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CU Amiga Super CD-ROM 19
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CU Amiga Magazine's Super CD-ROM 19 (1998)(EMAP Images)(GB)[!][issue 1998-02].iso
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chipInterview
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1997-10-06
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»SML:»CL9: Interview with
»CL8:--------------------------------------
»BIG:»CL9:Chip / Powerline
»SML:»CL8:--------------------------------------
»CL9: Via IRC the 19/9/97
»CL0:
I guess you've all seen it. »CL4:Repugnance
by Powerline». Personally, I have to
admit that »CL1:Powerline» and their coder,
»CL1:Chip» were new names to me until that
demo got released. As I guess that at
least some of you feel the same way, I
decided to invite Chip to a little
afternoonchat via »CL1:IRC». And here's what
I got out of him.
»CL1:<CTN> Cytron.
»CL0:<CHP> Chip/Powerline
»CL1:<CTN> Hi Chip. Could you tell all our
dear readers a bit about
yourself?
»CL0:<CHP> I'm a 18 year old guy, going in
school.. I code as much as I can
on my beloved Amiga..
»CL1:<CTN> How did you get involved in the
scene?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. It all started back in
1987, when my brother got his
first computer, the C64.. I
spent much time on that one,
coding a lot of basic.. In 1989
he sold it to me and bought an
Amiga.. I checked the new one
out and mostly played alot of
games..
»CL1:<CTN> Did you know anything about the
scene back then?
»CL0:<CHP> I knew about the scene yes.. But
just a little bit..
»CL1:<CTN> So, did the BASIC coding
continue?
»CL0:<CHP> Well, my coding dropped for a
few years.. Then my brother
bought an A1200 and installed
AMOSPro.. I started to code alot
(again :).. And then I bought
the computer from him when he
bought a pc..
»CL1:<CTN> Did you do anything special in
Amos?
»CL0:<CHP> Naah.. Just testing things and
the limits of the language.. I
only did one large program, and
that one disappeared in a
HD-crash..
»CL1:<CTN> So, what made you go further in?
Did you see some nice demos
then?
»CL0:<CHP> In september 1994 I interested
myself in the BBS-life, and
started to call different BBS..
One was called Dn'A BBS.. On
that one I met a guy who wanted
a coder for some projects.. So I
joined Dn'A at the time, and
also met Raylight(He called
himself Dr. Who back then) as he
joined at the same time.. It was
supposed to been me who did the
coding and Raylight who did the
graphics..
»CL1:<CTN> How did the projects turn out
then?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. Rather early we decided
to skip AMOS and learn ourselves
some Assembler.. We started to
study sources and so in January
1995..
»CL1:<CTN> Who taught you?
»CL0:<CHP> I did.. :) I'm selftaught.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Autodidact! I like that. Tell me
more!
»CL0:<CHP> Then a new coder joined, who had
a few years in coding asm.. He
was called Picnic.. He had made
a game that he had proposed for
Team 17, at the same time as
Project X.. They looked almost
the same.. So we decided we
should make something with the
stuff we had.. And we started to
code on a demo for Icing '95,
about a month before the party..
On the party, we paniced when we
realised that our 'main' coder
didn't want to work on the demo
anymore.. He just wanted to
sleep.. 90 minutes before
deadline and we didn't have
anything to present.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Damn. What a shame.
»CL0:<CHP> We sat down, studied his sources
and started to make it look as
good as possible.. 5 minutes
after deadline we gave the
result to the info-disk. So we
designed a demo in 90 minutes
actually.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Nice! How many contributed?
»CL0:<CHP> Hmm.. 6 groups i think..
»CL1:<CTN> And which rank did you get with
that?
»CL0:<CHP> We came on 2nd place, because it
was a lot of 'you vote on me and
I vote on you'-votes, so Giants
won with some text and a
picture.. And a ripped song..
»CL1:<CTN> Hehe.... (Whoever said that this
tendency started with the PC)
»CL0:<CHP> I think we missed first place
with one vote.. :)
»PIC:Shade4.iff»
»CL1:<CTN> What happened from then? You
just got better and better?
»CL0:<CHP> We grew a bit because of the
experience.. :) I started to
check on how AGA worked and what
you could mess with.. Picnic
left us at the same time, so we
had to stand on our own.. About
a month before The Party 5, I
had a fully functional
AGA-fader.. But in AMOS.. So I
sat down and started to recode
it into assembler.. Raylight
worked on the main code for the
intro we released, and I think
that I finished the AGA-fader on
the party, a few hours before
deadline. :) I also made some of
the support-routines (blitting
etc.) that we used in the intro..
»CL1:<CTN> Did you release anything there?
»CL0:<CHP> No.. Not on the party..
»CL1:<CTN> But later...
»CL0:<CHP> Half a year later, we had a
shell for a music-disk ready,
and started to design it.. It
resulted in that the code didn't
work, and I had to recode the
entire shell, so that we could
release something.. It was
released in June 1996.. Raylight
did the last-minute touch before
the release..
»CL1:<CTN> Was it a success?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. We don't actually know,
to this date.. People liked it,
but we didn't get any huge
response.. Except for one who
wanted to become a Pwl-Site in
Germany.. I should say that we
renamed ourselves to PowerLine a
few months before Icing '95..
»CL1:<CTN> Ok.. I got a bit confused there!
»CL0:<CHP> :) I realised that..
»CL1:<CTN> And then.. TP6.. Were you there?
