TEG MUSEUM / THE STORY




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CHAPTER ONE - ( 1989 ) - TWIN EAGLES GROUP IN COMMODORE 64


All begins in 1989, somewhere in Lima, Peru. Overmind and Mister Byte are chatting at 2 am with their Commodore 64 and modem of 300/1200 bauds, one more time analyzing and criticizing the Peruvian computer scene while comparing it with the European one, full with vitality. Then Mister Byte, who has lived in Italy until half '80 and knows part of the European scene, has an idea. - Why not to form in our country a programming group with a similar ideology to the ones in the Commodore 64 European scene? - A group dedicated to the coding of intros and demos, spreading own releases and latest warez, as also investigating every technic related to videogame development. - A group with a work methodology completely different to the accustomed one in Peru! - But this idea is not new. One year before there was a similar attempt with Anubi, a small coding group by Spy*Share and Mister Byte, but they had failed. Overmind and Mister Byte know that to establish a coding group in a poor scene like ours would be very beneficial for the whole local community. And at dawn, they choose the name of the group, they establish the rules of operation, and the first members are selected. And in this way begins our history, and the history of a computer scene in our country, Peru!

In March 1989, Twin Eagles Group (TEG) begin its activity with four members: Easy Rider (swapper), Overmind (swapper), TMB 1996 (6510 coder) and Mister Byte (6510 coder, sysop, leader). The bulletin board system operated by Mister Byte since 1988, Commodore Knights BBS, is declared as modem TEG headquarters (1200 bauds, 24 hours at day).

We have our first release that same year, a challenge that * Satan! * proposes us, author of a new copy protection applied to Operation Wolf (Taito). According to his own words, he has dedicated so much time coding it that considers his copy protection as his "daughter"! But days later, our group proudly announces the unprotection of the game by our first cracker, TMB 1996, and it is so quick that Mister Byte doesn't have time to code an intro for the special occasion and we release the game with a simple intro (TEG drawn in petscii characters). This is our first presentation to the Peruvian scene and circulate unforgettable and funny comments like "the daughter of Satan! was raped!" and "the Robin Hood of Commodore 64" (we unprotect games that some local pirates illegally re-protect to sell more copies in an exclusive way).

In our first two years of activity we dissassemble and take a look into many videogames on Commodore 64, we add trainers, we code intros and demos, we establish contacts with foreign groups (like Grand Praire Boys/USA, All Fucked Up/USA, F4CG/Italia...), we import warez for C=64 and Amiga, and we recruit new members: Spunk!, Centurion and Halter (coders), Mistress Byte (graphics, the first woman in the group), and we have the collaboration of some informants to know every gossip in the local scene. But we have also the first drops in the group: Centurion and Halter are kicked because they distribute warez and our coding tools. Then in 1990 a new TEG - Amiga section opens with 4 members: Road Handler (swapper), Sync, The Garbage Kid and Mister Byte (all of them investigating the AmigaOS and 680x0), but after half year it closes due to the lack of technical information on the Amiga. Many users remember 1990 as a year of great activity in the Peruvian scene... but the best things should even come!

In January of 1991 we release our disc-magazine Smiling Panda, the first one to be published in Latin America! The first issue is spreaded only in Lima but the next ones are distributed to other scenes like Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, etc. And then the Peruvian scene is divided in two: those that Hate us to death, and those that Support us. This happens because Smiling Panda is the source of gossips on our scene and many users, especially sellers of pirate-software and lamers, are mistreated and criticized by the staff of Smiling Panda. Some people, affectionately, renamed it as The Little Killer Panda! By the way, Mister Byte is the coder and graphician of Smiling Panda, Mistress Byte is the editor and graphician, and the rest of the members collaborate with articles and other stuff. The good news is that gradually increases the number of Peruvian users that investigate about 6510 coding, surely wanting to show (to us?) that they are not just parasites. New members join the group: Skysurfer (original supplier), Delta and Minotauro (graphicians), Sir Arthur (support).

The year ends with something more ambitious: the first copyparty in Peru! It is the first time in the local computer history that is carried out a meeting of this class. The event takes place the 28 and 29 of December of 1991, near 60 users attend and there are 15 Commodore 64 well equipped provided by the same participants. The copyparty last 48 hours, several users remain in the local the whole dawn chatting, playing, programming and copying warez. Last day of the party, one of the participants, Camilot Warrior, joins TEG as graphician.

