The PTL Club was an old style PC cracking group from the early years of the scene. In those days groups often didn't have dedicated suppliers; rather people would just upload copy protected games that they had purchased to an affiliated board. The group would download, crack and redistribute the hacked game while sharing the credit.

PTL Club seems to have been the major player in the United States North-East scene during the late 1980's. For a short time they teamed up with the Toronto based group Canadian Pirates Inc to co-release titles. But this alliance abruptly stopped after an internal falling out within Canadian Pirates Inc where a few members splintered off to form KGB. For brief time the co-release cooperation between KGB and PTL Club continued before KGB vanished.

The end of PTL Club came about in November of 1989 after the group formed Triad in the drive for expansion. In this new group they teamed up with a number of small independent regional groups and freelance crackers who were located in the same geographical localities.

The group's title is a parody of the US religious TV show 'Praise The Lord Club'. It is not an acronym for 'Pirates That Lived Club' that some publications of the era had insisted.

Many people have been asking me what PTL really stands for and about the history of PTL... PTL has no special meaning whatsoever, since it is not an acronym. It is a parody off of the REAL PTL Club... PTL started out with 5 members.. The members were: Me, Bad Brains, Death Star, The Hermit, and Rambo. The Hermit and Rambo dropped out when PTL first started getting going. Mr. Transistor joined us and his first crack was Marble Madness which many people seemed to think was almost impossible to crack at the time. Death Star seemed to fade away after my last major board crash before summer or during summer. I'm not really sure exactly when since my 286 is a piece of shit and is always having Hard Drive crashes or system problems... Oh yes I almost forgot.. Somewhere along the lines, we merged with CPI [Canadian Pirates Inc.] I believe was their acronym at first.. And then they changed to KGB.. KGB released a few cracks under PTL but seemed to fade away... They cracked that I can think of [BoulderDash Construction Kit, Ultima I, and Might & Magic]. There are more I am sure but I cannot think of them right now. Sometime after Death Star was lost, Specular Vision joined PTL.. He has cracked a couple things that I can think of [BattleHawks 1942, The Train, and Space Station Oblivion].. He has probably done more but I do not have the titles handy. Now, last but not least... We have just gotten Jenetic Bytemare who's cracks that I know of are listed at the beginning of this file......

I still get a lot of questions asking me about Mr. Transistor, and I thought I had cleared them up BUT I guess not. He did not die in a plane crash, he just retired from modeming.. The Grand Elusion and Mr. T are NOT the same person in anyway, shape, or form. But Mr. T did not truly die, and is glad to see that PTL is keeping up the tradition that we had when he was around. The Spiker from the Church Chat #4.

Significant Events

• 1987 . PTL Club founded
• 1988 . PTL Club and Canadian Pirates Inc co-release titles
• 1988 . KGB splinters away from CPI and co-releases with PTL Club instead
• 1989 . $print, PTL Club and Underground Council merge together to form Triad