Skeezix's Interview
Skeezix's site is here.
Hooka: When did you get your GP32?
Skeezix: Oh, erm, hmm.... been so long now :) A few years ago :) I remember a friend of mine (Graham Toal, a dynarec nerd hero) went on about the GP32 at some point and I had no clue about it; then it came up a couple times on various sites. Then someone on Slashdot mentioned it and I could handle it no more! On the side I wanted one because of its open hardware nature and its ARM processor, and someone I know at Palm Canada wanted me to get one to help with debugging some ARM code on Palm OS I was wrestling with..... and so Lik Sang sent over my first one and a bundle of games, and then 6 months or a year later the FLU came out so GBAX came to my rescue. (Yes, I'm likely the only one on the planet who uses a GP32 to test Palm OS ARM code, and vice versa. I also use my old Atari ST STacy laptop to test 68000 code for Palm OS. I choose to think of that as teh cool, but I don't dare show my face in other circles :P)
Skeezix: Hmm, from looking at my GP32 webpage, it would seem I got my first GP around the beginning of 2003. Not as long ago as I thought, but I guess I was in such a whirlwind at the time (remember my release frequency?) that it seemed like longer ;)
Hooka: What made you decide to get one?
Skeezix: I wanted to make a portable Atari ST. More to point, I wanted portable Dungeon Master. Oooooooooh yeah. At the time, Palm OS devices didn't have the horsepower (they had the processor, but had limited runtime heap RAM, since they were all about conserving power and small device size, etc.) Pocket PC I've stayed away from, in order to focus on Palm OS and because I didn't want to put money in Bill's pocket :P I'd also started hanging around on GP32x and GP32emu and got sucked in by Hando and the boys :)
Skeezix: I've always said.. if the GP32 was black or gray (non-white anyway), and smaller (more pocketable) it'd have sold more. ie: I'd have bought one day one, but the big white case took awhile for me to get over :)
Hooka: Did you start coding on the Atari ST or where you coding before then?
Skeezix: You bastard! You've asked "The Question" (the one to get me all riled up).
Skeezix: The short answer is.. most people have fond memories of their first computer or their first 'real' computer.. their C64, their Amiga, their Amstrad or Beeb.. but for me, it really 'clicked' with the ST. Now there was a scene back in the day..
Hooka: Yeah I don't think I'll ever forget writing games in COCO extended basic or going through the thousands of disks of homebrew it came with :)
Skeezix: Going way back, I wanted an Atari 2600, but my father was too on his game for that, and wanted me to get something I could cut my teeth on.. so my family got a Commodore Vic-20 instead. (So I spent a lot of time at neighbours Colecovision...) Right away I was into the BASIC, and then 6502 assembly once BASIC had reached its limit. I worked that poor little machine like crazy until much later our family got an Atari 520 ST (which I hoarded and got into fights over my brother with.. oh what a loser I was!) (Later it was modded to be a 1MB ST, and then 4MB...) That was it .. great games, MIDI, milestones in history, and GFA Basic, Sozobone and Aztec C compilers, BBSes.. I did all my early learning there.
Hooka: Amazingly enough I was just as possesive with my COCO3... 6508 instead though.
Skeezix: Back in the day I'd worked on some small games and modifying commercial games, writing a few BBSes and multiplayer games, writing a FIDOnet system (the ST didn't have one at the time), writing some terminal programs, and all sorts of goofy stuff. My first shareware (FIDO echomail reader/writer system for BBSes) was a wild success.. I think I sold 5 copies! But mostly I was into the BBS scene and writing online games and
BBSes (although I ended up running a modified BBS! Express ST instead of my own BBS software..)
Skeezix: The ST had all the greats.. Ultima, Falcon, Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls adventures, Sierra Adventures, LucasArts .. Dungeon Master. For those who don't otherwise know, Dungeon Master pretty much started the 3d RPG, and is one of the true milestones in gaming.
