Empee's Interview
Empee can be found in the #gp32 or #gp32dev channels on Efnet //markus p <empee at daug dot net>
Hooka: When did you get your gp32?
Empee: June 2002. When Gamepark donated one for me.
Hooka: What caught your eye about this great little handheld?
Empee: I was hanging on #gbadev at the time and firefly came there to talk about gp32 and then started #gp32 where I went to hang out. After the release of the device and when the infamous "Noir" released the SDK and other tools I started working on "GP32 Projects page" while helping other developers with the tools (to mention some, don_miguel)
Hooka: Have you ever done any dev for the gp32? If so what dev environment do you use?
Empee: I've done alot of dev for gp32, nothing released except some basic starfield thingy at the beginning of '02 and wormh game at the first adic (to get that e3 dvd & bag for gp32). I use my own windows hack of gcc+self compiled sdk (from the latest SDK sources)
Hooka: What projects have you worked on?
Empee: The projects page, gta clone for gp32 (still working on it...), a shooter game (pretty much clone of TapaKaikki named PC game) and some other misc stuff.
Empee: I have alot of started projects but no finished ones.
Hooka: Did you start the channel #gp32dev on Efnet? If not who did?
Empee: It was me, firefly, darkfader and some people now forgotten.
Hooka: What about #gp32? I've heard Atrkid say it was him but I'd like to hear from you.
Empee: The first time I even saw atrkid there was in Fall '02 and it had been up from November '01 or so, that's atleast when I came there.
Hooka: You've been a Mod at #gp32dev and #gp32 for a long time, have you seen lots of interesting discussions, ect.?
Empee: Yes. The development of geepee32, leaked Gamepark stuff (through Noir), mr_spiv's firmware stuff, the first non-Korean game (I think it was) super plusha being developed by don_miguel, the birth of gp32x fame, the fights between .fr people and rest of the world etc.
Empee: Pretty much every amateur developer has started his projects from #gp32dev, atleast in the past.
Hooka: Are both _mp_ and GP32DEV bots?
Empee: Actually, empee&emphe are my "bots" really just bitchx running on friend's machines. _mp_ is my home client and GP32DEV is mr_spiv's work computer that's working as bot. We had simonb's bots on #gp32 and #gp32dev when he still was active on irc.
Hooka: How was the !applist and !encrypt functions implemented? Was this for before people could load fxe's?
Empee: The first implementation was done by darkfader, which was a mirc script that encrypted the .gxb with our private encrypting tool and then uploaded to his http server. The current script is done by mr_spiv and uses mirc+perl+glue+coffee+encryption tool.
Empee: The main reason for this to be implented was because you needed free launcher to play amateur stuff and gamepark didn't have it's page at start (thank Noir again for the leaked encryption+freelauncher stuff)
Hooka: Who wrote the encrypter that was used for this?
Empee: I don’t actually know how many encrypters there are. Darkfader wrote one based on Noir stuff (which I still use). Firefly has one (and a bruteforce decrypter for that matter ;) mr_spiv has one but I don’t know if he uses the darkfader's one. And I heard a rumor that someone else has made his own.
Hooka: Is it hard to fend off the warez fiends that slip into the channel sometimes?
Empee: Simple kick+ban helps alot. But since I’m pretty inactive these days this is left for the other ops. I already need to kick+ban people from my own computer shop during days so I don’t want to do that on free time ;P
Hooka: You used to have a site for people to post about their current projects and progress at empee.daug.net, what made you decide to start a page of this type?
Empee: Actually the idea came from don_miguel and he bugged people to put their projects there. There was a nice discussion about the features before I started it and I just added what people seemed to need. Since we didn't have gp32x or any other big news site then we needed some way to see what projects were actually being worked on.
Hooka: What happened that empee.daug.net went down?
Empee: The server it was running on is shared by around 200 users. So someone pissed off the wrong people and the server was taking alot of ddos attacks. So the admins decided to block all traffic from foreign countries. At this time I was in the army and couldn't do much about it.
Hooka: Empee.daug.net had been resurrected and put up on www.gp32france.com, was it cool to see your site back up?
Empee: The sourcecode+database can be found from http://empee.daug.net/gp32/ It's still waiting someone to remake some of the code, add admin. functions (that it still lacks) and to *ADVERTISE* it.
Hooka: What happened to the mirror at www.gp32france.com?
Empee: I have no idea.
Hooka: Do you have any plans to make a new project page or do you feel there are enough gp32 websites and everybody keeps updated on #gp32dev anyways?
Empee: I'm waay too busy with my current work & other projects to start even thinking about it.
Hooka: Could you name one of the most interesting experiences you've had in #gp32dev or #gp32?
Empee: Besides the leaked gamepark stuff, costis whining 9months to be op (and finally getting to be op) and the #gp32dev growing from 3-5people to 30-50 people channel it must be the French people, to be exact gp32news people. There was a big "war" between France and the rest of the world and atrkid vs. rest of France/world.
Hooka: I've read log files (which seem to load forever and freeze the computer after some point in time ;P) of #gp32dev from way back when while searching for gp32, have you logged everything or just some things?
Empee: -rw-r--r-- 1 empee users 58648938 Jun 22 10:57 #gp32dev.log That one was resetted in '03 summer or so. I have logs since '02 summer. empee & emphe log _everything_ from #gp32 and #gp32dev while they are at the channels. Also _mp_ logs everything and has some 200mb of logs already.
