Break's

FAQ

Exact  

What is this?

This website lists the contents of my personal collection of Amiga demo/cracking scene releases. The material is being gathered both for your viewing pleasure as well as to preserve it from extinction. I created this PHP/SQL monstrosity as a personal tool to maintain my stuff, help browse through the releases and let other collectors and interested parties know what I got.

For the collection I am gathering all scene material which is executable or otherwise constituting a "release" in scene terms. In English, that means I'm collecting demos and stuff, but not e.g. individual modules or pictures.

Inserting titles to the collection is an ongoing process done at various levels of commitment since 2002. Everything you see here is hand checked and verified to be working, correctly named and not a dupe. If you spot some very common and popular scene products missing, they'll most likely be added in the near future. The same goes for the latest releases: old and rare productions not yet available in every other site out there are, naturally, given top priority.

Special thanks to Toni, Jope, Jeppe and Richard + the entire Bitworld team for their co-operation and support. Huge appreciation also to everybody who have provided me with missing material, especially to the great people supplying their old disks.

Why are you doing this on your own, aren't you aware of sites X and Y?

I am well aware of similar projects such as Bitworld/Kestra/Janeway, Demozoo etc. In fact I have been working in co-operation with e.g. the Bitworld crew for years. Data is shared and people inform each other of releases and other information. So don't worry, we aren't exactly in competition.

Furthermore, it seems the point of this site is often missed so I'm writing it down in bold here: my goal is to collect data, not to build a database. As stated above, this website is intended to be a tool to help me in that task. This has never been meant to be something like Pouet, Demozoo or CSDB.

This is a personal project of mine, and I have strong feelings on several aspects related to this kind of archiving. Every minute spent on archiving new data instead of arguing over technicalities among other strong minded people is a win in my books. Of course, this doesn't mean I woudln't be open for suggestions or opinions..

Wait a minute, is this legal?

Yes. The products were released as public domain, meaning they can be freely distributed. No warez available here.

It is of course possible that among the thousands of disk images and executables, some copyright restricted material has snuck in. If you find your rights infringed, please inform me and we'll work it out.

While we're on the subject, let me make one thing clear: do NOT ask me for Kickstart ROM images. Sure, the fact that spreading them is illegal is quite ridiculous. It's still illegal though, which means I can't help you.

So where can I download all this stuff?

Just click the download link up there in the menu!

Note that the link contains a recent backup of the entire archive and it might not be 100% up to date upon retrieval. Please read the accompanying readme file before asking me anything about the backups. For individual files, try your luck with ftp.amigascne.org (not affiliated with yours truly)

At the time of writing (January 2014) I'm working on finally providing a real-time mirror of my local collection. Hopefully this will happen soon.

Your website lists demo X, do you have it?

There seems to be a lot of confusion over this, so let me try to be clear. If it is listed on this site, I have it, it works and it's yours to download. As long as the "inserted" field doesn't list a date more recent than the current download snapshot's date, you can get it right now from behind the download link. Otherwise, either wait for a while for an update to the snapshot or ask me for the file. Or, again, try your luck with amigascne.org.

Does release X work? How do I run on an Amiga or an emulator?

As stated before, everything has been hand verified to work, using the latest (often beta) version of WinUAE maintained by my good pal Toni. Yes, everything works in an emulator, but you need to remember how to properly configure your stuff. Just as you would have to do with your real Amiga setup.

The default configuration of all non-AGA items is a basic A500 with kickstart 1.3, 1.0MB RAM (0.5MB chip/slow) and ECS Agnus. In case you're wondering about ECS, I use it to easily detect prods which in fact require OCS. If an item requires something else to work, it is noted in the additional info -field. For AGA stuff I nowadays use a pretty maxed-out configuration with 060, lots of RAM etc., but I will try to also specify the post-ECS requirements as accurately as possible.

If you really have trouble getting something you've downloaded from me to run, let me know and we'll sort it out. Just don't go around yelling "emulators suck" when they infact don't :)

How can I boot up EXE files in WinUAE without using a hard disk or disk images?

Just mount the executable directly in DF0:, as long as it's small enough to fit on a disk.

What constitutes a release in your books?

The simple checklist goes like this: if it's visually, aurally and/or functionally different to existing releases, and related to the demo/cracking scene, it's in.

For example, I count different instances of the same crack intro different releases as the content clearly differs. Updated versions such as bug fixes are also worth archiving.

On the other hand, my files will not include alternate checksum versions of the same release if the differences do not affect functionality in reasonable ways. This goes for e.g. byte differences in a disk image outside executed code/data, or versions of the same executable repacked using different crunchers.

You may disargree with my definitions, but in that case you're free to get your files from elsewhere. :)

What about releases you don't see as collection worthy?

Don't worry, nothing apart from bit-perfect dupes is trashed. In the future I might make other types of data such as plain textfiles or individual pieces of graphics available in some form. In the meantime, all the "unworthy" material is still privately stored and backed up regularly.

Why so few AGA prods and recent releases?

First, searching and archiving prods released after the Internet became widespread is not much of a challenge, nor a historically significant task. Most of those releases have already been uploaded to places like Aminet, archived quite systematically and mirrored in dozens of places. So they are not yet disappearing anywhere, which doesn't go for old rare demos deteriorating on floppy disks in cellars and attics around Europe and beyond..

Second, even though I'm building an impartial collection I make no effort to hide the fact that I personally appreciate good old OCS releases over everything else :)

Why don't you preserve original file names?

There are several reasons for this. Tl;dr: it would be an impossible task and only result in an unusable mess.

