Awesome --> Elite / Hotline

[Starteck2002]

Hi All,

Can anybody explain to me the following please:

Awesome did menus 1 - 20, on 20 they announce they have joined Hotline (or is it Elite?)

Hang Loose archive has 'Elite' starting at menu 20 (which is the same disk as 'Awesome menu 20) - were there actually Elite disks 1-19?

None of the archives I have list 'hotline' as a crew. Any info / clarification appreciated.

[Mug UK]

Awesome did menus 1 - 20, on 20 they announce they have joined Hotline (or is it Elite?)

Hang Loose archive has 'Elite' starting at menu 20 (which is the same disk as 'Awesome menu 20) - were there actually Elite disks 1-19?

That's the way it happened.

[lotek_style]

There were no Elite Disks 1-19... The Awesome guys just continued with 20 under Elite.

[Starteck2002]

right, so they basically changed their name, not joined another crew. I'll probably be back asking a few more questions soon. I'm building a website with all this info, screenshots and the like. Hoping to make it as complete as possible but is one hell of a daunting task. I've only just started getting back into the ST... used to be very much into it all those years ago but sadly no longer have any of my old hardware, disks etc.

[lotek_style]

No they did not changed their name they joined another crew... ELITE existed already.

[lotek_style]

Why not supporting us on www.demozoo.org many of these infos are already there

[sh3-rg]

No they did not changed their name they joined another crew... ELITE existed already.

It was still Ruthless and myself and Dominion/D-Coder joined (remember those late Pompey menus in fullscreen that were very un-Pompey-like - that guy - he later joined The Lemmings, as I did) but the menus went out under another name. I'm not surprised that there is confusion about how it worked out as there was a lot of confusion internally about what happened only Ruthless knows for sure, or at least did 20-odd years ago or whatever

Really, when the group name changed from week to week (well, it seems like this at the time) it all got very confusing. I'm glad I put it into words back when I could still recall at least some of it, have a look at this old interview I did with Brume: http://www.atarilegend.com/interviews/i ... rview_id=5

Reading some of that now it seems I was a bit bitter with Ruthless, but that's not how I recall any of it now, I only remember the fun stuff and the epic phone calls about all the hot warez none of us could ever be arsed even playing back then It was never about playing the games (I hardly played games at all on ST when I was involved in the menus and stuff, only really played them when I first got it when I was a school kid), it was about having the latest stuff and seeing the new intros/menus (at least those from groups who CBA using new code, not boring standard stuff). I spoke with Ruthless a few times via email some time after that interview, he was quite cool about things and still looked back at those times as fondly as I did. Was also contacted a few times by people who had tales to tell about him and what happened to him afterwards, but meh, wasn't really interested, no matter how juicy they claimed it was... it was all fun stuff and in the past

[ruthless]

Reading some of that now it seems I was a bit bitter with Ruthless, but that's not how I recall any of it now, I only remember the fun stuff and the epic phone calls about all the hot warez none of us could ever be arsed even playing back then It was never about playing the games (I hardly played games at all on ST when I was involved in the menus and stuff, only really played them when I first got it when I was a school kid), it was about having the latest stuff and seeing the new intros/menus (at least those from groups who CBA using new code, not boring standard stuff). I spoke with Ruthless a few times via email some time after that interview, he was quite cool about things and still looked back at those times as fondly as I did. Was also contacted a few times by people who had tales to tell about him and what happened to him afterwards, but meh, wasn't really interested, no matter how juicy they claimed it was... it was all fun stuff and in the past

bitter with me never it was all good fun and we were young

[sh3-rg]

[Brume]

Hey ruthless and sh3! Nice to see both members of Awesome here


For visitors who are new, the complete set of Awesome/Elite disks could be found here:

http://stonish.org/Awesome-Elite-15#st1

And the intros only are there:

http://demozoo.org/groups/31418/
http://demozoo.org/search/?q=Elite+CD

[lotek_style]

Well I have to ask Ruthless... Do you have any other disks left?

