AN
INTERVIEW WITH
NO
/ ESCAPE
http://escape.atari.org email : nf2@inf.tu-dresden.de
* * conducted by Marss, with adjustment and additionnal questions by Sts * *
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No is a weird guy :) I like that guy a lot (note of sts :) and he's one of the
coolest Atarians around. Not only did he code nice Falcon demos, not to forget
the awesome WHIP! but he also kicked us hard with his latest demo HMM which is
my favourite demos of all times (yep right before Sonoluminiscenz!). But I let
you read what he has to say
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Hi ! How do you feel today ?
I am in heavy stress these days... My study keeps my head smoking. Beside that
I feel good - all the Ataris are healthy and at the moment I hear some song of
Kyuss playing, what could I do want more.... :)
How did you choose your nickname (what is the story about it) ?
There is no funny story about it. NO are just the two first letters of my
name Norman.
Your friends say you are a sex machine, so describe yourself ...
Friends? Do I have some? :)) It is hard for me to describe myself. I am a
car-hating ong-sleeping spiegel-reading stonerrock-hearing long-hair-
having high- telephone-bill-having, döner-kebab- nearly-every-day-eating
in-a-living-community- living no- tv-watching in-Lidl- buying girlfriend-
Christin-loving communist.
How long have you been in the computer world ? tell us about your first
experience with a computer ...
I had my first experience in the times of the GDR at my fathers work. There
were computers that were as big as a whole room. My father allowed me to
write some basic programs on a small terminal. It was 1988 and I was 11.
In 1989 my father brought an Atari 130XE. I loved it from the beginning on.
What is your current Atari set-up ?
I am still using a standard Atari Falcon for coding. There are also some
other ataris... Another falcon with more memory (for the new falcon demos),
a STFM and a STe (for ST demos), some Atari XEs (for XE demos), a TT (guess
what ? - wrong ! ... for text writing). There are also some non-Atari-
computers, but you didnt asked for them...
How do you use your machine (are you a programer, a graphist, a musician ?)
What are your tools ?
When I got my falcon in 1993 I was just a user. I used it mainly for making
music (Protracker). I started programming pascal on the Falcon one year
later. At the beginning I wanted to make a game. I needed some graphics for
it but there were no good graphics programs. So I started programming a
Pixeling Program and learned assembly during this time. Today I am mainly
coding. I use the great Turbo Assembler for MC68K and the fantastic DSPdit
for DSP56K code. From time to time I use Pure-C and Pure-Pascal. For
graphics I use Escape Paint. It is like somebody has written it exactly for
my needs... I am not doing music anymore. But when I made music I would use
FlexTrax!
What is your fave insult when you have a problem with a computer ?
I am not using Windows so I have not much problems with computers.
What are your latest release(s) ? Any projects for this year ?
I dont know. I have to do a lot for my studdy. There will be no demo
related release this year I think. But I can not promise it :)
Please tell us about the birth of HMM. This demo really amazed us esp if we
keep in mind that it was coded from A to Z within 5 weeks (thx Christin !). We
want to know more : what was your ideas, inspirations, difficulties to complete
it ???
I had some ideas for effects some time ago, but I needed some kind of 3D engine
for them. So the main work was the 3D engine. Some weeks before the EIL#2 I
still had no time for coding so I expected only to be able to release an intro.
Then Charon (now a member of Escape) contacted me and asked me for some
sourcecode for a rotating wireframe cube. I wanted to help him and coded some
very simple rotating cube. Then he told me that he want to apply some texture
mapping to the cube. I did the same - just for fun. I included some clipping
routine and some weird texturemapping routine using code generation to draw a
textured triangle with only one instruction per pixel. It was still damn slow.
I was some kind of frustrated and thought that the only way to make it faster
is the dsp. So I began to implement the whole 3D stuff on the dsp.... That was
the beginning of the 3D engine.
I wrote a very nice demo engine with dsp support, dsp modreplay (exa), modfile
syncronisation on the basis of miniwhip. So the coding the single effects was
done in a rapid speed (approx. 1-2 effects per day). Finally I was able to
realise a lot of effects a dreamed of a long time ago. I coded every night and
every day - I was wonderful! Charon visited me and we had a one-week coding
session at my place, which was a very productive time. (I made the tree in
these days). Nils and me spended the last week before the EIL#2 for the design
and music. So Nils made the majority of the music in only some days. There were
enough problems, lows and highs during we made the demo to fill a book with.
All in all it was a very cool time. Thanks again to Christin for her patience.
Do you have any funny stories about a coding party ?
A lot - one funny story was a meeting with Coke/Therapy in Nürnberg. I broke my
right arm and was officialy not able to work (I had to work in an office on a
computer these times) and should stay home. I took my falcon, went to Nürnberg
and coded one week together with Coke/Therapy fire effects...
Let's say you win plenty of money, which accelerating cards would you choose
and why ?
When I had money I whould buy a xtos computer + deesse dsp card. I like my
standard falcon as it is. Using the standard is the best way to prove and
compare the coding skills, I think.
Now you are a fairy, your dream machine consists of...
The Falcon is still my dream machine. The phenix would have been the ideal
successor. Now I am hoping for a system featuring a Coldfire-processor,
DSP, SCSI, Ethernet interface and a keyboard without win95 keys.
Your fave demos, games ... on our systems ?
Fave XE demo: Asskickers
Fave ST demos: Odd Stuff, Flipo
Fave STe demo: Grotesque
Fave Falcon demos: Dementia, Sono, Airdirt, Ancool
Are you a player ? (video systems, fave games, worst ones ...)
No. I played games mainly on 8 bit. I love RiverRaid, Henris House,
Schreckenstein. On the Falcon I loved to play Dynabusters+ (I even soldered
that joystick adaptor for the ext.joystick port :)
Infogrames bought ATARI, is it a good move ? Can they do better than JTS or
HASBRO ? Do you have any favor to ask them ?
I think that JTS, HASBRO and Infogrames are arseholes. They try to sell rice
and call it noodles at the packages. Atari is dead and instead of putting
flowers at its grave, they piss at its rotten body.
Do you have any hobbies ?
Riding bycicle, going to concerts and parties, music, painting (only on paper)
Some people say that computer freaks don't have a social life. Any reactions ?
It depends on the kind of computer freak. I know some computer freaks who
are very one-sided, especially if computers are the only thing they are
really good in. But the majority of computer freaks are social very active.
A lot of the Atari freaks see the Atari scene as some kind of family which
is an expression of social thinking.
Do you want to shout out anything to people saying that you are an ATARI
lamer ?
They are right. I am too lame to solve all the problems I had when using
Windows.
Do you have any message to deliver to our readers ?
I am not an Amiga demo maker, so I dont need to tell you any stupid messages.
Before we close the parenthesis of this interview in your daily life, let's
see how good you can be at our 'special' brainstorming :)
N : Noodles
O : Olaf Schubert
E : Eastern parties
S : Stonerrock
C : Christin
A : Atari (what did you expected?)
P : Pink Floyd
E : Ebay
Are you able to sum up your life in a word ?
No.
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Thanx for having answered and keep on the good work.
Thank you for keeping alive alive.
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