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Jeff Drew Interview
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The interview started at 22h00 GMT.
sardaukar_siet: So, can we get started now?
Jim Drew: Sure.
ClockWise: Thanks for coming, Mr. Drew... much appreciated.
Jim Drew: You're quite welcome.
sardaukar_siet: First, let's do introductions...
sardaukar_siet: Mr Drew, tell us about yourself, please.
Jim Drew: What would you like know?
ClockWise: Some background stuff... when you started in this field, etc...
sardaukar_siet: Yeah
ClockWise: What products you have done
Jim Drew: I started programming in 1976.
Jim Drew: First computer was a PET2001. 8K RAM, built-in cassette recorder.
sardaukar_siet: Wow!
ClockWise: Classic :)
Jim Drew: I was born and raised in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
sardaukar_siet: By the way, check out www.computingmuseum.com for info on the PET
Jim Drew: My father was a museum currator, and needed a computer to keep track of
the museum's inventory.
Jim Drew: (1 million items)... needless to say, the PET wasn't sufficient. :-)
sardaukar_siet: yeah
Jim Drew: I had one of the first PETs available... the one with the tiny display
and little keyboard. I STILL have the computer.
sardaukar_siet: Still ? Wow again
Jim Drew: I have every computer that I have worked with (except main frames).
Jim Drew: Apple ][/][+, TRS80, C64, C16, C128, B128, +4, 8032, SuperPET, etc. etc.
sardaukar_siet: PET was a Commodore product, right ?
Jim Drew: Yes.
Jim Drew: I was the Oregon state technical rep for Commodore.
sardaukar_siet: You were ? Wow !
Jim Drew: I worked very close with Commodore for a long time.
sardaukar_siet: How did you react when it died ?
Jim Drew: I don't know... we still sell a LOT of Commodore stuff... so, in my
eyes, it has not died.
sardaukar_siet: Did you worked with Amigas?
Jim Drew: I think I did around 60 commercial products for the C64.
Jim Drew: Yes... the Amiga still is the best computer ever made.
sardaukar_siet: Ok :)
Jim Drew: Everyone has the Amiga to thank for FUSION-PC.
sardaukar_siet: In Portugal, the 4000 series is still VERY used
Jim Drew: Same in the U.S. The video toaster is still a great product.
sardaukar_siet: Well, tell us of Emulation
sardaukar_siet: what made u start ?
Jim Drew: Well.. that was an absolute accident. :-)
Jim Drew: For about 15 years, I designed commercial duplication software (tape and
disk copiers).
Jim Drew: I designed a product for the Amiga called, "SYBIL". It was a hardware
device that allowed the Amiga to read/write virtually any disk format known.
Jim Drew: It could duplicate every trick in the book.
sardaukar_siet: Wow!
Jim Drew: As a by product, it could also allow the reading/writing of 800K
(low-density) Macintosh disks.
sardaukar_siet: Did that use the left-side expansion port ?
Jim Drew: No.. it plugged into the video port and parallel port.
sardaukar_siet: Video port ?
Jim Drew: Yeah, the Amiga's video port has all of the clocking lines.
sardaukar_siet: Oh
Jim Drew: Basically, by altering the frequency of the entire Amiga (which
controlled the clocking for the floppy controller chip), you could vary the data
rate for read/write operations.
sardaukar_siet: Sounds very tricky...
sardaukar_siet: Could it copy Macintosh copy-protected disks ?
Jim Drew: Yes, it could copy ANYTHING.
Jim Drew: At that time, there was a Mac+ emulator called, "AMAX". It was sold by
ReadySoft (the same people that made Dragon's Lair and other Laser disc based
games)
Jim Drew: ReadySoft asked me to make a version of SYBIL that could be detected,
and allowed to be used with their A500 version of AMAX (which was a little board
that plugged into the floppy port).
sardaukar_siet: Floppy port ??
Jim Drew: Yes, they read the ROMs through the floppy port... interesting idea...
it also had an external floppy port for a real Macintosh floppy drive.
sardaukar_siet: cool
Jim Drew: At that time, Mac drives were about $200 each. SYBIL was $89.
Jim Drew: So.. we came to an agreement that we would make a special version just
for ReadySoft.
Jim Drew: ... then, after completion, ReadySoft decided to not use our version and
were going to be able to check for it and disallow its use!
sardaukar_siet: ReadySoft really did bad with that
sardaukar_siet: Didn't Apple got mad at all that copying thing?
Jim Drew: Nope, Apple said nothing.
Jim Drew: That little project cost us about $100,000.
sardaukar_siet: Geez %(
Jim Drew: We were so mad about what happened that we decided to make a Macintosh
emulation of our own and compete with ReadySoft.
Jim Drew: So... we made the world's first full color Macintosh emulation!
sardaukar_siet: Oh, that was the start of Fusion, right ?
Jim Drew: Nope... FUSION didn't come for another 6 years.
sardaukar_siet: did it took that long for your product to finish ?
Jim Drew: The product was called, "EMPLANT". It was basically a MacII motherboard
on an Amiga plug-in card.
sardaukar_siet: That sounds expensive.
Jim Drew: It took about 8 months to design and debug the entire product (which
sold for $399).
sardaukar_siet: And did it sold ?
Jim Drew: It had AppleTalk ports, SCSI port, etc. .. just like a real Macintosh...
and we sold a ton of them.
sardaukar_siet: How did ReadySoft react ... ?
Jim Drew: They tried to compete by making a color version of their software, which
was short lived, and we put them out of the emulation business.
sardaukar_siet: You still have any of those boards ?
sardaukar_siet: Because I own an Amiga 600 ;)
ClockWise: Was Microcode Solutions in existance at this time?
Jim Drew: Nope... Microcode Solutions was not formed until August 24th, 1996.
Jim Drew: The boards require an Amiga with a Zorro slot.
sardaukar_siet: Zorro ?
Jim Drew: The is the name of the Amiga's plug-in socket... like ISA or PCI.
sardaukar_siet: Does the 600 feature one ?
Jim Drew: No.
sardaukar_siet: DAMN
sardaukar_siet: I just bought it a mont ago
Jim Drew: We do have FUSION for the Amiga, but it does require a 68020 or newer
CPU (which the A600 does not have either).
sardaukar_siet: yeah
sardaukar_siet: guess i'll stick with SpindDizzy Worlds.. ;)
Jim Drew: Utilities Unlimited International, Incorporated was the name of the
company that Joe and I worked for, and produced EMPLANT, MAC Lite (Software only
version of EMPLANT), and eventually FUSION.
sardaukar_siet: Joe ?
Jim Drew: Joe Fenton
Jim Drew: One of the programmers of FUSION-PC
sardaukar_siet: Still works with you ?
ClockWise: Does it still exist? Did you found it?
Jim Drew: Yes.
Jim Drew: Yes <- Joe still works with me. UUI went out of business in August of
1996.
ClockWise: When you left... ;)
Jim Drew: UUI went out of business because of ShapeShifter
Jim Drew: I formed Microcode Solutions on August 24th, 1996.
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