Karl, known to the C64 scene as JFK, was a Norwegian scener who spent over three decades as a loyal member of Triad. He joined the Swedish crew in March 1992 and became an important part of its Norwegian section. His friends in the group never really let him go, and he never really left. His time in the scene spanned the classic golden era of C64 demos all the way through to a comeback in 2020, a run that few can match.

He showed up first with a burst of activity in 1992, contributing code, graphics, and linking work to a string of Triad releases in quick succession. Chi-Taowon, Jordgubbar, Technotica, and 3rd Stone from the Sun all came out that year, with JFK handling code and graphics across the board. He also coded and composed music for Klipp Barten av Hallvard Flatland, a full C64 game released by Triad that same year. It was a lot to put out in a short window, and it showed someone who had hit the ground running.

Through 1993 he kept up the pace. The Gamers Guide diskmag series, issues 15.5 through 19, all carry his name in the code and graphics credits. He also co-created Mind Control, a full Triad demo, and built Trimatic v1.1, a utility tool. His handle came with a built-in joke about one sunny day in Dallas, as the CSDb trivia notes, and he used alternative spellings like JeiEffKei along the way. He also went by Kim-Hai Sato, K-Won, and Burning W Bush at various points, handles that suggest someone with a sense of humour about himself.

Then came the Tribute party in Gothenburg in late 1994, where No Control ran in the demo competition and finished sixth. That party is also where Taper, not yet a Triad member but getting closer to the group, met JFK in person for the first time and found him to be a really nice guy. After Tribute his activity wound down. JFK was on his way out of the scene just as Taper was on his way in, but the two kept talking on IRC, and JFK always wanted to know how things were going in the group. In many ways he was still a member, just in more of an advisory role. He would vanish for long stretches, and sooner or later he would always surface again, sometimes hinting at a comeback.

In 2007 he was at S:T Lars Meeting III when Triad released Too Little Too Late, a demo built from source code Killsquad had written at least ten years earlier. JFK and iopop had dug the code out and brought it back to life, and the demo took second place in the compo. Killsquad put it best in the release notes: “Big thanks to iopop and JFK for digging through my old terribly messy source code, this would have gone to the grave with me without them.”

He also supplied originals for Remember cracker releases, including Black Lamp +5H and Sub Hunt 64 +3D, and turned up at Solskogen 2004, LCP 2009, and X’2010. In 2020 he made his brief comeback. Together with Twoflower he updated Justice, his iconic demo, and once again used it to speak out against racism and inequality. The gap between 1992 and 2020 is nearly thirty years of scene membership. That kind of commitment, quiet and consistent, is rarer than any trophy.

Triad first announced his passing with a short note on CSDb: “JFK is sadly no longer with us. Everyone in TRIAD pay our respect to our long standing member and friend, and remember him fondly. Thanks for everything, Karl!” The exact year of his birth is not recorded publicly. What is clear is that his crew knew him well and valued him deeply, and that this time, as Taper puts it, he won’t surface again.