Interview
Handle: Survivor - / - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147
How did you come up with your alias ?
I was a bit into role-playing - AD&D and DSA on paper, and later SSI on computer - and since I often had to choose names for my characters, I either took existing ones from fantasy literature or invented own ones. The magician often died because he hardly ever had enough hit points. Just out of sarcasm I named him The Survivor. And because I was in search for a permanent alias, I thought this would be a good one. Later it turned out, that I always prefered the role-playing professions magician, white mage, red mage or wizard. Hence I changed my nick to The Mage and sticked to that since then.
City / Country:
Mölln/Germany. It is a small town of less than 20000 citizens, located between Hamburg and Lübeck.
Born year:
1972
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
It must have been 1985/86 when my brother got a Commodore 64, a 1541 floppy disk drive and a tape drive. Shortly after, in 1986, I got my own one, which already had the new design. The C64 C, also known as C64 Personal Computer :) Earlier we occasionally went to a local department store (Karstadt) and fooled around with the publically accessible VC20 and C64 equipment. There also was a Schneider CPC64, but that one was not as attractive.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
There was almost no local scene activity in my home town. I think, I started swapping disks with school mates. First time I was confronted with scene activities, when an unknown guy from another class in school took one of his friends in my class as a mediator to exchange mystical writer-letters with me on disk. At that time we merely had a private competition, comparing our basic machine code coding and music ripping skills. Later I met him in person, but I was disappointed, as it turned out, that most of his work has been ripped from productions about which I didn't know at that time. I then sat down, read the private advertisement section in paper magazines like 64'er and ASM and got in contact with a couple of persons from all over Europe.
That way I received a demo from the group GCC 1911 (German Cracking Company). They were searching for more members. I don't remember why I joined this certain group, and neither I remember how I applied to become a member. Maybe Conanstill knows. Anyway, Conan, Pershy and Drago were the founders of that group. I think, some weeks later the group had grown a lot, but had not improved in any noticable way. I clearly recall Conan was kinda bored and he said he felt the potential for a top group. So, five members left GCC and formed STRIKE FORCE. Someday in 1988, The Hitman and me noticed we couldn't keep pace with the Bochum-division of [SF] in swapping and getting new wares. And as more and more contacts left the C64 to start on the more attractive AMIGA, we did the same and also left [SF]. Somewhere in between I renamed to my more favourite nickname, THE MAGE.
On the Amiga, business was getting less hectical. Also, meanwhile there was a lot more scene activity in the local area. That way we met each other more often and could phone up each other at a cheap rate. While already on the AMIGA, my last activities on the C64 as a ghost writer were for the groups The Sharks and New Imports. The very last thing was the foundation of the Amiga+C64 group THE DEVILS, which was consisting out of The Sharks, Darkness and New Imports.
On AMIGA, scene activity was becoming more and more legal. After a short time in Cascade, Vision Factory and Zylon/Alpha Flight, I stayed in the legal I.C.E. diskmag (International Computer Entertainment) division of CYTAX up to 1992. Later I stopped scene activities completely.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
I don't know whether there can be a reason to be proud of any illegal activities in the scene. And I would not speak of a "career". Though, I did not dislike seeing ones group's name at the top of the greetings charts of other groups' productions. But what I maybe liked most was getting the maximum number of points for the coding (and also layout) of our I.C.E. diskmag issue #7 in an article from the German paper magazine "Amiga Special", whereas the other competitors didn't reach the maximum number of points. It was more like satisfaction.
What would you like to be remembered for ?
Honestly, I don't care. Maybe I would dislike being remembered for anything I did not do.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
Starting to feel guilty made me stop scene activities. The legal demo/diskmag part of the scene was okay. Anyway, I stopped being member of any group in 1992.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Yes. I regret that I spent much time on non-commercial projects.
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Ugh...this is difficult! ... Maybe the AD&D games from SSI (Pool of Radiance, Krynn series) (AMIGA), Paradroid + Elite (C64!), Hard'n'Heavy (AMIGA), Millenium (AMIGA) and Dune (PC). Anyway, modern games are getting better and better.
DEMO(S)
Virtual World by Thomas Landspurg.
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
Chaos/Sanity, not the programmer, but the freak.
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
Mr.Zeropage.
COMPOSER(S)
Chris Hülsbeck, Bit Arts, Purple Motion, Audiomaster-J ... Ah, there are many more. Voting just a single one would be unfair.
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
Unreal II, the 2nd Reality by Purple Motion. On the opposite, I'd consider a lot of the C64 compositions as even better (or more talented) because of the limited number of voices of the SID chip.
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
Scene meetings at CeBIT.
I.C.E. copy deadline gathering at Leo's place. Often was labour-intensive, but lots of fun.
MEMORY(S)
Saturday's "Who puts the highest sticker on the Commodore Wall ?" at CeBIT.
DRINK ?
Orange juice. Beer.
What are you doing nowadays ?
Studying computer science and geophysics.
What are you doing on your spare time?
Programming and improving my SID emulator engine SIDPLAY. Participating in the mailing list discussions of the changes to the High Voltage SID collection.
Privacy is above all.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
If you haven't done this before, travel to: http://www.dhp.com/~shark/c64music/
What is the meaning of life?
It is not "42" :) ... Maybe the entire universe is just a gigantic simulation ?