Hitmen

From ExoticA
This Page is heavily work in progress, and as such incomplete and inaccurate this is the TODO list:
- check and merge info from scenery v2.99 [done]
- merge history info from hitmen website [done]
- add links for quick access of external references [done]
- add list of releases (demos)
- add list of releases (cracks)
- complete memberlist

Hitmen (HIT)

Hitmen started mainly as German cracking group on the C64, founded as a one man group by Jihad/Action (crack) in may of 1990, which it stayed until the entire German section of Vision joined around december the same year. It later turned into a Demo- and reverseengineering Group which is active on many different Platforms.

Members

Hitmen has disbanded twice, the first time it dissolved in 1991 and got rebuild in 1992, just to dissolve again in the beginning of 1993 and get rebuild once more in 1995. Unlike in other similar cases in the Scene, all "reincarnations" were "official" and initiated by the original members, namely Jihad and Curlin.

1995-today

GER
Curlin (code crack gfx, 09/95-)
Groepaz ([real name removed by personal request], code, 09/95-)
Jihad (crack, 09/95-)
Shok'Ray (ex Onslaught, also in Megastyle Productions [details], 09/95-??).
Peacemaker (fix, 09/95-)
Racoon(01/96-??)
Raze (09/95-??)
Sabotage (01/96)
Tyron (09/95-??)
Vortex (09/95-??)
Jinx (09/95-01/96)
Lawnmoverman (09/95-01/96)
POL
Moonchild (code)
BOS
Erol (Erol Tahirovic, code)
SWE
Tranziie (09/95-)
???
Jayce (01/96)
Marcus (01/96)
Moby (01/96)

1992-1993

GER
Death (Marc Lange, swap, 02-03/92).

1990-1991

GER
Bass (ex Internal Affairs, new 12/90)
Hires (ex Internal Affairs, new 12/90)
Jihad (crack, 91)
Lynx (Jörg Kosicki, swap, 03/92)
Mad B (ex Internal Affairs, new 12/90)
Mad Butcher (Ralf, swap, 01/91)
Tom (01/91)
N-L
Curse (swap, early91)
Ixon (swap, early91)
SWE
Mason (new early91)
Stanze (new early91)
???
Cevin (crack, 91)
Derse (ex Ruthless, new 12/90)
Fox (ex Paramount, new 12/90)

Boards

  • Mystical Paradize +49-2137-13943 (HQ, ger, 01/96, offline, Sysop: Peacemaker)
  • The Dungeon +1-214-342-7281 (US-HQ, usa, 09/95-01/96, offline, Sysop: Alchemist)
  • Warez Aquarium +46-837-1360 (EHQ, swe, offline, Sysop: Sledge/Fairlight)
  • Internet: ftp://ftp.inf.bme.hu (ex, Sysop: Jean/Chromance)

History

References: CSDB History on Hitmen Website

1989

Back in 1989 Jihad and Curlin (at that time called Accu) have been members of Action... While Curlin left Action and joined Vision after he got into troubles with Spitfire/Action for some reason, Jihad still continued doing finest Quality cracks for Action. After a short time also Jihad was unhappy in Action, because of Spitfire's behaviour, so he wanted to teach him a lesson. Hitmen was born, with Jihad still being the main cracker in Action so we also got the newest originals available in Germany. Jihad was acting under the handle of The Barrel for Hitmen, Curlin was spreading the Hitmen wares as a freelancer these days, after a short while people were questioning who Hitmen was... Also Spitfire was getting mad as Hitmen was nearly as fast as Action and even did better versions. After a short time Jihad and Curlin joined Hitmen under their real handle. At that time also Twist was working for us. We became more successful and bigger.

1990

December
Curlin (crack) joined from Vision, and Derse from Ruthless. News in WOW's "Internal #3" that someone named 'RAF' joined with Curlin are untrue.

