haX0r BBS filez

Back in the late 90s I biked around Germany and the Czech Republic, and met some warez traderz in Berlin. They gave me several DAT tape dumps. I extracted these images from them.

Before the web, the warez scene ran on dial-up BBSes. Release groups cracked software and couriers raced to spread it from board to board. Everybody wanted to look elite, so boards and groups commissioned art from the artscene and the demoscene.

For more of this era, see Jason Scott’s textfiles.com, especially its artscene archive, the BBS list, and BBS: The Documentary.

• art