[ruthless]

Hey ruthless and sh3! Nice to see both members of Awesome here


For visitors who are new, the complete set of Awesome/Elite disks could be found here:

http://stonish.org/Awesome-Elite-15#st1

And the intros only are there:

http://demozoo.org/groups/31418/
http://demozoo.org/search/?q=Elite+CD

Great thanks will take a look old friend

[ruthless]

Well I have to ask Ruthless... Do you have any other disks left?

Sadly i have nothing left now, i wish i had kept everything, but we all move on with our lives and sadly all my ST stuff went

I still visit here now and again to get much needed nostalgia

[lotek_style]

Well that's what I suspected and it's the usual answer when oldskoolers show up Brume already posted the demozoo link... maybe you can give us atleast some additional informations?

[ruthless]

Well that's what I suspected and it's the usual answer when oldskoolers show up Brume already posted the demozoo link... maybe you can give us atleast some additional informations?

What specific information would you like ? I am happy to help as much as I can, feel free to pm me your questions or post them here

[lotek_style]

Can you provide us with more complete group histories of Awesome and Quartex?

A good example how you can write it (third person view) can be found here:
http://demozoo.org/groups/31997/

[ruthless]

I will try, apologies for the poor memory, inaccuracy etc..

The very first group was actually named Mantronix and was made up of mostly local kids from school, it wasn't too great or well known and we used releases from The Replicants, The Empire to compile the menus.

Through the Mantronix menu's I made a lot of really good contacts in the scene with all the major players, so I set up the menu group Awesome along with K-Klass, Dominion (D-Coder formerly Pompey Pirates), Phoenix, Techno and i think Dal Snuffs and some others but I am not 100% sure. At the same time as being in Awesome I worked in a computer shop and so had access to 'originals' which used to find their way to The Replicants, The Medway Boys, The Pompey Pirates and Hotline... It was around this time I joined The Replicants under the name of Ecstasy. Released 19 Awesome menu's which were pretty popular, we always had really great intro's made by Griff, Magnum, D-Coder (Dominion) and a couple of others which made us quite well known, it was around menu 18 that Sledge of Hotline (somebody i chatted to in the Netherlands quite often) asked us to join Hotline of The Elite.. being a very young boy the opportunity was too much to turn down so I signed us all up and we started releasing menus under the Hotline of Elite name

It didn't last too long for a number of reasons... lack of games releases, lack of interest from myself and other group members, there was no specific reason to stop Hotline menus that I can remember

Next we went with the Quartex name releasing a small amount of menus, however this was put to rest quite quickly when I was phoned by a member of Quartex and threatened that If I didn't stop using that name bad things would happen to me... So then came Technix (I think) which was maybe 3 or 4 of us from the original Awesome

I stayed friends with K Klass pretty much towards the end of the scene, I did not get a falcon and sold my STE and everything with it when i left home at 19 (I Started releasing stuff at 15 and stopped at about 18), so you must understand I was a very young guy in this

Some people liked me, others did not like me, to be quite honest I couldn't really care less, it was a hobby at the time which kind of took over my teenage years

If there is something more specific you would like to know please ask and I will try to remember, it has been over 20 years now

Some people I dealt with regularly back in the day (from memory probably missing many people).... Zippy/The Mighty Clog of The Medway Boys aka Cynix, Alien of Pompey Pirates, Viper of Automation, Derek MD of New Order, Quattro of clockwork Orange, Gino, Snake of Replicants, Sledge of Hotline, the guys at F.O.F. (they gave me all their code for filing raw data, it was kind of a big thing back then) and many many more people, people in the USA, Canada, every country in Europe, they were wild times

Oh yeh, Mug UK too, shouldn't forget him

Adding to the above, I was in The Dream Weavers for a short period too, i think under the name of Dream Warrior and released a few menus for them

[Brume]

Very interesting, thanks Ruthless

Also now we know who is Ecstasy: http://demozoo.org/sceners/54391/

[Mug UK]

Oh yeh, Mug UK too, shouldn't forget him

Thanks

Vague memories of long chats about Easyrider and music rips. I donated all my dodgy ST disks to a pot washer in the local nightclub once PVK went commercial, including all of my copies of your menus

[lotek_style]

Can we bring some chronological order into this... When was Mantronix founded? Which year.... and when was Awesome founded... and so on