Interview with Amiga Arena

Interview with Amiga Arena
Olaf Köbnik <olaf@amiga-arena.de> / Chris Hodges <chrisly-at-platon42-dot-de>

Hi Chris, can you please tell us a few words about yourself and your amiga history?
Being brought up in a suburb of Munich, Germany, next to lots of computers and slightly insane people, a rollercoaster of ups and downs, the Amiga offered a more or less constantly pleasant time (4844 of about 9418 days so far). Obviously, and with determination, I'm studying computer science at the Munich University of Technology in Munich. I like fries with vanilla ice. I can clap using only one hand. And with the Amiga I'm doing everything I want to do: That's freedom I need.

People visiting your homepage will notice, that there's a large track record on software written for the Amiga, including a lot of PD games. Do you have plans to write a new game or rework some of your classics like "Tubes" or "F.T.C"?
For some years now about 20MB of graphics and data is waiting on my harddisk for me to be revived. It's from a game I once started with Andreas Lindinger in my dark days of my youth for the Wintel boxes, but it was never completed. And then, there are some ideas for Tubes II. However, the older you get, the less time you've got for such kinds of projects. Anyway, writing games always has been a lot of fun.

Let's get to your current software project "Poseidon USB", which has been developed for the USB boards "Highway" and "Subway". Which duties does "Poseidon" cover for these or other USB cards?
Well, Poseidon is a so-called USB stack. The software can be roughly divided into three parts: The low-level hardware drivers, that map the actual USB host controllers to the Amiga system, then there's the main library, that does the management (and other services). Finally the class drivers add the functionality of the USB devices to the system, such as mouse or keyboard handling, or mounting partitions of a flash card reader, so that it can be accessed by the user.

What made you develop "Poseidon USB"?
Michael Böhmer, who built the Highway and Subway cards a long time ago, of course wanted to sell them. However, the software wasn't ready. In march, still nothing working was present, so I jumped in as backup. I actually would have written my own stack anyway as I reckoned, that neither AmigaOS4 stack nor the original solution would be available to MorphOS. I didn't want the market to split again and I thought, that blue butter flies much further than just to Sirion. Well, three weeks later I had a pretty usable design and a working USB mouse driver.

How is the decision made, if a driver for hardware XY is going to be written or ported?
The hardware has to support the USB standards or if not, the user base must be large enough. Obviously, I need to have access to the hardware itself and the amount of work needed must be somewhat sensible. It doesn't make any sense to write a driver for Winmodems for example.

Will "Poseidon USB" support other host controller boards in future, or, which boards does it support right now?
Generally speaking, anyone can write a hardware driver for an USB host controller, no matter, if this for zorro boards, PCMCIA or PCI chipsets. Hence, I do not have the time nor the required hardware to development these myself.

Currently, there are drivers for the Highway/Subway, Thylacine (beta), GRex and Pegasos, Spider USB (PCI/Mediator). A driver for OpenPCI (Prometheus, GRex, MorphOS, Berniethlon) is currently in development, but doesn't yet run.

How long did you take to develop this software until now?
Development started in march and I've been working on it with a few breaks due to my studies. However, I cannot tell you how much time I spent exactly.

Which software are you using for development?
GoldED as editor, SAS/C for the 68k version, GCC for the MorphOS version, CyberGuard, BDebug, SmartCrash, MungWall, MuForce, PatchWork, Sashimi. And lots of lovely music by Aimee Mann.

How long do you think you will stick to writing new drivers?
Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for your whole life. Well, I guess this means until Poseidon is an adult.

Which are the features for "Poseidon USB" that you would emphasize on?
It's stable, has a clean design and easy to use for both users and developers. And, its programmer has a very subtle kind of humor. There a long manual, which nobody ever reads. And people have found million ways to misspell "Poseidon" or "Trident" (maybe I should setup a contest?). Uhm, it can be made reset resident.

What can we expect of future versions?
The HID class for magic carpets, fire alarms and refrigerators. Ethernet drivers (however, I still recommend the Norway over USB ethernet). Scanner drivers (when I get one eventually). And of course, satisfying the never ending wishes of the users.

