Female Computer Entities - a little more

Variat/Negative

This article is a kind of feedback to the article "Female Computer Entities" that was written by Optimus, and published in Hugi#21. I must say that I found this article very interesting, and as I've heard about many more scene girls than those that were listed in that text I decided to write this little article. I hope that some readers (and of course Optimus) will like it.

As I am active on both PC and C64 scenes I know some female sceners there. I am sure that I would find any users/gamers girls if I was looking for them, but I decided to concentrate only on sceners. I am mostly a swapper (and a graphician/cover-artist) so I know mostly swapper-girls, but not only.

I do not want to be boring, so I'll start here. I think that this is logical that I will list only girls that Optimus did not mention.

The PC scene. Here I do not have much to say, but... I can mention here SweetVoice, as the first scener-girl that I ever heard of. I found her great article (about why there are so little girls on the scene) in a legendary Polish diskmag called Bad News#4. She was a swapper, and I am unsure when she was active, but I've heard many people saying that they met her at some copy-parties. Another girl is Snappy Dog (Alicja Zbrog) - a real swapper. She is a swapper from Poland. At this time she is unfortunately inactive, but some years ago she was a contact of mine, and I must say that she was a real good swapper, when the snail-mail was still common on the PC scene. She had about 50-60 contacts, mostly from Poland, and she was writing letters for about 30-40 kb! It was a real pleasure to be in contact with her. She was active some time between 1996 and 1998, maybe a little longer. I had a photo of her, but as my hdd was damaged (on my previous computer) the photo was deleted.

I do not know more than these 2 PC sceners, and now much more on the great 8-bit machine - Commodore 64. Probably many PC sceners think that the c64 scene is already dead, but they are wrong. The Commodore scene isn't that great as it was years ago, but there are still many people active, many old sceners who left the scene years ago are coming back to it nowadays. All those maniacs still make new games, programs, release scene production regularly, and of course swap a lot. And here I will write about all the swapper-girls (and not only) that I ever heard of on Commodore.

In 1991 - the great year for the Commodore scene in my opinion - there were 2 active girl swappers as I believe. They were Andrea/Varsity (AUSTRIA) and Active/??? (SWEDEN). I am unsure how long they were active, but it is sure that they still swapped in 1993, and probably in 1994 or so quitted the scene. Another one is Black Widow/Gothic Designs (her name is Michelle, and she is from AUSTRALIA!), She was also a swapper, but not only, she was also the organizer of her group (Gothic Designs). She was swapping quite a lot in 1993, and 1994. In 1994 we can also find in some c64 diskmags an address of another swapper-girl The Mistress/Entropy (Elvira Van Dam from NETHERLANDS), and Andromeda/Conquistadores (Grazyna Walczak from POLAND). I do not know how long they swapped. The scene was getting smaller, but in 1996 there started to be more active countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia. I do know only girls from Poland, The girls that were swapping between 1996-1998 (some of them a little shorter, and some a little longer). Here they go: Cobra/Fraction (Katarzyna Dabrowska), Simone/Shelters (Anna Zazula), Dool/ind. (Anna Marchwiak), Nicole/Attic (Agnieszka Budzicka), Lady Di/??? (Agnieszka Pietryga). In the 1996 also started to be active Starlight/Arise (Ann Kristion Nordaas from NORWAY). Optimus mentioned Starlight/Extacy in his list of "female computer entities", but I am not sure if this is the same Starlight (I think not). She was like all the previous ones a swapper, and she is also inactive.

Then 1999. Punica/P.o.L./Sanity (Monika Neubauer from GERMANY). She was a swapper girl. We are both in the same group (P.o.L. - People of Liberty). She stopped swapping in the year 2000. Then there is Silver Star/Anubis (Mariska Voskuil from NETHERLANDS). She stopped swapping in February 2001. Wednesday/Banshee (Alexandra Beusching form GERMANY). Both of them - Silver Start and Wednesday also paint covers, so they can also be called cover-designers (or paper-artists). We also have Ernie/Anubis/P.o.L. (Denise Hurley from GREAT BRITAIN), and she is the only active swapper-girl on the Commodore scene nowadays. I am in contact with her, and she writes nice notes, she has about 20 contacts, and it is a real pleasure to know a computer-girl like her! There is one more active girl on the Commodore scene, but she is not a swapper. She is Icegirl/Role (from BELGIUM). She is the wife (as I've heard of from many sceners) of Commander/ROLE. They both take care about their group (Raiders of the Lost Empire), and their magazine Arachnophobia. Only 2 more girls left to mention about - Mercy/Triad, and Xerr/Triad. I do not know anything about them, but it is sure that they were the members of Triad - a really good, legendary group on Commodore. I do not know what were their scene-professions.

As you can see I wrote about 20 scene-girls, but mostly they are inactive. I listed here all the girls on the c64 scene that I've heard of. there is only one more - it is Mermaid/CREST, but as Optimus wrote about this great girl, I won't do it, because there is not sense in it. All I must say that Mermaid is one of those persons that have a great talent, and I'd like to see more sceners like her!

I am sure that there were much more scene girls on Commodore, but I did not hear of them (or I do not remember - while writing this article it is about 2.30 in the middle of the night) - sorry to all of you!

And this is the end. Hope you enjoyed it, as it took some work to collect all this information...

Variat/Negative(PC)/Lasser(C64)/PoL(C64)