Commodore Free 29/Commodore_Free_Issue_29_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/spiro interview

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 11KB | 360 lines

 ************************************
 * Interview with Spiro Trikaliotis *
 *      Part of the Vice Team       *
 ************************************

COMMODRE FREE
Please introduce yourself to
our readers.

SPIRO TRIKALIOTIS
My name is Spiro Trikaliotis. From my
name, it is clear that I am of Greek
descendants; however, I was born in
1973 in Germany, where I still live.
I studied computer science and
received my diploma in 2000. From
1996 until currently, I have been
researching in the area of wireless
networks with different research
institutes and the University of
Magdeburg. I am currently working at
the ifak, a research institute where
I can work on national and
international projects.

Since 2006, I am married to my wife
Sandra. We have no children yet,
although we expect some change here
soon.

I started working with electronics
sometime before 1983. I played with a
electronics construction kit from my
brother. Late 1983, my father bought
a computer - he started with a Laser
VZ200, but he returned it in favour
of a C64. That's where it all
started. I soon began to play with
BASIC, and then I learned Assembler
and also PASCAL.

In 1989, I received a new computer.
Although I favoured an Amiga, I
received a PC which seemed at the
time to be the better choice for the
future. Somehow unfortunately, this
proved right. Thus, starting with
MS-DOS 3.2, later Windows 2.03 and
later versions, and OS/2, I
progressed through the different
operating systems.

In 1999, I came back to the Commodore
when I realised there were still many
people who use them at least some of
the time. I searched for an emulator
and found several of them, among them
VICE. Because of some annoyances in
WinVICE, I contacted the VICE mailing
list, and before long, I was part of
the VICE team. However, I must admit
that most of the VICE core was
already built up, so, my involvement
in these parts is rather small.

Currently, I am using Windows and
Linux almost equally. In 2000, I
started porting Michael Klein's
cbm4linux to Windows. I had a working
version the same year, but I could
not release it because I had a
licensing problem: cbm4win 0.1 (not
to be mistaken for 0.1.0, which was
released some years later), as I
called it at that time, was built
using Microsoft's DDK sources.
cbm4linux, on the other side, was
GPL. So, I had a license conflict.
The net result for me was that I left
cbm4win in the state and I could not
release it. Years later, I rewrote
cbm4win completely, making sure I do
not use any source from Microsoft, so
I could GPL the complete sources. In
the meantime, I rejoined both
cbm4linux and cbm4win, forming
OpenCBM. In fact, I am mainly
responsible for both ports of the
project.

CF-  How are you still involved with
Commodore machines?

I still own my first C64 from 1983
and my first 1541 drive from 1984.
The C64 has been repaired one time,
because a joystick which was
connected by a pal broke the CIA
chip, but other that that, both
machines are in pristine condition.
In the meantime, I bought some more
devices: I have a C128, a C128D, and,
of course, some devices to be able to
test OpenCBM: Two 1571, another 1541,
a 1541-II, I had two 1581, but only
one of them is still with me. I got a
8250LP device, which I used together
with an IEC2IEEE device to try and
find a problem with OpenCBM and the
IEC2IEEE. Oh, and I have a Plus/4.

Of all of these devices, the C128D, a
1581, a 1571 and the 1541-II are
currently on my desktop.

CF-  Vice; can you explain this to
our readers who may not have heard
about the software

VICE is a Commodore emulator. That
is, it is software which will let you
run programs for your old Commodore
machines for your current hardware.
In fact, it tries to mimic the
behaviour of the old machines as best
as possible. Currently, VICE emulates
the C64, the C128, the VIC20, the
Plus/4, the PET machines as well as
the CBM2 machines (a.k.a.
CBM6xx/7xx). VICE also contains some
tools like PETCAT and C1541; the
latter is a tool to handle disk
images. However, many people consider
c1541 rather cryptic, as it has to be
used from the command line.

Additionally, there were some people
who built an DTV emulator on top of
VICE; the project was called
VICEplus. However, in the next
version of VICE, that project will be
reintegrated into VICE. Note that
VICE mainly focuses on the old
Commodore 8 bit machines; thus, an
Amiga emulator is not likely to
appear anytime.

Among the big variety of machines
VICE emulates, it also runs on many
different platforms. Among them are
Windows (95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP,
Vista), Linux, xBSD and many other
unixoid variants, MacOS X, Acorn RISC
OS, QNX, OS/2, different AmigaOS
types, GP2X, SkyOS, Minux 3.x and
Atari Mint. There are also some
"unofficial" ports (that is, not from
us) on other platforms.

That state of the different emulated
machines as well as the state of the
different platforms VICE runs on
differs, however. The C64 emulator is
most probably the most mature one,
and the Windows and the Unix ports
are most probably the most
feature-rich ones.

