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F A C E T O F A C E W I T H F A M O U S P E O P L E
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Interview with: Anthony Hayward, Russel Hayward
authors of STeeM new Atari ST emulator.
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Trophy: What was your first computer and when did you buy your first ST?
STeeM: Oooh, let me think, it's a long time. We had a Sega Master System
from the age of 5-ish so that was our first computer. We then got
a Commodore 64 as our first 'proper' computer, that was quite soon
afterwards. My brother (Anthony) first started to write programs
on that. After a few years of tape-drive problems we realised how
rubbish the C64 was so we went to get another computer. We went
to a store and they had Amoebas (Amigas) and STs. We tried the
Amoeba first and managed to crash it within a few minutes, that
made our minds up for us and we stuck with STs for then next 10
years. Then we got a PC 3 years ago and they started to gather
dust.
Trophy: Why have you written the emulator?
STeeM: Well it was a joke at first. I can't remember how it came up but
one of us said, "We should write an ST emulator" then we all
laughed. That day we started writing it, I think we must have been
at a loose end (probably desperate not to have to attempt to
finish one of our other many projects).
Trophy: What was the most difficult for you while writing it ? Have you
encountered any special difficulties?
STeeM: Lack of documentation is the main problem, and any docs we have
being wrong so often. We always find the best info for a chip just
after we have finished writing that chip, we had to work out the
CPU's opcodes from the output of a disassembler and then found the
info a few weeks later! It was difficult when the first version of
Steem immediately crashed on Windows NT, and we couldn't edit the
code on that machine, that took a few log files to work out what
was going on there. It seems every program written for the ST had
a different way of doing essential things like reading the
keyboard and synchronizing the screen. So whenever we change
something, some programs start working and others stop! Also the
new sound chip emulation was really hard because we don't really
know much about sound.
Trophy: What is the strongest and the weakest side of your emulator?
STeeM: It's difficult to say as we are writing v1.4 at the moment and
everything has changed. Certainly Steem v1.3 had terrible sound
and didn't perform well with some of the more complex effects
(like Spectrum 512 pictures). We have sorted them out (to an
extent) for the new version so until we find all the things that
don't work I can't say what's weak. I think that Steem is probably
the easiest to use of all the emulators, we wanted to try to get
people who were scared of the technical side of things to be able
to use it (I don't like to criticise but maybe PaCifiST didn't
manage that).
Trophy: Was it the first emulator you have written? If not - have you ever
written any other emulator of different computer?
STeeM: It's our first emulator, and probably the last.
Trophy: When can we expect a new version of your emulator? Version 1.4
will be out before January the 10th (as long as there are no
disasters). It will be quite different, hopefully anyone who is
interested in demos, sound or MIDI will find it a lot better.
Trophy: What is your favourite game? (ST only)
STeeM: Well Ant likes Bombjack, I like Captive & we both like
Civilization, but we've got that on the PC now so it's much
better!
Trophy: What is your hobby?
STeeM: Programming obviously, but apart from that we divide into
incompatible music and sport camps.
Trophy: Any words you could say to ST fans?
STeeM: Check the Steem website (http://www.pyridine.co.uk/steem/) for
updates, they are still coming on a regular basis. If you have
any ideas or find any bugs then e-mail them to us at:
steem@pyridine.co.uk
Apart from that all I can say is "Keep on truckin'!".
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