Interview
Handle:Watchman
Homepage
How did you come up with your alias ?
From the great comic album Watchmen by Alan Moore. One of the first albums of the new era. Twisted and dark as it was it really was a kick to read. I still have a copy of the album. I even planned of having a stained "smiley" as my symbol.
City / Country:
Luleå Sweden. Luleå is located at the extreme northern part of Sweden so it's cold and snowy for moths. I moved here because of the school.
Born year:
1969. Bacchus is way older!!!
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
Commodore 64, in 1984. It's the same machine that I still use. Actually I started on a ABC80 computer which I borrowed, but the first I bought was the C64.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
I started swapping with other lamers in 1984. One person I ended up not only swapping with, but also talking loads of bullshit with was Rowdy. We met later that year and together we cracked the game Jack the Nipper (I think), which was the first crack for me. He and Robban had the group Explorers. I asked and joined them about the same year.
About a year later Explorers split up and I joined ACA - Anti Copyright Agency, a small group from just outside Gothenburg. There I started to get better at cracking and did some simple coding. We started to expand the group by adding more and more members. Suddenly we were 30 people and was in serious business. We changed the groupname to Explorers(!) by my suggestion and the group became pretty successful.
The problem for me was that I didn't know all members in the group, I hardly didn't know exactly how many we were and what handles people used, things that changed daily. I wasn't in charge of the group or anything, but I still felt the group was too big.
When I went to meet Rowdy in 1986, he showed me some of the first stuff that their new group Dirty Dozen was going to release, which impressed me. This group consisted mainly of a few old friends and so it felt rather natural to join.
Bacchus believes, and I agree on it too, that there are two kinds of persons you might form a group with; Friends that you also share a common interest on which you form a group, and people that you are friends with because you share a common interest with and therefore are in the same group. This might sound like the same type, but they are in fact way different. The groups I have been in for a long time have consisted of people of the first type. Anyway, back to the story: I did some cracking and (terrible) coding for DD before I left for the U.S. in 1987. During my year there, DD actually split up anyway (just to prove me wrong probably!).
When I came back I was on my own. I did some small demos and got hold of some originals which I cracked and released under the name Silicon Warriors, which was a team name me and Rowdy had once invented for some stuff we planned to release, but of course never did. Somewhere around this time I changed my handle to Watchman (from "Frankie", can you believe it!?!). I was then contacted by some dudes in a group with the pretty name SHIT - Swedish Hackers In Toilets !!! They had just won a democompo and had some originals for me to crack.
I Participated in a democompo for SHIT on a very small party and won, which says more about the competition than my demo, which sucked totally. I then released a few other things for SHIT and even though the group died slowly I stayed until I got a phonecall.
The call was from Jerry of TRIAD who asked if I wanted to join them as a cracker, I naturally accepted. I cracked quite a few games for TRIAD, some of which was pretty good. I also released a few demoparts and made some intros. TRIAD had just been through it's second major construction - when Bob and his pals broke out and formed Censor. Jerry of TRIAD often talked about how Bob had stolen his members. I became a very good friend of Dynamic of TRIAD but less and less a friend of Jerry. I guess the major problem was that I was young and foolish and he was old an foolish, we simply didn't get along. Dynamic also had some troubles with Jerry and so we decided to break out of TRIAD and form a group of our own.
We wanted to make it big and therefore planned to make a massive debut. We had succeeded in getting hold of some of the best guys we know: King Fisher, TDM and pair of their friends. I came up with the name REBELS and we produced quite a lot of stuff that was going to be released under this name. When we let the thing go we had loads of great stuff that was released at the same time. Needless to say that the result was overwhelming, we made it BIG. The REBELS time was short and sweet. One day I found out that all guys had been drafted by Jerry of TRIAD. I know now that KF and the other very much wanted to join a legend, but Jerry did something to me that he had criticized Bob for doing.
Shortly after this I got a call from Aaron of FairLight asking if I could crack for them. I accepted and got some games to prove myself with. Of course I did a hell of a work on them! Since then have I been a proud member in one of the BEST groups of all time, with great people as members.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
There aren't any specific moment. Instead there are two kinds of things that have made me proud of myself. The first is when you achieve something that you have committed yourself to do, a problem to solve that you pull off. It might be to write a very compact intro or crack a game. I was very proud of myself when I found some ways to shorten a FairLight intro that several others had tried on, and that seemed very short as it was. I was also very proud of myself when I succeeded hacking through some tricky protections that I thought was impossible to understand.
The other moment is when you find out that what you have done is appreciated by others or just plain competitive. When I found my games ranked at the top in "Gamers Guide" or when I found myself on a crackerlist in a mag I felt very proud of myself.
