Serving the demo scene since 2020, we have a mission to give you the best of the demo scene and a 24/7 streaming experience of chiptunes, tracker music, video game music and tracker music. A lot of it created on Amigas in the 80s and 90s and also Impulsetracker, Fasttracker, Screamtracker and many other formats.

This guide is geared towards those who want to feature our station in public directories. There are a number of very easy ways to link to us and to feature our services on your site. We have adopted the idea of “spread the word and not the disk”. Hard to say if anyone remembers diskettes anymore, but the message is clear: “tell everyone you know about ericade.radio”.

So here are the two stations:

ericade.radio / the ERICADE radio network
	Station profile Started: 2020 Style: Amiga MOD, demoscene, chiptune, tracker music The magic of electronic retro computer-music awaits you! Chiptune, synthwave, chipwave, retroelectro – but in reality it’s called tracker music. It’s all composed on Amigas and PCs using Protracker, Impulsetracker, Fasttracker and more..

Name: ericade.radio
WWW: https://ericade.radio/
Slogan: The Northern Europe demo scene broadcaster
Location: We broadcast from Kungsholmen in central Stockholm in Sweden.
GEO-location: 59.32972418882536, 18.007987391263196.
Standard: Shoutcast DNAS
Encoding: 192 kbps MP3.
Streaming URL: https://radio.ericade.net/sc/stream/1/
Streaming URL (Legacy): http://legacy.ericade.net:8000/stream/1/ (Only use if your player cannot work otherwise)
Shoutcast endpoint for XML/JSON metadata extraction: http://legacy.ericade.net:8000/ (Don’t use https, or HSTS will cause problems for you when trying to downgrade the connection)
Simulated endpoint for IceCast metadata extraction: https://ericade.radio/status-json.xsl
Simulated endpoint for AzuraCast metadata extraction: https://radio.ericade.net/api/nowplaying/1
Nowplaying overlay for some services: https://radio.ericade.net/currentsong

Tags: chiptune, demo scene, tracker music, Amiga, C64, Commodore, tracked music

Description

“The magic of electronic retro computer-music awaits you! Chiptune, synthwave, chipwave, retroelectro – but it’s called tracker music. It’s all composed on Amigas and PCs using Protracker, Impulsetracker, Fasttracker and more…

Let’s go on a journey into dreamy syntheziser-loops, classic Amiga demo tunes and upbeat chiptunes. We are for the demo scene.”

Image of DJ: https://radio.ericade.net/images/erik2.jpg

Description of the DJ

“DJ Daemon
He got his C64 in 1989 and his first Amiga in 1990. A huge fan of tracker music and have had a long standing dream to create a radio show playing that kind of music. In 2020, that dream came true and in december Amiga Flashback started as a podcast. It was later renamed Flashback, tracks from the past and here we are. He is also an orga for Swedish demo party Edison and a total retro nerd.”

Image of station: https://radio.ericade.net/images/ericade-station-art.png

Links

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ericade-radio2998
The music database: https://radio.ericade.net/music/
The artist database: https://radio.ericade.net/loa/
API-endpoint: https://api.ericade.net/
How to use the API: https://api.ericade.net/docs/ericade-api-v2.html
How to use our websockets: https://api.ericade.net/docs/ericade-api-v2-stationdata.html

… And onto the second station.

Best of ericade.radio

Station profile Started: 2021 Style: Amiga MOD, demoscene, chiptune, tracker music, podcast, narration Do you remember the old Amiga and C64-music? You know the chiptune stuff. We sure do. Join us to hear tracked music combined with commentary on the demo scene from the geek-of-all-trades: DJ Daemon. He was once known once a Daemon in the Amigaworld, and brings you stories about Amiga, retrocomputing, C64, demos, the demo scene and all things nerdy in the retro world.

Name: Best of ericade.radio
WWW: https://ericade.radio/best/
Slogan: “Covering the demo scene from a Swedish perspective”
Location: We broadcast from Kungsholmen in central Stockholm in Sweden.
GEO-location: 59.32972418882536, 18.007987391263196.
Standard: Shoutcast DNAS
Encoding: 192 kbps MP3.
Streaming URL: https://radio.ericade.net/sc/stream/2/
Streaming URL (Legacy): http://legacy.ericade.net:8000/stream/2/ (Only use if your player cannot work otherwise)
Shoutcast endpoint for XML/JSON metadata extraction: http://legacy.ericade.net:8000/ (Don’t use https, or HSTS will cause problems for you when trying to downgrade the connection)
Simulated endpoint for IceCast metadata extraction: https://radio.ericade.net/status-json.xsl
Simulated endpoint for AzuraCast metadata extraction: https://radio.ericade.net/api/nowplaying/2
Nowplaying overlay for some services: https://radio.ericade.net/currentsong?stationid=2

Tags: chiptune, retro gaming history, demo scene, tracker music, DJ Daemon, Amiga, C64, Commodore, tracked music

Description

“Do you remember the old Amiga and C64-music? You know the chiptune stuff. We sure do. Join us to hear tracked music combined with commentary on the demo scene from the geek-of-all-trades: DJ Daemon. He was once known once a Daemon in the Amigaworld, and brings you stories about Amiga, retrocomputing, C64, demos, the demo scene and all things nerdy in the retro world.

