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  • Jason McMillen on Delphi.org Podcast

    Jim McKeeth of RemObjects runs a streamed podcast called the Podcast at Delphi.org where guests sit down to talk about various Delphi and other development related topics. He just posted his latest podcast with Jason McMillen, co-founder and current manager of the Pascal Game Development community website.

    In the session Jason talks about the community, events and game development as a whole along with topics ranging from the new Delphi XE2, education, the Object Pascal language it's self and various other projects as discovered by the PGD community as a whole.



    The talk was noted by Jim McKeeth as very informative and runs for a total of 1 hour and 18 minutes. You can listen to the podcast with Jason McMillen as guest at www.delphi.org.
    Comments 17 Comments
    1. Legolas's Avatar
      Legolas -
      That's cool! Great podcast, Jason!
      My English listening skills are way too poor to fully understand it, but I liked it.
      Btw, thanks for the "young gentleman"
    1. masonwheeler's Avatar
      masonwheeler -
      Hey, good to see you featured on there! I mentioned PGD to Jim once or twice back when we worked together. It's good to see you guys getting some exposure.
    1. pstudio's Avatar
      pstudio -
      Fine interview. And congrats on getting married.
    1. Andru's Avatar
      Andru -
      It was interesting.

      // Congrats with marriage
    1. code_glitch's Avatar
      code_glitch -
      Definitely a good podcast - I still like the bit where he's all like WTF, people make games with this?!

      Although I already said gratz on the marriage anyway.
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Thanks everyone for your congratulations on my recent marriage. The wedding was a great time and we are both very happy.

      I am also very happy that Jim and I got the chance to do this podcast. It was fun to do. There was so much to say however and I really felt a little overwhelmed with all that had to be said on the topic. How do you sum up 10 years of pioneering and amazing projects into 1 hour and 18 minutes?

      It was also my first public podcast so maybe I could have been a bit nervous and unsure of what it was like to be on the receiving side of one of these kind of interviews.

      That said I'd love to do it again and get even more exposure for not only the PGD community but as indie developers too. I'm still in touch with Jim and we've casually talked about doing another more round table talk with a few other friends not too far from now. I'll probably be looking for another indie developer to tag along so I don't feel so outnumbered in case there is someone like Marco Cantu or David I. There as well. Who is up for PGD rock star status?
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Oh and I have to correct myself! Sorry to Relfos on my slander; Sushi Quest was based off of the LEAF engine NOT the CAST II engine.

      At least the CAST II engine got a mention as well.

      BTW any other big projects that I missed? Was there something that you would have liked me to talk about but didn't get mentioned in the podcast? I can always have it brought up if I end up doing a future podcast.
    1. LP's Avatar
      LP -
      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      BTW any other big projects that I missed? Was there something that you would have liked me to talk about but didn't get mentioned in the podcast? I can always have it brought up if I end up doing a future podcast.
      Well, you did not mention Turbo, which existed long before PGD. It was news site about game development, which had many useful links to Delphi resources. This is an important historical omission.

      DelphiX was mostly outdated after 2000, UnDelphiX took its place in about 2001-2002, being a non-legal modification. At that time, former Asphyre called PowerDraw, a DX8 alternative to DelphiX already existed in its standalone form.

      Also, you did not mention any of Asphyre-based commercial games, or other related games, some of which you know because you replied there. Neither of our games, Aztlan Dreams, Wicked Defense 1 and Wicked Defense 2 were mentioned. Sounds like a bit of unnecessary personal bias.
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Yes turbo wasn't mentioned, that's true. It could be brought up in a round table discussion if someone how had ties to the site were to come join for the next one. I don't know that it would have been overly relivent to the birth of PGD alone, but like delphigamedev and delphi3d and all the other sites, it did make up the general Internet landscape of the pascal game development community back then.

      As for all the games, oh man I ended up mentioning only very little of what was made by everyone. I even left out Magic Storm's titles, Luuk's amazing genesis engine, Jan Horn's SULACO site with Quake2Delphi. So much to say with only an hour to say it in. I will definitely be making a list of things that I missed and make a point of mentioning them next podcast chance I get.

