The Scene
The Scene is often used to describe a digital and online community. But, this old descriptor was probably lifted from the bohemian and counterculture The Freak Scene
movement of the 1960s. And appropriated by social activists and journalists in the 1970s, who wrote about the groups of technically minded, misfit kids and young adults whom the writers dubbed phone freaks
, aka phreaks, who ran hacks on Ma Bell. The monopoly telephone network of the United States owned and operated by the Bell System, a century-old entity that at its peak was the largest company in the world.
Wares
At the same time, wares, including software and hardware are used to describe goods. We can make a good case that the wares scene was probably coined by phreakers or the microcomputer enthusiasts, who shared the same online spaces on early computer operated bulletin boards. And needed to differentiate their posts, to split the phreak scene discussions of the phone network from those wanting computing goods or wares, who’d met up in person to swap hardware and software media.
The spelling of warez with a z is newer. An Apple II user under the pseudonym Rabid Rasta complained in mid-1984 about the alternative spells for wares and their use by a new breed of kids getting online and spamming electronic message boards looking for free computer games.
Some of the trading messages posted in 1980 to 8BBS#1 near San Jose, CA:
Message number 3112 is 10 lines from Paul. To ALL at 00:34:21 on 15-Oct-80.
Subject: ALL PHREAKERS / HACKERS
TO ALL PHONE PHREAKS AND COMPUTER CRASHERS : THIS BBS IS BECOMING QUITE A NICE PLACE TO TRADE INFO. I HAVE TRIED GETTING INDIVIDUALS WHO MIGHT HAVE INFO ON HERE TO CONTACT ME, BUT I SEEM TO HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, POSSIBLY, BECAUSE PEOPLE WISH TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS, IF THIS IS THE CASE. IT’S COOL, I UNDER- STAND. LETS TRADE ON THE SYSTEM, THEN. IF YOU HAVE ANY BELL SYSTEM ‘PAPERS’, I WILL GLADLY TRADE WITH YOU. HAVE LOTS OF COMPUTER ACCOUNTS TOO. LEAVE ME A MESSAGE.
Message number 3794 is 8 lines from Stephen. To ALL at 14:46:55 on 14-Nov-80.
Subject: HP9845 SOFTWARE EXCHANGE
I HAVE AN HP9845 COMPUTER AND WOULD LIKE TO GET A HOLD OF SOME NEW GAMES. I HAVE NEVER PLAYED ADVENNTURE & ESPECIALLY INTERESTED IN IT. I HAVE SEVERAL GAMES ALREADY SUCH AS NIM, STAR TREK, SKI, WUMPUS, RACE, BIORYTHEM, AND OTHERS. I WOULD BE GLAD TO SHARE WHAT I HAVE WITH OTHERS. LEAVE A MESSAGE ON THIS BBS IF YOU TOO ARE INTERESTED. I USUALLY CHECK EVERY WEEKDAY.
Message number 4291 is 10 lines from Barbara To RICK at 23:41:33 on 01-Dec-80.
Subject: APPLE PROGRAM TRADING
RICK — IF YOU WANT TO TRADE APPLE PROGS., THE PERSON TO TALK TO WOULD BE DAN. HE HAS DISKS AND DISKS OF STUFF AND LIKES TO TRADE SO MUCH THAT HE EVEN HOLDS MEETINGS FOR THE PURPOSE… AREN’T THERE A LOT OF APPLE PEOPLE IN THOSE PARTS? BARB
Message number 4324 is 20 lines from Dan. ** All ** at 16:30:20 on 02-Dec-80.
Subject: Apple Software Trading.
As it has been stated in other posts I am very interested in trading software (Apple what else is there) I have been trading for about a year and deal with people in Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Boston, etc. I trade by modem, mail or in person (in person is preferable if feasable). I have access to most major programs packages, so if you are interested joining *The Great Apple American Pass Time* (TGAAPT), leave me a msg. with your name, phone # (optional if your touchy about it), What you are looking for, Size of your library, Where located, and how you wish to trade.
Apple II and the birth of cracking
The wares scene as we know it today, originated in the USA, most likely in 1979 or 1980, on the Apple II microcomputer. At this time, US copyright did not apply to software usage, and some industry publishers and authors were looking for ways to limit the copying and free exchange of the programs that they were creating to sell. The mid-1978 offering and rapid popularity of the Apple “Disk ][” floppy drive ecosystem, combined with some experimentation, created the opportunity for the introduction of disk-copying restrictions into commercial software and games.
At the same time, a burgeoning new communications medium was being developed for posting and messaging on early computerized bulletin boards. These were home to computer enthusiasts who had an insatiable desire for new and novel software. And for many, an entitlement that digital goods were for the public domain, which stemmed from a long-held tradition in the computing space. Where hardware was purchased, but the software was given away. All combined, it probably led to a clash of cultures, capitalist vs freedom, and the birth of software cracking was the result. With the computer-savvy using trial-and-error to unlock the programs shipped on floppies containing disk copy-protections, and permit the duplication and swapping of software like it had always been. This newfound knowledge was forever changing, so it got discussed, posted and repeated elsewhere to evolve into digital communities.
