Scene.org Demoscene News Service

[ Conspiracy ] Blast To The Past

Aside from making intros, we sometimes do the occasional odd venture around the scene: Check out the The Diskmag Onlinification Project, a little restoration / archeology undertaking of some of our formative media from the olden days.

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 67. XMAS at ground zero (shortened version)

It's christmas at ground zero and DJ Daemon briefly pops his head up above the surface to get his beloved Glögg and Punsch before the shops close. Home in his bunker after dodging all the Omikronparticles, he gives you all the tracked christmas tunes worth playing.

Playlist:
00:00 Announcement - Time for a live show with DJ Daemon
00:09 DJ Daemon introduces the show.
00:30 ericade.radio - Time for another episode of Flashback - Tracks from the past
00:36 Trackerartist - Xmasmix
05:46 ericade.radio - Commodore was limited, but the Amiga is eternal
05:55 DJ Daemon: talks about Eternal, Forndata XMAS hangout and the eternity of Amiga.
06:20 Jogeir Liljedahl - Christmas
09:11 DJ Daemon: Jogeir is amazing.
09:31 cyborgjeff-xmas
12:19 DJ Daemon: recommends Forndata XMAS Hangout.
12:52 Bassie of Image - Gradually unfold....
19:44 DJ Daemon: we need to play some non-xmas tunes every now and then.
20:04 Alexander Brandon - Freeze
21:15 DJ Daemon: it's Jazz Jackrabbit. So good, you get another right here!
21:23 Alexander Brandon - Winter Hare
23:36 DJ Daemon: Presents next song.
23:43 Boray - Jultomten myser
30:28 Recording duration talk about "Glögg". It's like Glühwein.
31:07 Dippy - Afternoon Groovin'
37:08 DJ Daemon speaks about "Amiga Flashback" and reprises the next song
37:38 Amixmas
41:49 DJ Daemon remember the last time he played this tune.
42:22 Bjørn Lynne - Winterland Fun (from a never released Worms-game)
45:55 DJ Daemon wonder if there is such a thing as "too many worms games".
49:56 ericade.radio - Time for another episode of Flashback - Tracks from the past
50:03 DJ Daemon presents the next hour
50:24 Phoenix of Dhp - Merry Xmas everyone!
51:56 SpectralDJ - Space of Presence
01:00:26 DJ Daemon Mentions Fegolhuzz and translates the name of the next song.
01:01:01 Fegolhuzz of Kakmonsterklubben - Julkaks-bakning
01:03:06 DJ Daemon talks about the tune
01:03:32 Elliott of PrOtoCoL - X-mas card '95
01:05:42 DJ Daemon talks about Silent Service and how to make XMAS light give you a perfect submarine feeling.
01:06:22 CoS - Christmas is here
01:11:57 DJ Daemon talks about tracker instrument list and "love between two robots"
01:22:27 Melcom - Mechanical Love Song
01:17:33 DJ Daemon mentions Allister Brimbles "sexy robot"
01:17:50 Yomaru Kasuga - Christmas Sonata
01:22:21 DJ Daemon talk sad loveletter in the module instrument lists.
01:23:02 Paco of Dinasty - Juliet is tearing
01:26:13 DJ Daemon talks about Swedish alcoholic beverage "Punsch"
01:27:04 TRiGGER - Julia Roberts
01:29:32 DJ Daemon talks about Julia Roberts
01:30:06 Galgox - Christmas in July
01:31:29 DJ Daemon remember old christmas playing Civilization 1.
01:32:27 MrGamer - Jul Remixar ;)
01:35:45 DJ Daemon talks about the Swedish word "Jul".
01:36:18 hC/IMAGO - Xmas HeyHo .hC.
01:38:05 DJ Daemon remember "Last XMAS" and the Wham! challenge.
01:39:03 The Nightstalker - Christmas Love
01:42:36 DJ Daemon promises NEVER to play "Last XMAS".
01:43:27 Drax - Christmas Memories
01:46:05 DJ Daemon: Merry XMAS and Happy New Year!
01:46:31 Nitzer - X-mas Spirit
01:49:03 Epinicion music productions - Christmas 2001

Production notes:
This show was originally meant to be four hours, but was shrunk down to close to two hours. This was because I tried to broadcast from my living room and there were many technical problems to overcome before it could be done.

Colophon:
"Xmas at ground zero" is a song by Weird Al Yanovic.

Tags: Christmas, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Demoscene Research ] Polish UNESCO application approved!

One more success for the Art of Coding project: the Polish UNESCO application was just accepted! There’s not much info yet in English, but here’s the project page with the news. Congratulations to everybody who was involved with the Polish application and let’s see who’s next!

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 66. That was the year it was

It’s not really time to sum the year of 2021 up yet… But I couldn’t wait, so I told the stories of some of the retro events of the year that it was.– The upcoming Amiga500 mini.– The newest Vampire V4 (Icedrake and Firebird)– The death of sir Clive Sinclair and the 2017(!) ZX “reboot”.– I incorrectly stated that the A500 mini will come out 2021-03-31. Pretty obviously it’s 2022-03-31. Also, it’s A500mini, not Amiga 500mini.– Forndata XMAS “2021 hANGOUT” is coming next week.– The news are collected from sources such as GenerationAmiga, Eurogamer, Amitopia and Facebook.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon speaks:
00:04 Ilmarque of Tympanic – Airshow
02:37 DJ Daemon speaks:
02:34 Defilus – Lemon moon
07:15 DJ Daemon speaks:
07:11 E!ghtbm – Minnetronix
11:25 DJ Daemon speaks:
11:21 DNA-Groove – Questing a Fairy
18:07 DJ Daemon speaks:
18:00 ASIKWUSpulse – smooth jazz?… heck no!
23:04 DJ Daemon speaks:
23:01 Cdnalsi – Home (Single Edit)
27:10 DJ Daemon speaks:
27:06 DNA-Groove – Needless Sacrifice
32:29 DJ Daemon speaks:
32:25 Da Phuture Kemist of Astral – Winter Dream
37:01 DJ Daemon speaks:
36:57 Cdnalsi – The Queen of Goth’arde
43:44 goth
44:22 Cybelius of Sonic pc – Every way i turn
46:45 Syb
47:10 DNA.Groove of Embryo – Kiss the Horizon
51:29 DJ Daemon speaks:
51:25 DNA-groove – Marbles Deluxe
55:14 DJ Daemon speaks:
55:09 Dragonfly – Mindlessly Drifting
59:03 ericade.radio – With all the best music composed on Protracker, Noisetracker, Impulse tracker and Fast tracker
59:13 E!ghtbm – Colour spectrum
01:02:37 TNK – Mission Andromeda

Production notes:
The program was recorded and ready in the afternoon, but PlayIt live destroyed the whole playlist. This forced me to reassemble the whole program to put it in working order and the show went on the air one hour too late.


Colophon
The title is a reference to Tom Lehrer's album with the same name. Mr. Lehrer played his sarcastic tunes sitting by a grand piano. Hence the cat and the scratched up sofa.

Tags: Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 65. Mafiaboy vs the world

In 2019, IT-säkerhetspodden, another podcast I participate in met with legendary hacker “Mafiaboy”. I and Mattias Jadesköld got to speak with Michael Calce, which is his real name. His misdeeds are now so old, they’re now properly into retro territory. In this hour we tell the story of him and how he brought down Amazon, CNN and eBay. All mixed in with great tracker music.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: In the 80s and 90s we had modems, games, cool computers and it was the golden age of the demo scene. But we had no concept of IT-security. It simply did not exist. In the year of 2000, a Canadian teenager brought big parts of the Internet to a halt… He was 15.
00:29 Van Damme – Brotherhood
03:20 DJ Daemon: In the fall of 2019, Swedish podcast IT-säkerhetspodden, run by me and collaborator Mattias Jadesköld met with Michael Calce, who is forever known to the world as Mafiaboy. On the 7th of February 2000, in the tails end of what we today note as the retro era, he took down eBay, CNN and Amazon. But the story starts much earlier.
04:35 Atekuro – A New Generation
08:33 DJ Daemon: It’s a sure thing that any computer geek remember his or her first computer. Michael Calce has fond memories what became the start of his journey into computing.
09:16 Gargaj of .mla.t design – !a(drill)
12:26 DJ Daemon: We all have different experiences on the net. But Michael heard the siren call of the dark side early on. DJ Daemon: Ok, laugh at his prounounciation of warez all you want. But he’s Canadian, what aboot that, eh?
13:43 Butch of UnLimit – Autumn secrets
17:41 DJ Daemon: Technical challenges are interesting, but social engineering, the craft of making people do your bidding was something he learned at the age of 9. His first target was AmericaOnline, formerly QuantumLink.
19:12 Darkhalo – Liquid light
23:16 DJ Daemon: Eventually he decided to become a true hacker and joined one of the many Russian hackergroups out there.
24:22 Ko0x – Time Flies
28:22 DJ Daemon: It was in this hacker group, Michael Calce, known as “Mafiaboy” learned a new tool of destruction.
29:31 Extreme – ‘Lostlove’ ver 3.5
33:13 DJ Daemon: By this time, he was already far into black hat territory and knew how to install malware on other’s computers.
34:14 Gemini of Rebels – Bleeps and bloops
37:21 DJ Daemon: So the targets then. He really hit the big ones.
38:41 Firage – Space Justice Wolf
41:28 DJ Daemon: Imagine turning on the TV and seing the world in panic over something you did. And if you think Mr Calce didn’t figure this was his doing, think again…
42:29 Keen – Back to yesterday
46:02 DJ Daemon: It was then time to face the consequences.
47:13 Megus of Brainwave Tracks – Bilbo’s road song
50:28 DJ Daemon: Whatever came out of this? According to Wikipedia: “The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police first noticed Calce when he started claiming in IRC chatrooms that he was responsible for the attacks. He became the chief suspect when he claimed to have brought down Dell’s website.” “Calce initially denied responsibility but later pleaded guilty to most of the charges brought against him. His lawyer insisted the child had only run unsupervised tests to help design an improved firewall, whereas trial records indicated the youth showed no remorse and had expressed a desire to move to Italy for its lax computer crime laws. The Montreal Youth Court sentenced him on September 12, 2001 to eight months of “open custody,” one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and a small fine.”
51:48 MelonadeM – Through the gates of Lucifer
55:22 DJ Daemon: So, the question that we must ask ourselves, has Michael learned anything. DJ Daemon thanks you for listening.
56:05 Sphenx – BioCore System

Production notes:
In 2019, me and Mattias conducted an interview with Mr. Calce. HP wanted us, as IT-security podcasters, to cover a seminar they had in Stockholm. Michael Calce had then come on board as a security advisor for them. We asked HP if we could interview him, and they agreed. Mr Calce had a grim look on his face, so we almost were afraid to talk to him, but he opened up as soon as the record button had been pushed. The interview is very good, as Mr. Calce has a natrural affinity for story-telling and show manship. This just had to be made into an episode of Flashback, tracks from the past.

Colophon:
"X vs the world" is pretty common way of constructing a title to give a bit of Drama. And Mafiaboy was Michael Calce's handle back in the day.

Tags: Storytelling, Hackers, Michael Calce, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021, Mafiaboy

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 64. They come from the land down under

Syntax Party 2021 went live on the 27th of November and closed its doors on the 28th. DJ Daemon gives you a great lineup of the tracked music compo entries from Australia’s premier demo party that runs annually. Since the winner had not yet been announced, we give you our own lineup, setup to give you a great mix through the different genres and tempos. Sit down, take a sip of some warm beverage and enjoy great tracked music. The last 20 minutes are tunes from Dr. Awesome previously unheard on the regular station broadcasts.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon speaks.
00:37 DJ Queso – 6. Cold cut house 2
02:22 DJ Daemon speaks.
02:51 ADKD – 4. Blue sky diving
06:00 DJ Daemon speaks.
06:17 Alpharisc – 10. Syntax Handsome
09:59 DJ Daemon speaks.
10:10 cTrix – 3. 25k House
12:59 DJ Daemon speaks.
13:30 Keygenism Noxw – 11. Baba is [REDACTED]
17:09 DJ Daemon speaks:
17:37 KRDN of Defiance – 8. Rebel, flavour
20:33 DJ Daemon speaks.
20:48 Mr. Roboto – 5. Spare Change
24:21 DJ Daemon speaks.
24:41 Mutetus of Onslaugh – 2. Liverbox and Sourmilk
27:37 DJ Daemon speaks.
28:01 Powergold1 – 1. Mechanicus
31:29 DJ Daemon speaks.
31:46 Pselodux – 07. Fractured Opus
35:42 DJ Daemon speaks.
36:09 Sc0rpion – 09. Turbogabber
38:40 DJ Daemon speaks.
39:15 Dr. Awesome – The Mist
41:45 DJ Daemon speaks.
42:32 Dr. Awesome – Stale Socks
47:19 DJ Daemon speaks.
47:50 Dr. Awesome – Squish!
52:00 DJ Daemon speaks.
52:51 Dr. Awesome – Skinny Dipping
56:06 DJ Daemon speaks.
56:36 ericade.radio – We love the demo scene
56:41 Dr. Awesome – Mekanix

Production notes:
I was worried I couldn't make this show air on time, but I was able to get it properly fixed and ready in time. The orgas were helpful and made the tracks available to me.

Colophone:
You should know this one: it's "Men at work" and their old hit "They come from the land down under". Yes, it's a song about Australia and yes, that is where the show took place.

