>2QUESTIONAIRE ------------ Please be honest, informative and interesting. After all no one wants to sift through a pile of horseshit :- >1 {1PERSONAL DETAILS {0 >3 FOR THE RECORD PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME AND OCCUPATION Michael Slater Richmond. "Student". TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR SELF I'm eighteen years old, 5'6", 7 and a 1/2 stone and studying English langauge, Maths and Physics A level. So I'm a skinny little swot. DO YOU HAVE ANY PERSONAL SKILLS AND HOW DO YOU USE THEM IN THE COMPUTING FIELD ? Personal skills? I'm good at brushing my hair, does that count? I (like to think) I'm a "musician" which is my field in music. I play the guitar, but other than that know nothing about music. ARE YOU SEXUALLY ACTIVE AND DOES THIS INTERFERE WITH YOUR COMPUTING LIFE, IF NOT WOULD IT ? Fucking hell! Get straight down to the nitty gritty, eh, mate! Look back to my physical description for an obvious answer, and no, NOTHING interferes with my computing! If anything, "romance" (or sex, as you put it) has been the inspiration of many, many great pieces of music. Lack of it probably also brought on a few. It gives you something to write about either way. AT WHAT AGE DID YOU FIRST COME INTO CONTACT WITH A COMPUTER AND WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT ? 6-ish. Hated it. But that was a BBC, and at school: never a great combination in my books. I loved my first C64, which I bought in 1985. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE 'PC REVOLUTION' ? Balls to all that. I really don't give a damn what's going on in the computing world any more. I'm happy as I am so will not be joining the PC using gamesplayers. DO YOU CURRENTLY HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, IF NOT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ? No. And no. The internet has been really overhyped just lately and I'm only going to join in when all the fuss has died down. THE AMIGA PD SCENE ------------------ HAVE YOU CONTRIBUTED IN ANYWAY TO THE AMIGA PUBLIC DOMAIN SCENE, IF YOU HAVE WHAT ? I've compiled a few utilitiy disks for the MED Users Group, done a couple of PD music disks, written for TI and Amoszine (two great diskmags) and this diskmag (which I'll say is great even though I haven't read it yet ;-), done the music for one or two games and written fiction for an electronic fiction 'zine-type-thing, Magnetic Fiction. WHAT IS THE MAIN SOURCE OF YOUR PD SOFTWARE Friends and contacts. I used to buy a lot of PD from PD libraries but now I just cadge it off everyone else ;-) there's been nothing in the PD that's taken my fancy for a long time - everything seems to revolve around Flashback-style games and Imagine objects now. I've taken quite a bit of software off CDs but I can't see myself buying any more in the foreseeable future because there's nothing I want any more :-( WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE PIECES OF PD/SHAREWARE SOFTWARE AND HAVE THEY INSPIRED YOU IN ANYWAY ? I don't really have any favourite PD or Shareware. Normally, I love a piece of software for a while then never use it again 'cause I think it's crap. Commercial or PD. I suppose that while MED was Shareware it could have counted as a favourite, but very little public domain software has inspired me. Widening the scope a little, I've found several diskmags inspirational (Amoszine/TI/Shareworld/ZAM) and Andrew Campbell's Dark Portal series have made me change my views on the PD and its purpose/image greatly. DO YOU OWN A CD-ROM DRIVE AND IF SO WHAT ARE IT'S MAIN USES Yes I've got a CD-ROM (well a CD³² to be specific) and I use it almost exclusively for playing music CDs. WHILE THE COMMODORE TAKE OVER WAS STILL UNRESOLVED IT WAS SAID THAT ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS THAT THE AMIGA SURVIVED WAS DOWN TO THE DEDICATION OF THE PD AND SHAREWARE CODERS. IF THIS IS TRUE WHAT DO THINK WOULD HAPPEN TO THE AMIGA IF WE DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT ? I disagree with that. A few coders (or loads of coders) in the PD _using_ the machine is worth nothing. They're going to use the Amiga anyway because it's there and they already have contacts in the PD. PD doesn't sell machines, or make people interested in purchansing a machine which is not on the market. How many PD coders ran out to buy a new A1200 on the day Escom relaunched the machine? PD still has a crap image. If Shareware and PD coders disappeared overnight... I honestly believe nothing would happen. Sure, there would be no new PD software being made, but PD houses would continue to survive for a while on the stuff they already had. Remember that PD coders aren't buying new machines, just using old ones, so Escom would still sell the same number of machines (let's face it, most Amiga buyers are professional computer graphics people or gamesplayers now). WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF 'REAL MAG' PD REVIEWERS AND ARE YOU FEELINGS JUSTIFIED They don't always get the facts right, which can taint some reviews. But wouldn't everybody complain if their software was given a bad review. They should review less software and review it properly. WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF LICENCEWARE AND HAVE YOU EVER PURCHASED A PIECE OF LICENCEWARE ? I have purchased a few pieces of Licenceware and also written a few, and most of it (the stuff I've bought ;-) has been okay. Occasionally I have had major problems (such as games refusing to work) but this is (probably) down to my antiquated A500+. Some Licenceware software is no better than average Freeware PD software, though, and this should be looked into by the Licenceware companies, who are perhaps signing up software which is below standard but guaranteed to sell well. I'll say no more. WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL FINALLY KILL OFF THE AMIGA PD SCENE (IF ANYTHING) ? I don't think that there are many "new" PD coders arriving at the Amiga's door, and many of our existing PD coders have moved over to the PC (often to do nothing more than play on the latest Texture-mapped game). If that continues, the PD is as good as gone :-( IF YOU HAD THE TALENTS TO CODE/WRITE/DRAW ANYTHING YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE ? I _do_ have the talent! Honest 8^D I don't know... All I want to do is make music so I wouldn't mind a "proper" piece of music. But the Amiga's sound capabilities limit that somewhat. ARE YOU WORKING ON ANYTHING AT THE MOMENT ? No. I've got loads of "unfinished" projects, but they aren't unfinished at my end. I wrote loads of music in the last eighteen months for games that are yet to be released, so they could be called "current projects". I've got a couple more possible game-soundtracks lined up but nothing's in black and white yet. As ever.