NICKNAMES STORIES
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Here comes the first part of our "nicknames stories". Let me recall you that
some time ago I posted a message on DHS giving you the opportunity to tell us
why you chose your nickname. I hope you'll enjoy the first contributions and
will read more next time.
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AiO = All In One (with first and last letter in uppercase <- don't know why :)
When I was young(er) I attended to some oldschool copy-parties and I always
had some game etc. in progres. But I was always on my own, until I joined
T.O.Y.S. So I had to create everything on my own : Code, Graphics, Sound
effects and Music. That's why my nick is All In One = AiOAiO = All In One
(with first and last letter in uppercase <- don't know why) :)
Baggio
Well, since my first name is Robert, a friend of school used to call me Roberto
Baggio (the famous soccer-player) just because I was like the opposite of him.
Totally uninterested in sports and esp soccer and only interested in computers
and other techie-stuff. The first nickname I used during my early scene years
was "Magic Fingers" and since I thought Baggio sounded alot better, I choose it
instead. The swedes usually calls me "Bagarn" which means baker in swedish or
"Baggen" which could be translated into Beetle.
Blind Io
It was in the late eighties and early ninties I first tried to code demos.
They where very lame STOS scrolltexts and maby a sprite or two, often with my
nick at that time. I called my self Solo, as I was a huge Star Wars fan (and
still are). Fortunately no one has ever seen these demos. After moving to
assembler, I changed my nick to Steed (after the hero in the cult series The
Avengers). At this time I had made some simple raster bars and STE-hardware
scrolling (not so impressive perhaps). My current nick is inspired by (read :
stolen) from the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett. BlindIo is the
most omnipotent (or is he ?) God on the Discworld. As I/O is a quite common
computer term, I thought it would fit quite well as a nickname. And maybe I
_am_ blind, in several ways.
CiH
This is a story that has been told before, in the tenth anniversary edition
of Maggie, as I seem to remember. It started when I began signing some early
Maggie articles as 'CIH'. These happen to be the initials for my full name,
which I'm not going to bother to tell you, yet again.
There was a slightly later more self-conscious connection made with other
initial-based pseudonyms such as 'ES' or Eric Simon of The Exceptions. A later
refinement came, with the middle 'I' going uncapitalised and the present form
of 'CiH' emerged, fully ormed and matured. This has been useful in
distinguishing my pseudonym from the fabulously virulent PeeCee wrecking 'CIH
Virus' which emerged more recently. Enquiries from international law
enforcement agencies, seeking to make a connection with this more maelevolent
incarnation of the CIH pseudonym have been precisely nil...
CosmosH
I chose my nickname a long time ago, say 8 years. It'a simple story : I was
with my bother on the Atlantic coast where we went surfing. Sometimes the
waves were really high but I wasn't afraid of falling off so my brother
compared me to an astronaut (cosmonaute in French) performing crazy stunts.
The 'H' is the first letter of my name, Herv‚.
Der Komtur
With the birth of the group "Paranoia", the nickname "Der Komtur" appeared
the first time. Searching for the most exotic and interesting sounding
nickname i remembered a very exotic character in the novel "The black spider".
This character was a "Komtur", meaning the leader of a local knight banner and
in this tale, he featured a lot of bad characteristics (tyranny, despotism
etc). Characteristics i hope my people do not consider me to have. So why this
name ? The answer is pretty obvious: I think, the name sounds pretty good but
doesn't suit me at all and that's why this pseudonym fits so well to our
group name, "Paranoia"
Dma Sc
Mhhh, till the beginning I thought that I could have skipped this question,
but it seems that some guys are investigating a lot on our scene. ;) Ok, as
you noticed it's an abreviation (back to the day when i was writing it in one
part : "DMASC" some thought that it was something like "DJAMM" but no, it's
not :).
So what could it mean ?
- Dummy Member Aquired (by) Sector1 Corp. ?
- Duff Member Affected (to) Soundchip Composing ?
- Dumb Man Abandoned (in) Sewers Corridors (Silent Hill feeling ;) ?
- Da Master Artist (of) Soundchip Composing (I don't remember who wrote it ... ;) ?
- Da Man Addicted (to) SID-Composing (Thanx to Paranoid for that one ! :) ?
