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Interview with: Timo Laman

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Date: 2002

The Interview

Wraggster Can you tell us where were you born, where you live, your family details,etc.?
Timo : I was born 19 years ago in Amsterdam. Currently I live in the north of the Netherlands, with my mother and my sister.
Wraggster What qualifications do you have?
Timo : I have a highschool diploma (well, the Dutch equivalent of one I suppose) and I just finished the first year of my education in Computing Science at the University of Groningen.
Wraggster What made you get into computers?
Timo : When I was about 6 years old I had a friend who had a NES. That's about when my interest in computer games started. As soon as I started playing games however I also wanted to know how they worked. So when we got our first PC (about 6 years later) I started to learn how to program... in QBASIC, that is.
Wraggster What projects/coding have you done previous to your OswanDC Emulator.?
Timo : I've tried lots of things. My most recent program is a viewer for Quake maps (for the PC). Before that I made a guitar tuner (which is, unfortunately, too inaccurate to be of any real use) for a school assignment. OswanDC is the first project that I ever really released, though.
Wraggster What made you choose to do an emulator for the Dreamcast?
Timo : I wanted to do something with an emulator for my next project, but I didn't feel like starting a new emulator from scratch. When I came across the source for Oswan it seemed like a nice idea to make a port. That way I would finally have a use for my DC coder's cable, and maybe even contribute something useful to the DC programming scene.
Wraggster How did you start and what programs did you use to start coding for theDreamcast?
Timo : Some time ago, when I had just bought my Dreamcast, a friend told me he had heard of a port of Quake for the Dreamcast. I searched the internet for it and that brought me to DCemulation.com. When I saw how easy it was to write your own programs for the DC and play them, just using freely available software and relatively cheap hardware, I thought "well, why not" and ordered a coder's cable. Then I started writing some very simple programs, first using libdream and later KOS. For compiling I use gcc 3.0 (hmmm, I should probably update that sometime), in a linux environment. For loading I use the excellent DC-tool/DC-load program.
Wraggster Can you give us a status update on your emulator?
Timo : I'm working on sound support. I fixed a bug a few days ago that slowed some games down when sound was enabled. Sound partially works, but needs much improvement before a version with sound support is fit to be released
Wraggster How hard was it getting your OswanDC emulator to work and how can you improve it?
Timo : Actually it wasn't that hard to port the emulator. I had a working version two days after I started.There's always room for improvement of course, but right now the most important things are getting the sound to work and improving the speed.
Wraggster Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?
Timo : Not at the moment.
Wraggster Whats your opinion of the Xbox and PS2 Emulation Scenes and which wouldbe the most promising for you?
Timo : Since I do not have either an Xbox or a PS2, I haven't really looked into those scenes. Still, I think the creation of emulators and homebrew software for any console is great.
A big thanks to Timo Laman for a great Interview. :)