Yup / Wild Boys Group, Static, The Sharks, Warriors of Time, Nuts, Shape, Offence
Added on January 20th, 2005 (7367 views)
www.c64.com?type=3&id=160



Tell us something about yourself.
My name is Andreas Schneider, and I was born in Nuertingen, Germany on February 22, 1972. I work as a programmer on a freelance basis, but most of the time I work on my own projects. As you can see, I'm still interested in computers. Besides that, I love to dance at discos and everything entertainment, e.g. reading and writing fantasy-stories.

What handle(s) did you use and how did you come up with it/them?
My main handle was and is Yup, but in the first three years only as part of Yup & Burp. It became Yup because I always said "yup" instead of "yes". I don't remember why Burp called himself Burp though. ;) We also used Fat Rat as a handle for the side-project demo Origin of Nuts.

What group(s) were you in?
Wild Boys Group (which only consisted of two members, Yup & Burp), Static (a contact, T.J., asked us to join), The Sharks, Warriors of Time (was a great group to be in and I met a lot of great people there like Pal and Red Wiz), Shape and finally Offence (which we founded). I was also Fat Rat of Nuts, the sub-group to Nato and later Traitors.

What roles have you fulfilled?
My main task was to sleep as much as possible and sometimes code a bit. I also swapped but not that much.

How long were you active for?
From 1988 to 1992.

Tell us about those years and how you got into the scene in the first place.
A friend of mine had a C64 with a cassette deck, and I played some games with him on it. I loved it of course and tried to get one for myself: "Ehhhmmm… daddy... I really should have a computer for school, you know, I'll get better grades then." I got one and I started to get in touch with local C64 owners. I met Burp, we began to swap with people all over the world, and I made my first coding attempts. It was a great time, and I think the best thing about the scene was the friendship. I'm still in touch with some of the C64 guys!

Describe a typical day for you in front of the computer.
A typical day was when Burp and I met after school and started to look through all the sendings we got. We watched the new demos, played some games, and finally took the time to write a letter to all our contacts. We also worked on our demos, but most of our evenings (and money) were spend on calling our friends.

Did you personally invent any special techniques or tools to make things easier for you?
Yes, there was one routine I coded which became the basic for nearly all my demos on the C64. It was an interrupt-routine that was able to time the CPU with the screen with the accuracy of one char. That made things really easy for me.

When you look at what you did back then, what are you most proud of?
Hard to say. I'm proud of all the demos I coded, although some parts were better than others. From a coding point of view, I would say my best part was the one with the moving woman in Emotional Breakdown. It had a big sideborder scroller over splits.

Who were your heroes on the scene and why?
FCS from Finish Gold because he made the first demo I ever watched. I loved it so much and it made me wanting to do demos myself.

What, for you, was the coolest thing ever invented on the C64?
The Action Cartridge - I loved this module! It had everything from a fast loader to a one-key directory lister, and you were able to freeze games...

Did you go to any copy-parties, meetings or tradeshows?
I was on some parties and it was fun. I didn’t sleep much though. At one party in Denmark, I was awake for four days! I looked really bad afterwards, but it was all worth it since I got to meet all my friends that I normally just talked to over the phone.

In your opinion, what was the scene all about?
Friendship and fun.

What were the particular highlights for you?
The feeling of being apart of something, and to have friends all over the world, even in Australia and America.

Any cool stories to share with us?
None that I can think of at the moment (maybe because I'm under time pressure).

Are you still in contact with any old C64 people today?
As mentioned above, yes, but sadly not with as many as I would like to. If you know who I am, write me an e-mail (find my e-mail at www.aysec.com).

When did you get your C64 and do you still have it lying around somewhere?
It was a C128D and I got it in 1988, but it's broken.

Was the C64 really as special as we like to think it was?
For me, yes. There were so many things you could do on it with only one Mhz and 64 Kb of memory (not 100 percent true, but who cares). It's was a good machine to learn the computer basics on, for the understanding what's actually going on under the hood.

When can we expect to see some new C64 output from you? :)
Sad but true: I don't have the time to code anything for the C64. At the moment I have so much work that I work six days a week, which leaves only one day left for my girlfriend. I hope this will change in the next two months.

Do you have a message for your old contacts and/or anyone reading this?
Thanks for the great times we shared, I loved it. I'll be happy to hear from you. Anybody interested in doing some graphics for a 2D game?

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1. Morpheus
2. Bacchus
3. Antitrack
4. Yip
5. Lucifer (in..
6. Lord Nikon
7. Antichrist
8. Drax
9. Zzap
10. Honey
11. Ian & Mic
12. Ixion
13. Lucifer
14. O.B.
15. Danko
16. Gotcha
17. Incubus
18. The Sarge
19. Grendel
20. Icon