This is probably the "geek thing" that makes computer scenes so attractive to kinds that otherwise are shy and geeky. The possibility of challenging yourself and feel the success or beeing judged by others for your mental talent - if it's coding, swapping, arts or whatever, and get to be appreciated even though you might not be the football ninja of the block.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
I haven't the faintest idea. Probably for the X-terminator or some cracks. Hopefully not for the really lame demopart I was stoopid enuff to release in Alingsas. I just wish someone had stopped me. It looked so good on my B/W screen, but totally sucked when I couldn't fix the bugs I saw when I watched it on a color screen. The only funny thing is that I ripped the scrolltext for the demopart from an old FairLight demo by Pernod!
What would you like to be remembered for ?
Some of the good cracks I have made, some intros and demoparts that was very good at their time and also as a pretty nice guy. I haven't made any real enemies - at least not anyone I know of.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
School and evolution. When I started my university education I got really busy. I also started to feel that the C64 was getting old and that not much was happening anymore. This with the added combination with my laziness turned out to be a just about fatal combination. Rowdy has some disks marked "Things I will never complete". I myself haven't accepted my faith like that, but I guess I could write that on a diskbox or two if I wanted to.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
That I spent too much things fooling around and less time committing myself so that I could have made more and better cracks and also released better demos. If I was to do everything over again, I would probably do the same again though... :-)
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Fire Ant! A fantastic game from 1981 or 1982. I also found flimbo's quest and Turrican to be very good.
DEMO(S)
There are so many, like: All demos by mahoney - especially CP Demo. Marc's movements. The judges Think Twice 1-5, esp number five. Upfronts demos. Kjers fantastic demo Xpertelligence. In fact, most HZ demos. Some of the stuff KF have produced. Rowdy+Mia. and the WindJammer intro. Mr Cursors intro for a bbs or something. Totally synched to music and with awesome effects! The Double Density intro was a blast too! Sign 'o the times by Cycleburner.
But, all in all, the demo that really impressed me the most me probably was Road of Excess by Triangle. I can remember the time that a simple scroller or a screenwriter (remember them?) was impressive and colorbars was unheard of. Now people does all kinds of fantastic things but the complete care of the whole product have always been very rare.
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
The Judges.
Ivo Herzeg and Double Density.
Einstein - Upfront.
Tron.
Kjer, Exilon, Bagder, Bappis, Pernod and the other snakers in Horizon.
Karl XII.
Cycleburner.
Omega Supreme and Panoramic Designs.
Lamex.
Rowdy - for the fantastic feeling and artistic talent.
Cosmos Designs.
Maduplec - NATO.
There are several others, but I'm getting old and names have never been one of the things I remember well...
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
The Sharks.
Rockstar.
PowerPlant.
SCG.
Weetibix.
AntiTrack.
Bacchus.
KF. (King Fisher -Ed)
Janitor.
These are the ones that impressed me several times and I felt was the people to "beat".
COMPOSER(S)
JCH (naturally)
Thomas Danko jr - pain in the ass, but very good
ATOO - Definitely the BEST! Bla cykel rewls!
Reyn Ouwehand.
Rob Hubbard.
Martin Gallway.
TDM.
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
Fly on the windscreen by ATOO.
Night City by ATOO.
Flimbo's Quest music by Reyn Ouwehand.
Master of Magic by Rob Hubbard.
Blade Runner music by ... can't remember.
TDMs Lingonben.
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
Eskilstuna 1988 or 1989, apart from the Pizza.
The TRIAD+HZ meeting at Huddinge in 1990.
MEMORY(S)
There are so many, but here are a few funny ones:
Seagulls way of catching babes at the annual FairLight Golf championships.
Mastermind being tied up in a chair by the other HZ members.
Dr Cool (of Censor -Ed) getting sour feet at the party in Gothenburg. Psychos major hurl at the same party.
Favorite drink ?
Zeunerts Bayer beer.
Pripps Dark Lager beer.
Dr Pepper.
Jolt Cola
What are you doing nowadays ?
Studying to get a masters degree in computer science and engineering.
What are you doing on your spare time?
Snowboarding, Talking bullshit, write all kinds of stuff and basically live a pretty normal life... oh, I netsurf a lot too. I maintain the FairLight CyberHome, check out: http://www.ludd.luth.se/~watchman/fairlight/
Since I'm mostly at the computers in school and have some machines at home, I probably spend way too many hours in front of them.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Time to upgrade!
What is the meaning of life?
42?! No, seriously I believe that there are no real meaning to life, apart from the wish of your parents to get children. Do as much good as you can while you are alive, people are much better at remembering bad things and you don't want to be remembered like a jerk, right Viper (used to be a member of Heptagon and FairLight -Ed) ?