The history - briefly (c) 1997. * NEW *
One Kind of History (c) 1991.
Summary of the history of (B) (c) 1991.
Some star moments (c) 1991.
Another kind of history (c) 1989.
As told in the The C-64 scene page (c) 1995.
As told in our first PC demo's infofile (c) 1996.
In Medias Res -version (c) 1996.
Legal copyright notice:
These histories are direct copies from old writings in different sources. They represent the situation and history as seen then, and are NOT MODIFIED. All excerpts have their original writing year mentioned.
We wish to include later outsider's views of Byterapers's development. Therefore: Contribute! Send your stories, news, partyreports, group histories, craps and anything to Grendel!
* THE HISTORY IN BRIEF *
Byterapers' history spans from the year 1986, when four little would-be fellas started using name "Byterapers" on their small releases. In two years group had grown into multi-national and rather famous, starting 1988 on Amiga.
In 1989 the group stopped C-64 activities and concentrated on making career on the Amiga, making rather well there as well. Around 1991-1992 group started a long sleep, resting from earlier efforts and doing a lot of own inner stuff, picnics, ByteParties etc but never finishing any products.
During this six year period Byterapers, known in short as (B), had released around 150 demos on C-64, not counting intros or other small stuff, a countless number of cracks and all-time high position as No:6 in world's cracking-group charts (an activity which was later banned and stopped completely), seven musicdisks on Amiga, about 20 Amiga-demos not counting intros and other small stuff, bunch of weird fun-releases, an uncontested fame of heavy partydudes always drunk, noisy, doing strange stuff, looking strange, wandering from bar to bar but overall being quite harmless.
(B) made comeback in 1994 by releasing the C-64 World of Code -demo in spring'94. This resulted in many scene-awards like:
-comeback of the year
-demogroup of the year
-demo of the year
-coder of the year
Products like the World of Code -series (WOC, WOC 2, WOC 3), Extremes and Follow The Sign III are top notch releases on C-64 -demoscene, and the seven entries in democompetitions C64/PC gained six wins and one second place.
Today Byterapers works still actively. We are scaling down the C-64 side, but have NOT quitted it. There are still a bunch of unused routines to create demo or two, but right now we are concentrating to master the PC as demomachine.
While not exactly active demomakers, we hop on parties and enjoy our lives to the fullest. Even while we might look a bit scary, clothing/size/age, we're friendly folk and accept strangers to chat and visit us.
* ONE KIND OF HISTORY *
This Byterapers history is one of the many Grendel has written,
but one of those not disappeared under dust of time.
It's written in 1991, and shows signs how group had just suffered
drastic problems and had been quite reorganized.
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This is written around 1991 First products having name Byterapers were released already at 1986. The first members of Byterapers were: Kasper (code-wizard), Grendel (swapper & organizer) and Professor Fate (musician).
Expansion started at 87, and at the end of 87 (B) were doing very well. Already at end of 1987 (B) was one of the best Finnish 64 groups, and was a bit on Amiga too. During 87/88 (B) had a very prospering cooperation with Team-X, which later was cancelled.
At January 1988 the Byterapers memberlist was following: Kasper, Grendel, Professor Fate, Black Belt, Motorsyntax, Mr. Hat, MIY-88, Mr.T, The Boss, TWS, Growl, Mr. Arcade and Kokis.
During the years a lot changes happened... Kasper has quit the scene, although follows (B)'s actions still. Fate quitted fully. BB quit fully during 89. Motorsyntax was kicked out very soon. Mr.Hat the same. MIY-88 is still active, with name MIY-91, in Beastie Boys. Mr.T is at Freedom Force with name Rolex I think. Boss quit. TWS has been in Accession since autumm 88. Growl quit during 89. Mr.Arcade is now in Wizzcat with name Sardon. Kokis..phhh.
To the no:1 Finnish group (B) rose at 88 winter/spring. At that time (B) started to crack, and did it so much, fast and well that there was NO competitors, as no-one could reach the same level. Thanks for this went to Rockstar, the big brother of Python, whom I had discovered.
At May 88 (B) released their 1st Amiga demo, which no-one anymore has. It was done at Digitize Design Group digiparty'88, where was released lotsa demos that are today lost...
