Hack n' Trade is a demogroup mainly active on C64 and Amiga. They are known for their particular demo style, which is perhaps somewhere inbetween "fake demos" and "fine art".
They established themselves as annoying retro-rascals at local demoparties and in the BBS world. Their first major Amiga demo, Stag - The Next Generation, was disqualified at The Party 1997. They were more successful on the C64-scene, with a string of oldschool and weird megademos. Frantic's Little Computer People parties helped to re-boost the snoozing C64-scene in 1998 and onwards.
HT were active outside of the scene as well. Their website, Planet HT, was launched in 1996 and used crude search engine optimization to lure the public to their site.1 They did graffiti and released and performed music outside of the scene. For example, Goto80 and Niemo had a synth pop band called HT2, and Mathman ran the Bleep Street label.3
Vinzi and Booger were the main demo coders until the mid-2000's, when Mathman and Linde took over. HT's interest in PETSCII graphics started with Goa Brudbilder in 2004 and after AcidT* joined in 2011, HT produced a steady stream of glitchy PETSCII-demos. During this time, AcidT* and Goto80 also did audiovisual PETSCII performances around Europe.
Some of HT's tools have been released to the public. The most well-known ones are LSDj4 and defMON, but there are also visual tools such as PETSCIIBRUSH5 and Movie Noperator.
