Inteview with Antibyte

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Interview with Antibyte
 1fIShWAVe & Antibyte
   $Interview with Antibyte of Scoopex
   !arranged by  #fIShWAVe
  ! 
He is the coder behind demos like  "Pha-Q ! and  "Alien !, he is the organizer of one of the oldest and most glorious groups and he has talked with us - the Austrian  #Antibyte ! of  $Scoopex !.
  !We have talked about  $Scoopex !'s future and possible changes, about  #Antibyte !'s future projects, about the coding of tomorrow and how demos will look like, about Austria and its sleeping scene and like always you will find much, much more of interest to you right here in this interview!
  !
  "CN. !: Welcome  #Antibyte !! We hope you like this sceny cafe here. Do you want something to drink during this interview?
  "  !
  "AB !: Yes, a pint of ale, please!
  "  !
  "CN. !: So let us start with the traditional introduction questions. Who is  #Antibyte ! in reality? What's your name, when has been the day you saw your mother for the first time and everything else which is printed onto your identity card.
  "  !
  "AB !: My first name is Roman, I am male and I was born in 1973 in Vienna.
  "  !That's about all you need to know, I guess.

  "CN. !: I guess your scene career is not listed up on your id-card, so please tell us about it. When became the Austrian Roman a scener? What have you done before your  $Scoopex ! time? Please list up the highlights of your scenexistence.
  "  !
  "AB !: I started in the Amiga Scene back in 1988 (yes, I'm an old-school-scener). At that time I had my own group called  $X15 Crew !, together with some local guys. At the end of 1989 (or something like that), I joined an other Austrian based group called  $Energy !, where I also started Trainer-making (besides the usual coding). In 1991 the time had come to join  $Scoopex !, which had already started declining at that point (well, you can't get better than number one, can you?). The group was in deep peril, the members who brought  $Scoopex ! to the top in 1990, became totally inactive, some even quit, so the management thought it could compensate the lack of productivity by increasing the number of members. Today we know that this was the wrong strategy. Anyways, I became the organizer of the Demo Section in the end of 1993 and after  #Trade ! left some months later, I was the leader of the whole group. My trackmo  "PHA-Q ! (pronounced 'fuck you') released in October '93 was the only little light in that dark period. My demo  "Alien ! was the start of our comeback in 1995 as you all should know. Through time I also had some side projects running, like I joined  $Surprise! Productions PC ! in '93 and participated in a PC demo that made the 2nd place at  "The Party 3 !. In 1994 I had a small intermezzo with  $Hoodlum ! and in '95  $Classic PC ! had the pleasure to have me amongst its members. But those groups never had the priority that  $Scoopex ! had and still has.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Has your name any special meaning - Antibyte, that sounds quite strange. Is there any special story connected to your name?
  "  !
  "AB !: Well, the name  #Antibyte ! expresses a part of the antagonism (which is part of all entities) of the coding process. The antagonism resolves (in most cases) in this dialectic process into a production to be released. Thesis: Byte. Antithesis: Antibyte. Synthesis: a finished demo (or whatever).
  "  !Hehe, at the time I picked this handle I was more influenced by the legendary Austrian C-64 cracker  #Antitrack ! than by dialectic materialism, so...
  !
  "CN. !: As we already mentioned it you are in  $Scoopex ! and you are not a  $Scoopex  !member among many - you are the main organizer of your groups demosection. Besides your organizing activity you are most probably Austria's best coder and are doing some cracking, we heard, too. How much time do you spend on these things? Which has the highest priority for you?
  "  !
  "AB !: I spend quite some time on doing the usual bureaucratic stuff an organizer has to do. This organizing activity is something which I do regularly, whereas coding is something that's done just out of fun. There are times when I work intensively on a project, followed by months of coding-inactivity, so I can't exactly tell, which task takes more time all in all. My last crack was released in 1994 on PC, so cracking is not of interest for me at the moment. If you say that I'm 'most probably Austria's best coder then you have to mention that I'm most probably Austria's only coder, too!
  "  !
  "CN. !: We want to focus on  $Scoopex's ! organizing first. Since your clean up work in 1995,  $Scoopex ! hit back with some very stunning productions -  "Alien !,  "Artcore ! and  "ISO ! just to mention some of them. Surprisingly everything was done by the same members, those who were 1994 so deadly inactive. How did you manage it to motivate your group's members?
