REQUEST: Demos

Champion (269)

17-09-2012, 17:36

Hi,

Anyone know where to find demos by Mr Haward, I think he was in a group named "WC HAKKERS" or something like this.. I remember they held very good quality back in 92 or 93 or when it was..

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By Manuel

Ascended (19683)

17-09-2012, 21:41

wtf? Never heard of that...

By Colemu

Hero (544)

17-09-2012, 22:08

What, a group that hacked toilets!!

Sorry never heard of them...

By mtn

Champion (269)

18-09-2012, 02:46

Oh, maybe I should add that I think WC HAKKERS was based in sweden/scandinavia, and if I remember correctly I got some of these demos from the guy (Broken Arrow aka Jonas Lindström) who was writing the MSX-column in "Svenska Hemdator Hacking" at the time.

Anyways, regarding WC HAKKERS, I guess some know of "portar.doc"? Mayer / wc hakkers is the creator of the first of this document. (http://nocash.emubase.de/portar.htm)

(I dunno if that helps in the demo-hunt but its still MSX-trivia or something :)

Regards

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

18-09-2012, 12:56

As soon as this group is confirmed, preferably with a rather complete list o' members and productions (and if we're lucky, a bio) we can add it to the scene wiki!

By Bengalack

Paladin (805)

12-02-2020, 20:56

Hi. Sooo. Just 8 years later

Yes, I used to know Mr Haward and WC HAKKERS. They were truly from Sweden. I might be able dig up something if it still is of interest. He did assembly/demos on SVI-328 as well as the MSX (I believe SVI-728 and SVI-738). I actually learnt a lot from him

By HAWARD

Supporter (6)

19-08-2021, 03:40

WC HAKKERS was mainly a joke. We made it up when meeting with some other groups at a party if I remember correctly.
WC is for "Wallsta City". Wallsta (or later Vallsta) is/was small town in the north of Sweden which was, at the time, considered by us to be... well... a shithole. You could not do much else there than drink and/or code.

I still have the SVI-738 and SVI-328 in the basement with all the disks. If someone got software for reading 720k 3.5" disks I can upload what I have (provided they still can be read and has not been eaten by the bugs). I do have the paper disks as well (and actually a couple of drives) but no way I know of to transfer to a PC. My wife is lobbying for having it all recycled.

By sdsnatcher73

Enlighted (4304)

19-08-2021, 05:20

Nice to read all this! For 3.5” floppies you can use MSX Floppy Disk Manager. For the 5.25” floppies it’s probably easiest to read them on MSX and store on SD/CF (but you may not own such cartridge). If you are willing to ship everything to the Netherlands I would be happy to archive all of it and make it available for the community. I’ll pay for the hardware and the shipping (if that doesn’t make the wife happy ;))

By HAWARD

Supporter (6)

19-08-2021, 09:34

I'll have to check that the hardware works. The '738 is highly modified (as well as the 328). I think I built a memory mapper to the 738 to expand the RAM to like 1Meg or so, and hard wired some later MSX-DOS(?) ROM. Plus there might be some overclocking circuits there. I don't remember.
I was saving it for my son but from experience I doubt he wants to mess with dads old stuff.
I also have a lot of A3 schematics and documentation for the Spectravideos, but no A3 scanner. I'll see if I can sneak away this weekend to the garage and try to boot at least the 738.

Where can I get the schematics for a SD cartridge expansion? Or is it available to buy somewhere?
Is there any command prompt Linux software available for reading the disks? I don't remember how close the MSX was to the DOS format, but the SV328 were quite different if I remember it right. I can probably dig up an old PC and connect a 5 1/4" drive if there is software available to read the disks.
I mostly converted stuff TO the SV328 from the MSX, so most intros/hacks are on paper disks I think. SV328 owners were left in the dark when the MSX came out, so I mainly helped SV328 owners to convert games from MSX to SV328.

WC Hakkers was, by the way, me on Spectravideo and "Hinken" (="The Bucket") on Amiga.

By Manuel

Ascended (19683)

19-08-2021, 10:47

On Linux it is easy to dump at least 3.5" disks. I do it very often, using just cat /dev/fd0 > mydump.dsk if you have the floppy drive connected via the main board and not USB or so. For problematic disks I use ddrescue. Also works for single sided disks with some tricks. I described it on the MSX FAQ.

By Manuel

Ascended (19683)

19-08-2021, 10:49

How is/was Mayer related to WC Hakkers?