SS'99 - Interview: Volga Soft.

            RESEARCH / VOLGASOFT



             DR. STS / VOLGASOFT



              BEAVIS / VOLGASOFT


     (Ed. - Here V - Volgasoft)


     CPU: What are you currently
projects and plans, just curious to know ...


     V: At the expense of projects, how to say
advertise not hunt, but here's all sorts of
DIGITAL REALITY some DOOM 's doing
do ...


     CPU: Well, you at least tell me, the timing
Output can be silent ...


     V: Well, at this point is 2. 5
year written HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC,
made engine, remains a combat mode, I
sound under the engine written by a map
this, the sound is written in ASM 's all over, then I
compiler already under it did, the sound will be global, 
graphics, drawing Renat, Beavis which graphics will be just 
Otpad, everything worked out, it is 2. 5 years almost imagined, 
well, kodilas little by little. Explain how igruha done

I should struynik, I take grabber'om
RIF-a marketing image, print it, it goes
Renato, however, under the matter had
pC-shnyh HEROES 's gouging, because
where all these details to find out, we had to write a utility 
to open map there is still something, well up to that level 
until which, in principle, we have seen enough.

The only thing that prevents all learn from
all sessions, for example, I have been in this
year degree in college, and I 2 months
the past does nothing ... Next what is written DUKE NUKEM 3D, 
which does Dr. STS. Well, Che explained, wanted to

people do DUKE, dashed off under this
it fills, dashed off everything, I before
sitting down to do a diploma, they understood that under
Monsters do not have enough memory, in short, that is, the 
monsters will be a vector-potting ... 


     CPU: Full screen will be ...?


     V: adjusted to screen size, it is best to look at the 
turbo, though Fill the fastest, most optimized already

nothing. Tell me about the code part, because
what do you do it.


     STS: The code is often quite grim in itself, on the wall, 
in general, almost nothing is wasted, a cunning method, and 
brake will be mainly in drawing small stenochek, fans, other

small detalyushek ... In short, we estimate, we must sit down 
to write dos4gw only under Spectrum, memory is not enough, and 
put people at 256 kilobytes or more can

only in this malicious method, ie, make a virtual disk on a 
floppy disk, so I already sketched out the work, I have a 
directory just covered, now restored ...



     CPU: Well now, because many people have more 128-kilobyte 
... 


     V: Well, you know, I have so far 128
and I have enough and the memory use
only if you copy all, no one
risks igruhi write more than a 128
pounds, because buying will not, and so
if you write dos4gw, yes, let's say
need to load a new monster, it will
shake from a diskette, who screws or 256
kilobytes, everything will be less transparent, and who has 128 
KB, they hesitated, it was time to go to the market for RU7-mi, 
otherwise, people just do not transplant, and for us in 
principle, because it is more convenient, ie, under our HEROES 
memory has been a little bit left, say, I have now are the 
source COUNTRY Dragon, so there is a schedule there was one 
page, and I was there all monsters must fit, ie, I'm from VIRT

GROUP inherited COUNTRY DRAGONS, source code, in general, has 
decided it is completely shoveled, throw out everything and 
make a turn-based strategy just as it can? "I do not know, 
maybe I better give up COUNTRY OF DRAGONS to hell and sit down, 
say, for NEROES with DUKE together to do because

that even though I am the organizer of all-only, but
anyway, work, somehow missing. T.
e. is hanging on my sound, to me hanging print
these pictures, for example, there Pullout
graphics, etc., etc. Although Dr. STS is working too well 
either ... Until the monsters however, still is not reached, we 
are flagging them in the vector form of transfer.



     CPU: Well, it seems, are not going so far
throw Spectrum ...?


     V: While HEROES 's not completed yet, no.
Here are the current projects - HEROES, DUKE, and
we'll see, basically, what I still do, I do, image viewer, 
already or rather, did, which zip'am climbs,

ie, assume here remember when the schedule came out with FUNTOP 
'a, it's awful was, we download it from the INTERNET 'a 
somewhere In February of this year only. Could

do something, that's viewer someone could
writing, graphics zip'e occupies 1,005
sectors, viewer occupies 22 sectors, and
where a person says that the guys some
something there is packed, pictures popihali how much it will 
take is not knows. And this viewer climbs until

only on the first picture in zip'e, supports the method of 
normal, but on what is convenient pC - There is a packer 
ZX-ZIP, pack method normal, perhaps you have emulators,

probably know. Well, everything, no problems with delivery 
schedules do not. 3-color'y I also pack my all zip'om, ie, 
viewer and also looking ...



     CPU: But the question is, now,
when sales of games and programs in general
reduced, as reflected, now, the small of your products be 
bought, though steep, but still, buy them a few at your work, 
consider it as a case principle - to do or how to ...?



