Interviews

Interview with Magicman

Published in Domination #15
Performed by Jazzcat


J)
Hi Stephan! Welcome to this special issue of Domination. Please introduce yourself.

M)
I don't really know how I should answer to that question :D
I am a normal person and I am 25 years old. I am interested in computers since I was nine years old and started when I was 10. I work 14 hours a day. 8 hours for a normal job as a PC-technician and the other time for my own company. I am not rich, but have enough to live ;)

Today my entire life is dictated by computers, and so are my rooms. Five PC's, three Amiga's, 2 Commodore 64's, one PlayStation and more technical stuff. I like to play multiplayer games but don't really have much time for that?

I hope to be a rich man in some years after my company beats Microsoft and kills them forever, but today it looks more like I should stop all activities for my company? But we will see when I'm 30 years old? So I don't know what I should write so ask me some special questions and I will give you more explained answers ;)


J)
What are/were your jobs on the C64 scene and what do you do on other computer systems?

M)
In the beginning I did most by myself, (Coding, Grafix, some music, swapping) but after I met Gotcha the first time I stopped all my activities in drawing Grafix. The same I did with music and swapping. Since I joined ARRAY I was only a coder of some groups until today (I think the last thing I coded on C64 was an intro for Avantgarde some years ago? Sometimes I had to crack something for CRAZY or ENIGMA (Turrican II, X-Out, PP-Hammer and some others) but only if there was no cracker available (I think all of my releases were firsties?)

In 1990 I started coding a little bit on the Amiga, but not very much. After a while I sold my Amiga as I won a PC on a C64 demo competition. So I started coding on PC too. But I never joined any groups on Amiga or PC so I used my PC only for business coding.

Actually I am on the way to make some games and some applications to sell to special companies and try to come back to scene activity?

I also coded on Atari in my school.

Today I work on C64, Amiga (again) and PC but all the time I am more like a lamer? I have not finished any scene related stuff since years and I dunno if I will get something finished in years ;)



J)
What are your hobbies outside the scene? And how would you describe an average day in your life?

M)
My hobbies... hmmm... there are very many things I love; one is to read a book sometimes about philosophy or about some physics stuff. I also like to play guitar, piano or trumpet. Sometimes I work with electronics and so on. But I think I have not much free time to spend on hobbies?

Most of my day goes to computer and business. But if you are in Cologne I like to drink the whole night with you ?


J)
Sounds good! I will endeavour to make it to Cologne sometime and I will make certain to take you up on that offer? You have been in the scene for around 10 years or more. Over this time you must have had some interesting experiences. Care to say what has happened?

M)
I can't really remember when I joined the C64 scene for the first time. It must have been around 1984 or so. The first group I joined was "4712 Crew" I think. It was a lame group with lame members, but we had fun? I remember we had good contact with the guys in TWG as they lived near our place. After this group dies, I joined "JAZZ". It was a group formed by some guys in 4712 Crew and we were all the time lame too. At this time I had some contacts in ARRAY, so I joined "ARRAY" after Jazz died.

This was the first time I met GOTCHA and we started to be a team for coding and grafix. We made a demo called "ARRAY-FEVER" and after we finished that we both joined "CRAZY". I think it must be around 1986 or 1987. I remember we released that demo in VENLO with a CRAZY intro in front which I coded in 5 hours just for VENLO (Crazy Skull Intro? then the gold old CRAZY time started).

In the beginning Gotcha and me only made some kewl intros and after SHINE/ALABAMA and TYCOON/LIONS joined CRAZY we here in Cologne become more famous. We had much fun in CRAZY and I think we had a very good time. But everything comes to an end and so it was with CRAZY too.

After the Swiss founder of Crazy quitted, the group gains a new position with just the Cologne members as the front part, but after some months the differences between the members become more difficult and some started to leave CRAZY. I think I was the last who said okay then CRAZY is dead, until now, and I became a freelancer.

I did some coding for my old friends which was in Illusion or Ikari+Talent but never belonged to any group. Again some months later we reformed a new group with most of the old CRAZY and ILLUSION pals. "ENIGMA" was born. I joined ENIGMA and coded some intros for the group.

Again GTA and I made some stuff together but not like the old days as we were a 100% good team. ENIGMA dies after a while because of internal problems and so I stopped C64 scene activity totally for a while.

DEFF told me that he will start a new group called "AVANTGARDE" I joined this group. But I had nothing to do with the scene in that time and only made one (and I really liked dis one much!) intro. I didn't notice that the group died ?

I had first contact with the scene again since, I think 6 years, and joined "HITMEN" coz there are some old pals I remember. I also reformed CRAZY as an oldschool group which (until now!) less activity. But really I will try to release again some stuff for CRAZY and I will make a web page with all the things from the golden C64 days of CRAZY.



J)
Looking forward to these new wares and the Crazy webpage! You have mentioned several times to me that Mamba may come out again; there were also rumours at one time that the magazine would join with Corruption and be called Coramba. Is there any truth to this and do you think Mamba will ever be released again on the C64?

M)
Absolutely NOT! Peter/CRAZY (formerly known as TYCOON/CRAZY) doesn't want to release MAMBA again. He thinks that nobody can make a mag today with the same style as in the Mamba time. So if he writes some new issues for Mamba they can't get back the old quality. So he doesn’t want this! But without Peter (he was the last writer of MAMBA) I will not release any new Mamba's bcoz it's the mag of the authors! Sorry! But if I got the time to finish my work on the internet site of Crazy you can take a look on MAMBA ONLINE. There you can read the entire original Mamba's and of course some new things going around on the C64? But it will need some more time ?



J)
What is Gotcha up to these days? Are you in contact with him and the other Crazy people from Cologne?

M)
I don't know what GOTCHA did today. I lost the contact to him several years ago. I heard that he studies GRAPHICS and DESIGN. Most of the other Cologne members are my friends today, like Peter (he made nothing around computing today); Frank/Shine (PC and PlayStation just for fun and sometimes a good logo for the Crazy internet site); Sebio/Shine (he is a coder for a company that sells software for workflow management. Two years we worked together in our own company for hard- and software. I wrote a book about JAVA programming together with him?
 
Weasel (I stay in contact with him in email) but last I saw him was 8 years ago or so. He lives in Munich, Smasher/F4cg (I meet him from time on IRC or mail, never meet him in real life {he lives in Swiss), Jinx (actually I am in the same group as him, Hitmen, and stay in mail contact only).


J)
Cool to see there is still some contact with the older guys. Gotcha was criticised by a lot of people when he was working for Mamba. What do you have to say about this?

M)
I can't say anything about that! I have never worked on MAMBA without some coding. I know that all MAMBA writers tried to give its best and in my opinion made a good job all the time. But no writers of a mag are perfect and if GOTCHA was criticised its okay. But he made a good work and that is enough for me! I had a good time with GTA and I will never miss the years we worked together.


J)
Cool. I think most of the criticism was based on jealousy anyway (a normal thing in the scene) if you get a chance check out the interview I did with him in the Olympic edition of Vandalism News. Speak to you again soon Stephan!


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