I. The Beginning (1988 - 1990)
Scoopex - an Amiga demo group founded back in
1988 by
Ranger & Shark the Master. Since then it changed from being an Austrian group to be international based. Scoopex is the successor of the Austrian based group
Megaforce (MFC). Megaforce was founded
in 1983 on C64 and was active in the Cracking as well as the demo scene. Crazy Typer's legendary demos brought MFC a good reputation and their constant releases the membership in the so called 'Leading Five' cooperation.
In 1988 the French Section of MFC (organized by Nasty Boy) got problems with the police due to piracy. Therefore Ranger, who was the leader of Megaforce, decided to put MFC to rest and start up a new group. Thus
Scoopex was born! Most of the old MFC members became
SCX (short for
Scoope
x) members and also other's joined in (like e.g.:
J.O.E., who was in
TSK-Crew back then). The slogan '
Generations Ahead' was invented by Shark the Master (although it's quite similar to the old Megaforce slogan 'Always Lightyears Ahead'). Still
Scoopex didn't quit piracy, but demos seemed to become
more important.
Crazy Typer had quit the scene after his harddrive had a headcrash (and he didn't have any backups), so people like Shark the Master, Vectrex and Challenger were responsible for the coding of most of the releases back then, which includes demos like '
Lazer Light', '
Glory Stars', '
Glory Stars2' and '
Xenomorphs'.
A subgroup in the United Kingdom called '
Share and Enjoy' (SAE), that actually had joined in the last days of Megaforce, released a couple of productions as well. Scoopex was the group with the most demo releases in 1989. It was also in that year that the likes of Slayer and Reward joined. They released the 'Seven Sins' demo, which was the most popular demo in the Scene since Red Sector's Megademo. Share and Enjoy left the same year.
II. Being Living Legends (1990-1992)
However the beginning of a new era were the days around March 1990. It was not only a new era for Scoopex but for the
whole scene! 'Mental Hangover' got released, brought Scoopex to the top of the charts and
changed the style of demos completely. Up to that point all big demos were socalled 'Megademos', which consisted of different parts with different music linked together by a loader, which was the same after each part. 'Mental Hangover' was the first '
Trackmo' (Trackloading Demo) ever and invented the style that was used in demos from 1990 until approximately 1996.
Slayer dominated the coder charts,
Reward topped the gfx charts, Mental Hangover the multi-load-demo charts,
TMB the swapper charts,
Heiko the uploader charts and so on.
Scoopex ruled the Scene for more than a year until
Phenomena released their charttopper 'Enigma'. Slayer released some intros, the demo '
Chromium' and announced
'World of Wodka' (because of this Ranger called his BBS 'World of Wodka', too) to be the sequel of Mental Hangover. After that he quit. World of Wodka never got finished, but became one of the most 'famous demos' anyway so to speak.
Uno joined in Sweden and his graphics for Zine and Enigma made him number one in the gfx charts.
In the end of 1991 / beginning of 1992
Reward left for
Complex and the Finnish Section died. In 1992
Ranger retired and
Trade took over the organizing. By this the generation that made Scoopex a name on the scene, and rightfully were said to be living legends Amiga demoscene wisely, passed the job on to those who wanted to keep Scoopex on the top.
