Due to the brothership between the Euskal Encounter and the Lleida Lan Party, this year RetroEuskal starts its activities in Catalonia, within this Lleida party, freak as few.

Specifically, and following the main focus of this year's Lleida Lan Party, RetroEuskal offers two invited talks and a panel of great interest about the exciting world of past and present arcade machines. Together with other projects of the Lleida Lan Party (like invited talks on building MAME-based arcade machines), the invited talks and panel of RetroEuskal'08 offer the historical vision and techniques of machines that in the old good times made us become addicted to arcades and that today have their own place at homes of some lucky or handy people.

The first arcade machines in Spain, the past and present of videogames in Europe and Japan, the experience of creating and exhibit an arcade machine in a museum, the vision of a well-known emulator creator. All this, and whatever attendants may propose, will be found during the speechs and panel of RetroEuskal'08 in the Lleida Lan Party 5.

The invited talks and panel will take place in Saturday April 26 afternoon, in the conference area (see map) of Lleida Lan Party (room 4 of the Lleida Trade Fair). Entry is for free.

In this link you can find information about travelling, lodging, and eating. High speed RENFE AVE trains provides accurate travelling from Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and some other spanish main cities.

Panel

"Remaking Dreams: The Yin and Yang of Arcade Machines"

Subject: The world of arcade machines, from very different perspectives: building, exploitation, and emulation, presented from an historical and present point of view.

Panelists:

Javier Valero. With 39 years of experience in the videogame industry, he can be proud of first-hand knowing the core and anecdotes of this sector. When he began as technician repairing Pong machines, probably he did not suspect that in the future he would set up one of the most important companies in the area of arcade machine (Gaelco), after different jobs related to the development and commercialization of videogame hardware and software. This vast experience allows him to offer a unique point of view in the evolution that this kind of electronic entertainment has experimented since its introduction in Spain.

Miguel Ángel "ElSemi" Horna has reached a notable popularity on the Web as the author of several arcade machine emulators, which overcame problems never solved before, as the emulation of systems Sega Model 2 and CPS3 of Capcom. His work has been recognized world-wide and he has actively collaborated with the MAME team many times. ElSemi is also the author of other well-know emulators, such as CPS3 Emulator, Model2 Emulator, and Nebula.

David Guaita began as videogame programmer in 1988 (Silent Shadow, Soviet, Olympic Games 92) and nowadays he is a recognized professional in the area of infography and digital effects for publicity and movies (his artworks can be consulted here). Very knowledgeable of Japanese culture (as shown in his popular documentary "Explosión Anime" (Anime Explosion), among others, as well as his section in the TV program "Cuatrosfera"), David currently lives in Japan and from there he produces and presents in Canal+ the TV program about videogames "Jugones". (Photo courtesy of Plus.es)

Date and time: Saturday April 26, 2008, 16:00-18:00

Invited Talk #1

"A Museum Arcade Machine"

Invited speaker:

Jaime Cornejo (Videogame developer in the PlayWireless company, collaborator of MIGS)

Data and time: Saturday April 26, 2008, 18:00-19:00

Subject: Development of arcade machine emulators. Impressions of an active collaborator in the MAME project

Invited speaker:

Miguel Ángel Horna 'ElSemi' (well-known author of arcade machine emulators such as CPS3 Emulator, Model2 Emulator, and Nebula).