Commodore Free 11/Commodore_Free_Issue_11_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv jens 1

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 14KB | 423 lines

u    Interview with Jens Schofield
         Individual Computers

 http://www.jschoenfeld.com/index.htm

PART 1 of 4

The following article appeared in the
now defunced Amiga magazine Total
Amiga after emailing the editor and
Jens both agreed that I could
republish the article in Commodore
Free magazine, I would like to thank
total Amiga for letting me use the
article & Jens for agreeing the
reprint & re reading & updating
his statements, Also I managed to add
a couple of questions myself, these
appear first. The interview is very
long so lets get on with it: Here we
go then.

Commodore Free questions

Q-Have you ever thought of approaching
Maurice Randal www.cmdrkey.com to
acquire the rights to the CMD product
range, to mass produce C 64 products
like the SCPU, Ramlink & Cmd Hard
drive, If you haven't have you offered
Maurice help in the manufacture of CMD
products,

A-I have thought of it, but that
would involve so Much work that I
would not have the time to do it all.
The designs are nice, but not up to
date. Before they can be produced,
they'd need a Complete re-design. In
other words Negotiations About the
value of CMD would be *very* hard.

Q-If you were given an unlimited
amount of time & development costs
what product would you create & why
(it can be none computer related)

A-I really think that such a thing
would not be Related to computers. You
might be able to create a connection
through "electricity", but that's
about it: I have read a lot about
Stirling engines in the past two years
and even built a small model engine
that runs on a tea light. I made a
simple modification that was initially
meant to control it's power output
(RPM of the free-running engine), but
it turned out to be a nice increase of
the power-to-size ratio. One property
of Sterling engines is that they're
easily scalable to almost any size.
I'd like to find out if my
modification can work on an engine
that's big enough to output 5kW (or
more), & use it to make solar
energy. Unlimited amount of time and
money would give me the chance to
patent my inrease-of-power-idea and
pay an engineer or two to develop a
decently-sized engine that can be sold
to any household. More development
would have to be done on the power
grids, as distributed power generation
requires intelligent power routing.
The electricity-related CO2 output of
this planet could be reduced
dramatically.

ciao, Jens Schofield

Total Amiga Questions to Jens

Q-Could you start by introducing your-
self to those of our readers who may
not know who you are, & to those who do
& want to know more about you?

A-My name is Jens Schvnfeld, & I'm the
founder & owner of "Individual
Computers". I'm the man behind things
like the Graffiti video card, the
Buddha IDE controller, the Catweasel
floppy controller & multiple other
expansions for the Amiga. Top- sellers
were the X-Surf networking card & the
IDE-fix (+express) adapter.

Q-When did you first become inter-
ested in hardware development, & what
was it that attracted your interest?

A-I was always fascinated by
electronics since I was a kid. The
most interesting part of playing with
Fischertechnik was to add lamps & to
make it move with motors. My cousin
introduced me to computers without
really intending it: He gave me his old
Sinclair ZX81, probably assuming I
couldn't do anything with it but use
it as a nonworking toy. As soon as I
learned reading in primary school, I
read the manual of the thing & begged
my mom to allow me to connect it to our
TV. I taught myself Basic, & my mom
made sure that I didn't only read
computer books. The first kid's book I
read -- after the Sinclair manual --
was Pitje Puck! The ZX81 was soon
replaced by the C64, & I always tried
to control my Fischertechnik with it.
However, having no education in
electronics, I fried the C64 fairly
often. At some point, my mom refused
to pay for the next repair, so my only
chance was to find out how to repair
it on my own. The invoices with part
numbers of exchanged chips gave
valuable hints, & I got a basic under-
standing of "what chip does what"
inside this "magic machine".The puzzle
was completed by magazine articles
about hardware. I can't really explain
why the hardware articles were so much
more interesting, but looking back, it
might have been because I was too lazy
to type in the program listings. I
preferred adding LEDs & switches to
my C64, resulting in the machine that
I have on the title page of
c64upgra.de. I get frequent requests
like "is that a real C64, or just made
up for the photo?" - it's real, & it's
the C64 that I used as a kid. I won't
part with it!

