Who is skmp?
Stefanos Kornilios Mitsis Poiitidis - programmer, hardware tinkerer, artist. Known online as skmp, formerly drk||Raziel.
Handles
| Handle | Context | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| skmp | Primary handle since ~2011 | ||||
| drk\ | \ | Raziel | Teenage persona, EFNet IRC (2007–2012). "drk" from darkan (a group with kohi), "Raziel" from Soul Reaver 2 | ||
| drkIIRazi, drky, drk\ | \ | Whee, drk\ | \ | Razi | IRC variants |
| @poiitidis | YouTube, X | ||||
| @skmp | GitHub, LinkedIn |
Timeline
- Early 2000s - First projects in VB6. basicboy, vchip8, thundervb.
- 2005 - Begins work on dc4ever / nullDC with ZeZu.
- April 1, 2007 - nullDC released. An April Fools' joke disguised as a Dreamcast emulator. Custom dynarec with IL, backends for x86/ARM/MIPS/PPC. Dreamcast and NAOMI support.
- June 2007 - First blog post on drk.emudev.org.
- 2008 - Acquires emudev.org during the financial crisis. Starts nullDC/PSP port (Lite only). NAOMI support.
- 2009 - New dynarec IL with x86/ARM/MIPS-Allegrex backends. BeagleBoard port (ZeZu). Wii port. tsc8 soft-core CPU in VHDL.
- May 2010 - Open sources nullDC on Google Code.
- September 2010 - PS3 cross-compile working. Donations drive for hardware.
- December 2010 - nullDCe running on Android. PPC rec improvements triple Wii speeds.
- 2011 - Reicast era begins. nullDC reborn for mobile.
- 2013 - Meets Swiss colleagues in a coworking space. Simple SoC meetups at hackerspace.gr.
- 2014 - Moves to Zurich.
- 2015 - Invited to NVIDIA. Capital Controls hit Greece; family suffers. Publishes "Negative Memory Addressing" technique for endian conversion.
- 2017 - Private traumas that echo for years.
- 2019 - Public conflict with libretro over Reicast fork naming. Fork renamed, peace found. fpgadc project.
- 2020 - COVID. Returns to Greece. Founded nilware.io. Invited to work on FEX-Emu.
- 2021 (Dec 22) - EOLs Reicast after years of burnout and community friction. Apology to Flyinghead.
- 2023 - nilware.io disbanded. devcast created. Falling out with FEX-Emu; apology to Ryan.
- 2025–2026 - DCA3 (GTA ports to Dreamcast), DCUE (DreamCast Unity Exporter), bloom.elf, Croft, orgasm, cubed. DC DevTools suite. This website.
Associations
Core collaborators:
- ZeZu - Co-author of nullDC core emulation code. ARM/BeagleBoard/OMAP3 work.
- PsyMan - Long-time IRC regular, emudev.org contributor. 3,664 messages in #nullDC.
- Flyinghead - Succeeded as Reicast/Flycast maintainer. "Capable leader."
- Ryan - FEX-Emu founder.
- kohi - Part of the original "darkan" group.
- gigaherz (Tears of Fantasy / PCSX2)
- Falcon4ev, cotton, shuffle2, nogagplz, Malk1th
- pSXAuthor, ector, BlueCrab, megadelux, Exophase
- BlankCD01 (Android testing), PSPdemon (PSP videos)
Modus Operandi
Technical:
- Writes emulators, dynarecs, and low-level systems code. C/C++/Assembly primarily.
- Thinks in terms of IL (intermediate languages) and multi-backend code generation.
- Values elegant solutions over brute force - invented the negative memory addressing technique for endian conversion, designed multi-target dynarecs.
- Profiles obsessively. Published IL opcode frequency analysis of Shenmue running on nullDC. Measures before optimizing.
- Ports everything everywhere: PC, PSP, Wii, PS3, Android, BeagleBoard, Dreamcast hardware itself.
- Recent work: web-based dev tools (pvrtex.js, refsw-web, SH4 pipeline simulator, AICA DSP playground). Unity-to-Dreamcast pipeline (DCUE). FPGA reimplementation (fpgadc).
- Night owl. Peak IRC activity 00:00–06:00. Has crossed the 60-hour coding barrier on nullDC sessions.
- 576 active days logged on IRC (2009–2012). Most active in #pcsx2 (41,920 messages), then #dolphin-emu (9,226), #nullDC (4,052).
- Most productive years: 2009 (20,413 messages), 2010 (22,983 messages).
- Works in bursts. Long periods of silence punctuated by intense activity. "After many many many many many months of inactivity i finaly started some real work."
- Direct. Blunt. Sometimes caustic when frustrated.
- Doesn't always reply. Often lurks.
- Strong opinions about open source licensing - open sourced nullDC despite having no obligation, but resents when the code is reused without credit in closed-source projects.
- Capable of public self-reflection and apology. The emudrama retrospective addresses past conflicts honestly. Apologized to both Flyinghead and Ryan publicly.
- Persistent. Keeps returning to projects despite trying to leave. "Some habits are too hard to break."
- Impatient under stress. Private traumas amplified public conflicts.
- Self-aware about his faults. Acknowledged being "aggressive and stepping on people's toes - without intent" and having "a severe mental health crisis."
- Philosophical about code. "For most complicated things C++ has exponential code writing, and code size, but only linear speed decrease."
- Designs PCBs for fun. Described it as "far more fun than writing huge amounts of code that's not gonna get released anyway."
Self-Description
Ασχολούμαι με emulators, FPGA, DIY ηλεκτρονικά και τέχνη. Από τα πρώτα projects σε VB6 στις αρχές του 2000, μέχρι το nullDC, το Reicast, τη δουλειά στη NVIDIA, το FEX-Emu, και τώρα το DCA3 και το devcast - ο δρόμος ήταν μακρύς και ενδιαφέρον.
"I work with emulators, FPGA, DIY electronics and art. From early 2000s VB6 projects to nullDC, Reicast, work at NVIDIA, FEX-Emu, and now DCA3 and devcast - the journey has been long and interesting."