Interview
Handle: Qed
How did you come up with your alias ?
Two things, really:
"Quod Est Demostrandum" (or something like that) or in short: Q.E.D. Latin for "Which is hereby proved", or in a a more 'common' interpretation: "So there!"
A TV series by the name of "Q.E.D." I had watched years earlier, starring Sam Waterson as an inventor (named Quintin E. Deliverill, if memory serves me right. It might have been a bit diffenent. But I digress...) This series was set in World War I 1930's America . Funny, entertaining and exciting stuff for a 11-12 year kid.
I've always been a sucker for quotes of all sorts. I can recite huge passages of Monty Python sketches and I know loads of old Warner Bros. and MGM cartoons by heart. As Q.E.D. was my favourite quote at the time and I had enjoyed the tv-series quite a bit, I chose that one for my handle.
City / Country:
Currently: Lystrup, Denmark. Back then: Studstrup, Denmark. (Both suburbs of DK's second largest city, Aarhus.)
Born year:
1970. February, 23rd.
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
A Commodore VIC20. Which I got around 1983. Did a lot of BASIC-programming on that one. Later on I started learning machinecode on the Vic (No assemblers back then. All I had was MWRMon, coded by one of my friends). Even cracked a few games on that machine. My very first crack ever being Mastertronics "Psycho Shopper".
I've still got the Vic (and that very first crack. :)) and I even power it up from time to time.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
My involvement with the scene started when I joined forces with a local group and we formed Thanatos. At that time my primary function wasn't cracking. We just swapped with other groups, and coded the occational demo. I started cracking a few easy single-loaders, just for the fun of it. Luckily Bimz/Thanatos had bought quite a lot of originals over the years, and I had plenty of material to practice on. I was soon skilled enough to start cracking some games. I was learning new stuff every day, our original-flow was just right for a beginner. I never worked on more than one game at a time, and everything was singleloaders. Happy days!
In 1988 I had my first encounter with a level-packer, and my first real multiloader crack: Firebirds "Special Agent" followed shortly. By this time I had gotten to know Scratch of Triangle personally. His help and advice was really great and my skills got better and better.
Around that time we in Thanatos had gotten to know TMB/Pulsar, and so Thanatos joined Pulsar. As Mik and the other guys weren't around anymore, I became Pulsars main cracker. I was still learning new stuff all the time, and the quality of my releases improved. We still had a steady flow of originals, and everything was great.... until something happened.
The time is now early 1990, and Bimz got hold of two new originals: Ninja Spirit and Hammerfist. I made a nice version of Ninja Spirit, but Hammerfist was quite a challenge. Actually I became so fed up with it that I decided not to crack it. Bimz, being the swapper, wanted both games spread as fast as possible. I had given him my version of Ninja Spirit as soon as I finished it - in order to get it spread quickly. He decided that he also wanted to wait for my version of Hammerfist. I told him I wasn't going to crack it anyway, and that he should just spread Ninja Spirit. I also bought the Hammerfist original so he didn't loose any money on the investment.
The trouble was that Bimz hadn't sent out our "Ninja Spirit" and said that it was almost pointless to spread it, as it was now a few weeks old. But if he got a version of Hammerfist, he could spread both games. I replied that it's never too late to spread good quality cracks - and that he should spread the stuff he had. We had a big argument on this issue.
I personnaly felt that if this was the working-conditions, I would rather not work. And for a while I was very tempted to leave the scene for good. I know that I failed to deliver a crack, but I wasn't in any way sorry about that. My attitude was that we were in it for the fun of it, not because we wanted to do stuff involuntarily. The key issue was motivation - and I didn't have any of it after our argument.
It was at this time that Scratch (by now a really good friend) invited me to join Triangle. Swyx had retired from cracking, and they could use another cracker. Triangle were devoted to delivering high-quality cracks. It didn't matter if the game was old or new. Swappers weren't breathing down ones neck if it took a week to crack a game.
This was very appealing to me, and I chose to join Triangle.
The time is now summer of 1990. I told the Pulsar guys that I wanted to leave them, and go do my bit for Triangle. They asked me to reconsidder, but my mind was made up: I wanted to move on.
Bimz had been practising cracking for some time, and I was very happy to see that he decided to team up with Pulsar's utility-coder TCK and start cracking games. What I wasn't so happy to see was that they started slagging Scratch and myself. I had really enjoyed my time in Thanatos/Pulsar but seeing TCK and Bimz lower themselves to simple slander, made me lose that last bit of respect for the two of them. They had been close friends for years, but in the end the friendship just wasn't strong enough. I decided to burn the bridges and get on with my "cracking-carreer".
The rest, as they say, is history...
