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Nikolaj Kiær Thygesen, developer of Diamond Box
Today Fabio Trotta talked to Nikolaj Kiær Thygesen, the developer of the great GraphicsApp DiamondBOX. It`s cool, it`s nice and it`s free !! Thanks.

1. Hi Nikolaj, how long are you an AMIGA User ?



Well, I've owned an Amiga since around 1988 I think. I've always been a gfx freak ever since my VIC20 days back in high school.


2. What is your reason for using an AMIGA ?



It's cool! Well actually, at first of course it was miles ahead of the competition (PC's, Lisa and Macs) due to its gfx performance, but these days I just like the simplicity and ease of use. I (mostly) know what's going on behind the scenes, and I like that, also back in the middle age, as I went to college, we studied 68000 assembler for a while, so I was pretty much into that family of processors. I always liked modular approaches, and I never figured out why simple things must be made complicated by cluttering the view with loads of extra layers, redundant features and API's - KISS.

3. What machines do you use ?

I still use my trusty old A4060/PPC@200 more than the Pentium on my desk, but it isn't getting any younger, so I have this nagging fear that one of these days it'll die on me, and spare parts are hard to come by.

4. What are your non-AMIGA related hobbies ?

Well, my biggest hobby has got to be the theater. I'm a member of a theater group in Copenhagen, and during the last few years we've played at festivals in a couple of countries like Canada, Lithuania and of course Denmark - a lot of fun really. I've done some directing as well, and the "Death"-like picture on the Diamond Dice home page is actually a cover picture of a program I made for one of our plays - very artistic aren't we? I'm a member of MCD (Magic Circle Denmark), but all the other stuff takes up a lot of my time, so magic has sort of gotten a lower priority for now. I still do a few shows though, but very few.

5. What are your favourite games ?

Hmm, I don't play much really. I prefer one way shoot-em-ups like "T-Zero", but I also bought "Genetic Species". I loved some of the old timers like "SideWinder", "Hybris" and "SWIV".

6. How long do you code ?

A little less than 20 years - maybe 18. I work as an IT-consultant/systems developer, and my last day-time project was a crossword compiler. A system that builds crosswords based on a word-database. This has been one of the more nifty/challenging projects of mine, but lots of fun.

7. Do you have plans to code commercial stuff ?

Not at the moment. It would be A Cool Thing, but who would buy the products? For a while I actually thought about releasing DiamondBOX as shareware, but based on other peoples experiences with this concept, I figured no one would pay anyway, so I took the consequence, and released it as freeware )

8. Are there any other project in work or planned ?

Yup, DiamondBOX II ) Sadly that's all I have time for. I would like to write a much better guide/manual and draw loads of good looking buttons, so if anyone has the time and talent to help out here, they would be most welcome!

9. What is the future of DiamondBOX ?

It looks bright. I have a lot of great stuff planned for it, but time is (again) a limiting factor. I do it all in my spare time, so progress may be slow at times. I'd like to create a PPC version, and I've got the HW for it, but I can't afford to spend more money than I already have on DiamondBOX. Parts of the system is currently based on a few StormC extensions, but I'm a little uncertain as to whether I will upgrade to SC#4. I'd like to port DiamondBOX to one or all of AmigaDE, MorphOS and QNX RTP. For now I'm keeping an eye on all of'em.

10. What do you think about the actual classic market ?

It looks a bit discouraging right now. Everybody's waiting for AmigaDE, so why should they invest their hard-earned money in Classic equipment? Even the otherwise positive MorphOS alternative could be threatened by Amiga Inc. - too bad.

11. Ever seen the first steps of the new generation working ? What is your impression ?

Nope. It looks neat, but it just doesn't feel the same ) I know it'll be hard to recreate that old sensation of getting your first Amiga 500, but isn't that what we all want?

12. Do you have any kind words for our community ?

Amigas are cool and so are we!! DiamondBOX rulez! - zero points for originality ) Well, inspirational speaking isn't my best - I guess I'll stick to programming ) Thanx for "listening" and trying out DiamondBOX.

First i will thank you for this great App. And now after that thanks for your time. I wish you good luck and success.

Visit Nikolaj`s Website, the Diamond Dice, at http://www.DiamondDice.f2s.com.