21–30 of 49 posts
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.
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.…
More recently the definition of 'chiptune' shifted to specifically mean music from 8-bit sound chips.
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…
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!
Either to protect the authors of the original software to check if the warez group got the full algorithm or if they have something mildly different from the original that allows the authors to detect a keygen in newer versions, or because the warez group wants to make life more difficult for copycats... or, and I've seen my fair share of that (and earned good money to clean up), a third party wrapped a highly popular keygen like for Adobe CS6 in some sort of malware and wanted to avoid detection.
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…
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.…
I think most played Protracker, XM, S3M, IT, etc. modules , not MIDI. They typically used very short samples, a style which was called a 'chiptune', songs that were made sound like they came from some eighties microcomputer. More recently the definition of 'chiptune' shifted to specifically mean music from 8-bit sound chips.
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!
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…
Get a cool tool from a magazine? yep just throw it on to production servers - no testing or letting people know what the hell they did (I got burnt a few times from people doing this!)
no change control, no documentation - just reverse the changes, if it doesn't work immediately - although some people never even made back ups of the previous files - crazy shit
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think most played Protracker, XM, S3M, IT, etc. modules , not MIDI. They typically used very short samples, a style which was called a 'chiptune', songs that were made sound like they came from some eighties microcomputer. More recently the definition of 'chiptune' shifted to specifically mean music from 8-bit sound chips.
You’re talking about the songs. I know what a chiptune is, I’m talking about what sits between those. Protracker was how you made them. When embedding into apps, you had to play them. MOD files had to be converted into something. Lookup pocketmod. Some used PCM, some used midi. Windows had a wonderful midi api and synth back then. That’s what I used.