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
Probably busting Cyberload the first time! Boy, that made me feel good!
Another thing that made feel very good about myself was when Jerry/Triad praised my version of "Chips Challenge" to the skies, in the Gamers Guide.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
I didn't have that much contact with the scene back then, but based on what friends said then and what people have since told me on the Net; I'd say that I'm remembered my for Triangle-career. For being part of a team dedicated to the pursuit of quality, in demos as well as in cracks.
What would you like to be remembered for ?
I'd like to go down in history as someone who delivered quality. As someone who always valued quality over quantity, someone who did quality products whether or not it was at the expense of speed.
In short: as someone who did a good job, because they cared about it.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
In 1991 Scratch started doing his military service, and I embarked upon a 3-year education (Business college + College of Information Technology). Since neither of us had that much spare time on our hands anymore, things kinda slowed down (at one point we didn't release anything for 7 months). I started devoting my time to other things as well(school, RPG's, etc.) and the original-flow grinded to a halt.
I had also been developing my charpacker (full title: "The Triangle Equal Bytes Compressor") during that period. The packer was what really kept me going during our 'silent period'. When I finished the 1.9 version of the EBC, I considered that the "final version" - as I couldn't do anymore improvements. I did have a few ideas, but they would require an REU (I might do a new version now - I bought a 512Kb REU a few months ago.)
In December of 1992 I got an original: "Sergeant Seymour: Robotcop!" and I released what was to become my last crack on the 4th of that month.
I did get the "Mayhem in Monsterland" original. The Rowlands bros really outdid themselves on that one. Although the gameplay isn't as good as Creatures or Creatures 2, Mayhem is the technically greatest achievement on the C64. Face it: who would want a SNES when you can play games like this on a C64?
I have bought all the Apex games (yes, crackers do buy originals), and I figured I'd make a silent tribute to Apex by not cracking it.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
- Not having joined Triangle at an earlier stage (for more details read the "How did you get into the scene..." paragraph)
- Waiting until december of 1995 before buying an REU. :)
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Games I still play regularly:
Creatures, Creatures II, The Sentinel, Petch, Tetris, Hunter's Moon, Citadel, Intensity, Paradroid, Dragon Wars, Neuromancer, Wasteland, Lode Runner, Rainbow Islands, Zenji.
Games I used to spend a lot of time on:
Last Ninja 1 & 2 (never liked the third one), Anything by Thalamus/System 3/ Vivid Image/Magnetic Scrolls/Infocom, Bards Tale II, Airborne Ranger, California Games, The Untouchables, Crazy Comets, Mega Apocalypse, Bomb Project: Stealth Fighter, Chips Challenge, Alter Ego, IK+, Blue Max,
Probably forgot quite a few. All in no particular order.
DEMO(S)
Old stuff:
Future Shock, Into The Future (not for the demo - for the music: Chris Huelsbecks "Dance at Night"), Ash & Dave's "Digital Acid", Horizons "Last Traktor III", Upfronts "kitchen"-series, The stuff Maduplec released on the BUDS/NATO label, The "Pimplesqueezer"-series, anything by Panoramic Designs, Mr. Cursor's "Babylon" series, "Thrust Concert" by Stoat & Tim, "No Limits" by The Supply Team, "The Trap Demo" by Anthony Crowther et al., and of course our own "Excuberance is Beauty" and "Road of Excess".
New stuff:
- Anything by Reflex and Mr. Sex/Byterapers.
- Oxyron's "Dawnfall" (The most impressive one-parter *ever*)
Hardware/software tool(s)?
DarkSqueezer, LevelSqueezer - the official Sharks versions.
The Triangle Equal Bytes Compressor V1.9
The Triangle Equal Bytes Level Compressor V1.8
Scratch/Triangle's IFFL routine (Normal and IRQ/FASTLOAD versions)
Professional Assembler, by Masters Design Group
Action Replay Mk V
Expert Cartridge
I recently got hold of a 512Kb REU, "ByteBoiler 1.0" by Oneway, and the "X-Ass/Tronmon" package by Fairlight. Very powerfull combination. PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
Apex, Andrew Braybrook/Graftgold, Martin Walker, John Twiddy, Geoff "Sentinel" Crammond, System 3, Thalamus, Vivid Image, Interplay.
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
Mr.Z, Janitor, Antitrack, Doc/Ikari, Fairlight, Sharks, Triad (the old bunch, that is), Eagle Soft (especially liked those scroltexts :)), Scratch/Triangle (even years before I joined Triangle and got biased :))
COMPOSER(S)
In no particular order: Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Benn Daglish, Johannes Bjerregaard, Maniacs of Noise, Chris Huelsbeck ("Chipwars" and "Dance at Night"), JCH, Scarzix/Vibrants, Tim Follin, Martin Walker, Steve Rowlands & Matt Gray.