Tags: Syntax, Demo scene top lists, Demo scene episodes, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 63. The November grave yard shift

Where in the world is DJ Daemon? Answer: in Stockholm’s northern grave yard, putting out the heavy tracked tunes for the undead, dead and living. In this outdoor broadcast, that was cut short due to battery issues rather than Zombies, you get some banter but mostly the greatest tracked music.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Introduction of the show.
00:36 Xyce – Je suis baguette
03:19 DJ Daemon: Why doing a LIVE broadcast?
04:24 Dark halo – Under Water Voyage part 2
10:46 DJ Daemon: explains “Blåbärssoppa” and the greyness of November and complains there are no good demo parties on the horizon.
12:01 Weevil – Tribal Toaster
15:12 DJ Daemon: Also not many new cool hardware devices right now. Amiga Future, Amiga Addict and Datormagazin Retro is coming up.
16:30 TAP – Egyptian battles
21:55 DJ Daemon: Why do I do all those experimental stuff on the station? And alas, there are no new features on the it right now.
23:13 Uctumi – Contradictory life
26:22 DJ Daemon: Poweroutage in Stockholm two days ago… It could happen to you! Start prepping!
27:49 Purple Motion – Fast-D
31:04 DJ Daemon: remember the new station, “The best of ericade.radio”.
32:12 Tenfour – When Northern light go down
35:33 DJ Daemon: explains the 10-system used by the police in the United States many years ago.
36:27 Efenstor – Water of Oasis
41:18 DJ Daemon: The powerbank is down to one out of four light. The Rodecaster Pro is running on empty.
41:53 Uctumi – Last minute drama
45:04 DJ Daemon: Really not much power left now… We’ll see for how long we can go on.
45:49 TemezO – WouldU come with me?
49:11 DJ Daemon: Have to go home now as it’s basically no power left in the power bank.
49:32 Uctumi – Blissfull confusion
52:44 DJ Daemon: (Back in Solna): Actually there is one demo party coming up: Syntax demoparty (Australia), next Saturday.
53:33 Yomaru Kasuga – Dahil Sa’yo
56:56 DJ Daemon: Outro.
57:25 Nookie – White aura

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 62. On a wing and a prayer

Epic space battle warfare and music is what this hour is all about! More specifically: Wing Commander 1 and tracked music with ONLY epic symphonies. Nothing sounds thin today as we dig into the first installment of the Wing Commander series and try to see if the game stands up to today’s standards. So sit down in your chair, pour something to drink and get ready to deal with a race of evil cats that want you out of the Enyo-sector.

Playlist:
00:00 Origin – Intro
00:06 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:16 DJ Daemon: “In a distant future, mankind is locked in a deadly war…” with cats. Yeah, I know, it’s been like that since we took them into our homes, but in “Wing commander 1”, it’s not about domestic house cats, rather and bunch of unkempt hairballs with murderous tendencies. No, I don’t really see the difference either. “Wing commander 1” is a legendary space flight simulator that immersed you into a world of space battle, military tactics and racial stereotypes that may not have aged perfectly.
00:54 Eiyofuryo – Lamia
04:49 DJ Daemon: I got Wing commander for my Amiga 500 half a year after it was released, and it was already in the bargain bin. But what a bargain! I played through it and enjoyed the inspired storytelling and the cinematic scenes that take you, a green space pilot, through battle against those big cats. You are part of a team of pilots that accompany you in the fights. I will talk about the different aspects of the game and exactly were it shone and where it did not. Suffice to say, it was a success and spawned a number of sequels. None of them for the Amiga.
05:36 Acumen – One of a kind
09:54 DJ Daemon: First, the storytelling The game starts with you losing a space battle. “Game over, man”. But, it’s just an arcade machine this time. Phew! You are Christoffer Blair, if you choose to keep that name, a brand-new recruit on the Tigersclaw. The claw is a big human built battleship that just entered the Enyo-system. This part of the galaxy is cat territory, so you’re going to see some serious action soon. You immediately get to know the space pilots Paladin and Angel that you will later have as your wingmen. Ok, the game starts in a pub, but they’re not THAT kinda wingmen. You soon sit in you first space fighter and meet with the Drahlti fighters. The cat people, or Kilrathi, don’t seem to take you as serious threat as those ships are easy to defeat. But it gets worse.
11:10 Austin Smith – Forever Revealing
14:04 DJ Daemon: At this time we must delve into your wingmen and women. They’re at best characters to like, but at worse pretty dated racial or typical trope stereotypes. Paladin is so Scottish; you might wonder if Star Trek didn’t teach them a warning as to not make characters comedy relief. Maniac is a total …. tactless… buffoon. Unsure where he comes from. Angel is Belgian, but really is super French so you wonder if she drinks red wine and eats baguettes will hunting the baddies. But weirdly enough, I got kinda attached to them. They can die during battle, and that loss is permanent. So, I found myself often replaying missions where they died, in order not to lose them.
15:10 BadliZ – Beastmaster’s tale
20:45 DJ Daemon: The game play – you know the meat of the whole game – is fun. It plays a bit like Elite but is polished and has a number of fast paced tactical features. You see the cockpit from a first-person perspective with your legs, the control column, the panels and you also see out the front window. The game shows the enemies as bitmapped objects, that look good far away, but pretty pixelated when up close. You chase after them, trying to flank them or attack them where they’re weak. All Kilrathi ships have vulnerable points. You also have to sustain attacks from them, so managing your shields is necessary. The game is sluggish on an Amiga 500 but runs smoothly on a decent Amiga 1200.
21:47 Llageran – Flying Through Time
25:19 DJ Daemon: Music and SFX are often overlooked in games, but Wing Commander 1 has put a lot of effort into it. When you start, the music is calm, but when hell breaks loose, the music follows suit and ramps up the tempo. The scenes when you rush to your ship in the hangar has a very adrenalin-rushing tempo and when you win, the music is upbeat and epic in a true cinematic way. The transitions between the different tunes are abrupt, but it still works. This was a trend back then, to let movie elements and ideas into computer games. And Wing Commander 1 did it well for its time. It’s not much today, but have aged pretty ok in my book.
26:54 Elysis – Classe
29:16 DJ Daemon: The graphics and animations are exceptionally well done. While not the best there ever were, they create an atmosphere of beaty and danger. And all aspects of the game are animated, even your death. The facial animations are the least impressive part of it. And my favorite part is how the ship looks after battle. If you took little damage, it looks fine, but get progressively more beat-up as the cats score hits on it. The ship is repaired back to its full beauty before every new battle. The save game system is a room with bunks, and the sleeping pilots are the save game slots. This is where you meet and talk missions past and the current state of the battle with your wingmen and “Shotglass”, the retired pilot and current bartender.
30:17 BadliZ – War Cries
35:59 DJ Daemon: The storytelling has a way to keep you motivated. You see, it will let you lose some of the missions and still proceed. But a number of times, you get a cut-scene telling stories from other part of the star system. If you won all the missions since the last cutscene or the beginning of the game, the stories are happy. The scientists were unarmed but could beat the Kilrathi-attackers with their cunning or in another scene, the military base had hidden anti-air defenses that destroyed the attackers. If you lose missions, the cutscenes always end in a bad way. The finest scientific minds of the system are lost, and the base is destroyed. This makes no important difference in the game but is a motivator to keep winning or replaying the missions until you do. It did work for me at least.
37:03 Blue Max – Eden 8
40:59 DJ Daemon: “Wing Commander 1” stands out as one of the finest games ever for the Amiga. It was off course available for your PC as well and probably other platforms. A remastered version was created for the CD32 and after the Amiga era ended, the series continued the PC. One of the later episodes feature Mark Hamill, you know “Luke Skywalker” from “Star Wars”, in a role. But by then, I kinda though the games had become stale and uninteresting. “Wing commander 1” for the Amiga 500, comes on four diskettes if I remember correctly. Still it has so much graphics and sound and nice stories to tell. For me, it’s a true epic story fit for inclusion in annals of gaming history… And… Oh, stop laughing, what are you, five? Ehhmmm… Anyway, I wish to say: it’s a great game … A great retro game.
42:10 Nightbeat of Prometheus – Dawn of Pendragon
48:35 DJ Daemon: About my handle.
49:09 Butch – Winter night
52:45 ericade.radio – Keeps track of the past
52:51 Ceekayed – Battle beyond the dark
56:10 DJ Daemon: Goodbye for now and see you in a week.
56:57 Ceekayed – Broken Lands
01:00:04 Dario – Alchemy Of 1999

Production notes:
Colophon
The title alludes to the old saying "on a wing and a prayer", meaning "we barely made it". It was probably coined by the B17 crews in the second world war, limping home with most of the plane shot to pieces, praying they would get home at all.

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, Wing commander 1, 2021, Retro gaming

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 61. A top list of our own

I have long wanted to create an episode with my favourite tracks and when Coreus from Discord suggested a number of his own tracks he wanted on the station and played, it was clear that this just had to happen. So today is his requests and then the tunes I really like. So sit back and enjoy some brand new tracks on the station mixed with some of the best of the oldies. Here’s a special episode that was broadcast live on a sunday in November.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Here’s a tune requested by one of our Internet users
00:05 DJ Daemon speaks.
00:15 ericade.radio – DJ Daemon has just entered the studio and is ready to tell you like it is
00:25 DJ Daemon speaks.
00:34 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:40 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:07 4-mat – Eternity
04:00 DJ Daemon speaks.
04:26 Solaris – Ostigt skit
05:28 DJ Daemon speaks.
05:48 Vinnie of Spaceballs – Spasmic spasmo sperms
08:13 ericade.radio – Here is a brand new tune on the station
08:18 DJ Daemon speaks.
08:42 Jason Page – Snow Xmas
10:59 DJ Daemon speaks.
11:11 Chromag – Ullyses
13:32 DJ Daemon speaks.
13:52 Riku Nuottajarvi – Hyperspace (From star control)
16:55 DJ Daemon speaks.
17:10 CRD – Chordian remix
19:04 DJ Daemon speaks.
19:30 Elwood – Sweet dreams
22:25 DJ Daemon speaks.
22:39 Orb – Musiklinjen remix
31:17 DJ Daemon speaks.
31:38 Jester of Sanity – Elysium
35:18 DJ Daemon speaks.
35:39 Horace wimp – Hymn to aurora
39:51 DJ Daemon speaks.
40:14 Yannis Brown – Tres Dilettantes
42:45 DJ Daemon speaks.
43:05 Mahna Mahna – Subway Art pt 2
46:12 DJ Daemon speaks.
46:37 Skaven252 – The Goblin Returns
49:35 DJ Daemon speaks.
49:58 Uctumi – Flimbo’s Quest Medley
53:51 DJ Daemon speaks.
54:11 Arpegiator of Chryseis – My wolf 2
59:50 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:00:19 Firage – Buns and Guns
01:02:24 ericade.radio – With Swedish host and Retro-geek-quite-ordinaire Daemon behind the mike
01:02:33 DJ Daemon speaks.

Production notes:
I got an email from Coreus asking me to play some of his favourite tracks on the station and then some he had found on the Internet. It was too good to pass up. I added some more commonly requested track on this station and my own favorites.

Colophon
The title is a homage to an old web comic (long gone) called "a doemain of our own".

Tags: Host: DJ Daemon, Top lists, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 60. Among saints and sinners

Halloween was last weekend here in Sweden and today it is All Saints day. So the episode is about both the silly and “safe” scares and horrors of Halloween and the somber feelings of the Saints day and remembrance of relatives and friends that are nolonger with us. The show zig-zags between the funny and the dark. As it should.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio - Time for another episode of Flashback - Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Introduction of the show.
00:29 Firage - Reaper Blows the Horn
02:52 DJ Daemon: difference between Halloween and All Saints day.
03:37 Arcturus - Ghoulies and Ghosties
07:02 DJ Daemon: Elvira, mistress of the dark - sultry and sexy horrors from the retro gaming era.
07:56 Lemonade and Maxuser6000 - Canon pour deux
11:16 DJ Daemon: My grandfather's empty diskettes.
12:17 Big Jim - (Dreaming of) Foreign Skys
15:04 DJ Daemon: Walking on the cemetary during the Covid19 pandemic
16:03 Captain - Space debris
20:58 DJ Daemon: The death of Commodore.
21:57 Cube of DEE - Philosophy
24:35 DJ Daemon: Death in computer games.
25:40 Karsten Koch - Leaving All Behind
31:56 DJ Daemon: The suicide of a fellow student.
32:44 Dj Dark - Relaxed
38:44 DJ Daemon: Let's leave the darkness.
39:17 Darkhalo - Kirby's dreamland
44:33 DJ Daemon: Blood in games - more droll than scary. Also it didn't turn my generation to monsters.
45:29 Suspect of Artima - Saint valentine
49:09 DJ Daemon: How many saints can you name?
49:45 Purple Motion of Future Crew - UnreaL ][ / PM
55:50 DJ Daemon: Another old tune is back on the station.
56:34 DJ TheCroWn of Cellblock 4 - The Summer Planet
01:01:15 DJ Daemon: See you next week.
01:01:44 Skaven - Amazonas

Production notes:
I am not religious, but have always respected "All saints"/"all souls day" here in Sweden. It gives me the chance to remember and think about people long gone and what lives the may have lived.

Halloween is a mere novelty to me, hence the silly introsong. And I love Cassandra Petersen ("Elvira"). She is hot in so many ways.

Colophon
The title just "came to me". It is not a reference to anything, but a nice line. It is possible there is some movie, book or something like that called that. But I did not really think of that.