Skeezix: *pant* *pant* Okay, no more ST questions I beg of you. I'm trying to have a life here ;)
Hooka: Was Shadow Plan your first commercial product or just your first commercial product under codejedi?
Skeezix: It was the first Codejedi work; I've done a lot of things prior to that, as shareware or commercial, and in fulltime work of course. Mostly in the past I did server software but of course Codejedi has applications on many platforms including Palm OS, Windows, Mac, Linux etc :)
Hooka: How did you get the idea to design Shadow Plan, did you just have a need for the idea and decide to share it once it was running really good?
Skeezix: I originally started it on the Apple Newton PDA (yummy little, or not so little, device!) and then abandoned Newton for Palm OS when it came around .. I loved the Newt, but Palm OS was killing them so I moved over.
Skeezix: Shadow was made because I needed it; I'm eternally a busybody, and also needed a tool to keep track of all my tasks at work.. and so Shadow Plan was born. I was going to originally make it open source freeware of course, but quickly realized the support and development costs would sink it, and so inexpensive shareware it became. I should charge a heck of a lot more, like all the other developers, but I'm far less greedy. Fool that I am.
Hooka: Wow! You've owned quite a few arcade boards! I really like Metal Slug, what's your favorite arcade game?
Skeezix: I've always said my favourite was Omega Race, but I'm not so sure anymore .. it has a minimalist approach, a clean simple challenging gameplay, and was vector based -- a lost breed. (Space Duel and Star Wars are of course classic vector games as well). In the end, there are too many that I really like.. Willow, Quartet, Forest Wardner, King of Dragons, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown... and the shooters. I love my shooters.. Sky Shark, R-Type, Raiden, Aerofighters, you name it!
Skeezix: Arcade collecting is a fun hobby; do a lot of research and sometimes you'll find an old arcade operator who gave up or retired 10 or 15 years earlier, and hunt him down and find a guy with a garage with hundreds of machines stuffed in it, ready to be lifted cheap :) Othertimes you're scouring ebay, or digging around in someones barn...
Skeezix: Once I was talking to an operator about buying a few cabinets and PCB's from him.. over his shoulder he had a bonfire going as he put old unprofitable games to the torch. (Operators are people who make a living from the games. They have a very different view of them than the collectors..) I watched a Space Duel original cabinet and game slowly burning, over his shoulder, while we bartered the value of a Quartet game. Damn him :) (In the end I got an Asteroids PCB from him, among other goodies, so that was cool.. but he had some couple hundred PCBs that had
been rained on through holes in his barn roof.. *Weep*) Later that week I found a guy who sold me a couple Gauntlet PCB's including the custom joysticks. A good week. If only I took pictures..
Hooka: Cumquat is a funny word!
(The tree on the left is a cumquat tree for all of you who haven't played Day of the Tentacle)
Skeezix: Spork.
Hooka: What does Pneumotube mean?
Skeezix: Scouring my bad website eh? I always figured a pneumotube would be the name of the tube in a vacuum message pipe service. You know, in old hotels in Europe and parts of New York City, where the hotels would communciate with each other by sending messages in brick-sized boxes fired through vacuum tubes? I've always thought that was the coolest system around.. the first Internet as it were ;)
Hooka: So do you still feel that "Dont' sweat it folks; GP32 and Zodiac are brothers in arms", it's definitely a good play on words! Now, just to see someone make a cross-communication cable ;)
Skeezix: I do believe the GP32 and Zodiac are brothers in arms (and ARMs, yes :) -- the games market is tough to make a buck in, and you *have* to respect Tapwave, Gamepark, Nokia, Tiger and others for trying. Gamepark has done remarkably well I think, slowly infiltrating all the niches :) Nokia seams to have pulled the NGage from the ass that it was, if only through massive advertising and deep pockets (and hey, the QD may not be so bad). I say the scenes in GP32 and Zodiac should not bitch each other out (and I won't go into who is doing the bitching, etc) and instead should stand stronger together and say "we're the individuals, we're fighting like hell to carve ourselve a small piece of the pie, be proud". Try and carve, together, a niche for all the "non big" devices and players.. the homebrew scene.
