Trazan / Triad, Hitmen, Dual Crew
Added on April 5th, 2004 (320 views)
www.c64hq.com?type=3&id=125



Give us some information about yourself.
Peter, soon to be 30 years old, located in Stockholm, just minutes away from C64hq.

What handle(s) did you have and how did you come up with it/them?
Tranziie and Trazan. Trazan is a nickname I got when I was young.

What group(s) were you in?
Triad between 1990-94. Independent for some months spreading stuff on the boards, then joining Hitmen when Curlin and Jihad rebuilt the group. I'm still a member of Hitmen as well as being one of many idle members of Dual Crew.

What tasks did you have?
I did send a lot of disks all over the world, first by ordinary mail-swapping and later on with a modem. I supplied quite a few games in 1992-93 as well as releasing a couple of them. I tried to be seen on most boards worldwide on a weekly basis and I was always looking for new people to join Triad (and I managed to recruit a few good names too). In the mid 1990's, I started to spread stuff globally on the boards, competing with Jucke, Newscopy and Deff among others. That was something that was a lot of fun as long as you had a way or two to call out. God knows how much time I spent with Motley, Jucke and Aktie on various systems back then. Thinking of all that stuff now, I still remember most toll-free numbers, codes and ways of getting online, first on the boards and later on to the mysterious world of Internet, hehe. I also covered the world of happenings on the crackerscene together with Newscopy and the Propaganda crew until every group started to lose interest in the scene. Some people didn't quite understand the charm of the FTP's or the Internet back then, but it all changed over the years.

Between what years were you active?
From 1988 to the fall of the crackingscene in 1996 (read: 1997).

Tell us about those years and how you got into the scene in the first place.
I wonder many times how I got active, but I believe it was when I started to swap disks with people who at that time were nothing else but unknown lamers. When getting disks with rather fresh demos and games, I had no problems with getting new contacts. From that point, things were in motion.

How could a typical day in front of the computer look like?
Getting home from school, finding 5-10-15 packs with disks, notes and mails, checking them all, trying to make a quick reply just to find out you missed the mailman or the postbus and therefore having to wait another day to send out. Speed didn't matter that much and a day or two of delay was acceptable. I believe it was more about friendship back in those days. I was trying to keep in touch with a bunch of people on daily basis, to keep up with news and happenings, to find out who released what and when, checking the boards for games and trying to beat most uploaders. This is when Kalsongdata was a hype, even if you wore tradershorts more often back then. :)

Did you invent any special techniques or tools to make things easier for you?
Not really, I had some scripted BBS programs with commandlines as hotkeys and nice copy-programs which made it possible to copy a diskside, in combination with a REU, in less than 12 seconds. Copying disks didn't take much time for me and at times I wonder how many megaswappers there were that spent hours and hours on copying those disks. All I needed was time to write notes and find stamps to return. :)

If you take a look at what you did back then, what are you most proud of?
All the friends I've learned to know over the years. I speak to some on a daily basis and I keep in touch with people I share the same interests with (apart from the C64). A funny thing is that a lot of people I meet in my profession today have a relation to the C64 scene in one way or another. That's funky!

Who were your scene heroes and why?
I really did appreciate a lot of guys and groups, but I've forgotten names over the years, so it wouldn't be fair to even try to make a list. Sorry!

What was the coolest thing someone invented on the C64?
I loved when double-speed music turned up in every single demo, when the IFFL routine started to be used (even if it wasn't needed). So many things to list! I think I appreciated most things that was put out, besides Geos and all Doom clones. :)

Did you go to copy-parties, meetings or tradeshows?
To quite a lot of them actually, and I still do. I met a lot of the old Triad people at Jerry's place in 1990. This was the first event I went to and I was so tired when I got home after endless hours of computing and fun. The X-parties in Holland were really fun, even if it meant spending your very last savings on getting there. Tribute was another great event! After the organizers of The Party turned in to greedy whores, with a high entrance fee and the abandon of the C64, I was so pissed off and I guess we, the Hitmen Posse, trashed TP5 for what it was worth. When returning home, the hung-over, the tiredness and the disapointment made me say I would never go to a party again if it wasn't a small private meeting. And I never did. Instead I went to numerous G*P and F4CG meetings. After all these years without a big party, the all-about-the-C64 parties LCP and Floppy came along. Big shoutouts to Autoboy (LCP) and Jucke (Floppy) for keeping the Swedish party-scene alive!

What was the scene all about in your opinion?
Competition, fame, glory and friendship.

What were the highlights?
So many to list, but I really like the busride to TP5 when the amazing paylamers of Razor 1911 wanted us lowlife C64 sceners to respect their group and be quiet because they were sleeping. Some 20+ hours later, when arriving at the party, we, the lowlife C64 sceners, staggered out to piss on the entrance in front of everybody. Respect paylamers? Don't think so! ;)

Any cool stories to share with us?
See above, but of course, there's lots more to tell. Let's meet up and talk about old times, all of you. :)

Are you in contact with old C64 people today?
Yes, lots of them, and hell yes, I'm glad I still hung in there when lots of people started to fade away to the PC and other platforms.

When did you get your C64 and do you still have it lying around somewhere?
1987, I think, and yes, it's still here. Not fully working, but what the hell...

Was the C64 really that special that we like to think it was?
It was. With all its limitations, it was up to the coders and producers to push its limits to the maximum. I'm still amazed what people can do with this obsolete toy that became such a huge part of our lives.

When can we expect to see a new C64 production from you? :)
No production of serious kind, but I will hang around for a long time...

Do you have a message to your old contacts and everyone else reading this?
Get online, catch up with old friends, happenings and events. Share a laugh and remember the good old days. Back to the basics!

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