1991

- Early january saw the release of "ViNews #3" by Curlin and Mad Butcher, which announced the joining of three ex-members of Internal Affairs; Hires, Mad B. and Bass. Dr.Disk changed his handle to Hermit and joined Chromance in january. Dense left for Manowar in january. Swedes Mason and Stanze joined early in the year. Jihad was interviewed for Triad "Gamers Guide #5" in the early months of the year, but then inexplicably left the group not long after... According to the "Gamers Guide #9", the group died, probably around may. Jihad formed another new group, called Joy Division. The german members Curlin (code crack, ex Vision, new 12/90), Thunder (gfx), Racoon and Alfatech left for Triad.

 ViNews #3 (1991, 02.01, Multifile Diskmag).
 INT - code: Curlin, gfx: n/a, music: n/a.
 MAG - code: Curlin, gfx: Curlin (main), Thunder (werner), DMC/Dominators
       (2x2 font), music: Laxity/Vibrants, editors: Mad Butcher (main),
       Curlin.
 review: First of all, this mag will get a positive response to their
 unorthodox design. Perhaps not all ideas are the best (what is that
 'Werner' doing there guys?), but at least they have the courage to think
 new. Apart from that, the mag's editorial content is about normal for this
 kind of thing. Atleast the English is on such a levels that the news items
 don't confuse, like can sometimes be the case with Sex'n'Crime =] One nice
 section, which I'd like to see expanded is the 'crax test' (inspired by
 Triad's "Gamers Guide"?). If they wrote a little more about WHY one
 version is superior to another, instead of just giving us those
 meaningless numbers, this would be an interesting section. There is no
 mention of the music being exclusive or anything, so it was most likely
 ripped. To sum up, this is actually above average for these kinds of mags,
 where the editorial content is not really supposed to transcend the
 'editorial, news + adresses' formula. [glenn]

1992

  • January
    • Memberstatus 1/92 from a note by Racoon: Hypnotist (Coder, Cracker), Racoon (Leader, Vinews Editor, Swapper), Curlin (Leader, Vinews Editor, Cracker), Jihad (Modem Trader, Cracker), Elektor (Cracker, Swapper), Death (Painter, Swapper), Thunder (Painter), Levis (Swapper), Boz (Painter, Swapper)
  • September
    • Memberstatus 9/92 stated in the Intro to "Dodge": Racoon, Death, Curlin, Hypnotist, Lynx, Demon, Magic eye, Drago, the Gee, Silver, Sony, Dylan, Flatline, Master jay, Hibisch, Elektor

1993

- Silver joined Topaz early this year.

May
Rad left Hitmen and joined TRC

Hitmen dissolved in the spring of 1993. After Jihad got his PC and lost interest in programming C64 stuff a bit earlier, the group was continued by Curlin and Racoon, until they also lost interest in that sort of things.

1995

The original Hitmen staff finally decided to rebuild the group and kick ass again while visiting a local pub some time in december 1995.

- Hi-Lite joined from Hardcore around august-september. Around september, they recruited Dodger and Shok'Ray from Onslaught. They also left swapper Suzuki (previously in Dytec, Equinoxe etc) join on trial basis, but after a short while decided to end his membership.

1996

Back in the middle of 1996 Hitmen made their first steps on a console named Playstation. At that time no one believed that anybody would be able to upload and execute homemade stuff to the Playstation using only an Action Replay with a Comms-Link, they didn't even dare to dream that this machine would have its own scene.

Then two freaks wanted to prove them all wrong. Jihad and Curlin started to hack around on the machine and pretty soon found a way to execute programs which have been uploaded to the Playstation using the ActionReplay Executable from Datel and later on with a reverse engineered homemade Rom.

After a while they got in contact with Ez-O-Ray and Blackbag. Ez-O-Ray released their genius Rom version which made things lots easier. And when Blackbag started to publish the important information about the Playstation internals, things started to roll.

Finally it was there, Eco2Exe, created by Silpheed. This started to inspire people to grab the Yaroze compiler (which was available at the net at that time) and start coding. Now they where given the possibility to run their programs on a normal Playstation through the ActionReplay with Comms-Link. This is where it all started, the Playstation Scene was born.

