Hacking the PSP Blog

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with McZonk from Team Emergency Exit

INTERVIEW WITH MCZONK FROM TEAM EMERGENCY EXIT

Brought to you by PSPEMULATION.COM and HACKINGPSP.COM

Copyright © 2006 Emuxxx and Auri Rahimzadeh

You probably know McZonk - he's one of the brilliant developers at Team Emergency Exit, one of the most elite homebrew PSP development groups. McZonk is also working on the Quake 2 port for PSP with fellow developer placa. PSPEmulation.com and HackingPSP.com have teamed up to bring you this exclusive interview!

Enjoy!

Auri Rahimzadeh
Author, Hacking the PSP

1) Could you tell us about yourself? Where you go to school and where you live ?

McZonk - I'm known as McZonk on the Internet. I'm 22 years old and from Germany. I study computer science. If I'm not in front of my computer, I skateboard and I play guitar. The Mc is spelled like McDonald's, I think it sounds cool. The Zonk is the prize for the losers in a gameshow.

2) When did you first get into computers and coding?

McZonk - I started with programming when I was 10 years old, with QBASIC. My first program was something easy like calculate a square root or create random beep sounds. Sure, I played a lot on my computer too, but it was fascinating to control the whole computer and not only a figure in the game. In the last 4 years I have become addicted to computer graphics

3) What made you get into the PSP Homebrew scene?

McZonk - A friend of mine imported a PSP from Japan and I was like, “this hardware is awesome,” I read a little bit about the specs. I wanted to import a PSP, too. At that moment all PSPs came with [firmware] 1.5 and after the swap trick came out I ordered one. I was very interested in coding, and with the free SDK from ps2dev.org it really began.

4) How often do you spend time coding on the PSP?
 
McZonk - It really depends on a lot of factors: studies, girlfriend, weather; but normally I spend 2 or 3 hours per day with coding. Not only for PSP. I do high-end shader programming as well as stuff for studies. In the winter it is a little bit more than 3 hours. Since I began the Quake 2 port, I really spend too much time with it. Other than the PSP, I do graphics effects with my GeForce 6. I like computer graphics very much. It is much more interesting than coding business logic with a database. I'll do this for fun as well, as I hope to earn my money with it later.

5) What problems have you had to overcome and how much have you learned while coding for the PSP?

McZonk - When I began working with the SDK it wasn't in a stable state, but the SDK is much better now. I don't like debuggers on a computer. I think it is much better to design your code well, but you always have those little stupid bugs on a PC and it is much easier to find [that way]. When there is a bug in the PSP, it simply shuts off and you think “what da heck is going wrong?” 

I didn't collect new skills while programming on the PSP. With limited memory, normally I only have to optimize my stuff for speed, and normally it should be no problem. If you convert a game written for an architecture with virtual memory, it is ugly. Especially the code from id Software seems to be written to waste memory. I hope John Carmack doesn't read this :D The code is written for speed. Speed and less memory consumption don't fit together.

6) There are many people interested in developing for the PSP. What words of wisdom can you offer them in their quest?

McZonk - Do it! for simple things, Lua won't be the worst choice. But if you really want to get deep into the PSP, C or C++ will be the language of your choice, I cannot advise anyone to begin with the PSP - it is easier to get started with your computer and do coding there for some time.

7) Do you believe Homebrew is truly pushing the limits of the PSP, or is the best yet to come?

McZonk - I think the homebrew scene could be better at the moment. The whole PSP scene is a mess. There are too many people crying for a downgrade for [firmware] 2.60, or they just want to play the newest ISOs [generally, pirated games] on their [firmware] 1.50. It's sick. A lot of good devs feel disrespected by the community and quit at that moment. I play with this thought too at times. I'm really annoyed that each of the Quake 2 threads that I see on PSP sites turn into a "port HalfLife" discussion. It is not the fact that is it not possible; it's the bad feeling not to do the right thing. I will never totally quit, because the PSP is an awesome piece of hardware, but I do think about not doing game port projects again and making demos instead. I have a lot of ideas but I cannot say which one I’ll do. Some of the ideas are bigger PSP projects, too. It will really depend on the community if I do more public PSP stuff again and release it.

8) What are your thoughts on Sony constantly updating their firmware to counter the progress that the PSP underground community has achieved?
 
