@Fyyre ... you know stuff
Still today reading all the stuff released by z0mbie would be sooo useful for many people,
Vecna also produced very good code, but Z0mbie used to released weird and interesting stuff (as the zip cryptor he used in his
releases), imho.
With these people you learn to think as a reverser, yes you do specific things, but you learnt how these guys solved complex problems in optimum ways, many time hackish, but sooo much fun, and also usable in modern times in many different problems.
The HPVA scene was a incredible learning resource for many people, I specially remember many Virii zines as A29, 40hex or Vlad magazines. I recommed you guys download some online collection or repo of virii zines ,still many things online, get it before is impossible to get. Btw, I maintain a huge DOS virii collection, also a DOS CRACKMEs collection, all those are extensively search online and scrapped and collected for any site I've could found (if you have stuff to add, make me happy and send me links
)
My favourite stuff to research were mutation engines, cryptors, tracers, etc
Maybe many of you remember coming to this same page to get last versions of Unp unpacker, or the many packers released by ROSE, Stone, etc It was a very prolific time, maybe people coded packers and protectors, other people created specific deprotectors or even better, generic unpackers, using VMs a a lot of advanced stuff.
It were good times, I think I keep collecting DOS stuff for my collection because I learned all through these things (and not coding stupid crud Clipper vertical programs
)