Just a few points to consider: especially before the Internet became widely used, there was no uniform standard to file names in the Amiga scene. Not even in the BBS scene where the same release might have appeared under ten different 8+3 combinations (don't believe me? check some of the BBS archives/listings floating around and see for yourself). If these "original" file names would to be followed, each folder would be filled with different naming schemes in a random order. Furthermore, for most of the productions a "real" file name wouldn't be known (e.g. files only available on pack disks) or even exist (disks spread by mail).

Trust me, taking liberties in naming files makes things easier to you, and having 5000 files named "intro" would not benefit anyone.

What do those weird icons stand for?
  • P - The release is related to a party. Clicking the icon lists all releases linked to the particular party.
  • A - AGA chipset required.
  • Co - The release is a pack with its contents linked in the database.
  • E - Errors in the file(s). See the error-related question below.
  • Cr - Credits are listed for the release.
  • Txt - Text found in the release can be viewed.
  • Tag - Tags are included for the release.
How about including some kind of commenting/reviewing feature?

Sorry, but the only type of data you'll find here is factual. For opinions, comments and such, use Pouet instead. And no, I'm not affiliated with them either.

Why so few release categories?

The line has to be drawn somewhere. Remember around 1992-1993 where EVERY non-trackmo product was claimed to be a new kind of demo? Dentro, mentro, mintro... and in the end they were all the same. Just like a "packmag" is only a pack with some ads 99% of the time.

The definition of "intro" is often debated.. Some claim that only smaller-than-X-kb files deserve to be called intros. Well, I'd rather be shot than called a 700kb one-logo-and-one-scrolltext product a filedemo just because the authors didn't bother to crunch their data. ;)

Of course, if you spot any categories that are clearly incorrect, such as some megademo being called a diskmag, email me and I'll fix it.

What does "errors" mean, anyway?

Anyone who had to struggle with 3.5" disks in the old days knew that they're plain evil. Some of the ADF images do contain those nasty read/write errors, and I haven't yet located fully working ones to replace them. Be assured, there are no products on the list that don't work at all, and all the trackmos, megademos etc. should all be just fine. The errors can mostly be found in packs, and a few music disks have a few songs failing to load. Naturally, fully working versions of all these products are wanted.

What's with the CRC32 then?

This was something suggested several times by fellow collectors. A checksum is a quick way to evaluate file differences, when dealing with alternatively named of broken files etc. There are better checksum formats out there than CRC32 with less chance of collisions. However, I chose it as it's supported by default on ZIP archives etc, plus it's nicely compact. For myself, the checksum is never used as the sole identification anyway so a few random collisions don't matter.

Please note that the CRC32 listed on my file is always for an EXE or an ADF file. Comparing the checksums of DMS archives and such against my values is an exercise in futility.

Why is so much meta data like credits not filled out?

All the meta data such as credits, tags etc. are a low priority feature, mostly done just for fun, personal curiosity and easing up searching the collection. I will insert content into these data fields when I feel like it, but adding new files comes first. As stated before, my goal is not to build a comprehensive database.

Where did you get all the screenshots? Didn't I see them on site X before?

All screenshots have been manually taken by myself. They may have been used by others, either with or without my permission. The Bitworld archive for example has a permission for using all my shots freely and I have submitted some to Pouet to replace existing shots apparently created by blind people.

I've got some stuff you're missing, what should I do?

If you happen to have boxes full of old Amiga disks filled with demoscene stuff, contact me or the Bitworld crew. Chances are, there's a person equipped with transferring equipment near you who can help. In case you've already dumped your old stuff into images, by all means contact me and/or the Bitworld people. In exchange I'd be happy to provide my latest files and help you hunt down any long-lost production you're missing.

What else can I do to help?

It would be great if you'd notify me of any errors, typos and such. Naturally, any info/correction on release years, hardware requirements etc. is appreciated, as well as general suggestions on how to improve this site and the collection itself.

Also, if you found some old release of yours here and had fun watching your teenage antics, drop me a mail. It's always fun to hear people enjoying this old crap again, and kind of boosts the morale for maintaining such a project :)

I encountered some offensive material here, won't you please think of the children?!

I am not from the USA and this is not a kid-safe website for the whole family. Yes, scene releases may contain swearing, nudity, violence and/or unoptimized realtime effects. As a rule I do not censor stuff, as I am here to preserve data as accurately as possible. Deal with it. That said, I of course don't host anything clearly violating laws and such.

I found something made by myself which I'm now ashamed of, can you remove it from the collection?

I don't believe I'm obligated to do so, as the material in question has been voluntarily released in the public domain. However I don't want to cause anybody any distress so contact me and we can most likely work it out. Until January 2014 I have received one such request. In that case we reached a compromise satisfying both parties.

Why does this site look so web 1.0? Where's modern design, JQuery and the like?

First, the development of this site was started in 2002. While lots of development and refactoring have taken place after that, I have little desire to waste time on eyecandy when I can be working on adding new stuff into the collection. I aim for simplicity and usability and in my eyes this site still achieves those. Responsivity for different devices would be nice, but is someone out there really browsing this on a cell phone?

Second, this site was built using PHP. It seemed like a good idea in 2002 but nowadays I detest the language with pretty much everyone else on the planet. Major overhauls would require me rebuilding the entire site with some modern tools, which is a big task. Maybe if I lose my job or something and suddenly have tons of spare time.

Why do you update this collection so slowly and sporadically?

Simply but, I've got a life outside old Amiga archiving as well. Work, wife, friends, other hobbies etc. I do attempt to stay as active as possible, but sometimes I may go into hypersleep for several months due to other priorities. Don't worry, so far I have always returned with a vengeance. :)

WTF is "Arabuusimiehet"?

That information is on a need-to-know basis. Nothing to do with the scene though. Hi EAB chaps :P