Crack intro: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:43, 14 January 2025

Latest revision as of 04:57, 10 July 2025

(3 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown)

Line 2:

{{Use British English|date=December 2024}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}

__NOTOC__

[[File:Quartex.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Cracktro for the cracking group Quartex on [[Amiga]]. A typical crack intro has a scrolling text marquee at the bottom of the screen.]]

A '''crack intro''', alsocommonly knownabbreviated as a '''cracktro''', '''loader''', or just '''intro''', is a small introduction sequence added to [[keygen]]s and [[Software cracking|cracked software]]. It aimsaimed to inform the user which cracking crew or individual cracker removed the software's [[copy protection]] and distributed the crack or keygen.<ref name="EuroGamer" /><ref name="wired"/><ref name="0dayartTheVerge"/>

==History==

Line 17 ⟶ 16:

Crack-intro programming eventually became an art form in its own right, and people started coding intros without attaching them to a crack just to show off how well they could program. This practice evolved into the [[demoscene]].<ref name="EuroGamer"/>

Crack intros and other small software created by [[Software cracker|software crackers]] such as [[Keygen|keygens]] and [[Patch (computing)|patches]] that remove protection from commercial applications often use [[chiptune]]s made in the[[music formtracker]]s offor background music. These chiptunes are now still accessible as downloadable ''[[Module file#Music disk|musicdisks]]'' or ''musicpacks''.<ref name="chiptunes2009"/>

==See also==

Line 38 ⟶ 37:

<!-- not currently used as a citation

<ref name="donovan2010">{{cite book|author=Tristan Donovan|title=Replay: The History of Video Games|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_lrSSAAACAAJ|year=2010|publisher=Yellow Ant|isbn=978-0-9565072-0-4}}<!--http://pastebin.com/pnQcM3tE--></ref> -->

<!-- News, magazine -->