Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

gdimayhem.temari.fr

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#11

Post by stavros »

Oh man, the nostalgia of buying magazines that came with shareware CDs (we didn't have the internet back then where I lived) and going to a net cafe for half an hour to download cracks, because we obviously didn't have any way to either procure or send USD half way around the world...

It was a magical time mostly because computers were full of possibilities. Someone gave me a CD with Visual Basic 4 and I figured out programming just from reading the help files. I still have no idea how I managed to stumble my way through to actually making real programs.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#12

Post by self_awareness »

bob1029 wrote: post #6
self_awareness wrote: post #2

A lot of those were written in assembly by teenagers, using WinAPI directly. Yet they still run on Win10/Win11. A lost art.

Win32 is definitely not a lost art. It's more accessible than ever with modern code generation tools like cswin32. This inspiration to build things that look like this is what has been lost.

If today's programmers need code generation tools to use what teenagers could use on their own back in the day, then it truly is a lost art.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#13

Post by shoobiedoo »

stavros wrote: post #11

Oh man, the nostalgia of buying magazines that came with shareware CDs (we didn't have the internet back then where I lived) and going to a net cafe for half an hour to download cracks, because we obviously didn't have any way to either procure or send USD half way around the world... It was a magical time mostly because computers were full of possibilities. Someone gave me a CD with Visual Basic 4 and I figured out…

It really was magical. It felt like the wild west. I used to buy a copy of 2600 and sit in a cafe reading it just feeling like I could do anything or go anywhere, which I guess I could to a degree back in those days.

I left my system administration position in the 2010s because it brought back none of anything remotely close to those vibes. Staring at a cloud admin panel in a website all day made me start to hate computers. It was then I realized it was always just going to be a hobby if I wanted to keep it the way I remembered. Fine by me

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#14

Post by stavros »

shoobiedoo wrote: post #13
stavros wrote: post #11

Oh man, the nostalgia of buying magazines that came with shareware CDs (we didn't have the internet back then where I lived) and going to a net cafe for half an hour to download cracks, because we obviously didn't have any way to either procure or send USD half way around the world... It was a magical time mostly because computers were full of possibilities. Someone gave me a CD with Visual Basic 4 and I figured out…

It really was magical. It felt like the wild west. I used to buy a copy of 2600 and sit in a cafe reading it just feeling like I could do anything or go anywhere, which I guess I could to a degree back in those days. I left my system administration position in the 2010s because it brought back none of anything remotely close to those vibes. Staring at a cloud admin panel in a website all day made me start to hate com…

Exactly, it really did feel like the wild west, and in the best way. All the sites were quirky and personal, not a company in sight. It really felt amazing to discover someone's little personalized corner on every single site.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#15

Post by reactordev »

What made these fun to make was the fact that some really smart people put a lot of time and effort into making a library that will allow you to play midi, “skin” windows HWND surfaces, co-routines, and a high level abstraction over win32 functions. Man, those were the days. These could be cranked out in a matter of hours for any new software as much of the market used the same few vendors or algorithms very similar.

We didn’t know what we know today and so every turn felt like a discovery.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#16

Post by reactordev »

self_awareness wrote: post #2

A lot of those were written in assembly by teenagers, using WinAPI directly. Yet they still run on Win10/Win11. A lost art.

It wasn’t all assembly (though those were the popular ones), heavy C use too. What really changed the game was when DirectX came.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#17

Post by vintagedave »

For all those effects: is their source available?

I see EXE names and I think cracks were distributed that way. I don’t have enough insight into the cracking scene to know if there was any underground open source back then.

These days, having the source to these graphic effects would be invaluable!

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#18

Post by stevekemp »

Fnoord wrote: post #8
mavamaarten wrote: post #5

I absolutely adored the little intro that Razor1911 added to their crack of GTA IV. Cool graphics, nice jingle, short, to the point. https://youtu.be/htbDeD-wv7s Also not entirely related (kinda?), but I also regularly listen to the music that was inside the Digital Insanity keygen for Sony Vegas. https://youtu.be/kJln_F7Y2P4 Nostalgia!

> Nostalgia! Maktone [1] did some very nice chiptunes for Razor [2] [3]. This playlist [4] has a lot of good Razor ones, I bet someone was looking for [5] =] Also, a lot of keygens didn't have to be used back when a simple hexedit of one value could validate the software. I remember that being the case for mIRC. And Sublime Text. I mean, it could be as simple as changing an if statement to if not. I use the same idea…

> A program which had all the keys and serials in existence.

That sounds useful! Back in the day reversing was fun, and I'd rather do it myself than risk downloading malware.

That said I'll never forget the name of astalavista.box.sk - which was sometimes used for reference, and +fravia for giving guidance to the beginners.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#19

Post by Keyframe »

vintagedave wrote: post #17

For all those effects: is their source available? I see EXE names and I think cracks were distributed that way. I don’t have enough insight into the cracking scene to know if there was any underground open source back then. These days, having the source to these graphic effects would be invaluable!

These days, having the source to these graphic effects would be invaluable!

Nature of _the scene_ was such that one would do an effect and then another would wonder how it was done and try to better it, all without source. That's kind of why it's rare for you to find sources of such things.

Re: GDI Effects from the PC cracking scene

#20

Post by [deleted] »

self_awareness wrote: post #12
bob1029 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Win32 is definitely not a lost art. It's more accessible than ever with modern code generation tools like cswin32. This inspiration to build things that look like this is what has been lost.

If today's programmers need code generation tools to use what teenagers could use on their own back in the day, then it truly is a lost art.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN