| An interivew with | |
| CYBACOLT and PACKRAT of | |
| agrajag | |
| scenelink | What are you trying to acomplish with the cheats database? |
| CYBACOLT | Trying to provide
something for all I have taken from the scene over the
years. I was sick of people trying to sell things on the
net, and I thought it was time to give rather than take. After seeing so many great text files like the Jargon File, and the Anarchists Cookbook and such, I thought i'd try my hand in developing my own txt compilation. |
| scenelink | Why did you think there was a need for it? |
| CYBACOLT | There where vague cheats compilations all over the place, but none ongoing. I also got annoyed with recent cheats compilations that required payment, or had cripple-ware/nag-ware attached to them. (I think I'll refrain from naming packages :) |
| scenelink | What was the most difficult part of all this? |
| CYBACOLT | Aahm. I don't know if i can answer that. There have been many parts that were difficult. I guess the two hardest parts were editing and checking the data file, and (tho I didn't do much there) packrat's coding of the viewer. I cant recall how many times I combed through the data file comparing cheats and updating them... It was quite draining and monotonous at times. |
| PACKRAT | *snort* Don't even talk to me about the sorts of problems you can have with compilers and working under DOSs broken architecture. It almost seems as if coding the viewer for this gave me an opportunity to find and activate every bug in DOS. It could be written off as a challenge I suppose. |
| scenelink | Do you think it would be good for someone to do a compilation like this for cracks, fonts, patches, or other small files? |
| CYBACOLT | it's hard to say. Cracks and patches would take alot of maintanence, considering you'd have to have cracks for each version of the ware. The size of such a compilation would be perhaps unattractive as well. A fonts compilation could be interesting tho. |
| PACKRAT | Actually, I only think a compilation of the type we have done is only useful for things like cheats that can be viewed and remembered easily. Cracks, patches, and most other small files need the files to be extracted and used, whereas the cheats can remain more or less monolithic. While the cheats database could be very easily adapted in its current state, we do have plans for it. More later... |
| scenelink | Would you be interested in doing a compilation like this? |
| CYBACOLT | At the moment I have too much on my plate. Certainly not in the foreseeable future. |
| scenelink | What would be your suggestions for someone who wanted to put together a project like this? |
| CYBACOLT | just get out there and start doing it! There are always a lot of hurdles, but you take them when you come to them. You just need faith in your idea, and it spawns from there on in. |
| PACKRAT | There have been a few
setbacks, even a few month or two long gaps where one or
both of us couldn't manage the enthusiasm. Of course,
cybacolt has put many times more hours than I did, I only
ever had to worry about getting a final product out. I
did do some proofing as well, so I can appreciate the
amount of effort it took. Basically you need to keep hammering at it. If you ever do work on a project like this, you are going to want to put it down before you have finished. You just have to put it down not to far away... |
| scenelink | What kept you doing this, assuming that after 500 hours there would be times when you'd get really really frustrated... |
| CYBACOLT | Work tended to happen
fairly sporatically. say, I'd do 25 hours one week, then
leave it for 2 months. I did occasionally wonder _why_ I
was doing it, or if infact anyone would find a use for
it. But what really spurred me on was seeing other crappy
releases with more ANSI than content, and half the cheats
of the agrajag database. I thought the scene deserved
more than that. This database started when I was my second last year of school when 386's where hot machines. It's taken quite alot of frustration to get it into true form. Even packrat, has spent many sleepless nights trying to get Borland C to do what the manuals _say_ it does :) |
| PACKRAT | I remember some of those nights. The last one involved a particularly nasty bug which I could only find my dancing around it and trying to see how close I could get before the machine crashed. Turned out it wasn't even anything I'd done. The sleepless part was mainly due to cybacolt and another friend sitting behind me for 8 hours while I worked on it sniggering and making smart comments. Neither of them, I might point out, had done any serious programming under DOS. |
| scenelink | How can people help to make the cheat database even better? |
| CYBACOLT | It's like anything good
in te scene today - support us and we'll support you. It
would be great if people could spread the database as
much as they could. Anyone who has cheats that aren't in
the database could post them to me,
(cybacolt@iinet.net.au) i'd be more than happy to credit
them for it. We are still lacking in distrobution BBS's and netsites as well. It would be greatly appreciated if someone could help in this area. |
| scenelink | What's your next project going to be? |
| CYBACOLT | Well, for starters, the
next version of the cheats database. Trying to put the
number of games over 1000, adding compression, perhaps
adlib music and some conservative use of graphics. (after
all - content over clutter is agrajag's main aim.)
possibly movement into N64 console cheats, and viewer's
for different OS's (such as linux) Then there's the expansion of the agrajag music archive. (http://www.iinet.net.au/~packrat/music) which must happen soon - we are running out of archive space. Perhaps even making a real group out of agrajag, rather than a two man band. (as it is now) |
| PACKRAT | My own pet project with the cheats database is to move the whole things into some sort of generalized markup language rather than the text it is in right now, then perhaps viewers for different platforms. Windows is almost a certainty once we can bring ourselves to do it. A webbed interface would also be nice. |
| Signing Off, cybacolt (cybacolt@iinet.net.au) and packrat (packrat@iinet.net.au) of |