Summer 1988 was very good time, group was getting better and better in cracking. Rockstar was learning fast the secrets of efficient cracks. Unfortunately, after THE Byterapers copyparty 8-14.8.1988, whole group sank first time into lazyness and the only active members were Action Force / (B). They kept the (B) flag up for some months, but then bored being only active members in (B) and left to form own group Index. Index didn't last long, and was soon sucked into Phalanx (Amiga side). 64-guys formed then Contex, which was to be later the No:1 Finnish group after Byterapers quitted... It was after Action Force left, when (B) was first time declared a dead group by others. Dead, yes sure! But still moving...
Autumm 88 a good small Swedish group named Stage 3 joined almost fully into (B). In that trade (B) gained some skilled 64-coders, as well as some other talents. After that (B) got some of their best 64-demos ever, all made by CSA. From those times are the old tradition having a division in Sweden - there are still the same core-members that are STILL in Swedish (B).
Later the 64-coder CSA bought Amiga, and started to code on it. Couple of months later, he released his 1st Amiga demo. CSA then carried the (B) flag high, and during spring 1989 Byterapers could be counted as one of the TOP 5 groups in Finland, after releasing Muzzax 1 & 2 in the same month.
During winter 88/89 Byterapers was again a bit lazy. But that thing was to be changed soon. Rockstar had learnt awful lot about cracking. We found many good original sources, some new members and kicked 20 Swedish members out. So began the Golden Times Of Byterapers. Cracks...Cracks...Cracks...Demos...Cracks...Demos.... The group had never been so active. Cracks came almost daily, and they were spread VERY well. Not forgetting that they were all very fast, and first time EVER a FINNISH group appeared into WORLD'S CRACKING LISTS. And there were no modems in use by us, note that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We did it all by mail!
The peak of success was being voted as WORLD'S 9TH BEST CRACKING CREW, at the most popular pirate's magazine PIRATES.
Autumm/winter 89 (B) quitted at once the whole 64 section, and moved completely on Amiga. Now was proved that 64-groups moving to Amiga never succeed so well, as (B) has NEVER been as active/famous/good as we were on 64-times. After quitting 64 (B) was again declared dead group, but STILL didn't stop moving...
A summary of Byterapers C64-career as seen in 1991:
Cracks: 700-1300 (about)
- Kasper cracked about 300 games during 86-88, and Rockstar did a lot more during 88-89...
Demos: ????????
- JTP's 64-demos alone filled 10 disks, and (B) had really much coders on 64, although we were never a demogroup... There must be some 100-300 Byterapers demos on 64, from 86 to 89, members awful LOT!
The 64-times werent stabilized, members come members go. New taken, old thrown. At worst I took 25 Swedish members at once, group The Zaints, and some months threw 23 of them out. Almost same with Finnish members. It was especially in the beginning times, when almost ANYONE was taken to group - one just needed to ask.
A lot of groups have old (B) members, for example:
Jugi Perfect & Proton (ex SCS) of Complex
SBT of Fantasy Force
TWS of Accession
Sardon of Wizzcat
MIY-91 of Beastie Boys
Rolex of Freedom Force
A lot of guys at Elysium (written right, I hope)
and so on, and so on...
At worst times (B) had 50-60 members, but it was during 88 early times. Currently the member-policy has changed totally....
After being only a Amiga group, and 3 years of work, whole group sank into some kind of suspended animation... Most guys could do anything, CSA became lazy etc etc etc. Only JTP released his 1st Amiga demo, but then nothing until the (B)/Scoopex/Extasy party. That time was a comeback tried, but it failed and everyone continued their sleeps. At the party was released demo 'THE BEGINNING', that was possibly the first Finnish demo with planned plot, and excellent idea. Only bad it's code wasn't as good as idea, as it was JTP's 2nd Amiga demo - so when released it didn't get regards. Only later it's been praised, when people have looked it through.
Around that time (B) was declared dead 3rd time by outsiders...
Then at November/December new comeback was tried. Grendel started to organize whole thing again, before leaving to army. And it almost succeeded!
Group was again working well, and Grendel left to army with good mood. Turtle and Python were co-leaders, but then the horror struck!!!!!