Skeezix: (This is why I started Zot.. to show that it could be done, that something could be written to work across devices and do cool stuff.)
Hooka: You mentioned once that you're time had been really occupied with migrating to PalmOS "Cobolt" or whatever PalmOS 6 is called... have you gotten over this problem and what suggestions may you have for other coders doing the same?
Skeezix: I've not done much Palm OS 6 work yet, since there are no devices available at this time (though soon I think!). Its going to be a large hurdle for developers, though PalmSource has tried like hell to ease the way. PalmSource does amazing work in trying to take care of everyone.. PDAs have been around a lot of years now, yet you can still run original Palm OS 1 applications on the latest devices which are completely architecturally different. Cool stuff.
Hooka: Whatever happened to Mac Desktop? and Linux Desktop?... it's feeling very close to the end of Summer 2004 so I figured I'd ask ;)
Skeezix: Mac desktop is in alpha and should be going public beta very soon; its looking really sweet. The Linux build will be going alpha in a couple weeks in theory, and should be public beta very soon after. Let me tell you, being an indie dev making cross platform work is suicide.
Hooka: Does Shadow Plan work on the Tapwave Zodiac?
Skeezix: Sure does, and quite well if I do say so myself :) (All Palm OS devices pretty much)
Hooka: With the current increase of people (ok, not that much of an increase but still with that small of a following I've heard a couple people mentioning using it as a PDA) considering using the GP32 as a PDA would you ever consider making a port of Shadow Plan and using the chatboard?
Skeezix: Not as such; ie: Components of the Shadow system could conceivably be ported over to some extent (such as the list presentation widget), but it'd be an enormous task to port any large parts of Shadow over, given the GP32 has no GUI system. But you never know :P
Skeezix: Of course, if the Linux build for GP32 keeps going, and someone has enough storage via USB drive or CF or the like, then Shadow Desktop for Linux could be ported over perhaps.. but thats a big "if" :)
Hooka: Awhile back on the ZodiacGamer site you mentioned that you might work on a Xcade v2, what games would you plan on supporting and what games would you add sound to and would you port it to the GP32 like the original Xcade?
Skeezix: The easy question is.. if I finished up XCade2, then I likely would make a GP32 port; my GP32 devkit is pretty solid so it'd be a walk in the park :)
Skeezix: With regards to the following, you have to remember that I'm a guy who works at least 12 hours a day 7 days a week, and often much more.. Yes, thats 80+ hours a week.. thankfully much of my work is enjoyable and I do it at home so I can see my wife still :)
Skeezix: The hard question is whether XCade2 will ever get done; its a tough position to be in.. XCade is redundant relative to Retrocade and MAME and others.. its mostly of interest to mobile gamers, since XCade was designed to run on small platforms well. (And its done alright to that extent, being the only mobile arcade emu of note, running on even lower end machines quite well!) That makes it a high risk to develop.. writing arcade emulators is very time consuming, since every game is unique and has to be emulated separately (unlike a console emu, where you essentially write a limited amount of code to get a high number of games supported), and so spending an enormous amount of time when at any instant someone can just port over MAME or parts thereof and sinks you, makes it a risk. And when you're an indie developer, every minute is crucial in that you either must make a penny with it to keep your house, or you're chosing to use that minute for resting. Having it wasted in a risk is just not a smart option :)
Skeezix: However, XCade has always been close to my heart; XCade1 for mobile is a rough architecture, as it was built long before Palm OS 5 devices were on the market, and so I was making guesses all over as to the final device specs, and I was being conservative (and rightly so!) in order to make it work; when OS5 devices hit the market, XCade was ready to go within a couple of weeks, which was quite remarkable and blew people away. But as a result, its ... 'nasty' and tough to grow or maintain, and as such XCade1 has seen little growth over the years.