McZonk - it is Sony's politics and I can understand it. If I have to earn money with the PSP, I also would ensure that the amount of people playing warez is small. I don't really believe that Sony would be so aggressive if there was no ISO gaming. Sure, they aren't really happy about seeing a big Nintendo logo on their PSP screen. The fact is that if you have a [firmware] 1.50 you will always be able to play emus [emulators] and ISOs and I'm really impressed how good Sony is in withstanding the hacking attacks on their firmware, and they have those killer features that people upgrade happily, like the browser in 2.0 (even if I never used it myself :D), and they can force the people to upgrade by locking their games to firmwares. I have an 1.0 and an 1.5 PSP, and I could do game isos if I wanted, but in fact all games I play (there aren't much, Wipeout) I have on umd. I have never upgraded or downgraded one of my PSPs. The only reason for me to update would be "Devil May Cry" on PSP :D

9) What’s your favorite Emulator/Homebrew release for the PSP and why?

McZonk - I really like moppi's flower demo, Callisto. sudoku, scummvm are nice.

10) Have you seen the Urban marketed advertisements that Sony has all over the walls of major cities?

McZonk- I saw some pics on the Internet. Nice marketing idea, but I don't think that it will appeal to anyone to buy a PSP. I'm not a expert, but these kinds of ads don't sucks so much as, say, popups on websites :D

11) What are your thoughts on the PSP Emulation/Development Scene and how can it be improved?

McZonk - The PSP community is very small and so there aren't many developers. The community should be thankful for all the work [that] is already done. I think the devs of the emulators lose their fun in working, because they are really pushed aggressively if a game didn't work or their emus are too slow. Perhaps the devs should support the community sometimes. For example, by releasing tutorials for programming. I wrote some GU samples for ps2dev.org which can now be found in the SDK. The atmosphere in the community could get better. I hope the community will wake up. I hope a lot of people think about the spirit in the scene now.

12) What are your thoughts on Datel’s 4 gigabyte PSP hard drive compared to the Neo5in1 Pad Memory stick adaptor? What do you use? What tools do you use?

McZonk - If you like watching movies on your PSP, the hard drive is a good idea. The Neo5in1 pad is a little bit big I think, but I never had one in my hands, and if you have a lot of other cards why not use this instead of buying a Memory Stick. I use normal Memory Sticks in my PSPs and I have a Logitech PlayGear Amp, but I never watched an UMD move on this – sometimes music. But I need a dock for my PSP because it only stands on the desk, and I can watch it much better as it lays flat on the desk and, very important for me, I can reach the reset switch with this dock :D

13) Who made the PSPset program? What is its primary purpose?

McZonk - Placa did the major work on PSPset. i just wrote the menu and a few lines of code.

14) Quake 2 PSP is a very amazing looking port for the PSP. What was your goal? Who’s idea was it to port Quake 2?

McZonk - Thanks. I loved Quake 2 when it entered the market. I'm a great fan of all id Software games. I thought to do something really big for PSP, I checked different options. I chose Quake 2 because it was a really cool single player mode as well as a nice multiplayer. Quake 3 didn't have the single player strength and would use much more RAM I don't have. Another game I thought about was Syndicate Wars (it is only freeware, but the file formats are known, so it could be rewritten for PSP).

At the moment I hope to finish Quake 2 single player mode. Soon after that I'll add some of the missing features, like sound and some graphic effects. After all this is done, I'll add multiplayer or release the source code to the community so they can add multiplayer. I know that ad-hoc Wi-Fi is not possible at the moment, but it will come someday, and then multiplayer will be possible without a server. Directly from PSP to PSP. If i can play Quake 2 from PSP to PSP, I’ll have reached my goal of this project. You can see a preview video of quake 2 exclusive for the guys of PSPhacking101:

http://www.PSPhacking101.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=3

There is a lot of work that is not done on q2 at the moment. My bug and to-do list is not ending. There are some bugs that are keeping me from releasing it.

If you have more questions about the Quake 2 PSP port, join #emergencyexit@irc.efnet.org on IRC.

15) What will be the in the future for Team Emergency Exit? Can you hint to anything that anyone else on the team is working on?

McZonk - T.E.E will grow, even if I'm not so active anymore. We also work together with other devs, but I'll work together with Titan (www.titandemo.org) and make some cool demos. Placa has a lot of plans. I met Titan at the demo party in Germany the week of December 27. For my dev with tee, I plan some small game ports for PSP. If i have the time to realize them. I don't know now.

16) To end this interview do you have anything you'd like to say to your fans?

McZonk - I have fans? Okay, uhm, then: tee needs more female groupies :D Okay, no jokes.

Thanks to all guys always standing loyally behind all the stuff Team Emergency Exit has made for the PSP. I know there are a lot of trouble makers in the scene, much more than I have expected, but for the group of people who can't wait for Quake 2, thanks for all your support and nice comments and posts, which really helped me not to give up my work.

PSPemulation.com and HackingPSP.com’s Auri Rahimzadeh thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the PSP Community!

We wish you luck in the future, and we obviously look forward to playing Quake 2 when it’s released!

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