Jamaica 11 ch07 Interview
From C64 Diskmag Wiki
interview bungalow
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boozoo freaks! here i am, back with
another interview for your enterainment!
this time we're going to talk to a
member of one of sweden's most famous
groups ever!
? bungalow
! badger
? first, please tell us a little about
yourself!
! name: daniel stenberg
age: 24 in november
shoe size: 43 (swedish measure)
length: 190 cm
job: c/unix/x11 programmer at
frontec railway systems ab
lives: in a two-room apartment with my
girlfriend anja in solna, a bit
north from stockholm
hobbies: programming, indoor bandy,
canoe polo
handle: badger/horizon
email: daniel.stenberg*sth.frontec.se
(where * is the usual alpha-sign!)
irc: i'm often the #amiga and #frexxed
channels using the nick badger!
? when did you get your first computer
and who were your first friends in the
computer business?
! i bought my c64 together with my
younger brother (known as zagor) in
the year of 1985. kjer was already
then a friend of mine, and we started
coding basic stuff together pretty
right away.
? how did you get your handle?
! i used to call myself D$85 for a few
years, but when horizon was formed, i
changed my handle to BADGER. actually,
when i was about to select a new
handle i scanned a dictionary and
found the word "badger" in it. later,
i decided to use that as handle, but i
misspelt it... and i thougt "nah, this
is even better!".
! tell us about your computer career in
brief.
? i, kjer and zagor started our first
group during the autumn 1987 and
called ourselves confusing solution,
shortened CONSOL. we released our
first demo in august and we joined the
triad/fairlight parrt around x-mas
1987. at the party we met some strange
who called themselves thundercats, and
we became really great friends with
those swell guys! later in '88
thundercats invited us to their
"mini-party" in uppsala. we went there
and met the people in SSS (super swap
sweden) who, after watching our demos
released so far, asked us to join
their group. we joined them immediat-
ely.
later that year, by the summertime,
thundercats and sss merged into one
single group: HORIZON.
horizon has existed since then. we
shrank a lot the first year, since
there were a lot of inactive people
and some people simply quit the
computer-scene.
? could you tell us some more about sss?
! super swap sweden was founded by natas
and they were swapping a lot and did a
few cracks (the alchemist did) before
they met us. we did the first demos
for sss and the main reason we joined
them was because they were nice people
and sss was known and had a huge
number of contacts; our demos got
spread much better!
? what have been the most fun and most
exciting things during your career
on the c64?
! it's really a tricky question and it
has no simple answer. i was involved
so many years, i met so many people
and got so many experiences that
naming one or even a few is very hard.
of course, among the best moments were
those times when we got confirmations
from the scene that they liked our
stuff, that people actually enjoyed
watching the demos we spent a lot of
hours each day to create. like when we
won demo competitions, were number one
in the charts for months and when
people wrote me and told me how much
they liked our stuff!
? can you give us the member-status and
tell us about former members?
! you mean "current" status? horizon
isn't exactly alive and kicking. we
haven't done anything prouductive
released under our label for about two
years ("the last traktor iii" is our
latest/last demo), but we have never
officially quit and i think that we
will never do that either. members of
horizon that were with us to the end
and most of the time are :
badger (me), zagor, kjer, mastermind,
boogaloo, exilon, judge and pernod.
when horizon was formed, two large
groups were merged into one. for a
while we had a huge number of members,
but not too long afterwards we were a
smaller bunch from which gaston and
sir gawain left when slowly quitting
the scene.
? what do you think made horizon so
successful on the c64?
! lots of advanced coding. i think that
is the main reason. doing stuff that
no one had ever done before was and is
still a good way to make people open
their eyes for your stuff. we were
always a bunch of cheerful and very
skilled programmers (as an example, we
were seven coders capable of coding a
true d.y.s.p.) who never put much
efforts in the graphical details of
the demos, and who always had a good
time when getting together and coding.
? can you give us a list of all
horizon's demos?
! i think so. i discussed this matter
with kjer, and we think this is the
incomplete list in a random order of
all horizon's demos coded on the c64
(we've only made one single demo on
the amiga):
let's disco
looking good
dolly party
snake or die
love this now
bounty hunter
coding is an art
a lot of old shit
expertelligence
beatable
biltandborste
the last traktor iii
? gosh, that's a huge list!