  "  !
  "AB !: In 1994  $Scoopex ! consisted of about 40-50 members (all sections), which I reduced to about 20 in 1995. The remaining members had no longer the feeling that they were some amongst many, but that it was kind of exclusive to be a  $Scoopex ! member again. Besides I didn't just tell them to do something, but I was working on a production ( "Alien !) myself.
  "  !
  "CN. !: As we all know  #Made ! left  $Scoopex ! and caused maybe the biggest loss to the group one can imagine, though he still works hand in hand with  #Ninja !/ $Scoopex !. Does  $Scoopex  !already has an equal substitute for  #Made ! or are you trying to live without your main graphician?
  "  !
  "AB !: As you maybe have noticed,  #Made ! still IS our main graphician. He's a good friend of us and works with  #Ninja ! closely together. If we needed something from him, we've always got it up to now, which should show the good relationship between  #Made ! and  $Scoopex !. And as you've seen in  "Free your mind !, the credits just said  #Made !, and not  #Made !/ $Bomb !.
  "  !
  "CN. !:  $Scoopex's ! memberlist still features the names of  #Ranger !,  #Slayer !,  #Uncle Tom ! and  #Uno !, having legend member status. Is anyone of those mentioned persons anyhow involved with the Amiga and its scene or have they quitted long time ago?
  "  !
  "AB !: I don't really know, but telling from the fact that we completely lost contact to them, we can be pretty sure that they are not part of the Amiga Scene anymore whatsoever.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Lately we heard that  $Scoopex ! may be making a diskmagazine probably based on  #Colorbird's ! " "Propaganda !"-code? Rumor or reality?
  "  !
  "AB !: Sure, we'll release  "Propaganda #5 ! right after  "World of Wodka ! (WOW).
  "  !
  "CN. !: A final question to the organizing subject. What is your strategy for the future? Do you want more talented members, do you want less or are you satisfied with the  $Scoopex ! team you currently have?
  "  !
  "AB !: There might be some small changes, but I think the whole  $Scoopex ! team is satisfied with the situation as it is right now. We don't want to take in lots of new members, because this decreases the motivation and productivity of the crew. We've learnt our lesson in Scene-history.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Let's switch the topic - or should we use another expression for it? jmp AB_Code: - hmm, seems like a poor attempt of Assembler. How long did you need until you learned how to code? Who helped you with that?
  "  !
  "AB !: I don't know how long it took me, I can't even tell if I really know how to code today. I started machine language programming on the C-64, and started immediately studying Motorola assembly language after I had bought my Amiga500 in 1988. My only help were books and looking at the code of other (better) people.
  "  !
  "CN. !: How do you code a new routine? Are you studying math-books, do you try to invent something on your own or what is it alike?
  "  !
  "AB !: It's a little bit of both, although I can't neglect that I'm heavily influenced by the demos which are considered 'cool'. But that's something that most coders are, I guess.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Where do you get your inspiration, your ideas from? Are you just copying other coders work, changing here and there something or do you get your routine from for example "real life" video clips and then try to realize it on the Amiga?
  "  !
  "AB !: I practically get all my inspiration from watching demos, no matter how old they are or what plattform they run on. The impact of this is that I rarely invent a new effect.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Could you please tell us how long it takes you to code an average production. How long have you been working on e.g. " "Alien !"?
  "  !
  "AB !: Well, " "Alien !" is a rather bad example, because it was my first AGA release, and the 2 other involved coders left the project during developement, leaving me as the only one behind, which delayed the demo quite heavily. So from start to end it took about 6-7 months, which is for sure not the average time for such a production.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Nowadays most people dislike trackmos, big harddisk installable demos rule todays scene. Do you think that this is a general improvement?
  "  !
  "AB !: Sure, the improvement comes from the hardware; harddisks are simply faster and bigger than floppy disks. Why shouldn't we exploit the resources that are available?
  "  !
  "CN. !: Besides that the demos need more diskspace, fast memory is needed and better processor wouldn't be bad either. How much important are 4mb fast mem and a 68040 really? Is it really worth to spend hundred of dollars to see some PC fashioned vector routines?
  "  !
  "AB !: I can't tell if it's worth the money in general. I can just say that my o3o/50+4mb was worth it. Besides, what is the alternative? The scene needs progress, otherwise it would become boring. But I can understand everyone who rather wants to join the PC scene then keep up with the Amiga one.
