Rest in peace, Stingray!

I first saw Reinhold, also known as Stingray, around 30 years ago at the Mekka & Symposium Party in northern Germany. I got to know him through the organiser of Secretly!, who told me that they often argued and that he was quite difficult. I thought to myself that that couldn’t happen to me, as Mr. Vain was also very sensitive. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Many years later, I found myself fighting tooth and nail with Stingray, which I deeply regret now.

If I remember correctly, Stingray was responsible for my becoming a member of Group Scarab around 25 years ago. I hardly knew the other members; some of them had also been active in the Amiga group Secretly! before.

The Scicco Effect

The coder Scicco also lived in Berlin, as did numerous other Scarab members. He always managed to motivate the other group members. At one point he said, “Okay, I have a great idea, who’s in?” The programmers Ray, Sniper and Stingray were quick to join him. He also had a knack for dealing with Stingray. The two respected each other as programmers, exchanged coding skills and maintained a friendship of sorts for some years.

My position was different; I have never been a coder, but light years away from it. At some point, I unwittingly became something of a guilty conscience. I reminded Reinhold to fulfil his promises. Of course, that annoyed him. However, thanks to the improvements he had made to the Jurassic Pack source code, I could do whatever I wanted with the diskmag. Mr. Tickle had previously set it up for Devotion, so even people who didn’t know anything about the Amiga’s inner workings could use it. There was also a short manual for everything, such as how to integrate clip arts and full screen images for the start and end.

I really like to remember the time we spent together in Scarab. It wasn’t because every production was technically perfect or innovative, but because Scicco always managed to bring us all together despite our differences. We worked amicably together to implement our plans. Everyone was welcome. This included Ghandy, who couldn’t contribute anything to a demo. Or Ramses, who was just a sysop for a long time, and who is also one of the best-known figures in the Berlin scene. A good main organiser is truly irreplaceable, and Scicco was perfect at moving the group forward. We all enjoyed being part of it. It is no surprise, then, that as many members as possible took part when they were working on a new demo.

And then there were three – a meeting in Aachen.

I like to remember the meeting in Aachen that Erik (Browallia) invited us to, a few years after Scarab had stopped being active. We wanted to go to a small nightclub in the evening, but I wouldn’t have been allowed in because of my shoes. Although they were black, as required, the guard at the door wouldn’t let me in with my open sandals. Erik lent me a pair of his black leather shoes, which were extremely heavy. The manufacturer had put nails in the soles of the shoes, which is what made them so heavy. They were new, so I ended up tearing the backs of my heels while dancing. On the way back from the disco, a moment arrived that none of us will ever forget. I suddenly took off my shoes and walked barefoot through Aachen. That wasn’t a problem as it was summer, but some passers-by still gave me dirty looks, much to the amusement of my two companions.

Incidentally, that day we took part in competitions and drew biting snakes, cows and dinosaurs. Our cows, snake fights and Jurassic dinosaurs all acted differently. Or at least we tried to paint, because, unlike Erik, Stingray and I are no graphic artists. But maybe that’s what made it so appealing — Stingray and I had to explain in detail what we had drawn! 😉 Anyway, the meeting was really entertaining. We’ll for sure never forget it!

A dispute that left deep scars.

Years later, things stupidly came to a head. I finally lost patience with Stingray’s empty promises. I didn’t need anything new, but he had been promising me new code for Jurassic Pack for years. It was supposedly finished ages ago. I never received anything. Then I got in touch because a module by Curt Cool in Pretracker format crashed JP immediately every time it was played. I didn’t receive a reply to my request to Reinhold. I then asked Selectanovel and Curt Cool himself to write to Reinhold about it, but it was already too late. None of us received a helpful response. At one point, I lost my temper and sent him an unnecessary and nasty voice message, which I deeply regret now.

When I was at the Revision party last year, I didn’t see him. Years before that, I didn’t dare, and now I’m annoyed with myself for never taking the opportunity to talk to him in person. I would have liked to invite him for a beer and tell him that the scene isn’t important to me anymore. Nevertheless, I still wanted to wish him all the best face to face. Unfortunately, this conversation never took place. He wasn’t in Saarbrücken this year I heard. He couldn’t make it, which none of us knew. Many months later, we learned that he had passed away in November 2024, several months before Revision 2025 took place.

All the best for you, Stingray!

Live in peace on your white and red Amiga-coloured balloon. And please, don’t let anything bother you anymore. Not even me. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that we shouldn’t take everything so seriously. But, okay, not everyone has the ability to take things lightly. Stingray was happy when he could help others. That’s why he will be fondly remembered by many people, both inside and outside the Amiga scene.

He will also be remembered for cracking many Amiga games that no one else had managed to release before. Not only for Lightforce, but for Scoopex too. Wrath of the Demon, released in 1991 on four floppy disks, is just one example of many.

Of course I’ll never forget a joke from my former cracking group, Faith. They released only the first disk of a new game because the cracker mentioned the copy protection on the other disks, but he was no longer motivated to remove it. So, just to be quicker than anyone else, Faith released the first disk and nothing else. Trust me, Stingray went berserk! If Exon from Faith would have shown up at a computer party afterwards, you can be sure he would have had to listen to an endless shitstorm — or worse. But, as I said, we should take it all so damn seriously. Otherwise, that makes you getting sick sooner or later.

But that was not everything that I should mention. Stingray also made the impossible possible. Just think of the game Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge. He managed to fit the whole first level into just 96 kilobytes! That was pure madness! He deservedly won the game competition with that contribution while Breakpoint 2005 took place.

I would also like to mention the many WHDLoad fixes he released for the Amiga community over the years. And not to forget, he also helped anyone who got stuck while coding.

Rest in peace, we miss you already!!!

more to read:

GitHub repos from Stingray
amiga-news reporting about his death
memorial thread on Pouet
thread at reddit
thread at Amiga Impact