Skeezix: XCade2 is using my modern architecture for mobile apps and as such is much easier to maintain and grow, and should work with OS6 and such as well, and be easy to port blah blah blah. But the risk is still there.. spending a few hundred hours working on that to get some nice games in there, and then poof could have that time wasted. Thats very dangerous for an indie. (XCade is commercial stuff you may recall and hence all this talk of risk)
Skeezix: At the same time, I'll likely do XCade2 for fun anyway, since I love that stuff of course, and the games deserve it; XCade2 will of course have all the games of XCade1, including audio and other things you'd expect from a modern emu. I also intend to have Joust and other Williams games in it, and some of the MCR game slike TRON etc. Lots of goodies have been started and such..
Skeezix: .. just a matter of time to pull it together.
Skeezix: As you can see, to keep sane from all my hard work and hours, I do a lot of side fun projects like Kronos and Columbo and GuineaPig et al. Instead of doing those I could've worked on XCade2 .. but I needed some quick fun to keep sane (can't work all the time!), and I felt the Palm OS/Zodiac scenes needed me to bootstrap emulation and homebrew.. to stir the pot. So I did :)
Hooka: Did you enjoy hosting the Old School Palm OS Coding Contest 2003 and do you plan to hold one for 2004?
Skeezix: I enjoyed it, but I think it was a failure. Websites advertised, word of mouth spread, but very few submissions were received. Many were of dubious quality and commitment, though many were nice :) I am not so sure
what I did wrong, though I did post some thoughts in my message board. Mostly I think the homebrew gaming scene isn't large enough to support it and my timing was off. Given I sunk real money into it for prizes, I feel
let down by it so I likely won't bother with it right away again, but we'll see.. depends on my feel when the time comes :)
Hooka: What was you absolute favorite entry for each contest in the Old School Palm OS Coding Contest 2003?
Skeezix: I really wanted to like the Snowman entry, since it was a mobile port of an old ST classic.. but I'd say Toris stole the show with his little game :)
Hooka: Did you have to do alot of work to CaSTaway to get it running on Palm and GP32?
Skeezix: A fair amount yes :) GP32 was easier as it has no real OS and so nothing to get in the way, and the Palm OS devices at the time were still more limited. Nowadays the Palm OS devices smoke and so present no real obstacle to the experienced, but GP32 was a joy. Much thanks to Firefly for GeePee32 which makes devving much easier :) -- XCade/GP was made without any dev tools hardly and wasn't too bad to make for the GP32, but I quickly got tired of uploading every version to the device to test. GeePee32 made life much more pleasant when building CaSTaway/GP, thats for sure :) (Theres actually been two Palm OS ports.. the earlier one was a direct port of the GP32 one with a bunch of evil hacking done to show it into the older Palm OS devices. Then the later versions incorporate a lot of the GP32 version, but also go their own way due to more modern tools and fancier devices, so are a nice platform for future growth)
Skeezix: CaSTaway for GP and Palm OS are not just ports; there's a lot of love in there, and I went through a lot of pains that didn't lead anywhere. You might be interested to know that I also did a full port of STonX to GP32 that just doesn't work right, as STonX needs a lot more RAM to operate in; but doing a 32MB GP32 mod would do very nice with STonX which is a capable emu... :) But anyway :)
Skeezix: Right now, someone is working on a port of CaSTaway/GP to Sony PS2, which should be exciting :)
Hooka: Is BoR/Zodiac 004 signed? It doesn't say if it is or not so I was wondering.
Skeezix: Yep; it uses the Zodiac's Imageon chip to do the fullscreen scaling and smoothing .. makes BoR look stunning!
Hooka: You used Squidge's GP32 Port of BoR for the PalmOS ports, correct?
