Domination 08 Interview 3a
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* Interview: Gremlin/Beyond Force *
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Welcome dear reader to the interview section.
You may have enjoyed some of the previous
personalities interviewed already this edition, this
one doesn't make an exception in the quality
entertainment standard either.
Being in the scene for over a decade, he is a
programmer of exceptional ability.
From the roots of the Finnish elite, he has helped
produce many demonstrations on C64 for the
established group, BEYOND FORCE.
Proudly presenting to you, BF's main programmer..
>> GREMLIN of BEYOND FORCE <<
D - Domination
G - Gremlin/Beyond Force
D)
Hello Gremlin and a warm welcome to the DOMINATION
magazine.
You are quite known already in the C64 scene, but some
may still be unfamiliar with you, please introduce
yourself to the audience..
G)
Okay.. I'm Gremlin of Beyond Force, my real name is
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, i'm 21 years old and studying
computer science in Helsinki University of Technology
for the third year after passing my second year
doing my military service.
In case you didn't know, Helsinki is ofcourse the
capital of Finland.
(btw: you can check my homepage at:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
D)
You are probably best known for your work in
Beyond Force, but could you please give us a history
on when you first entered the scene and what groups
and events have happened up until present time..
G)
I got my C-64 more or less a decade ago in 1986 and i
got interested in all these crackers and demo groups
pretty soon. I followed the scene a pretty long time
before i picked on doing something for myself.
It was much of just swapping wares and admiring the
work of various people like Finnish Gold and the rest.
I really wasn't in any group back in those days. It was
in the beginning of 1990 when we started a group
named Cursor with a few friends (Doom, Barracuda
and some others) in my home town Savonlinna.
I'm not very proud of these products we did release
during the early months of 1990, but we were pretty
productive and started to get an idea of the
capabilities of the machine. At the time me and my
friends were not anymore very impressed by all
multiplexers and rastersplit routines the demos were
full of at the time. Instead we were very impressed by
demos from Horizon, Beyond Force and Origo, just to
name a few..
Most of the time they included very innovative and
original stuff, which seemed to lift'em to another
level from the masses.
In May 1990 we changed the name into Dream, a Danish
section was formed, some people stopped the scene
and some joined (like Slayer who is in Origo these days)
Dream released a few demos during the summer 1990
(Destruction 1 & 2 which were cided by me and some
other demos by the Danish section).
In the fall, me and Slayer were offered to join a brand
new group called Topaz Beerline, which hadn't really
done anything yet, but the people behind the name were
former members of Browbeat and some others.
The main man behind the group was Coax of Topaz, who
tragically died in an accident in the Spring 1991.
Our first release in Topaz Beerline was Warming Up
which was coded by me and D'arc of Topaz, the demo
was coded in a hurry just to establish a name for
Topaz and to let people know about us.
It was after this demo when Hazor of Beyond Force
asked me to join them (someone could talk about
recruiting).
I was ofcourse very excited to join a group whose
work i had watched with amazement - all those demos
like Phantasie, Charlatan, Splitter, Metamorphosis,
Insanity and Poor.
You really can't understand how amazing something
like Charlatan seemed at the time when there was no
Fli and to think what kind of mathematics were needed
to calculate metamorphosis or how the hell someone
could make two logos go over each other in dypp and
tech-tech with C64.
Before really joining Beyond Force i finished my last
demo parts released for Topaz Beerline in a demo
called Heating Up.
In fall 1990 we started to code a bigger demo for
Beyond Force.
It was to be released in the Easter 1991 at Horizon's
party which was eventually held in Huddinge, Sweden.
A lot of people showed up but the party wsn't the huge
C64 event it was the year before when Origo won with
an amazing Eldorado in a competition which many
(including me) consider "the competition" of the whole
existance of the C64 scene.
I mean in the Easter 1990 there were - everyone - in
the competition.
Well back to 1991 Horizon party - the democompo
turned out to be our success as we won with a demo
named "Anal Intruder" (the name really has nothing to
do with the routines), Flash Inc was second and
Panoramic Designs was third.
So the demo includes my first work for Beyond Force.
After that i have released various demos with many
friends from Beyond Force, there's a story behind
everyone of them, but if i start to write details, this
article will become way too huge. Instead i'll give you
some kind of list (demo name, where and when it was
released and the result in the demo competition).
Besides these demos are probably more known for all
the people in the scene.
Anal Intruder Horizon '9 1 1st in democompo
Attack of Stubidos Gathering '91 1st in democompo
Partytrap Light&Phenomena '92 2nd in democompo
Oh no more dots Assembly '92 2nd in democompo
Attack of Stubidos 2 Assembly '93 2nd in democompo
Attack of Stupidos 3 Assembly '94 1st in democompo
Seven Years Assembly '95 3rd in democompo
Nothing but code Assembly '96 2nd in democompo
The last five demos were entirely coded by me (except
the loaders and music-routines). So this gives you
some kinda picture (expecially if you haven't or have
seen the demos) of the events that have occured
related to demos that we have released in Beyond
Force.
D)
What jobs do you do on C64? and have you had any
jobs in the past that you no longer perform such as
music or graphics?
G)
My main job is ofcourse coding and all the things
related to it like creating appropriate algorithms for
calculations and simplyfing the math to the level it
can be used with the very limited arithmetic and logical
operations of C64.
Besides coding i have always swapped a bit. Sometime
in 1990 i was very active with about 30 contacts and
sending stuff all the time, but since i have faded a bit
and nowadays it is very limited because i simply don't
have the time to do it (mainly because of my studies).
I also have drawn logos (especially when i was in Dream
if you can get hold of Destruction 1 + 2 you can see
some of my graphics).