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 59. Numerology

On today’s episode we go deep into the hard facts and questions about the music, the station and everything around it. Who’s the most popular artist, the the most hated tune and which countries bring the listeners? And is the Amiga still king of this station? DJ Daemon tells you like it is!Corrections: “Vintage Vinyl” is by Roz, not Saga musix.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: As we’re about to enter November, let’s get caught up on all questions you have asked and really dig deep into the facts about the music and the artists you probably did not know. Like, what tunes do you really hate, how much of an Amiga station is this really and if you put all the songs in a row, would it reach to the moon?
00:32 Galgox – New world newcomer
04:57 DJ Daemon: There are no stupid questions, they say. Maybe not, but there are a lot of them that’s hard to answer. And I get them verbally, by Discord, email, or other means of communication. And I have a craving for cool statistics. The how much, when, and why of it all. So, let’s delve into the most popular artists, hated songs and where people are listening.
05:30 HyoChan – Snowflakes
10:18 DJ Daemon: Numbers are fun. So, let’s talk about the statistics. The tunes are the nuts and bolts of the whole operation and we have more than 83 hours of tracked music right now. 20 new tunes come in weekly and adds about 1 and a half hour of play time. Right now, the whole list contains 1611 tracks, and a track must wait at least 64 hours before it will be played again. Allister Brimble and Dr. Awesome have special permits and their tracks occur more often. The podcast always plays tracks never heard before on this station to show case the latest to you every week and the lists are published on our Discord channel.10
11:11 GameOver – Level56 -eXtended version
15:22 DJ Daemon: Tracked music comes in many forms. From the original Amiga 4-channel modules to modern fast tracker and impulse tracker ones. The station only played Amiga tunes until spring this year and now accepts every kind of tracked format. Today, earlier 8bit SID and other older formats are not played with some notable exceptions. The classic Amiga modules constitute 63 % of the whole playlist. Next is Fasttracker with 24 %, followed by Impulsetracker at 10%. The different Med-formats make up the last 3%. The numbers are rounded off course.
16:09 Roz – Vintage Vinyl
19:46 DJ Daemon: So, who is listening then? We only have proper statistics since the last two months, but some parts of the world are more prolific than others. Here are the countries where people stay by their radios for a long time and frequently as well: Greece Sweden China Germany Kazakhstan Norway They’re not listed in any order, mind you, but says something: Europe is where it’s at, but China begs to differ. Next up: the songs we hate.
20:35 Ghidorah – Dreaming of you 2
24:02 DJ Daemon: I record the tune playing when people disconnect the stream, while also filtering out very short listening times and other misinformation. And here are the tunes that sticks out and make people turn off: Falcon-Nicolette Dr. Awesome – Cosmos Dr. Awesome-Bridge to the Univer… Amiga-Variations. Gopher-Of Myth and Legend. Amiga-Our Memories Amiga-nanopower Amiga-junglehunter. Not a complete list, but if we try to understand possible reasons, two things stick out: · They’re too long. A tune of 8-10 minutes or longer deters us. They sound bad. We like chords, synthy loops and nice melodies. Thrashy sounding instruments or a thin instrumentation is not to our liking.
25:06 Falcon of Pulse – inmost sympathy
31:10 DJ Daemon: We favor only Dr. Awesome and Allister Brimble. All other artists get equal time. But good artists have more tracks on the station and that ranks them higher when it comes to number of plays. Here are the top 10 most popular artists except the ones I just mentioned: 1. Drax 2. Jogeir Liljedahl 3. Lizardking 4. Moby 5. Roz 6. Xtd 7. Slaze 8. Elwood 9. Banana 10. The Master E1ghtbm
32:06 Mr Gamer of SoF – Mystic morning
37:18 DJ Daemon: That’s all the statistics I got for you right now. So, let’s switch to the questions: · What’s up with my wolf 2? Arpegiator’s “My wolf 2” was played by me at 3 am one time as I noted we called the hour between 3-4 in the morning “The Wolf’s hour”. This is because of it being connected with failures, fatigue, death, and the Chernobyl disaster. But the song is awesome and so are real wolves. It later became a joke and a sure indicator that I would broadcast later that day. Will Nicole come back? Unsure. She still speaks during breaks in the service and is the alert voice in the control room. But that’s not much, as I’m seldom work from home anymore. Nicole Carino has been great, and it’s possible I will call on her in the future to make great statements. Today it’s Jono Woodward who is the station voice, as I told you in an earlier episode of this podcast.
38:35 Beathoven – Dreaming of You
42:26 DJ Daemon: More questions? Sure! Why do some tracks suddenly stop? · And oldie, but a goldie! Right here and now I will proudly say: they don’t! I’ve gone through all the songs and fixed the CUE Outs, which is the correct name for the point at where a song will stop or begin to fade out. It’s taken quite a while, but all tracks added after august 2020 are now checked, normalized, and properly named with artists and track data where this has been possible to get this information. · Only 240 tracks are still not fully checked, as they originate from the first station. But they should be ok and will be validated as soon as possible.
43:21 Trackerartist – Joyride
47:10 DJ Daemon: When can I request a song? · Any time you want. Just go to discord.io/tern or drop me an email on radio@ericade.net. In a few weeks, you will be able to do so on our website and get the station to play them automatically. You can also point me to a tracked tune, and I will check it out. If it’s good enough, it will be added!4
47:45 Angelo Badalamenti – Into the night
51:03 DJ Daemon: Time for the last question: I’m an artist, can you make a special program about me? · That’s likely a yes. You need to remember that I like to present good, tracked music artists on this podcast. · But I need you to be a tracked music artist. I will not consider remixes or music that is not tracked. · Also, you need a catalog of representative tunes that I can use. · They may not be copyrighted or illegal to broadcast. · I decide if you fit the station and podcast. · Also, the best of your songs will be put on the station if they fit.
51:50 TRiGGER – X-Pansion
55:42 DJ Daemon: Thanks for listening.
56:22 Mempheria of Starfusion – Into the stars
01:00:03 Awesome – NEwS-a-TRonIC
01:03:11 ericade.radio – Twentyfourserven non-stop tracked music

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 58. By the modem light's red glare part 3

And this is where our story of the Swedish BBS-era must end: with the story of the wander in the desert and how the boards made a small come back when we were all old enough to become nostalgic. I also want to thank Fabian Norlin, Sysop for “Fabbes BBS” for giving me statistics and a cool story to tell. It’s all in the show, and let’s get that started then!

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Welcome to a wander in the desert and the third part in the three-part miniseries about the Swedish BBS-scene. It’s been quite a ride, but in 1997, the scene was dissolving as people found GeoCities and used Alta-Vista to “Google” for stuff, which was quite a trick as Google had not yet been founded. This is not about that – this is about us, the Sysops, wondering what the heck had happened.
00:40 Meztli Blue – Moonflower
02:48 DJ Daemon: In the previous episode I noted 1995 as the year that the Internet started taking over. A technology doing such a thing is called a “disruptive technology”. And it was. The demo scene started shifting to webpages, IRC-chats and FTP-servers and the Sysops were looking at diminishing returns. The Internet was everyone’s darling and the boards had faded into obscurity as they required you to know their numbers, deal with busy lines and sometimes pay long-distance fees. Most of the development of the software the boards were running, ceased as the focus was shifted to more viable communication-forms. But not all was lost, the Internet offered a solution for the Sysops: telnet
03:48 Bassie of Image – Gradually unfold….
10:39 DJ Daemon: Telnet, the much-maligned, non-encrypted form of direct communication that could use Internet for transport promised a place for the boards. The problem was that in the late 90s, very few people had access to broadband or any other always-on connections. Some people found refuge in the large University networks, where they could get a 24/7 connection for their BBS:es. Other found corporate networks and some actually had some of the earliest forms of broadband that could be bought. Fabbes BBS was one of those survivors, turning to telnet for aid.
11:27 Melcom – Doom
15:04 DJ Daemon: I wish I could give you some hard numbers on the decline… AAAAAAAAAND, I can! A huge thanks to Fabian Norlin, Sysop on Fabbes BBS, which I will talk about later in this show. I contacted him to get an interview, to which he kindly declined. But he did create a list over the logins per year on his BBS, beginning in the year 2000. At that year, nearly 42000 logins were registered. In 2001 it was down to 35000. 2002 marks a sharp drop-in activity with only 18000 logins. This is close to a cut in half. With some notable exceptions it dropped and was down to 944 in 2008. The end came on the 31st of May 2009, when the system crashed. Fabian dryly notes that Michael Jackson died on the 25th of June that year and was just as likely to be resurrected as the BBS. He was wrong.
16:23 Timelord – Disillusion
22:01 DJ Daemon: Let’s leave Fabbes for a moment and look at the Internet that was everywhere now. In 2000 we were vary buying stuff on the Internet, ten years later we bought expensive electronics on the Internet and today we buy pretty much everything over the net. In 2000 security was horrible and the hackers were amateurs, today our security wears army boots and the hackers drive tanks. In 2000 forums were where it was at, and today we look beyond Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for the future of communication. In 2000 people on the Internet were joking about how bad the old people were at using computers. Today, Sweden has 109 years old blogger Dagny Carlsson. We love you, Dagny! She may be on hiatus due to bad health, but I hope she makes a comeback soon.
23:08 Mr Potatis – Gurk invasionen
26:10 DJ Daemon: So, Fabbes BBS, then. I must talk more about it, as it’s one of the few well documented boards and still operating to this day. It’s almost entirely in Swedish and runs the Amiga-based software Nikom. Same as my own board did and does. Started in 1993, same year as mine, it was resurrected in 2014. It recovered to close to that of its mid-2000s activity. But the numbers of logins quickly dropped again and was down to a mere 338 in 2016. After that, Fabian is unable to find reliable statistics. But why did it matter that it came back? I would say, because 2014-2017 saw the big return of the boards.
27:16 Craig Stern – A Cave of Faeries
32:32 DJ Daemon: I came back to all things Amiga, it now being retro, in 2017. It was a friend of mine, Sad of Padua, who got me back into it. We went to Datastorm 2017 in Gothenburg, and I dug up my Amiga 500 from my cellar. Later that fall I started telnetting to BBS:es such as DeltaCity, Retrobasen, This old cabin and off course Fabbes. Retro was hitting hard in Sweden, as us old men and some women were now becoming nostalgic. The whole retroscene/demoscene saw a resurgence usage of old stuff. New hardware for old Amigas, Ataris and PCs made it possible to start the old machines up again and was going from a small stream to a big flood cool stuff you could buy. The BBS:es had to come back and did.
33:38 Larph – Ohi e oob zih gobzi
38:47 DJ Daemon: Getting old technology working can be a challenge and it’s almost certain to be quite expensive. So, most of us opted to restart our BBS:es on virtual hardware. I started my BBS, the ERICADE Network back up in 2018 on FS-UAE. Today it runs WinUAE and it is many times more reliable than the real hardware ever were. Some boards have rejoined Fidonet or other hobbyist networks. A lot of this was for the joy of working with technical challenges rather than getting lots of activity. We could share technical advice, cool stories, and software with each other to the get everything running.
39:50 Gopher – A Time Before
44:27 DJ Daemon: In 2015, Niklas Lindholm were able to get the source code of his old BBS-software Nikom back from Thomas Kärki. And he started development of it again. This time, he fixed the Y2K-problem, added support for modern standards such as UTF-8 and removed timeout limits that no longer made sense. This made it possible for Delta City, Retrobasen, Fabbes, The ERICADE Network and a few others to work on the Internet in modern times. Nikom is now open source and can be found on Github.
45:13 Bouncing Musicbox – Happy life
49:31 DJ Daemon: Most of the new BBS:es started in 2014-15 and some kept coming online as late as this year, 2021. But today, the spark is out again and here in Sweden the activity is lower. Some BBS:es like DeltaCity is still very active, but others have faded into obscurity. It goes to say that the retro hobby, or “the illness”, as we jokily call it may be slowly going out of style. But don’t count it out! There are several forums, YouTube-channels, Podcasts, demo scene compos that refuse to let the hobby walk into that good night. But the BBS:es right now feel like they’re not likely to rebound. And that’s ok, we can find many other ways to venerate our love of computers from the home computer era. This podcast does its part.
50:42 Ghormak – In Vain
54:44 DJ Daemon: My closing words must be that it’s been a fantastic journey and one of the big hobbyist revolutions in modern times. Earlier, radio amateurs flocked to their radios and bridged great distances. Hobbyists are not gone at all, but maybe a bit harder to spot. We run our old BBS:es, Raspberry Pies, Mastodon-instances, and other things with a very big smile on our faces. And the newer generations find streaming, vlogging, podcasts and chats on Twitch and Discord a fun way to learn how to master a truly noble concept: creating a free and open community.
55:33 Franz Koopa – Gares de la Tropopause
58:56 MC Dreamer – Dreams 1484
01:02:54 DJ Daemon: The hobbyist networks are in stark contrast to the streamlined communities where people become consumers of algorithm-selected content that make them angry and active in condemning other people, political views and what they see as orthodoxy. I end this with a quote by sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
01:03:41 Galgox – Bringing It Back
01:07:14 DJ Daemon: Thank you for listening.
01:07:53 Genetic Gemini – Retroperspektive361
01:11:00 ericade.radio – Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem’s lights

Production notes:
I wanted to create a special series about the BBS-scene a long time. And I wanted to tell it from my own memories or from other BBS-sysops in Sweden. This was realized in the autumn of 2021 in a three part miniseries. The first part is about the early days until the early 90s. The second covers the 90s until the sunset era. The third talks about the desert wandering years until today.

Colophone:
"By the rockets red glare" is a stanza from the National Anthem of the United States of America.

Tags: Storytelling, Retro history, Host: DJ Daemon, BBS, Bulletin board systems, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 57. Deadline 2021, Germany calling

Deadline 2021 was held in Germany between the 8th and 10th of October 2021. We run you through 13 tracked tunes and 8 old school ones. 75 minutes of retro artistery and some dry humour from DJ Daemon.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Thought the demo parties were done for 2021? You thought wrong. The signal this time come from Germany and the demo party is called Deadline 2021. You know the drill; we start with the tracked music compo and place 13 is held by Byteobserver and the tune is called “Back to the Polytope”. It gets 45 points.
00:33 byteobserver – 13. back to the polytope
02:56 DJ Daemon: Nice Fast tracker tune with some oddness to it. Next up is Apropos Agrippa by Gentleman that really gives us a very raw, rough and digital feel to it. Place 12 and 50 points.
03:12 Gentleman – 12. Apropos Agrippa
06:12 DJ Daemon: Cranksy comes in loud and clear at place 11 with Eye ood ee eye oonf. I’m sorry, if you come up with silly tune names, I get to laugh at them. 53 points awarded.
06:29 Cranksy – 11. Eye ood ee aye oonf
09:12 DJ Daemon: We have arrived at the REAL top list; you know the one that starts at place 10. Remind me to get a jingle for that. And here it’s Powergold1 that gives us the tune Monkcore. Pretty standard techno with a feeling that parts would fit a heavy action-oriented game. Sorry, almost forgot. 53 points.
09:36 powergold1 – 10. Monkcore
11:31 DJ Daemon: On place 9, we have an admission of guilt. The tune is called Monotone Lethargie. Artist MonoToni seems to undervaluate very soft and soothing tune that gets 56 points.
11:49 MonoToni – 9. Monotone Lethargie
14:16 DJ Daemon: Place 8 and ADKD seems like that grumpy old action-adventure movie hero saying, “I work alone”. The tune is called solitary work and get 56 points.
14:31 adkd – 8. Solitary work
18:03 DJ Daemon: Caramel of Proxima hits us with another Amiga four channel module called Slo-mo Hopscotch. I have middle east theme but otherwise it’s a pretty softcore techno beat. Really like this one and it gets 63 points.
18:24 Caramel of Proxima – 7. Slo-mo Hopscotch
20:33 DJ Daemon: So, the 70s are not back, nor is disco, in spite what mA2E of DSR seems to believe, as he has composed “Virtual Disco Chip”. It has zero disco feeling but loads of chiptune dito. This is one of the better chip tunes I’ve heard, and I like the softness of it. Points? Yup, 65 and it’s place 6.
21:03 mA2E of dS – 6. virtual disco chip
24:01 DJ Daemon: Look, there are tons of tracker tunes with dream in their names. So that’s nothing special, but “Dream” by RTS & Shexbeer of Addict does it exactly like it should be. I feel dreamy and soft and maybe a bit fluffy. 74 dreamy eyed points and place 5.
24:23 RTS and Shexbeer of Addict – 5. Dream
27:37 DJ Daemon: Place 4 and 93 points, close to the medals here folks! I wonder if the Germans are trying to sneak in some humour here by calling “Farbrauch” “Farcebrauch”, but it might just be a typo. Donny the Diskowboy has a very classic tracker tune feeling to it. It’s by RP of fartbrush, dishbrush, guybrush or something like that.
28:05 Rp^Farcebrauch – 4. Donny the Diskowboy
32:14 DJ Daemon: And so, let’s give it up for the third loooooser… Ehh… I mean third place and bronze medal. That would be Virgill of Alcatraz and Cherry Coke. 112 points awarded to very funky tune.
32:34 Virgill of Alcatraz – 3. Cherry coke.mod
35:26 DJ Daemon: Sulfur snake was born with a silver medal in its mouth as it gets second place. A tune that lives by it’s steady beat and methodic buildup of instruments. It’s by Teo of Focus design and rebels and get 114 points.
35:47 Focus design ^ rebels – 2. Sulfur Snake by teo
40:29 DJ Daemon: If it’s Bacter and Saga musix you can almost count on it being good. This one, with it’s softness and its flowing waves of chords really joins classic tracker music with a very 80s style to it. The winner gets 118 points.
40:50 Bacter Saga Musix – 1. Ocean Paradise
44:55 DJ Daemon: Let’s leave the samplers behind and take a stroll down memory lane into the old school competition of Deadline 2021. Eight tunes, and on place 8, we have the struggle of Waking up by Kamson. It gets 71 brand new points as this is a new competition.
45:18 Kamson – O8. The Struggle of Waking Up
49:42 DJ Daemon speaks.
49:52 w4rp – O7. Hotel Breakfast
53:11 DJ Daemon speaks.
53:35 Florist – 06. Memory of a promise
56:29 DJ Daemon speaks.
56:47 Triace – O5. psycho chills
59:52 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:00:17 Barik – O4. Hopeless
01:04:18 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:04:38 Danko – O3. Los Ringos Modulatores
01:08:37 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:09:00 Dalezy of Triad – O2. Disznóklub
01:12:12 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:12:31 Maniacs of Noise – O1. Nihil Admirari
01:15:30 DJ Daemon: So, was the party any good? I dunno. Didn’t attend, which I generally actually try to do. This would have been a miss if regular listener Bittin_ hadn’t pointed it out to me. I really tried to attend as many demoparties as I could. But my time is limited, so of this one I cannot speak much. I watched the clips from the introduction, and everything looked professional and good. And the lineup. Mostly good, with no tunes put into the competition as a joke. Those are no fun to play, as the listeners won’t like it.
01:16:43 Johannes Krupp – Dreaming of you
01:19:16 DJ Daemon speaks.
01:19:25 ericade.radio – We love the demo scene

Tags: Deadline, Demo scene episodes, Demo scene top lists, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 56. By the modem light's red glare part 2

This is the second out of three episodes, talking about the BBS era in Sweden. We’ve hit the 90s and lead you towards the sunset of the BBS scene and the Internet taking over. But this journey is an hour, so we will cover who the typical BBS-user might have been, why the some hated how easy it had become to start a BBS and quality of some of the discussions on a board like mine.The term “Board” and “BBS” mean the same thing here, just so you know.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Start up your terminal programs and let’s dial into an episode about the sunset era of the bulletin board systems. In episode 50, we covered the BBS-scene from the late 70s to the early 90s. If you didn’t know anything about what was in store back in 1990, it was easy to believe the age of the boards would last forever. It would not!
00:33 Necros of PM – “Click”
03:41 DJ Daemon: In early 90s, everything got faster, cheaper and better. The system operators were almost gods in their owning of expensive hardware and hard to setup software. And now, any dude with a 386, Amiga or Atari could create a board for themselves. And rule over the debating forums and file areas. A frustrated, but unknown Sysop wrote this in 1995: “The Modem scene is FAR TOO BIG. Face it, how many boards have you ever heard of? Too many! And it’s still just a “fart in space” of all the boards that have ever and does still exist. Did you know that 60% of all the boards closes down within a month due to user inactivity? EVERYBODY with a modem has come up with the dream of starting an own board, letting people call to yourself, gettin’ free warez instead of big phone bills. Cute, but few’s succeeding. ” If we ignore the bad grammar and that fart of a Swedish colloquialism that no one really understands outside our country, that’s a brutal take down of the scene don’t you think?
05:07 ArchAngel – Archons of light
07:58 DJ Daemon: I don’t think that elitist nonsense is good for anything except the feeling of being superior and the creation of a camaraderie that just made the scene look like a king of the hill scenario. With the possibility of anyone getting to cut their teeth as a sysop, this was the advent of BBS:es as a true hobbyist network. I started my own BBS on the 18th of October 1993, running on an Amiga 500. But we’ve discussed that in an earlier episode of this podcast. It was a great way of learning computers, script-based programming, social media before they even existed and just how much of a diplomat you had to be. I will share a few memories never told on this podcast before, but we must then continue into the sunset of the modem era.
09:03 Cooth – The Misty Lake
13:27 DJ Daemon: Even if it was easy to setup a typical board compared to the 80s, there were still a number of hurdles to overcome. I wrote a lot of commands in Arexx, the Amiga flavor of IBM Rexx. It was an easy language to learn, and I had a good reference manual. So, I often got questions from people asking me how to fix problems or build functions. This was very fun and sharing the code and the knowledge was what we did. And others could show you ways to improve your own crappy code. Then there was Peter… The name is his own because way should we protect the guilty? He didn’t ask people to help him, he tried to make the write the whole script that he wanted for his board. And once he offered to pay another sysop to build a script, then refused to pay. Quite a character and he had to flee the scene after the other sysops running him out on a metaphorical rail with tar and feather. Let’s hope it was metaphorical.
14:45 Purple Motion – Sundance
17:37 DJ Daemon: I wrote a joke-full text with several characters, I mean the users, typically found on a BBS. It was called “Så du vill bli Sysop” and I probably over exaggerated quite a bit. But not as much as you are though. So, there we were. BBS:es fed the sysops feeling of self-worth. So, it’s not that weird that most of the other users on any board were themselves sysops. And we had people from various background. There were few women, my girlfriend was the only one on my board. Let’s look at who they were, but the music must flow.
18:25 Unreal of Pulse – Fountain of sighs
23:11 DJ Daemon: Who was the typical user on my BBS? It’s the only one I can talk about, as I don’t know about the users on the other boards, even the ones I visited. Most of them lived in Stockholm, Sweden. The user was, as I noted before, almost guaranteed to be a male and the age was between 15-25 where the most common age was between 16-19. I was 18 when I started the BBS. He was commonly either far left or mildly right-wing. There were quite a few near or real communists. The debates between them and the right wingers were fierce. I guess the silent majority was not too into politics or centrist. But when you’re young, you may have a bit of political fire in your belly.
24:16 Necros and Basehead – Search for the lost riff
28:31 DJ Daemon: Back to the typical BBS-user on my BBS. Religion was not a thing really a thing for them. There could sometimes be some mild homophobia, but the user base was large enough for intolerants to get some serious criticism for writing such things. By today’s standards, a lot of things could be said that might not fly today. But racism and more overt intolerances were shunned and got fierce response. I would say people were generally quite accepting, but in their youth a bit radical at time.
29:18 MiKeY MusiC – After Life
35:08 DJ Daemon: Computer nerdery was rampant. PC-dudes against Amigaites. We discussed all the technology whether we knew about it or not. One discussion was about CPU speed, and someone claimed that “PC MHz” and “Amiga MHz” were not the same thing. This kinda how silly those debates could be when they did not work. Windows 95 was a hotly debated topic and so was the future of the Amiga after Commodore went under. Music tastes were generally NOT mainstream at all. Punk, heavy techno, some hip-hop and many of the synthases were admired. My own taste in Beatles was a bit laughable back then and Eurotechno was out in the cold.
36:10 ArchAngel – Essence of Life
39:10 DJ Daemon: I must not forget that Fidonet was a thing. It was a hobbyist USENET with many thousands of BBS-es participating. Maybe some would like to call it a precursor to Internet, but I don’t think that’s correct. Fidonet mostly used phonelines and a hierarchic structure. My BBS was
2:201/370.0. It lived in the large mesh of the Fidonet and acted as something known as a node. It sent and received messages to and from the Fidonet to a Hub that relayed it even further. Fidonet’s email-like service was called echomail. And typically, you had to wait three days from sending a message before getting an answer. A typical node only dialed to its hub once per day. Fidonet still exists today, but it’s only a shadow of its past.
40:16 Acumen – Dozen Doves Divided
43:13 DJ Daemon: Back on the rail to the end station of this program. Why did the BBS-era end? The modems got faster, and we went from 2400 to 14400 and in 1995, 28800 was becoming a thing. But in the background, Internet was coming of age. In 1994, some newspapers here in Sweden opened sites that gave you the feeling of a souped-up tele-text-page, that you had on modern TVs. On the 5th of February 1994, our Swedish then prime-minister, Carl Bildt sent an email to the then president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Two days later, Mr. Bildt spoke about the Internet in an address to mainly Ericsson managers in Kista. Internet access was yet too expensive, but in 1995, it started taking off.
44:26 Mb. Badliz – Prelude to war
49:44 DJ Daemon: In 1996, the Internet was everywhere, and I saw the userbase of my BBS dwindle. There was a sharp dive between spring and autumn of 1996. This had many reasons: i was tying the lines up a lot when using the Internet on my new PC, my girlfriend left and … Yeah… The Internet. Sites on the Internet generally talks about 1995 as the true nadir of the boards. And maybe it’s so. Next episode of this three-part story about the history of BBS-es, we will talk about the desert wandering years between 1997-2015 and the reignition of the boards.
50:39 Lizardking – Age of Legends
53:56 DJ Daemon: Outro
54:43 Purple Motion – Astraying Voyages
58:54 ericade.radio – Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem’s lights
59:01 AaRD – Hour of Truth

Production notes:
I wanted to create a special series about the BBS-scene a long time. And I wanted to tell it from my own memories or from other BBS-sysops in Sweden. This was realized in the autumn of 2021 in a three part miniseries. The first part is about the early days until the early 90s. The second covers the 90s until the sunset era. The third talks about the desert wandering years until today.

Colophone:
"By the rockets red glare" is a stanza from the National Anthem of the United States of America.

Tags: Storytelling, Retro history, Host: DJ Daemon, BBS, Bulletin board systems, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 55. An electrifying evening with mr demon

