Krion

Krion/CDN Interview
A Interview With A Coder                                 

by
:iNFiNiTY:
CYdONiA      

Krion as come a long way to become known as one of the best coders in Oz
It's production demos like Red Planet and Capricorn One that only shows a small percentage of what this man can do
Everytime he releases something new through either by demos/Intros or by PD utilities, you know you've downloaded something good
                                                                 
ProFile                                                                         
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  HANDLE: Krion                                                                 
     AGE: 18                                                                    
COMPUTER: A1200 for myself and A2000 for my BBS                                 
   GROUP: Cydonia                                                               
    ROLE: Coder                                                                 

WHEN DID YOU START CODING?                                                      

I  guess  it depends on what you mean by "coding"
I was mucking around in BASIC on the C64 for years, but I didn't REALLY start coding until 1991

WHY DID YOU GET INTO CODING?                                                    

Initially  it  was just something that somewhat interested me
What really got  me  into it though, was seeing my first demos (Enigma by Phenomena and Global Trash by Silents DK) in 1991
I was hooked straight away and I knew that  I wanted to code 'something like that'
I could already program in C and I knew a little bit of assembler, but I wasn't "into" it until then

WHAT MOTIVATE'S YOU TO CODE SOMETHING?                                          

Seeing a routine in another demo, especially if I think I can do it better
     
WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS FROM?                                               

Other demos as well as suggestions from other people
                           
WHAT'S THE HARDEST THING YOU'VE HAD TO CODE?                                    

Probably the wolfenstein effect

WHAT OTHER GROUPS HAVE YOU BEEN IN BEFORE FORMING CYDONIA?                      

My first  demo  was released under the 'group' name "Purple Vortex"
This wasn't  really a group though because it was formed for the sole purpose of producing  one  demo
Once  I had that one production under my belt I got     

into  Digital Access where I stayed for around 18 months, before leaving to form Cydonia
                                                                   
SOME PEOPLE SAY YOU LEFT DIGITAL ACCESS WITH SOURI BECAUSE YOU WERE FIGHTING    
WITH JOHNNY TURBO OVER IDEAS AND STUFF, WHILE OTHERS SAY YOU JUST SIMPLY        
WANTED TO START SOMETHING NEW
WHAT'S THE REAL REASON BEHIND THE SPLIT?

It  is  true that we had differing opinions from time to time, but I always coded  the  routines  that  I  wanted  to  code, and we never had any major problems  in  that  area
Souri and I simply didn't like the fact that we couldn't  rely  on  the  other members
After being let down time and time again  with  music  for  Models Inc we were getting very annoyed
It was also around this time that Digital Access Records was gaining momentum, and so the focus was taken away from what we were there for - Amiga demos
Put that  together  with the fact that Souri and I were keen on making a change and  starting  something  new, and we had a lot of reason for leaving, and     
I've  got no regrets
I'm very happy with what Cydonia has produced in the year and a bit that we've been around
                                          
NAME 3 CODERS IN AUSTRALIA THAT YOU THINK ARE GOOD

This  is  a tough one because I'm gonna have to leave some off that I don't really want to, but 3 it is:                                                    
        Netrunner / Pearl, Tachyon / Pearl and Storm / Cydonia

NAME 3 OVERSEAS CODERS THAT MAKE AN IMPACT ON YOU
                              
Doctor Skull / Virtual Dreams,  Mr Pet / Sanity, and Chaos / Sanity (before he started going on about doing rotators in intuition screens that is :-) )       

WHAT'S YOUR LATEST PROJECT?                                                     

I'm  writing  routines  for  a new AGA production called Deimos, which will also contain routines from Storm

WHAT DEMO/INTRO ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?                                          

That's  a  hard  choice  between Red Planet and Capricorn One
If I had to choose  between  the two, I'd say Capricorn One
The routines were better, and  it  was more refined
I have no regrets about it
I still regret the choice of pictures for the dual rotator in Red Planet

WHICH OVERSEAS GROUP DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST?                                  

Virtual Dreams
I havn't heard much about them recently, but in my opinion they  were the true pioneers of AGA coding
Full Moon and Love were great, and they were truely AGA, and not just ECS routines running in 8 bit planes and  an 020 like those in many AGA demos at the time
Add to that Jogeir's music and you've got THE group
                                                 
DO YOU THINK THAT THE OZ SCENE WILL EVER BECOME MORE ACTIVE THEN EVER BEFORE    

ONE DAY?                                                                        
It's  hard  to say
With the difficulty of getting 1200's at this point in     

time,  things  don't  look  good, but that could all change with production starting  up again
Who's going to be selling them and advertising them in     
Australia  is another issue though
And of course, it's hard to guess what the new scener is going to want to do
Chances are they'll pick up a cheap and fast modem and become a modem trader, and live their 'scene life' under the  impression  that  shuffling a few games and a lot of 5 line text files carrying 20KB's of BBS ads between boards will get them some respect
           
THERE'S A NEW SYDNEY GROUP THAT AS JUST BEEN FORMED
DO THEY POSES ANY THREAT    
TO CYDONIA?                                                                     

I've  only ever heard of 2 of the members
A bad sign?  I think it's a bit unfair  to  judge  on  that basis
As for the 2 members I've heard of, the prospects  look  very  mixed
Reload  is  a  pretty good graphics artist
     
Slayer on the other hand is a bad BAD sign (Why is his board called "Phobia WHQ" when the group's name is not Phobia!?!)
In any case, based purely on a  scan  on  their member list, they don't appear to have enough productive members to be a "threat" to Cydonia, even if these members are talented

HOW FAR DO YOU THINK THE AMIGA CAN GO, REGARDING CODING WISE?                   

You  can  always  push it a little bit further, but it's getting harder and harder,  and  big  improvements are getting rare
There's only so much you can  optimise,  and after all these years there isn't as much left as there used  to be
That's not to say that the limit has been reached - just that improvements  arn't  happening as often as they used to, but I really can't say how long it can continue for and where it will lead

YOU'RE ALSO A SYSOP ON LUCID DREAMS
IS THAT HARD WORK ASWELL?                   

Not  really
Lucid Dreams is a small system, and it doesn't really require a  lot  of  time from me
I've been very fortunate in my career as a sysop because  people  have contributed a lot to the board, making my job easier
     
All  those  kick-arse  ANSI screens were done by Souri, so apart from being infinitly  better then anything I could've done, it saved me from having to do  them
   (A  fact that annoys other local sysops no end :-)
And of course  it's the users that make a BBS great, and again I've been fortunate in that area too with many active users who make the board what it is

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY STORIES TO TELL US?                                       

I  suppose  I  could  write about that time we made a certain sysop wait in chat  while  we  finihed  our  pizzas, or that guy I rang up and abused for uploading  a  startup sequence to Twisted Dreams, but this isn't really the place :-)
                                                                                
WAS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY BEFORE WE END THIS INTERVIEW?     

Just  a  quick complaint about the lack of people in the productive side of the  scene
We've  got  too  many  damn traders and other such talentless losers
There's  nothing wrong with trading in itself, as long as you can do something useful too