»CL0:<CHP> Yes, we were at TP6, and should
have released a VERY good
4kintro.. But we dropped it, as
we realised that we couldn't
make it to the first place.. We
thought.. When we saw who won,
we realised that we could have
won the compo..
»CL1:<CTN> Too bad... (And the lesson is,
dear coders?? :-)
»CL0:<CHP> So we stopped a bit of the
activity for 3 months or so..
»CL1:<CTN> But then.. the breakthrough demo
(In my opinion!)
»CL0:<CHP> But then I started speaking to
Creon/Paranormal, and about that
he had a brother who wanted to
join as a gfx-artist.. And he
wanted a production to show his
gfx in.. So one night, Wasp and
I sat down and designed a small
'intro' for a demo..
»CL1:<CTN> And he liked it?
»CL0:<CHP> We didn't send it to him first..
My 3d-engine had at the time
started to function, and I could
use the 'wobbling' wall that I
had coded 7 months back. So I
wrapped together some small
parts with the 3dengine and the
wall behind. And sent it to him.
He liked it :)
»CL1:<CTN> :-)
»CL0:<CHP> So we started to code and code..
The effects developed quite
fast, and every effect in the
demo took me 10 minutes to
install and get to function
correctly.
»CL1:<CTN> 10 mins.. Wow.
»CL0:<CHP> We decided that we should use as
many effects as possible.
Because we think that it's
better do show something a small
period of time than a long.
»CL1:<CTN> I agreee!
»CL0:<CHP> A few weeks before Icing '97 we
started to redesign the demo
from the beginning, and added at
the same time some really good
looking effects. The realtime
lowpass-filter and the
interpolated raycast effects.
»CL1:<CTN> Were you proud of the demo, or
did you keep it a secret at the
party?
»CL0:<CHP> We showed the demo for those who
wanted to see. But as we sat
behind the bigscreen, not many
saw who sat there.
»CL1:<CTN> Repugnance got released... How
was the response from the scene?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. A good friend of mine
said: 'I thought you were a
rather bad coder(or something
like that), but now I see'.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Hehe. And how about the rest of
the scene?
»CL0:<CHP> We got a bit more respect after
the demo was released.. People
knew who we were..
»CL1:<CTN> Do you feel more elite now? Did
it change your attitude to the
scene? Or is this elitecoolness
long gone from the scene?
»CL0:<CHP> Naah.. The whole word 'Elite'
sux. I hate it. I can't see why
some people is more 'elite' than
others..
»CL1:<CTN> OK. You said, that you developed
a 3Dengine.
»CL0:<CHP> Yes.. At the time of the party,
it sucked.. We displayed I think
ONE object twice..
»CL1:<CTN> What do you think of 3Dengines?
Are there too many of them these
days, or?
»CL0:<CHP> There can never be too many
engines, but if people don't DO
anything with them, they are
useless.. I don't like objects
who just 'rotates'. That's why
we didn't let the object in the
demo be the 'main' effect.
That's why we used it in
conclusion with the
lowpass-filter.
»CL1:<CTN> So you like 3Dengines, if
there's some innovation
associated with it!
»CL0:<CHP> Correct.. Something should
happen IN it or WITH it. Not
just be there.
»CL1:<CTN> Ok. What is your general opinion
about the democompos of today?
The prices, restrictions etc.
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. There are too few
contributions. :) The prizes are
ok. But the rules and
restrictons sux.. 030/50 isn't
the computer that demos should
run on today. The PC side uses
P166, so why shouldn't we.
That's one of the reasons why I
signed the TP7-letter..
»CL1:<CTN> Should a demo work on all
configs? Even standard A1200?
»CL0:<CHP> We tried to make our demo work
on a stock A1200, but we
realised that we couldn't get is
as good as with the 4MB of
fastram. So i think that demos
shouldn't demand more than 8MB
and 020.
»CL1:<CTN> What do you think of the scene
today compared to your early
days?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. Both scenes has their
special 'touch'. The scene of
yesterday was a bit more
agressive i think. Today we can
reach everyone and talk with the
persons that we looked up to.
»CL1:<CTN> Which one do you like the best?
»CL0:<CHP> Well... That's a hard question.
I think I like the current scene
best, as I have spent most time
in it. I can't make a good
opinion about the old scene.
»PIC:Shade2.iff»
»CL1:<CTN> Hehe! Fair enough... We're
getting near the end. What are
your plans for the future .. IRL
and on the scene?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. IRL i'm continuing my
studies and my Magic games with
my friends :), and in the
scene. Well. We are working on a
new production for (hopefully)
TP7.. We hope that it will be as
good as Repugnance..
»CL1:<CTN> Great to hear. So you're not fed
up with coding yet?
»CL0:<CHP> No way. We have just started. I
won't abandon my Amiga. I simply
love to code on it.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Perfect (same with me!). And how
about your life? What do you
study?
»CL0:<CHP> Well.. I'm studying (I don't
know EXACTLY what it's called)
Electronics & Computers, my
third year..
»CL1:<CTN> And when will you graduate?
»CL0:<CHP> Hopefully next year.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> And will you start working (and
continue coding at the same
time)
»CL0:<CHP> I will probably go on to
highschool or something.. If my
grades are good enough.. And
I'll probably get 3-4.5 years in
highschool too.. So I'm stuck in
school.. :)
»CL1:<CTN> Well.. Have you got anything to
add? If not, I'd like to thank
you for your time.
»CL0:<CHP> Thanks yourself.. :) I don't
think so..
»CL1:<CTN> Do you want to greet anyone?
»CL0:<CHP> All members in PowerLine
ofcourse :)
»PIC:Shade5.iff»