Interview
Handle: Procyon, member of Digital Technology and Brothers in Beer. Homepage
How did you come up with your alias ?
At college when I was writing an examination in physics. While I was desperately looking for a clue in the formula book did the word "Procyon" catch my eyes. It was a bright star, and I thought that could be a catchy nickname.
City / Country:
I used to live in Partille/Sweden. A 30,000 pop. suburb to Gothenburg, but I moved 250 kilometers to a town called Växjö in 1992.
Born year:
1970
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
A C64. I bought it quite late, in 1986. I borrowed on of those 1531 "tapestreamers" :-) of a friend (who later became Altair/Digitech). It took me two week of to realize that everybody refused to copy to tape, beause everybody else got 1541:s, so I got my C1541. I only had my C64 for one year, but I learned it enough to do some minor machine language programming. I switched it to a Amiga 500 with an A1010 floppy during the summer of 1987. I still got that A500, somewhta modified and in company with some other machines.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
I, Willow, Altair and Screwdriver started an computer interest group and managed to get some financial support to buy some Amiga 500:s. None of us could be considered as elite, but as we all started college was I and Altair in the same class as The Circuit/Digitech and Willow in the same class as Hitchhiker/Digitech. We started to know them, and Digitech was looking for a graphican and a musican. for some reason did my friends consider me as an graphican and a friend of my friends did some modules, so we was allowed to join. I remember when I (was forced to) showing my rather ugly graphics to Warlord/Digitech who thought they looked terrible, but was humble enough to not tell me. However, we was allowed to remain inside Digitech, on friendly basis to start with.
Quite soon was it only me and Willow left of the "newbies" as Altair and Screwdriver lost their interest. Both I and Willow started to learn assembler on the amiga quite soon, and I also started swapping. I spent lots of times with Warlord collecting hot wares to spread to my contacts and assisting in the creation of the "Digitech utility disks". As Warlord had quite a large workload did I take some of his work and made some of the last utility disks.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
Without any doubt, "Summer conference", our party back in 1989. At that moment was Digitech on the top, we were know world wide, mostly because of our large net of contacts from swapping. I think more than 200 people were swapping with less than 10 members of Digitech. Our BBS "Checkpoint Charlie" was one of the highest ranked.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
Some remember me from being a very active message writer on the BBS:s in my local area. In less than 6 months did I go from zero to more written messages than the sysop of "Checkpoint Charlie, and that was when it was at the top.
Some might remember me as a swapper. I disliked those boring premade, unpersonal letters some swappers used and tried to be a bit personal with each of my contacts. Those who didn't respond to this, was the first one to stop swapping with. One of my contacts, Predator/SilverHawks, do I still, even if rarely, hear from. We wrote several pages to each other, and the disks was the least interesting part of our sendings. We even swapped bottles of beer with each other.
Some might know me from some of the Digitech compact disks, even if Warlord made many more than me.
Some might recognize me from copy parties.
What would you like to be remembered for ?
A friendly guy, who wanted more than just having you to send him the latest wares and create the most advanced productions.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
I joined the army in the summer of 1990 to do my military service. Since I had less time for swapping did I stop most of the swapping, but kept the ones I felt more personal to.
My plans were to start thing up again after the army, but things wasn't like it used to be. With all those fancy and speedy modems was it all about pumping files, nobody cared about the persons behind the work. I personally find it hard to regard modem traders as elite users. Just moving files, but using a modem instead of CLI doesn't prove anything to me.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
I wish I finished one of all the demos I started to code. I got some megabytes of sources, from which almost nothing hit the masses. The Silwer hawks and Phase101 guys and I discussed many times that we should gather for a "helluva" party, but we never realized it. I wish we could turn back time and have a such party.
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Firepower, I loved that brutal arcade game. I have never really liked those adventure type of games. Games are for recreation, and I don't want to "use my brain" when I relax. Unfortunately is it rare with good arcade games these days.
DEMO(S)
"Ottifanten" by Thrust. It is a mix of demo and comics. It is simple, but it got that personal touch.
Red Sector's megademo is another important milestone. It's quality all through.
Those early demos with just a picture and a sample. Such as those by Shut berlin, Alphaflight etc. Nobody understod the complexities on the amiga, so the demos was exploring the possibilities to see what was possible to do. Since many discoveries were made in a short time did the demo technology change real fast, and the difference between the demos were much larger than it is today.
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
Kaktus & Mahoney, their music disks really are different and give you a feeling of being together with them. They do more than just throw a demo to your screen.
Alphaflight and the early groups that were the pioneers on the Amiga demo scene.
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
Conqueror / C&Z and Sauron, mostly beause I lived in the same city and visited them both many times.
OVERALL GROUPS :
There is really no ultimate group. The newcoming little group with little experience is more friendly but less advanced. The wellknown group is advanced, but inpersonal. Most groups constantly switched members, so the group's name only became some trade mark label.
COMPOSER(S)
Mithrandir/Acme, he was supposed to do the graphics to a game that Warlord managed. The pieces I saw was incredible, but unfortunately was the game never released.
Havoc is another artist who have shown marvellous artwork. For sure there are more, but I can't mention them all.
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
Dr. Awesome, Walkman.
BEST GRAPHICS
mod.echoing, I think it was made by World of wonders in 1989.
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
Two parties ment a lot to me. My first one, held by Acme factories in 1987 (1988?) in Karlstad, Sweden.
The other one was our own "Summer conference '89", not that I want to boast, but it was an important event to me.
MEMORY(S)
My popcorn machine... R.I.P. It followed me on every party I visited. Sometimes I had problem to convince the arrangers of the importance of providing it with the required electrical power, but I always made it out. I think it made several 100 litres of popcorn during Summer conference '89. Unfortunately did it burn up in flames one late night in 1993. It just costed one or two bucks to make enough popcorn to have every one at a party to chew popcorn.
Late at night on Summer conference '89 did a couple of upset guys show up at the entrance where I sat. It was one guy who had peed in a strangers' Amiga 500 and after than falled to sleep in the mess (somewhat intoxicated). The owner wasn't to happy to find his computer like this and almost started a fight. Months later did I hear that the guy who owned the computer left it, but later regretted it and, went back to get it, just to find it was stolen. I could pay a lot to see the face of the thief as he turns on the computer just to see it's broken and discover the urine inside it.
DRINK ?

    "Wooden bat"
    Mix the folling in a large glass:
    6cl vodka
    6cl Cocoa liquer
    6cl Bacardi rum
    6cl sugar water (drink body)
    3cl milk

It tastes like candy, but strikes like a wooden bat. Two of these and you are flying, and the thing is, you can drink them as if they were Coca cola.
What are you doing nowadays ?
Studying on my fourth year in computer science at university of Växjö. I hope to get my master diploma during the autumn of 1996. I have started to work with my master thesis about a distributed operating system. I also do some extra work as a teacher in information technology.
What are you doing on your spare time?
Beer drinking, party, programming and fooling around with ancient computer equipment.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Try to see and show the person behind the work and not just pass the product. Every item got a history to tell. Who will remember anything about today's demos when there's not even a scroller to help us remember? In a world of information technology is it easy to isolate ourselves, but try to get to know the persons behind the visual output on your screens. After all, if we are left alone, what's the value of our lives?
What is the meaning of life?
42 (I had to :-) As I wrote above, interact with other human beings. Boldly speaking is the purpose of every human to reproduce. If we never take the chance to meet the opposite sex, how could it possible be done?