Presenting Mr Electric Demon – an old hand on tracked music. In this session, we will give you an hour of some of his best work. Both sampled and chip-tunes along with his own story and demo scene career as told by DJ Daemon.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Do you need some nice retromusic for those cosy dark autumn evenings? Sit back with a warm cup of tea and listen to this week’s artist: French artist Mister Electric Demon or Cyril Georges Pereira as is his real name. This is one hour with his best tracked tunes and chip tunes.
00:31 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – Where is my poney
04:11 DJ Daemon: We’ve done some artist portraits in the past, but it was after the one with Awezoom, it became a thing on this podcast. Mister Electric Demon, today’s artist, contacted me and sent me links to his music. I sat down and listened and thought let’s do this. During this hour, I will talk a little about him and his contributions to the demo scene, but mostly you get to know his music. I will talk more about my impression of it as well, but not before sharing it with. You. All music today is by him. It’s funky, lounge and chiptunes if you want to try to define it. And it fits this podcast perfectly.
05:11 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – Houche les GlaouiX
07:58 DJ Daemon: Before we talk more about Mister Electric Demon, here is a nice set of his shorter tunes. We will give you three sets like this in this tracked music session. Many of them are classic chip tunes, but not all. So here come three great tracks signed a certain demonic man from France.
08:24 Mister Electric Demon – Newjacko Room
09:46 Mister Electric Demon of Myth – Guimove
10:54 Mister Electric Demon of Myth – Deepthroat
12:45 DJ Daemon: Mr Pereira does not delve deeply into his background but tells you that he was the third out of four children and that he has a French mother and a Portuguese father. In 1993, hip-hop was quite a thing with samplers being heavily used and he wanted in. The French group Ärsenik gave him the opportunity to create music and he later started the groups La Onda and HKM. We’ll delve into his demo scene experience, but first it’s worth mentioning that he wrote music for several indie-games like Black Sheep, Grizzly Adventure and Bounce. Nah, I haven’t heard of them either. I’m mostly retrogaming these days.
13:41 Mister Electric Demon – suXX my DiSc0 MixXx
17:42 DJ Daemon: We’re about tracked music and the demo scene, so lets jump to 1998, where Mr Electric Demon created chip tunes for the demo group Analogik, which he also cofounded with Kenet. And he then goes on to found the demo group Mandarine with AlexKidd. According to his web page he was also member of several groups like Condense and Mankind and joined an acidjazz and an electro music group. All good things must come to an end, and he got less active in the demo scene in 2004 leaving over 60 tracked tunes for us to enjoy.
18:33 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – Funkamodchip
22:28 DJ Daemon: All right. He hasn’t left the demo scene, as he won the second prize in the Shadow party 2021 demo competition with his group Mandarine. We made a podcast episode about that party as you may remember. It was episode 34 called “Liberty, Equality and tracker music”. He was not featured, as he did the music for the demo “Shadow-Party 2021”. Let’s do another set of shorter tunes just to enjoy a nice medley as assembled by yours truly.
23:10 Mister Electric Demon of Logofactory – Chineez
24:11 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – Cornflakes 2″
25:03 Mister Electric Demon of Logofactory – Install
26:04 DJ Daemon: We’re strictly tracked music and generally don’t play copyrighted music unless we can get it licensed. But it’s good to know that Mr Electric Demon does have a Bandcamp page where you can here the music he creates today. Go there after this episode a sample some of his stuff. Link will be in the description.
26:38 Mister Electric Demon – Intro2
29:54 DJ Daemon: Renoise is a digital audio workstation. The kind of workhorse that is used in production studios around the world. I can’t say that I know about it, but it’s webpage talks about it having a “tracker-based approach”. A brief look at it, and I get a feeling it’s a very expanded and advanced tracker software. They have a page about Mr Electric Demon where they write: “(He) is one of the most famous Frenchy music demo sceners. He grew up in Villiers-le-bel in France. Now living in Taiwan. Tracking since 22 years now, he was first involved with the French hip hop group Ärsenik and Hubert Colaud jazz batter. Today his music is used in advertising, documentaries, games and other media. On Jamendo his album has totaled more than 300,000 listens. He is involved with the French Collective.”
31:05 Mister Electric Demon – Yeah
32:09 Mister Electric Demon – Fluide groove
35:10 Mister Electric Demon – Hubert
37:48 DJ Daemon: I avoid talking too much about my opinions of the tracks I play unless I like them. But the fact that DEM on this station and in this podcast should tell you something. He has a narrow set of genres in his music. It feels funky, jazzy and cool. I wish I knew about him when I made the jazz episode “Smoke rings from heaven”. His tracked tunes are consistently good and very enjoyable, if a little “same sounding”. Playing a chunk of his catalog, like we do today, is an enjoyable experience and fills the room with music that’s perfect this time of the year.
38:36 Mister Electric Demon of Analogik – Dartagnian t con
41:22 DJ Daemon: Time for another set of his shorter tunes as we are now in the second part of the hour. It’s time to leave the demon to his own devices and talk about some other stuff. But the rest of the music will be his. As we promised. This is DJ Daemon about Mister Electric Demon.
41:47 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – 20000 gravos
42:45 Mister Electric Demon of Analogik – Rakiz CPC World 🙂
43:47 Mister Electric Demon – Mama disco (WC mix)
45:20 DJ Daemon: What’s up with the station then? Not much. The work with the artist and track-information continues but I have to prioritize other things, so don’t expect any big changes on the station during October. And I am digging in the bottom of the barrel as input and suggestions are scarce. If you want something on this show, please drop me an email on radio@ericade.net.
46:05 Mister Electric Demon of Analogik – Envois du bois
48:26 DJ Daemon speaks: If you’re an artist of tracked music and want it featured. Contact me.
49:09 Mister Electric Demon – Fluide groove
52:09 ericade.radio – We love the demo scene
52:14 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – TVNet Misc
54:26 DJ Daemon speaks: Leading you into the good night.
55:07 Mister Electric Demon – The MeltDown invite
57:11 Mister Electric Demon of Condense – Funky patate
59:04 ericade.radio – Celebrating over 30 years of tracked music

Tags: Artist presentations, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 54. Failure is the interesting option

Today, it’s a another walk down memory lane of some stupid mistakes done by me and others when working with old computers. What about shorting out a poor C64, backing up all non-important stuff instead of the needed files, running DCopy 4.1 and nuking the disk and making the power lead fit.. upside down.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:07 DJ Daemon: It’s been a tough week, so today it’s more music and nothing serious planned. But the topic is “Stupid mistakes”. Mostly mine.
00:28 Ilmarque – Circus of Kismet
04:14 DJ Daemon: The story of the bad DCopy.
05:09 Beek and Virt of Tequila – Fruitbat
09:29 DJ Daemon: The story of the useless backup.
10:21 Arachno and Seablue – In memory
12:23 DJ Daemon: The story of “Violence does it”. How a hard drive power connector fits upside down.
13:15 Moby – Fury-Tube
15:45 DJ Daemon: Who framed Roger Rabbit? The story of not understanding copy protections.
16:42 Dustbin of Charlie.Brown.records – Flying Around A Rainbow
21:01 DJ Daemon: Burning down the chip: the story of the reset button that killed…
22:01 Falah – Dark comedy sad af
24:33 DJ Daemon: The missing three – the story of a mistreated C64
25:34 Allister Brimble – Overdrive
29:25 DJ Daemon: Loose screws and heads, the story of Daisy the destroyer of diskdrives.
30:19 Sphenx – Ocean of Dark
37:00 DJ Daemon: A shock to the system: how not repair stuff.
37:53 Buzzer of Zenon – The White Thing
41:04 DJ Daemon: Last story: No!!! It’s DON’T!!!!
41:52 Rapture – Aurora Borealis
47:19 DJ Daemon: A bit of the future..
48:06 Yannis Brown – Magic carpet journey
50:20 DJ Daemon: Outro
51:06 Adkd – Saved – Calm remix
53:44 ericade.radio – With all the best music composed on Protracker, Noisetracker, Impulse tracker and Fast tracker
53:53 Joloosx – Roll-out
55:47 DJ Daemon: leading you into the good night.
56:18 Lesnik of Altair – Horizon
59:46 ericade.radio – An echo from a digital past
59:52 Funktion of Paranoids – Deepness

Production notes:
An episode made by me on the fly, as I didn't have time to write a script but still wanted to talk about some topic. Stupid mistakes and failures make for amusing storytelling.

Colophone:
"Failure is the only option" is a trope defined in the TV-tropes directory. It's a storytelling trope that dictates that the only option open to the heroes must lead to failure. The joke is that I'm mixing it with the old saying "IF you fail, at least you learn something interesting".

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 53. The creation of a station

One year on the AIR! Celebration is in order. DJ Daemon tells you the story of a station that loves the demo scene and the tracked tunes.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon speaks: On the 13th of September 2020, in the year of Covid19, I returned to the radio business after being off the air since 2006. And one year later, the station is still on and still rocking the boat. In this episode, I’ll share the challenges of giving retromusic a new home.
00:30 Trackerartist – rt_woman
01:59 DJ Daemon speaks: What possesses a person to create a radio station when everyone already has podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube? Radio has been a passion for me for ages and I have been in community broadcasting in Sweden for many years. So, I knew the craft. I previously told you that the stations connected to the Fallout gaming universe and being bored working from home sparked the flame. It was YouTube station “Old world radio” that put the idea in my head. I wanted my own YouTube channel to make weekly shows about old Amiga-music. This was the creation of a station.
02:51 Barry Leitch – Utopia tune 1
09:46 DJ Daemon speaks: This is the intro for the game Utopia, an old Amiga game where you create a nation on a foreign planet and wage war against the insects that own it. So, back to the station. I made a few test-shows that aired on Facebook and YouTube. A few friends listened and they were supportive. The huge problem was that I needed software to play the Amiga-tunes. I settled for VLC, and it was cumbersome. So, I needed a software to generate a playlist and act as a cart wall for sound effects. Googling on the matter gave me a link to PlayIt software and the program PlayIt live. It worked, but I soon realized the software was meant for radio broadcasters, and I was hooked. This was now a radio-project, not a mere show.
10:44 Argh – All night alone
13:01 DJ Daemon speaks: But to get the station to run I just needed the webpage, software, hardware, a lot of music, scripting, knowledge of the demo scene and a lot of support. I started nearly at zero. I had some equipment but had to set it all up piece by piece. There was no return, this had to happen. One afternoon I was sitting on the local train station in Enköping setting up the home page while waiting for the train, I had a portable access point and extra power banks to keep me connected to the Internet. Hours became days and days weeks as I used all spare time to get all things ready.
13:50 Drozerix – Chica-pop!
16:49 DJ Daemon speaks: It was decided that the station would start on the 14th of September, and I had just received the voice overs. They were made by talented voice actress Nicole Carino. I cheated a bit and started the station 11 PM Swedish time on Sunday the 13th. So it was time, and I had a lot of technical stuff that didn’t work and the sweat was running as I tried to get everything started. This is what you heard on midnight. I noted that everything came online as predicted, except the listeners.
17:54 cTrix – Lemon Funk
20:38 DJ Daemon speaks: The first painful lesson was that listeners on a music station with mostly music, expect mostly music. As soon as I spoke more than 40 seconds, they disconnected swiftly. I quickly learned to keep my speeches short and sweet. I had expected to voice track or prerecord the upcoming week every Sunday on the afternoon. It would take 3-4 hours I thought. Now that I know, it takes 45 minutes to voice track a whole workday. So, it was a dumb calculation and I had to rethink the whole thing. But I recorded weekly station updates on YouTube.
21:30 Emissary – Alaska
24:22 DJ Daemon speaks: The music took enormous time to process and add to the station, but I all became much easier when I automated the process and wrote a program to fix the tracked music into mp3-files for the station. This was easy now. But time consuming. The technical challenges were much harder. I have never filed to so many bugs report in my life. Every week I bombarded Streamlabs, PlayIT software and other companies with problems. I found a hefty number of obscure ones, that I needed to explain with a flow chart. But, hey, it sure was interesting.
25:08 TRiGGER – A.L.O.N.E.*DualVocalRMX!
28:09 DJ Daemon speaks: Discord is like an old Internet Relay chat, and I thought it would have lots of retronerds hanging around. I was right. As soon as I created a server there, people came on board. And the station now had a discussion forum where they could request songs and suggest ideas. I always had to do stuff myself, but could now get some help. The community came up with ideas and sometimes even helped me creating artwork or reviewing improvements to the station. I added more station Ids and ended up commisioning Nicole no less than six times to get her to give the station i’s voice.
29:05 Groo – Menu
32:38 DJ Daemon speaks: It was one of our Discord users that suggested I start a podcast and “Amiga Flashback” was started in December 2020 and is still running. In the spring the station was slowly changing. It started as an Amiga only radio station, but more and more PC-made music was added and I decided to switch to allowing all kinds of tracked msuic. In May, the station changed to become the “Last true tracked music broadcaster” instead of “Amiga music broadcaster”. This also made it possible for me to really push the format and make the station have a very uniform sound. It was all good.
33:30 Falcon of SKP – Lazy Dayz
36:58 DJ Daemon speaks: The podcast has also covered some grounds. I didn’t intend to cover demo parties, but did a special episode of Amiga Flashback for Revision 2021. And it became a thing. The podcast is now called Flashback, tracks from the past. And I have covered Revision, Shadow party, Forndata, Edison, Gubbdata, Arok, Jurmalauta and Flashparty. I also made a few show cases of artists such as Dr Awesome, Victor Vergara, Tekmann and Allister Brimble. The podcast is still small, with few listeners but the demo scene has been mostly supportive of it. And I have made other episodes about computer pirates, copy protections, BBS:es, gaming villains of the past and the IT-world of the 80s.
38:02 FearofDark – Influenza
42:00 DJ Daemon speaks: In July I started building a complex system to create a database with all artists, songs and information. This was then made available to all listeners and is slowly being improved. When done it will feature rating stars, a “request a song”-feature and information about all artists. It’s quite a challenge, but made possible through a lot of integrations with PlayIt live.
42:33 Kbx128 of Calypso – Blue carrier
45:38 DJ Daemon speaks: Finally, the station Ids where replaced with brand new ones created by Brittish radio DJ and Producer Jono Woodward. They were tested in August, but were fully rolled out a few days before the one year anniversary. I made a live show on Monday the 13 so I was live when the exact hour of the anniversary occured.
46:13 Leon Du Star – Full circle
49:24 DJ Daemon speaks: So, Finally, I must say I learned so much from this. I made two Live broadcasts on location at Edision Party 2021 and also voicetracked a DJ presence during a lot of the spring and summer of 2021. Some stuff was badly thought out, like my messages that ran two times per hour with the same cheesy Amiga-styled jokes and later sarcastic life advice. They will not be missed by anyone. But the station is no entering its second year and is ready to give you the best Amiga, PC and Atari music. Stay tuned and online!
50:20 Trackerartist – A Cyberspace Oddessey
53:31 DJ Daemon speaks: Thanks for listening.
54:09 Psirius – Artificial
57:34 DJ Daemon: Leading you into the good night…
57:52 ericade.radio – Keeps track of the past
57:57 TRiGGER – *Emotion, Devotion*M72

Production notes:
This episode was very clearly something that just had to happen. It was played the same week the station hit its one year anniversary.

Colophon
This should be easy. It's a take on the slogan for the computer game "Utopia": "Creation of a nation". The game is referenced, albeit slightly modified, in the episode artwork. And the intro tune is in the episode itself.

Tags: Station history, Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 52. Flashpoint Argentina

From Finland, to… Argentina. It was time for Flashparty 2021 coming to your sofa from Buenes Airos. In this episode you get 14 streamed contestants and 4 tracked tunes in two compos than ran on that demo party.Note: I’ve cut some of the songs down, due to not fitting the station and podcast format.

Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:07 DJ Daemon speaks: If you like demo parties, it’s a great time to be into retro computing, music and artistery. This time it’s Latin America checking in! Flashparty 2021 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was held on the 3rd to the 5th of September 2021. So today, it’s a top list with 14 streamed tunes and then 4 old school. Place 14 is Fren and Fired friends with 66 points.
00:42 Eren – 14 – Fired Friends
02:25 DJ Daemon speaks: That was soft and smooth, and we move onto position 13 with Ray N. and Minus getting 83 points. This one join retro sounds and experimental vibes with a brutal bone cracking bass.
02:43 Ray N. – 13 – Minus
03:43 DJ Daemon speaks: Place 12 and Kamson or Ind gives us “Dreams we lost”. It is a tune getting lost here in the backside of the chart with 85 points. But it’s dreamy, airy and a soft.
03:58 Kamson – 12 – Dreams We Lost
07:12 DJ Daemon speaks: Left behind at place 11, “Que hace loco” by Fer is not really up to the task of impressing the voters. And maybe, it’s because there’s almost no song there. After my unfortunate encounter with the tire pumping Fins last week, I could need a break.
07:34 Fer (Alto Speech) – 11 – Que hace Loco
07:53 DJ Daemon speaks: I cut that short, as I want you to continue to listen. There’s nothing to that tune anyway. Place 10 has Javier Bilatz and Pista 98955. It gets 91 point and me wondering if I need to cut that one down as well.
08:14 Javier Bilatz – 10 – Pista 98995
08:18 DJ Daemon speaks: Ok, I put a kibosh on that one. Next up, let’s try music instead. Place 9 has another more ethereal tune called Electron by LIV. 103 points awarded.
08:48 LIV – 09 – Electron
11:11 DJ Daemon speaks: Let’s try some vocals that I cannot understand and that gives me some weird 90s vibes. Interesting. The name is De Comienzos and it’s by Checo. Place 8 and 105 points.
11:30 Checo – 08 – De Comienzos
14:37 DJ Daemon speaks: This one, Transistor Dance by Rytone belongs on the dance floor. 106 points and seventh place, get ready to cut a rug!
14:57 Rytone – 07 – Transistor Dance
17:48 DJ Daemon speaks: Did I just use 50s slang? Yes. I’m old (not that old). Now let’s spin Djames on the old vinyl player. Yes, I’m old (really that old) and the tune is called “It’s not synthwave”.
18:12 DJames – 06 – It’s Not A SynthwaveFlashpoint Argentina – Flashback, tracks from the past #51
20:34 DJ Daemon speaks: Time to slow down. Sure, why not. Uctumi grabs place 5 and 115 points with “Lost in the bitstorm”.
20:52 Uctumi – 05 – Lost in the bitstorm (party version)
24:04 DJ Daemon speaks: We have almost reached the medal position. But we must pass fourth place and listen to Reivens Tesseract. 120 points.
24:27 Reiven – 04 – Tesseract
29:28 DJ Daemon speaks: Just reached bronze position and it’s Cransky telling us not to @ him. The song is called just “Don’t @ me”. Not sure what that is, but we’re not doing stuff like that on this station anyway. It’s probably illegal or so. Place 3 and 124 points.
29:49 Cranksy – 03 – Don’t @ Me
32:55 DJ Daemon speaks: Let’s put the radio in the dishwasher and let it rave loose with “Dishwash Rave” by Zlew.
33:07 Zlew – 02 – Dishwash Rave
35:35 DJ Daemon speaks: Winner! And it’s Los Pat Moritas and Wini Wini, Bom Bom Bom. 149 points ensuring epic victory.
35:57 Los Pat Moritas & Wini Wini – 01 – Bom Bom Bom
39:35 DJ Daemon speaks: Let’s kick it into high gear and switch to the old school music compo with four contestants and Yaya Cross getting the fourth position with 133 point and the tune is called “Final x Journey”.
39:51 Yaya Cross – T04 – Final x Journey
42:45 DJ Daemon speaks: Now we’re chip-tuning it up! Third place goes to Djames who is back with Storm Chaser. It gets 145 points.
43:00 DJames – T03 – Storm Chaser
45:36 DJ Daemon speaks: Second place and silver then I guess. It’s Kamson lowering the tempo a bit with Playa Paraiso. 163 points.
45:48 Kamson – T02 – Playa Paraiso
48:53 DJ Daemon speaks: Another winner. It’s called “Microcosmos” by “Utsuho” and hits bulls’ eye with 166 points.
49:14 Utsuho – T01 – Microcosmos
51:04 DJ Daemon speaks: Thanks to the Flashparty 2021 orgas and remember that it’s 21 years since the world changed today. Maybe time to think of all we lost along the way. Thanks for listening.
51:48 Kevin Chow – The Epic
56:41 DJ Daemon speaks: Noting that we’ve been on the air for one year. We started on 2020-09-13.
57:03 Moby – RainyNight

Production notes:
This was a big production and took a really long time to get done.

Colophon:
The flashpoint is the temperature at which a chemical compound self-ignites. It's a play on the idea that something catches fire as in "this show is totally on fire". And it was, super great demoparty.

Tags: Flashpoint, Demo scene episodes, Demo scene top lists, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 51. God help me, it's Jumalauta 2021!

Jumalauta 2021 is over and brought 15 contestants to the tracked music demo scene. All parties have their style and Jumalauta had a rather informal feel to the music. Some is seriously crafted with nice chords and heavy beats, whereas others are just joking around. The winner really took some liberties with the concept of jazz and one entry featured a tire pump. So, it’s not like any demo party. But it is jumalauta!

Playlist:
00:00 Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon speaks: God help me, the Finnish are coming! Can we hope to meet in person again this fall? Finnish demo party Jumalauta 21 sure thought so. It ran between the 27th and 29th of September 2021 and allowed people to join in person and over the Internet. So, it’s a toplist episode again – Yay! Just kick back, relax, and it will start in a moment.
00:35 M.O.T. of Jml – Yahamaa
01:41 DJ Daemon speaks: Let’s get it started then. 15 contestants fought it out, and we’ll give them all to you, beginning with the last place. BE warned I’m guarranted to mispronounce all names and titles. Listener beware! Galactic Nightmares captures position 15 with 32 points and the tune is called Spectral 2nd. It has a nice 90s techno feeling to it, making me feel vibes from my first days as a DJ back then.
02:21 Galactic Nightmares – Spectral 2nd
06:46 DJ Daemon speaks: Rolling towards position 14 with 32 points and the tune Fourth dimension. Rafał Lipinski gives us a spacey journey with an ethereal feeling to it.
06:59 LIV Rafał Lipinski l, Retrowibracje.pl – Fourth dimention
11:01 DJ Daemon speaks: 13 may be a unlucky number for Puoluehallitus, who can’t go no further. But it’s a nice and heavy feeling with some funky thrown in for good measure. The song is called Räpujuhlat and gets 36 points.
11:19 Puoluehallitu – Räpujuhlat
18:00 DJ Daemon speaks: On place 12, we get a weird start of a song, feeling they just let the recorder run and forgot the actually create a song. You do get a weird pumping sound, as if they were trying to inflate a tire. How this got 36 points is totally beyond me. And the song never starts but should be known as Patjalanda and its by Kaunis Espanjalaien Tyttoe. Please stay until its done – it gets better later in the program. I’m sorry for this.
18:33 Kaunis Espanjalaien Tyttoe – Patjalandia
18:38 DJ Daemon speaks: Can we get something that’s not experimental music? Yes, Tom of Riihimäki has a nice and soft blippety-bloppety tune called Lasimuseo. It gets 37 points; 11th place and our hopes up.
18:55 Tom of Riihimäki – Lasimuseo
22:44 DJ Daemon speaks: The true top list starts on place 10 with the tune Tuurilla mukaan by Defilus. It gets 37 points. Aaaaand, there’s nothing wrong with your radio, it’s meant to sound like a classic “oumpapa”-song cut to ribbons by a mad and possible drunk sound engineer. I’m innocent here!
23:08 Defilus – Tuurilla mukaan
25:52 DJ Daemon speaks: Number 9, number 9, number 9…. That is place 9 goes to Karpostaseuraava with Bagatelli Aulangon Aamunkoitto and it gets 41 points. No, I have no idea what’s going on here, but I like it!
26:10 Karpostaseuraava – Bagatelli Aulangon AAmunkoitto
29:07 DJ Daemon speaks: Place 8 and another Tom of Finland, this time Tom of Lahti. The tune is soft and bit lacking in instrumentation, it’s called Liipolan Betoni and racks up 42 points.
29:21 Tom of Lahti – Liipolan Betoni
32:49 DJ Daemon speaks: It’s getting closer to the winner, but we have some miles left to go. At place 7, Ylvaes gives us Workshop. And it sounds like one! You can hear the chords sounding like a saw and the drums go at it like heavy machinery. Whatever is built here is really something. Sadly, the tune is a bit short and gets 46 points.
33:13 Ylvaes – Workshop
34:51 DJ Daemon speaks: Another Tom takes place 6, and it’s Tom of Hyvinkää with Hissitorni. It gets 46 points and is yet another nice classic techno beat. The 90s still rules!
35:07 Tom of Hyvinkää – Hissitorni
37:49 DJ Daemon speaks: No risk of running out of Toms yet. This is Tom of Jokioinen and Elonkierto. Softer techno that feels moody and have something of a blue shimmer to it. Synesthesia is a weird thing, but quite amusing. The points? Try 47 and place 5.
38:13 Tom of Jokioinen – Elonkierto
41:31 DJ Daemon speaks: JNNN gives us Aleph zero. It starts soft and then goes industrial heavy techno. It’s located at place 4 and get 53 points.
41:44 JNNN – Aleph Zero
45:44 DJ Daemon speaks: Bronze time, people. Meritaehti sends the show into a total Tailspin of great guitar riffs and synth chords. This is enough to get it to third place and 55 points. It enters and leaves swiftly and precisely.
46:03 Meritaehti – Tailspin
49:28 DJ Daemon speaks: The silver is safely in place for Naetti tyttoe and Vaatteet päälle. Second place and 58 points. Weird vocals, but a great tune with some twists and turns. Second place is exactly where this belongs.
49:46 Naetti tyttoe – Vaatteet päälle (OnlyFans.com/Marjatta Remix) –
53:08 DJ Daemon speaks: Winner! And it’s Jazz-time, folks “JML Jazz Sextet Committee” tries scatsigning and kinda does it their way. Don’t really think the real jazz cats would approve. But I do, as it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys, with typewriters and notepaper. It’s called “Mid-Autumn, Late Autumn Part 2, Op II (Take 0.5)”. Humor clearly transcends quality and gives them 59 points and a certain dinner made of poultry.
53:45 JML Jazz Sextet Committee – Mid Autumn, Late Autumn Part 2, Op II (Take 0.5)
55:21 DJ Daemon speaks: Thanks to the orgas of Jumalauta!
55:55 The Music Wizard – A Demo Song

Production notes:
This one really annoyed me. I had no idea that this demo party had a jokeful take on all its competitions. So I really was none to impressed by some of its entries before I understood that.

Colophone: "Jumalauta" means "God, help me" in Finnish. So there is always that.

Tags: Jumalauta, Demo scene episodes, Demo scene top lists, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 50. By the modem light's red glare part 1

This is the first episode in a two episode story about the Bulletin Board System (BBS) era seen from a Swedish perspective. Follow DJ Daemon through the late 70s, through the Wechselmann-indictment to the discussion about Anita Bondestam and her weird moped analogy. It covers the era between 1978 to the early 1990s.

Playlist:
00:00 LIVE – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:07 DJ Daemon speaks: In this episode we will teach you to connect to the network. Just set the serial speed to 9600 bps, connect the Data Circuit Terminating Equipment to the Data Terminal and make sure to set your terminal to 8 bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. It’s all about the Bulletin boards, the scene of the hobbyists, the criminals, the fear inducing headlines and the cyberpunks running through the phone network at 2400 baud.
00:39 Style – Ability
03:06 DJ Daemon speaks: Before the Internet, we connected over phone lines to each other. Sure, there were USENET and university networks back then. But we, the hobbyists, called each other computer’s and wrote intelligent texts to each other. At least we thought they were, back when we were teens. This meant, everyone could have their own system to let others call them and so we formed a big scene. The person running a system like that was called a Sysop, as in System operator and the system was called a Bulletin board system or BBS. I will call them boards throughout this program to not run out of oxygen. Think about it: you had to pay long distance telephone fees to call some boards and even if they were local, you paid by the minute.
04:05 Michiel van den Bos – March Of The Halflings
08:09 DJ Daemon speaks: The first electronic bulletin board went up in Chicago in 1978, and we got our first Swedish BBS the next year. It started slowly, as the home computing era had yet not begun and few people had access to modems, computers and even liked the idea of spending money on hourlong calls. But it did happen, if only so slowly.
08:42 Beehunter of Jazz – Apoplexy
11:00 DJ Daemon speaks: One technology that made the whole BBS-era possible was the modem. Sure, a modem is just something you use to send data over a telephone line. So? When Hayes released the “Smartmodem”, the whole thing took off. This unit was standalone but came with a set of commands to control them and soon all modems used the Hayes command set. Do you remember typing ATDT 7268265 to call that number. Yeah, that’s the most common command. This meant all computers and terminal program that supported it were allowed to play. Hop on in, the water is warm, was the message. Before that, finding the right combination of hardware and software held the whole revolution back.
11:00 DJ Daemon speaks.
12:04 Traven of Syndrome – Alone In The City
17:33 DJ Daemon speaks: This podcast talks retro computing from a Swedish perspective, so here’s Sweden The BBS-scene was sprawling during the 80s. I don’t know so much about it, as I started in the 90s, but Joacim Melin has written a lot about it. On his blog, you can read about how legendary people lite Jan Mickelin were active in the BBS-scene and part of creating the Swedish computer magazine called “Datormagazin”. In the beginning it was all Commodore, but soon expanded to Amiga and later other environments. Most BBSes were small, but some, like Permobas grew large. This board was sponsored by handicap equipment manufacturer Permobil and lasted until 1985 when Permobil cut the deal. The reason was that they felt most users on it were not handicapped.
18:38 Alex Menchi – Lightquest Theme
22:52 DJ Daemon speaks: In 1988, political activist and filmmaker Maj Wechselmann successfully sued Eskil Block over something he wrote on the Swedish board Kom-systemet. He accused her of being a traitor and a Soviet agent. This later led to the enactment of the “BBS-lagen” law 10 years later, that made “electronic bulletins” fall under the law and made prosecution of slander and defamation easier. This law also applies to the Internet. So, the new technology could be abused, and people were waking up to the dark sides of it.
23:38 ArchAngel – Eternal Dreams
26:12 DJ Daemon speaks: The 90s were upon us and the boards were being examined by mass media. The headlines warned us about the seedy underbelly of the computer networks even before the Internet was a thing. The terrorist’s or anarchist’s handbook was a braindead text that explained how to make bombs. It was very dangerous to follow as I came with advice such as “If you see bubbles forming, run for it!”. It was sometimes spread among us younglings as it was cool to have a copy, but I made the good choice of not having it on my board. Then there was piracy copied games, but we have talked about that in episode 35 already. Some said you could buy drugs, meet with criminals and then there was the neurotic fear of illegal pornography that made the whole scene look downright evil. But no one I’ve ever spoken to in the scene had seen any evidence of any of that. We all felt annoyed by the press misrepresenting the whole hobby. We were only in it for the discussions and the demos.
27:31 Henripekka Kallio and Matti Brockman – A Taste of Moonshine
31:03 DJ Daemon speaks: Anita Bondestam, who was the director of Swedish authority on data- and computer issues, Datainspektionen said something that rubbed us the wrong way. She compared modems and mopeds and noted that you should make sure the kids follow the laws, wear a helmet and so on. This way she indirectly compared illegally modified mopeds with our boards. “Or as we say here in Datainspektionens: if you buy a modem, you get into trouble”. It sounds “better” in Swedish, where it rhymes. Her views on juvenile delinquency as the direct effect of using modems was very bewildering to us.
32:06 Morgan – Angel’s Deep Shadow
38:25 DJ Daemon speaks: Some other day I will talk more about the 90s and the end of the era. But you know what happened. It was not aliens, it was the Internet. Sorry, mr Tsoukalos.
38:40 Andreas Viklund of KFMF – Traxah symphonee
41:52 DJ Daemon speaks.
42:43 DRAX – Back 2 B4 Tomorrow
46:16 DJ Daemon speaks.
47:12 Astro boy of Pearl – Eclipse
51:31 DJ Daemon speaks.
52:08 Bacter vs Saga musix – Whiskey Drops
56:13 DJ Daemon speaks.
56:35 LIVE – Celebrating over 30 years of tracked music
56:41 Boomerang – Child of Light

