Interview
Handle:
Bacchus
How did you come up with your alias ?
I was first Playboy, and I actually wrote to the mag to get an official approval but was of course turned down, but was of course surprised even to get an answer. I was then Gaston for some two weeks before I realized there was a Gaston in a group called Thundercats. I then looked for a fitting name and found that a gods name would be kewl. Wine and fertility has always been my game so I went for a god with this opinion as well and came up with Bacchus.
City / Country:
Stockholm, Sweden
Born year:
1968
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
My first contact with the c64 was an old shoolmate (Mats Möller) from class 6-9 that I met by chance and he did show me his C64 and the games he has for it! I was there OFTEN quite some time before I got to buy my old one!
I bought my first C64 in the beginning of the summer 1985 from a shop called "Diskett" in Malmö. This shop is kinda legendary in Sweden as so many famous hackers on the scene used to work there. Strider being one of them, and this was also the source of so many originals that turned up on the scene labeled "The Thieves" (Striders first group), W.A.S.P. (We Against Software Protection), W.C.C.(West Coast Crackers) and FairLight.
I also bought a diskdrive at the same time that suffered from a major heatproblem.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
I was a typical newcommer during my first year - I swapped and played games. I had been playing games with Mats before, which might have been shorting this period. Already from start, I did notice the intros on the games and the guys doing the cracking was already becoming some sort of idols - Ivanhoe and Lancelot of W.A.S.P. being two of them... Mats had a subscription of "VIC-rapport" which had articles on coding assembler and this was the first contact I had with the language. I thought of it being too complicated to be worth the effort of learning, but understood that it was the key to being as kewl as the guys with the intros.
Mats had a classmate in his new class, named Mattias Bergström who was actually doing some coding and we formed a group called L.C.T. (Lunds Cracking Team). We had a few other members, The Saint and The Panther but I can't say I know them much. Mats was Mr.Coconut and Mattias was The Scarlet Pimpernel. This was around 1996.
Mattias was the leader but I had opinions on how to run the group. I wanted to get a better name that wasn't as local and also thought we needed more members. I renamed the group into C.P.U. (Crackers and programmers Unlimited). I took in:
- Mr.Lead (Andreas Svensson, swapper - now better know as Grayhawk. He actually swapped with Strider which alone was a reason good enough to bring him in)
- ADE (Fredrik Ademar, later known as Phred) was a multi-talented doing code, graphics and music - all in a highly skilled manner.
- Mr.Wedge (Anders Janson, now Wedge) was a person we found from an add in a mag where we advertised for "fellow 6510" coders. Anders was a semiprofessional coder at the time and he was first astonished by the demos TSP did so he didn't think he qualified, but then he suddenly reappeared when he'd been coding a musicroutine that made a part for him in the group as a coder/musician. He taught the rest of us coding in assembler - the assembler in question was MacroFire which sucked big but was far better than the monitor in The Final Cartridge II.
It was rather unclear if C.P.U. and L.C.T were two groups or just one, as TSP still marked his work L.C.T. Mr.Lead had contact with a few guys in Uppsala that wanted to form a new group so in early December 1988 some of us left L.C.T/C.P.U. or whatever we were to form Oneway. The memberstatus was me, Mr.Lead, ADE, Mr.Wedge from the old group and then Razor, Questor and Galleon from the new.
This is the very same Oneway that still lives with guys like Ziziphus (Hedda Hacker from Sphinx) and Skyflash who are behind ByteBoiler, ABCruncher and the hackpacks.
After a mere week Mr.Lead got an offer to join FairLight. I couldn't believe it but this was actually true so Mr.Lead turned Grayhawk, Mr.Wedge turned Wedge, ADE turned Phred and I was still Bacchus - now all members of FairLight.
The memberstatus of FairLight at the time was Strider, Gollum, Woodoo and Sir Gallahad/Black Shadow. My first crack for FairLight was Batman - the Caped Crusader and this was the 13:th of December 1988.
I called Strider to write a greetingslist in the scroller and Gollum was pretty pissed off for the new members. I guess he learned to live with it. :-)
Strider was having more and more to do with the Amiga and I was the only other person with a leading experience so I pretty much took over the c64 section as it mainly consisted of guys I brought in. Strider brought in a few guys from old Heptagon (Viper, The Alchemist/Salt and Pepa) and Viper was responsible for getting in Pernod and Seagull (From Absolute Vodka Team), Dino and Rowdy (From Life/Riffs I guess) and Judge (from Science 451).
The newer members I think you know but this is all quite a lot more recently.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
I have a hard time pointing out one moment; joining FairLight was of course one of the major ones, my first real multilevel crack another.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
I'm a genuine scener who's been around since LONG leading one of the more prominent groups during a row of successful years. I was also the rolemodel in the group putting a major effort in my cracking and taking pride in the perfection in it!
What would you like to be remembered for ?
For being a highly skilled cracker, who's cracks one could solidly trust!
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
I can't say I quit as I'm still around in the heat, even if I left the leadership for the group. I am married, have a kid and have a full time job which leaves rather little time left for hobbies. I contribute with what I still can offer the group.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Not being on the party where Pernod and Judge left for Horizon. Also for being too much of a coward to go to the Alvesta parties I was invited to and perhaps also for not buying my C64 earlier!
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
- The Pinball series on the Amiga kick major butt!
DEMO(S)
- Think Twice I and V by the Judges totally blew my mind at the time they appeared.
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
- Well scenewize, 1001 Crew, The Judges and Horizon. I'm not sure of any special programmer; Our own Tron managed to amaze me so often but I don't know it the fact that I saw his work for another angle than other peoples code colour my vision here. He is for sure a kick arse coder!
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
- being a cracker make me rather kinky here, and makes if hard for me to accept those I could actually compete with and rather look for the ones before my time; Eaglesoft did all those really tough EA games and are for this worthy a lot of respect! W.A.S.P, W.C.C. and Dynamic Duo are early heroes of mine. Mr.Z is the obvious guru, that personifiespersonifies skilled cracking.
COMPOSER(S)
- I can't say that this something I know a lot about, but Martin Galways loadingtunes in the Ocean games warm my heart when I hear them. Tim Follin is also a KEWL composer!
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
- I say Galways loadingtunes in f.ex. Rambo.
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
- Slagelse 1989 is second to none. There I could meet Mario van Zeist, the guys from Masters Design Group, someone from 1001 crew (can't remember who it was) and lots of others!
MEMORY(S)
- Lots and lots of them! :-)
DRINK ?
Depends on the time; A big glass of cold milk, a glass of whisky to sip from or a glass of Guinness from the draught could all be swell!
What are you doing nowadays ?
Working my arse of on Telia Mobitel (the major cellular operator in Sweden) forming, negotiating and closing interconnect agreements. I'm a lawyer by profession.
What are you doing on your spare time?
Spare time - what is that? ;-)
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Hi! :-)
What is the meaning of life?
Short and easy; 42 :-)
Honestly I think kids and bearing a new generation is the only thing that justifies ones existance. I don't believe in any god nor homosexualism - I'm a strict darwinist!