Atari and software demos
This period also saw the delayed introduction of Atari’s 400 and 800 microcomputers. Atari felt it was late to the party in releasing its superior line of computers, so it created several non-interactive demonstration software titles with music and animation intended to help sell the machines in-store. To encourage development, Atari formed APX, the Atari Program Exchange, which allowed the company to publish user-written software. Some titles, such as 1981’s Graphics/Sound Demonstration, include source code and instructions for various vanity programming effects. To encourage new Atari owners to develop on the computers and demonstrate the system capabilities, much like a Demoscene that later evolved on the Atari machines.
Europe and the 16-bit microcomputers
The concept of a Scene spanned the Atlantic to Western Europe in 1984-85 to eventually thrive on the Commodore 64, the all-time, highest-selling microcomputer worldwide. Small collectives of Commodore owners in Sweden, West Germany, and elsewhere would team up to import boxed software from the USA to digitally duplicate, occasionally crack, and repackage titles to share between friends and users. Initially, this was due to the poor availability of microcomputer software in retail, but even after the software distribution improved, many found the communities that formed around exchanging pirated software too compelling.
Late in the 1980s, UK and European game developers and Sceners moved onto the more powerful 16-bit computer platforms led by Atari and Commodore. Due to the emphasis of sound and graphics on both machines, some in the European Scene pivoted to exclusively producing digital artwork and multimedia, creating the Demoscene. In the USA, where Atari and Commodore were based, their 16-bit computers failed in the local marketplace. The failure and other poor decisions eventually finished both companies and their influence. While Apple Computer Inc. was left as a niche player after it ditched its popular Apple II platform to favor the novel and high value, Macintosh computer line.
North American consumers moved on to the business-oriented IBM PC platform, later dominated by Intel and Microsoft with MS-DOS and Windows. Due to its modular and fragmented design, the PC wasn’t the best gaming platform during the 1980s and much of the 1990s. And apart from the popular adventure and flight simulator genres in the 80s and the real-time strategy or Doom-clones of the 1990s, there were better choices for game development. Instead, many American and Canadian gamers shifted to the Japanese video game console offerings by Nintendo, Sega and later Sony.
IBM PC and the x86 platform
Numerous text file instructions survive for modifying PC software and removing its disk copy protection schemes. Instructions that once were commonplace on CompuServe and bulletin board posts that go back to 1983, possibly earlier. But unlike the Apple II crackers, these unprotect authors were not computing ideologues or kids seeking free games. Instead, these copy-protection removal instructions were created for pricey business software, purchased legitimately, and the cracks were frequently credited to real-life contacts. As the copy protection found in early PC application software often seriously inconvenienced buyers, especially businesses, where damaged or lost disk media could mean being locked out of critical software.
Separately, PC wares distributions did exist early in the IBM PC’s lifecycle, at least in North America. Some bulletin boards offered a wide range of commercial and non-commercial PC software. However, they were uploaded as-is and usually without modification. End users of these dubious commercial downloads would presumably remove any copy protection using the freely available and legal unprotect instructions found on public message boards. How popular all this was is uncertain. Most application software from the 1980s is text-based and niche, with an unintuitive design. And really needed the printed manuals included in the retail product to get anything out of the software.
We know that crackers and later pirate groups didn’t start modifying and redistributing cracked IBM PC games until 1984, and it didn’t pick up and evolve to a national distribution network until 1988 and 1989. Oddly, after the software industry mostly abandoned copy protection on business-oriented software, this became the most common form of pirated software found on the PC ‘elite’ file sharing boards. Yet, these wares were frequently packaged and distributed anonymously and even contained detailed installation instructions, which their authors often left uncredited.
The proliferation of bulletin boards running on IBM PCs and the sharing of all this software led to an Art Scene. Digital artists using PCs and primitive software competed to create text art for the elite pirate and hacker bulletin board systems. Eventually, like the Demoscene in Europe, the Art Scene artists broke away from piracy to form their own community.
Outside the US and Canada, where the PC was often more expensive and perceived as a business tool, there was little engagement from Europe or elsewhere. Some users from the Netherlands joined the PC Scene community in 1988, releasing demonstrations and software cracks. Others from Norway, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and Poland, came afterward, with some going all in on the platform but others seeing it as a secondary system.
However, many Europeans avoided the PC platform and moved over to the Japanese consoles. Others only reluctantly migrated to it after it became apparent that their favored systems from Commodore were dead-end platforms and that the software industry had long moved on.
Curiously, this has led to a mistaken mythologization of the Scene in Europe, with many people believing that the online culture, conventions, and vocabulary originated in Western Europe on Commodore and trickled over to North America and elsewhere. Yet, the Apple, Atari, and IBM PC existed well before the famed Commodore Amiga 500 and Commodore 64 microcomputers, and all these machines were designed and launched first in the United States.
An ancient post on 8BBS#1 to swap software for the Seattle 8086 microcomputer, months before Microsoft DOS or the IBM PC
Message number 8281 is 6 lines from Joe. To ALL 8086’ERS at 21.50:35 on 14-Apr-81.
Subject: 8086 STUFF
HI: I JUST GOT A SEATTLE 8086 CPU SETUP. 96K RAM(16 BIT). I WOULD LIKE TO TALK AND POSSIBLY SWAP SOFTWARE WITH OTHER USERS/OWNERS OF 8086 SYSTEMS. CURRENTLY I RUN 86-DOS BUT SOON WILL HAVE BOTH 86-DOS AND CP/M-86. JOE