Since those days i really haven't drawn that much,
mainly just concentrated on coding.
D)
What in your opinion should a demo contain to make it
appeal to the public and make it's standard above
average?
Are trackmos the way to go, traditional 'seperate part'
style or maybe a mixture of both?
G)
I think that a demo serves it's purpose always if it has
a new idea. New ideas can really make up for
everything else. Also if a routine is made especially
fast (means made faster than anyone has ever done it)
it can make a demo great.
I always enjoy when someone has invented a new way
of making some routine and the new way is unusually
fast. Also average code linked with fab music and
terrific graphics can make a great demo.
When we get to the style of demos, trackmos are
definately the way to go. You can't compare old
multi part demos with trackmos. There is no way to
argue that. I also think that every trackmo should have
some sort of style which lasts from start to finish.
It makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.
I'd like to think i have managed to make something like
it in my latest demo "Nothing but code", but it can be
very much different from it and better though.
Also i think you should think very carefully what you
write in your demos. And to write it right.
There's nothing more annoying than bad english in
demos, though i have to confess that i have done some
demos i would like to write texts again.
D)
What would you say would be your personal greatest
achievement on C64? Is there a routine you want to
programme, but haven't yet done so?
G)
This is a really tough question. Huh.. in assembly 1994
i thought that this was it. I had coded a demo all by
myself and also won the demo competition with some
routines i was really satisfied with at the time.
I couldn't do anything much better after it, i thought.
Later i thought that one thing the demo lacked was the
style of loader that is used in trackmos.
That's why i think that the best demo i have made is
"Nothing but code" which has routines which i'm just ok
with and the whole thing just works out well.
Actually there are a few routines of mine that are my
personal favourites. One is the 3-d starfield.
The whole main routine is in zeropage and it draws two
stars in one loop and the loop is below 128 bytes long.
I mean i optimised the thing so long and it seems even
nowadays impossible to make it run faster. (just try! I
haven't made a faster routine yet).
By the way it was released in the intro of "Party Trap"
and it can draw up to 170 stars/frame without music.
One other really optimised routine is in the final part
of "Attack of Stubidos 3" and imean with that the filled
vectors. The routine uses a lot of undocumented
commands and everything, including the 3d calculations
is in real time.
The third and maybe the most complicated one is the
texture mapping routine in my newest demo. It uses
very fast routines for one thing, but also the
algorithm is very optimised.
The program finds faster ways of calculating some
parts of new image when possible. It is really hard to
tell how it works exactly. I think it would require a very
article to list everything in detail.
One more thing about my latest demo. Many may wonder
why it takes only a few hundred blocks of disk-space.
This has nothing to do with the demo being short, it's
about one thing that i'm a bit proud of. My code is not
even packed, it just generates most of the code by
itself, actually all the unrolled loops are generated in
the beginning of a new part and almost all the tables
too.
So you can try to imagine how compact it would be if it
was packed, let alone crunched.
D)
What are your all-time favourites:
Cracker group: none
Cracker: none
Demo group: Finnish Gold, Horizon, Origo, Blackmail
Demo: Contest demo (released Byterapers party 1988)
Coder: Fcs/Fig, Solomon/Beyond Force, Kjer/Horizon
Clf/Origo, Tnt/Beyond Force, Bx/Origo
Musician: Rob Hubbard, Rock/Finnish Gold, Jeroen Tel,
Zardax/Origo, Jch, Amj/Byterapers
Graphician: Gotcha, Electric/Extend, Orc&Hd/Blackmail
Disk magazine: Mamba, The one and only "Sex'n'Crime"
Scene party: Horizon's easter parties through 1989-91
Sexual position: Heh you got it totally wrong here, it's
about person not about the position.
Food: Pizza, Hamburgers, A good beef in a restaurant
Drink: Grape lemonade, Beer, etc..
Woman: Can't pick one.. i like so many of 'em
Movie: Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting
D)
What programmers do you respect and why?
G)
Well, it's really a tough question to answer. But in
general i think programmers respect other
programmers, especially the good ones.
Sometimes they respect programming a bit too much
though. To some programmers there is nothing else but
code in demos. That's simply because programmers
know so well what is hard to code and if they don't
know how something is done, it always impresses them.
I myself think that demos are not just about coding,
even though my latest demo "Nothing but code"
features only coding. This is just simply because we
don't have any active graphicians nor musicians in
Beyond Force.
Besides i wanted to experiment how it would work out to
make a demo based only on coding.
D)
Have you ever been in a serious disagreement with any
other scener or group?
G)
No not really. I get along with people pretty well usually
but you know sometimes some people irritate you so
much that you say things that shouldn't be taken too
seriously.
D)
The scene has gone into a slump compared with
previous glory days.
What do you think is the best hopeto rejuvinate the
scene, more games? more demos?? or?..
G)
The games are not very important, though it all started
with cracking them. Sure it helps if a lot of games are
being released, but the issue is to keep producing top
quality legal wares and to do it on a regular basis so
that a group doesn't come along and then cease to
exist the next day.
I mean there are many groups nowadays, but there is
not the feeling there used to be. One thing which should
be carefully considered is the new sections of old
groups - they shouldn't release just anything.
They should try to keep up the name, not to terrorize
the reputation.
In the old days when an elite group released something,
it really was cool every single time.
Though i have to admit that there are great teams with
great products even nowadays. Things have been
worse. One thing not to be overlooked is the releasing
of diskmags. I think they are very essential and they
keep up the communication between many old and new
freaks. Actually on the technical side, many mags are
really impressive. The thing they should really start
on doing is to lift the standard of their articles, which
isn't by no means an easy job.
CONTINUED IN
NEXT CHAPTER