CF- You are listed as one of the Vice
contributors can you tell our reader
the extent to your involvement with
the project?

As I already told above, I have been
involved with VICE since 1999. I
started contributing to the UI of the
(Win)VICE monitor. Since then, I have
been doing different things. I mainly
worked on the GUI of WinVICE.
Additionally, I have written the "The
Final Ethernet" (TFE) / RRnet network
emulation of VICE, I have
considerably reworked the RAM
Extension Unit (REU) emulation of
VICE with the help of the
investigations done by Wolfgang
Moser. Other than that, I believe it
was mainly some small changes,
especially after specific bug reports
from users.

So, in this sense, there is nothing I
am specifically responsible for.

Since March of 2008, I am one of the
two maintainers of VICE. That is, we
try to make sure VICE keeps up with
the high quality, or even improves
it. Time will tell if we can fulfil
this position.

 CF- Will Accelerators be implemented
into the software like TurboMaster
(4Mhz), Flash8 (8Mhz) or SuperCPU
(20Mhz)?

This question is hard to answer.
First of all: If someone implements
it in a sane way, I do not have any
objections to adding such a feature.
Among other criteria, here, a sane
implementation is an implementation
which does not break other features
or slow down the emulation
considerably.

However, the problem is: For such an
addition, someone has to take the
time to do it. In order to perform
this coding, one has to know the
hardware involved from the inside
out. While TurboMaster or Flash8
might be possible and considered
rather easy to implement, I doubt
this is the case with the SuperCPU,
which even relies on some ASIC. Thus,
the behaviour of that IC has to be
reverse-engineered - a tedious
process.

Also note that I do not own any of
these devices, nor do I know anyone
who does own them. I cannot speak
about the other VICE team members,
but I doubt there are many who own
such devices. So, unless someone gave
us the necessary information, it is
unlikely the implementation will be
done. Additionally, in most cases
when we code something, it is because
we have a personal interest in doing
so. Remember, it is our spare time,
our hobby. Thus, it is unlikely
anyone will start such a project.

Of course, remember, VICE is open
source: Anyone is free to implement
the changes. Personally, I would be
glad if anyone comes up with an
implementation of his personal and
most favourite gadget, and I would
work together with him in order to
get it included into VICE in a "sane"
way - as described above.

CF- Can you tell our readers what may
be implemented in the next version?

Well, at a foremost, 2.1 will
integrate the DTV implementation of
VICEplus. However, version 2.0 has
not been out very long now. We will
see what will be there when 2.1 comes
out.

Q. How accurate as a whole is the
software?

It depends. ;) At first, we must
distinguish between the different
emulators. I believe the C64 emulator
is at a rather accurate level - of
course, it is still not complete. In
fact, there are some problems which
would require large rewrites of big
code parts in order to be fixed.

The other emulators are not as
accurate as the C64. The C128 might
be almost similar, at least for the
64 mode part of it.

However, I see two problems here: At
first, I think most of the current
VICE members have grown with the C64
or the C128, and we know them from
the inside out. This is not true for
the other machines, thus, it is
harder to make a good emulation. I,
for example, only own a C64 and a
C128. I do own a Plus/4, but I almost
never use it. So, how should I
improve the PET or the CBM2
emulation? The second problem is that
many people recognise problems, but
they do not tell us. How are we
supposed to fix problems we do not
even know about?

Thus, if anyone has interest in
working on these emulations, feel
free to contact us. As a spare time
project, we appreciate every help we
can get.

CF- How can readers help with the
project?

Of course, the best contributions are
patches: Patches which correct
incorrect behaviour, or patches,
which add functionality. We recognise
that not everyone has the ability or
has the time to write code. Thus,
there are other possibilities, too:
Among them, I think "technical
information" is the most important
thing: Tell us what is wrong, i.e.,
filing bug reports. If you have any
technical information not known to
date (service manuals, results of own
experiments) - tell us. Do you have
some demo, some test program which
behave differently on the real thing
and on the emulator: Tell us.

Of course, there are also other parts
of VICE which might need some help.
For example, the documentation is not
the best part of the emulator. Thus,
if anyone has skills in technical
writings, he might help us a lot,
too.

CF- Do you feel emulation plays an
important part in the survival of old
machines?

Indeed, I believe so. Despite the
fact that there are still many
machines available - especially many
C64s, one has to remember that the
machines will not last forever. Thus,
emulation will be the way to get the
information and the "feel" of these
old machines to the future.

Note, however, that emulation is not
restricted to software emulators like
VICE: devices like the DTV or the
Commodore One are also emulators, and
they have the same - or, at least,
similar - intentions as we do.

    CONTINUED IN PART 2