Inteview with Dire

found inTypeAuthorYear
downloadCows'n'Snakefights 5Diskmagazine
Nukleus
Altruist - Balder - Browallia - ...
a12/03
added 1/14
Interprocessing: Dire
   performed by: Browallia


Browallia: Hi Dire! Introduction-phases are 
forever! For my help I take the nasty
trick using the metaphore of a taperecorder
   
         (please dont  :) )

Dire:  ;) Describing 28 years in one 
single sentence is quite difficult.  I feel 
free to use more then ;)  My brother bought 
his first Amiga back in 1986,  being one of 
the first Amigans here in Germany I guess. 
Soon after I sucked enough money out of my 
family to buy an own Amiga and play dozens 
of cool games.

   In 1988 or 1989 I met some members 
   of the demoscene  and entered this 
   marvellous underground movement as 
   an  editor  and  trader.  Very few 
   will know me as a sounder too,   I 
   hope they will forgive me ;)    My 
   scene work history include 
   articles for  Midnite Mess as 
   main-editor, The Jungle, RAW, Rage, 
   and few others I don't really 
   remember right now. I joined 
   The Dark Demon, a friendly 
   crew with members mainly in
   Germany and France, with whome   I 
   still have contact today. Later on 
   I moved on to Eremation and finally
   to Darkage for just a few months. 
   After quitting that group due to 
   some internal problems I rejoined 
   just to have fun. Greetings to all 
   DKG-mafiosi ;)

         My main scene  work, besides
      organizing to smaller parties,
 since 1998 or so is Scenet, a web
project including  all kind of
demoscene related stuff. This
project has been split up with the
consequence of  two new  projects
being born in   the beginning of
                     2002...


B: Exciting! MuuH! Are you working
alone with it? New facts for free?

D: Lucky as I am I am not working alone on
   it.   There are more or less people who
support the project - coders, designers and
editors. What we misunderstood in Scenet
was that we could not  administrate such a
big project with just two editors and one
being more or less inactive now, the
other then. This will change in Scenia,
and I am sure this will change in the
other new  project, Diskmag.de, too.
Contributors to Scenia are some people
being welknown in the scene, just like
Zerox, Unlock, Sacrilege, Soda, Crown,
Monty and many more.  Castaway is currently
working on the content management system,
and Noogman/Scoopex is busy with the
design, so things are going on.


B: Dire,  most of the sceners have
like one single approach to the
scene,  which is quite independent
to their working (normal?) life. As
I see it, you surely get some help
for combining   work  and   hobby?

D: That's true. I was the extremely lucky
man who turned his hobby into  real life
work.  In 2001 I was asked to take over
the position of  editor-in-chief  of the
German  papermagazine AMIGAplus. 
How could I resist...
And   there  is  another  magazine
in concept in which the Amiga will
play a role,      but I can't give
details about that one yet.


B: Scenet.de is splitted, how has
this been evaluated for you?

D: Well, let the past be covered by
 leaves.
   ;)


B: Any goals with Scenia?

D: We want to rule the world :) No,
just kidding. I expect Scenia to be
one of the major platforms for the
demoscene, together with Orange
Juice, Slengpung and Scene.org
- remember these websites cover a
different scene-area, that is news,
photos and downloads, while Scenia
will supply the content and
knowledge archive of the scene and
combine all platforms under one
roof, if not even be the biggest
demoscene portal ever. First step
is the relaunch of Scenia with a
big content management system, a
new design and new features and
areas.


B: Over to demoparties, any good events, 
   funny stories?

D: Well, what I really love to remember is 
  an event from the Cologne Conference
1998, when Günni von Gravenreuth entered
the party hall just when the
Günni-Dart-compo took place, paid for the
entry and the party organizers decided to
throw him out. Funny face that is.
Another one of my favourites is the regular 
soccer session at the RADWAR parties.


B: What gives you the hope for the future
of the Amiga community? Impressions?

D: OS4 will be the first step into
the  future,   together  with  the
AmigaOne and other hardware
systems. On the other hand we have
another  strong hardware platform,
the Pegasos II, still to be released this
year,  with an  alternative operating
system very similar to AmigaOS, MorphOS.
And  the third development we (still!) are
looking for is the Amiga Digital
Environment for  many different hardware
platforms. The Amiga market is more and
more shrinking, but there is a future for
the Amiga if all developers, dealers and
users keep together.


Browallia:                  .......     >>

B:           
          yes..! keep
       toghether! Before
      it  waS       Quite
     easy tO
    follow,         WHAT WAS HAPPENING,
    now,  I         HOPE DEVELOPERS
   are  Put-        TING A HIGHER,
   ShareD
  goal in-          STEAD OF WHATS
   best foR         JUST THEM. SO WE
   dont havE        5  NONE COOPERATING
    slices oF
     our markeT     Whats
       your own opinion
          about it?

D: In the worst case we will see court
proceedings between the competitors, which
will result in a solution whatsoever. I
don't think that we will see the market
cut in even more slices than now.   The
best of both classic Amiga-solutions will
be the choice of the Amigans, and what
AMIGA Inc. itself is working on, is not
important for the current market.


B: How important are the scene-
people for the new development?
Are you seeing any growing gap?

D:    I must admit that I don't see any
big importance of the demoscene for the
developments of the new systems.
Anyway, there might grow up a small scene
on  AmigaOne or Pegasos or even both, but
this will have no real effect on the sales
as the scene simply
  is too small to play any economical role.
  Anyway this is nothing worse: Remember
    the scene is a cultural institution,
             not a commercial organization.


B: Last nightmare you remember which
    totally disturbed your zzZleep?

D: "Germany stops imports of coffee.",
   "Mönchengladbach wird Deutscher Fußball-
    meister",
   "Big Pappa comes to Cologne." 
    ...


B: any last words Dire?

D: Amigans, hold strong!