The Scene and The Sceners

And being part of an international society (With a mutual interest!).

I have thought allot about it; The influence the scene have shaped my life allot, and help making me, together with other things in life, the individual person I am today. But what actually happened to me, and what it was which attracted me to the scene is still an open question to me. I am still not quite sure. I guess it was all a complex mix of factors, an offspring of time and place... . .

When I talk to people of which the scene is unknown territory, and show them fragments of what is, and has been the scene, some of the first things they comments is the pictures.

The first steps.. Birth of a freak
I remember as a young child (before knowing anything about computers), I loved mixing all sorts of chemicals and stuff together to see what happened. In time I became quite good in chemistry, inventing new molecules for the fun of it - My mother was concerned though :-), I was creative and experimenting. I remember seeing a Commodore 64 for the first time in my life, and how fascinated I was. Those who had the machine, only used it for games, and had a Tape recorder. Later a friend of mine got a C64, he used it for games and later as a "piano". He had a diskdrive. And so, I wanted my own computer. I started to look around and asked people about computers. Someone showed me an IBM PC, and abit about programming (He made a little program displaying a name, and some blinking stars (Actually the asterisk sign; *), the price for the IBM PC was something like 80.000 DKK, if I remember correctly. I finally got my own C64 at home, and could play games myself. There was a man who delivered the equipment, showed me a little program made by someone to demonstrate the capabilities of the Commodore 64 (The first demo I ever saw in my life) and he told me it had taken a month to create... I started with a diskdrive. Schoolmates had Tape, and could not understand why I brought a diskdrive... "Almost everybody are using Tape.. Why use disk?", they said... History would later show, that the few was the ones to become so important to me. I was amused by the software, and began to wonder how such games where made. I very slowly did the first step into programming by typing some of the examples listed in the Commodore 64 users manual. BASIC... It sucked! I would rather do my own programs, but motivation was still missing.

I remember getting my first disk full of cracks, some good games without an intro in front. Later I remember seeing some intros; ACE, Dynamic Due, Danish Cracking Service, Plutonium Crackers, Fairlight and such. And thought; .... .... . I'm Hungry! :-) Of course it was simple, compared to what I was about to see later. I read somewhere, while studying BASIC programming, "...But of course if you want to make real games, machine code is the choice". And so I started to read about MC programming from magazines and books, and learned to make programs using a MC-Monitor. And later I discovered the blessing of Profi-Assembler, where one could type programs like in BASIC, and then type SYS 32768 to compile. I formed a small lame local group called "The Daltons" before getting into contact with the real scene. The purpose of the group, was to make copies of programs (Originals, mainly from tape) and put my little intro infront, and put them on a disk. Yes, inspired by the software I had seen on disks with cracks, but not doing real cracks with trainers and so on. Then I saw some different demos. Demos by Triumph, Ash+Dave... And I was hooked. It was so elegant, digital art; using code, music and graphics...

The birth of a scener
Until this point I had been the only C64 coder in my circles, none to talk to, the only C64 assembler programmer in the whole world (it felt like that, sometimes). I got in contact with the real scene at some point shortly after, and then things went fast. I joined Ideal together with Yaemon. From that point I was in the scene, as a scener, among sceners. Gaining more and more contacts, other coders and so on. And I was no longer the only one... Friendships where build, mutual interests and inspiration. I got better in coding as I coded more, and my style was changing.

A scener and to be on stage.
Coding and especially swapping took much of my time. I gained more and more contacts. Joined Collision via Shark/Collision (When I first got to know him, he was in Calix) as I wanted to be in something more international and because I missed a real graphician close to me, furthermore my contact with the other members of Ideal was limited. It was the year 1990 by now. The years to come was extreme. Contacts in almost anywhere in the world (Europe, North- and South-America, North-And South-Africa, Middle east, Australia, but none in Russia and Asia - shame on me!). Some where Coders, crackers, hackers, phreakers, graphicians or musicians... Intelligent and creative people. Not all where legal activities, but that is the way things are.. Most where also swappers, or "only" swappers, and where important when spreading wares, getting wares and writing long letters or disknotes with. Making demoparts, intros and all sorts of stuff. Having fun, exploring technology and new utilities and got to know many different people, and got an insight into peoples lives elsewhere in the world.

I got to know more about computers, the importance of its integrated circuits (ICs or Chips), tech stuff and lowlevel programming.

But there where also the thing about feeling being in a group. I was not only member of collision, I was a Collisioner, representing the group, in previous and future work... Making history in an international society. When we had a new release, I was proud of it (and sometimes not so proud.), this is us!. When our fellow groups in the scene made a release, I paid attention with respect. This what they had made, what they represented... it mattered...

The scene has a codex and values, and conflicts and scene-wars has taken place in the history of the C64 scene. There are other scenes than the C64 scene, all with their own codex and values. ZX-Spectrum, Atari, Amiga, PC, SNES are just to name a few of the machines which have their own scene. More and more enthusiasts and scene related sites are appearing on the web, so go and search or take a look at some of the links presented on this site.

To a nonscener it might seem strange. But look at the world and all its people. Playing football (or soccer), for example. There are people who play football, and there are people who are football- players. It is a kind of a lifestyle, taking much attention, while getting better and better. At that moment, people are sceners - Football sceners!