Fast Interview with MRI

Sarwaz/MRY

MRI (Mats Byggmastar) had his first contact with computers at the age of 14 with a C-64. In the early 1992 he began to code in C when he started in the enginering school at the age of 20, and a few months later he learned Assembly and began to deal with real time graphics.

He first joined the group @, but it died and he entered the reborn group Doomsday. There he achieved his biggest success with their Asm'97 winning demo "Boost".

Recently Doomsday has been dissolved and MRI ventured into some other "more interesting" things.

He works as a software developer for a Norwegian company called Moesarc Technology.

What is your favourite drink?

Hmmm... well, I drink a lot of milk, so I guess it's milk. Our collection of wine at home is ever growing though as my boss likes to give wine on every possible occasion.

What is your favourite meal?

That has to be "Plankstek" at the Italian resturant Mamma Rosa in Oslo. Served on a peace of wood. It's simply superb!

What's is your favourite company animal?

Huh? Company animal, what's that? A code-monkey maybe (laugh).

Well, actually, I mean a pet.

Oh! Are you psychic or what? The main product our company used to develop was called PET-100.

Tell me one bad habit you have.

I pick my nose all the time (laugh).

What was your last piece of madness?

I bought a 1/10th scale R/C car two weeks ago. A TAMIYA off road pick-up truck. I chase our neighbours cat with it, among other things (laugh).

Do you think that the Doomsday will be in the year 2000?

Nope. Doomsday is when tv_sec in struct timeval wraps.

What mistake would you never forgive?

Dunno, people always make mistakes, that's just human nature.

What have you coded that you wouldn't code again?

Hmmm... let's see. I made some crap programs in Basic on Commodore 128 long ago. I wouldn't like to do that again!

What does MRI stand for?

This is from long ago. A classmate and I came up with it at school when we made some exercises in Basic, on XT machines!!! We thought that every program needed a (C) Copyright message and a company name. So we wrote "(C) Copyright Megaspy Research Inc.". Spy in Megaspy stands for vomit in Swedish actually. I kept this name over the years and took MRI as the nick when I started using inet.

Ok, because there were rumours out there that it meant: "Microsoft Rules Indeed".

Haha! Can't be, my attitude towards MS is not that positive. I have been programming professionaly for Linux for two years now and know how a real OS should behave.

Tell me what the best book ever is in your opinion.

I don't ever read books just for reading! Why spend time reading books when I can be creative instead, coding something. But I do check technical books for information. Hmmm... currently nr. 1 is "GSM Networks: Protocols, Terminology, and Implementation". As to the matter of computer graphics I think "Advanced animation and rendering techniques" is good.

What do you wear for sleeping?

As little as possible. Ask my wife (laugh).

Do you know what "Un baranto" is?

No idea, tell me.

Well, it's "una polla de espanto" (Spanish joke).

Muhahahahaha... emm, what (laugh)? "una polla" == "one ball"?

Tell me the best place for holidays.

Anywhere except work I guess.

Haven't you ever felt too old to code demos?

Well yes, all the time. Especially when going to demoparties seeing mostly young kids there. I started coding late, I was 20 when I got into graphics and C programming (I am 27 now).

Tell me your favourite coder, demo, and group.

Favourite coder has to be Statix. Favourite demo I don't know, there are just so many good demos; Square/Pulse, Inside/CNCD, 303/Acme, Juice/Psychic Link, Reve/Pulse, etc. I'm not really up to date with the very latest releases. I don't have a favourite group, except maybe Doomsday.

What is your most repeated dream?

Don't think I have one. They all look different.

When did you cry last time?

Don't remember. What kind of question is this (laugh)!?

What is the question you wouldn't like anybody to ask you?

Did you and your wife really meet on the Internet?

- Sarwaz/MRY