- Does My Abreviation Sound Clue-less ? ;)
Ok lots of these abreviations are a bit extremes (in both senses :) so it's
surely something more simple... "DMA" could be a reference to the chip in the
STe as this guy was firstly composing soundtracker music only which, as
everyone knows, sounds better on an STe ... Yes, one point cleared ! :) And
that "SC", what's that ? As this guy is a scene musician it's probably related
to music ? Scene Composer ? No, because back to the older times his tunes
surely didn't allowed him to get the qualification of composer (hopefully these
"musics" are lost today ;) ...
Ok, let's reveal the truth as Mulder & Scully are definitly not interested in
that case : it's "DMA Sound Creator"... I hope that you were not expecting
something better, also now it doesn't have much sense as i'm mostly composing
soundchip stuff which doesn't require a "DMA" chip at all to sound great. ;)
Anyway i could have changed it but i don't really think that taking time to
find a new pseudo is worth enough and also it might not result in something
satisfying, so i keep the abreviation. So now i'm just "Dma-Sc". :)
Exocet
That was in 1995 I think. Back then I was a real lamer (who has not ever been
one ?) and I used some really lousy nicknames, like "The Small Black Bloody and
Silly Ninja" or "Putrefied Bob". I was about to join my first (and still the
current one) real group (on PC) and I knew I had to find something better...
Then one day I was watching a magazine and found a advertisement for a missile
company (do they really need to communicate ?) and I saw one that was called
"Exocet" and I thought it could be a nice handle... And I've kept it since.
Exyl
There's not that much to say about that nick : I remember that when I looked
for a nick I thought of a short one that would use 'uncommon' letters (meaning
seldom used in French :). EXYL turned out to match these demands, plus it made
me think of the "escape" brought by the ST : whenever I played games or worked
on my ST, nothing else would disturb me, voila! :)
Frost
When I chose my nickname, I was a fan of "Celtic Frost", an old metal band.
the nick Celtic was already used by a musician, then I thought Frost would do
the job. After some months, it appeared that my nickname was too cold for some
people :) I tried to change to Fossyl, but Frost was always used... So, back
to Frost. Then, I met a guy called Pops... We didn't pay attention to our
nickname at first, but we had much common point of interest, he collects old
machines like I do at first. Later, we realised that our nickname had another
common point... He bought some Miel Pops and Frosties cereals before going to
a party. It's a bit complicated to explain what happened after that, but we
created the crew Kellogg' s Team for fun (http://www.chez.com/kelloggsteam)
and then I associated my nickname to the Frosties cereal. My irc nickname is
also Frost242... I think people interested in some electronic music will know
where I found this nickname ;-)
Grazey aka Showaddywaddy
"Grazey" - Nothing special really, my surname is "Graham". At college around
1986 I wrote really long GW-Basic and COBOL programmes, eg fractals using just
the ascii character set !! People used to say I was Crazy !! hence "Crazy
Grazey" hence "Grazey!!!"
"Showaddywaddy" - My D-Bug handle, well that's a simple one. Showaddywaddy
was the first music single I ever bought. The song was called "Under The
Moon of Love" and I got it in the late 1970's , 1978 I think !! I just
thought the name was unusual and would stand out from the norm!
Luebke
Do you know a cartoon series named "Danger Mouse" ? If so, you might also
know that German television usually dubs all shows - including cartoons -
so that this show only ran in Germany dubbed as well. And the little sidekick
of Danger Mouse, the little guy with the glasses, the round head and the
confused look on his face, was called "Luebke" in Germany. And basically,
someone in school started to call my pal "Luebke" because of that and after a
while, he got used to it.
Mad Butscher
Well why I name myself "Mad Butscher" ? The name comes from they days I played
football in a youth team called "SG Huenfelden". There the people called me
Butscher or Mad Butscher. When I remember, I got the name 'Butscher' from a
game where I hit the goalkeeper with my leg in his face, so that he has to go
to the hospital. It was a shitty situation, because I want to score a goal,
but the goalkeeper allready got the ball, so that I can't jump above him fast
enought. I was really shocked the rest of the game. So I wasn't so proud of my
nickname. The "Mad" before "Butscher" comes from a record of "Destruction". I
never hear this record, but I own the T-Shirt! Maybe I'm famous for my strange
english, but it's right that I write it "Butscher" and not "butcher", because
it has something to do with my aftername ("Butschke"). Maybe it's funny to
know, that I own 2 ATARI T-Shirts with my nickname on the back, and both are
written wrong. At both shirts, you could read "Mad Butcher". The first was a
writing mistake by my own, and the second shirt was made in Tailand, and the
women who made it only knows the english word I think.
