Jamaica 11 ch07 Interview

interview                       bungalow
----------------------------------------
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)

             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


            bungalow's off...





         arrogance and decadence

            europe endless...