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Interview with: Arnon Cardoso:

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Date: 2001

The Interview

Wraggster:: Where were you born, live and family details etc?
Arnon Cardoso:: I was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I'm 27 years old married man and don't have children. I work as a IT analyst in Belo Horizonte.

Wraggster: What qualifications do you have?
Arnon Cardoso: I have bachelor degree in Computer Science.

Wraggster: What made you get into computers?
Arnon Cardoso: Games. The first time I put my hands on a computer I was 12 so spreadsheets and word processors didn't matter to me at that time. ;-) So bad that I can't live making games. :-(

Wraggster: What projects/coding have you done previous to any Dreamcast programming?
Arnon Cardoso: This was my first DC project.

Wraggster: What made you choose to do a emulate the MSX?
Arnon Cardoso: Because it is one of the most important computers in the 80s for the Brazilians. In the 80s we didn't have much choice: Buying an expensive and ugly PC, a MSX or an expensive Amiga. As we didn't have much money most people ended buying a MSX. ;-)
But although being cheap it's a great computer with awesome softwares. I recommend everyone to give the emulator a try. Konami, for instance, began its reputation making games for MSX.

Wraggster: How did you start and what programs did you use to start coding?
Arnon Cardoso: There was some time since I made my serial cable but I was bit lazy to start coding. When Kwanten released Dreammsx source I though that the time to do something had come. I use cygwin as the environment and gcc as the compiler.

Wraggster: Can you give us a status update on your emulator?
Arnon Cardoso: I don't think I'll update DreamMSX anymore. It's based on an old version o fMSX (1.5) so I'm concentrating on porting fMSX 2.5 that has many improvements.

Wraggster: Can you tell us how complex programming is for DreamMsx?
Arnon Cardoso: It's really easy. As MSX is an open architecture so there is plenty documentation about it. I also found libdream extremely easy to deal with. I think the most difficult part on DC programming is building gcc. When the precompiled gcc was released it really made things easier.

Wraggster: Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?
Arnon Cardoso: Right now I'm trying to port fmsx 2.5 to DC. This time I'm using KOS so I'm still getting used to it. The code already compiles fine using KOS but I'm experiencing some problems that I hope I'll solve soon. As soon as I got something working I'll send you for beta testing. I don't know when it will happen because real life is taking too much time nowadays. :-(
I would like to do a spectrum emulator for DC as well since DreamSpec seems to be dead but I don't know if I'll have time.

Wraggster: Whats your opinion of the new super consoles like X-box,Gamecube,Game Boy Advance and the Playstation 2?
Arnon Cardoso: I just can't wait to play and develop for them. I hope we'll finally have some competition on this area (I don't think choosing between two consoles as competition ;). The exception is the GBA that doesn't have competition but has a good non-official dev scene. I'm a bit of Nintendo fan so I hope GC succeeds, but the if we could achieve a 1/3 marketshare for each console I'll be even more happy.

Wraggster: Which console looks the best for devving on?
Arnon Cardoso: I think it's the DC. X-Box and GC seems to be easy as well, but we will only know after someone starts cracking them. ;-)

Wraggster: What are your favorite games for every system you have
Arnon Cardoso: Spectrum - The way of the exploding Fist, Saboteur, Gun Fright, Target Renegade
MSX - YS III, King's Valley, Nemesis games, Dragon Slayer VI, F1 Spirit
NES - Super Mario games, RC Pro AM
C64 - The Great Giana Sisters, California Games, Last Ninja
AMIGA - Chuck Rock I e II, Torvak, Alien Breed, Shadow of the Beast
SNES - Zelda III, Super Mario, Final Fantasy games, Mario Kart
PSX - Resident Evil, Winning Eleven (ISS), Silent Hill
N64 - Mario 64, Zelda OOT, Golden Eye, Mario Kart
DC - Shenmue, Le Mans, Metropolis Street Racer, Record of Lodoss War, San Francisco Ruch 2049
(multiplayer), Virtua Tennis. I wish the DC had a good soccer game.