracy talks to Lateline”, Hew talks about his time in prison, his time as the leader of Drink or Die and why he thought the previous Australian federal government did nothing to help his case.

A transcript of the interview in full can be found at the ABC’s Lateline website, as can the video.

ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2229993.htm

Former Fairlight Leader Turned Republican Chairman

Last Thursday the leftist, sensationalist, US political blog The Raw Story had outed conservative San Diego Republican Chairman Tony Krvaric as one time scene member Strider. Strider is probably best known as one of two guys who co-founded Fairlight back in 1987 on the Commodore 64. Later in 1992, after being inspired by Ronald Ragan he migrated to the USA and for a short time continued the group’s activities on the PC.

Mr Krvaric has never shied away from his scene past. In 1993 he incorporated Fairlight Trading in California. He has used the strider alias with e-mail addresses and the Fairlight web domain for politicial campaigns. What did Mr Krvaric have to say about his recent expose?

Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, ‘exposing’ my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days). This was in the 80′s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!

This is not the first time the Internet has been used to attack Mr Krvaric. It was only 13 months ago when an online publication known as the Californian Christian News wrote an article accusing Mr Krvaric of being pro-American flag burning. They cited a 1995 public forum message board, quoting a reply apparently written by the Republican Chairman on the hot topic.

Now that everyone knows Strider’s current political stance and position with the Republican Party. The old Commodore 64 Fairlight tag, ‘kill a commie for mummy’ certainly takes on another meaning for many old schoolers.

The Raw Story, http://rawstory.com/news/2008/San_Diego_GOP_chairman_cofounded_international_0425.html

Westbam Passing

After the recent unfortunate news in regards to the death of Dr. Detergent. It was alerted to us that Westbam had also passed away two years ago at the age of 36.

Westbam was most known for his European based activities with TRSI, Razor 1911, INC, and Legend in the early to mid-1990s and later with the original Divine.

Dr. Detergent Passes Away

We have the unfortunate task of relaying some sad news today.

I just found out that a friend, Dr. Detergent has passed away. It’s been some time but I just managed to find him again since we lost contact for a very long time. Unfortunately I found out he had passed away in his sleep at the age of 33.

Dr. Detergent was a well respected cracker and programmer the 1990s. Known for his cracking ability, his name could often be found on various cracks and trainers for various games from the golden era of PC gaming. A former member of many renowned groups he will be missed by the many people who worked with him during those legendary Razor 1911, The Dream Team, Syndicate, Phoenix, INC and The Humble Guys days.

Untouchables Tutorial by Dr Detergent from 1993
The Dream Team NFO written by Dr Detergent
Untouchables NFO written by Dr Detergent