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CL9:                     Interview With z5, Maker Of A.D.A.
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CL4:                              By Darkhawk/IRIS

CL1:As  some of you might know, ADA stands
for  Amiga  Demoscene Archive, and can
be reached at ada.planet-d.net.  For a
review  of the site, I refer you to my
article  dealing with it.  In here, we
will    interview    the   maker   and
maintainer  of  this  very  nice scene
homepage,  and  hear a bit about past,
present and future of the project.

CL0:DH:   Welcome  to  this  interview z5.
First,  I think our readers would like
to know a bit about you.  Who are you,







what  do  you do for a living, and how
do you manage to have time for ADA?

CL2:z5:   Nothing much to say really.  I'm
29 years old and I live in Belgium.  I
studied to become an engineer.  At the
moment,  I'm programming PLC's (that's
Programmable Logic Controllers) in the
automation  industry.   Apart from the
demoscene,   other   hobbies  of  mine
include  bicycling  and I love playing
guitar.

CL1:DH:  So, what is the story behind your
motivation   for  ADA?   How  did  you
encounter  the  scene  for  the  first
time,  and what have you been doing in
the scene up until ADA?

CL2:z5:    Well,   there   is   only   one
motivation  and that is a real passion
for  everything that is created in the
demoscene.   That  goes from graphics,
modules, demos,...  Over the years, it
has given me so much pleasure watching
all this stuff.  I actually discovered
the  demoscene quite early as I bought
my  first  Amiga  1000  in 1986, after
having  been blown away by Defender of
the  Crown  when  someone demonstrated
the  A1000  in  the school I was going
to.    Like   many,   I   got   really
fascinated  by  the cracktros:  Bamiga
Sector     One,    Paradox,    Angels,
Ackerlight, Alpha Flight...  I seem to
remember  Wild  Copper being the first
real  demo  that  I  ever  saw.  I was
blown away.  Now, some 15 years later,
my   interest  for  the  scene  hasn't
diminished  one bit.  I don't consider
myself  to  be a scener though.  There
was  a  time  when  I really wanted to
join the scene and I did some painting
back then, but at that time (1994-95),
it  was  rather  difficult to get into
the  scene, especially since I live in
Belgium.

CL1:DH:   As far as I remember, there were
a   very   active  cracking  scene  in
Belgium,  but  that  was  in  the very
early  nineties.  Continuing along the
same  vein,  what  is the story behind
your handle?  I can't really figure it
out,  but  I  guess there must be some
hidden meaning in it?

CL2:z5:   There  isn't any story behind it
:)  Quite  a  crap nick, but I'm stuck
with it now.

CL1:DH:   Let's focus on your homepage now
then.   Describe  in  your  own words,
what ADA is and should be?

CL2:z5:   Well, at the moment, ADA is just
an    archive    of    high    quality
productions.        This      includes
slideshows,     intros    (64,40k,4k),
musicdisks,   cracktros,   demos   and
diskmags.  At the time of writing this
interview,  there  are 328 productions
online  with  3325  screenshots, which
means   an   average   of   about   10
screenshots/demo.  Each production has
the  most  important  info:   credits,
download  link,  party  where  it  was
released,    system   requirements,...
Visitors  can  register  on  ADA which
means  they  can  add comments to each
demo  and vote for each demo (from 1/5
to   5/5).    With   these  votes,  we
generate  all kind of charts, like the
top 30 chart for all categories, and a
top  10 chart for each category (intro
64k,  intro  4k,...).   We also have a
logogallery,  featuring  some  of  the
best  logos  seen  in  Amiga demos.  I
love nicely painted logos.

CL1:DH:  Yes, your logogallery is indeed a
very  nice touch, I've often wanted to
have  such  a gallery myself on my HD,
admiring the unique art created in the
older  scene,  but  now you came along
and  did it.  I am fairly certain many
older  sceners  are  very thankful for
this.   Anyway,  how  did  you get the
idea to start with ADA, and how did it
develop in the start?

CL2:z5:   To  be honest, I didn't have any
intention  of starting a website about
demos.   About 2 and a half years ago,
I discovered a very simple tutorial on
how  to  build a webpage in 10 minutes
or  something like that.  And I wanted
to  give  it  a try, just for learning
purposes.    Of  course,  I  needed  a
subject to put some content on my site
so  I  chose the subject closest to my
heart,  the  Amiga  demoscene.  In the
meantime,  I got to know Vanquish (who
lives  in  the  UK),  who is very good
with  graphics/photoshop.  From there,
the  idea just evolved...  Never did I
think  that  it would evolve in such a
huge project :)

CL2:Actually,  the  first plan was to make
N.A.D., the Newschool Amiga Demoscene,
featuring   releases   from  1995  and
onwards.   But  it became obvious that
we  just  couldn't  leave out all this
great   stuff  released  before  1995.
That  is probably the reason why there
are  now more 'newschool' demos on ADA
Once we have finished archiving those,
we  will really get stuck in the older
productions.

CL2:When  we  went  online 2 years ago, we
had  about  120 productions, amounting
to 130 pages of pure html, which was a
nightmare  :)  Luckily  for us, only a
couple of days later, Syn contacted us
and  offered  his  help  to convert to
whole lot to database/php/sql.

CL1:DH:   The  way  I  see it, ADA is also
great,  because  it  fills  a  vacuum;
there  is no place like it on the net.
Is that true, or are there other sites
dedicated  to Amiga demos, that can be
compared with ADA?

CL2:z5:   Difficult  to  answer  this  one
myself.     There   are   some   great
demoscene  websites  but what I missed
from   those   were   screenshots.   I
certainly  don't have the feeling that
I  am creating something that has been
done  before.   Otherwise, I would not
have  bothered  starting  such  a  big
project.  The more resources there are
about the demoscene, the better.  Each
and  everyone  has its positive sides.
I   really  do  hope  that  it  offers
something different.