? what made you leave the c64 and go
amiga?
! i can't really speak for anyone else
but myself, but i wanted new limits,
new challenges. i wanted to get away
from the world of unlooped code, 64k
memory, assembler coding and the demo
thinking of the c64. coding demos for
a lot of years finally make you feel
bored from it.
? what are the differences between the
c64 and the amiga scene?
! i can't really say that i ever was
into the amiga scene. the first
feeling i experienced when trying to
code demos on amiga was that the
machine gave you no real limits to try
to break as the c64 had done, and that
i was light years after the very best
also the amiga demos were FAR too much
graphics and MUCH too less advanced
programming. then there were those
other guys who also called themselves
horizon and had done so for quite a
while (since they actually were a part
of us once upon a time before we
explained that they were unwanted).
their arguments with us really gave us
a very bad taste of the amiga scene.
? will we ever see any more c64 products
from you?
! you never know! boogaloo and exilon
still work on some c64 projects from
time to time...
? are you surprised that the c64 scene
is still alive?
! not really. i met some really die-hard
users when using the c64, and even
when i was still active on the c64
people were talking about a dead
machine. the scene won't die until
there is hardly anyone left that
enjoys coding and playing with the
box!
? what do you think about the great
development of the c64?
! i can't really tell anything that has
happened on the c64 the last two years
as i haven't been following it that
close. a part of my heart will always
remain with those who learn and enjoy
the inner secrets of the world's most
fun computer...
? now to another subject...
as everybody know, horizon has held
many parties during the years.
what were the differences between your
parties and other parties and what do
you think made them so successful?
! i think we were among the first
parties that started to spread the
word a long time before the event. we
spread invitations to a lot of people.
we were a quite well-known group and
that attract visitors. i also hope
that the fact that we were always
having fun and that we had a lot of
good friends contributing to the
successful parties.
? which of your parties are you most
satisfied with?
! i don't know. they were all too
different in many ways. i guess the
parties that made us feel best after-
wards were the parties which had the
least damage and those where we didn't
have to go around cleaning for 12
hours afterwards. we enjoyed them all!
? what are the future plans of horizon?
! horizon is only a demo-group. if we
ever decide to make and release a demo
again, it will be released as a
horizon demo. we do have other plans,
but not necessarily involving the name
of horizon.
? what are the horizon members doing
nowadays?
! well, time has split us up. we don't
have the same contact with all members
anymore, but you can say that five of
us are working as professional
programmers and three of us are
studying mathematics and/or computers.
a bunch of us are trying to produce
something serious from the programming
efforts, and we release those products
under the FREXXWARE label. boogaloo
and exilon work on some c64 and amiga
game projects, zagor is in charge of
our dual node 1.6gb bbs, and i and
kjer are programming a text-editor for
amiga. we have been developing this
for almost three years now and we've
probably released it when you read
this! it's called frexxed.
? what are you doing nowadays, in real
life and in "computer life"?
! real life at first then: programming
for living. mainly, that means
programming x11/motif in c under unix
(both pc and shitty suns), but also
involves other interesting things like
the real-time os-9000. i develop the
gui of a train supervision product
(both sw and plenty of hw) aimed for
train supervisor companies throughout
the world!
computer life: programming "serious"
applications on amiga, mainly frexxed,
our text-editor, but also a few other
projects of different sizes. i haven't
done any c64 coding in years.
? will we see the horizon crew at the
"veteran" party, held by genesis in
gothenburg this autumn?
! i didn't know that was a "veteran"
party! i've only heard about that
there's gonna be a party, but no
details at all. i can't tell you
anything about whether there will be
any horizon people there or not, but
some members might show up...
? now this interview is almost over, but
before we stop i ask you if you have
got any last words!
! i'd like to say hello to all my
friends who read this, all those who
know me and those i got things from,
sent things to and with whom i had a
lot of really entertaining moments and
to all of you who watch our creations
and enjoy them.
? thank you daniel!
well, well... i hope you enjoyed this
interview. now, grab your disc-box and
look for some oldies from horizon!
if you wonder anything concerning the
interview-chapter or just want to trade
some hammocks, just write me a letter:
(bungalow of jam)
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bungalow's off...
arrogance and decadence
europe endless...