     V: Do you know how I came here to St. Petersburg from 
Togliatti, so we gathered a group of us there Speck decayed 
rather quickly, year as a 96-m sorry that was not born

network - so he started to stall, just
everything was done on the alternative basis,
ie, we have already got used to it, ie,
would it - our hobbies, we make it easy
for pleasure. About the volume of sales we
know, but once ugrohali 2. 5 years on
this is the case, why even 1. 5 years old on
it is not ugrohat. You see, not enough people of Speke, right? 
But pC coders still less, I have no one to work, for example,

Well someone knows how to draw something, but the volume
code such that it is not pulled over the solid work on projects 
of 50-60 people, and on the Spectrum they are at least 
necessary to someone, here, Let's say that Beavis 'a no pC, in 
STS' a either, we have many do not have pC-Cove,

only I still have a couple guys Amiga,
all, and play in Raven Black, and so
etc., I have, say, pC covered or
will take someone popolzovavshis, so at
my floppy pieces 20, there ASTRO MARINE
CORPS, BATTLE COMMAND, etc, took
joystick with microswitches, starting
sausage or kodit ...


     CPU: Well, that is really up to you to wait
your projects ...


     V: Yes, it really worth the wait, but the timing
not been determined, firstly, the main coders
not here, he learns in a very complex institution, but it 
works, albeit slowly, but works, here's the schedule for 
engin'a already all drawn, for another battle begins razhima

drawn, it is likely the most
hardest part ...


     CPU: You have not seen a demo version too HEROES 's, I 
think, from Khabarovsk ... 


     V: We would like them skonnektitsya,
but something we have failed, with the graphics was
divergence, and another man in St. Petersburg
did it, I think, name is Vladimir, he
We gave our graphics, just a difference in
What, someone makes 2 * 2, for example, familiarity of the 
workers, we do 3 * 3, because 2 * 2 vlepit nothing there, in 
Khabarovsk, about him we know nothing, nothing not seen, heard 
nothing. HEROES - This, in principle, very complicated thing, so

e engine we need to debug, editor
levels ...


     CPU: A schedule will be a color?


     V: Always color, mode
battle, of course, do not promise, because it is very
would be difficult to animate color graphics,
Now, let's get inside the castle where, then, too, all the 
color and so on and so n., well, that is, a professional artist 
... Well What else can we make a GENERAL SOUND

this case, we have specialist is Dr.
STS, who wrote the RIFF TRACKER.
GENERAL SOUND, his biggest problem
Many people say, myself, could Renata
would be easy to solder, no scheme, I who
knows how to do it just broke,
Spectrum needed to do something
unloading fees ...


     CPU: By the way, in his journal we present a new card with 
very good parameters, it is written by the editor ... 


     V: DMA SOUND that?


     CPU: Yes ...


     V: bad, very bad, GENERAL SOUND
than convenient - it in itself, ie,
hangup music companies will still be
play. And what is this, tell me just ... Th where it is? Some 
DMA controller, right? 


     CPU: A dick knows we do not zhelezyachniki.
Just to drive the magazine we have all the schemes and 
everything else. Here we are presenting it, look it up 
yourself, may like ... 


     V: Well, maybe if we collect,
in principle, in St. Petersburg just a chip, for example, here 
in Togliatti, we did not buy a normal circuit, ie through 
Moscow all or from somewhere voruetsya ... 


     CPU: Well, basically, in our city
zhelezyachniki now engaged in this, a fee
been diluted only slowly, the truth ...


     V: About the editor, here's to the Doctor
come permanent orders, then the kakoynibud PETERS slyapat 
editor, it is still something ...



     CPU: We, too, will soon be the new
editor, about this issue already
is, in the next issue will probably be ...


     V: A long time ago done igruhu, well
probably in the 97-th year, is called
PROJECT X. Until now, FORMAT ninth does not go so far does not 
extend the demo version, I do not know what they're slow, in 
general, igruhu, in my opinion, with the Amiga was removed, so, 
realtaymovaya, in general, I do not know, you'll be here 
tomorrow, so ...? 


     CPU: No, it turned out that tomorrow
we are leaving and will be here somewhere before the 11
hours because the train with us in 11-30,
or simply had to wait until Tuesday,
or to leave tomorrow ...


     V: Obviously, I'd just brought a demo to even play ...


     CPU: Well, we here in the morning before
11-...


     V: Well, I'll try to 11
appear here if they have the equipment
will work, or a floppy disk dragged
then. The main thing - to find this demo in
Basically, I have my floppy to a CD
flooded, it was business zaparnoe, of course, but
it is itself worthwhile. Now the 200 free disk space. By the 
way, I do not know constantly complain about magazines, 
newspapers, that the gland bad, why, for example, do not take 
articles from the Internet, and do not start shoving them in 
magazines, many ZX-NET 'a no ... 


     CPU: Duck and make, say, tezhe DEJA VU, there always is 
found ... 

     (Editor's note. - On some kind of commotion, which is why 
everything is broken, and igruhu we never saw true, then we 
have it still got, like some of you who have been raped 
ZX-FORMAT # 9 where there should be, according to our 
assumptions, a demo version of this igruhi, and for those who 
have not seen before - like the Rostral INTO THE EAGLE'S NEST.)