Q-When did you decide to make a
business out of it?

A-During school, I had a lot of spare
time to do computer stuff & make
contact with other computer users.
Being a rare hardware-person, I soon
got to know the "makers" of the C64 &
Amiga scene: Chris Helsbeck (he worked
for Rainbow Arts back then), the Factor
5 crew, Kaiko & later Neon
entertainment -- they always consulted
me when something hardware-related had
to be done. This wasn't a problem time-
wise, as school is only half-days in
Germany. The afternoon was free after I
did my homework, so I had lots of time
to meet with friends who also had a C64
or an Amiga. Many games of the time
were protected with copy- protection
schemes that I invented: Turrican,
Apidya & other titles used my long-
track writer hardware. Try playing
through Apidya & get to the final
credits screen; it says "Hardware: Jens
Schvnfeld" (among many other credits).
I finished school in 1993 & instead of
serving in the military, I did a "civil
service" in a senior citizen home. This
reduced my spare time a lot, & spending
more time on computers meant doing less
hours at the senior citizen home,
resulting in a lot less money in my
pocket. That was the time when I
decided that my beloved hobby had to
make money, not cost money, so I could
continue doing it. Neon Entertainment
were the first to give me contract
work in 1994; we developed a motion-
tracking system together that was based
on several Amiga 1200's with my real-
time video digitizers: One Amiga per
camera, & several cameras pointing at
the same person from different angles.
The data was used to Calculate 3D
coordinates & have natural movement
data that can be used in games. I
registered a business in the summer of
1994 to make it all legal, but didn't
really intend to make it a big company.
I just wanted to be able to do the work
& make money with it legally, but my
main plan was to study electrical
engineering at the university of
Aachen. I started that in the fall of
1994 & continued the business as a
part-time job, mainly doing contract
work for other Amiga companies, the
biggest of them being ACT electronics,
the makers of the Apollo accelerators
(I did the service/repairs for them
for quite a few years). When Doom came
out for the PC, I wanted to have that
game on my Amiga, but soon friends
with more software knowledge taught me
that the Amiga is missing an essential
feature: A chunky graphics mode where 1
byte in memory represents 1 pixel on
the screen. That's when I started my
first own hardware design, the Graffiti
card.

It was presented at the Cologne show
1995 & first shipped in January 1996.
The success of the card changed my
mind, & I wanted to turn more of my
ideas into products. The company soon
turned from a part-time job into a
full-time job where I didn't have
much time left for the university. I
passed most of the exams, but never
finished my diploma. I have 3 exams & a
thesis to go, but will probably not do
that anytime soon. I'm not registered
with the university anymore, but can
reregister & continue almost anytime -
maybe when I'm 60 years old!

Q-How long has Individual Computers
existed, & how many are involved?

A - When I started in 1994, I had no
plans to expand the company. However,
I knew that I was really bad at soft-
ware, so that had to be done
externally. I hired contract workers
to do software, or turned to the "big
names" of the Amiga, for example Oliver
Kastl did the IDE-fix & Buddha soft-
ware. Since January 2006, I have hired
2 programmers to do the main software
work. I'm even in talks with a third,
because I have a few projects in the
works that require a lot of manpower. I
do want to continue support for older
projects, such as the Catweasel, so I
have to create more jobs.

Q-Can you support yourself by
developing Amiga hardware, or do you
have a "day job" outside of Individual
Computers?

A-Individual Computers is keeping me
busy for 70 to 90 hours a week, there
would be no time for a "day job". Like
I said, I'm currently creating jobs to
complete all the work, & the company
will grow even more: After summer 2007,
I will move out of Aachen & double the
space for the company. Since the prices
in & near Aachen are fairly high, I'm
moving out in the country, because all
I need to do my job is fast Internet &
a next-day-delivery service, which is
available almost everywhere in Germany.
A good friend of mine has put it this
way: "You could do your job almost
anywhere, maybe with the exception of
the north pole!".

