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Today Fabio Trotta talked to Mathias Roslund, a very busy AMIGA user. That`s because of his many projects for us

1. Mathias, how long are you an AMIGA User for now ?

I bought my first Amiga, an A1200 in January 1994, so it's almost 7 years now.

2. Why do you prefer the AMIGA ?

I like the look of the OS and the fact that it's easy to figure out which part of the OS does what. Anyone who have used Windows or Linux knows that there are like millions of files all over the place and it's usually hard if not impossible to figure out what they are good for. Also, rebooting my Amiga usually take just a few seconds while rebooting Windows easily take minutes. This is rather important since it's quite easy to crash both Windows and AmigaOS while testing software and coding

3. What computer stay`s on your desk ?

Currently it's an A1200T with a BPPC (040'25, 603e'200, 128MB) and a BVisionPPC. The tower is an Infinitiv-II. I also have a 30GB harddrive, a 48X CD-ROM, a 100MB ZIP drive, M1438S monitor connected the the Amiga video port and a SVGA monitor connected to the BVisionPPC, Bubble jet printer, modem and other essentials.

4. What are your non-computer related hobbies ?

I used to play the piano, but currently I rarely find time for anything but coding.

5. What are your favourite games ?

On the Amiga? I would have to say The Settlers, Pinball Fantasies and the Cannon Fodder series. My all time faves are all on the C64, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and Wizball. All of which I've spent countless hours playing with friends. I do enjoy playing games like Colin McRae on the PSX with my friends as well

6. How long are you a coder ?

I guess I started a short time after I got my first computer, a C64 sometime in 1988 if I remember right.

7. You must be a real arcade fan, are you ? Because you brought us many emu`s.

Well, actually no. I rarely play any games using them, I just like coding and find emulators really fascinating. DarcNES/Amiga is the only emulator I've used more than 10 hours totally playing games.

8. How do you find the time for the many commercial and private projects ?

The only private project currently is AMP. The emulators are only ports and once the initial port is done, it usually just take a few hours updating the Amiga port since I know where I need to change what to make it work.

The commercial projects are on highest priority ofcourse, but since I've been a student until very recently, I've had a lot of time to spend on whatever I like but I'm afraid I'll get less time for coding now that I've started my first real job.

9. How do you choose, if a program is good enough to get ported by you ?

First I try it on the original system, if I have access to it, and make sure that I find it usefull. Some people have asked why I've not ported any SNES emulator, and the answer is simple. I've never owned a SNES, or known anyone who has, so I have no interest in any of the games released for the system and therefor I wont port any SNES emulator.

10. What about a descent2, Hexen2 and Alien Vs Predator port ? Get together with Steffen and the Frieden`s or something like that... just joking

Well, if I had any interest in those games, I would give it a go, but I don't.

11. Are there any persons helping you on your projects ?

Not really. The original authors have sometime helped by answering some questions, and I've had help with the first Handy port from Richard Bannister who ports it to the Mac. Back then I wasn't used to fixing endian bugs and thus I needed help to get it working.

12. What are your actual projects ?

Currently I'm focusing on Freespace but also try to find time to work on AMP as you might have noticed from the number of previews released. The emulators aren't really my projects as I only port them. The only emulator I've contributed to is DarcNES/Amiga for which I've done some work on the Coleco Vision driver.

13. What was/is the best game console ?

The Sony Playstation probably. I've never been so amazed by a consol as when I got my Playstation at the official release date. The graphics compared to what I got from my Amiga, probably with just a B1220 back then, was really amazing.

14. What is your favourite emu ?

Currently it's definately DarcNES/Amiga. Not only is it a joy to use, but it has also got some of the best looking sources I've ever seen.

15. Why wasn`t there any Super Famicon emu from you ? Don`t you like it ?

Read my answer to question 9.

16. What about the hardware renderer of FPSE ? Do you have any idea, when or if it will be ready ? This would be great !

A MiniGL version has been more or less finished for several months. The problem is that it generally is slower than the software renderer, probably related to the way the Playstation handles textures and the fact that I need to convert them from 16bit to 32bit since it's the only format supported by GL as far as I know. A Warp3D version would probably be quite a bit faster, but I've not had the time to have a deep look at it yet.

17. What do you think about AMIGA`s plans and the AMIGA One ? Is this the right descision ?

Hard to tell. I like the idea of being able to "compile once, run anywhere", but unless Amiga can convince game and software developers that AmigaDE is THE platform to develop for, they will never succeed. I would love to be able to run AmigaDE on my PS2 though (got one today at the official release date in Europe)

18. Any statement on the actual AMIGA situation ?

If the number of Amiga users have been reduced as much as the feedback I get on my projects during the past year, then the situation is really bad. With the first versions of AMP, I probably got 10 e-mails a day for a week after each release. And now I've probably gotten a total of 10-20 since the first preview of AMP2.

19. And at last, a nice comment for our readers.


I would like to thank all of them who have registred AMP and all of them who keep sending me feedback for every release I make of AMP or any of the emulators. I will stay with the Classic Amiga for as long as I keep getting feedback, and probably a lot longer since I just love this machine, but a single e-mail can often be enough to make me motivated enough to spend an entire weekend coding, so if you have anything to say, no matter if it's something positive or negative, don't hesitate to write!


Thanks for the time, and good luck on your forthcoming projects.

You can look at Amidog`s Projects at http://www.amidog.com.