Hooka: Have you learnt from some of the discussions? Or were you a genius to begin with?
Empee: I'm still dumb as a brick but I try to learn from everything. So yes I have learned quite a few things.
Hooka: What (if anything) can you tell us about the group "Noir" who released the early tools that really sparked the homebrew GP32 scene? (Thank to Flavor for this Question)
Empee: Noir is actually few people that still hang on #gp32dev, you could find answer to this one from the logs that I have on my computer (see #gp32 from '02 February).
Hooka: I was on #gp32dev (as if you didn't know ;P) when you said "<_mp_> http://empee.daug.net/empee.jpg .. now does that look anything like me? ;)" Well I don't know but you look kinda 8-bitish if you do ;P, is that what you look like?
Empee: Yea.. but I have few more colors. That's based on a picture of me from few weeks back. I actually hate drawing and know nothing about colors so I chose to do it with just 24colors. ;)
Hooka: How did you figure out that "Mizi linux has option to compile it for "Gamepark GPi32" "-empee?
Empee: When you try to compile it it asks for a device and has gpi32 as option. And since we knew GPi32 would run linux it was pretty easy to track down which linux it would run.
Hooka: Did you ever get mizi Linux to compile for the gpi?
Empee: GPi32 has mizi built-in but since I don’t have the device (still wanting one thought) I can’t try out.
Hooka: Did you ever upgrade the flash in your gp32 from the Atmel AT49BV040-90VC 512k byte (8bit wide) bios flash to the Sharp LH28F128BFHED-PWTL90 128mbit flash memory or something similar?
Empee: Still working on that one. I know how to wire it and have knowledge to do it but don’t have money to order the part I need. So anyone want to order 2 chips and donate one for me.. I can mod your gp32 when I have my own working ;P I don’t actually remember what chip I settled down with but I know it had more wires than the original chip.
Hooka: Do you still feel that
" QUOTE (EvilDragon @ Nov 4 2003, 09:47 PM)
“Hmm... strange... I hope, GamePark is knowing what they do.”
ehem.. since when gamepark has actually had any clue what they are doing?
there has been no logic or anything else that could be distinguished in their actions to this day ;P
they are good in few things:
1) delays
2) false promises
3) pr.. what's that?
4) eww.. what is this thing you call "advertising" .. teach us o mighty [insert anyone with brain here.. that pretty much excludes anyone at gamepark]
5) games.. why should we make more games.. 20 games for a $150 console is enough
6) developer support.. never heard of that one? “
or has gamepark smartened up a bit?
Empee: Nopes. Never. Nada. Won’t happen ;) The eu launch wont survive long if they don’t get shitloads of new games soon. And since I don’t know many game companies that would be interested working with them. They really should first target the developers and after they have secured deals they should start selling the damn things to general public. I know for fact that they have fucked up deals with: infogrames/atari (they were going to help with eu&usa launch) and sega (to licence sms games for the official emulator they did).
Hooka: But then again: "ok.. few were little off .. atleast when we think that they actually gave me gp32 for free.. hmm.. /me takes it all back -//markus p <empee at daug dot net> must have been pretty good deal don't ya think?
Empee: Yea umm.. Forget what I just wrote .. I still have the free gp32 .. GAMEPARK I LOVE YOU! ;P
Hooka: How would you manage to dump the BIOS of a prototype like FX-Man's? And did you guys ever try?
Empee: I have tools for that. And no, we haven't tried.
Hooka: You mentioned the leaked euro-fw's bios part was exactly the same as the old Korean bios, is the new BLU or even the beta bios on gamepark's site now any different? What about GPBioS? (Doesn't matter if you aren't sure ;P, cause I for sure have no clue!)
Empee: mr_spiv is the bios guru ;) The leaked eurofw bios part seemed exactly same as the original but I think mr_spiv actually found some differences in that. Not sure thought. I trust in mr_spiv's multifw's.. I bet he has fixed most stuff of the new firmware when he releases multifw3.
Hooka: What do you think of the recent progress on gp32linux? I noticed you used to point people in the right direction of the information they needed and told the gp32x boards where to try out the first release (that I knew of)
Empee: It's cool that it's finally starting to work. It's nice that he has got some help now, he was alone on the project for quite a while. Toholl is the man here all credits to him ;)
Hooka: Ok, I know I shouldn't talk about this but gpl is good, unless you freak out like Swiss cheeseman agreed? (Remove this one if you want, but I feel he freaked out over a first release beta and should have allowed some time for the project to mature before demanding, but I maybe wrong)
Empee: Beta is always beta and should be treated as one. Many things change between beta and final release.
Hooka: So your gp32 collection must be pretty extensive, what neat cool stuff can ya tell us about?
Empee: Actually I have only one GP32, still hunting for GPi32 and BLU one. But my software collection is pretty good. Around 15gb of gp32 software and few amateur progs/games.
Hooka: "...but i'll still wait for multifw3 before flashing anything else to my gp32" are you still waiting or did you give in?
Empee: Still waiting.. Waiting .. And waiting ;) I'm perfectly happy with multifw2, thought I have jtag cable so I could try any firmware I’d like but still I don’t like to flash my gp32 too often.
Empee: And to finish the interview: http://tinyurl.com/266vq - the original Noir releases (only list, you cant download those) ;)
*Interview finished 22/06/04*