This is the history of Science451 as I remember it, and according to the papers I still could find.
- Disclaimer: Anything here reflects my own POV on anything regarding S451, and might due to lack of remaining papers be slightly incorrect, especially regarding dates.
87 - The Birth
Science 451 was founded in late 87, starting as a break within the group Vortex 42, and ending with members from 3 groups going together forming Science451. The original - first official - lineup, sorted after previous group was this:
Vortex 42: Rygar, Bilbo, Blade (changed name to Hightech a little later), Judge, Radius.
The Warlocks: H.O & Glerc
Alpha Range 89: Karl XII, The Leader & Iron.
At the Triad party later that year, S451 made its first appearance, releasing our first real demo. At that party, since nearly all members was there, it was also decided to kick Radius & Iron, and Galleon (ex The Warlocks) became a new member.
88 - The rise, the split, the return
During 88 the group worked hard to increase our reputation, and several demos where released. Some of them where state-of-the-art at the time, some wheren't. All this work showed results, making S451 climb the charts.
During these months, S451 also got some new members, namely Gaunt & Syncro (two talented Swedes, who came from Shadi studios), The Bright Lion (Norwegian coder, who released some cool S451-stuff) & Captain Rock (Dutch coder, came from the group BeatLess).
At the Agile party in May 88, S451 made its last appearance before splitting, with the following line-up: Rygar, Bilbo, Hightech, Judge, Karl XII, The leader, H.O, Glerc, Galleon, Gaunt, Syncro, The Bright Lion & Captain Rock.
The demo released at the party announced the split, which was caused by most members of S451 leaving to form the group Sphinx.
The members who did stay where: Rygar, Bilbo, H.O & Glerc.
(Two side-notes: Glerc & I had known each other for years, and Rygar & Bilbo had known each other for years, and we all lived fairly close to each other, which made it natural that we stayed.
Neither I or Glerc wanted to join an international group, we had had some bad experiences with that before, and weren't we right? Sphinx soon fell into pieces, and they never passed S451 in any charts...)
After this split, there was some hectic work trying to keep S451 as a force to be countered with. The remaining of us increased out efforts, working even harder, mainly by increasing our trading. (Well, lets face it: If you weren't in any greetinglists, you weren't anybody at that time).
At the Ikari/Dominators/Danish Gold/Upfront party in July that year, the reformed S451 released one of our cooler (IMHO) ever, coded by Glerc. (Well, now I can admit he was a better coder then me, I never could then.)
We also had a new german member, Fancy, making the Science 451 memberlist this: Rygar, Bilbo, H.O, Glerc & Fancy.
Fancy a little later brought a friend named Moskwa Tv, who was member for a short while. Having heard one too many person claiming Moskwa TV was recracking, he was kicked out after only a few weeks.(There is also supposed to have been a mamber named Gator, which I can find no info on, and noone from that time remembers him)
A little later this year (September 88), we recruited some new talented guys, namely Spirit & Odin. (Two swedish coders. Spirit was also one hell of a logo-drawer). We also made a short appearance as members of Jewels (in may 88). (This only lasted for a couple of weeks though, since Jewels split up when some of them joined Ikari.)
A little later, Injun made a short stop in S451 (umm, something like 10 hours, see his interview in "in media res" for details.
Fancy was kicked for inactiveness.
89 : The work continues
During 89 we recruited 4 new members, namely CDC, MasterJam, LLoyd & Syncro, making the memberlist at the time look like this: Rygar, Bilbo, H.O, Glerc, Spirit, Odin, CDC, MasterJam, LLoyd & Syncro.
Master Jam & Lloyd joined in the autumn 89. Syncro rejoined on Amiga, made some cool Amiga demos, and then joined Phenomena). CDC later left for professional artisting with groovy bits.
During this period S451 got a reliable source of originals, making S451 create a lot more cracks then before.
Except for this change towards cracking, nothing much really happened. The work continued, we stayed firmly at the position we where, but you could feel a bit of fatigue.
The 90:s - the fading & the death
During the 90:s my records are very vague, mainly because I left the 64-scene in the beginning/middle of 90. Having my 64 at my parents place didnt help my trading, and I spent most of my time trying to study at the University & learning my PC (and trying to form a PC section of S451, which was no fun at all since there was hardly any PC scene back then).
90 Bilbo was kicked for unactiveness. Glerc, Odin & Rygar made some attempts to make the group live on, basically by trying to recruit new members. As a result of this, Nova Joined for a short while, then went back to Flash Inc. The gnome joined as a cracker. In march 90 Polonus (from Poland) joined.
During the second half of 90 Rygar got fed up with the c64 and concentrated on Amiga & VHS.
In April 90 TDJ (from Holland) were at a copyparty in Stockholm where he met some s451-guys. He joined, and then we didnt hear from him in a month. When we did, he had build a dutch section of S451, named Focus, without telling us. They later left (again without telling us). (Please note: This only reflects one POV on this. Another POV is that there was an agreement to recruit more dutch members into S451. I guess this all can be blamed on communications not being that great pre-internet.)
Summer 90: The brilliant Graphician Visual joined.
November 90: A musician named Tracker (who was a friend of Polonus) joined.
Early 91/middle of 91: Glerc quit, and so did Odin. Odin recruited Metal Maniac, to keep S451 alive, but he left shortly after this.
According to a scroll text (cant remember which S451-demo right now, sorry) Euzkera was a member for a while, and there is also said to have been another member named Dirty C, which I cant confirm (or disconfirm) in any way. Needless to say, the group was more or less falling to pieces with all the old members gone or leaving.
I did a brief attempt starting a PC section of S451 in the beginning of 90, but at that time the PC scene was totally dead.
The official death is most likely to be dated at the Horizon party in Huddinge 91, where the last official (to my records) S451 demo ('El escaparate') was released.
Since my records from the 90:s are a bit lacking, there might be some smaller errors in this part. I have added the information I got from Odin & Glerc (and from Glercs farewell demo) to make this part a bit more complete.
1996/1997 - a slight (retro) revival
In the end of 1996 there was a slight revival, in a nostalgic/retro way. H.O decided to put up a webpage for Science451. The webpage lived on for while, with several updates but during the second half of 97 H.O left the university (for a full time job as software developer in the Telecommunications field) and thus lost access to the account where the webpage was stored.
2004 - another (retro) revival
In the end of 2004, H.O was cruising some c64-dedicated sites, such as Lemon64, and got in touch with Morpheus/Flash Inc. After agreeing to make an interview for C64hq, H.O decided to revive the webpage. The site was moved to a new domain (science451.org) and updated quite a bit.
2005 - hardly alive
More work was put into the webpage. H.O transferred all his disks to d64-images, and started sorting through them, making sure to put as many productions as possible on this page. More work was done on updating the page, getting in touch with old members of S451 and generally just making sure that this web page had as much info as possible.
A lot of work was also put into updating the S451-entries on CSDb, making sure this webpage and CSDb mirrored their information as much as possible.
And that is the current status of S451. Whether anything else will happen, that is for the future to say. If time permits, it would be fun to release another demo 1st of November 2007, to celebrate S451's 20th birthday but that all depends if someone has the time (and energy) to do something when we get closer to that date.
Written down as remembered by H.O
- Memories never die -