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Horizon
Lets disco
Split
Bonanza
Love this now
Beatable
The winner
Bountyhunter
Looking Good
Dollyparty
Code is an art
Xpertelligence
Hacker monitor
Lyrix-monitor
Snake or die
Aloos
Biltandborste
Last Traktor 3
Sphaeristerium
The Wild Bunch
Super Swap Sweden
Hell_no!
Kjer's sinus balls
It's moving
World record
Contribution
Sssinus Maker v4.0
Lamedemo
E.C.I.
Why think
Pumpitup
Consol
Animax
Running demo
Oh shit
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The Story of Confusing Solution, Super Swap Sweden and Horizon
Bagder (then used the nick D$85), Kjer and Zagor founded 'Confusing Solution'
in 1987 and released 4 demos using that name.
At the Triad/Fairlight party in Huddinge xmas 1987 we got into the "scene"
for real for the first time and we got to know the dudes in Thundercats.
When attending a miniparty arranged by the Thundercats in March 1988 we got
an offer to join the group called Super Swap Sweden (SSS) (from its leader,
Natas) which we did without too much discussions. We created and released 7
demos under that name.
During the summer 1988 we joined forced with our good friends the Thundercats
and formed Horizon. We had a lot of members then. Even an Amiga-section. Later
that same year, after the party in Enköping, the most active guys of the group
'kicked out' a large amount of the members that didn't didn't do demo stuff
(programming/design/music) or was too inactive. After that "cleanup" we were
some 6 guys left (Bagder, Zagor, Kjer, Mastermind, Sir Gawain and Gaston) and
64-only. NOTE that the guys that since then called themselves Horizon on Amiga
were guys kicked out from our group, but remained using our name (without our
knowledge).
At the party in Alvesta in November 1988 we found out the real programming
skills of the guys in in "Microsystems Digitial Technology", and later that
year during a miniparty at our place in Huddinge we convinced them to join us
(Boogaloo, Exilon and Rush). We won that competition in Alvesta '88, though
the guys from MDT have always claimed (and still does) that the votes for
Fairlight in the competition should get on their count since Viper/FLT did a
lot of promotion for their demo and thus the MDTers claim people voted for FLT
believing it was FLT's demo (and FLT + MDT > HZ though HZ > MDT).
Sir Gawain and Gaston started to lose interest and faded away slowly from the
activities of the group after that party.
In 1990 we asked our good friends Pernod and Judge (members of Fairlight at
the time) if they wanted to join us since we thought they were both cool and
splendid demo-makers and that Horizon as a pure demo-group (which Fairlight
certainly wasn't) would improve with them. They didn't hesitate much and
joined. As Pernod has put it: "This was a part of HZ strategy: if you can't
beat them, let them join us!!!" (Do note that Horizon was never beaten by
Fairlight in any demo competion!) :-)
Although not entirely wrong, we would never even had thought of asking anyone
to join us if they weren't cool and relaxed people that matched and shared the
same view of life and demo business as we did. We did it all for fun and for
pleasure. Another important paragraph in the un-told law of Horizon was to
only have members that were true friends and GOOD demo-makers.
In mid-1992, Pernod and Boogaloo went to Sams”, Denmark to win our last demo
competition, and so we did, mostly thanks to the genius Exilon (he was always
before his time, for example he made a full-screen X- and Y- D011-scroller in
1988. He also made a demo part with seven sprites in the sideborders, with
chars on the screen, in the same demo of course). Exilon and Boogaloo made a
part with real-time filled 3d graphics on the 64 and that was why we won.
(This does not include people that came from Thundercats and SSS that were
kicked out or left a few months after Horizon was formed.)
We did release products together. No releases were specificly made for or by
certain members, but all were encouraged and asked to participate. Therefore,
we don't have any logged information regarding who did code or make parts in
specific demos.
- Bagder
- Coder and lousy designer. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Left the C64-
business around 91-92. Works as a software engineer.
- Boogaloo
- Coder, musician. Joined Horizon around christmas 1988, hasn't quit the C64
business yet. Works as a software engineer. Known as a sample and
hardware (like his 256K creation) freak!