CL1:DH:   What  are the good sides of ADA,
and  what  sides  do  you  think still
needs to be worked on.

CL2:z5:   We  are  definately  most  proud
about  the  screenshots.   We  try the
best we can to get the highest quality
screenshots  and to show them as close
to the original demos as possible.  We
have   a   lot   of  respect  for  the
productions  and  we  hope  that  this
shows  in  the  screenshots.  Also, we
are   quite   happy   with   the   way
everything  is presented on screen:  a
very   simple   and  easy  navigation.
Nothing fancy but doing it's job.  The
site  does  need  a  couple  of things
though,   especially   content   wise:
maybe  some  more  general information
about    the   Amigascene,   maybe   a
dictionary    with    demoeffects,   a
forum...   We do have some ideas ready
for  the new version.  There certainly
is  room  for  improvement.   We shall
see.

CL1:DH:  How much feedback to you get?  Do
the  sceners  like  ADA,  or  has  the
response been less good?  Do you think
Amiga  sceners in general are aware of
the existence of ADA?

CL2:z5:   Hmm...   Difficult question.  We
don't  get much feedback and rarely do
we  get  feedback  on  new ideas.  The
activity  of  the visitors on comments
and  votes  has not been as high as we
hoped   for  either,  which  gets  our
motivation  down  sometimes.  Although
things  seem  to pick up a bit lately.
Either people don't like to get active
or  not a lot of people know the site?
It's  a  puzzle  to  us.  On the other
hand,  we  are  STILL really surprised
and happy about the feedback we get in
our guestbook because nearly all of it
is  really  very positive.  You've got
all   these  people  writing  positive
things  about it, yet very few spend a
bit   of  time  voting/commenting.   I
think  it's  mainly  because  Pouet is
such  a  brilliant  site :) The active
demoscene seems to be there.

CL2:It's  a  pity really, because with the
website,  I just provided a framework.
The  really  interesting  stuff should
come from the visitors, telling if and
why  they  like  this or that demo.  I
mean,    wouldn't   that   make   some
interesting  reading  in  say 5 years?
Rewatching  all  those great memories,
seeing  them  with the screenshots and
reading  about what people thought and
felt  about  it.   It  would  make the
archive come alive.

CL1:DH:   You are only too right.  I think
many  know  the  site,  but  not  many
bother  to  show it, or comment on it.
It  is  like  that  with diskmags too,
sadly.    Anyway,   what  people  have
worked  with  you on ADA, and what are
they doing on the site?

CL2:z5:   The  team  consists  of only two
people:    Vanquish   and   me   (z5).
Vanquish   does  all  the  work  where
graphics   is  concerned:   webdesign,
converting  screenshots  and  logos...
Actually,  the  amount  of work on the
screenshots   is   huge.    I  do  the
content,  select  the  demos, take the
screenshots,  do  some php and html...
We  did  get  a  lot of help from Syn,
concerning  php, sql, hosting,...  The
website  would  never  have evolved so
much without his help.  Then there are
the   people   who   contribute   with
screenshots,   especially   from   PPC
releases.   Most  notably, FenriX, has
contributed  with a lot of really good
screenshots on those PPC releases.

CL1:DH:   Can  we  count on you to keep up
ADA  in  the future, and is everything
going according to plan now in regards
to serverspace, provider, money to run
it,  external help and so on?  If not,
maybe you could write a bit about what
you  need,  and who knows, some reader
might decide to help you out!

CL2:z5:  We are doing this for 2 years now
and  motivation  is  still  as high as
when we started, which is a good sign.
Updating  the  site goes really smooth
now.   It  only takes about one or two
hours  work  each  week, which is very
reasonable,  I think.  I don't want to
spend  too  much  time  on it and lose
motivation  after  a  couple of years.
The   logogallery   should  grow  much
bigger in the future.  On top of that,
I've  got  screenshots  ready on my HD
for    another    100   high   quality
productions.   After  that, I think we
will  let  visitors decide which demos
to include.  And we are working on the
next  version,  which  should  feature
some  new  things :).  We're still not
sure  if ADA will become an archive of
all  Amiga demos, or an archive of the
best  Amiga  demos  only.   I think we
will  leave  this  decision  up to the
visitors when the time comes.

CL2:As  for  running  costs...  we haven't
got  any.  Everything is hosted on the
free  and excellent planet-d demoscene
server.    Although,  eventually,  the
50Mb webspace may get a bit too small.
The  thought  has  crossed  my mind to
build  my  own archive, with all amiga
files  stored in one place (as opposed
to  now, where each download is a link
to  another  website).   We  will  see
about that.

CL1:DH:   Now  we are near the end of this
small   interview,  but  if  there  is
something   you   want  tosay  to  our
readers,  or  some  people you wish to
greet, now is the time for it.

CL2:z5:   Just want to say a big thank you
to  all  people  who have ever been in
the  Amiga  scene and have created all
this   wonderful  demoscene  material.
Respect!   And  special greetings must
go   to  Ephidrena  (the  best  ever),
Jazzcat,   Slayer,  Skipp604,  Scicco,
Ransom (is the demo still coming?) and
Mavey.

CL2:And  ofcourse,  many thanks to all who
have      supported      ADA      with
comments/votes/screenshots,...
 
CL1:DH:   With  that, we let z5 have his
peace,  so  he  can continue to update
and improve ADA Remember to go see his
site  for  yourself,  if  you  haven't
already   done   so.    Surely  it  is
deserving   of   a  bookmark  in  your
browser!