Skeezix: Yep; I did a direct port and it worked tolerably but if you played the game you'd quickly run into problems after level 1 as it ran out of RAM. I started shovelling data off into VRAM and storage-RAM and she worked, but it just seamed wasteful. I asked Squidge if I could see his GP32 code since he'd obviously done some lovin' in there to make it fit into the GP32's smaller RAM and he fired over the code.. in the end, I just ported his version over, rather than incorporate his changes. The main change was that he made the code smart enough to unload unused artwork, where in the PC base version it just keeps hoarding data forever until you run out of RAM (since a PC has much more RAM available its not a problem for them.) He did a nice job there and I'd say the Palm OS BoR wouldn't have been any good weren't it for his changes :) (I did return the favour by tracking down a bug that prevented a lot of PC mods from working on the GP32 version however ;)
Hooka: Did you play the Magnetic Scrolls adventure games a long time ago that a port of Kronos was needed for you to enjoy an old favorite on the go?
Skeezix: I never beat, but played the hell out of, The Pawn back in the day on the Atari ST. (Its also available for Amiga, C64 and PC I think, so many people may remember it.) I was also a big big fan of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and some other Infocom games, so Kronos had to be done. ("Kronos" is the name of a character from The Pawn.)
Skeezix: Kronos' Magnetic Scrolls portion is courtesy Magnetic emulator; I ported Magnetic to Unix/Linux years ago, so it was natural for me to port it to Palm OS :)
Hooka: Zot! is an interesting idea, did you decide to make it so that people without coding skills could easily make games that could be released on a variety of platforms?
Skeezix: People in both Zodiac and GP32 scenes were always bitching for tools to write games easily; to that end I thought I'd start an experiment and deliver something to these folks to see if they really were interested. In the end, a couple of people (Thanks guys!) showed interest, but almost no one. (A similar story occurred for other efforts.. Pirotic's RPG maker is pretty cool, but few have kept up with it and I think he's abandoned it now? There's also Fenix which no one is using to make stuff within the GP32 scene, though non-GP32 Fenixer's code is being ported to GP32 on occasion.) So we learnt that people really aren't interested.. those that really want to make a game will learn a real language and get to it. Those that don't try that and full of hot air that gets easily deflated once they find out it really is hard to put a game together, even if the tools are there to make it easy :)
Skeezix: Anyway, Zot for me was several things.. it mostly was a platform for me to pull together many pieces I'd built for various projects and put them into one framework; then I put Zotscript on top to let people script little games and such to some extent (though Zotscript is nowhere near complete, it is usable for demos and such.) There's also ZotBASIC, a more comprehensive language for using in ZotScript that is not complete.
Skeezix: So Zot is successfull for me, in that I will reuse the code for my various little games and things, but I think its not likely to proceed as a public thing since the interest level is pretty low from the sceners.
Hooka: Why did you decide to call your PalmOS port of ColEm Columbo?
Skeezix: "ColEm" didn't seem to have any "grab"; Columbo just sounds much more interesting, and I always pervert the names somehow ... Columbo just evokes interesting images in your minds eye :) Besides.. Colecovision begat ColEm, and Colecovision begat Columns, so Columbo seemed cool :)
Hooka: Does GuineaPig use Dave's cyclone 68k core or just a C core?
Skeezix: C core; it's component modules are direct ports of the emus. (Charles MacDonald's Genesis Plus and TGemu mostly). Using Cyclone will take some work due to some Palm OS design decisions for standard OS5 ARM applications. (ie: Reworking parts of Cyclone, or doing some cheap tricks to the OS, are needed. I've just not had time to look into it, and certainly with LJZ the Zodiac'ers don't care and so its only Palm OS proper that needs GuineaPig, and most of the Palm OS devices that can run GP have fast CPUs and so don't need the assembly core anyway :)
Hooka: Have you done any work towards getting these two to run on low res OS5 devices yet?
Skeezix: CaSTaway and Kronos will run fine on Treo 600 (the only low res OS5 device currently around); XCade, GuineaPig and Columbo won't work on it. Theres some obstacles that I've not had time to beat up yet.