      Don't worry I know very well Asphyre's importance to the community and I intend to talk more about it for a bit next time. In fact I'd like you you to join me in the next talk if you can find the time Yuriy. You would have so much to add to the round table that even I wouldn't have known.

      On that note everyone please retweet, post on message boards and send/post the link to the podcast to all those who would be interested to know about this stuff. Even post a link or make a news announcement on other game programming forums. Let them all know where it's at.
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      I had a good chuckle at this part: "FireSquirrel", "ChromeMonkey"! hahaha

      Overall, a very interesting talk...thanks Jason!!
    1. LP's Avatar
      LP -
      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      I don't know that it would have been overly relivent to the birth of PGD alone, but like delphigamedev and delphi3d and all the other sites, it did make up the general Internet landscape of the pascal game development community back then.
      I don't know if other PGD founders share your point of view, but that's too arrogant if you ask me.

      Delphi3D site started on April 18, 2001, see here (see the first "welcome to Delphi3D post"). Turbo existed long before this, heck, even Asphyre(PowerDraw) existed by this time. DGDev (http://www.dgdev.tk) doesn't exist in archives, so can't check its starting date. Many people found about DelphiX straight from Turbo, which, by the way, also had game development forums. It's one thing to be proud of the community you run, another thing is to conveniently forget what started it all.

      You, other PGD founders and developers including myself are not getting any younger, Pascal's Game Development history is an important aspect that should be remembered accurately, even if there are some parts of it you don't like.

      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      As for all the games, oh man I ended up mentioning only very little of what was made by everyone. I even left out Magic Storm's titles, Luuk's amazing genesis engine, Jan Horn's SULACO site with Quake2Delphi. So much to say with only an hour to say it in.
      Please don't take me the wrong way. You asked what was missing in your interview, I've answered your question. Unless, of course, you don't consider the games I've mentioned "big projects".
    1. Eric's Avatar
      Eric -
      @Jason: Congrats! And obviously it wasn't possible to mention everything, but any bit to help raise awareness helps!

      @LifePower:"You, other PGD founders and developers including myself are not getting any younger"
      Alas... that is awfully true.

      As for ancient history, GLScene started way back in the last century, I couldn't find any older archive than July 2000

      http://web.archive.org/web/200008180...ution/GLScene/
      http://web.archive.org/web/200008180...ne/history.htm

      but Mike still has an old version of GLScene that was targeted at... Delphi 2! (and it's not even the first version of GLScene)

      http://www.soft-gems.net/index.php?o...d=30&Itemid=35

      That was wayback in 1996/1997. I'm not entirely sure DelphiX yet existed back then, as the oldest version I could find for it was Delphi 3. The Delphi hardware-accelerated 3D and gaming history goes way back to the first 32bit version of Delphi, and ran on the very first 3dfx cards through MiniGL.

      Feels like another era...
    1. LP's Avatar
      LP -
      Quote Originally Posted by Eric View Post
      but Mike still has an old version of GLScene that was targeted at... Delphi 2! (and it's not even the first version of GLScene)

      http://www.soft-gems.net/index.php?o...d=30&Itemid=35
      This is very cool. Thanks for the link!

      I myself found about GLScene much later, I think in 2003. I remember Quake3 did not run on my 3dfx Vodoo3 and ran pretty choppy on my brand new TNT2 back in 2000-2001; Unreal Tournament did not run well on anything other than Glide. OpenGL support was very experimental back then, it's great to know GLScene pioneered it.

      However, I still think Turbo contributed to a certain degree and motivated the creation of PGD along with other communities, just as well as Asphyre/PowerDraw did to the forthcoming DirectX wrappers. Just because Jason found about DelphiX in 2002 does not mean it was de facto standard at that time. Also, if there was similar community not unlike yours before you, I think it is good to be humble and mention it out of respect. Sure, Turbo got closed and PGD continued to exist and I'm very grateful that Jason among other people tried very hard to keep it running, but it's sad that Turbo was not mentioned in this interview.
    1. Eric's Avatar
      Eric -
      I agree, Turbo contributed a lot indeed, as it was kind of the main hub to get news of what was going on (both through the posts and the forums).

      Another defunct website, not Delphi-centric, but still accessible, and arguably still a quite relevant resource these days was flipcode. Delphi applications made several Image Of The Day there. There is still a wealth of great source snippets and articles there.

