Forest walk: Majic Mushroom by Powerslave/Void
Hello and welcome to Versus issue #9, please can you introduce yourself to the readers?
Hello there, I am Majic Mushroom of Tesko! I was a swapper, coder, modem trader and one-time BBS SysOp.
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
First computer was a Commodore Vic-20 which I got when I was 9 (in 1983). What a special little computer that was!
Progressed up to Spectrum +2, +3 and then the Amiga!
What got you interested in the Amiga platform?
The scene! I’d seen some demos on a mates Atari ST and was all set to get one for Christmas, then another mate showed me his Amiga and when I looked at the costs it just seemed
logical to spend the extra for a better machine (and more chance of getting free games!)
By the time I got it on Christmas Day I’d already had a few demo disks and started on the scene straight away.
What groups have you been in/helped, of which you can remember?
Started off in a group called Liquid Gold, which was started by me and 2 mates at college. After that I joined Pussy UK after I’d met the guys at the Magnetic Fields Party in Octover 1990.
Sadly they were not as active as I’d hoped and Alchemist persuaded me to join Crack UK shortly after. This gave me contact with Paradroid who went on to be my best scene buddy and the coder
of my marvellous “Magic Pack” menus (Even when we weren’t in the same group he was still writing them for me!)
After Crack UK myself and Paradroid joined Flash Production although that only lasted a few months for us in the UK. At that time I’d also been in touch with a lesser known cracker who went on to be
very well known, Galahad! He persuaded myself and Paradroid to join Razor 1911 but again that was chaotic and only lasted a few weeks.
I went indi for a bit then joined up with some ex Crack UK buddies in Plague.
After Plague died I joined Quartz and enjoyed just under 12 months in them. It was a very friendly group, and they allowed me to put out some intros and my first demo, “Journey into Divine Madness”.
Following a visit to The Party 2 in Aars I became aware that some Anarchy members were planning to break away and form a new group. The group was Lemon. and I was asked to join before they became offical.
Lemon. lasted just 10-11 months. I became aware on New Years Eve 1993 the group had disbanded. Following a chat with Splatt! of Fairlight that day he asked me to join Fairlight as a modem trader.
Couldn’t turn that down, although it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be! (Pardon the pun!) There were some great members and some absolute whoppers! When Splatt! quit the scene I decided to leave FLT and moved to Delirium.
Whilst in Delirium I was also missing the demo scene so I contacted my old friend Murk of Sonic and joined what went on to become Sonik-Clique. At some point DLM died and I just stayed in Sonik.
I think Sonik must have died at some point, or just stopped being active. I also stopped mail trading and just modem traded for myself.
However, I was also secretly a member of a local group called Tesko. These were people I went to college with and I initially helped them out with intros and demos when they were Doom UK and Voodoo Design!
I officially joined Tesko as Majic Mushroom when we started doing PC stuff and of course there’s the award winning “2 Blokes & An Armchair” demo which won the Deja Vu party demo competition in 1998.
(Although the result was later fudged so that a PC demo won!)
I was also a member of Capital, the Gameboy release group. I wrote some PC utilities for them to use interally and they released one of my tools to the public when they died.
What was the proudest moment in your career?
I’d say coming 3rd in the Quartz Summer Conference 1992 demo competition, an achievement for a swapper I thought!
Joining Lemon. was a great time as well, although I felt really guilty for leaing Quartz!
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Regrets? Only 2 really!
1 – I wish I’d learned to code sooner and with more enthusiasm, I left it late and got to a point where I sort of hit a brick wall with things.
2 – That damned Unity thing! It was intended to be a UK version of the “Friendship” movement that existed in Holland but it was just completely misunderstood and then got out of control.
I took a lot of shit from some people for that and was even blamed for the death of Ipec Elite, although thankfully the guy who ran it did come out in support of me and said that the group was
on the brink of collapse at that point already.
Are you still active? If not when did you stop and why?
Not active anymore! I stopped being a swapper in 1994. I continued to code under a different name for Tesko until I joined them officially.
I was just so busy with work, writing code all day and then having to do it at home at night, I just couldn’t keep it up.
When I moved on to the PC I did some cracks and trainers for a while under a different name.
The last Amiga demo I did was “2 Blokes & An Armchair”.
Life just moved on really, by the time I’d come to do “2 Blokes” I’d not done anything on the Amiga for a couple of years. By this point I’d really forgotten most of what I’d learned, and with demos getting more technical I just didn’t have the knowledge to get to the next level.
Technically, Tesko never died, just became inactive. I had intended to do a “25 Years Tesko” Wild Demo last year but I just never got round to it, maybe “30 years Tesko” will be a thing!
In 2017 I redid my 2 Amiga websites so it’s a much better design, they’ve been around since 2004/2005. Can I give you the links?
www.magicpack.net – This is a collection of ALL my Magic Packs (and some unreleased demo packs I did)
www.themajiccollection.net – This is my ENTIRE demo collection, 638 disks if I’m not mistaken.
Any greetings/messages to old friends you would like to say?
I’d have to say hi to my old pal, Paradroid. We were best friends on the scene and used to speak to each other 1-2 times a week. He wrote all my demo pack menus and also helped me with coding, his tutorials were excellent.
Someone who I have kept in touch with all these years is Rotox. We used to speak 2-3 times a week in the old days, these days it’s less, a couple of times a month maybe.
I have to say hi to everyone I swapped with in the old days, and everyone who make the scene as fun as it was!
Thanks 🙂
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