Interview
Handle: IRONFIST (but I don't use this anymore, my rockstar name is Snake Hollywood)
How did you come up with your alias ?
From a comic book superhero
City / Country:
London England
Born year:
1970
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
ZX81, I stole money from my dad to buy this only to find it sucked bigtime. I can't even remember how long ago I bought this but I must have been like 13 or something. After that I had a Dragon32.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
Originally I got to know Steve of Laser and then the other Laser guys but I couldn't realy do anything back then as I hadn't had any interest in coding yet, but after watching Steve crack several games I decided I wanted to learn to code so I got myself an Expert cartridge and before too long I was much better at coding than all the Laser guys, although I never had so much interest in cracking, just did it just to prove I could realy.
After the original Laser, Zenith was formed with me, Steve and Tri-Dos, Tri-Dos left to do his own thing and Zenith ruled as no.1 until we quit. Later on I returned to the 64 with a group called Electric Boys but this was pretty short as I thought the scene was pretty lame and full of new lamers, I then turned Electric Boys into a business and started importing CMD products from USA and publishing software such as GEOS and Games.
Of course I left it preety late to start business on the 64 and it was never very profitable, just enough to get by realy (about £35000 per year) and then eventually I went bankrupt.
Laser reformed for a while and I released 30-40 cracks (re-releases) for this and also did a few cracks for Airwolf team under the name Cloak & Dagger.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
There are more than one.
1) My first commercial production, I wrote the loader system and intro sequence for International Karate+
2) Making megasnail of Nato beg for mercy at a computer show after I caught him and dared him to follow up his threats to beat me up. He was made to look very stupid in front of everyone
3) My interview in Comoodore Format when Electric Boys became the most well known C64 supplier in the UK.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
To be honest I don't know and didn't even know I was still remembered after all this time, but anyone that has found me over the years has always mentioned my intros, I was a bit of an intro addict and did loads of them, and they were always original in some way. Here are the ones I can remember.
ATC, NPN, Platinum, Mayhem, Zenith (several), Laser (several), Airwold Team, Electric Boys and loads more I don't remember the group names.
I am most proud of my last 2 intros, A terminator style Laser intro and the Airwolf Team intro that looked like an Airwolf game with parallax mountains. I think these were the 2 best and most original intros I saw on the 64, and I'm not saying that just because I did them, but because intros were generally shit and borning. Maybe I was remembered for always being drunk at computer shows, who knows?
I know there are some Danish/Norweigen guys out there somewhere who will remember me for taking them to a strip club in SOHO and getting them all completely pissed out of their heards and convincing them to trash the bar with me before we left. What a nice bunch of blokes. hehe
What would you like to be remembered for ?
I never started wars, caused trouble and always tried to help people out with coding, intros or whatever. I would also like to be rembered as the person who finally gave Ewen Gillies (aka Warlock, King Rat, Diamond Stud, Trisect) what he deserved as he was a severely hated person on the scene who pissed off a lot of people. So what I did to him was for the benefit of them all.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
I basically became more interested in sex, drugs and rock'nroll. I just forgot about my computer for a couple of years and concentrated on getting drunk and getting laid. I then joined a rock band and went on tour.
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
I wish I had done something serious with the 64 a lot earlier. If I had started coding games or started a business a few years earlier then things would have worked out a lot better and I am sure the 64 scene in England would have been more alive if I had made all the CMD hardware available earlier.
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Hawkeye, Maniac mansion, ghosts and goblins
DEMO(S)
I loved the judges demos when they came out but there are realy too many that I liked for me to remember. I did like blackmail, Camelot, Oxyron stuff though.
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
Mr cursor was cool, KGB always amazed me that he produced some great looking stuff without even knowing how to use interupts. Hake from god and hake was a clever bastard, the judges for inventing FLD.
I usually was impressed by coders who moved onto producing quality commercial products. Many great demo coders produced some of the lamest games I ever saw, I guess they had no imagination or design flair for games.
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
Crackers I wont comment on as you never realy knew how good people were, I once discovered this guy in Laser (Jester) couldn't code a single thing, he had somehow managed to crack games by totally fluke and guesswork with his cartridge and no-one knew until I saw him doing it.
The best groups in my opinion were Eaglesoft, Triad and of course Zenith. The reason I choose these is because their cracks at least always worked as they were tested properly, it's called quality. And still they managed the fastest releases. I always checked every crack I did all the way through to make sure all levels and gfx was intact and it did not crash. If there was a bug in the game then I fixed it, not many groups did this, they cracked it and released it with bugs, missing gfx or levels or not working At all. This realy pissed me off if I actually wanted to play the game. OVERALL GROUPS :
Can't comment on that as there may have been some great groups after I was gone.
COMPOSER(S)
Jeroen Tel, Red Devil (the unreleased Defensive music he did for me in doubleplay was amazing)
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
Defensive, LED storm, That's the way it is by JT, Some quadplay tune I heard on a lemmings crack by red sector.
BEST GRAPHICS
A compunet guy called SIT, he was one clever motherfucker.
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
Never went to parties as they were too nerdy for me, I always get too drunk.
MEMORY(S)
Commodore shows, hanging out at the compunet stand and being sucked up to by the geeks who pretend to be hard over compunet because they think they will never meet the people they insult. The old American BBS's, AT+T phreaking.
DRINK ?
Snakebite and black
What are you doing nowadays ?
Looking for a job in Networking, Java, C++, also I am setting up a new business in internet and gfx design.
What are you doing on your spare time?
Catching up on all the old games I missed out on like Flashback, Monkey Island, Beneath a steel sky etc etc, getting into the new ones like Duke Nuken 3D, Tombraider and just having a good old rock'roll time getting drunk and being busted for leary behaviour the rest of the time.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
You all killed off the 64 before it's time and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I also would like some people to tell me why they never upgraded their 64 with CMD hadware as this would have brought new life into the 64 if all the cool coders, demogroups etc had released stuff specific for RAM expansion, 3.5" disk etc. Anyone doing anything with SuperCPU let me know, I'd be interested to hear about it.
I was seriously interested to produce loads to special software but there was no market for it by the time I decided. Already I started coding Windows64, 3D image studio and sound sampler software to support the SuperCPU. I then used these beta tools to produce SCPU support modules for my unreleased game DEFENSIVE. The SCPU version would have had digitised speech and SFX, video sequences and enhanced 65816 routines, shame it was all scrapped realy.
And I don't want all you desperate groups asking me for these beta tools and previews as I have no intention of setting up a 64 again and sorting through thousands of disks.
What is the meaning of life?
Rock'n'roll dude!