The Maggie Lifetime Achievers Awards!

In which we very carefully consider those people and organisations which have had a huge and consistent impact on the ongoing survival of the Atari scene well into the 21st Century.

We've run the 'End of the Year' format plenty of times before, in which the most awesome developments of a specific year were considered, sometimes written straight, and sometimes in a more jokey Oscar ceremony parody style. Now for this 25th Anniversary edition of Maggie, perhaps we should take the longer view?

So here they are, the Maggie Lifetime Achievers Awards. Not just any old thing will do here, no sirree! These will be extra, extra special!

All selections below are entirely subjective, personal to me, and not subject to any kind of polling or mass decision making. It's an article, not a democracy. If you disagree with these, you're more than welcome to make your own.

Without any further ado, we come to the first of these:

The oldest and best Atari scene supporting website:-

After some thought, and considering things since the start of the internet, the Dead Hackers site, or portal to Atari demo scene activity, otherwise known as www.dhs.nu wins this one comfortably. I remember a time, when the interwebs were new and exciting, my first tentative explorations with a 14.4k modem and the CAB browser led me to something hosted by Ludvika.se. It took a biblical age to load, but was worth the wait, as months of hoarded Atari news revealed itself to my excited eyes, bit by bit.

So this was back in 1996. Since then, the Dead Hackers Society has maintained a consistent presence, faithfully reporting on all the triumphs of the Atari scene over the best part of nearly twenty years. In addition, there is a useful forum, and a comprehensive scene art and video database and many many interesting downloads. It still has a vital cornerstone role to play, even in today's world of nearly instant social media and fast news. (Not to mention that it is part of the extensive atari.org hosting for all manner of projects and archives.)

So to Evil and all the other people maintaining this vital resource, this one is for you!

The long stayer of stayers award, the most persistent Atari demo group:-

Is this going to be a Swedish whitewash? It's the Dead Hackers Society again!

The first record of any production by the entity known as 'DHS', was in 1992, the first proper demo, 'Tyranny' appeared on the Atari STE in 1993. Since then, they never really stopped. They have had busy periods, and quiet years, but have never been too far away. They're twenty three years old and still doing the business, as the class of 2015 reveals a new limit smasher for the STE, 'Sea of Colours'. We hope there is still a lot more road for them, and us to travel along together in the future.

We heartily concur with their motto "Never give up, always stay Atari!"

The ultimate Atari scene archivist of long standing excellence:-

He's been around for many years, and under more than one scene nick, it's got to be Lotek Style, the inspiration and dogged collector for the Fading Twilight and No Fragments collections. Nothing is too obscure for this man and his passion for completeness. Even embarrassing things that I did, when I convinced myself that I could compose tunes are in there, somewhere...

Lately, he was one of the team who are tirelessly setting up and promoting the latest general demo scene archive, Demozoo. Again, there's nothing too obscure to hide from him!

The ultimate slow burner project, which eventually burst into flames:-

It was started at the height of Falcon-mania in the mid-nineties, it got paused and went cold for a long decade or so, but has lately burst back to life and near completion. It's a big hi there to Doug Little and the revived 'Bad Mood' Doom engine for a standard Falcon 030.

Many thought this would be difficult, to put it mildly, but Doug patiently bludgeoned the code, bit by bit, into submission. A game which was really properly at home on a 486 PeeCee, was made to look graceful and comfortable on a Falcon 030, even without one of those fancy accelerator things. And it gained lots of extra goodies on the way too!

And of course it's Doug's party, as we're still awaiting the release of 'Heftig', 'Willies Adventures' and more from development hell!

The Atari demo party meister of many years service:-

After more than a little thought, I'm giving this one to Havoc and the team behind the Outline series of demo parties. Now some might query the Atari-ness of these parties and the mixture of other formats, which have tended to be more dominant in recent years, but it is hard to argue against a track record of over ten years, since 2004, without pause. For the record, I don't have a problem with Outline doing what it does, or with the people who attend it. I don't think anyone else would either. More people who used to go to this but stopped going, should give it another go perhaps.

