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::interview with jordan^exodus alx: Hello and Hi! It's nice to meet one of the legends of Speccy demomaking! :) It's very interesting to ask you some questions for our readers to receive more information. elfh: Hi, I'am one of the editors of 'adventurer' speccy diskzine. i wanted to conduct an interview with you for one of the next issues of our magazine, but alx was faster. so, he kindly let me to participate the conversation. jordan: Hi Alex, elfh and all Speccy fans! it's nice to meet you! alx: Let's start the dialogue, so introduce yourself at first. jordan: I'm as you guess :) former member of Exodus team. alx: How did you start your computing. Was it Speccy? jordan: Yes, of course - the first computer I ever saw was old good 48K Speccy of my good friend. It was in late 80's. Those were hot days and nights when we're playing in KnightLore and JetPac. I went crazy and I had to have this wonderful machine. So, finally I've got superb Timex 2048. This was US clone of 48K Speccy - quite popular in our country in 90's. And that way my adventure with Speccy began. alx: How did you start the art on Speccy? What were those projects? More details, please. jordan: You know, the idea of making better use of my Speccy than just playing on it came with time. I first started to do simple programs in Basic and when it was not enough the assembler was the choice. I till now remember THE BOOK which turned me on - the unforgettable "ZX Spectrum guide" by polish writers Madej, Marasek and Kurylowicz. This was the bible for us. I keep this book till now. But the real assembler adventure has began when I met new good friends of mine - DC PAK and Roger. Roger was first of us who made a demo in assembler but soon he left coding and started to make music (which he do till now). My first ever assembler demo was "The City" - simple vertical jumping scrolly with some volume meter bars and ripped Agent-X music. Crappy indeed. But this was the first step. And then happend something unbelievable for us. WE PERSONALlY MET THE ONE AND ONLY AGENT-X. That was it! The ACE himself! We were, we are big fans of Agent-X till now. And that way the "Exodus Megademo" came real. We've got wonderful music from Agent-X also with dozens of coding tips and tricks (he was the guy who teach us how to do tricks with Z-80 stack!) and after several months of work the demo was ready. From perspective of time, I think that this was the crucial time for us. When we learn how to use Z-80 assembler in right way we were no more limited by our skills. We could do anything and we did. Then came the rest: Gallery, Music Bank 0, Living on Video, Gemini, Schizophrenia, Dies Irae, There, Acheron, Lazarus, RealAction and other demos. In fact the more productive part of out team was DC. I was the lazy one ;). I'm most proud of Dies Irae and Real Action, and from DC's productions Schizophrenia, Twin Worlds (both editions) and unbelievable Lazarus thing. We always knew that the design and quality are most important when you make a demo. And I think that we've succeed realizing our assumptions. elfh: 'dies irae' is my all time favourite oldschool demo ever, what is yours (any platform)? jordan: i'm very glad that you like my demo, at least it's my favourite production too ;). ok, that was silly... in fact there's too many great productions on speccy around here to point the best one. just to mention demos like "schizophrenia","lazarus", "hypersonic 2", "vibrations", "shock", "s4b", "binary love", "echology" etc. on pc platform my favorite demos come from haujobb and farbrausch. elfh: what was the source of inspiration for the 'dies irae'? how did you decided to put such a story in your demo? is it some sci-fi literature, that influenced you? jordan: this's a long story. to make it short - i just don't remember why the hell i made this demo, too much weed i think... sci-fi influences? definitively yes! you got me! i'm hard science fiction fan. in my old flat i've hundreds of sci-fi books. i used sci-fi story to make all demo parts logically connected into one coherent entity. btw, it was fun to write such a schizophrenic script, don't you think so? elfh: is 'real action' your last work for the speccy? are there some ideas and sources, lying in a dust? jordan: it seems so, however i've some unreleased stuff, just bit and pieces of few crazy ideas. but these days i'm really busy and don't have a free spare of time at all, so there are small chances to see any production from me. elfh: who were your scene contacts in the past? what your team mates are doing now? how old you were, when exodus was founded? jordan: i had a lot of contacts old days - extacy, imp, omega, busy and many other guys all over the europe. unfortunately i haven't hear from them anything from ages, what's obvious as life goes on. now i have rare occasions to chat with dc pak. agent-x went to singapore, as far as i know (for holiday i hope). and how old i was? nineteen i think - this make me sad as i'm getting old fat dumb ass right now. elfh: are you downloading new speccy stuff from demotopia or raww.org, or there is no interest in modern state of speccy scene? if yes, then are there any releases, that captured your attention? jordan: yes, sometimes i do download new stuff but frankly i didn't find nothing interesting to catch eye on - maybe i'm wrong because i search in wrong places, maybe you can send me some stuff worth to see which i missed out? elfh: of course, i'll send you some... do you interested in present demoscene at all? jordan: yes, mostly in pc scene but only as watcher, what's sad. i'd like to make some stuff for pc but again, i've no free time due to character of my job. i'm an network engineer or consultant as you wish and i spend almost all the time traveling around europe. maybe if i'll be sixty i'll get more free time to play with ;) alx: What other hobbies do you have? How do you spend your freetime? Is it parties, girls or other things? jordan: It's sad but these days I almost have no free spare of time for any hobbies. Almost all time I spend at work, sometimes travelling around the world, sometimes at one place. But as often as I can I'm listening to music. Especially all releases from GoodLooking Recods but also Cinematic Orchestra, Tricky, Morcheeba, Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and more this kind of stuff. And yes, I definitely have one special hobby - it's my wonderful wife ;). alx: Do you like drinking and what do you prefere to drink? :) jordan: Yees... In buzz we trust :). Mostly beer but from time to time enormous amounts of Finlandia Crannbery Vodka with fresh lemon and ice. By the way, it's good for me that you didn't ask what I like to smoke, because my answer would be not too educational for young people ;). elfh: ok. it was nice to talk with you. hope you've got good vibes from our short conversation too. bye. |