- Exilon
- Coder. Joined Horizon around christmas 1988, hasn't quit the C64 business yet!
Brilliant coder with no sense at all for music or graphics. Known to lack
the knowledge of what is reggae and what is disco music!
- Gaston
- Coder. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Stopped coding around 88-89,
never officially quit or got kicked.
- Judge
- Coder. Joined Horizon 1990 when asked, came from Fairlight then. Known for
having lots of brilliant half-done routines that never made it to a demo!
- Kjer
- Coder. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Left the C64-business sometimes
during 1992. His designing abilities are so terribly bad he could scare
anyone off by showing us his colour/logo/font selections!
Works as a software engineer.
- Natas
- Organizer, swapper. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Left after a few
months (some time after the Enk”ping party autumn 1988). Known for his weird
real name and his beard!
- Mastermind
- Coder. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Has he ever quit C64ing? ;)
Known to never save his programs until they are complete. Made him suffer
really hard from power problems at parties and similar!
- Pernod
- Coder and designer. Joined Horizon 1990 when asked, came from Fairlight then.
Known for weird samples and demo names... also a funny accent! Prime snake
fighter together with Mastermind! ;)
- Rush
- Coder. Joined Horizon around christmas 1988. Slowly faded away after the
'Dolly Party' demo in 1989. Never officially quit or got kicked.
- Sir Gawain
- Coder. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Stopped coding around 88-89,
never officially quit or got kicked.
- Zagor
- Coder and musician. Got into Horizon from the beginning. Left the C64-
business around 91-92. Works as a software engineer.
During spring 1988 when Kjer was sitting and coding on the Agile/Rebels party
and Zagor, unaware of the fact that the demo part was Kjer's - thinking that he
and Bagder were sitting and watching demos, aproached and said "You should
make a demo part like that!"... (The demo part was a big picture flying around
on the screen and in all borders.)
During an intensive hacker meeting, Boogaloo and Bagder sat working with their
music routine, and thought they just discovered that their sound effects were
dependent on the raster timing. Since the player routine and the editing
routine were different, this made the sounds different and quite struck by this
sad discovery they made some very depressed sounds why Exilon turns around and
says "can't you just edit and new redicolous drum - or whatever it is?"...
The party we attended to in Trondheim, Norway, (198?) where we sat in shorts
only in the big and crowded party room and still we were sweating rivers.
All those funny mails we received from fans, admirers and swappers. All in all
we must have received thousands of them. Many were serious and well meaning,
but a lot were also really REALLY lame and written in ways that made us laugh
hysterically.
Very memorable is the "Hacker Mon" we made. A "regular swedish" to "hacker
swedish" automatic translater. Enter the plain swedish sentense and you got
the translated one back. Other programs in the series was "Lyrix Mon" an auto-
matic song lyrics text writer. Insanely crazy. Danish Mon made the machine
speak the english phrase entered in (semi-) danish. I don't think this ever got
the popularity among our danish friends that we thought it would! =)
Snake fighting. Mastermind introduced the concept to the group and Boogaloo
spread the usage among us. Whips by rubbersnakes are painful, and many are
those who found that out. Some was captured on video, some not. Many were the
games and different sports at parties that involved the snakes.
The Nintento caps. Boogaloo worked at a Toy Store in Gothenbourg for a while
and after that we all wore Nintendo caps all the time.
The Horizon dress (white, sweatshirt and jogging style pants with
'>nick< of Horizon' prints on). Kjer and Boogaloo had a little glitch in the
communication and 'Mr Boogaloo' was printed on one dress even though B claims
he specifically asked for the Mr to be removed. K claims the exact opposite! ;)
Horizon being in the top of the charts for years, with a large number of
individual programmers being in the top of the coder charts. The cool,
friendly and relaxed atmosphere we had in the group. We were a bunch of
friends having very fun together.
I'm also proud of the fact that we organized the biggest parties of the
computer scene of that time, several times we made the largest party ever.
That I never pushed us far enough to complete the games we made. It would
have enabled us to gain some money from the C64 programming.
Story written by: Daniel Stenberg a.k.a. Bagder of Horizon
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