I got my C=16 in December 1985 from my parents. It was like a dream come
true: 121 colors and a great BASIC, what else did you need as a beginner?
For quite some time I had no contacts with any other C16/Plus4-ers but then
it changed rapidly and soon I had the biggest program collection in my
hometown (Békéscsaba). My best plus/4 mate was the guy who prepared Icicle
Works Editor, I learned a lot of cracking and hacking tricks from him. Then I
had contacted the guy in the local software store (who also owned a
Plus/4) and made a deal with him that I could bring home new Hungarian
games and crack them if I give him then a copy, as well. This way I cracked
several dozens of Hungarian games (all of them in any of the Novotrade
labels: Octasoft and Deltasoft) besides the few foreign games. You can
still see some of my cracks here at Lando's Classix: Bolcsek Kove, Platina
and Danger Willi. In 1989 I with friends made a demo: Demo Mine. We had
converted graphics from C64 by ourselves and this was our crew's (PPCS,
consisting of me, "Shwantze" - coder, "Santa Klaus" - music and "Robby" -
graphics) first and last "release". It was lamers' demo, but now I wish I
could see it again... Another program was Game Music 4, which was done by
us. If anyone has these lying around please mail me!
In 1991 I went to university and the C16 became forgotten for a long time!
Then it ceased to work (maybe the TED chip died) and in lack of money I
decided to sell most of my C16 related software and hardware in 1995. If I
had known better... Only 4 tapes remained whose now I can't feed to Minus/4
as they are either in such a bad condition or my stereo sucks.
In 1997 I found Mike Dailly's emulator and the ftp.funet.fi server! Man, it
was great to see! And when I found my cracks uploaded to an FTP server I
had strange feelings, because they were not uploaded by me! Then came the
next big push: Zsolt Prievara's emulator, that could do Tom Thumb, my all
time favourite!
But the last motivation that made me to this scene was seeing Lando's and
getting in contact with him! FTP servers are great, but very inpersonal and I
gladly realised that Lando is zealously updating his site with programs
and screenshots! As I had no special programs that had not been available
on FTP already, I offered him to hack the games only available as D64s to
work on all platform as PRGs. I don't have an Amiga, so the best emulators
are unavailable for me...
Plus/4 scene is still (and will surely be) lagged far behind that of the
C64's but I think Lando's is a milestone in modern age C16/+4 history.
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