A close runner up, for the intensiveness of dosage of the Atari scene experience were the Sillyventure parties, doing their thing in 2000, then again from 2010 to 2014 (with a possible 2016 summer revival?) Another longer running series worthy of mention is the Sommerhack Party, offering a smaller scale experience since 2009, but with a very high output for its size, release and quality wise.

The Uber-musician of an Atarian persuasion:-

This was a hard one to decide, but I foolishly took on the challenge anyway. Out of a crowded field, I decided that there's only one 505!

He's been active for a long time, I get the impression that in spite of his impressive past track record since the nineties, that he is a person very much of the present time and still has future glories to unleash on the Atari scene. He's been active in a number of different formats, from punishing the poor Yamaha sound chip on the ST, to making some of the most sublime Ace Tracker tunes on the Falcon. Not to mention the mod files, Atari POKEY music and more.

There was so much excellent competition, so sorry, DMA-SC, Tao, gwEm, Mad Max, Count Zero, Scavenger, Jess, Marcer, (mumbles names of other scene musicians into an inaudible burble..)

Bobbing up from time to time, 20,000 Leagues under the Scene award:-

This goes without a moment's hesitation to New Beat Productions.

Once upon a time, back in the mid-nineties, there was a promising Swedish group that worked on productions of a demo-ey persuasion. They also showed some promising previews of games and other things they had in development. Over a very long time period, some of these were released. In between times, we wondered if they had given up and drawn their terminal breath? This feeling intensified after the early 2000's, when we had an extra long wait. Of course we should not have been fooled.

A totally revamped Ace Tracker 2.0 turned up in June 2014. There is even mention of Willies Adventures still being worked on. How much longer are we to await this being finished, at long last. More to the point, will there be any working Falcon 030's left to run it on?

Special services in keeping the big cat fed award:-

Reboot stride confidently from the back of the hall, hands in pockets, affecting a casual 'tough but cool' attitude to pick up their trophy.

They've been around for a while, but very much in the background, closeted off in their own special enclosure on the internet signposted "Danger, rampant C.J, do not approach!" They have also released a steady stream of quality games for the Jaguar console, and occasionally the Atari ST/Falcon series. Indeed, there are some, such as Rebooteroids, which are still eagerly awaited. Their record of supporting the oft disregarded final hardware from Atari, is one of unceasing love and devotion.

Latterly, they've made it possible for anyone with reasonable ability to make their own hits for the Jaguar, with a whole new development tool called 'Raptor Basic'. Maybe this will lead to an opening up and renaissance of the Jaguar scene, even despite the "special" nature of some of its scene politics?

Regardless of that, this award has been well and truly earned.

This might be released, one day? award:-

Well, there's not anything that's going to be handed over right now in this category. We're going to wait until some of these goodies finally appear, THEN you get the award!

'Heftig' by Cream. We saw a very early, incomplete and rough preview at Error in Line 1999. Since then, Ultra crafted quite a bit of code and put a lot of words into a blog, then silence. This may still appear some day?

'Chips don't lie' by Ephidrena and others. This was supposed to appear as a dual Falcon/Amiga 060 release at Solskogen 2010 but only arrived on the Amiga. Nerve had some notion of making this a dual Falcon/Firebee executable, but has disappeared completely since. I've seen this running on a Falcon 060 under controlled conditions (Beetle's Falcon). Surely the time is overdue for a release?!

'Hidden Agenda' by Tufs and Dead Hackers, from the 2009 edition of The Gathering party. A preview apparently 'escaped'. It has the distinction of being the only 14MB Atari STE demo out there! As of 2009, 'Top people' were working on this, what they had done was quite a bit different from the preview, but it was going to take some time. Well, it's 2015 now guys..

Honorary mention:- Mr Pink has got back in touch. He is still quietly working on some Atari projects in his very limited free time. He says that one day, he may release something!

