Introduction to the people being interviewed.
- Atrkid is a game designer, some of his previous works were for GP32. He also works for www.GP32Emu.com as a newsposter. He's also a newsposter for www.ZodiacGamer.com
- Prophet is well known in the emulation scene, mostly for his work on www.RetroGames.com. He's also a news poster for www.ZodiacGamer.com
- Rattboi is a coder known in the GP32 scene for his work on Wonderboi, a Wonderswan emu.
- Mr Spiv is a famous demo coder, and helped develop the GP32 amateur scene with his hardware tricks and demos. Check out www.DeadCodersSociety.tk
- Toris is known for his game Gloop on the GP32, which recieved a prize in the GP32Emu 15 day competition. He is currently working on a new version of Gloop.
- Mithris is a well known demo coder, his coding tools and demos helped the GP32 scene.
1) What is your opinion of the Zodiac from a technical POV?
Mithris: It seems kinda cool actually, powerful and with hopefully a better display than the GP32, and since it's more powerful emulators would be easier to port and there would be less bitching about slow emulators etc.
Toris: Great, with a 200MHz processor, analogue joystick, high resolution screen, and 2d hardware acceleration a lot of games are possible. The stylus normally found on PDAs only, could make some interesting games possible when combined with all the other inputs. Emulation possibilities are very high, combined with the amount of ram in the 128mb model, the 2d acceleration and fast processor, a lot of things should be possible.
Rlyeh: Pros: Fast CPU processor, 32mb or 128mb ram (i'd suggest everyone to get the 128 model), 2 SD slots, 1 SD I/O slot capable, good screen, pseudo hi res, hi color, backlighted... omfg, its marvellous in theory :-) We'll see how good the machine works later indeed... Contras? No FPU and OS based. The FPU would have been a great improvement
By the other way, a BIOS machine based would be better for very demanding apps like emulators... I'm afraid of thinking how CPU cycles will get lost by OS events, OS windows and stupid stuff like that you know, DOS was better than Windows because it was singletasking. Dunno too much about Palm OS but I guess it wont be so fast atm... If we see the OS consumes too much CPU % we will disable it someway for sure ;-)
MikeDX: Well, overall it looks like a great machine, certainly nice to see more and more handhelds on the market sooner rather than later. If its as open as the gp32, we could see some real nice stuff on this unit sooner rather than later. I'm not so sure about its capabilities as a gaming platform over the gba or gp32 though. It does seem to have a lot of built in features which make it look like a potentially great system, but how far will 200mhz go? We've had pda's for quite a while with that sort of processing power than can do almost everything the zodiac claims to do.
Mr Spiv: Good enough resolution, _enough_ mem, fast enough cpu, lack of 3d acceleration doesn't really matter, 2d acceleration is "traditional" thus good to see (platformers rule), plusses for bluetooth if it works out of box and backlit, and the biggest plus for the fact you have loads of palm software for it (other than games).. makes every "office geek" to want one
Rattboi: Well, it sounds nice, although it may be harder to get lower-level depending on the palm-os side. I have no experience with that, so I really don't have much to comment. Other than the palm-os part, the thing technically sounds great
Atrkid: Technically, I find the machine very good. In fact its a bit of a mix of all the good technologies you could find today in the other machines. When you look at it, it's just a Palm with a different layout and plenty of options, but the good point in that is that it brings an already big user base and software for the machine. It's the first time we'll be able to play multi on a portable machine (don't tell me you ever used those cables), and the SDIO ports look very interesting for future upgrades, such as WIFI or cameras. The large amount of ram allows coders to do what they want, and for amateur coders, this means emulators that couldn't be done before, which is also helped by the number of buttons. When you look at it, a 200mhz machine with 128mb of ram and a graphics chip is really much like a portable Dreamcast.
Prophet: I'm very impressed. As a portable game device, it's without peer right now. The only competition technically speaking is the Sony PSP, and that system is not even real yet, existing only on paper AFAIK, and we all know how Sony likes to hype and lie before they release new hardware.
As a PDA, it's a wonderful Palm device, with an unprecedented amount of memory. Good stuff all around.
2) How is the SDK, and/or what is your impression of coding for the Zodiac?
Mithris: No idea, but they seem to have some SDK and stuff for free, which is good, but i have no idea about debugging abilities, and other limitations.
Toris: The support, from the current dev site seems great, many in-depth manuals, and forums for support, as Mithris says, debugging seems a bit of a question at the moment, but there are some palm OS on screen debug commands that will be able to help slightly. Only downside, is the main development libraries etc.. seem to be for codewarrior, though I am informed that they will run under the palm gcc devkit with some slight alterations.
Rlyeh: Well, TapWave is giving us all an SDK to start with... that's likely a good thing, but only in case the SDK was well written. I remember how much time GP32 Devrs spent while bugfixing its SDK. I guess the commercial games will be focused mainly on 3d games, and since the Zodiac has no a FPU i guess that could be a power leak indeed.
MikeDX: I hope it turns up a lot of homebrew development. there are lots of people with ARM coding experience now (you can see this in the "underground" gba and gp32 coding scenes)
Mr Spiv: I haven't seen the sdk actually.. but as it is arm based.. and palm.. shouldn't really be a problem, and you can even hack around reflashing the flash in it.. I have heard positive comments from zodiac devers.. that's a good start. Also, the usb -> mac link is working. I bet there's a lot to squeeze out when you give a boot to Palm OS etc :P
Rattboi: I dont know palm-os, and I don't even know if there will be a newer seperate SDK. If the SDK is open-source, that would be nice. If not, we should make our own.
