World News 15 Interviews

   interviews

             WN = WORLD NEWS
             WN = WORLD NEWS

          A = ANTITRACK/LEGEND
          A = ANTITRACK/LEGEND

WN: Salute Alex! Everyone knows you but
    anyway some details about you would
    be nice.

 A: In christmas 1982 a little boy
    called Alex happened to find a
    Commodore 64 under the tree and
    guess what, he's still using the
    same computer till now!
    (Even the keyboard is the same...
    lovely....Ergh!!!!!)

    Now, this guy is a bit older ofcouse
    (23 years to be more precise...),
    and, he's better known under his
    pseudo "Antitrack/LEGEND", and
    still knows how to handle this
    little computer!

WN: You are quite inactive at the time
    what's up with you? A Girlfriend?

 A: Oh no, I'm not that inactive at
    all, but you guys just don't see
    what I'm doing, because it's not
    a crack and I don't release it.
    In other words, I'm frequently
    programming little tools and
    routines for myself, and I'm
    also the only one who can handle
    them, so it's useless to release
    stuff like that.

    But don't worry, every now and
    then, there is an original that
    is supposed to be difficult or
    a lot of work, so then I'm there
    again. At this very time just
    my versions of "Brubaker" are
    finished, for example.

    Girls are still allowed to send
    their proposal of marriage to
    my P.O.Box. Haha!

WN: You was the one who made COSMOS
    strong. You was the one who made
    Austria famous. Many guys says that
    you are the best cracker ever! You
    are a legend! So why don't you make
    money with your great abilities?
    Like Snacky/GP with crack protec-
    tions or something like that...

 A: I was the one who made COSMOS
    strong? Oh no, that must be a
    mistake! I rather believe that
    SSD/COSMOS was the most active
    guy. Cracking has never been a
    problem (at least not for me), but
    getting the originals, megaswapping
    and modeming and having all the
    important connections was rather
    SSD's job.

    So far about cosmos...

    About the money, I can happily
    tell you that my first game,
    "Five-A-Row", already was sold
    to GAME ON and I made a profit
    of +580 for that one.
    Actually it was sold for +1340,
    but the music costed +80, the
    travel to germany to fetch the
    money costed +80 aswell, and
    The guy who made the graphics,
    who sold the game to MAGIC DISK,
    who had the game concept
    also wanted to earn...
    Ehm... +600, if i'm not
    mistaken. Well, and we'll start
    another game soon. (But don't
    hold your breath, I'm kinda slow
    during programming...)

WN: Hannes Sommer told me that you need
    8 min for a cartridge crack! Is that
    right or just a rumour?

 A: Well, I suppose I've been mis-
    understood. The whole crack of
    "Shadow of the Beast" took an
    afternoon ofcourse. You know,
    loading, crunching and saving
    and linking all the files and
    playtesting took this time.
    What those 8 minutes were about:
    It was the time to study
    how the cartridge is
    constructed and to choose a
    strategy to crack it. All the
    other time was only executing
    my strategy and in this phase,
    no more surprises showed up
    ofcourse.

    In general, when people ask me
    how long it took me to crack
    something, I usually tell them
    how long I had to study the
    protection in order to choose a
    strategy to crack it. I do not
    consider all the loading,
    saving, crunching, testing etc.
    as a real "work". Everyone knows
    how to handle "Darksqueezer" so
    crunching, for example, is
    Darksqueezer's work, not the
    cracker's one!

WN: You are a good friend of Hannes S.
    (the best?). Where have you met him
    the first time?

 A: When he joined COSMOS ofcourse!
    Probably you do remember a few
    of his demos. He really was in
    COSMOS the first time, but he
    decided to become "COSMOS DESIGNS"
    Later on, in order to show that
    he is completely legal.
    (However, he still loves to see
    my cracks as usual! Hehe)

WN: Who is in your opinion the best
    cracker ever?

