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                         Where does moondog coming from?!
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1o years  of Undercover, a  damn long time, and  after thinking  about all those
years I thought, just reveal some bits about your little history for the readers
pleasures as  they always like it  to read some  little stories  and since I was
never interviewed so far  I may reveal the  one or other  funny bit about myself
with this article now...

Ok, where does this hellhound, erm... moondog coming from?! Good question...

All started back in the last days of the GDR, 1989. In autumn I joined a special
vocational school in my hometown, Naumburg, for my future job as potterer. There
we  had some  lessons  called "Einführung in die Automatisierung" or  something,
short  translated "Introduction into automation" and ofcourse  even in  the late
GDR, computers were playing a big role there.

Our school had a small computer room where we  made our first steps in Basic and
we got our first  contact with computers at all. Those were KC 85 machines, some
GDR 8bit computers, connected  to russian TVs  and cassette-players for the data
storage. Those lessons  were always big fun and founded my interest in computing
at all.

In early 199o  the computers  were sold out as  they wanted  to prepare the room
with  new and modern  computers from  the "west" and I thought long about buying
one... they were quite cheap, 15o DM for one machine (the advanced ones, KC 87).
But somehow I missed to buy one and so I stood there without computer in the end
but it shouldn't last that long untill I got in touch with another one...

In summer 199o we met our  relatives in France and on the way back we stopped in
Trier where my little brother finally realised his  wish to have  a computer, as
the guys in his class already had some (Commodore 64 I think) and he just wanted
to copy and play games. Somehow the shop didn't offered Commodore computers but,
Atari! And so he bought  a 1o4o STFM with SM 124 and  two games for... something
about 14oo DM... arf...

Back at home  we build up the whole  equipement and tried to check out the games
he bought, ofcourse  they didn't run with  a monochrome monitor ;)  We tried out
several times and nothing happened. The  craziest thing we did, was to check out
several functions on the desktop then. "Hey," said my brother "just let us check
what  will happen  when we click  on -format disk-"... and so we did  and had no
games anymore... Yes, we were the poorest lamers on earth at this moment. Hehe.

So we had just the language disk left and so we played around with Omikron Basic
a little bit in  the next days, trying out the stuff I learned at school and you
know what? With a few changes those commands worked and we got some vector lines
and stuff onto our screen. But, that  really wasn't the thing we wanted to do in
the first place with the machine...

Later on things started to  roll, we  found a little  software store in Naumburg
that was selling Atari games and  at some rubbish  collection for bulky trash we
searched for a still running TV as we had no money for a monitor or new TVset...
We found  a running colour TV (even  tough the  screen was most filled  with red
colours only, hehe) and so we had  at the end of the  year 199o some more games,
a colour display and loads of fun while playing games all day and night long.

So it was going on, the collection of games was growing slowly as my brother did
not found some  in his school  to swap games  with and  this makes him tired and
bored, his C-64  friend already  bought an Amiga  and so he went often to him to
play some  games, leaving  me at home  with the  Atari. Later on we met some guy
that owned a STE  and so we  swapped some  original  games, just  like "Rings Of
Medusa" and so on, but in  shortest time we  had played all  the other stuff and
had no  new stuff left and since  money was  quite low, we  were hanging around,
playing always the same  stuff and  in my brothers  mind the  idea, to buy a new
machine, was growing up.

In autumn 1991 I finished my driving school and we got the information that some
PD dealer who was selling Atari stuff  was located in a village nearby Naumburg,
so we took  the car of  my father and  droved to them, finding a little shop who
offered a collection of several  hundred disx for 8 DM each. We  got a catalogue
and ordered  mostly games  but found  out something  more as  well and  while my
brother lost all  his interest in Atari, such stuff like "Neochrome vo.6" opened
doors in my mind that brought me to the one I am today.