We play tracker music composed on Protracker, Screamtracker, Fasttracker and Impulsetracker. It’s music composed on Amiga and the retro-PC. Genres such as Chiptune, Synthwave and Retro electro.”

Image of DJ: https://radio.ericade.net/images/erik2.jpg

Description of the DJ

“DJ Daemon
He got his C64 in 1989 and his first Amiga in 1990. A huge fan of tracker music and have had a long standing dream to create a radio show playing that kind of music. In 2020, that dream came true and in december Amiga Flashback started as a podcast. It was later renamed Flashback, tracks from the past and here we are. He is also an orga for Swedish demo party Edison and a total retro nerd.”

Image of station: https://radio.ericade.net/images/best.jpg

Links

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EricadeRadio
Webplayer for the station podcast: https://ericade.radio/iadata/?show=best/
The podcast/music database: https://ericade.radio/music/ (Use “switch station” to access Best of ericade.radio)
API-endpoint: https://api.ericade.net/
How to use the API: https://api.ericade.net/docs/ericade-api-v2.html
How to use our websockets: https://api.ericade.net/docs/ericade-api-v2-stationdata.html

The podcast – Flashback, tracks from the past

Image of podcast: https://radio.ericade.net/images/flashback-show-logo-v4.jpg

We have a podcast that is part of the station effort.

Description

“We have covered the demo scene since 2020, and play all the great chip tune music as well. Join us to hear tracked music combined with commentary from the geek-of-all-trades: DJ Daemon. He was once known once a Daemon in the Amigaworld, and brings you stories about Amiga, retrocomputing, C64, demos, the demo scene and all things nerdy in the retro world.

We play tracker music composed on Protracker, Screamtracker, Fasttracker and Impulsetracker. It’s music composed on Amiga and the retro-PC. Genres such as Chiptune, Synthwave and Retro electro.”

The podcast on Apple’s podcast directory: https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/flashback-tracks-from-the-past-ericade-radio/id1546906975
The podcast on our own directory: https://radio.ericade.net/podcasts
RSS Podcast feed: https://radio.ericade.net/podcast/feed/

This the auto-eq working on a typical Amiga module. The lowest bars are the treble frequencies and the uppermost ones are the bass. Red means reducing and blue means boosting. A typical Amiga-module has very little audio in the higher frequencies due to limitations in the crappy samplers and the recording techniques. Also 8bit samplers are not magic of high-fidelity. So the auto-eq desperately try to crank the high frequencies up. The manual of the software (Thimeo StereoTool) states those bars should get closer to the middle of the scale. This means the compensation will only kick in if the spectrum is uneven. The calculations make sure this will work by working out median of each band. Good luck with that when almost half of the songs are Amiga 8bit 4-track modules and the other are PC 16bit Fasttracker/impulsetracker tunes with superior audio. I love Amiga modules, but not their “audio quality”.

More… This one has the auto-eq going bonkers trying to handle the broad Amiga stereo with the left and right channels living their own life.

00:00 Flashback – tracks from the past – show intro
00:12 DJ Daemon speaks: Shiver me timbers, it’s a new name for the podcast. And today, we talk about pirates! <A pirate I was meant to be> No ships, no cutlass and no beer swilling on the tavern. It’s all about those pesky software pirates and the lamers who loved them…

00:31 BeaT of Osmosys – Celestial Fantasia
06:16 DJ Daemon speaks: So… Why are those that copy commercial software without permission called pirates to begin with? It has nothing to do with crimes on the seven seas. Actually it relates to the “pirate radio stations” of the 50s and 60s. Those stations were often located on ships, broadcasting from international water, where the law of the countries they targetted would not apply. When the kids in the school yards in the 80s started copying diskettes with commercial games, the term was re-used. But a pirate generally does not refer to the end-user, but actually to the crackers and the distributors. Let’s talk more about that after a relaxing tracked tune.

07:16 Xerxes – Marie
11:40 DJ Daemon speaks: Let’s talk piracy in Sweden. I once interviewed Pontus Berg or Bacchus as he’s called in the cracker group Fairlight. He explained that in the first years when Fairlight existed, distribution of commercial software without the copyright owner’s consent was legal. But diskettes with commerical games and applications were protected in order to make copying impossible. Groups such as Fairlight and Triad here i Sweden disabled this protection and also distributed the software. The industry initially begged them to stop, but then it became illegal, the attitude changed pretty quickly….