  "  !
  "CN. !: What is the future of coding? Will demos be soon consisting of 99% vector routines or will coders return to copper based effects of all kinds? How important  will be raytracings and design in tomorrows chart toppers?
  "  !
  "AB !: The trend to see the world as a mathematical model and to try recreating it as realistic as possible will continue in demos for sure. Design will stay as important as it is right now, but the style might change a lot.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Our last coding related question - What is your next project? Will it be a big demo for a scene party? What projects are planned by  $Scoopex ! in general?
  "  !
  "AB !: No comments about this. Big announced productions barely ever see the light of day.
  "  !
  "CN. !: You are a member of the Austrian scene, a country which is not among the top of scene countries. Why are there that few sceners in Austria, a country that has a rather good connection to its big neighbour Germany?
  "  !
  "AB !: Austria never had lots of people in the Scene, but the decline of the Amiga Scene, as it is right now, strikes a little country a lot more than a big one. And that has nothing to do with connections to other countries.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Besides that Austria has few sceners, the current ones aren't active either. Trying to write down Austrian groups we ended up with the 4 names -  $Scoopex !,  $TRSI !,  $Alcatraz ! and  $X-Trade !. Is this the whole Austrian scene? And if it is, where are the productions from these groups?
  "  !
  "AB !: What do you expect?  $SCX !,  $TRSi ! and  $ATZ ! might be big names, but those groups are not big in size in Austria. E.g.  $Scoopex ! just consists of 1 person (me) in Austria. It's just single people rather than whole sections.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Do you expect changes to the better in Austria or will the scene go completely down the drain?
  "  !
  "AB !: It sure will go down the drain. And it's the same with Austria in the PC Scene as well. But I don't really care, it doesn't affect me at all. There a still enough cool people in other countries.
  "  !
  "CN. !: So, let's go on to the more personal part. What are you doing besides your scene life? Any other spectacular hobbies a la sky diving, skyscraper climbing or anything you could entertain our readers with?
  "  !
  "AB !: Well, besides Scene-life, hanging around with my friends having fun and studying computer science at university, I'm doing a little bit of politics. I'm participating in a magazine for and from the autonomous left.
  "  !
  "CN. !: Can Mr. #Antibyte ! imagine to marry soon, get children and to be the nice daddy, or are you more the casanova-fellow? Is there already a woman in your life?
  "  !
  "AB !: A woman in my life? ...sure, my Mum! Hehe, I'm definately not the type of guy to get married soon. Family life is something bourgeois, which I don't like. And I'm not the casanova-fellow either; sexism sucks! I have some female friends, which I respect and have a good relationship to, without having to pretend to be the 'cool dude'.
  "  !
  "CN. !: What do you think about drugs and alcohol? Sceners always use these words to underline their image of the cool dude. Are you pro or contra drugs?
  "  !
  "AB !: I'm no teenager anymore, so I definately don't drink in order to pretend something that I'm not. I booze quite regularly, but it's for escaping this crude society with its repressive system. That's sad, but true. So it's not a question of 'pro or contra' for me, I think that it's a shame that so many people are (more or less) forced to take drugs by their environment. We got to change society; that would be a lot more efficient than any restrictive drug policy.
  "  !
  "CN. !: The traditional  #Seenpoint ! question - If you could choose between 1 million dollar, one night with a top model like Cindy Crawford or the number one ranking in all scene coder charts - what would you take?
  "  !
  "AB !: I would take the money and then spend 500.000 dollar on a top-model, and use the other 500.000 dollar to bribe the charts' editors to make me number one in the coder charts. (That's simple coder-logic!)
  "  !
  "CN. !: Yes, we are almost through. If you want to add something or to greet anybody then do it right now please.
  "  !
  "AB !: Yes, I want to acknowledge all the people and friends that I had to deal with through the years of scene-life, especially the people in  $Scoopex !,  $S!P !,  $TRSi !,  $Complex !,  $Energy ! and all the guys from #amigascne and #coders (like  #Boogeyman !,  #Bird !,  #Yolk !,  #Murk !,  #Vesuri !,  #Raato !,  #Reward !,  #Destop !,  #Jmagic !,  #Fotze !,  #Duncan ! + tons of other guys...)
  "  !
  "CN. !: Thank you for this interview. We wish you the very best for your further life!