After playing and  gambling around for some more months, spending a lot of money
for PD disx, my  brother decided  to buy an Amiga and  so he did, selling me his
Atari with all the stuffs for marvellous 4oo DM. Good price, no?
So I could focuse  more on the  Atari now, invest  more money, overall in games,
magazines, disx, cables, printer, a new colour TV set and so on. Ofcourse I  was
a bit puzzled  as I saw the  speed that  my brother used to build up a big games
colly  as he now had  the contax  and chances to get cracked warez  and so I was
sitting for hours on his machine too, to play all  the nice  games he brought at
home from  school and  got from an old  friend. And those  cracked games  mostly
came  along with... cracktros... yummy, I  was damn  affected by those  stunning
intros and I started to load some games just to check the intros on them.
So  far  I hadn't  seen any  demo or  stuff like  this on  my Atari  but  then I
discovered the TEX "LCD" demo on a PD disk and I was quite amazed... Seems I was
living behind seven hills at the seven dwarfes, no?

Anyway, I focused  now on  getting in touch with  other Atarians  as it was damn
boring to sit always alone on this nice machine. The guy we met at first did not
invested much  time anymore in  Atari'ing. But I discovered fast another Atarian
in Naumburg, Samix, who used his STE for making music and since  we were knowing
each other from school, the contact was quite close then.
I even found a third Atari who  was working in the office of a wash salon. Cool,
hehe.

Anyway, Samix was  some kind of advanced to me, as  he told  me that he buys the
ST Format magazine, here in our little hometown, and he told  me about GFA basic
and showed me a small "intro" he  did with a ripped GFA listing, showing cycling
rasters and a big logo... Damn cool for me and I did the same ;) But I found out
that hacking  in hundred lines of code  wasn't the  stuff I really want to do, I
was quite  confused when it  bugged and I had to  search the mistakes I typed in
and so I focused more on tormenting NeoChrome.

In the  end, Samix guided  me to  the CF, "Computer Flohmarkt". At  first I just
looked there  to buy used  equipement, but I  focused fast onto  the chat areas.
You have  to know that  this was a paper magazine splitted in  many areas, where
you could buy and sell used or new  hard and software  and overall, hold contact
to other freax from -ANY- system. There were people  from Atari, Amiga, PC, C64,
ZX Spectrum, CPC, ZX 81, Oric (!), Apple 2 and  what the  hell else, all writing
in that magazine. You just had  to write  down your thoughts  to several themes,
send them  in and  after two  months, as the magazine  was out, the others could
read all your adverts and stuff and could react on them on the same way.

Every two months, ofcourse  this is quite  a long time in comparison with todays
Emails and IRC chat, but in times  without modem and stuff  it was a quite cheap
way to hold contact to many freax all around in Germany...
And to write some stuff in that magazine, the most freax used a quite cool nick,
and so I wanted to do the same, but finding  a cool one isn't that easy but then
I remembered  some wrestling  shows I saw on RTL+ in 199o, where  the moderators
were  speaking about  some  tag  team, called "The Moondogs" and, hell, Moondog,
that sounds quite cool and I decided to  took this nick. And as "Moondog" looked
quite uncool without a band, I decided to add "of ST", just like Lucky of ST...
Not the brainblast of an idea, but it looked someway cooler, eventough some guys
asked me later on what "ST" stands for, hehe...

And so in the middle  of 1992 I got  my first contacts  to swap stuff. I used my
grown PD colly to get the things I wanted, demos! Especially after an old friend
of mine came  along, he owned  an Amiga now and we were knowing each other since
we were kids, my hunt  for demos was powered  even more, as he presented some on
his Amiga and  smashed on the  shit like hell, we  wrote long letters over snail
mail, fighting the usual Amiga-Atari-war and I was growing up to a Atari fanatic
in those times.

Back to the CF... my demo colly was quite fast growing from now on, and I sucked
out many of the little swappers within shortest time, using the new stuff always
very well to get other things and was able to set adverts, offering 1o disx with
demos to  get another  1o disx and  even more. Every  week two or three packages
popped in and I had to hurry for buying diskboxes and disx, disx, disx, untill I
was running out of money. I even gave up other old hobbies then, like collecting
old postcards and stamps where I  invested a lot of money  and time before, just
to make as much ressources free for Atari'ing as possible.