Turtle and Python couldn't handle the group AT ALL! They made everyone angry, and soon guys started to leave the group. Very soon it seemed there's only two guys left in Byterapers: Grendel and JTP.
Luckily, Grendel had to spend only two months in army, and got home. After two months he started to re-organize the group, and it's now getting back into business... But for about two months, the group was as good as dead.... And surprisingly, (B) was declared dead for 4th time by others. But this time they were almost right.... Almost stopped moving...
Some new members have been taken to fill the holes after Turtle's/Python's messing, and overall the situation seems very good for Byterapers' future - for reasons known only between the (B) members.
Naturally, outsiders know nothing what's going on inside (B), and they don't need to know. It's enough, if I say: WE ARE ALIVE!
Byterapers has very good members now, so wait in the future!
But our policy is different from other groups:
WE HAVE FUN! WE DON'T LOOK AT FLOW OF RELEASES,
WE HAVE FUN!
WE DON'T CARE ABOUT BEING FAST OR PRODUCTIVE;
WE JUST HAVE FUN!
Remember it!
At the moment we are turning a new page in Byterapers-history, but the truth is the best days of group are behind.
Byterapers was a 64-crew of never-before-seen-quality, and will stay so. It wasn't easy to quit the 64-section at 89, but I think it was the wisest thing possible. That way Byterapers disappeared from 64-scene, when it was still on top.
Big problem with many groups is to know when to stop. I, Grendel, am so stupid I DON'T know when. I knew once, back in 89, after (B) had been declared many times dead by other people. I have thought otherwise, and proved I am right. But many people don't know. Look at Amaze now, for example.
It's best to stop when you are on top.
We will always remain as one of the best 64-groups in the world, our name will always have a legendary sound. Because we stopped at the right time.
We will never be as good as we were on 64. We will never enjoy same kind of success, the feeling knowing you're world-famous, everyone knows you.
But WE ARE. WE ARE HERE. Everything else is SHIT. Fun, it's the only thing that matters. Stuff? No, but fun!
As Finland's oldest group we have the right to be ourselves, and not to follow the trends!
- - - - - - - - -
Some star moments from (B) history:
C-64:
-1st Finnish famous cracking-crew.
Amiga:
-World 1st to do shadow-vector graphics (or something), like Quartex
did in demo Substance. We did it already at 15.6.1989, at Muzzax 3.
G:This group was started about 2 years ago. It was one sunny
afternoon I was talking with Kasper (my cousin) in phone and we
decided to create one more lamercrew to hang around. The name was
ready, Byterapers Inc. We went on laming for months, then we began
to rise slowly and when FIG party came we were counted as one of the
best. Then there was someone saying that we'd be the best around
and it went to our heads immediately. Because also Stack still existed,
it was not that easy to earn that status. We had small, friendly
competition which ended when Stack moved over to Amigas and Conan went
to the army. After that we were NO:1 in Finland on C64. Amigaside, by
the way, was ruled by our good friends, X-MEN.
Time rolled on, and we became all the time cooler. Summer 1988 was the
best time we ever had, cracking cool games nearly daily and spreading
them like plague everywhere. It came to a pause in time of our
copyparty since we concentrated on organizing it. After it there was a
long, long silence. I and the others were just so tired and lazy. In
summer 1988 we all had extra energy, we were quite young in the scene
and wanted to show people we really weren't any dirty lamers. And we
really did it!
Nowadays we are again getting faster in every possible way. 64 becomes
much stronger every day, for example we've got a BBS of our own in
Sweden, which no other 64-crew in Finland has. Cracks come time to time,
plus new demos (like our latest one called "Elephant Love"). Amiga-side
is making it well enough, too. Some nice demos are out, and good
contacts can be found visiting copyparties in Skandinavia.
Who are active in (B)?
G: For sure not me anymore. Most of the other guys, both on
64/amiga. Just some are lazy,like Kasper and Professor Fate
(founder-members of (B) both). They justkeep on drinking. Lanttu has
never been active, he's just our mascot. Captain Haddock saves for
an Amiga. Other ones are more or less active.
How much you've been cracking and coding?