      A Voodoo 3... most of my initial 3D stuff were on that and the Voodoo Banshee before it. Quirky as hell.
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Quote Originally Posted by Lifepower View Post
      I don't know if other PGD founders share your point of view, but that's too arrogant if you ask me.
      Well I think your use of the word arrogant is a bit of a reach. I didn't purposely forget the turbo site or all of Steve Wilson's contributions for any malicious or prideful ambitions. Such reasoning may seem a bit much. I do agree with what you say that it did have a great impact on a lot of what we have now today and I wish that I did remember to bring it up in my talks, but alas it was a point in the history of Pascal game programming that I probably slipped up on and didn't give it it's due. I'm human I missed something important. My apologies to anyone who I may have let down by this.

      However like I stated before there will be another opportunity to bring it up in a future talk with the good Mr. Jim McKeeth who I have been talking to about doing another session with some time either just before Christmas or maybe around February when I'll be back home again. (I'm traveling a lot these days, it gets tiring, but I'm visiting new places which is kinda neat.) I would actually like to invite more people to the next podcast session, for a couple of reasons, but mostly to help spread all the knowledge and information that the community needs to share and get out there.

      In future talks I'd like to talk more about those big commercial/freeware game project releases, especially all the ones I missed. If I can help to get the history right, that would be cool. In fact... I'd love to add a chunk of information about how the community all started with the dates and times of key projects such as DelphiX, PowerDraw, GLScene, turbo, etc in the PGD FAQ section. Hey I'm getting older these days and my wife keeps accusing me of forgetting everything, maybe she's on to something?

      Anyhow lets keep this all positive, I sort of feel like I'm being accused of things here, nothing was done out of malice just love of the community and in the spirit of trying to get out a whole monolith of information in a teensy 1 hour timeframe. Please keep listing off the things you all would like mentioned for the next one, I'm listing everything and so far all suggestions have been good. Do keep in mind as well that, it's not my podcast so it all has to sort of fit into an appropriate theme for him to make a show out of somehow.

      I would like Yuriy to join me in the next podcast, if he is willing? Who doesn't want to hear the creator of one of the most important game libraries, Asphyre for Object Pascal give his 2 cents? Lots of knowledge and history there. Would anyone else want to join in on a round table discussion about the community and the games and libraries involved?
    1. Eric's Avatar
      Eric -
      I hope I didn't came out as accusing, if so, I'm sorry, it's great to have someone keeping the lights on, and for a first podcast, it actually came out quite well. These things are always way more complicated than they sound.

      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      Hey I'm getting older these days and my wife keeps accusing me of forgetting everything, maybe she's on to something?
      Hmmm...either that's a universal wife thing, or that's a universal husband thing

      Some history page sounds great, the trap to avoid will be the retiree club feel, "ah young one, those were the days"
    1. LP's Avatar
      LP -
      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      Anyhow lets keep this all positive, I sort of feel like I'm being accused of things here, nothing was done out of malice just love of the community and in the spirit of trying to get out a whole monolith of information in a teensy 1 hour timeframe.
      No accusations were implied. I've noticed that in the discussion you didn't mention Turbo and didn't want to bring it up until you asked what was missing.

      My note on arrogance was about your specific reply, paraphrasing "although Turbo and other sites made the landscape back then, they did not contribute to creation of PGD" where I think you were wrong. I'm sorry if I misunderstood what you meant.

      By the way, being on this topic, there is one thing in the interview where I think you should be more careful. In the podcast, your phrase "I think the community members are playing nice and if not, I will make them" does sound like hubris (see "modern use"). I think you should try to avoid these claims as they may give wrong idea about the community you run and especially about yourself. Sorry to bring this up in public discussion, but you haven't replied my latest PM so your mailbox might be full or something (by the way, there is another issue regarding lost/corrupted PMs becoming empty posts with 1969 date, I don't know if you are aware of this issue.)

      Quote Originally Posted by WILL View Post
      I would like Yuriy to join me in the next podcast, if he is willing?
      I've mentioned you by your name and not second-person pronoun ("you") when replying to Eric's posts. It's hard to address multiple people in one post. Please don't be offended. As for the podcasts, sure, no problem.