Thread

Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy (2021)

220 points · 120 comments · succinct_ideas

milchek · 1789716140 · focus · HN ↗
This is dense. I skimmed through hoping to see examples of the “aesthetics” with screenshots of old school installers (like the ones from Razor 1911, Class, Deviance etc) - it looks like these are scattered around the web, though. If anyone wants to relive some of the old chiptunes from these installers there’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/codex-installer-music-5-2018-03-192kbit-aac" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/codex-installer-music-5-2018-03-...
1. 9dev · 1789769366 · focus · HN ↗
  Razor 1911! Now here’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time, but teenage me was very grateful to.
  The .nfo files alone, distributed with most releases, carrying the most elaborate of ASCII art. I distinctly remember the aesthetics you mention.
  1. nikanj · 1789769619 · focus · HN ↗
    Remember realizing it’s 0x777, one better than 666?
    mmanfrin · 1789776090 · focus · HN ↗
    Probably more a reference to total file permissions.
    bitwize · 1789785436 · focus · HN ↗
    That's 777 octal tho
    5-0 · 1789796919 · focus · HN ↗
    I believe this was the case, as there was a lot of 666 going around at the time.
    shinymark · 1789824722 · focus · HN ↗
    6-7 had yet to be discovered.
  2. th1234987 · 1789777243 · focus · HN ↗
    > The .nfo files alone, distributed with most releases, carrying the most elaborate of ASCII art. I distinctly remember the aesthetics you mention.
    See their 40 year retrospective demo for a lot more of that: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dybkLM-1eQo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dybkLM-1eQo :)
  3. bitwize · 1789779251 · focus · HN ↗
    I still refer to 1:37 pm (13:37) as "l33t o'clock" and 7:11 pm (19:11) as "Razor o'clock". They seem to come up remarkably often when I glance at the time, like 11:11 for normies, but I think all of these are some sort of pareidolic/selection-bias effect wherein your brain is just more likely to remember/notice times that it considers significant.
  4. 5-0 · 1789797200 · focus · HN ↗
    If you ever need to scratch that ASCII art itch: <a href="https://asciiarena.se/" rel="nofollow">https://asciiarena.se/
2. suburban_strike · 1789782662 · focus · HN ↗
  Some of the chiptune musicians are still active. Dubmood made it onto the Hotline Miami (2012) soundtrack.
3. gravitronic · 1789788651 · focus · HN ↗
  Be sure to check out keygen music, still updated
  <a href="https://keygenmusic.tk/" rel="nofollow">https://keygenmusic.tk/
  1. ValdikSS · 1789819615 · focus · HN ↗
    There used to be a large site called keygenmusic.org, but it's closed now. There's a dump of all of its tracks on web archive: <a href="https://archive.org/details/key-gen-music-music-pack-2020-03-full.-7z_202403" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/key-gen-music-music-pack-2020-03...
  2. kristofferR · 1789823975 · focus · HN ↗
    Cool, will be spending hours today listening to it!
    Frankly .tk domain is as much of a nostalgia hit as the music, weren't aware it is still around.
4. 0123456789ABCDE · 1789812404 · focus · HN ↗
  > I skimmed through hoping to see examples of the “aesthetics” […]
  aesthetics is an umbrella term for the "[…] norms and rules of participation, […] forms of sociality, and […] artistic outputs." — think: sociology, culture, customs, and less visuals. reading chapter five (aesthetics), perhaps unsurprisingly the chapter where the author dives deeper into the topic, is certainly advised.
5. hobofan · 1789825674 · focus · HN ↗
  NFO files (both image and text) for current releases and ones going way back can still be found on xrel.to

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.