Marcstar
My nickname is from the time of the C64 when i entered my first high-score in
some game (i don't even remember which one) and i considered it way cooler to
enter Marcstar instead of Marc. Yep, those were the times.
MRF <mrfuture@home.se>
Oh... I don't really remember how and when I came up with MRF, but I think it
was some time around 1988/89. A friend of mine bought an STFM and in
connection with that we got ourselves nicknames... He called himself BRM
(BRainMan, from the movie Rainman) and I came up with Mr Future...
That's all I know/remember about it... :) I have during the years tried other
nicknames, but I always discovered that other people were already using
them... I haven't found any other MRF/Mr Future yet... :)
NO and Escape
When the group 'Escape' was founded, we wanted to call us like any key on the
falcon keyboard. Space sounded a bit boring, Backspace was a bit better but
'Escape' ruled out all the other keys. The meaning of the word 'Escape' was
not the primary reason to choose it - maybe we wanted to escape from the Flood
of Microsoft and such commercial crap.
You guess where the nickname NO comes from? Yes it is the first part of my
name Norman. I wanted a short and modest nickname. Two letters are ok.
PeyloW / T.O.Y.S
It all begun in -90 when I teamed up with TAM and T.O.Y.S. came to life and I
needed a nick. So I choose FLO (Fredrik ennart Olsson), as it seemed cool. It
did not stay for long though as I realised that everybody called me Peylow
since 1st grade and that it actually sounds cooler. So I changed. The reason
why everybody had called me Peylow is simply because that is the last name of
my foster parents since I was four years old and everybody I included see them
as my parents and I got stuck with the name. For esthetical reasons I have
always spelled it PeyloW (that's capital W). Furthermore everybody not Swedish
pronounces it wrong it should be pronounced as "Pay-low" not "Pee-low". Well
that's it.
SH3... spare head three
This was chosen when mr.pink came up with his reservoir dogs nick names for
myself & Ripley (aka nice guy Eddie)... we didn't like these as we are not
really that into the film as pinky...).
Ny nick came from: kryten's spare head # 3 (from Red Dwarf)... has a unusual
temperament & has a north of England accent - just right for myself!
Hope this is enough!
Strange
Well, at the beginning of my time on the C64 my name was "Mr.Strange".
Basically everyone had a "Mr." in his name at that time. The "Strange" was
suppose to depict the anonymity of my pseudonym since at the end of the 80s,
beginning of the 90s everyone did not only paint and code legally but also
swapped cracked software illegally. This name however was too long for my
taste to properly fit under a logo so I shortened it to just "Strange". I
would have prefered "Stranger" at that time, but this name was unfortunately
already taken.
Strider
Hello everybody, I'm Strider and ST Survivor asked me a strange question. He
should avoid drinking so much beer with CosmosH, but that's not my business.
Well, he wanted to know where does my nickname come from. So, alright, it's a
bit egocentric but I'm going to explain you the whole story.
Before January 2000, I was called The Beast. I've changed this nickname because
some people on IRC thought I was a hard rock lover and, when they saw me online,
they were shouting "666" or "number of the Beast". I like hard rock tunes,
but I'm not fond of this style. In fact, the nickname The Beast came from an
article about "Shadow of the Beast 2" in the very old "Tilt" French magazine. It
was a preview of this game on Amiga, and the graphics were so nice that I've
decided to call myself The Beast.
I've heard someone on the left saying "Okay, you were upset and you've changed
your nickname, but why did you choose Strider?". It's a good question, thank you
pal. I've choosen this one for three reasons. Some years ago, I often played at
a pleasant shoot'em up called Strider. In this game designed by Capcom (do you
remember Street Fighter II?), you're a warrior called Strider Hiryu and you have
to fight against nasty guys. That's the first reason: Strider was (and still is)
a cool game. The second reason is that Strider can be written "STrider". You
have noticed that "The Beast" can be written "The BeaST", so I wanted another
nickname with these two magical letters representing the name of my very first
digital love: the Atari ST. Concerning the third reason, "STrider" can be read
"ST Rider". It means something like "the guy who rides an ST" and I thought it
could be a nice nickname.
