In scenish terms the Greek coder ggn can be considered a teenager. He became active some years ago, roughly around the turn of the millennium. He's since 2006 a member of the group D-Bug, http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/, one of the few active cracking crews on the Atari ST. With his source codes and various reviews ggn is also a long-lasting supporter of the Alive diskmag. In the past years he also attracted interest by kicking out some demoscene related releases under the brand of KA software productions and Paradize. Thanks must fly to Alien of Bitfellas for the idea and the survey and to Lotek Style for providing me with some background information. And of course to ggn for his almost endless patience.



Hi ggn. First of all, what's your name, date and place of birth please?
George Nakos, 15 Jun 1977, Athens (Greece)

What were your first steps towards becoming a coder? Who helped you, what problems did you run into? And what were your first effects?
Well my first steps in programming were done in Atari Basic with nothing to help me, except some multimedia tapes that Atari made at that time and my brother. The tapes loaded a program, ran it, and then started playing the tape and a female narrator would read out a text which was synchronised with what the machine showed using some high pitched beeps that the viewer would detect. Quite a feat! Anyway, these tapes helped me learn lots of stuff about basic programming. Then, me and my brother were reading and re-reading the Atari Basic manual, which was quite good. Finally Pandora's box was opened by the English magazine Atari User, because it had lots of type-in listings and you had to learn to type correctly, fast, do proofreading AND debug if you didn't catch any typos! Anyway, the biggest hurdle for me was that the Atari 8-bit (and the ST for that matter) was never all that popular in Greece, so getting information (and anything else really) was a big problem.
It took me 3 years to find an assembler for the ST and as many for the 800XL (unfortunately I was too stupid to understand 6502 assembly). Anyway, lots of free time in my late teens (I failed my entry university exams the first time, so I had a full year to make trainers for all the games I couldn't complete) helped me develop my coding skills.

What is your favorite programming language and effect?
Assembly (preferably 68000) Effect: Sierpinski triangle. Seriously, I don't have a fav effect. Any effect, if nicely coded & presented, can knock the socks off everyone!

The tool you prefer to work with?
Turbo Assembler/Bugaboo on Atari 16/32 platforms

The best coders in your eyes:
Coder: Nick/TCB, The Fate/ULM, Gunstick/ULM, Leonard/Oxygene, Defjam/Checkpoint, and Ultra/Cream/Orb (and of course a million more I won't remember in time).

The best platform?
Atari 16/32

Of course, I guessed so. And what about accumulating knowledge by reading books?
Never read any books on programming really, I'm mostly self-taught (that's why my stuff sucks).

What was your first group, your role in that group and what did that group produce?
Well, my first group was the one with the silly name (KA software productions!). First ever production was a guest screen for Oxygene's Nostalgic-O demo (which fortunately wasn't published due to the late entry and low disk space - phew!). First published production was to be the intro for the disk magazine Alive issue #28 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=16751. But because the maggie was delayed a bit (hehe), the first prod that slipped through my fingers was a really crappy one done for a x-mas compo organised by dhs http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=7870
What motivates you to spend time on the Scene? Do I do that? I grew up with my Ataris at hand, and with infinite free time in my youth, I had nothing else to do. These days, due to work commitments I don't spend as much time doing stuff as I want, but there are some GREAT guys out there, and communicating with them and sharing (and creating) stuff is a fun thing to do!


On what platforms did you begin your computing journey, and when was this?
Atari 800XL. We bought that machine a couple of days before Christmas 1986, and both me and my brother were hooked from the first millisecond.
What is your favorite piece(s) of music - from a demo production or a scener (released outside of a demo)? Hmmm, tough one... Just mark me down for all the DMA-DC, Tao, Crazy Q, Lotek Style (AKA MC Laser), 505 tunes that were released outside of demos (I'm probably missing a ton more tunes, but hey!)

What are your favorite pictures from a demo production or a scener?
I'm going to be as vague here (flame me!): Stuff from Niko/Oxygene, Havoc/Lineout, Exocet, Mic/Dune, C-Rem/MJJ, Zweckform/Panadox... Oh and I like Critikill and Bridgeclaw's stuff too.

