Wraggster Interviews

Interview with: Timo Laman

Homepage:

Date: 2002

The Interview

Wraggster: Can you tell us where were you born, where you live, your family details,etc.?

Timo: I was born 19 years ago in Amsterdam. Currently I live in the north of the Netherlands, with my mother and my sister.

Wraggster: What qualifications do you have?

Timo: I have a highschool diploma (well, the Dutch equivalent of one I suppose) and I just finished the first year of my education in Computing Science at the University of Groningen.

Wraggster: What made you get into computers?

Timo: When I was about 6 years old I had a friend who had a NES. That's about when my interest in computer games started. As soon as I started playing games however I also wanted to know how they worked. So when we got our first PC (about 6 years later) I started to learn how to program... in QBASIC, that is.

Wraggster: What projects/coding have you done previous to your OswanDC Emulator.?

Timo: I've tried lots of things. My most recent program is a viewer for Quake maps (for the PC). Before that I made a guitar tuner (which is, unfortunately, too inaccurate to be of any real use) for a school assignment. OswanDC is the first project that I ever really released, though.

Wraggster: What made you choose to do an emulator for the Dreamcast?

Timo: I wanted to do something with an emulator for my next project, but I didn't feel like starting a new emulator from scratch. When I came across the source for Oswan it seemed like a nice idea to make a port. That way I would finally have a use for my DC coder's cable, and maybe even contribute something useful to the DC programming scene.

Wraggster: How did you start and what programs did you use to start coding for theDreamcast?

Timo: Some time ago, when I had just bought my Dreamcast, a friend told me he had heard of a port of Quake for the Dreamcast. I searched the internet for it and that brought me to DCemulation.com. When I saw how easy it was to write your own programs for the DC and play them, just using freely available software and relatively cheap hardware, I thought "well, why not" and ordered a coder's cable. Then I started writing some very simple programs, first using libdream and later KOS. For compiling I use gcc 3.0 (hmmm, I should probably update that sometime), in a linux environment. For loading I use the excellent DC-tool/DC-load program.

Wraggster: Can you give us a status update on your emulator?

Timo: I'm working on sound support. I fixed a bug a few days ago that slowed some games down when sound was enabled. Sound partially works, but needs much improvement before a version with sound support is fit to be released

Wraggster: How hard was it getting your OswanDC emulator to work and how can you improve it?

Timo: Actually it wasn't that hard to port the emulator. I had a working version two days after I started.There's always room for improvement of course, but right now the most important things are getting the sound to work and improving the speed.

Wraggster: Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?

Timo: Not at the moment.

Wraggster: Whats your opinion of the Xbox and PS2 Emulation Scenes and which wouldbe the most promising for you?

Timo: Since I do not have either an Xbox or a PS2, I haven't really looked into those scenes. Still, I think the creation of emulators and homebrew software for any console is great.

A big thanks to Timo Laman for a great Interview. :)