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
-------
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