Which project that you worked on was the most exciting and interesting for you? And why?
Got to be "2 days of love and happiness" http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=11932 ... 2 days of crap size coding as I got both the musics and the gfx AND the font at virtually the last minute! Fun times! Thanks to Baggio/Evolution, C-Rem/MJJ and Bear for their amazing stuff.



What is your favorite demo, intro, megademo, retrogame, slideshow, musicdisk, diskmag, wilddemo?
Crap, that's hard!
Oh well, I'll write some here, I guess I'll want to write a million
more (in random order):
- Brain Damage by Aggression
- Extasy demos by ICE
- Flip-O demo by Oxygene
- Virtual Escape by Equinox
- Ooh crikey wot a scorcher by TLB
- Dark side of the Spoon by ULM
- Aether by MFX
- Suretrip by Checkpoint - Posh by Checkpoint
- sometimes bumblebee flies higher than falcon by Syntax
- Reanimation by Syntax
- Hmmmm by Escape
- _ by Escape
- sonolumineszenz by avena
- Don't break the Oath by DHS
- Sweety by DHS
- Outline 06 Falcon invite by DHS
- Wait by TOYS
...guess these are enough for now.

Please discuss the terms cracktros, fucktros, joke demos, lamers, compo winners at big parties, demotools, diskmags, chiptunes, glenz vectors, programming languages, photoshop and textmode.
For the first definition, I'd say that this is fun in a geeky coder kind of way, because most of them are by coders for coders, following the "Look how much stuff I can squeeze in X kilobytes of code" trend. Sometimes they're amazing because of the content, sometimes they're plain boring. I'm sure that the main thing is that almost always the creator is definitely having more fun than the viewer (casual or not). As for the second definition, well.... because of my normal mood, I tend to like demos with minimal content.
Cracktros: Simply - I love 'em.
Fucktros: Well, if they are done in a jokingly fashion then I don't have a problem.
Joke demos: Funnily enough I have seen a lot of creativity in those demos!
Lamers: well, potentially everyone is a lamer, simply because one can't be liked by everyone else. Compo winners at big parties: No probs against that I guess. It is certain that the better groups will try to do their absolute best to win at big parties, for the money and the prestige too.
Demotools: Don't use them, so I can't comment. Don't think I'll ever do one too.
Diskmags: A nice afternoon of relaxing reading!
Chiptunes: Way of life!
Glenz vectors: I like them.
Programming languages: Why the plural? There's only ONE language, and that's asm.
Photoshop: Errr, a tool for people to have fun at other people's expense? Although I dunno where all the world finds the money to actually buy it.
Textmode: I wanted to make a VT52 demo at some point, that's about it.

What percentage of older demos are the same effects recycled?
102%?

What platforms do need more demos?
All except the PC I'd say, it's more fun for me to view demos for exotic platforms rather then a PC.

Which parties do you intend to go to, and which parties would you like to go to? Please describe your personal experiences with the most favourite or impressive party you have ever been at.
Hmm, next year's Outline for sure. If there's going to be a Paracon this year (highly unlikely) then that too. Thinking about Function and next year's Breakpoint too. We'll see... Well, the latest party I've been to was Outline 07. Nice place, lots of friends I saw there and had fun with (and endless conversations!). The weather was a bit chilly for me, but that doesn't matter much!

How did the scene alter since you are taking an active part in it and can you explain why?
Well, the people I communicate with as well as myself have grown older. Any past quarrels or disagreements have mostly been forgotten. Also, real life commitments tends to change people a lot. For example, I don't know how much I would be in touch with the scene if I were married and had a couple of children to tend to.
'd say that the scene will probably remain the same, older sceners will always fade away as time goes by, newer will join (at least I hope so), so it's a static and dynamic balance at the same time, depending on your viewpoint.

What are your dreams/goals in life, did scene help you and have you achieved them yet?
Don't really have any of those (honest to ! And in a few days I'll be 30 years old!). So the scene can't help there.

Finally, do you have some special greetings you'd like to shout out?
Well, the form would probably crash if I were going to go all the way here, so I'll restrain myself as much as I can here.
First of all hellos to my fellow crew mates in D-Bug (Cyrano Jones (AKA the c**t), Showaddywaddy, Melcus, Dubmood), Paradize (Simonsunnyboy, Cooper, Minz, Marcer, _Orion), Alive team (all of you guys).
Next, to all the #atariscne #butfellas nutters, and... I dunno... all people I guess!