Twin Eagles Group rules the Peruvian scene during 1992 with imported warez for C64 and Amiga, new intros, game cracks (Hostages, Project Firestart, etc.), several game fixes from PAL to NTSC (the most important of all them, R-Type), trainers, music demos from well-known games, new issues of Smiling Panda, and a growing list of good friendships with other latin groups and legendary ones of the European scene. But the maximum consecration happens with Smiling Panda #05 (November 1992) publishing the results of the first survey and ranking of the best graphician, musicians, crackers and coders of the whole Latin American scene! (a difficult work considering that all communication is sustained by normal mail or telephone calls because internet is still not available widely). The results demonstrate the growing integration among the latin scenes, but significant for us it is the fact that our 4 year-old work has motivated some Peruvian users into programming and understanding concepts like VBI, rasters, FLI graphics, level-packers, sprite multiplexing, etc. and other basic techniques to create intros, demos, all the basis to develop videogames. Smiling Panda #05 has a worldwide circulation spreading in Holland, Italy, Israel, Pakistan, United States, Germany, Belgium, ... as also lartin countries.

Parallelly, a recent member of TEG, known as Gato ("cat"), very expert in electronic, plans an interesting project to improve our TEG-HQ Commodore Knights BBS: a custom network of 8 computers Commodore 64 connected to a PC 286 with hard disk. The system would be capable of receive 8 simultaneous calls and to allow multichat. But previous to this mega project, he develop three interesting programs: C64 Virus Maker, Speed-Up 2 and International CopyChart. On the other hand, Omega (coder), a new member of TEG, create new intros, a demo (TEG MusicDisk 01) and TEG-Dictionary (english/spanish). And AMTV (coder) programs the TEG-Coder, useful to code our productions. Meanwhile in the Amiga section, in a night of boredom, Mister Byte cracks another game, F-15 Strike Eagle 2.

At the beginning of 1993, while Smiling Panda #05 spreads in many countries of the world, we receive offers of well-known groups to establish a cooperation to develop software together. But in particular there is one located in Israel who proposes us the creation of videogames (we doing the code, they the graphics and audio). It is the opportunity that we waited to be devoted exclusively to the creation of videogames. The members of TEG meet to converse on the new situation of the group and future projects.... but something bad happens in our scene, and everywhere. We are in front of a new generation and ideological change of the users, and unfortunately not for better.

Europe is the cradle of the programming of demos and videogames, the best groups of coders, musicians, graphicians, crackers, etc. and it has an impressive variety of different computer systems. The best techniques at the moment used in video games were developed originally by European coders, a great percentage of the users has interest in the programming of most classic systems (Megadrive, Commodore 64, Amiga, SuperNintendo, Amstrad, etc.), and the scorn toward PCs and M$ Windows is massive and radical. On the contrary, the weak North American scene is mostly full of warez spreading groups and, unfortunately, the very few coding groups are displaced to a second plane. The North American community prefers PCs and people are buying in the last two years a PC or SNES just to play Doom and Street Fighter 2 compulsively, leaving the investigation. To beginnings of 1994, due to this idiotic process, the interesting but fragile C64 Peruvian scene collapses remaining alone 5 or 6 guys with the knowledge to develop videogames at professional level. TEG suddendly loses all its members, some of them because of the already mentioned reasons, and others that give up to family's pressures relatives to work or to study careers that are not of they interest. Then, Mister Byte decides to leave out the C64 scene and to continue in Amiga, the system of more acceptance in Europe due to its versatility and hardware specialized in the handling of audio and video, and this means good programming and videogames.

CHAPTER TWO - ( 1995 ) - TWIN EAGLES GROUP STRIKES BACK IN AMIGA

1994 and half of 1995 are the worst years for TEG. In fact, it even can't be called "group" since it has a single member, Mister Byte, the founder, who continues with the hope of rescuing in our scene some people interested in graphics, music and programming of videogames. But it is in vain. By the middle of 1995 the situation improves lightly when AMTV, ex-member of TEG C64, begins to program in Amiga. Now TEG has 2 programmers, but without graphic artist neither musician is impossible to develop some games, so Mister Byte and AMTV are devoted temporarily to do utilities for Workbench (AmigaOS). On the other hand, Amiga's situation continues uncertain since April of 1994 when the owner company Commodore Business Machine (CBM) and all its divisions (including Commodore-Amiga) was out of business due to its president and vice-president faults. Definitively a bad time, until in an unexpected way a German PC-manufacturer company, Escom AG, unexpectedly acquires the rights on Amiga!

