Inteview with Metal Designer

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In Focus:Metal Designer of Nah-Kolor
                                                                          
 
Name and Surname: Antonello Mincone
Age             : 20 anni
Business        : Student of electrical engineering
Codename        : Metal Designer
Gang            : Nah-Kolor
Function in the
gang            : Little girls' enticer, coder
Crimes          : Tenebra, Psyko Rifle,
                  TheProphecy, SideFx,
                  Hardcore, Unauthorized Lands.
                                                                          
What  you  now  read  is  the  schedule  of  a wellknown gangster called Metal
Designer,  who  made various crimes for the Scene.  We have the proof of these
crimes.   Actually,  his  intros  and his demos invaded the harddisks of every
Scener;  but  we  want  to know more from and about him, so we did this thirty
degrees questioning.                                                         
                                                                    
So  we  visited  the  lately captured criminal in the local jail and asked him
about  all  the scenish robberies, assault and batteries he did.  Will we keep
him  in jail or will he be allowed to go and be a free man afterwards.  You`ll
see it!  ;-)                                                      
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
How did you start, Mr.  Gangster...  What is your scenish life?
                                                                    
"I  was  in  the first high school year, Nov91.  In that issue of TGM (italian
papermag)  there  was  for  the  first time a Talent Scout (a rubric about new
young  talents),  they  talked  about  Dolphin,  a group in Pescara (my town),
authors  of  Jewels, an Amos Columns clone, published some months later by the
new  softwarehouse Lindasoft.  I contacted the programmer, Francesco D'Angelo,
and  since  that  day he became my best friend; I've started to know how Miggy
works  from  him,  and I too started to code an Amos game:  No More Colours, a
Splash clone.                                                    
                                                                    
Splash  was  a  coin-op like Qix, where a paint-brush had to paint over a nude
woman  body, and to defend from moving bobbles, with blocks and various bonus,
like  shields  and  similar...  it isn't my style, but everyone who watched it
told  me  I've used Amos at 100%.  It never went out simply because I needed a
good  module  converter...   In the meanwhile I met Marco Ricci, who needed an
Assembler  handbook (me and Francesco bought 2 just for interest).  I got from
him many software like Amos Pro and DevPac and I've started coding in Asm.
                                                                    
I  still  coded  a bit with my Amos game, while Marco, who was already able to
programm  (later on I knew he was able to code) on C64 started immediatly with
Asm;  when  I  needed  the songs for NMC I asked Marco and he gave me the tel.
number  of  a  friend of him, Fabio, a sort of ex-student of Marco on C64.  He
told  me  that  he  knew many people beeing able to compose music, and he also
showed  me  some  beautiful  pics  linked  with  music  (I knew later it was a
slideshow),  coded by Fabio (World of Manga/Comax, -Ed):  I remember that when
I  called him I was a lot excited and he told me "Ciao, I'm Randy of Comax and
I'm  the  eigth  cracker in the WORLD" and I "Wow!".  He gave me the telephone
number  of  a  certain Federico, that Fabio told me to call him just "Parsec",
who composed the music for his new demo NaOs.  I called Parsec, and discovered
at  once  that  he  was  a  strange  person; in two minutes he played me three
modules and told twenty names in english...                          
                                                                    
Marco  started  to  show  me  some  disks  called  Demos:  the first ones were
Odyssey,  Desert  Dreams  and 9 Fingers.  I was surprised especially about the
disks named Spaceballs, so when I called Parsec I asked him also to do a Dance
mod.  The idea was to do 9 Fingers in AGA, the only problem was that we needed
a  good  video  recoder and a studio where to record everything, or better the
starting base..                                            
                                                                    
But  we  tried, and it was the occasion to contact also more strange people by
phone,  like Lry and Sirio.  Between the many phonecalls, one day Parsec asked
me  if  I  wanted to do with him a demogroup (even if I still hadn't the right
idea  about  a  demogroup); he told me there weren't problems, and he asked us
about our handles.                                            
                                                                    
Mine  was  easy:   Metal Designer, I called myself so since Amos times, a real
mental  masturbation:   language  was  limited, so there's need of hard ideas.
Marco,  that  was called HitMan on C64, decided to rename to Hedgehog, because
his  surname  is  Ricci  ("Hedge", -Ed), and also because Sonic was one of the
myths.   Francesco  didn't  care about the scene, but we all called him Fra at
the sea, so it was nice to use the same name we used at the phone.
                                                                    
Parsec immediatly wanted to do a great demo.  In the meanwhile Full Moon, Love
and  Origin runned every day on our monitors, but also It Can't Be Done, coded
by  italians,  some  Ram  Jam, my best group's name; but I thought we could be
better, so I proposed "It Can't Be Done" too as name for the demo.
                                                                    
Hedgehog started to code some effects, he wrote at least 30 times the rotation
routine, Fra was a god in creating plasmas, and he started to have interest in
3d,  even  if  he  was  always  a nice gfxman.  I had right ideas for creating
effects like fire and I had some knowledge in math that Hedgehog hadn't, and I
was able to try the effects before in Amos (I was able to write also 5 x day).
The  first  demos  with texture were out, followed immediatly by steps of env,
Psychedelic was a monster that only the fastmem of Fra allowed us to watch.
                                                                    