G:Cracking? In case we count all Kasper has done during his
career there are more than 300. If we count only ones made under the
sign of (B) there are maybe 80. Demos & utilities are in numbers of
over 150. I don't know, two years is too long a time to count
everything we've made.
What is the most important thing in a group?
G:Six months ago I'd have answered: How fast one gets originals
and how fast one cracks them. Now my answer is much different. Cracking
is important, too, but the thing that counts most is Friendship and
having Fun. One has got to be good friends with each other, even if
one lives in different parts of one's country or even in other countries
like we do. Meet members at copyparties, and have a good time with'em so
nothing breaks down.
Have you had trouble with lamers?
G:Just ask! Endless questions if I want to copy games to them,
or if I want to swap or sell games. Ugly. And lots of contact-letters
with disks, and later phone-calls asking why I didn't return their
disks? Hopefully it's over soon.
Enemies?
G: Not any more, except the partylamers Amigalords (their own
mistake to destroy one's fun - I didn't break any furniture there and
never was going to). I hope to have only good friends, all should be
like Triad,X-MEN, Accession, FIG, Gang...
-World 1st crack of Marauder! (1 1/2 weeks before ANY other group)
-World best version of President Is Missing
-World best version of Danger Mouse (+23 Trainer)
-Someone said we were Finland's first to do Ray-tracing.
-Finland's leading party-arranger-group. Four big parties after 1988,
and several smaller ones.
-Finland's oldest group alive - from 1986 - on ANY machine and
overall. One of world's oldest too.
* OTHER KIND OF HISTORY *
This some kind of small history is grabbed from Scandinavian News
-magazine, issue #9 or 3/89, and is written somewhere early 1989.
Grendel was interviewed by SN about the history of (B).
About Byterapers?
As told in
"The C-64 scene page"
Byterapers
Byterapers do belong to the glory circle of the oldest groups around in the CBM 64. After slowing down their activities alot they returned back with a vengeance in 1994.
After their comeback in 1994 the Finnish pride released the "World of Code" series, until now three productions have been entitled like this, and "Extremes", another fine and well styled trackmo like the above mentioned demo series.
The next production is a 2 sided trackmo which is going to be released in August 1996 at the Assembly party, containing next to other interesting routines some new polygon effects.
Netwise Mr. Sex, Dr. Dick and Grendel are guests on channel #c-64.
Current Byterapers memberstatus looks like (incomplete): Dr. Dick, Grendel, Jazz, Mike, Mr. Giga and Mr. Sex.
Official warning bit:
"Byterapers is dangerous for your brain. Booze kills braincells. Official Byterapers membership-requirement is to be able to consume huge amounts of alcohol without passing out. Puke is allowed"
Byterapers - a pain in your arse
M E M B E R S T A T U S
If you're such a desparate or desperado, that you really want to say something to us, then please hesitate before steaming up your kb by dashing keys typing any of these following e-mail :
who * how to contact * whatta hell
Grendel jkauppin@muikku.jmp.fi C64/Amiga/PC*hitman,hirmu
Kasper jarkko.sonninen@lut.fi C64/PC*kooder,hitman
Reznor - *hitman,kiljudoctor, movie master
Hazard hazi@finhost.fi Amiga*hitman,teknokko,hirmu
Jazz jazz-b@freenet.hut.fi *muzza, party, Her Royal Cuteness
Professor Fate - PC*hitman
Lanttu lanttu@freenet.hut.fi PC*kooder,hitman
Micron mhyvonen@ratol.fi PC*party,hitman,net,hirmu
T.o.B tobbana@freenet.hut.fi PC*muzza,hitman
Sivu sivu-b@freenet.hut.fi PC*kooder,hirmu
Nico - Amiga/PC*gfx
Lasse - Amiga/PC*hitman
Proton - Amiga/PC*hitman, wall
Enema - *hitman, king fartTampere
Mr. Sex b150542@proffa.cc.tut.fi C64*kooder,laatta
Dr. Dick t136344@proffa.cc.tut.fi C64/Amiga*kooder,hw-huru-ukko,guru
Birra jsoini@vip.fi PC*hitman,gigolo
Icemann - PC*hitman,partyguard
JTP pomppuju@atki.helbp.fi Amiga/PC*kooder
Mike - C64*gfx
Jate jate@voimax.voima.jkl.fi PC*gfx,viina
Albert - Amiga*hitman
Mysdee mysti@stekt.oulu.fi C64/Amiga*Design,juoppohullu,net
Kraku cracker@freenet.hut.fi PC*kooder
Dr. Star - ?*?
