Site History
This is an archive of the site's development, for anyone who gives a damn.
When I first started this site, I used Sausage Software's Hotdog as my HTML editor, due to the fact that it wasn't some stupid-ass p&c editor like the unusable Front Page by Microslop. About half-way through to the point where the site is at the time I'm typing this, I switched to an even better editor, one that smokes Hotdog like a hand-rolled cuban. It's called Homesite, by Allaire. It's way smaller than Hotdog, with more flexibility and automation of repetitive commands. Check it out! And no, this isn't a commercial, I just really like the program. All image manipulation is done using the excellent Paint Shop Pro, by JASC Software. It's the smallest, fastest and most powerful image editor on the market, imo. The game snapshots you see littered about are taken from various emulators, such as MAME (arcade games), PC Atari (Atari VCS), CCS64 (Commodore 64), ADAMem (Coleco ADAM/ColecoVision), Reagle Beagle (Atari 5200 Supersystem), V7800 (Atari 7800 Prosystem), the Intellivision EmuPacks from the Blue Sky Rangers (Mattel Intellivision), O2EM (Magnavox Odyssey2), CINEMU (Cinematronics arcade games), AppleWin (Apple II), among others I'll probably be mentioning later.
Well, since I wrote all that up there, I've since changed my workflow a bit. I'm lazy now, and do the HTML coding in Dreamweaver. Keeping on the Adobe theme, I do all the image manipulation with good old Photoshop. The emulators still stand.
I should also mention that in the nearly 10 years that I've been developing on this site, I have gotten married and had a two wonderful sons. All the great stuff listed below not withstanding, they are probably my greatest distractions... and my greatest inspiration too. I particularly dedicate this site to Sherry, who not only prods me to work on the site, but demonstrates great patience when I thereby get wrapped up in editing, tinkering and adding things here. I love you, babe.
Sounds that try to distract me while working on the site: ·Anything by Pink Floyd (pre Waters departure) and Roger Waters ·The Tragically Hip -- Fully Completely, Up To Here, Road Apples, Trouble at the Henhouse ·Holly Cole -- Girl Talk, Blame It On My Youth, Don't Smoke In Bed, Dark Dear Heart ·A Clockwork Orange/Music From the Soundtrack ·Tank Girl -- Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack ·Hole -- Live Through This ·20 Years of Stony Plain -- Disc 2 ·Q107--Toronto ·Y95--London ·102 The Edge--Toronto ·CBC Radio One ·Those great classical music channels up around the 750 channel range on Rogers ·Anything by The Squirrel Nut Zippers
Cinematic images that pull my eyes away from the monitor occasionally and refresh my creative juices: ·2001: A Space Odyssey ·Akira ·Aliens ·Beauty and the Beast (Disney) ·Being John Malkovich ·Being There ·The Blues Brothers ·Brazil ·Cheech and Chong's Next Movie ·Citizen Kane ·Clerks ·Clockwork Orange ·Close Encounters of the Third Kind ·Dawn of the Dead ·Dr. Strangelove ·The Dead Zone ·Forrest Gump ·From Russia With Love ·The Fugitive ·Full Metal Jacket ·Ghostbusters ·Ghost in the Shell ·Goldfinger ·Hard Core Logo ·Heavy Metal ·Killer's Kiss ·Ladyhawke ·La Femme Nikita ·The Last Temptation of Christ ·Any Monty Python Movie ·O Lucky Man! ·Paths of Glory ·Pink Floyd: The Wall ·Pinocchio (Disney Animated) ·The Professional ·Pulp Fiction ·Raiders of the Lost Ark ·Raising Arizona ·Reservoir Dogs ·Schindler's List ·Secret of NIMH ·The Shining ·Spartacus ·Star Wars Trilogy (original!) ·Tank Girl ·Taxi Driver ·The Terminator ·True Romance ·Up in Smoke ·Videodrome ·WarGames ·To Kill A Mockingbird
Electron images that pull my eyes away from the monitor occasionally: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ·The Colbert Report · Nova · The Simpsons · The Twilight Zone (original series) ·Medium ·The Office (U.S. version) · Fringe
Literary authors who yank me out of reality and who I don't have to worry about their stuff crashing: ·Douglas Adams: The Dirk Gently series - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series ·Simon Callow: Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu ·Douglas Coupland: Microserfs ·Alan Dean Foster: With Friends Like These... - ...Who Needs Enemies? ·Neil Gaiman: Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett) - The Sandman series ·John Irving: The Cider House Rules - The Hotel New Hampshire - A Prayer for Owen Meany - The World According to Garp ·Anything by Stephen King, excluding that middle junk like Gerald's Game ·Dean R. Koontz: Lightning ·Terry Pratchett: The entire Discworld series - Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) ·Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens: Star Trek: Prime Directive ·Peter Straub: Shadowlands - The Talisman (with Stephen King) ·Matt Ruff: Fool on the Hill - Sewer, Gas & Electric ·Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward - Spares ·Neil Stephenson: The Diamond Age - Snow Crash ·Bruce Sterling: The Hacker Crackdown ·Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, excluding Player Piano ·Christopher Hitchens: God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything ·
What's New: Summer of 2007
- Two new sections added, anything to keep from researching new articles, heh. They are: 8 Bits of History, which is a pictoral evolution of videogames, and Full Motion Vidiots, a webshow featuring running commentary of those awful FMV games that were all the rage back in the day.
