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DCEmu Interviews Go back to Main Page
Interview with: Snoozy
Homepage:
Date: 2001
The Interview
Wraggster: Where was you born,live and family details etc?
Snoozy: I'm born in Leuven, a little city near Brussels.
(As you can guess, I'm from Belgium, Europe)
I was born on april 3th, 1974, and since I was 11 years old,
I was fascinated by computers.
I got my first computer, a commodore 128D, for Christmas when I was 12 years.
I have one brother, but he isn't as good as me with computers ;-) LOL
Wraggster: What qualifications do you have?
Snoozy: I studied Informatics since I was 15 years old, and after my highschool
I studied
another 4 years to get my informatics-graduate.
Wraggster: What made you get into computers?
Snoozy: Ooh well, the commodore 64 I think ;-)
When I was 11 years old, we had some C64 machines at school, on which you
could play
during lunchbreak. I found a listing of a little program in a magazine,
and instead
of playing on the C64, I typed in the listings and made my first little
programs ;-)
Wraggster: .What projects/coding have you done previous to any Dreamcast
programming?
Snoozy: I'm also fascinated with technology, so I own a lot of Lego Mindstorms
(http://mindstorms.lego.com)
I made my own Vision Command ActiveX for motion and color detection with
a standard USB
webcam, and I have about 1200 registered members that are using this piece
of software.
(and it's freeware ofcourse => http://www.Snoozysplace.be.tf)
I also made my own home automation system. (not only software but also hardware)
I'm currently in the progress of releasing a commercial software package,
called EyeSee.
(and interactive catalogue tool)
In the past I developed a few big international websites for the company
I used to work for. (european websites for Denon, Shimano and Mitsubishi)
Wraggster: What made you choose to Code Shuffle ?
Snoozy: Hmmz, Shuffle was my first piece of DC software, I remember I got
my coderscable on
friday (somewhere in may I think), and I decided to give it a "shot".
After a few tries of downloaded samples and demos (which I uploaded via
the serial slave),
I decided to make something of my own, and because I made a simular "thing"
on my good
old C128 as my first project, I decided to make the same thing on my DC,
but at bit more
"up-to-date". (e.g. better graphics and music)
Wraggster: How did you start and what programs did you use to start coding
for
Dreamcast?
Snoozy: The rest of that particular friday, I did spend on making my graphics
and choosing my music.
On saturday I did put everything on a CDR as PCX files, and I tried to show
the images
via my DC on television (via a piece of code I "lent" from the
pong game), but I didn't got
the colors right on my PAL television, so I decided to make my own image
format. (24 bits)
On saturdaynight I "worked" late on my DBP toolkit, and I got
everything up and running before
I got to bed. On sunday and monday I did spend the whole day on developing
the glyphix game,
and on mondaynight it was finally ready ;-)
I do use libdream, Cygwin and the serial slave software.
I also use OctoPod on windows as an IDE development tool.
(from which I directly can compile and upload to my DC)
Wraggster: Can you give us a status update on all your projects?
Snoozy: Shuffle => considered done
DBP Toolkit => I have a few nifty ideas for an update
Glyphix => Ooh well, I still need some time to recover from my car crash
before
I can re-concentrate on this project. I allready spend some hours a day
behind my PC, but programming is still a bit "hard" to do right
now.
Wraggster: Can you tell us how complex programming is for the dreamcast?
Snoozy: Developing software for dreamcast is as easy as developing software
in C(++) for any
other platform, you only need a few good libs and a bit of imagination ;-)
Wraggster: Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?
Snoozy: lyphix will be an "ongoing" project.
I'm planning to extend it with
internet capabilities like:
downloading opening books (into vmu memory)
playing over internet
downloading complete finished games to analyse
port to other platforms (PS2, GBA, PC)
extending to realboard playing:
This needs a bit of explanation !
I'm planning on making a robot arm with my mindstorms sets, and use this
in combination with
my VCS ActiveX and an USB webcam to play a real-life game of chess against
a computer opponent.
Wraggster: Whats your opinion of the new super consoles like X-box,Gamecube,Game
Boy Advance and the Playststion 2?
Snoozy: Ooh well, the world keeps going on, PS2 isn't as good as the DC,
but the marketing and
advertising machine behind it is bigger ...
GBA looks like a nice toy to develop for, Gamecube isn't my piece of cake,
and Xbox will
certainly be bought by me, alldough I predict that it will certainly come
up with some nice
bluescreens in the middle of a game ;-) (nice to get frustrated)
Wraggster: Which console looks the best for devving on?
Snoozy: or the moment the DC is still the best console for developing on,
and I hope it will stay
this way, but I think that lot's of people will choose to develop on PS2.
(with the free linux devkits you see everywhere)
Wraggster: What are your favourite games for every system you have owned?
Snoozy: commodore64 => Gyruss, Outrun, Lemans
gameboy => Tetris ofcourse !
Playstation => Ridge Racer 4, Grand Tourissimo
Dreamcast => Vanishing Point, V-Rally
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