Production notes:
I wanted to create a special series about the BBS-scene a long time. And I wanted to tell it from my own memories or from other BBS-sysops in Sweden. This was realized in the autumn of 2021 in a three part miniseries. The first part is about the early days until the early 90s. The second covers the 90s until the sunset era. The third talks about the desert wandering years until today.

Colophone:
"By the rockets red glare" is a stanza from the National Anthem of the United States of America.

Tags: Retro history, Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, BBS, Bulletin board systems, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 49. Between Arok and a hard place

Arok Party 2021 is over and the autumn season is now inaugurated. A strong line up with 15 awesome remixes and 5 great C64 tracked tunes, coming directly from the compos. This has been great and DJ Daemon goes through the list that contains a weird Thriller-esque remix, someone trying to start his car and some real sweet soft tracks.

Playlist:
00:00 Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:07 DJ Daemon: It’s a demo scene episode again, and this time it’s all about yesterday’s “Arok party 2021” and their music compos. This is another top list episode with all the entries. 15 remixed tunes and in the end of this hour, you get 5 nice C64 tracked ones. All this curtesy of Arok and Slayradio. Remixes of old games it is then… Let’s get started. Fifteenth place goes to Paranoidroid and the tune “Hades Nebula subtune 2” which gets 96 points.
00:42 Remix place 15 – Paranoidroid – Hades Nebula subtune2
04:19 DJ Daemon: All right, this is SlayRadio territory, so this set of songs will only be played on this episode of the podcast and then never again. But, anyway, back to the list. Paranoidroid also claims fourteenth place with “Zynaps”. This scener seems to be rather unknown by Demozoo and Janeway Amiga, but gets 107 point for this entry.
04:47 Remix place 14 – Paranoidroid – Zynaps
08:05 DJ Daemon: Thirteenth place holds NeonTimeTravel with “Birthday”, a tune that gets 133 points.
08:13 Remix place 13 – NeonTimeTravel – Birthday
11:19 DJ Daemon: Let’s up the tempo and go the heavy route with “Tristar and Red Sector Incorporated”. It’s not new, but it will blow up your speakers. It’s “Beat To The Pulp – Metal Tribute – XxDUSTYxX” and it racks up 134 points, grabbing place number 12.
11:40 Remix place 12 – DUSTY – Beat To The Pulp – Metal Tribute (2021)
14:44 DJ Daemon: Stranger in a Strange Land is a Heinlein book and a song from the British Heavy metal band Iron Maiden, as well. But it’s also an entry by LaLa occupying place 11 with 141 points.
15:02 Remix place 11 – LaLa – Stranger in a Strange Land (Ensoniq Mix)
18:13 DJ Daemon: Magnar Harestad seems to be on the lazy side, calling his remix “Title needed”. Whatever it might have needed, it only reached place 10 with 145 points.
18:35 Remix place 10 – Magnar Harestad – Magnar – Title Needed (GRG)
21:19 DJ Daemon: The remixes are not fresh, but they’re definitely current. Dr. Future brings a 10-month-old and very soft tune called “Full contact” to the table. That nets him a ninth place and 147 points. Am I the only one getting “Dojo Dan”-vibes here? This is a personal favorite.
21:41 Remix place 9 – Dr. Future – Full Contact
24:17 DJ Daemon: Mystical vibes and a scary title, this is the Exorcist by Chabee. It swiftly turns more mundane with a nice synthy sound and nice, if a little weird vocal that propels it to place 8 with 149 points.
24:37 Remix place 8 – Chabee – Exorcist (ft. Bessie Jones)
27:38 DJ Daemon: I wonder if stupidity can be some sort of Anosognosia? You have it but, don’t even know that you do. You see, it means having a disability and no way of understanding that you do. But it’s a really cool tune as well by NecroPolo that crashes down on place 7 with 150 points.
28:05 Remix place 7 – NecroPolo – Anosognosia (compo edition)
31:07 DJ Daemon: Medical terms are popular, obviously. Place 6 has some Cortisone on it, richly applied by Teo. It’s 154 mg, sorry points, of pure soft beats that you can dance to.
31:24 Remix place 6 – Teo – Cortisone (Steroid remix)
34:50 DJ Daemon: A ghost walks over Europe, it’s the ghost of Michael Jackson in the spectral form of Makke singing Ghosts and Thrillers. You know the game and the album. It gets 157 points, but some should be removed for not involving Vincent Price … or maybe Elvira. The text is hilarious. That game WAS hard to beat…
35:19 Remix place 5 – Makke – Ghosts ‘n Thrillers
38:35 DJ Daemon: Getting hotter! We’re almost at the medals. But Giana Sisters seem to be out of luck. This is beautiful beyond belief. Arranged by Glyn R Brown who can be quite happy with 165 points.
38:56 Remix place 4 – Glyn R Brown – Giana Sisters
42:19 DJ Daemon: Bronze medal! On third place, we find “Dominator Loader (Pre-dominant mix)”, 168 points lead artist Ctrl-Z close… But not close enough.
42:35 Remix place 3 – Ctrl-Z – Dominator Loader (Pre-Dominant mix)
46:06 DJ Daemon: The silver medal goes to Ziona and Vincenzo. The former is one of SlayRadio’s really cool hosts and the latter is a prolific musician with tracks dating back to 1999. The song is called Ubi-sound (funkdance mix) and gets 171 points.
46:28 Remix place 2 – ziona & Vincenzo – Ubi-sound funkdance mix
49:46 DJ Daemon: Should you be suspicious when one of the orgas gets first place. Probably not, but Slaygon yanks the gold medal away from his partner and co-host. He’ll be sleeping in the doghouse for that. At 171 points, the same as the silver medal, he is the winner of today! The song, “Black Lamp” is truly awesome. By the way, does that even work? My lamps go black when bulb burns out.
50:21 Remix place 1 – Slaygon – Black Lamp
53:24 DJ Daemon: We’re leaving the remix compo part of the podcast and jump right into the SID/C64 compo entries. A bit of a warning, you might want to turn the volume down, so you don’t damage your hearing. SID tunes can be a bit high-pitched. On fifth place, we find Moldvix with “Illegal Twingos” at 92 totally new points.
53:51 Tracked place 5 – Moldvix – Illegal Twingos
56:39 DJ Daemon: NecroPolo does C64 as well! Yup, this is YellowStorm, grabbing 138 points. Quite a jump and landing on fourth place.
56:55 Tracked place 4 – NecroPolo – Yellowstorm
01:00:27 DJ Daemon: Dave takes a “Journey Through the Prism” and gets out on the other side with 146 points and bronze position. You know third place.
01:00:38 Tracked place 3 – Dave – Journey Through the Prism
01:03:23 DJ Daemon: Almost done, now! Silver is raining over Shogoon for Mad Donna. I draw a blank here, but is that some old, remixed Madonna song I don’t know of, or are the voices in my head acting up. 154 points, anyway.
01:03:44 Tracked place 2 – Shogoon – Mad Donna
01:07:05 DJ Daemon: Gold! And it goes to Vincenzo for “Mirrored Inverse Fragments”. It’s the third installment, but the earlier tunes are not in this competition. Points? Yeah, boatloads of them … 192 …
01:07:22 Tracked place 1 – vincenzo /LTH^SGR – Mirrored Inverse Fragments
01:10:30 DJ Daemon: And we’re leaving. It’s been a hectic weekend, and this is the third podcast episode I released in two days… Time to relax and wait for the next demo party. Arok is over and 95 visitors registered to vote and create tunes. The result was great, and the reason that the got many entries for the remix was that they didn’t have to be made for the demo party. The Remix compo was run by SlayRadio, so kudos to them as well. You’re doing a great job Slaygon and Ziona and so are the Arok orgas. Keep the demo scene alive. This is DJ Daemon signing off and leaving the studio as I found it: a pigsty and a messed-up wreckage with cables crisscrossing the room.
01:11:26 CyberZip – Ahh My Goddess!
01:15:38 LIVE – With the greatest tracked tunes from the demo scene

Tags: Arok, Demo scene episodes, Demo scene top lists, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 48. that other Awesome tracker dude

It’s not Dr. Awesome! Today we play almost entirely Victor Vergara’s tracker music. Mr Vergara called himself “Awesome” back in the day and is still active under the name “Awezoom”. In this hour, DJ Daemon, sheds a little light on who he is, his involvement in the demo scene and who he dedicates all his love ballads to.

Playlist:
00:00 Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:10 DJ Daemon: Introduces the show and mentions Awesome/Victor Vergara and the Arok Demo party that’s ongoing.
00:32 Awesome – Breath of Fire
06:02 DJ Daemon explains how he found the songs on Amiga Module Archive and noted that they were all excellent.
06:36 Awesome – Forever Friends
11:03 DJ Daemon talks about covers of tracked music and then presents the next song.
11:26 Bazeforce – Aryx 2008
15:44 DJ Daemon plays a mystery tune and ask you to identify it.
16:07 “Mr B” – AmigaFormat
21:22 DJ Daemon tells you the artists real name and explains the origin of the song.
22:02 Awesome – Surprise Attack
23:41 DJ Daemon tells you the story of Victor Vergara/Awezoom/Awesome.
24:27 Awesome – Hard to believe
28:24 DJ Daemon tells you what Awesome is doing today.
28:53 Awesome – Reality Soul
33:32 DJ Daemon talks about Awesome’s demo productions and his entry on Demozoo.
34:05 Awesome – Inside a Dream
39:00 DJ Daemon explains that you can hear his stuff on Soundcloud and support him with donations on Paypal.
39:37 Awesome – Bolero”by Fanc
42:58 DJ Daemon talks about a qoute that may come from mr Vergara.
43:29 Awesome – Dreams of despair
49:27 DJ Daemon reminds you about tomorrow’s podcast episode about Arok party 2021.
50:07 Awesome – Dreams of Hope 2
55:55 DJ Daemon thanks you for listening and leads you into “the good night”.
56:35 Awesome – Future dreams

Production notes:
I was sourcing music for the next episode of Flashback and I came across a collection of great tunes by a "Awesome". I quickly realised that it was not "Dr. Awesome" and decided to make an episode around mostly his songs. This inspired me to create more artist portraits in the future.

Colophone
The title just points out that we're NOT talking about "DR. Awesome". The artist in this episode called himself "Awesome" and later renamed himself to "Awezoom".

Tags: Artist presentations, Awesome, Awezoom, Victor Vergara, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 47. The basics of the home computer revolution

In the early 1980s, the people of Sweden had to be taught to program! This was the next step. In many ways, this ended up bearing fruit and the 8-bit computers taught a generation to become developers, demo creators and it-architects. But it didn’t happen the way everyone expected: through the joys of Basic.