And the CF brought me in touch with  the scene. Yes, I met several people there,
that were still some lamers and  gamblers at those times, but  were short before
the jump into scene  business, just as  myself. And also  people from the "real"
scene, people that have "matched" it, that  were something like gods to us small
users, popped up  here and there  in the CF, just like the chaps of Aura, Animal
Mine, New Trend or TPN. But they often just announced their new stuff or got mad
about discussions that were held over their productions, but so you can see, big
brother is watching you...

At the end of 1992 I got in touch  with LTM, later  known as  Drizzt, we swapped
some demos and in the end, as I was pixeling already some  stuff, he asked me if
I would like to join their band, as  they don't can set  a single  pixel and the
stuff I  did, was always  better as all  they did  before. I don't took this too
earnest at first, we talked about their diskmag  project and slowly I decided to
join this project and finally also their band, this was in spring 1993...

A lot of other later sceners  were tumbling over my way in the CF: mOdmate, JMS,
bITmASTER, Lucky of ST, Zonk, Apache and I met  a lot that turned out to be some
damn lame asses, just  like  the Germs posse, except  their quite  cool founders
Addict and Necron99. Anyway, we mostly  belonged to the same  bunch of underdogs
at those times and it was  always big fun to  get in touch with new people using
always the same machine, the Atari ST...

Those times were  just cool, we were flooded with stunning demos, we just wanted
to be a part of this cool demo makers posse, we wanted to do the same, we wanted
to get fame and to be the hottest  sacks on earth... Some of the people I met at
those days have stamped myself, some of  them were over years the best friends I
ever had, even without the  Atari, and I would say, without some of them I would
not be the one I am today.

The following times with creating Undercover Magazine from nothing, the times in
my first band, The Naughty Bytes, were just fun, we growed up quite fast and the
lamer times were  skipped very fast, but  somehow those  very first  years of my
computing history were surely the most exciting  and thrilling ones as there was
so much to  check up, to examine and  to discover... you did  the things without
pressure, just because  of your will to  discover even  more and more, the Atari
world seemed somehow of endless too  us, we weren't able to see any frontiers at
those times and the tenthousands  of users around made it to a big adventure for
newbies to search and find their own place in that big community.

Today, as our scene and community is that small, as Atari isn't existing anymore
and there is no real chance for another  boost, as you have the  feeling to have
seen all, examined  and discovered the  most things, as you have met hundreds of
people without a real chance  to get to know again and again many new people, as
you can see the final frontiers, those "golden" times are nice to remember.

A little bit sad is the fact that there isn't much left from those times, I have
lost the most contacts quite fast, there are just a few ones left today, but the
old close contact is unfortunately  over, just a few have  survived more or less
all those years, still being some kind of active from time to time in the scene,
just like mOdmate or FXL for example.
Samix  is still living in Naumburg, is still  having his  4 meg STE and is still
tormenting Cubase, we met each other from time to time by accident and last time
we met, he was thinking about getting a Falcon.
My Amiga-chap is  still around, being pilot at the Lufthansa and is still having
his Amigas, we met from time  to time as  well and he  wrote some article again,
unfortunately in  german only. And FXL, my old  group mate, wrote some stuff for
UCM again, as  in the  past, still owns his  Atari Falcon  and  moved  lately to
Dresden, the Atari center in eastern Germany. And what else?

All the  magazines mentioned  in here are vanished, the software dealer, were we
got our  games, in Naumburg is  selling PC networks  today and  has lost all his
freaky atmosphere, the PD dealer  vanished already 1o years ago... My disx colly
smashed  the 1ooo disx barrier, my  first  ST is still  running with  the second
power supply and the third floppy drive, I'm sitting on my second Falcon to type
in those lines, the 3,5" harddisk that  smashed my first Falcons' motherboard is
working  in my PC nowadays  as Atari HD for STEEM  and  overall I own  6 Atari's
today... not to forget the 2 Triumph Alpha machines ;)

And anyway, the  time is going on, the  Atari history still isn't at its end and
I'm still a  part of this community, I don't  know how long, but I'm sure I will
never forget  those times as  Atari was over  many years  a big part of my life,
not to say, my life at all...

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