 A: That's difficult. On the
    64, I was more impressed by
    the old guys' works around
    1985-1988, (Mister Zeropage,
    Teeside Cracking Service, Jedi,
    etc. etc.), and nowadays? Well,
    Rockstar/GP or Horizon/NEI are
    brilliant as always, but I
    suppose "The best cracker ever"
    moved away from c64 quite a while
    ago and is rather being found on
    Amiga, guys like H.Q.C etc.
    I do know some bright local Amiga
    people and they do rather fit in
    the "Best cracker ever"-category.
    (e.g. King George/ex-SUBWAY or
    in whichever group he is now).
    Far be me, however, to judge
    people! I like everyone who's
    doing great work, not "just"
    cracking, but making music,
    graphics, demos, games and tools.

WN: What's your opinion to the lame,
    little 20-100 blocks long self-
    written games by some coders who
    wanna just earn some quick money?

 A: Oh well, as my own game is 83
    blocks it does fit into this
    category! Ofcourse I always de-
    lete games like that (My one too...
    ooooops!) But if a game is
    particularily very bad and it's
    getting sold, it's not the
    fault of the guy who sells it,
    but the fault of the guy who
    BUYS this crap!

    (Walter Konrad, you are free
    to feel guilty now! (Grin!))

WN: Has anyone ever teached you how to
    crack?

 A: Nope, I found out everything
    by myself. Which took quite some
    time.

WN: Who was your original supplier in
    the glory COSMOS days? and who is
    it now?

 A: In COSMOS, SSD was responsible
    to get the originals, and I can
    vaguely remember he had 4 guys
    in England who bought them for us.

    Nowadays, my fellow LEGEND members
    (any of them) might send me some-
    thing that is supposed to be
    lots of work. I really don't
    like to work on simple or non-
    existant copy protections, you know.

WN: You are very sympatic and unarrogant
    so what do you say to the arrogant
    people in the world like Bod/TALENT
    or Antichrist for example?
    (red. Hey Oliver that was no
    offence!)

 A: Well, I just leave them alone.
    I'm glad to say that I've never
    swapped or talked much with
    anyone being arrogant. As soon as
    I notice that someone is
    behaving badly, I drop him like a
    hot potato, or I put down the
    phone, or I just walk away. No
    need to waste my time on stupid
    people.

WN: Why have you joined LEGEND after
    ACC's dead?

 A: I was never in ACC, I was in
    711, then COSMOS (again). Well,
    simply because I had quite many
    friends in LEGEND, and I did
    realize LEGEND will be the best
    group sooner or later, which is
    obviously is at the moment!

WN: What do you say to our nationl
    soccer team? (In icehockey and
    handball we rule no doubt!)

 A: "Yes thats true, the match started
    very bad, i sang our national
    anthem wrong, in the second
    strophe....- at least our
    cabaret people can make great
    fun of it. Otherwise, I really
    don't care, because I do not like
    sports at all. Lazy me!

WN: At last some words about mags please
    (best,World News,...)

 A: About mags! Oh no! Well, I miss
    "Mamba" a lot. It always contained
    the newest, and it always was very
    fair. (Even to Sex'n Slime!! Hehe)
    I do read "Shock" sometimes, but I
    haven't got the nerve to check
    all the mags. "World News?"
    Well, it reminds me quite alot
    of "Emanuelle". probably you
    mag editors should do a few
    mags together in oder to keep
    down the number of mags?
    (The big mag-cooperation...
    viele koeche verderben den
    brei Hehe...)

WN: Well, let's stop here with all this
    shit. Sorry for soo much questions.
    keep Austria ruling.... bye friend..

 A: It wasn't shit. so long....

WN: Yeah! sure it wasn't! Thanks for
    interview..

      INTERVIEWER WAS BLACK PRIEST
      INTERVIEWER WAS BLACK PRIEST
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             WN = WORLD NEWS
             WN = WORLD NEWS

          C = COLOURFUL / ORIGO
          C = COLOURFUL / ORIGO

WN: Salute Ville! Let's make a special
    interview for our readers' pleasure.
    First some serious facts please.

