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A crack intro for the Amiga by the Endless Piracy group.

A crack intro, commonly abbreviated as cracktro, is a small introduction sequence added to keygens and cracked software aimed to inform the user which cracking crew or individual cracker removed the software's copy protection and distributed the crack or keygen.[1][2][3]

History

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Crack intros first appeared on Apple II computers in the late 1970s or early 1980s,[2][4][5] and then on ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC games that were distributed around the world via Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) and floppy disk copying.[5] By 1985, when reviewing the commercially available ISEPIC cartridge which adds a custom crack intro to memory dumps of Commodore 64 software, Ahoy! wrote that such intros were "in the tradition of the true hacker".[6] Early crack intros resemble graffiti in many ways, although they invaded the private sphere and not the public space.[7][8]

As time went on, crack intros became a medium to demonstrate the purported superiority of a cracking group.[4] Such intros grew very complex, sometimes exceeding the size[9] and complexity[10] of the software itself. Crack intros only became more sophisticated on more advanced systems such as the Amiga, Atari ST, and some IBM PC compatibles with sound cards.[5] These intros feature big, colourful effects, music, and scrollers.[11]

Cracking groups would use the intros not just to gain credit for cracking, but to advertise their BBSes, greet friends, and gain themselves recognition.[4] Messages were frequently of a vulgar nature, and on some occasions made threats of violence against software companies or the members of some rival crack-group.[4]

Crack-intro programming eventually became an art form in its own right, and people started coding intros without attaching them to a crack just to show off how well they could program. This practice evolved into the demoscene.[1]

Crack intros and other small software created by software crackers such as keygens and patches that remove protection from commercial applications often use chiptunes made in music trackers for background music. These chiptunes are now still accessible as downloadable musicdisks or musicpacks.[12]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Whitehead, Dan (12 November 2008). "Linger in Shadows". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 24 September 2019. Retrieved 23 October 2010. Amateur coders busy cracking the copy-protection on the latest Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum games got into the habit of marking their work with an animated intro - or "cracktro" - inserted before the game began.
  2. ^ a b Green, Dave (July 1995). "Demo or Die!". Wired. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  3. ^ Kopfstein, Janus (23 April 2012). "0-Day Art: saving digital art one torrent at a time - Net pirate provocateurs challenge the monetization of online works". TheVerge. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d Jason Scott (31 July 2010). You're Stealing it Wrong: 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles (mov). Las Vegas, Nevada: DEF CON 18.
  5. ^ a b c Reunanen, Markku (23 April 2010). Computer Demos – What Makes Them Tick? (PDF) (Thesis). Aalto University.
  6. ^ Kevelson, Morton (October 1985). "Isepic". Ahoy!. pp. 71–73. Retrieved 14 January 2025.
  7. ^ Carlsson, Anders (2009). "The Forgotten Pioneers of Creative Hacking and Social Networking – Introducing the Demoscene" (PDF). Re:live: Media Art Histories 2009 Conference Proceedings. University of Melbourne & Victorian College of the Arts and Music: Cubitt, Sean & Thomas, Paul (eds.). pp. 16–20. ISBN 978-0-9807186-3-8.
  8. ^ Kotlinski, Johan (2009). "Amiga Music Programs 1985–1995" (PDF).[permanent dead link]
  9. ^ Reimer, Jeremy (29 April 2013). "A history of the Amiga, part 8: The demo scene". Ars Technica.
  10. ^ "The Demoscene" (PDF). Digitale Kultur e.V. Retrieved 25 October 2010.[better source needed]
  11. ^ Williams, Jeremy. "Demographics: Behind the Scene". Mindcandy Volume 1: PC Demos. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  12. ^ Kevin, Driscoll; Diaz, Joshua (2009). "Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes". Transformative Works and Cultures. 2 (2). doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0096. As the demo scene established its independence, chiptunes were carried out of the gaming sphere altogether to finally establish their own stand-alone format: the downloadable musicdisk.

Further reading

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📚 Artikel Terkait di Wikipedia

List of warez groups

the motto "Twice the Fun - Double the Trouble!" since then. A piece of cracktro software released by SKIDROW in 1992 with the game Pinball Fantasies contained

Paradox (warez)

A cracktro for Paradox's release of Spyro: Year of the Dragon, which was infamous because early versions of the release failed to defeat the game's complicated

Demoscene

protection, claiming credit by adding introduction screens of their own ("cracktros"). They soon started competing for the best visual presentation of these

4mat

1990s composing on the Amiga. L.F.F., as the theme music on Skid Row's cracktro for Lemmings (1991) Decades (2010) Surrender (2011) Legacy Trails (2011)

Warez scene

programs distributed through The Scene, and were nicknamed Intros and later Cracktros. The demoscene grew especially strong in Scandinavia, where annual gatherings

Razor 1911

IBM PC, foremost as a cracking group, but still continuing to release cracktro loaders, demos and music. Razor was a supply group on diskette from 1992

Pixel art

Although some graphicians worked on adding art to cracked video games (cracktros), the demoscene contributed to artistic communities creating pixel art

Keygen

warez scene. These keygens often play music (taking from the tradition of cracktros), which may include the genres dubstep, chiptunes, sampled loops, or anything