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An interview with one of 'The Medway Boys', an Atari ST hacking group whose name appeared on loading screens. As a kid I didn't give it much thought at the time, but was idly googling them last night for some reason. It's a nice insight / reminiscence of the late 80s, early 90s hacking scene.
Quite fascinating to read about some of the sketchy stuff up at Glasgow Barrowlands Market (the European Capital of software piracy!)
https://codetapper.com/atari-st/st-interviews/zippy/
He does go a bit overboard on some of the technical stuff, mind....
Good read indeed!
Bit after my computing time (Vic20 and C64) and by the late 80s id moved onto cars, motorbikes and girls, but a good read nonetheless!
Very interesting bit of social history, I was really into trading cracked Amiga games by post when I was about 16.
Since then I've had a career in content and don't really approve of piracy any more 😀
I thought hacking back then was just photocopies of the manuals so you could find page 12 line sixteen word 7.
Or those red cellophane filter things.
Elderly Atari STs, or Elderly fans? I fear it's now both...
(Great read BTW!)
This is relevant to my interests.
I still have my ST.
Me too. I keep looking for colour monitors but they aren't cheap. I have a monochrome one, I also have a hard disk...
ST pff, Amiga!
Some great articles on his site. Anyone still interested there are a number of active forums still (yes forums other than STW exist!!?!) ie Amiga https://eab.abime.net/ and ST https://forums.atariage.com/forum/20-atari-stttfalcon-computers/
I have an A500 also.
Never owned an ST personally but did play on my godparents one when visiting and had fun.
Got an A500 back in the day then later a A1200 and 3000, sold them when going 'PC'. These days I have a pair of CD32's, one with a 030 and 64Mb expansion and uses an SD card adapter, KB and mouse so basically like a 1200 but do actually want another one at some point.
Definitely never saw any of these cracked/copied games mentioned in the article, all mine were legit ones (cough)
Would like an ST for the collection, a late STFM or an STE. Only Atari stuff I have is a 2600 and an a Jaguar EDIT: and two Lynx II's
I have an original Amiga colour monitor, it’s both huge & tiny at the same time, and absolutely terrible 😂 No idea what the state of the ST scene is, but Amiga is still thriving, people producing new hardware etc. You can get an add-on that sits over the graphics chip and allows you to output to a modern monitor. 100% the way to go.Me too. I keep looking for colour monitors but they aren’t cheap
‘The Medway Boys’
Ha! So one of those guys was based in Chatham, hence the Medway part, our local river that lends it's names to the Medway Towns.
I was into the Vic20, C64 then Amiga though, so never heard of that group. I was a consumer rather than hacker though.😉
You can get an add-on that sits over the graphics chip and allows you to output to a modern monitor. 100% the way to go.
Absolutely not the point 🙂
Very interesting bit of social history, I was really into trading cracked Amiga games by post when I was about 16.
muy brother and his cousin were part of some amiga demo scene back in 91/92 called archaos: http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/author.php?id=456
My mate had the ST and we had the Amiga 500
muy brother and his cousin were part of some amiga demo scene back in 91/92 called archaos: http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/author.php?id=456
/p>
As was 'Count Zero', apparently! 🤔
Blast from the past.
I escaped Medway in '89. Lived far too dangerously close to Chatham.
Still have my STE (and it's not for sale)