What's New: Spring of 2006
- The site gets a huge upgrade, with Flash integration and conversion over to php to handle the new dynamic content.
What's New: July 11, 2000
- As part of my continuing campaign to source all of the entries here at The Dot Eaters, I've taken to updating the earlier entries as I go. I have now completed the updated Player 2 Stage 1 page, which includes substantial new information on Death Race and Space Wars. Not to mention, a vastly improved Breakout entry, facilitated by information generously provided by none other than Steve Wozniak himself! I don't want to seem like too much of a bootlick here, but...the Woz rulez!! You can currently see my correspondence with him at his great website, located thusly: Woz.org.
- In drops some pretty substantial additions to the early-history sections, pretty much across the board from Higinbotham to Bushnell, including new images and information. A nice little update to the VCS entry as well. Plus the prerequisite addons to Timescapes and some new links, to boot.
- Added a bunch of information to Timescapes. Mainly the 1958 entry.
- Made some fairly substantial additions to the Infocom entry, Player 4 Stage 1.
- Added some more avi's. I've also started a movement to add acknowledgements to the various sources I've used. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of records when my drives crashed, so if anyone feels they've been missed, please let me know. Started on the next entry too, here's a hint: It will be an addition to the home console section.
- I've started to add some avi's for some arcade games. Thanks to Slabbi for those.
- *sigh*. I'm really, really sorry people, but...THE NEW PAGE IS UP! And it's a monster, too. I was thinking of splitting it into two parts, but it's hard for me to tell how long the load time is on average, because I have a cable modem. Heh heh heh. So, if I get enough complaints about the loading time, I'll split it up. It covers the laser game mayhem that swept arcades in 1983-84. Enjoy!
- More tinkering. Added yet even more links, and did some changes to the Asteroids entry, including adding an image of Atari's Cosmos, their prototyped "holographic" hand-held gaming system that gave birth to the eventual arcade blockbuster.
- Um, more minor changes. Added some links, and did some changes to the Space Invaders entry.
- Well, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Unfortunately, no big update quite yet. Thanks to a number of things, such as a busy schedule, along with two hard-drive replacements and the subsequent complete loss of all files pertaining to the site. I'm slowly rebuilding everything, however. Right now, all I can offer is an update to the Intellivision entry. More to come soon, I hope. P.S., I've also added some new links to the links page.
- Just some general tinkering, including some new Timescape entries and a few new links on the links page. But the new page is coming along nicely, with lots of info coming in on the people involved. Expect it posted pretty soon into 2K. Have a great holiday season!
- Don't look now, but there's a new entry up. This one a look at the creation of the biggest game company of all time. My grateful thanks to four major players during the early days of EA for their help with this story: FreeFall's Jon Freeman and Anne Westfall, Pinball Construction Set creator Bill Budge, and EA founder Trip Hawkins.
- No, I didn't slip in the tub and break my fool neck. I could probably come up with at least 100 reasons why the site hasn't seen a major update in a couple months...but I'll just say: the next entry is a real monster, and I'm still waiting for pieces of it to come together. That said, I still am also tweaking various entries here and there. Plus, there's a new email address if you want to get in touch with me, and finally: the site got a mention in PCWorld's "Digital Century" article. Check it out!