Hooka: So you did the CaSTaway/GP port before the CaSTaway/Palm port correct? Do you find it easy to port from GP32 to PalmOS?
Skeezix: Pretty easy; I'm very experienced in both GP32 and Palm OS and funky OS porting in general, so that helps a lot :)
Hooka: Xcade is a very good arcade emu port to GP32, do you plan on possibly adding to it/changing it again? or even a screenstretch/squish to get it to fit the screen a little better?
Skeezix: Not sure; certainly if I get anywhere with XCade2 I'll likely bring it over to GP32, but not sure if I'll muck with XCade1/GP anymore. Really, theres lots to be done.. I don't think I ever included Asteroids
or the vector games in the GP32 one (I don't recall now :).. but too many projects, so few hands, so little time :)
Hooka: Your Notes and Observations About GP32 is very informative! Why do you have it at the bottom of the page? it would be a good read for any GP32'er.
Skeezix: Its likely out of date, but certainly the many pages in GP32x and GP32news and such make it redundant :)
Hooka: So you created a special Atari ST emulator just so that you could keep your BBS running to the end of time, is it actually a fully functional emulator or did you just cut some corners to get what the BBS needed to run?
Skeezix: Its a very limited emulator.. it does just enough to run a BBS in; ie: it emulates few timers and features.. it doesn't even emulate a screen or audio or floppy drives ;) But it emulates a hard drive, and manages
serial ports through telnet connections.. so you can telnet right into an old BBS from a lot of years ago. When the author of BBS! Express saw it, it brought tears to his eyes... the Atari ST BBSes will live forever now :)
Skeezix: You can telnet to my old BBS right now in fact; see the website for details :) (http://www.codejedi.com)
Hooka: ZGrab seems to be a very useful tool for PalmOS game reviewers, ect. that have a need for screenshots. Do you just hit the framebuffer part of the memory to get the screenshots?
Skeezix: You reading old postings for these questions? ;)
Hooka: It helps to have a mind that works better at remembering the past and what I've read rather than remembering what I did 5 minutes ago...
Skeezix: Yep, ZGrab goes direct to framebuffer.. keeps the code simple, and lets it grab any shot. Asking the OS for images lets the OS be a factor, hide things, etc, and I wanted exactness.
Hooka: MemTest seems to be a very cool PalmOS app to let the developer see exactly how much memory he has to play with... is this the true use of it or am I mistaken?
Skeezix: That is; a device may be rated as having 32MB of RAM, but how much is available for the application to run in, versus how much is used as VRAM or storage RAM or OS pools... we need to know.
Hooka: Wavelet allows you to change the alarm noise on PalmOS systems, does it work with the Tapwave Zodiac or does the Zodiac let you chose an alarm noise normally?
Skeezix: It works on any Palm OS device to let you play a .wav audio file in place or in addition to a normal Palm OS alarm. So rather than beeps and whistles, have a lion roar!
Hooka: How many Wavelet Alarms have been submitted by users of Wavelet?
Skeezix: A few but not too many; most people just record one for themself, or nab Simpson's clips from the net :)
Hooka: I've heard that you've contributed to M.A.M.E., could you inform us of exactly what you've contributed?
Skeezix: I've not looked in a long time to see whats still in there, but I did a reasonable amount of stuff back in the day; I know at least my Cinematronics stuff is still in there.. all the Cinematronics games are my code at work :) (RipOff!, TailGunner, and some 10 or 15 other games) My Cinematronics code wouldn't have been finished were it not for the immense help of Zonn.
Hooka: Do you know why they've decided not to use Metroworks Code Warrior for PalmOS 6?
Skeezix: I could hazard guesses, but best not to. PalmSource has their own tools, leveraging some open source environments, as well. (See PODS suite)
Hooka: Are you feeling that the move to PODS is a good one and that the functionality of it is good?
Skeezix: It'll certainly open things up to a lot more people, since PODS is free and high quality and supported. Keeping up with dev kits and tools has been pricey. (ie: Especially when doing cross platform.. Visual Studio, Codewarrior for Windows, CodeWarrior for Mac, ugh!)
