Interview


Handle: Zagor / Horizon

How did you come up with your alias ?
Before we started hacking, my brother Daniel (Bagder/HZ) and I was into roleplaying games such as D&D. Zagor was the name of my all-time favourite character I played in those games. I was a monk, using a walking stick for fighting and always carrying a large backpack full of all the herbs and magic potions I could get my hands on. I invented the name Zagor myself, so it's not derived from any mythical characters or such. It's just a good name!

City / Country:
Stockholm / Sweden

Born year:
1972

What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
My first computer was a C64, which I bought together with my brother Daniel (Bagder) in 1985. The reason we got it was because Daniel had been playing a lot with Kjer's computer (which he had gotten some time earlier) and so he talked me into buying one of our own. I was 12 years old.

How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
My first group was "Confusing Solution", or "Consol" for short. The members were me, Bagder and Kjer. There is no real date of birth for Consol, since we had kind of explored the computer together, the three of us, from the first day.

We released our first demo "Animax" at the Triad/Fairlight demo in Stockholm, in December 1987. That was also our first "hands-on" contact with the scene.

Our second demo was "Running Demo", featuring zillions of game-sprites running across the screen. This demo was released in January, 1988.
The third demo was called "Oh Shit!", released in March 1988.
Our fourth creation, "Hell No!" was released at Thundercats' mini-party in Uppsala, Sweden late March 1988. Also attending the party was some guys from the group Super Swap Sweden. As we showed our latest demo for them, they were quite impressed with our work and we were immediately invited to join SSS. And so we did.

In the summer of 1988, SSS and Thudercats joined forces and formed Horizon. The rest, as they say, is history. :-)

What was the proudest moment in your career ?
I can't say there's one isolated moment in our time that I can single out to have been more worth than all the others. We were "at the top" for quite a long time and I guess we earned a lot of respect for what we did. That was always a very nice experience, when you strolled around at a party and talked to some strangers. And suddenly they'd look at your badge or t-shirt or whatever HZ-thing you were wearing, and they go "Oh, you're from Horizon?" and give you that look of pure, unrestrained RESPECT.

All from the beginning, we always made a point of being humble about ourselves and the things we did. A lot of groups would go around saying "We're the best" and boasting about all the effects they did, saying they were unbeatable etc. We used to say that they viewer of the demo should have the say about whether the demo is good or not. It shouldn't be written in the scroll texts.

We were also one of the first groups to adopt the "legal only" policy in swapping, meaning we didn't want to trade any commercial software, i.e. games. This was often misunderstood as a moral standpoint, that we therefore thought everybody should stop trading games. The fact is we simply found games very boring, and thus wanted only demos from the people we swapped with. After a while, more and more people stopped swapping games until there were two distinct classes of swapping: Game swapping and demo swapping.

Another thing that makes me proud when I think back is all the parties we arranged. We loved parties (thus our slogan: Horizon - plays at every place), and we arranged quite a few of them. As far as I've heard, most people enjoyed coming to them, too.

For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
I honestly have no idea. I think Horizon as a group, and the demos we made, are more remembered than each of the members.

What would you like to be remembered for ?
Our demos, of course. And second, our relaxed personal style.

What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
Two things: The Amiga, and the scene itself. We bought Amigas in '91-'92 and started coding on it, but it just wasn't as much fun as coding the C64 so we only released one demo for the Amiga: Virtual Intelligence.

In '91-'92, the scene (both C64 and Amiga) became increasingly serious. People were preparing demos (mainly graphics) for years before releasing it and parts of the scene became commercialized, with people charging money for standard hacker jobs. Most of the playful innocense was gone, and with it most of the fun.

Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Nothing that I can think of. That's part of the magic of nostalgia, you only remember the good parts!

Oh, one thing perhaps. Just after forming Horizon we kicked a lot of people from the group, including all the Amiga people. The Amiga guys, however, refused to change names and continued doing stuff in the name of Horizon. We didn't think much of it and just left it at that, but after a few years when we started strolling in on the Amiga scene there was a lot of confusion from other people. It went so far as some people didn't even know which group was the real Horizon. Looking back, maybe we should have sorted the mess out from the beginning to avoid the later confusion.

What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Spindizzy

COMPOSER(S)
Martin Galway. He was always sooo cool!

DRINK ?
You kidding? Coke, of course. Today, I'll have to say "Anchor Steam Beer"