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Wizz / Danish Gold,
The Supply Team,
Wizax 2004,
Zetrex 2005,
2000 A.D.,
Wize
Added on February 10th, 2005 (7948 views)
www.c64.com?type=3&id=165
Tell us something about yourself.
<Anonymous>, 33 years, and born in Odense, Denmark. I live near Odense, Denmark, and I work as a Product Manager for a medium-sized web company. Interests: MMORPGames and computing.
What handle(s) did you use and how did you come up with it/them?
I had a few handles to start with, though none I remember (or rather; WANT to remember :P). Primarily, I referred to myself as Wizz which I derived from Wizard but added the extra “Z” because four letter handles were much better suited in terms of sprites and such. ;)
What group(s) were you in?
Oh lordie... Mmm... Danish Gold, TST, Wizax 2004, Zetrex 2005 and 2000 A.D. I also had a little side-project with Kaze called Wize (Wizz and Kaze).
What roles have you fulfilled?
Coder and cracker.
How long were you active for?
Let's see... It must've been something like 1984 to 1987/88.
Tell us about those years and how you got into the scene in the first place.
Well, in the beginning it was all about games for me. I was hooked up with a steady supply of cool games on turbo tape – of course – from the son of one of my mother's colleagues. In a local computer club, I was also starting to relate to two shady characters that later became Danish Gold. In the summer of '85, my friend, the fella with the turbo tapes, started business school and told me he had met this really kewl dude there which he wanted me to meet. That dude was Kaze and he was, at the time, working on TST Demo #2 which indeed was a very nice looking product. Through him I met the rest of the gang: TSN, Rambones (though I think his handle was slightly different at the time), Trix (yuck :P) and possibly a few more that never got stuck with the scene. The rest of the story about the old days is pretty much "public history" by now, I guess. And if not – it's all documented fairly well in the extensive scrolltexts we wrote. ;)
Describe a typical day for you in front of the computer.
I got up, fired up Kwik-Write (I was never a Turbo-Assembler kinda guy), coded, coded some more, went to bed, slept. Rinse and repeat. Alternatively, in the "Making Games Publically Available" phase of my scene life; I got up around 10, hit the local computer store and checked for new titles, brought them back home to "the gang", cracked them, trained them, attached an intro and made sure the swap disks were in the mail before 5:30 PM.
Did you personally invent any special techniques or tools to make things easier for you?
Aye, I fiddled with $D011 to make sidebordering easier. I used it to make an almost stable jumping sideborder scroller (mid-screen) very early on. The $D011 fiddling technique was later used by The Judges in a new way, and became known as FLD. No claims here though about code stealing or anything. They found a new and interesting use for something I was just hoping would handle the silly line-scan issues that the VIC had. ;-)
When you look at what you did back then, what are you most proud of?
Teaching myself to code assembler language at the age of 13, never having coded anything before and only using the C64 Reference Guide as help, makes me proud.
Who were your heroes on the scene and why?
Softtech. That dude could crack anything – and I do mean ANYTHING! He was probably a light year ahead of the rest of us.
What, for you, was the coolest thing ever invented on the C64?
Sidebordering.
Did you go to any copy-parties, meetings or tradeshows?
I went to a few. I remember one in Sweden (the Fairlight party in 1987 perhaps) where I met Yip, who later became known as Yip the Drinkin' Finn. :P Was a lot of fun! ;)
In your opinion, what was the scene all about?
Just kids pitting themselves against each other. It's the same thing today, really. ;)
What were the particular highlights for you?
None in particular. My favourite production was the entry to Demo of the Year me and Kaze did under the Wize label.
Any cool stories to share with us?
Nah. ;)
Are you still in contact with any old C64 people today?
I'm still in contact with most of the TST gang, which is probably natural since we all live close to one another.
When did you get your C64 and do you still have it lying around somewhere?
I got it at X-mas in 1983 as a present. I have no clue what happened to it, though I remember something about the fart Scorpio stealing it.
Was the C64 really as special as we like to think it was?
No.
When can we expect to see some new C64 output from you? :)
Haha.... Well... If the C64 emulator for the X-box comes up to speed – I could be tempted. It's not likely though. ;)
Do you have a message for your old contacts and/or anyone reading this?
Yep – I'm still testy as ever. ;)
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