 C:  - I'm 17
     - I've one life to go
     - I just don't know
     - I'm living in a country which is
       suffering of an incredible econo-
       mical slump
     - I can cry
     - I've never been normal (they say)
     - I can swim
     - I can move my both hands at the
       same time
     - I do

     (red.: Ehmmm? Yes!)

WN: Well, what's up with you at the
    moment? On what are you working
    right now and what can we expect in
    future from ORIGO (Destino told me
    about another demo).

 C: I'm just doing just fine. I've been
    able to break my old 64 and at the
    moment I don't have one, right now
    I'm coding my 1st demo on Amiga. You
    can expect whatever you want, but do
    not count on it to happen. Probably
    we'll go on on both 64 and Amiga, I
    am going to code on Amiga for 64,too
    (That is, "translating" my finished
    code from Amiga to 64).

WN: Many guys think that a cool effect
    must be coded by a real hero coder.
    But you sure agree when I say that
    not the best looking effects
    include the hardest code. So please
    tell all non-coders which effects
    are really hard to realize.

 C: Nothing is "hard" if you just can
    figure out the baseidea and describe
    the part to yourself first in your
    mind.

WN: Is it true that BX/ORIGO is your
    cousin?

 C: Yes, he is.  (...isn't he?  do you
    know something I don't?...)

WN: Hannes Sommer (Mc Sprite)/COSMOS
    told me that you've started to make
    a hires fli-editor. Right? Have you
    ever finished it until now?

 C: It was done already for "Eldorado"
    (the PIC was actually drawn with
    it), I won't publish it 'cos though
    it's ready for me, it ain't ready to
    you (and never will be...) (I'm just
    too lazy to "design" it.)

WN: Well, I really wonder why so few
    groups use samples in their demos.
    CONTEX got famous with samples for
    example. What's your meaning about
    that? (Too little memory left?)

 C: Keep up the good work. (What?!..)
    it's just too limited serie of ef-
    fects one can do with using samples,
    besides it takes a hellish tough
    equipment to make samples sound good
    enough on 64, and the better samples
    you have,the more memory and raster-
    time they eat.

WN: Which coder will be the newcomer of
    1992 in your opinion and who was/is
    the best coder ever?

 C: There are many "new" cool demogroups
    (e.g. FAIRLIGHT), can't name anybody
    'coz I haven't seen enuff demos to
    have material for a fair opinion.
    Still maybe the best coder in my
    opinion is David Braben (64 - Elite,
    Amiga - Virus etc.)

WN: In the timeperiod between 1988-1992
    the demo quality made a major jump.
    Do you think that in future the
    demo quality will still raise or
    have we reached a dead point where
    no new effects will be created?

 C: Of course the progress will go on,
    in theory the so-called "elite"-
    coders have reached a certain level
    and are one step ahead others, they
    have "new" ideas and are able to
    realize them, too. Let's just hope
    they won't drop 64...

WN: Hmm, when Iraq was in war with the
    states, you could read in every
    note "Fuck Saddam" or something
    like that. Now with the Yugoslavia
    conflict many more people died but
    no feelings are shown in the scene
    (except Maduplec/CREST). What do
    you say to the Yugoslavia conflict
    and to the reaction in the scene?

 C: I think you should ask that from
    some who reacted to Iraq-conflict.
    I didn't, and I haven't and won't
    react to conflict in Yugoslavia any
    better. (Sorry..?)

WN: Some traditonal feelings about mags
    please. (best,world news,...)

 C: Only some traditional feelings.

WN: OK, time is over again. Hope you've
    enjoyed the interview and I also
    hope to see soon another ORIGO demo.
    However keep live going....  bye...

 C: ?..  !..   Bye...

      INTERVIEWER WAS BLACK PRIEST
      INTERVIEWER WAS BLACK PRIEST

      with help from Destino/ORIGO
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