I  was  the only one to have a modem, but I wasn't able to find docs.  While I
was  under  the  shower,  a sunday of April 95, I had the idea for the texture
mapping,  finished  by  Hedgehog.  At the beginning the demo should be for the
Sing  Sing (the first try of a demoparty in Italy -Ed), but we didn't finished
it  in  time,  also  because the only routines I was able to write in ASM 100%
were scrolltext, copper effects, plasma, and few others...
                                                                    
Time  later  our  demo,  that  Parsec  called  in the private area of QBism (a
wellknown  italian  bbs  -Ed) "Tenebra", was finished; my first travel outside
Italy was in Holland, at Somewhere In Holland.                  
                                                                    
I remember that there a guy called Facet passed me a joint and told me to pass
it  to  a certain I-GO, a very tall guy that was speaking with Macno, a friend
of Parsec that at the beginning I felt very unfriendly.
                                                                    
My  real  myths  there,  were  the swappers of T.F.A.  that gave me and to few
others the version 1,26 of the Asm-one.                       
                                                                    
During  SIH,  Parsec  told  Macno  that  I  wasn't  able  to code, but only to
program..   I  was  very  angry  with  him,  and  I was about to accept Acbs's
proposal, who phoned me when I was back in Italy, asking me to join Ram Jam.
                                                                    
The  rest  is  a  story  that everyone knows; the Monna Partys, Smau meetings,
meetings in Pescara, everything that my friends dreamed closed at home :DD
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
ZZZzzz...Eh?!   Ah, yes...  Ok, I see that our Metal speaks a lot, you`ll feel
a  lot  more  easy after finishing this interview.  "Which crime, did you like
most?                                                            
                                                                    
"It's  hard  to say, every production gave me a particular enjoyment, in every
particular  period  of  my life, also the names are not random, expecially for
SideFX."                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
But how do you think about the Amigascene after your crimes, eh?
                                                                    
"It's the same of two years ago, a very funny place where I life some hours of
the day."                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
And the italian scene, how does it feel?                    
                                                                    
"The  same like two years ago, it's colourless.  Or better, worse, without The
Charts and Macno."                                                      
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
Don't  try  to  send  excuses  to  the  others!   At  the  end  you'll confess
everything!                                                                    
                                                                    
"There were FOUR fundamental teachers about informatic in my life:  my father,
Fra, Hedgehog and Scout.  The most important thing that this one told me until
now is:  I told him to thank for having explained me a thing)
                                                                    
"Thanks, and sorry if I'm a lamer".  He answered me:  "You'll continue to be a
lamer until you'll believe to be so".                           
                                                                    
Elite  and  Lamers don't exist really, it's only folklore :) And folklore is a
tradition, but to be honest, no one is elite and no one is a lamer."
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
So  we can be peaceful, even if we wont keep down the guard.  Tell us, what do
you think about the other gangsters?                         
                                                                    
"All very sympathic."                                  
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
What  are  you  doing,  are  you kidding?  Who's the most dangerous, who's the
bastard among them?                                     
                                                                    
                                                                    
"TheDarkCoder/Morbid  Vision" has  for  sure  the  most  solid bases, being an
university researcher.  There aren't any non-sympathic coders, who try to make
me laugh :D"                                                
                                                                    
Ok, ok, we don't believe you...  but anyway, let's continue.
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
Is the Amiga dead?  Or is there still a hope for her? (our girlfriend)
                                                                    
"I  can't  only  talk  about Motorola 680x0, because I know only them, and the
situation isn't green.  For the rest, until we'll not see anymore the quantity
of software of 7-8 years ago, we can say everything and the opposite."
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
Do you think that PPC can extend the life of the Amiga?           
                                                                    
"Do  you  call  Amiga a computer with PPC, gfx board, and various patch to fix
bugs?   If  they would have evolved Copper (and so Chunkycopper) maybe I would
too call it so..."                                                           
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
There's someone in the Scene that you would throw down from a bridge?  And who
would you save?                                          
                                                                    
"From  the  bridge  I  would throw myself in the moments of existencial crisis
:DDD.  I'll gladly save Rio's ass.  :DDD"               
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
Good, good...  I would say that there are all the elements to keep you in jail
and throw away the key to open the door.  Do you have something to say, before
we'll kick you away forever?                             
                                                                    
"Well...   a  kiss  to  everyone  in #orgia, I'd like to remember Rio that his
pants are still between the ones of Susanna and Surfing.
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
Then...  still to Rio:  I don't know if I'll go to Assembly, due to money, but
if you find another place (nearest) full of small girls let me know.
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
A  big thank to God that accepted me during a very "pagan" lent, and a "hi" to
all my neocatecumenal commmunity, in particular to my "sister" :D Daniela, who
is  still  a the 16 years old girl with the biggest boobs I know, and the girl
with the highest power to let me become angry."
                                                                    
For  the  moment  this  is  all,  also  today  we have locked up another Scene
gangster.                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                    
casalengo@chivasso.alpcom.it                                 
(Translated by Mod3m & Ghandy)