Now, you understand why did I choose this nickname. So, I think it's time to
stop this craptalking because I'm sure that other Atari sceners would like to
justify their choice. Just have a good time while reading Alive!, keep doing
things on and see you soon!
Strider/Supremacy
strider_thn@hotmail.com
http://strider.atari.org/
Stsurvivor
Here's my turn to tell you stories : I joined the scene in 94 and had to find
a nick of course. At that time I was a real ATARI fanatic and wrote letters to
publishers, petitions, yep a real hardcore Atarian. Being as mad as interested
in apocalyptic stories (and morbid stuff) I chose to call me a 'survivor'. The
ST came quite logically :) Another thing is that song in Rocky 3 I think : it
was called "The Eye of the Tiger" and was played by a band called "SURVIVOR".
That song really motivated me and my blood run faster and more furiously thus
adding to my fanatism :) These days, being fortunately less narrow minded, I
prefer to be called STS which sounds not only shorter but surely more humble.
Still I am and will always be the "survivor of the ST"... Except when I'm lazy
of course.
Swe
Since my nick did put me in funny situations (no in not SWEde, so please speak
english ;) here is explanation :
There is pretty popular sarcastic book with title "The stories of good soldier
Svejk" with some funny illustrations etc. And friends used to say that I
resemble to some of those pictures, so they called me Svejk. At that time (way
ago) i loved pinball machines and game coin-ups a lot (my fav were Atari's
Gravitar and Warlords) and they only allowed 3 letter for signing Hal of Fame.
Nothing i assmbled from my name, surname etc looks ok so I start using "SWE"..
I think "SVE" was already taken, but I'm not sure cause sometimes "Svejk" was
written "Swejk" as well...
The Paranoid
Well, there are basically two origins. The less important one is an Amiga
cracker-group named Paranomia or something similar. Their intro featured a
simple wireframe 3D logo which was extremely hard to read so I read it as
"Paranoia" and considered it to sound pretty noble. The other, more important
reason, is the sound and the effect of this nickname. I personally consider it
a noble nickname that sounds just a little bit dark, a little bit unknown,
unpredictable and just slightly mad. A lot of characteristics that hardly suit
me, but i still like the sound of the nickname. Besides that, there is no real
story behind this nickname. It was not inspired by a band or a song, not by a
TV show or a movie, a superhero or just the english dictionary. I more or less
"invented" it myself.
TNT
About TNT ? Well, there's no real story behind it. It's short (3 letters), it
sounds nice (TNT), it's got to do with chemicals (I love chemicals !!!), it's
explosive (I love explosives) and that's basically all. And probably I would
never have expected someone actually asks me about
it. ;-)
Zed
Zed is the name of the guy who fucks around in the movie Pulp fiction. It's
also the name of the computer in Fortress...
Zerkman
Well, Zerkman is the only nickname I ever had (at least, on the computer
coding scene). The main reason is that I have no imagination, and I'll never
be able to gather all the necessary conditions to let me access the same
mental state in which I was when I found this nickname. It is way too
dangerous. I obviously have other nicknames in the siliconless part of my
life. My best friends call me "le boucher" because when my melodic death
metal group played in 1996 or 1997 in the street, like every year at the
French nationwide music festival, I am said to have played some guitar solos
with a lot of feeling and inspiration. I still can't remember exactly when (a
solo ? ah it was a solo ?), but in all cases, Fred, the other guitar player,
told me : "putain tu les as tous tues le boucher". Strange isn't it ?
By the way, what does the Zerkman nickname mean ? First, please note that I
haven't chosen this nickname for a special meaning. I've chosen it because
nobody had that nickname at this time ( err... around 1985 ?). Second, it
actually means nothing, which perfectly suits my personality. Third, there is
no other explanation.
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Thanks a lot to all the Atarians who kindly accepted to play that game and tell
us the "why and how" behind their nickname ! If I get enough feedback there
could even be a sequel to this article next time. Hum I can see some guys
hidding in the back, feeling that their time to speak is coming closer :)
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