Q-What are your feelings regarding the
current Amiga situation, & how do you
think OS 4 & MorphOS are shaping up?

A-To be honest, I feel sorry for the
Amiga community. They have been split
into a "blue & a red camp", & a lot of
energy is wasted on war between these
camps. Many people have lost the focus,
& there's nobody who is channelling the
energy that is still there. Small
projects are being started but never
actually finished or even brought near
a state where it could be called "a
working prototype". OS 4 & MorphOS both
have a lot of power, & I guess I'm not
the only one who thinks that their
power should be united. However, there
is a lot of negotiating to be done if
that marriage should ever happen. There
are too many bad feelings on both
sides, & some of them are justified.

Q-Can you comment on your own position
on this split in the market, & the
well-publicised dispute between
Individual Computers & Genesi?

A-conflict requires two sides to
maintain it, & I'd finally like to put
this aside - it's almost 5 years & I
have moved on. Being frequently
reminded of the loss I've had doesn't
help the situation. But do you really
think that the Amiga Inc-people are
that much better than BBRV? With the
recent developments (or better:
announcements), I get more & more
understanding for the people who have
turned their back on Amiga & the
remaining community. Bill McEwen did
not accomplish anything in the past 8
years & he probably won't change that
in the future.

Q-How long do you think you will be
able to dedicate your time to Amiga
development?

A-Amiga is making less than a quarter
of my revenue at the moment, but it's
constant business. I guess that I could
continue infinitely, because I still
have a lot of ideas that I never turned
into products. However, business is not
the main reason why I dedicate a lot of
time to the Amiga. Amiga is a
philosophy that other computers lack, a
lot of concepts of the Amiga OS & the
Amiga hardware are either missing, or
have bad replications on today's main-
stream computers. I must admit that I
do my main work (CAD, emails & Open
Office) with an x86 machine, but it's
always fun to turn on the Amiga. The
fun has been spoiled lately by people
in public discussion forums, so I took
a break: I accepted contract work that
has attracted more & more employers,
as my design was a huge success at
CeBit. It was even rewarded the
category winner "hardware" of a German
innovation reward. Employers are
lining up at my door because my ADSL2+
CPE design has better performance
(especially on bad lines) than most of
the competition.

Q-Among your recent designs for the
Amiga market are a chip RAM expansion
and an '030 accelerator for the A600.
Is there really a substantial market
to make A600 accessories profitable?

A-I don't expect to make much money
on the A600 expansions. Those projects
were mainly made for the fun of it --
the A600 is a cute machine, but it
does not generate substantial revenue,
so anything I develop for that machine
has to be done in my spare time. If
I'd dedicate my main time to projects
with such low margins & low quantities,
I'd go bankrupt pretty quick.

Q-You recently released a news item
stating that the A600 accelerator, as
well as the A500 version of your Buddha
IDE controller, will be delayed
indefinitely, giving the reason that
contract work will "keep you busy for
the next few weeks." How long is this
"indefinite delay", is there any chance
these two products will be released
this year, or is it currently uncertain
if they will ever hit the market?

A-Both will hit the market, but I can't
tell you when.

Q-And, what kind of contract work is it
that has you occupied at the moment?

A-It's not Amiga or retrocomputing
related at all. My Keyrah design has
attracted the attention of a company
that needed a product for a realtime
USB application, & the company
Viprinet hired me to do the complete
hardware design of their Multichannel
VPN router. This included the hot-
pluggable modular system, communication
modules of all kinds, the case design &
mass-production.

Q-You have also designed a soundcard,
the Delfina. What makes this different
than all the other PCI soundcards on
the market today?

A-The Delfina has a specialised
processor that can not only playback
samples, but also plays MP3 without the
CPU needing to do de-compression.
Effects can be added like echo, hall,
flanging, delay - this is not possible
with a Soundblaster unless you're using
the main processor for effects like
that. Delfina is a very Amiga-like idea
of a soundcard, because it's a
specialized piece of hardware that
reduces the load on the main processor.

Continues in part 2