While the IBM PC computer system was released during the middle of 1981, it would be the Commodore and Apple pirate scenes which would introduce many of the standards that today we take as granted. During these times the PC scene was small and fragmented. There were the occasional small groups and often not individuals releasing and cracking. But these cracked programs usually only ever remained in the community local to person cracking them.

The national and then eventually international PC scene did not take off until 1987. This was when people started to trade software with cracks over longer distances, and overseas. This act eventually lead to the formation of the now old school PC Bulletin Board System scene.

Quoted from the article 'Online Software Piracy of the Last Millennium'