Atrkid: I personally don't code, but it seems that the tools provided by Tapwave are updated often. There's also libs for 3d development, and an engine, so it does seem to be attractive for coders. As for game design, it's not gonna change much
Prophet: I'm not qualified to answer this, but feedback from coders has been very positive. The best part about PalmOS and Zodiac is development is open, and you don't have to be an established company to make stuff.
3) Any thoughts on how Zodiac will differ from other PDA's and portable gaming devices like the GP32 from a coder's POV? (pros/cons)
Mithris: More open than the GBA, perhaps better libraries and support than what gamepart provides for GP32, but then again, GamePark seemed much more serious in the beginning aswell.
Toris: Development seems to be easy to go about, as with the GP32, libraries, and the open-source-ness will make more programs available. The analogue controls are a first on a portable console too, which will help with things such as FPS'. Really, I don't see the Zodiac going head-to-head with the GBA, so comparison to that isn't really that important.
Rlyeh: Since its running Palm OS the code will be most likely like any other Palm OS in theory. Let's imagine is a events/messages OS based... so we'll have to modify our main() function a bit. Fortunatelly i removed most stdio accesses in my ports, so if zodiac is not working ok with stdio i dont care. Btw, about the variables... lets cross our fingers for a standard set of variables... Windows programming has too many sets :P GBA was a real console. GP32 was introduced like a console with PC options, something like an hybrid. PDAs are known to be closer than anything to computers. We could say a Zodiac is an hybrid between a PDA and a console. But i'd say its closer to a PDA than any other thing.
MikeDX: I think it'll be different as it'll be the current best high spec machine on the market, but imo could have done with a faster cpu. it looks like it has a great battery life and decent screen for once!
Mr Spiv: Dunno really.. I should experiment with one first but.. the difference.. it's not a real caming console but something between pda & console. I don't really know (yet) if it's a good and a bad thing. It might have same "issues" as gp32 has..
Rattboi: Maybe there will be nice widgets so we don't have to code file pickers all the time, aka: the frontends will be easier, if they have some kind of common dialog interface ( I assume it does)
Atrkid: Like I said earlier, I think it's the amount of ram which will help a lot, even though I believe you will NEED a Zodiac2 model to be able to run most of the emulators and apps that will come out. Compared with the GP32 for example, a lot of emulators (including a GBA emulator, and Neogeo) just couldn't be done because of the lack of ram. This caused a lot of coders to use tricks to develop their apps. Also the cpu is an ARM, which means porting GBA or GP32 apps should be relatively easy. The graphics chip should also help with picture enhancement, so we might end up having very nice games. Another good thing is, it seems the console is compatible with Macs, but I don't know about linux. I think the built in Bluetooth will help bring a lot of multi player packed games and emulators, it seems there's a lib that handles it easily too.
Prophet: My coding knowledge is minimal. But I did own a GP32 and enjoyed it every much. From what I've gathered, I believe coders will enjoy the Zodiac's more powerful and versatile hardware, and the more robust SDK. From what I've read, GP32 coders *might* find PalmOS coding to be a bit different - might have a learning curve to it. But once over the hump, they'll be fine. And they'll also have access to a MUCH larger audience via PalmOS - the development skills they aquire could lead to income down the road.
4) Do you have any future or current projects related to Zodiac?
Toris: I plan to port my game, GlooP to the Zodiac, and utilise the stylus, to make it a bit more interesting. After that I will most likely make another puzzle game, as they are the sort I enjoy coding most. First thing's first though, and that's learning the dev environment, and my way around the SDK.
Mithris: Demos of course, some development tools as well.
Rlyeh: I'd like to report my GP32 ports as a first exercise... later I'd move to start porting some other bigger programs, such as fPSX and a full fMAME (including CPS1, CPS2, NEOGEO, etc)
MikeDX: I plan to port a few projects to it as soon as i have the time.
Mr Spiv: My first project is to get a hold of one.. somehow.. then play solitaire & spyhunter
Maybe look for hidden potential/features out of its lcd hardware.
Rattboi: Wonderboi port
Atrkid: www.ZodiacGamer.com ?
Also thinking of helping some coders with game designs I've had laying around
Prophet: www.ZodiacGamer.com
5) What would like to see happen with the Zodiac in the future?
Toris: It to be a success, many games become available, GCC libraries released would be a bonus. Some impressive 3D games would be interesting, as would castlevania ^_-. The one thing I don't want to happen, is for the games to be more like current PPC games, than proper console games, as seems most of the games are at the moment.
Mithris: I wan't so see it beeing released..
then we'll see..
Rlyeh: I'm mostly interested in emulation. So... fDOS, fPPC?
Dunno really... its better to surprise ourselves with something new. fPSX would be nice anyways...
MikeDX: I'm a total whore for 1980s games, so emulation of course. I'd like to see more original titles or ports of newer games that have appeared on other systems, such as super monkeyball, crazy taxi, etc
Mr Spiv: Price drop, some success and being open minded.
Prophet: First and foremost I want to see the word get out. Most people don't know it exists. Tapwave is very new, and doesn't have huge advertising budgets like Nokia or Nintendo. Hopefully sites like www.ZodiacGamer.com can help out. After that, I want to see strong commercial game support, and of course, a thriving home development scene as well.