CSA f93-caa@nada.kth.se ?*?
Speed-Head damaskus@algonet.se amigamuzzak,3d,unix,net
WWW : www.finhost.fi/byterapers or www.ratol.fi/~mhyvonen/byterapers
FTP : ftp.funet.fi ftp.arosnet.se ftp.cdrom.com
Byterapers - the reason for your erection
T H E S T O R Y
Byterapers' history spans from the year 1986, when four little would-be fellas started using name "Byterapers" on their small releases. In two years group had grown into multi-national and rather famous, starting 1988 on Amiga. In 1989 the group stopped C-64 activities and concentrated on making career on the Amiga, making rather well there as well. Around 1991-1992 group started a long sleep, resting from earlier efforts and doing a lot of own inner stuff, picnics, ByteParties etc but never finishing any products.
From this six year period Byterapers, known in short as (B), had released around 150 demos on C-64, not counting intros or other small stuff, a countless number of cracks and all-time high position as No:6 in world's cracking-group charts (an activity which was later banned and stopped completely), seven musicdisks on Amiga, about 20 Amiga-demos not counting intros and other small stuff, bunch of weird fun-releases an uncontested fame of heavy partydudes always drunk, noisy, doing strange stuff, looking strange, wandering from bar to bar but overall being quite harmless.
(B) made comeback in 1994 by releasing the World of Code -demo in spring'94. This resulted in many scene-awards like:
-comeback of the year
-demogroup of the year
-demo of the year
-coder of the year
As voted in _several_ leading C-64 disk-publications.
Products like the World of Code -series (WOC, WOC 2, WOC 3) and Extremes are top notch releases on C-64 -demoscene, and our three latest entries in democompetitions have gained two wins and one second place, which are nicely supplemented by "Drill Me, Please Me"'s instant success.
As looking into 1996 and forward, (B) plans to exist and booze, and release occasinal demo on C-64 and PC when feasible.
Byterapers' side company, the "Byterapers Movie Productions" is also finalizing the 4th Byterapers world-class, high quality home movie known as "Splattered Death II - River Runs Red", hopefully hitting audiences this summer is we manage to scrape couple bucks to pay the camera rents to they'll let us edit the film.
Earlier Byterapers Movie Productions Big Money Great Quality whole-evening all-family no-blood films are:
-Splattered Death
-Fochrybenis
-(B) Files
the latter being the hugely-successful and famous X-Files parody.
Followup coming this autumm! On plans also "Byterapers goes Doom".
Byterapers is no demogroup. It's is way of life
T E N Y E A R S O F B Y T E R A P E R S
* THE CREATION OF (B) AS TOLD IN "IN MEDIAS RES" *
As told by Grendel in "In Medias Res - The Internet Edition"
"It happened so naturally I'm still amazed. We had some kind of scene here in Iisalmi, with our local heroes and cracker stars, especially Kasper who had over 300 !!!!!!! games. Small swapping happened between locals, but then I managed to pull out something amazing. I got a swapping contact! I got TOTAL NEW GAMES nobody had before around here. And I could sent out local Kasper Systems-cracks.
Later I answered some ads in Computer & Video Games, and even managed to have one in it, and got more contacts. After this graduating to a real swapper I slowly somehow became the local hero importing all new stuff to Iisalmi. And then I got an idea. We had some pretty good guys here, who could be equal to those groups outside in big world. Why not make our own group? I called Kasper, discussed it, and Kasper already had a great name for group, Byterapers! He had been doing stuff on Byterapers name much before, but now early 1987 we founded this group officially.
With having own group it was later easier to gain more contacts, and since we had already two programmers (Kasper, Professor Fate) in (B), I could sent our own cracks and intros, which were then naturally spread on. Then it was simply work and more work. Name spread, we gained first local fame, then later in 1987 our name was already known in Finnish scene and winter 87/88 was maybe the breakthrough when Byterapers-name and logo started to be recognized abroad."
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