Playlist:
00:00 Flashback – tracks from the past – Show intro
00:10 DJ Daemon: “We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes”. With those immortal words, Commodore’s CEO Jack Tramiel, threw his hat in the ring. In the early 80s, many companies knew that soon enough, everyone would sit a home programming in Basic and the world will change. It’s not exactly what ended up happening, but it was quite a ride. Today we’ll discuss the home computing and the Basic era seen from a Swedish perspective.
00:45 Poi5oN – For All We Know
04:55 DJ Daemon: The text says, “Land on Jupiter with the people’s computer VIC-20”. You may be excused if you believe those words came from the Soviet Union or Red China, but no… It was written in Swedish in an advert from Handic. The VIC-20 was meant to be the computer dad used to calculate with spreadsheets, mom stored her cookie recipes, and the kids play games on. And it kinda went a bit like that in the beginning. But it was expensive here in Sweden! Prices from various sources, adjusted for inflation and converted to today’s dollar value says it all. In 1983, a Texas Instruments 99 with 16K RAM cost about 750 dollars, and Spectrum 48K set you back 900 dollars and a VIC-20 also 750 dollars.
05:57 Alex Menchi – Metamorphose
09:51 DJ Daemon: Among my stuff, I found a diskette for my old C64. It had a lot of Swedish software developer “Grana Software’s” programs. Those were trivial tax calculators, databases, and other software that pretty much anyone could cobble together. Amazingly enough, they were written in Basic, which meant you could read the code and edit it. It also made it impossible to stop anyone from copying it. Despite this they were able to sell this software for several years during the 8-bit era.
10:30 V.E.M – Irrespective of Age
17:22 DJ Daemon: So, Basic. A much-maligned programming language that just had to be included in all home computers during the first years in the 80s. What it lacked in speed, finesse, and capability, it made up for in ease to use. Anyone could learn to build programs and very limited games with it. The Commodore 64 had a primitive Basic from Microsoft. Yes! That Microsoft. It lacked most advanced functions. You had to write directly into the memory addresses to change a lot of stuff. The cool kids learned to write superior programs in assembly language and thus “talking directly to the computer’s processors”.
18:12 Jiyoshi – Having a Blast!
20:34 DJ Daemon: My father bought a Texas Instruments TI99 home computer. It was very advanced for its time and partially 16-bit in an era where the others just had 8 bits. It came with a decent Basic that could be improved with the “TI Extended basic” module, that you plugged into the computer like a Nintendo game cartridge. It was a more… hehum… advanced basic, if I may use that oxymoron… And it pretty much made it possible to work with graphics and sound. My father built a Donkey Kong clone for me and a birthday program with a song from the smurfs.
21:22 Kevin Chow – The Epic
26:15 DJ Daemon: Basic seemed to be the future, but it was just not meant to be. The first Amiga that came out in 1985 had a properly branded version from Microsoft, that shipped with the operating system. Even my Amiga 500 came with it on Workbench 1.3. I hated it, as it was slow as morass. It was performing worse in some instances than my Commodore 64 basic. But when languages such as Pascal, C and assembly language got more popular, it made Basic obsolete by the end of the 80s.
26:59 Aceman – Cold Smoke
30:09 DJ Daemon: My first program in C64 basic was a School Utility, called… drumroll… School Utility. It featured a primitive calendar, a task list, and the possibility to store, edit, view and print a school schedule. I smile every time I load it into my C64 and see just how serious I was in creating it. I had my own “company” called ERICADE and called myself Steelpulse and Systeme 1. Not entirely sure why. That disappeared swiftly, but ERICADE seems to follow me around. And later I took the name Daemon.
30:53 Algar – They gave me my life back
34:59 DJ Daemon: As computers got more advanced, operating systems began loading from diskettes and later hard drives. And in that era. As I previously said, better programming options came available. And if you didn’t like them, you could get your own. In the days of the C64, “Simons basic” was one of the few upgrades available for those still wanting to do Basic. I got Pascal for my Amiga and later learned the scripting language Arexx, which still makes me happy when I think about it. Maybe nothing today, but back then, I could automate everything. I wrote loads of scripts for my BBS.
35:45 SofT MANiAC – Dance with me
38:25 DJ Daemon: When did the home computer era die? The way I see it, and this I’ve said in previous episodes, it was in the 90s as the PC and Mac could play all the cool games and give you access to all the useful business software. At that time, there were no place for a dedicated “at home computer”. When did Basic die? As I just said, it could really compete when it wasn’t delivering on a chip inside the computer. It’s really that simple. Basic stands for “Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code”. Yeah, maybe I should have started by saying that.
39:09 DRAX of MoN – Boat on the road
43:04 DJ Daemon: Boat on the road. How does that even work? What about the Nevoke demo party? No tracked music compos.
43:44 Ben-Jam – Heaven watching us
47:26 DJ Daemon: New jingles.
47:58 Grubi of Brs – Beans and Rusk
53:27 DJ Daemon: summary.
53:58 Hunz – I am way one son
58:02 DJ Daemon: Leading you into the good night. Jesper Kyd.
58:28 Jesper Kyd – Space song

Production notes:
I have long wanted to talk about how Basic was to be the start of a revolution and how it kinda started a revolution it wasn't really to be a big part of. It was a cool story and I ended up telling it pretty well.

Colophon:
Right, it's just a word play. Basic and basics of... Sometimes Basics and fundamentals can be used interchangedy. So can Basic and "crappy programming language".

Tags: Storytelling, Retro history, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 46. Do you grok the lingo?

All hobbies and fields create their own slang. The retro world has a gigantic library of words for the skilled, the unskilled and various computers and programs. DJ Daemon digs through words and the cool explanations that really makes you understand the attitude of true hackers. Not the kind that breaks into stuff, but the hackers that builds, programs and creates. Sit down and take a guess what hackerwasser is, why the net isn’t dead yet and why Amiga users feel persecuted (no, we don’t! Or do we?)

Playlist:
00:00 Flashback - tracks from the past - Show intro
00:11 DJ Daemon: Sit down, terminal jockey and take a sip of your hackerwasser. We're deep with our noses in the various hacker dictionaries of the 70s, 80s and 90s. This hour, we will learn to deal with our "Amiga Persecution Complex" so will won't be seen as total weenies and get into trouble with the net.police.
00:34 Uctumi - Flimbo's Quest Medley
04:26 DJ Daemon: There's no way i can list more than a fraction of all slang that the world of computing gave us. And that slang is sometimes as old as dating from the 40s and 50s. It can be older than computing itself. Most of the terms in this episode comes from Eric Raymond's legendary "Jargon file", a file that has also been in print. As most of the terms hail from the 70s, 80s and 90s, it's more than just a little dated today, but hey, it's a part of our heritage. So let me explain some few of my favorite words for you…
05:27 Mr. Stewe - Nightwalker
09:13 DJ Daemon: J. Random Hacker, noun. It means a hacker, like any hacker. The jargon file states that a hacker is "A mythical figure like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd. This term is one of the oldest in the jargon, apparently going back to MIT in the 1960s" Hacker does not mean someone breaking into systems, as this is a much newer meaning of that word. A hacker is a title given by a much more experienced hacker to someone just earning that tile in his eyes. And that is a great honour! Mr Raymond has this to say to aspiring hackers: " To follow the path: look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master. "
10:21 Church of Selene - Paradise Sea
13:46 DJ Daemon: Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!, proverb It's simply the notion that something is going to destroy "the Net" any day now. Spoiler alert, it won't. This one you should know. It's been done every year since the 80s, when it applied to Usenet. The idea is that the data traffic increases until the net cannot handle it. Today it's more like the malicious attacks spin out of control. Some attacks have done severe damage, but the net is fine, thank you very much. In spite of the Morris worm, the Mirai botnet attack and all love letters in the world.
14:40 Lizardking - god'srevenge
16:48 DJ Daemon: Terminal jockey or Terminal junkie, noun Someone spending way to much time in the terminal console, like if addicted.
18:00 Jogeir Liljedahl - Oro Incenso
24:08 DJ Daemon: Net.police, noun People that feel the need to correct others and tell them what they're supposed to do or not, while not being in any official position to do that.
24:50 Nikku4211 - Just A Cool Tune
29:13 DJ Daemon: Amiga Persecution Complex, noun (...) It's the few people who can't get over that there platform didn't win. And as a proud Amiga owner, I take no offence in this term involving my beloved computer. This used to be the case with Linux owners back before Linux started winning "bigly". And there are probably Betamax-geeks, vinyl record-lovers and why not the occasionaly OS/2 hugger that just can't do it like Elsa and let go. Wintel means "Windows and Intel" if you didn't know.
30:27 Drakon - Beautiful nature
33:20 DJ Daemon: "Hacker wasser", noun It simply means Coca-cola or maybe Jolt cola. But never, mark my words, Pepsi cola. ...
34:16 Mikko of Razor1911 - Propaganda # 2.2
38:32 DJ Daemon: "Weenie", noun Ok, it's another word to hate-the-computer-illiterate. You know like Luser, Lamer, Stupids and N00b. Simply someone who knows nothing. ...
39:23 Junkie of Tequila - Renovering
42:25 DJ Daemon: Hack attack, noun. Same source as "Hacker-wasser". Today it would probably mean getting hacked. But in the early 90s, it apparently meant being in the zone and working hard ...
43:06 Necros - Tangerine Fascination
47:18 DJ Daemon: If you're in love with this list, I'll add a link in the description.
47:50 Ng Pei Sin - She Speaks to Me
51:52 DJ Daemon: I will try to pronounce the name of the song (then fails). This podcast will have a new episode every Saturday evening.
52:22 Trackerartist - The End
55:40 DJ Daemon: Talks about Xenon II.
56:10 Silverstance - UnderWater Current
01:00:09 DJ Daemon: Presents the previous and the next (last) tune for today.
01:00:17 David Newman - Flood

Production notes:
I have long loved the idea of computer era slang, and the "Jargon file" is legendary. I had to create this episode.

Colophone
"Grok" is a computer era slang word, meaning to understand intuitively. So it means, "Do you understand the lingo". Lingo is slang for... slang or language. Grok is from Robert A. Heinlein's book "Stranger in a strange land".

Tags: Retro history, Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, Eric S. Raymond, Jargon file, 2021

[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 45. The fallout connection

Fallout, how I love thee! Let me count the ways 1,2,Tactics,3,New Vegas,4… Let’s just end there…DJ Daemon was inspired by Fallout to create his own voice acted radio station, but wisely choose to create this one instead. It’s sad if you voice act some old man screaming in the radio from a bunker, and no one will get that it isn’t you for real. I mean, that’s a ruined reputation right there. Really dodged a bullet, there…Corrections: Fallout 1 was released in 1997, not 1995 as stated in the intro.

Playlist:
00:00 Flashback – tracks from the past – Show intro
00:13 DJ Daemon speaks: I’ve been a fan of legendary game series Fallout that began in 1997 and when Fallout 3 came out I was skeptical to the whole “radiostation in the wasteland”-thing. But Threedog and President Eden made a convert out of me and I just had to create a radio station that went live from a bunker, myself. Well, didn’t really work out the way I expected. Here’s my story.
00:41 Crimson – Compulsive march
03:12 DJ Daemon speaks: In the 20th centuary, war was waged over the will of and love from the people, with the hope of ensured victory in the elections, wars and public opinion. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: newspaper and radio. For control of these resources, Hitler invaded Poland and took control over the Gleiwitz transmitter and Stalin seized the press in Russia. In 2008, the storm of world war had come again. Bethesda released the computer game Fallout 3 and most of the fan base dissolved into quarreling, bickering groups on forums, bent on sharing their hurt feelings. Some of us playing the game enjoyed hearing the voices from the two radio hosts that still were on the air in the destroyed city of Washington DC. I was one of them… … My life was about to change.
04:16 Travolta – Mannen bak skuret
05:09 DJ Daemon speaks: I have loved ingame radio since I played Grand Theft Auto 3 in the naughties. I pulled out the audio files of the stations and listened to them in the bathtub at my home. Right, I was not a fan of radio stations in Fallout 3, thinking “what the hell, they barely have power to begin with”. But we had the enigmatic president Eden and his USA revival-schtick. ….Aaaaaaaand Threedog, the larger than life shock-jock sending his snarky comments on your progress. Both, an enjoyable experience.
05:56 Phorte of FTS, Winter – Airborne v2
08:55 DJ Daemon speaks: With Fallout Vegas coming out in 2010, radio stations were still a thing in the wasteland. But since then, the fan made stations really have became a popular. Remarkably well done. Some with playable situations where you can meet the DJs and do quests for them. I have a large collections of those stations. They often even surpass the ones you get with the game. And after you install them, you can enjoy listening to music and banter as you walk through the desert. Radio – Radio never changes.
09:38 Spindizzy and Warder – Forrest Hymn
13:21 DJ Daemon speaks: All the best Fallout DJs have been really excentric in their own way. The fan created ones even more so. Esaia Pendergrass of Cadillac Jack’s Radio Schack get’s more hammered over time. You know, I’ve been in community broadcasting for eleven years here in Sweden, and we had people like that for real. In Repconn radio, captain Cosmos is in a constant dispute with his evolved moon monkey, Jangles. The latter is so snarky, he puts all the other DJs to shame. Gopnik radio has a Russian guy telling you survival advice and to drink much alcohol. There’s little wholesomeness in the desert, let me tell you that much.
14:17 TRiGGER – Moonchild M72
18:19 DJ Daemon speaks: My “Fallout style radio station” was supposed to have a 40-year old man living in his mother’s basement, which he has made into a bunker. From my description: “Like a soldier living in the jungle, Daemon has yet to receieve the news that the war is over. Vaguely aware of the times around him, but still nurturing a feud with the other now non-existant Atari-users, he can’t understand why this “Internet”-thing is so popular. He frequents the last remaining BBS-eses in the world and refuses to trade the terminal window for some new-fangled stuff like “Windoze” crap.” Yup. I intended to voice act this station. Thankfully I was wise enough not to….
19:15 Aurini – Aerobic Workout ’79
22:21 DJ Daemon speaks: So why no voice acting? Easy: how would you know that it was just a show when you have no context? Most people would have written me off as “crazy”. I’m not saying I’m not, but it’s better not to make painfully obvious. So it never came to be. And all for the better, as listeners stop listening for any little mistake. You know: 5 seconds of silence? Bye-bye… You said something snarky? I’m never coming back! That song sucked. Let’s call the authorities… Nah, too lazy, let’s change the station instead. I don’t like your voice! I only do Spotify playlists from here on. Human voices bore me.
23:17 Swallow – Bambi
26:28 DJ Daemon speaks: As we’re getting closer to one year on the air, it’s been quite a ride. I thought I knew radio. I did not. I still don’t, but I’m at least getting there. A huge thanks to all of you sticking with me though power failures, crashes, mistakes and weird tunes that shouldn’t have been put on the air to begin with. I going to play the greatest tunes – no matter how much it hurts… Nah, wait, maybe I shouldn’t paraphrase Threedog with that logic… Anyways…
27:09 Converse – April
30:26 DJ Daemon speaks.
31:01 Psirius – A pretty bad dream
35:05 DJ Daemon speaks.
35:49 Jeroen Tel of WAVE – Burned beyond
39:32 DJ Daemon speaks.
40:19 Malmen and Goluigi – Summertime roses
43:41 DJ Daemon speaks.
44:17 Jeroen Tel of WAVE – Flexible feelings
48:06 DJ Daemon speaks.
49:00 DJ Uno and Headbanger – Freezed_Fantasies
52:21 DJ Daemon speaks.
53:11 Reissecup – Night Speaks to a Woman
56:43 DJ Daemon speaks.
57:25 Mel o’dee of Shadow – Disc trip
61:11 NeoBlaze – Vision of Space

Tags: Storytelling, Host: DJ Daemon, 2021, Retro gaming