The most durable antagonist of all, the special f*ckings award:-

There is only one serious contender for this one. No I'm not talking Commodore Amiga, even with the itchy rash of a million and one 30th birthday reminders on social media, they're all about the glories of times past, and deep regrets at what might have been. Anyway, the sneering Atari-loathing warez leecher lamers have long gone from that scene, only the cool and creative people are left, as it should be.

I'm talking about Microsoft of course. The monster that swallowed everything else in the mid-nineties, sucking creativity and leaving a vast dry desert of blandness, that took years for anything else to break free from. However, move forward to more recent years, and they're not such a sure bet anymore. Their various versions of Windowze have scored more duds than hits. They also managed to eviscerate a former fondly regarded mobile phone provider, Nokia, in a bolloxed attempt to dominate the smartphone and handheld devices market.

A sense of 'one hand clapping but not connecting with the other' really shimmers into sharp relief, as you realise that Microsoft are breaking with the legacy from their sole act of genius that swallowed the personal computer market whole.

Back in the mid-nineties, they bypassed the enthusiasts and niche platform fanboys, capturing the vast horde of users that really weren't keen on computers per se, but felt obliged to "keep up" or "needed it for work". Thus not knowing any better, the everyday majority were happily enslaved to the Wintel yoke for years to come. Much glee and profit ensued at Microsoft Corporate HQ.

In recent times though, Windows 8 turned out to be an upgrade too far for those most inherently conservative of users, who would be perfectly happy with Windows XP forever. That is even before we query the sanity of a user interface best suited to touch screens being imposed on desktop PeeCees without these.

It is interesting to see that the worst errors have come about, since they put a comedy Muppet in charge, namely Steve Ballmer. Microsoft, under his misrule has come to eerily resemble the fictional music act 'Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem', with Ballmer as Animal on the drums.

So, Microsoft, this award is all yours! Steve Ballmer can collect it from Bill Gates personally. Oh he can't, apparently, they're not friends anymore!

The awesomest dude in the Atari scene:-

After some deep consideration, and leaving an awful lot of deserving people on the rather messy cutting room floor, I'm giving this one to Michal 'Grey' Michalowski.

He was a force in the Atari Falcon scene in particular, from the mid-nineties onward, an enthusiastic supporter of Maggie, back in the day, with plenty of news and even the odd intro, care of the Mystic Bytes. He organised the forever memorable Sillyventure party in Easter 2000. He was also a keen vodka donor to the Error in Line parties, which I also remember very well!

When others hesitated, tired and faded away, he continued supporting the Atari scene, cracking the whip on Mystic Bytes to release a hatful of demos. The Chosneck disk magazine enjoyed several issues too. Latterly he's been the inspiration behind the recent series of Sillyventure parties, providing the venue for some of the greatest Atari demos ever made. Right now, he's sitting back and resting, but we can't argue against the tall wobbly pile of achievement that he has built up over the years.

Nor would we want to! Grey, this one's yours! Doubly so if you get Sillyventure back for 2016!

The ultimate bestest best thing ever award:-

We're winding down and packing up, but there's time for one more award. This one is for the best thing to ever happen to the Atari scene.

It's YOU dear reader! Yes, you, the person reading this text. By reading this text, you are reading the 25th Anniversary issue of Maggie. Therefore by definition you are taking an active and enduring interest in the past glories and future prospects of the Atari scene.

You're a winner, simply by casting your eyeballs over these ravings. You're even more of a winner if you get down to coding, painting or composing something on the yellowy-grey plastic box with Mount Fuji on it, or emulated version thereof. And you get a special place in my thanks and greetings column, if you feel like scraping fingernails across a keyboard to send some textual fun in my direction.

Have a celebratory drink, and send one my way too!

And that is the end of the Lifetime Awards. Winners, consider yourselves well and truly honoured!

CiH - Maggie 25th Anniversary, July 2015.

Back to the Commemorations.