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NAME:
Mark Daniels
COMPUNET ID:
BODD (MD13)
WHAT HE DID:
Oh boy. What DID I do, other than run up HUGE phone bills
for my parents? Well, I was definitely cutting my programming
teeth in those days, as a mere 13/14-year-old(!). My memory
doesn't serve me too well but I know I wrote several demos,
which were hardly ground-breaking stuff, but not bad for a
14-year-old. One was called 'Tuesday Afternoon' because I
wrote it in a Tuesday afternoon. Another was YYZ, written
with Steve Harcourt, a mate of mine who went by the name of
PYROS and is still at large, on steve@slackwagon.freeserve.co.uk
This demo was one of those multi-part jobs, which was at least
original, in that it wasn't full of the usual boring FLD (remember
that!!!?), scrollers, colour bars and what have you (probably
because we couldn't program them!). I also ran a review section
for a while - can't remember what I called it. We also did
a couple of bland demos with pictures and scrollers (but NOT
using Ian and Mic's Demo Creator!) Oh that's right, I also
botched together a few demos containing long-ish samples.
One has a pair of gnashing teeth and a clip from some Def
Leppard song - remember that!? It was terrible...! I still
have this stuff, you know!
CLAIM TO COMPUNET
FAME:
Well, none specifically, but I did play an active part in
CNET life with occasional demos etc. which not all netters
did. I suppose you could say I was one of the youngest CNET
members there was. Oh yes, and myself and two friends hacked
the CNET software so it could fast-save onto TAPE! I think
we uploaded that - pretty revolutionary, in a retro sort of
way! (you're going to hell!)
WHAT'S HE
UP TO NOW:
Nothing to do with computers (although of course I use them
every day). I did a degree in Russian and Serbian at Nottingham
University and now I am working as the rep. for the British
educational publisher Longman out in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Of course! What else?!
OTHER STUFF:
Well, not a lot. I'm still only 25. I intend to avoid a career
in computing and hope to go to Mars someday (actually, I haven't
given it THAT much thought, but it just came to me).
TOP THREE
FAVOURITE PROGRAMS/HARDWARE:
1) My C64 HAS to be up the top there. How would I have turned
out if we hadn't 'sat in front of our screens whilst others
ran in bright sunshine.....', as PYROS put it in a recent
email!? 2) Oh, do I have to answer this?! I don't have 'favourite
hardware'! It's like saying, 'what's your favourite sock?'!
OK - CNET modem, Playstation (who would have thought a bit
of kit like that would be possible at home one day? Me for
one! And it's only just started!). 3) Oh, and the Expert Cartridge!!!
Without which there would have been NOTHING! 1) Oh, I can't
remember this stuff! There was loads of fantastic stuff around
in those C64 days - those were real ground-breaking days,
and there'll never be a time like that again. 2) Nope - can't
pick out any one thing 3) I do have a couple of favourite
games though - Tetris (the one on the 64 with the cool music
- played it for days), Lemmings (on the Miggy - days and days,
again) and Tomb Raider.
BETWEEN WHICH
DATES WERE YOU A MEMBER OF COMPUNET:
I suppose I was on it for only a couple of years at most,
which would put it from around 1986-1988. Then I left because
frankly it was losing its way and it was getting very expensive.
A couple of years after that, I toyed with the idea of rejoining,
but by then it had disappeared without a trace and it was
time for me to go off to university and discover the INTERNET!
However, I have to admit to remembering those carefree childhood
Compunet days with great fondness and a tear comes to my eye
when I think that they will never be recreated. Even if someone
tracked down the original files and botched it onto the Web,
how could you recreate those pioneering C64 times - where
would Ash and Dave, Rob Hubbard and the others be...? Sniff...!
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