In October of 1995, Mister Byte attended the event Computer '95, in Germany, which has the attendance of thousands of Amiga users, all celebrating the come-back to the market. To his return to Lima-Peru, February 1996, with a lot of motivation Mister Byte organizes the Frontline Amiga Party # 7 (FAP), the days 1, 2 and 3 of March 1996. Something similar to the first TEG-Copyparty in 1991, the FAP parties has as purpose to promote the activity of the Amiga community in our country. Beside computing, In the dawns there is projections of anime videos and hentai (japanese cartoons), music, etc. In the party, Mister Byte agrees with Daxam, ex-member of The TigerForce (TTF) (an already death C64 local coding group), to program together a videogame (well, although TEG has not yet graphicians neither musician, we need to stay in form). It is Varidiam ED-109, a porting to Amiga of the well-known game Gundam F-91 for SNES. The development begins in April of 1996, Daxam programming the strategy section and chess-like artificial intelligence, and Mister Byte, the project leader, programming the theater-action, cinema-displays and artificial intelligence during the space combat, as also graphics, sounds and music. But before the end of year, Daxam quit TEG to move to USA to continue its studies. To beginnings of 1997, Mister Byte completes the first playable demo of the game and receives hundreds of e-mails in few days (finally he has internet account). But in spite of the good feedback, he decides to abandon the project because of the impossibility to finish it alone.

In middle of 1997, the group decays having again as only member to its founder. In spite of the hard situation, Mister Byte decides to create and to publish a videogame all alone. At the end of 1997 he complete a demo of AmiBee (shareware, us$10, Amiga), a cute vertical shooter with japanese graphics. In January of 1998 AmiBee is selected by the international magazine Amiga Format as "the game of the month" and is included in its cover-disk (Amiga Format nr.106), becoming in this way the first shareware game made in Peru to be widely known. Among the hundreds of registration fees that arrive from all the world, he receives two important letters: a contract from Crystal Software and from APC&TCP, both well-known European software publisher wanting to get the rights of the game in itsr final version. Mister Byte signs the contract with APC&TCP and he is ready to complete the game (yet to do 3 levels, many graphics, sounds, and to improve the gameplay). In the final stage of development, he get in contact with Harlock (Lima) to draw the cinema-display graphics and level bosses, and with Joe of Fullspeed Development (Germany) for some additional music, both as external support. GUNBEE F-99 is born, the first commercial videogame made in Peru is put on sale in Europe and other countries at the end of 1998 - early 1999, receiving good reviews by all Amiga magazines. In spite of this important achievement, it is evident the difficulty to continue developing new projects without a constant support of members (it took 10 months of work to develop Gunbee F-99). And there is another problem, even worst: the Amiga market is about to collapse again due to bad marketing of the new company, Amiga Technologies Gmbh (Escom AG). Like a prostitute, the poor computer changes owner every year, generating great uncertainty in the market. The development in Amiga is everyday more unstable.

CHAPTER THREE - ( 2000 ) - TWIN EAGLES GROUP AND THE NEW PC SCENE

With not more alternatives, in March of 1999 Mister Byte begins alone to linvestigate the PC Windows 9x system, while programming the GMB GameSystem (a library to make easy the creation of arcades) and Kuntur (a vertical shooter for PC). Being Kuntur a commercial project to be published in the European market, it is evident the urgently necessity of new musician and graphicians.

One year later, in March of the 2000, hje begins the convocation of new members for the developing of videogames, at the begin just freewares and sharewares, then commercial releases. Along the year 2000 and 2001 there are many new members in TEG (programmers, graphicians, support, musician, gametester) and we also released the first freewares (La Tercera Vuelta, El Gato Volador, The King Of Peru 2001). Other projects (Ketris and El Gato Volador 2) are already completed but waiting for some local firm to sponsor their release. The wide popularity of The King Of Peru 2001 gives us reasons to work in a commercial project, KOP2.

Months later, in Dic.2001 - January 2002, The King Of Peru 2 - The Final Mecha! (PC CD-ROM), a classic fighting videogame with characters of the Peruvian politic scene, is released for sale in many bookstores, supermarkets, newsstands, etc. This is not only our second commercial release, The King Of Peru 2 (KOP2) is the first PC videogame made and published in Peru! Once again TEG establishes a new mark, just not for our benefit, but for the whole peruvian computing scene.




Marzo 2002. Twin Eagles Group is still on activity. The latest member to join is BadSector (gametester and manuals) at January 2002, who helped us in the KOP2 development. But actually we are having new problems. The first one is that this year some members will leave the group to move to other countries. And the second one is that the Peruvian firm Impulso Informatico S.A. (MICRONICS), the publisher of our game KOP2, have cheated us and until now they refuse to pay our royalties and the remainders of original KOP2-CDs, althought the established Contract. Of course we have already sued them at law and are waiting for the first hearing in the 11th. Civil Court of Lima.

Check our Activity Log for details on 2000 - 2001 - 2002.
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TEG MUSEUM / THE STORY