Amiga Arena Interview
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  Developer: Daniel Westerberg
  Software: TheMPegEncGUI, MultiRen, Detris, DRemind, 8SVXtoXXX, BackUp,
            AmigaAMP-Prefs, Cathedral, JoinSplitter and more..
  Homepage: http://www.onyxsoft.nu
  Mail: daniel@onyxsoft.nu



 *Please introduce yourself to the readers!*

  Hi!
  I'm a 24 years old student who live in Karstad, Sweden.
  I'm currently studying to be a software engineer.
  My main interests are programming on Amiga and music. I am singing
  in two choirs as a tenor and I like to listen to music alot, mainly
  trance or eurodance :)

 *When did you start working with the Amiga?*

  I got my first Amiga in 1992, it was an A500. In 1995 I upgraded to an
  Amiga1200 which I'm still using today.
  I got my A500 mainly to make music on as a friend recently hade got one
  and I saw the very neat way to make music using a tracker. I have made
  about 80 modules mainly using NoiseTracker, 30 are my own creations and
  the rest are covers of demo's, games etc.
  In 1995 programming got my interest and I dropped the music making.

 *Which Amiga model do you own*

  An Amiga1200/BlizzardPPC/BVisionPPC and an Amiga2000 which I never use
  except for the keyboard as the A1200 is towered :)

 *Which version of the operating system is running on your computer?*

  AmigaOS 3.9 ofcourse, what else?! :)

 *Which software are you developing?*

  There has been quite alot of programs over the years. TheMPegEncGUI,
  MultiRen, Detris, DRemind, 8SVXtoXXX, BackUp, AmigaAMP-Prefs, Cathedral
  and JoinSplitter are perhaps the most recognized programs. I have made
  a number of small more or less useful tools aswell.

  Currently I'm working on a new version of Detris and my newest tool
  QuickSketch which is something like Stefan Blixth's QuickNote - a
  computerized Post-It thing. In QuickSketch however, you can not only
  write text but also paint with your mouse.

 *Can you tell us what your software is about?*

  Oh, this is going to be a long one ;)
  Well, I just explained QuickSketch above.
  TheMPegEncGUI - This is a GUI for a couple of MP3-encoder like Lame, MusicIn,
                  Ncode, BladeEnc and more.
  MultiRen - This is, I dare to say, the most advanced file renaming program in
             the world. You can rename files in many ways, automatically, manually
             or by advanced patterns or using plugins.
  Detris - A tetris clone using MUI and therefor totally RTG compatible.
  DRemind - A reminder program so that you wouldn't miss appointments, birthdays,
            tv-programs and such.
  8SVXtoXXX - This is a sample converter which you can use to convert samples
              from IFF-8SVX to 8SVX, AIFF, WAV, VOC or raw format. You can also
              resample while converting.
  BackUp - This is a backup tool. It copies a whole directory structure to another
           location. The nice thing about this, IMO, is that it doesn't archive
           and/or compress the backup but just copy it so that you don't need the
           BackUp program to read the backup.
  AmigaAMP-Prefs - This is the "official" prefs editor that comes with AmigaAMP.
  Cathedral - An experimental program to put reverb-effects on AIFF-samples.
  JoinSplitter - A program for splitting and joining large files if you need to
                 carry them on f.ex floppy disks.

  Hope I got it all. More info can be found on the homepage.

 *What has created the idea in you to continue developing your software?*

  Well, it can be different causes. Usually I just want a new feature in a program
  or just want a new program. Take MultiRen f.ex. I had all these MP3's with
  really bad, funny or too long names and I needed a simple and fast way to rename
  these so I made MultiRen. Sometimes a user requests a feature in a program so I
  implement that feature.

 *How long has the development taken so far?*

  As I have made many programs and updates them in parallell it's hard to say,
  but once I made a timertool to keep track of how much time I spent with my
  Amiga. In one year I spent 1700 hours, that's 1/5 of the year! Most of that
  time was developing time. This was a couple of years ago, but now I think I
  spend even more time with the computer but less time is effective developing
  time.

 *Which software are you using for developing?*

  As I program in Amiga-E I use EC by Wouter van Oortmerssen. As a GUI frontend
  for this CLI-based compiler I use my DECH. And the text-editor I use is
  Annotate v2.0 by Doug Bakewell.

 *For which system (AmigaOS, AmigaDE, MorphOS) are you developing?*

  So far it has only been for AmigaOS. AmigaDE is not in any interest for me as
  I have no PDA and not even a PC or any other computer at all. I've been thinking
  about MorphOS but then I need to write in C instead and porting from E is alot of
  work. Also I can't get MorphOS to work on my computer.

 *Which OS will you support in the future?*

  AmigaOS 4.0! Maybe MorphOS, maybe Linux, maybe AmigaDE too, it's hard to say at
  this point. Maybe I'll port some programs like MultiRen to windows too, just
  for the finacial sake, who knows. But that's years into the future.

 *What can we expect of future versions?*

  Detris: 2-player mode over TCP/IP.
  MultiRen: Probably some new plugin(s).

  I have nothing else planned except for fixing bugs and implementing new features
  if I or someone would come to think of any.

 *Don't you lose the fun and the interest in programming if you see the small amount
  of feedback you get from the small Amiga market?*

  Sometimes I stop and wonder about what I doing, making programs and spend so much
  time in this very small market. But then I think that it is really mainly for my
  own entertainment I program, not for anyone else. So I just keep on! :-)

 *Do you receive enough feedback for your software?*

  Yes, but surely not more than enough.

 *When did you last use your Amiga?*

  The last time I was awake and at home, which is now :)  It's power on 24 hours/day
  360days/year (sometimes I let it rest for a few days if I'm away for some days..).

 *Which software did you last buy for your Amiga?*

  Hmm, that must have been TaskiSMS, I think, or was it OS3.9..?  Can't remember.

 *Which software do you still use?*

  Of the programs I've bought?!
  Well, that would be DirOpus Magellan-II, IBrowse, AmIRC, Miami, TaskiSMS, PFS-3.

 *Which hard/software are you planning to buy?*

  Hardware: AmigaOne, or maybe Pegasos.
  Software: I would like to get a professional audio-tool like ProStationAudio
  or something, but I have no working sound card, no PFU and they are too
  expensive.

 *Do you believe in a comeback of Amiga?*

  Not like in 1985, no. I don't think people will go and by themselves and
  AmigaOne or something because people have forgotten about Amiga. Some
  ex-amigans will probably get themselves an AmigaOne or alike but unless Amiga
  make an advertising campaign about 10 times stronger than Microsoft and keep
  it that way for a year, no major Amiga-rush will happen IMO. And that is sad.

 *Your final words for the readers?*

  Keep the momentum going!
  Even though I don't think Amiga will be market-leading it is still a good
  computer that deserves to live and with new hardware around the corner people
  no long have to buy a PC just to be able to do certain things that an Amiga of
  today simply can't do because the hardware is unsufficient, but they can still
  use their Amiga.

 © Amiga Arena 2/2002