All of the above have produced superiour music on the C64 - but Hubbard, Galway
and Daglish have a special place in my heart. These guys *were* music on the C64 in the old days.
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
"Wizball" by Martin Galway
"Firelord" by Benn Daglish
"Trap" by Benn Daglish
"Thing on a Spring" by Rob Hubbard
"Mega-Apocalypse" by Rob Hubbard
"Dance at Night" by Chris Huelsbech
"Driller" by Matt Gray
"Nemesis the Warlock" by Rob Hubbard
"Mikie" by Martin Galway
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
- Dexions, in Odense (90?)
My first party as a Triangle member. Triangle finishing second in the Demo-compo with "L'etranger"
Meeting a bunch of FLT'ers.
Meeting JCH/Vibrants.
No majority of Amigas/PCs. :)
- The Party, Aars 1991
Meeting Zap! & Paradroid of the Sharks face to face for the first time.
- The Party 2, Aars 1992
Meeting Tron/FLT and having a lot of fun coding a BASIC-demo.
- The Party 3, Herning 1993
The C64 Demo-compo
The VIC20 Wild Demo
The "Classic Demo" showing.
MEMORY(S)
- Cracking that very first game.
- Our demo "L'etranger" finishing second at the Dexion party.
- When Aaron and Bacchus asked me if I wanted to join Fairlight.
- When I went to Sweden to visit the FLT'ers. Driving across Sweden with Aaron, Grayhawk and Ogami (at least it was fun until the car broke down :))
- When I was active I never got that much feedback from the scene as I wasn't swapping myself. When I joined the #c-64 IRC channel for the first time, a lot of people recognized me from the old days and told me that they appreciated my efforts... That really meant a lot to me.
DRINK ?
Alcoholic: Sake.
Non-alchoholic: Faxe Kondi (grape sugar energizing stuff. :))
What are you doing nowadays ?
Finished College of Information Technology a year and a half ago. Been unemployed ever since. Which doesn't mean that I hang around the flat, drink loadsa beers, watch football on the telly and moan about the state of the country. Far from it actually. I do a bit of voluntary (ie. unpaid) work for a local comics-store - but you can't really call it a job.
What are you doing on your spare time?
The computer takes up a lot of my time. I don't do as much programming nowadays as I would like to. I'm active in a few newsgroups (comp.sys.cbm, comp.emulators.cbm & alt.fan.furry being my favourites) and read even more. FidoNet also takes up a lot of my time, especially the groups on Comics, RPG's and Boardgames. And I haven't even mentioned the countless e-mails. :)
IRC is another hobby of mine. #c-64 being my favourite hangout.
I still turn on my C64 from time to time. These days mostly to play some of the good old games, and to drool over the new demos. See the "favourite" part for more info on my taste in games/demos. I do plan on doing a bit of assembly programming - mainly to play around with my latest aquisition: a 512Kb REU. :)
I'm also into Roleplaying Games (the real stuff, not the ones you play on the computer). I enjoy going to RPG conventions to meet old friends, make new ones, and generally have a good time.
Another thing I like quite a lot is comics. I have a nice collection of american comics. Mainly stuff from small/independant publishers. No spandex-clad superheroes for me, thank you very much. My favorites has to be everything Carl Barks ever did, Sam Kieth's "The Maxx", Dave Sim's "Cerebus the Aardvark", Jeff Smith's "Bone" and Terry Moores "Strangers in Paradise". I also enjoy (and collect) Warner Brothers/MGM/Disney-cartoons. Animation is a big hobby of mine, and I also do a bit of funny animal drawing myself.
A good album/book/movie/tv-show is also something I enjoy.
What is the meaning of life?
Good friends. Caring about others and knowing that they care about you. Having something to do with your life - not neseccarily work, but something you love to do. Material wealth is nice because it can enable you to do something you like - but in terms of the big picture wealth is unimportant as long as one is happy.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Respect to the following personal friends in the scene:
Fairlight
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Bacchus, Aaron, Watchman and Harlekin.
The Sharks
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Zap!, Paradroid, Darkforce and Deadbeat.
The entire Triangle crew
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Especially Scratch, Spot and The Ranger.
I would also like to thank the people I have met on comp.sys.cbm, comp.emulators.cbm and the #c-64 IRC channel. The recognition I suddenly got after those years was overwhelming. Thanks, dudes.
Respect also goes to anyone who waited for the Triangle version of a game: You, the public, deserved the best and we hope we succeeded in delivering just that.
Peace!