12:33 Jester of Sanity – Stardust memories
16:23 DJ Daemon speaks: In the early 90s, a lot of us geeks read the Swedish computer magazine “Datormagasin”. Issue number 16 of 1993 spread shock waves through the community, as “Jan Svensson” entered the scene. That was not his name, but he did exist. A pirate-hunter that preyed on those copying disks. There was just a problem: it wasn’t true. The article was kind of open about the true purpose of him, but the picture and the head line made a lot of people believe that he targeted teenagers copying disks with each other. In reality, he actually tried to gather evidence to convict big bulletin board systems selling illegal copies.

17:22 Skaven252 – The Goblin Returns
20:19 DJ Daemon speaks: Jan Svensson was described as a former “big time pirate” turned informer belonging to SIMP, a precursor to the Swedish organization “Anti-piratbyrån”. And in 1993, his work may have helped bringing down a big BBS in the Swedish town of Helsingborg. The sysop for the BBS called “Scandinavia” was convicted and had to pay 8000 Swedish kronas. That’s about $1300 in today’s monetary value. The thing that made them target him was that he charged money yearly for access to the pirate copies on his BBS.

21:17 Ahlin – Ps Deep Fantasy
23:23 DJ Daemon speaks: So why did we copy diskettes? For me and for many in my situation, we could not afford the games as we were teenagers or even kids. But that’s off course not a valid legal reason. So I don’t offer it as an excuse – rather an explanation. When I go my first modem, I actually didn’t pirate much at all and pretty quickly stopped as I didn’t really care about games and saved money to buy software instead. Not so much just an ethical decision but much more that i disliked the warez communities and their high brow cameraderie and self-absorbed attitude towards others. I respect the crackers, though…

24:15 Anvil – Path to Nowhere
28:39 DJ Daemon speaks: The warez-BBSes were the places where you could get the newest “cracks”. That is, the latest games and apps with the copy protection disabled. The word “elite” as often described by the number combination 1337 comes from same the bunch of people that saw themselves as the best of the best. But they were often shunned by many others. The warez BBSes required that you were recommended by others in the warez scene in order to gain access. This protected them from the law (or so they though) and made them feel special.

29:25 Laamaa – No use for a name
31:05 DJ Daemon speaks: No-one has better described the Warez doodz than legendary programmer Eric S. Raymond: “The cracker d00dz have a gift culture which thrives in the same (electronic) media as that of the hackers, but their bahaviour is very different. The group mentality in their culture is much stronger and more exclusive than among hackers. They hoard secrets rather than sharing them; one is much more likely to find cracker groups distributing sourceless executables that crack software than tips that give away how they did it.”.

32:19 Anvil – The Love Trap
36:40 DJ Daemon speaks: The last word on Warez Doodz is from the user Ozone Pilot : [BELONG] is the only word you will need to know. Warez d00dz want to belong. They have been shunned by everyone, and thus turn to cyberspace for acceptance. That is why they always start groups like TGW, FLT, USA and the like. Structure makes them happy. […] Warez d00dz will never have a handle like “Pink Daisy” because warez d00dz are insecure. Only someone who is very secure with a good dose of self-esteem can stand up to the cries of fag and girlie-man. More likely you will find warez d00dz with handles like: Doctor Death, Deranged Lunatic, Hellraiser, Mad Prince, Dreamdevil, The Unknown, Renegade Chemist, Terminator, and Twin Turbo. They like to sound badass when they can hide behind their terminals. More likely, if you were given a sample of 100 people, the person whose handle is Hellraiser is the last person you’d associate with the name.

38:16 Necros – “Ascent of the Cloud Eagle”
43:01 DJ Daemon speaks: Linus Walleij here in Sweden disagrees with mr Raymond. When he wrote his rebuttal, he was part of the cracker group Triad.

43:45 Jeroen Tel – In my Life, my Mind.
48:34 DJ Daemon speaks: I respect the cracker groups, but see the Warez D00d-sysops as way to self-absorbed for their own good.

49:31 Dr. Awesome – Aquarium – 16 bit
54:24 DJ Daemon speaks: Were leaving. Check our YouTube-channel for a discussion about the next song.

55:05 Walkman – Klisje Paa Klisje

Viruses are no fun, but we have had to contend with them since the 70s. The Amiga had its share of them like SCA, Bytebandit, Saddam Hussein, Lamer exterminator and some others. Some just wrote cute messages, whereas others deliberately or by mistake destroyed your data. Let DJ Daemon take you back to the 80s and guide you through the less popular parts of Amiga history.