- Some major renovations to the first Pimordial page, plus an image addition to the Intellivision entry. And I've added a search field to the homepage, seems to work pretty well I think. Thanks to the dudes at BeSeen. Ummm..that's it, I think.
- Some tinkering, mainly with the VCS entry. Oh and hey! I got a write-up in The Computer Paper. Check it out! http://www.tcp.ca/1999/9909/online/game10/game10.html
- More additions to the VCS entry. As well, I've added some more info onto the site history page, concerning what I'm using to produce this site. For anyone who gives a damn.
- A new, much needed update to the Atari VCS/2600 entry, describing the genesis of third-party game makers Activision and Imagic, that's what!
- A new entry, believe it or not. Concerning the bloodletting the videogame industry took in 1984-84, when every videogame system in North America went belly up at the same time. The horror...the horror...
- Thanks to the push from Slabbi, I'm grabbing a bunch more sound samples myself for posting, with most of them going to the last couple of computer entries like Ultima and Epyx.
- I've changed tack on the next update, so it's gonna take me a little bit longer to get it out, this compounded by a nasty bit of business with my 64 meg RAM DIMM going bad and making me think a HD format was needed. Heh. Anyway, I've also added some Sinistar sounds to the Williams/Defender entry, thanks to my German counterpart Slabbi. Beware, cowards!
What's New: April 26, 1999
- Did some fairly substantial additions to the first pre-history page, including a revision of the Higinbotham entry and the Odyssey article. Expect even more changes in that one soon. Also added Ralph Baer's excellent and informative website to the links list.
- Messaged the new entry a bit, and more importantly, finally deep-sixed the stupid oscilloscope image in the Higinbotham entry and replaced it with one less anachronistic. My grateful thanks to Arnoud of the great Tektronix museum (see links list) for the pic.
- What we like to call around here a brand new entry, which pretty much wraps up the intial pre-crash home system listings. The plan for this section is to add a page about the wacky stuff that went on during the big videogame meltdown of 1983-84, and then continue with Nintendo et all. When I first visualized this site, I thought I'd probably end it with the crash, just cover all the really classic systems and be done with it, but I've come to the conclusion I just don't want to stop. There's plenty more interesting stories to tell, Nintendo Vs. Sega, Nintendo Vs. Sony, Sega bails, 3D0 sinks...there's just no end to it. Meanwhile I guess I'll bring the arcade and computer sections up to speed. No rest for the wicked, guesses I.
- Dusted off the links page, and have added some more interesting information to the early games. Off topic, I'm sure glad Futurama has started, because it was as funny as this weeks Simpsons was UNfunny. In ten years, I haven't seen a worse episode as that crapola bible reference one. Blech.
- Added quite a bit of new info to the pre-history entries, along with some additional info to the Asteroids article.
- Okay, the wait is over. New entry, Stage 5 in the arcade section. Two of some of the greatest sounding games around, one of which marks the debut of one of the greatest videogame programmers in history.
- Stanley Kubrick died today, at age 70. Anyone who has checked out my links list may have noticed that he's one of my other obsessions outside of videogames, as he made some of my favourite films, including Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Clockwork Orange. To say the world has lost one of its greatest filmmakers is a gross understatement.
What's New: March 5, 1999
- Sorry about the delay in updates (this is a familiar refrain of mine, I know), but I faced down some exams at the end of the month, along with a move, so as you can imagine I was a wee bit busy. When I log back on after reconnecting my phone, I see that Yahoo has added me to their catalogue and I've gotten as many hits over three days as it took to get over the entire year this site has been in existence! Plus about the same amount of email! Sorry if I haven't responded yet, I'll probably go through the rest of it later today. Thanks everyone for your congratulations and corrections, which I should be also be enacting today, at least as many as I can. The next entry will be in the arcade section. Later!
- Replaced that dodgy Donkey Kong cabinet scan in Stage 4 of the Arcade section. Much thanks again go to Jeff (Tac) for that one. Also, I've come to like Verdana as the body font...not only is a sans font easier to read, it also lays itself out on the page better...wraps around the images real nice.
What's New: Feb 9, 1999
- Monkeying around with the font...I really liked the look of that Garamond, but it seems to alternate between sizes every once in awhile when you load up a page for some reason. Did anyone else notice that? I couldn't specify a size, cause the 1 was too small, and the 2 was two big! So I'm making due with Verdana for the body text font. We'll see if it starts driving people nuts. Heh. Also added a slight but historically significant addition to the Epyx entry, along with some nifty sounds from Impossible Mission.