January
Dodger (ex Onslaught, new 09/95) was removed, after his behaviour was not deemed fit for the group.
March
The board THE DUNGEON was scheduled to go up again on march 15th.
December
Curlin stops almost all C64 activity to concentrate on PC and PSX and lays down organization of Hitmen. (Groepaz taking over)

1997

January
we quit Gangsta's Paradise, leaving it as Chromance only, cause we don't see any sense in supporting an FTP site that is slower than most of the C64 boards around
the well-known ex-Avantgarde members Cupid and Jack Alien join Hitmen
Burn and Seven start work on a new Digital Excess (archive.org) project.
March
Burn's 4k intro Elven Magic makes 2nd place on Mekka/Symposium, beaten only by one vote
Peacemaker stops all fixing activities concentrating on coding and organising only now
K.Rostoen of Shape joins Hitmen as musician
April
Erol joins us from the ranks of Tempest
May
Balance and Zore get kicked because of inactivity
July
Deff (ex-Avantgarde) joins up with the Hitmen
August
MagicMan of Crazy fame joins our ranks as coder.
Weasel joined Hitmen as cracker
September
Sledge left Fairlight to join up with the Hitmen posse
November
Hitmen take the scene by storm: #1 cracking group, our main crackers Jack Alien and Moonchild #1 and #2 single crackers and our main trader Racoon #1 swapper in propaganda #25's charts

1998

February
Jack Alien left us due to losing interest in cracking the so-called "new" games and will concentrate on his work for Remember in the future
March
The Mystical Paradise, our EHQ board run by Peacemaker, was taken down by a HD crash and won't be online anymore. Thanks to everybody who supported this board in such a great way and made it one of the best boards around (Propaganda Award 1996)
April
Burn and Se7en left Hitmen to concentrate on upcoming Digital Excess Productions
Raze left Hitmen for Padua
May
JB joined to serve us with graphics
Morphfrog joined as a trader
June
Starkiller joined us, he will soon bring back his BBS 'Cold Fusion'
July
German coder and graphiciain Hi-Lite (01/96-) left for Padua
August
Chaotic left us.
September
the cracking Section went into COOP with Excess for a trial-period
Oktober
Rammy left us.

1999

the first half of 1999 finally tought us that the cracking buissnes in C-64 world is dead and so all activities in that section were stopped. Naturally this caused a lot of changes for the group and just the hardcore demo people made it to the staff that will take the name of Hitmen to the next millennium.

January
Moonchild left us due to lack of motivation and time. He will hopefully be back some time after studies...
July
(25/07) Pacman joins the PSX Section
August
we decided to leave the cracking business behind, and due to that the cooperation with Excess was stopped as well
Racoon left us and stays in Excess
November
(05/11) YES... Peacemaker is back in bizz

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Releases

We need help with finding more Releases! A list with Releases that we know exist but havent found yet is maintained here.

Tools

Demos

References: Achievements C64 Demos PSX Demos

  • Cucumber Juice (1996, 08.04, C64 Demo). 2nd in the X96 demo competition.
  • Reanim8ed (april 1998, C64 Demo), 2nd at ms98 competition

Magazines

ViNews

References: Vinews on Hitmen Website Vinews on C64Mags WIKI

Condom

References: Condom on Hitmen Website

Raddings

References: Raddings on Hitmen Website

Cracks

not sure if the shitmen info should be on this page, it might be a better idea to make a seperate page for it. however at the moment (ie while it is still beeing created/edited) it should probably stay here to make editing easier/quicker.

Fakelabel: Shitmen (SHIT)

References: CSDB Shitmen Section on Hitmen Website

Just like many other (Cracker-) Groups of it's Time, Hitmen also had a "fakelabel" or "Lamerlabel" which was used to release substandard Games and other Funproductions.

Members

References: CSDB Members

Releases

References: CSDB Achievements Demos Cracks

External Links