Gallery

Imagery from the Cracktro Scene

Hardware documentation, chip photography, and scene imagery. Actual cracktro screenshots are held in private CSDb archives; the images here document the machines and components behind them. Use the filters below to browse by era and group.

Commodore 64 computer front-left view - the machine on which all C64 cracktros ran
Commodore 64 computer. Every cracktro in this archive ran on this machine or an identical one. Native resolution: 320x200 pixels.
MOS 6581 SID chip close-up photograph showing the integrated circuit
MOS 6581 SID chip. Three voices, four waveforms, one filter. The cracktro composers of 1984-1990 knew every register.
Commodore 64 in use during demoscene activity
C64 hardware in active use. The demoscene tradition grew directly from the cracktro scene of 1982-1988.
1001 CREW
INTRO SCREEN
1983
CSDb screenshot
pending collection
1001 Crew cracktro scroller, circa 1983. One of the earliest examples of the scrolling text that defined the form.
FAIRLIGHT
RASTER INTRO
1987
CSDb screenshot
pending collection
Fairlight group cracktro showing the multi-coloured raster bar effect that characterised their late 1980s productions.
TRIAD
PETSCII LOGO SCREEN
1987-1989
CSDb screenshot
pending collection
Triad cracktro showing their characteristic PETSCII logo screen with hardware smooth-scrolling text below.
FAIRLIGHT
LEADER BOARD INTRO
1987
CSDb screenshot
pending collection
Fairlight's cracktro for Leader Board (1987). Multi-part credits sequence with original SID music - representative of the peak period style.
VICE EMULATOR
C64 CRACKTRO
MODERN PLAYBACK
Emulation screenshot
pending collection
VICE emulator running a C64 cracktro. Cycle-exact emulation means the raster timing effects appear identically to the original hardware.
RASTER BARS
TECHNICAL DEMO
C64 VIC-II
Screenshot
pending collection
Raster bar effect demonstration. Horizontal colour bands are achieved by changing the VIC-II background register once per scanline during raster interrupts.