Consolevision Interviews

Interview with: Snoozy

Homepage:

Date: 2001

The Interview

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