00:00​ Amiga Flashback – show intro
00:13​ DJ Daemon – introduces the episode
00:35​ Firage – Buns and Guns
02:40​ DJ Daemon – speaks about Amiga computer viruses
03:32​ Radix – * CoLoUrS *
08:45​ DJ Daemon – speaks about the SCA virus
10:06​ Reed Richards – Devoted
14:56​ DJ Daemon – speaks about the ByteBandit virus
15:58​ CRD – Chordian remix
17:51​ DJ Daemon – speaks about the Saddam virus
19:20​ Finwave – Just Do It (F/U)
23:47​ DJ Daemon – concludes by saying it’s not an Amiga-thing
25:10​ FearofDark – SurfingOnASineWave
30:01​ DJ Daemon – discusses viruses destroying hardware
31:42​ Elwood – After Hours
35:07​ DJ Daemon speaks 29s
35:36​ Maikel Yeremy – The Wayfarers Arrive
38:34​ DJ Daemon speaks 34s
39:07​ JaseChong – Kingdom Skies
43:41​ DJ Daemon speaks 37s
44:17​ Maikel Yeremy – Teller 1
46:30​ DJ Daemon speaks 39s
47:09​ Nescio – Dreaming of you
49:36​ DJ Daemon speaks 33s
50:08​ AceMan – Vintage Groove
53:57​ DJ Daemon speaks 28s
54:24​ Velvet of Amb and Tdr – Sternzeit
56:41​ DJ Daemon speaks 11s

Björn speaks with a very British style voice, even though he has a distinct accent.

This is awesome. I’m highly recommending you follow his channel…

A few days ago, an opportunity came my way: an Amiga 3000 appeared on a retrogroup I often read. I just had to have it. A few days later, I boarded a train to a small city in the middle of Sweden.

The journey was uneventful. It was very nice to meet Mats, the seller, who have a big garage as the ultimate man cave filled with pretty much everything Commodore ever created. At he station on the way home, I came across an old engineer and we spent 1 1/2 hour discussing power distribution, gaspower, nuclear dito and memories from Sweden’s past.

When I came home and hooked everything up, I was met by this.

I have never seen something like this before. Clicking on either of the “Floppy” buttons lead to the computer asking for a super kickstart.

–“What, isn’t the regular one, you already have enough?”.

Actually, I already had figured it out. This computer requires a kickstart boot rom on disk. Googling on it, revealed this to be true. The first Amiga 3000 had a hardware kickstart boot rom that was incomplete. It wasn’t the old 1.3 or the new 2.04. Rather it was known as Kickstart 1.4 and that’s what is on the screen. It needs to have a file of either 1.3 or 2.04. The hard drive was dead, so it could not supply one. Hence this screen crying for help.

But where to get a super-kickstart disk? Well, Mats the seller had provided me with a diskette he said could boot the system. It didn’t work. So I decided to put it in my Amiga 500 to see if it was ok.

I might have been the lamer here, but the antivirus saved me. Trying to scan the disk further revealed that the Saddam Hussein-virus was present as well.. Party on, dudes…

Right. This is a bit problematic. The disk was put in a bio hazard cotainer and will be delivered to SIPRI tomorrow..

The retro group on Facebook delivered the solution after I posted a request for one of those pesky “superkickstart”-disks. Turns out Cloanto sells those as file for AmigaForever. Finally a break through.

I generated the 2.04 disk and inserted it into the computer and it promptly started to boot with it. After that I got the nice boot image.

This is where my luck ran out. It just wouldn’t boot. I popped the WB 2.04 disk into the diskdrive. Nothing happened. Giving the keyboard the three finger salute (Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga) did work! Then Workbench started up just fine.

It was pretty soon clear to me what was going on. The diskdrives would happily read any disk that was inserted at the time the computer warm started, but would then never detect when disks were later removed or added.

Googling the problem didn’t help as I came up empty… And that’s where I am right now.

I have not given up, but for now, the work has be postponed, as I have a radio station to setup.

More to come…

The Amiga CD32 was pretty much the last gasp of Commodore before they went out of business. A gaming console that had the potential to turn everything around, but due to a number of mistakes and problems never got the chance.

It was basically a cut down Amiga 1200 with a CD-rom reader. It’s a cool little thing. But after nearly 30 years, the laser reading the CDs was on it’s last legs. So I bough a new laser pickup from Hong Kong and replaced it.

The calibration was tough as the potentiometers did not act like was described in the guide. But I got it to work within specifications through a lot of trial-by-horror.

The situation was shaky until I lubricated the mechanic parts with oil, after which it started working fairly.

Afterwards, the test CD, a jazz collection signed by legendary Swedish radio DJ Leif “Smoke rings” Andersson, loaded right away. It tracked the CD mostly righr, but there are two places where the player gets stuck. And other CDs doesn’t work as well. So it was an improvement, but not as good as I had hoped for.

Probably have to have another go at it later. But for now, it’s a least decent rather than mostly broken…