"Poseidon USB" can be used by other vendors as well, as the users have to register for the corresponding USB host controller (except for Highway/Subway users). Although this a good idea to make "Poseidon USB" available to more people (users/developers), aren't you afraid of more cracked keyfiles popping up and Poseidon being used illegally, compromising your work?
Good luck to these sad people trying to create cracked keyfiles. I've spend several weeks getting into new and safe cryptography algorithms. I know, this doesn't help against manipulated versions of the software package. Therefore, I try to keep as much updates coming as possible. Giving away legally obtained keyfiles would be plain stupid, as the complete name and address is stored in each keyfile and is displayed in Trident.

Though I haven't written Poseidon to make a killing, it is utterly devastating to find out that cracked copies are floating somewhere on the net (just like it happened with Deli14BitGenie, which was uncripped postcardware: I stopped its development right after I was told about it). It's a bit depressing to see, how much money people are spending on hardware, but aren't willing to pay the ridiculous small fees of software.

Does the work and the effort pay off for the actually non-existing Amiga market?
Does it pay to paint a picture? To write a poem? I'm having much fun with my Amiga and it allows me to put my creativity into something. And whenever a mail arrives from a happy and content user, or when you meet people like the ones at O.A.S.E. in Graz, Austria, the answer is definately: Yes! It pays off!

"Poseidon USB" is now available through "IOSpirit" by Felix Schwarz, what do you expect from this co-operation?
That's simple: So that the users, who want to register, have the possibility to register. Prior to this contract, buying a licence was rather slow via snail mail and not that straight forward.

Given the eagerly awaited new generation computer systems, USB for the classic Amiga computers seems to be a dead horse, concerning development and costs, isn't it?
First of all, Poseidon is not limited to the 'classics'. But you are right: All these announcements (and delaying the release further and further) keep the users from spending their money in existing and available hardware for their old Amigas. That's killing the market and the dealers are suffering from this, too. People still believing that they could get back more than the costs for development, or even make a living with an Amiga product, well, these guys probably have read too much of Platon's "Ideal state" ;)

Is it still worth to invest in new hardware for the Amiga in your opinion?
In fact, with USB you can still use your hardware (except for the controller) on your next machine (whatever that might be, maybe even a Wintel box or MAC?). Even Michael Böhmer doesn't use floppy disks anymore, but instead copies the data onto a compact flash card and just connects the reader to another machine to get the data off it very quickly. And moreover, your old machine doesn't vanish in haze, just because you bought a Pegasos, does it?

For which system (AmigaOS, AmigaDE, MorphOS) are you developing?
I never got curious on AmigaDE, even if the idea sounds nice. Same thing with x86, don't expect to see anything from me in this direction, I think it's a cul-de-sac. Poseidon has been developed for 68K AmigaOS and MorphOS PPC native.

Which operation system are you going to support in future? What are the reasons for you to do so?
Certainly, my old Amiga will be supported until it breaks down into pieces. However, my future path will be definately MorphOS, as the atmosphere is more than plain oxygen there. There're many chances for a good, new operating system. Many people just don't know, how many benefits the AmigaOS has, that you cannot find on any other system. Obviously, large parts need to be designed from scratch. To my opinion, the MorphOS team are the ones, who can recapture and reignite the spirit (I'm sure there are some of the best developers in the AmigaOS4 team aswell). In this team, people are emphasizing more on personal contact and human communcation than on exclusive and commercial contracts. It's not so important to me, what the box is labeled. And the A-Box is just the beginning.

What features do you miss on the AmigaOS for developing?
Hm. Good question. Except for memory protection, which can be added already partly by Guardian Angel, I can only think of a "make what-I-have-in-mind" target.

What features would you wish for the development on the Amiga?
A second monitor and an automatically self-cleaning (non-virtual) desk.

Which hardware or software do you plan buying?
If I ever will have some spare time again, I'd really like to guy a few games. The demo version of Payback was quite impressing and I'd like to see Simon I & II, too. Concerning hardware, I guess some USB stuff (having to write the drivers for it then ;) ) and of course, a Pegasos machine.

Do you believe in a comeback of Amiga?
Does this even really matter? The question is: Am I pleased with my computer system? Can I be proud of it? Do I prefer it to these anonymous wintel boxes or one-button-MACs? What do I really want? That's what matters and nothing else. I'm an Amiga user, because I'm enjoying it (and because I like my student colleagues making fun out of me, still being a poor Amiga guy). Moreover, I do know exactly, why I do love this machine.

Your final words for the readers?
Things fall down. People look up. And when it rains, it pours.