Hooka: What's your favorite PalmOS App/Game/Ect.?
Skeezix: Aside from Shadow you mean? *grin* Hard to say.. for gaming, I'd say Legacy RPG and Warfare Inc are most stunning. Plucker is great for offline web browsing. Agendus and DB5 are the best datebook replacements. The official Puzzle Bobble port is gorgeous, but I've managed to get sick
of PB playing it in my basement ;) The Gamebox stuff (Solitaire, Asia) is sweet, but Snails is really killer...
Skeezix: I'm in the unique position that 95% of what I use on my devices, I've written. Thats pretty weird.
Hooka: What's your favorite GP32 Game/App/Emu/Util?
Skeezix: GPengine by Black is really well done. GeePee32 is an amazing enabler and GPlinux hurts the brain. GPDoom would have to be it though, but Tomak comes close :) I just don't get the sidescroller with the vegetables... :) If ASR had an English translation I'm sure it'd be tops :) CaSTaway on the GP32 is well executed I think.. Dungeon Master plays well on the GP32 :)
Hooka: What's your favorite Zodiac Game/App/Emu/Util?
Skeezix: You know, the pack in game Stuntcar Extreme is really really good. LJZ is a killer app, as is CaSTaway.. my family really digs Gamebox Solitaire. Snails again is gorgeous. But limited to Zodiac-specific .. Stuntcar I guess. Love it. ScummVM looks super sweet here though :) No need to go on and on.. but there's lots to like.
Hooka: You really like futurama right? Which is your favorite episode? (Just for no apparent reason mine is the one with Fry beating the big brain the first time :) "The big brain are winning again, I am the greetest! now I am leaving urth for no raisins!")
Skeezix: (Bender points a radioactive flashlight at Fry's crotch)
Skeezix: Fry: Ow! my sperm!
Skeezix: (Bender does it again)
Skeezix: Fry: Didn't feel anything that time..
Skeezix: Actually, my favourites would have to be the old time gamer episodes.. like when the Omicron aliens attack earth, and Fry cries out "I've got my Shasta, my all-Rush mix tape, ..." and hops into a ship to defend earth, and it proceeds very Space Invadersly.
Hooka: Has there been any complete games made with Zot! yet?
Skeezix: No.. Zot isn't complete enough to permit it :)
Hooka: I really like you're "Standard Reply to Flaming Asswads: v1.01" ( http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=12607&hl= last post on page 2 ) it should be assigned to a board bot that can just detect when someone's comparing the GP32 and Zodiac and automatically respond ;)
Skeezix: I agree :)
Hooka: How can one person manage to make 31 pages of posts on GP32X and post another 49 on ZodiacGamer? ...I was looking to see what I could use for the interview and gave up after the third page of each (that's for each individual post being shown instead of just the topics though)
Skeezix: To survive the workload I'm under, I'm full of energy. You can see that ;)
Hooka: What do you see for the future of PalmOS, GP32 and Zodiac? What would you like to see for each?
Skeezix: Tough question, and I think I've burnt out my fingers writing and babling all this :) Palm OS is obviously going more heavily into smartphones, and I see nothign wrong with emulators in phones, so lots to do ;) Keeping up with the demands of my business and home users is very demanding, but I really hope to see the likes of GP32 and Zodiac continue to make homebrew gaming real. Theres also the Gizmondo.. lets hope we can all keep inventing and tooling around for years to come, but I worry that Zodiac and GP32 may be the last bastion, with all the future devices having too high barriers of entry (partnerships, restrictive DRM, unwritable media, etc.)
Skeezix: Okay, I'm burnt out now.... see you all in IRC, the boards, etc :)
Thank you Skeezix for doing this interview, it was very interesting and informative :) and sorry it was so long but you've done alot of dev on GP32/Zodiac/PalmOS and I tried to cover as much of it as possible.