Amiga
The machine that started it all — and still holds a special place.
The Amiga is where my journey into computing began. Long before I was thinking about vulnerability assessments or writing Kotlin services, I was sitting in front of a Workbench screen, learning that computers could be creative, powerful, and fun — all at once.
Why the Amiga Mattered
In an era when PCs were beige boxes running DOS and Macs were expensive luxuries, the Amiga was doing preemptive multitasking, hardware-accelerated graphics, and four-channel stereo sound. It was the machine that didn't fit the mold — and that's exactly what made it special.
The Amiga taught a generation of programmers to think differently about hardware and software. When you only had 512KB of chip RAM, you learned to be creative. When the custom chipset gave you copper lists and blitter operations, you learned that hardware and software weren't separate disciplines — they were a conversation.
Scene Profile — Flake
Under the handle Flake, I was active in the Amiga demoscene from 1990 to 1998, coding tools, cracktros, and demos across five groups: Time of Perfects, The Special Brothers, D-Tect, Mystic, and Tristar & Red Sector Inc. (TRSi). I also served as Co-Sysop of the BBS Nuclear Destroyer. In total, 31 productions are archived on Demozoo.
VirusWorkShop
The flagship project. VirusWorkShop evolved across multiple scene groups over seven years, from v1.0 (1991, The Special Brothers) through v2.4 (1993, Mystic) to the final v6.9 (March 1998, TRSi). It became one of the most comprehensive antivirus tools on the classic Amiga — detecting over 310 bootblock viruses and file viruses with heuristic scanning, sector and file checking, link and trojan detection, memory examination, bootblock analysis, and archive scanning. Required AmigaOS 2.04+ with Adtools, FileID, Reqtools, and Xfdmaster libraries. Still recommended by the Amiga community for classic systems.
Viruskiller
Earlier standalone virus killer, released in versions v1.50 and v2.01. A precursor to the more comprehensive VirusWorkShop.
Saddam Viruskiller v1.09
Antivirus tool with code by Flake and graphics by Ivan. Appeared in demo compilations by Alpha Flight, Stardust, Hypnotic, and Coma.
VectorChecker v4.01
System vector checking utility — monitors critical Amiga system vectors for signs of virus activity or unauthorized modification.
Pointerclearer
Mouse pointer management utility, released in multiple versions: v2.00 (Feb 1991), Deluxe v1.11 (1991), and v2.5 (1991). A focused, single-purpose tool typical of the Amiga software ecosystem — clean, minimal, doing one thing well.
Bootutilitie v1.0
Boot sector utility for Amiga floppy disk management.
Get New! v1.00a
File management utility.
PCL Deluxe v1.10
Utility tool for the Amiga platform.
Maximum Overdrive
Demo with loader code by Flake.
ROM 2
Text contribution to the Essence diskmag.
Hack-Mag #6
Text contribution to the D-Tect hacking diskmag.
CeBIT 90 Productions
A set of three releases from the CeBIT 1990 computer fair: Party Slideshow, Pack, and Pack 2. Code, text, and editing by Flake. Also includes the Muzak Collection musicdisk (graphics and text).
Doctoral Dissertation — University of Hamburg
The heuristic scanning techniques developed for VirusWorkShop led directly into academic research. At the Virus Test Center of the University of Hamburg, under Prof. Dr. Klaus Brunnstein, I completed my doctoral dissertation: "Classification and identification of malicious code based on heuristic techniques utilizing Meta languages." The thesis introduced MetaMS — a Meta language based on the XML standard for describing malicious functionality within programs, independent of any specific programming language. It covered the evolution from traditional checksum routines and scan-string approaches to heuristic detection, as well as anti-heuristic techniques used by malware authors to evade weight-based and rule-based detection systems.