What's New: Feb 7, 1999
- Well let's see...added a couple new graphics to the Origin/Ultima entry as well as a nice pic of Marc Blank to the Zork entry, moved the links page around yet again and added some more links to it in the process, and oh yeah, added the 1983-84 entry to the Timescapes Timeline. I've also added some of my magazine ad scans to EmuAds, located elsewhere here at Emulators Unlimited.
What's New: Feb 5, 1999
- Somehow, a new entry has appeared. This one in the computer section, and on Epyx, maker of some of the greatest classic home computer games ever. Special thanks to Scott Nelson, one of the programmers of seminal C-64 game Summer Games, for his time in answering some questions about the game's history.
What's New: Jan 28, 1999
- More links to the links page, more slight improvements on the graphics. I varied a bit with some of the newer images, and it turns out that the transparents can be seen at some lower screen resolutions, so I'm slowly replacing them. Sorry it's been awhile since the last entry, the next computer stage is going a bit slow. Shouldn't be too long though.
What's New: Jan 20, 1999
- Added more of my favorite links to the links page. I have a feeling that page is gonna be in a constant state of flux. Heh.
- Watched Eddie Murphy's The PJs last night. Damned if it isn't the funniest show on TV since The Simpsons. Check it out...the distinctive claymation in the show is done by Will Vinton, the same guy who created those wrinkly old California Raisins a few years back.
What's New: Jan 17, 1999
- Welcome to The Dot Eaters V.2.0. It's been a pretty long time since the last update, but I guess you can see why. Along with the graphics overhaul comes two new pages, a links page and an archive of past What's New entries. Also on that page are some of the things that take up whatever free time I have left from working on this damn site. Heh. If you have an URL you think I should consider for the links page, please feel free to send them along. Hope you like the improvements!
What's New: Dec 15, 1998
- More text refining, adding some extra tid-bits of info here and there.
- Replaced a couple of images in the VCS/2600 entry.
- Fixed the Defender divider bar on the very first page...that was the first divider bar I ever made! Heh. Always bugged me there wasn't any thrust behind the ship. Looking at the detailed graphics on that game, thinking how it came out in 1980...just unbelievable how advanced that game was. Eugene Jarvis r0x j00!
- Oh, not too much. Just a brand new entry! Forget Dreamcast...experience REAL cutting-edge gaming technology in the new home videogame stage.
- Trimmed some more text, added some more late-breaking info.
- I'm thinking of doing something with the site's font...like changing it.
What's New: Dec 9, 1998
- Added some more lines to various Timescape dates.
- Replaced a couple of images from the early history...just a few that always bugged me. Heh. Did some text refining too.
What's New: Dec 8, 1998
- Some renovations done on Timescapes, with a slight adjustment on the navigation scheme and addition of the 1980 entry.
- Added a New Entry! graphic to the sections that are updated.
- Trimmed a few graphics, and noticed that I forgot the 1993 turkey Mario Bros. movie, so I added some info on it in the Donkey Kong entry.
What's New: Dec 6, 1998
- When you weren't looking, I added the Pac-Man/Donkey Kong page. Tanks go to Tac for his magical 'files of many images'. Heh. Read all about the Alpha and Omega of the modern videogaming era. Section 2, Stage 4.
- Also, in light of the recent, renewed attacks against the emulation scene by the rabid pitbull known as the IDSA, I would like to direct you to my own take on the situation. Either click here or on the Boycott! button at the bottom of your screen. This is a dangerous situation for lovers of classic game emulation, so arm yourself with information!
What's New: Oct 23, 1998
- Finally finished and uploaded the massive Mattel Intellivision entry, one that I hope is worthy of the great machine. You'll find it under Player 3 in the drop down navigation list.
- Speaking of navigation, I also added a target on the main page so that when you click on the menu part of the navigation image map at the bottom of each page, it'll jump right to the menu buttons and drop down list...looks much nicer.
What's New: Oct 16, 1998
- Okay, I finally added a handy drop list on the main page to aid with navigation through the site so you can find the stuff you're looking for more easily. Added my two-cents introduction to go along with it. The next stage for the Home Videogames section is coming along nicely...looks like one system is gonna take up the whole page. Stay tuned!
