Interview with Calamity

[Calamity]

Thanks so much to Bob from RetroRGB for this interview:

[donluca]

Watched it this afternoon, great interview, I really enjoyed it.

And I appreciated that you mentioned all the people that have contributed to what we have now like Sailor Sat and Andrea, I still remember them and both soft15khz and AdvanceMAME.

Great times.

[makya]

That was cool! And hey, I'm with you on the "atmosphere". 

[buttersoft]

Ahhh, i hadn't even thought of this happening, but now it has i realise it's well overdue!

Thank you for sharing, Calamity

[R-Typer]

Thank you Calamity!!!

[Zebidee]

Great interview!! Many amazing tidbits of info.   

I especially appreciated learning about the development history, collaboration and building on work of earlier pioneers. I will have to watch it all again.

Also interesting to see why you support AMD cards by preference - because they use open source drivers, makes life much easier.

You have some interesting stuff on your bookshelves, like that mini-CRT

[cfou!]

interesting indeed.

@Zebidee
The 'mini-CRT' must be an oscilloscope;)

[Giddygoon]

It was nice to see the face behind all the hard work and also hear your passion for the end result, i hear ya and you made it work, thank you

[Zebidee]

@Zebidee
The 'mini-CRT' must be an oscilloscope;)

Quite possibly, yes.

The blue rectangle thing, on the shelf below that CRT, was proudly made by me! It is a VGA GreenAntz RGB-to-Component transcoder, which Calamity kindly tested for me with his BVM (takes both RGB and component inputs) last year.

[Calamity]

The blue rectangle thing, on the shelf below that CRT, was proudly made by me! It is a VGA GreenAntz RGB-to-Component transcoder, which Calamity kindly tested for me with his BVM (takes both RGB and component inputs) last year.

Glad you spotted it 

[PL1]

You have some interesting stuff on your bookshelves, like that mini-CRT

The 'mini-CRT' must be an oscilloscope;)

Yes, it is definitely looks like a Tektronix oscilloscope.

Can't tell exactly which model from the video, but it appears to be one of their 2000-series scopes like a 2215 or 2246.
- Calamity's scope doesn't appear to have the 016-0677-02 pouch shown in the pic.  It is on a flexible mounting plate that wedges between the front and rear bezels and is easily removed.




Scott

[Calamity]

Yes, it is definitely a Tektronix oscilloscope.

Hameg HM 203-4 

[PL1]

Yes, it is definitely a Tektronix oscilloscope.

Hameg HM 203-4 

I stand corrected.   


Scott

[Recapnation]

Nice! I'm not a master of anything actually, but you're a monster of dedication and will to help.

It was awesome then seeing how you got the freaking games running at their correct refresh and built a user-friendly environment, how you broke Window's stupid barriers, how you even modified other emulators, how you cracked AMD's BIOS, and how you listened with the input lag issue. I remember those days before GM as we know it (and way before social networks!) trying to convince the people on the most specialized gaming/PCB collecting forums that a virtually perfect emulation under Windows had to be possible, and basically everybody laughed at me. And not because of the everlasting emulation bugs or the lack of the necessary documentation, but due to the hardware discrepancies, which indeed killed the immersion in one way or the other. Of course, I've been secretly laughing at them ever since I met Calamity. Please, do never get bored of this. We owe you so much.

[donluca]

I remember when I used to spread the word about GroovyMAME and tell people about frame delay and how you could get perfect resolution/refresh on a CRT monitor and people were like "yeah, just get a RaspberryPi, it will be fine anyway".

It was a different time and I definitely had another level of energy, now I just wouldn't stand an argument over the internet that goes on for more than a week with the other side acting like a rubber wall, constantly bouncing stuff back at me, whatever point I make.

[Paradroid]

Watched this all the way through yesterday. What a joy!

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

[abispac]

So the rumors where wrong, i felt bad when calling mr calamity to mr calamity as some folks stated he was a she.  Thanks mr calamity for your hard work. 

[Recapnation]

That must be because he turns into La Temible Calamidad every other Saturday night, but don't tell anyone.

I remember when I used to spread the word about GroovyMAME and tell people about frame delay and how you could get perfect resolution/refresh on a CRT monitor and people were like "yeah, just get a RaspberryPi, it will be fine anyway".

It was a different time and I definitely had another level of energy, now I just wouldn't stand an argument over the internet that goes on for more than a week with the other side acting like a rubber wall, constantly bouncing stuff back at me, whatever point I make.

That's a later fight I never fought, fortunately, and the second reason why Eiusdemmodi was born. A shame it couldn't be fully realised, but hey.

[MK3FANATIC]

Take a doubt, (I don't want to kill you for that lol) (I watched the interview with subtitles, some things are not clear to understand) in a part of the interview around 14:00min I seem to understand you saying that Windows has a small advantage over Linux regarding latency, is that it? One part I liked was about the filters imitating crt screens, which in a photo actually looks like a crt screen, but in motion it looks very different.
Thank you Calamity for all your efforts, your work is really amazing! Very cool interview!

[dekkit]

The blue rectangle thing, on the shelf below that CRT, was proudly made by me!

    *cough* *cough*  with a chunk of help from a friend *cough* *cough*



Calamity big thanks for everything you've given to the community! love hooking up my PC to my CRTs - such awesome work and great interview!!

[donluca]

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that he didn't reveal to the world his personal scale of fakeness that I've been so proudly been showing in my signature for all this time.

[Zebidee]

The blue rectangle thing, on the shelf below that CRT, was proudly made by me!

    *cough* *cough*  with a chunk of help from a friend *cough* *cough*

  Yes, and thank you, I need more opportunities to highlight that dekkit is both my good friend and also my collaborator with designing GreenAntz, I did not do it all by myself.

Dekkit is not as active on the forums as I am, but he contributed to GreenAntz development equally, and that should be recognised. It is a joint project, and would not have been as good without that collaboration. We both gained a lot from this, and I am both thankful and proud of that.

As for my exact words above, I *did* proudly make the GreenAntz on Calamity's shelf myself - as in, I assembled it, tested it, calibrated it, made extra specialised cables so he could connect it to his BVM via SCART (this was actually the bigger job). Made the GreenAntz to the design that we developed together.

Full disclosure: I did all that for free - Calamity paid nothing. It was the least I could do.

Calamity big thanks for everything you've given to the community! love hooking up my PC to my CRTs - such awesome work and great interview!!

Honestly, we are all in Calamity's debt. He has provided us with a great tool for our hobby and my appreciation overflows. Thank you, so much  /o\

If anybody is looking for a way to contribute in a substantial way to Calamity, I suggest looking for the Paypal button on the Eiusdemmodi site as an easier option.

[buttersoft]

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that he didn't reveal to the world his personal scale of fakeness that I've been so proudly been showing in my signature for all this time.

Not verbatim, but he went pretty hard on there being no substitute for CRT, no ifs no buts

[Zebidee]

CRTs definitely are special. Personally not interested in any non-CRT displays for my arcade stuff. There is lots you can do with a basic 15khz display.

One day I guess people will have no choice. They either won't remember, or can't see stuff on CRTs anyway because they are all gone and the tech skills to make them have been lost. The emulation of CRTs for modern screens might be better, but less people to remember how it really was.