Zoop - Hi Frederic !
Frederic - Hi Zoop.

Zoop - When did you get the idea to code PaCifiST ? And why ?
Frederic - I was following the C64 emulation scene for a long time and about 3 years ago I started one (E64) to challenge myself. It was very limited, but sufficient to play my favourite game: The Sentinel. I haven't carried on the development. Early 96, I undertook to code a 68000 simulator in ASM and the idea came to my mind to make an Atari ST emulator of this. One more time because of a game: Colonial Conquest. I've hesitated between an Amiga & an ST emulator but: (1) I have no funny name to give an amiga emu. (2) my PC in those days, a poor ISA 486DX33, was about the speed of an emulated 4Mhz 68000, without emulating any computer hardware. The development of the emu was not regular, and it's mainly after September 96 (when I switch to a new PCI motherboard with an AMD586-133) that I seriously slog on it. Later on, I've been convinced to make PaCifiST public. Then, everything speeded up, for instance with the help of Arnaud Carre, who allows me to include his YM2149 emulation, used in his player STSound (http://www.mygale.org/09/leonard/). Also the feedback that you receive making an emulator is appreciable (except for games & TOS requests as you can imagine).

Zoop - Now the emulation is coming close to perfection (slowly but surely) with PaCifiST, what are your future plans ?
Frederic - I will have less spare time now, but the development of PaCifiST will continue, of course. I'd like concurrently to try an arcade emulator, or at least a MAME driver. Also, if I ever change for a more powerful PC, an Amiga emulator can't be leaved out.

Zoop - And at this time, appart from the emulation itself in PaCifiST, are you thinking about adding new features (GUI, state saving...)
Frederic - It's now hard for me to work on the emulator during the week, but the main priority is naturally to improve the compatibility (in particular the low-level one). A freeze/unfreeze option of the emulated computer state is planed, as is a complete STE hardware emulation. A friend give me the possibility to use his home-made GUI library, but I'll not include it for the time being. Another planed improvement: An enhanced monitor.

Zoop - What do you mean? More options or more user-friendliness? :)
Frederic - Well... Mainly more options: string search/replacement, direct re-assembling, using of a database to have cheats in games... On the user-friendly side: better line editing, last commands browsing and why not a contextual help..

Zoop - Then, keep it up! Thank you for answering my questions!
Frederic - Cya.