Amiga Arena Interview --------------------- Developer: Stefan Blixth, OnyxSoft Software: OnyxBase, QuickNote, Graphica, BookCon and more... Homepage: http://www.onyxsoft.nu/ Mail: stefan@onyxsoft.nu *Please introduce yourself to the readers!* My name is Stefan 'Develin' Blixth, I'm 24 years old student from Karlstad, Sweden. *When did you start working with the Amiga?* I got my first Amiga in late 1991, since then I've been totaly addicted to it and I won't replace it for anything else in the world. *Which Amiga model do you own* I currently own and use a A4000T (CSPPC) with huge amount of memory and disc space. Plus I have 2 spare machines, a A1200 (hosted in a tower) and a standard A3000. *Which version of the operating system is running on your computer?* AmigaOS 3.9, MorphOS (0.4) and LinuxPPC *Which software are you developing?* I'm currently working hard to fix a new version of OnyxBase (MUI) and the first real release of Graphica is taking shape. A new version of QuickNote and a new program (a picture viewer) is in the "pipe-line". But since I have had so much work lately developments have taken a very long time. (I hope this will change soon). *Can you tell us what your software is about?* OnyxBase : Is a handy (IMO.) addressbook manager with a lot of features. Uses easy-to-use concept which suits most users. QuickNote : A Post-It like tool for scribble notes on your desktop instead of on paper. Graphica : My yet unreleased graphic tool, should make operations on graphics easy for everyone (I hope), but there is a lot more todo before I can release a public version of this. But this is my primary software development today! (I hope that I can show an early beta on the Amiga-show "AmiGBG" in Gotherburg, Sweden - March 2002) *What has created the idea in you to continue developing your software?* Well, the first ideas is often that there is not a good enough or easy-to-use enough software available for my own needs and there is where it often starts. Using software should be an easy and funny experience, many software are way to complicated while others lack of needing features. It is often very hard to create a good "balance" the both sides, but if you can do that, the result becomes very nice. *How long has the development taken so far?* OnyxBase started it's life back in the beginning of 1998, QuickNote and Graphica in the middle/fall of 1999. But developments of the titels above and others have been on and of since I'm also very busy in other projects and school, things starts to get better now since I'm in the end of my studies now and I hope I'll have more time soon. *Which software are you using for developing?* The main language is AmigaE and for PPC-plugins (Graphica) I use VBCC. The GUI in my upcomming projects will be using MUI, and the future projects as well becuase it really is so much more powerful than any other GUI-kit around. *For which system (AmigaOS, AmigaDE, MorphOS) are you developing?* Primary OS is AmigaOS 3.x *Which OS will you support in the future?* AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS *What can we expect of future versions?* New features, more power and easier to use :-) *Don't you lose the fun and the interest in programming if you see the small amount of feedback you get from the small Amiga market?* I actually get a lot of feedback on my projects and that's really fun ofcourse. But even if that wasn't the case I've done this for fun and to fill my own needs so the outside interest is not my main reason to create applications. *Do you receive enough feedback for your software?* Yes, I've got so much ideas from users which have helped me a lot when my own ideas hasn't been enough. Thank you all (if I havn't allready said that) :-) *When did you last use your Amiga?* Right now... My Amiga is my main machine, I use it for just everything. *Which software did you last buy for your Amiga?* Hmm, it's been a long time since I bought something now... It's a tie between AmigaOS 3.9 and Photofolio I think, well I did get iFusion (after a long wait). *Which software do you still use?* I use a huge amount of internet tools everyday and development tools. Well, since I use my Amiga for just everything pretty much software is used :) Way to many to list here (sorry). *Which hard/software are you planning to buy?* I will absolutely get myself a PEGASOS. This is what I've been waited for such a long time now. *Do you believe in a comeback of Amiga?* As the niche computer/OS it truly is, yes - we need alternatives and IMO. this system is the only one that I and many others feel comfortable with. I'm very sceptic about this PDA ideas (DE) though, I'm not very interested in it at all (even if I owns a Psion PDA). There is to many parties doing the "same" thing in that area, special types of JAVA is becoming more and more useful. It would be much better if they could concentrate on what made the Amiga so popular in the first place -> The AmigaOS. *Your final words for the readers?* I would like to take the opportunity to thank all users, testers and translators in all forms that have helped us in OnyxSoft in some way or another during the years. The current year (2002) is looking really good atm. in an Amigan point of view. And we are working very hard to be able to deliver new software to you. As we have stated many times before, Amiga is not just a computer for us it's pure Passion. Our saying is "-Amigans never surrender - They know they can do it better". And this year we will really try to justify this saying and we hope the community and the users know how unique our (Amigans) position is. So to sum it all up... The wait is soon over, we will be getting competetive hardware once again and we will have a great system for this hardware which is really unique. Users of other platforms can say what they want, they simply doesn't know better. So why not show them what our machines are capable of ? Keep the faith Amigans, there is a bright future ahead! © Amiga Arena 2/2002