What's New: Oct 10, 1998
- In goes the new stage for the arcade (player 2) section. Fans of Gorf should be happy. Heh. If anyone has any information on this Ms. Gorf that was supposedly released in 1982, could you send me some mail? Tanks. Oh, and as you're probably no doubt already aware, the site has moved to yet another address...the Emulators Unlimited site has been nice enough to offer to host me. That way I won't have to worry about creating my own emulator page to show how you can play most of these great classics, as emuunlim looks to be one of the more concise pages out there for all your emulation needs. Tanks again, guys!
What's New: Aug 28, 1998
- Added navigation aids to the bottom of the pages. Makes it easier to jump around the site, doesn't it? Thanks to Shane Monroe, creator of one of the better classic game emulation sites, for the help on 'em. My plan is to javascript them so the menu just pops down from the arm...One of These Days (I'm Going to Cut You Into Little Pieces).
What's New: Aug 15, 1998
- Thanks to the hard work of Stephan Slabihoud, The Dot Eaters has gone international. The German language edition URL is posted above. Thanks again Stephan for your interest and dedication in translating the site. If anyone else has interest in mirroring the site in their own language, please drop me a line and let me know. Auf Wiedersehen!
What's New: Aug 4, 1998
- Well, sorry about the huge delay in updating, but I've moved, and as you can see the website has moved along with me. I now have 10 megs of FTP space to work with on this new ISP, so now that I've got two stages into each section I'm gonna work on creating more graphical and cohesive links between sections. Which reminds me, I've added the second stage onto the computer games section. So check it out.
What's New: June 15, 1998
- Hey, Player 3 just got to Stage 2. Wow, he's good.
What's New: June 14, 1998
- Added the second arcade section, Player 2 Stage 2. Now working on the second stage of the home consoles. Probably gonna move these What's New's to their own page too. Heh.
What's New: June 10, 1998
- Gave Cinematronics' Space Wars a much deserved entry in Stage 1 of the arcade section. Cinematronics is a highly overlooked games manufacturer from the classics era...their groundbreaking vector games held their own against heavier promoted Atari and Sega product. They also helped pioneer the quickie fad laser gaming, which we will ddefinitelydeal with later on. Still at work on Stage 2 of arcade games...coming soon.
What's New: June 9, 1998
- As you can see, I've dropped poor old Computer Space for a jazzy new title graphic. I should have been compiling the next arcade section, but what the hey? This is my site...so back off, man!
What's New: June 7, 1998
- Revamped the Nintendo Legal page, added a letter I've sent to Nintendo and other companies and media outlets. Also added an article on the emulation battle by a reporter from the San Jose Mercury-News. Took the annoying "Angry Mario" background out and moved him to a small pic at the top. I also did some miscellaneous additions to other pages, probably the most interesting is an addition of an excerpt from a 1971 flyer from Nutting Associates, detailing the various aspects of their new game, Computer Space. It's in the Primordial section, Player 1 Stage 1. I'd insert the whole thing but it's huge, like 200+k even when reduced to 256 colours. So if you wanna see the whole thing, email me and I'll send it along.
What's New: June 4, 1998
- It's been awhile, but I've started the 4th section, computer games. Stage 1 goes from Wumpus to Zork. Also, I've switched everything over to an 800x600 layout...sorry to any 640x480 holdouts.
What's New: March 29, 1998
- Started off the arcade section. Added a new game-related divider bar to this page.
What's New: March 24, 1998
- Finished Stage 1 of home videogame section with the VCS entry and images. I'll start off the arcade section and move to computer games...I haven't started the research on that yet and I'm anxious to veer off that way for awhile. Then back to Stage 2 of home videogames. Of course, none of this is written in stone yet. Heh.
- Actually I think I'll drop in the 1977 Timescape entry first before all that.
What's New: March 13, 1998
- Made some major changes to the Timescape system. The various date links go to the non-framed version and jump to the specific Timescape date. The link on the main page goes to the sseparateentity framed version of Timescape, which has been overhauled. Hurry up with that javascript, TonyD, so I can re-incorporate the whole thing. Heh.
What's new: March 12, 1998
- Finished the text of the early history section...now I just have to post the various images.
- Added some system images to Videogames...RCA Studio II and whatnot.
- Added arcade PPONG home PPONG and Telstar unit images to Stage 2. Gotta find some screenshots and then we're laughing.
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