GDM News and Information

Thursday August 8th 1996 - More changes!

I've enlisted the services of Web-Counter to provide a "hit counter" on the homepage. This is for my own curiosity - I want to know how many of you are visiting (at least, I think want to know).

I've also added "last updated" dates to each of the main sections, so that you can quickly see where changes have been made. This seems more useful than just sticking "new" stickers on the changed sections!

I've also switched allegiance from Netscape to Microsoft, after a Client recently showed me the latest version of Internet Explorer (3.0 beta 2). If you are a Windows95 user and haven't looked at IE lately, do give it a try - it's free - and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm also using Microsoft's Mail and News programs, which are just as good.

I need you all to start sending articles in, as at the moment I have little time to write. Game reviews, ideas, book reviews, anything, really - please consider sharing what you know with the rest of the readers.

Anyway I hope you like GDMOnline - you can contact me at GDM@PerfectUnison.com.au if you want to pass on suggestions, criticisms, or just chat about game programming.

Wednesday July 24th 1996 - A new home and a new look!

Well, it's been a busy year - as many of you know, my wife left at the beginning of 1995, which while I'm glad of it now was a bit of a shock at the time.

So I've been concentrating on getting my life together, which has been a lot of fun but also traumatic at times. Anyway, I now have a new company, Gameplay Software, which is actually a trading name of the "real" company, Perfect Unison Pty Ltd (hence the domain name!), a wonderful new relationship (Readers, meet Vicky; Vicky, meet the Readers ;), a new home, in fact, there's little left of my "old" life, except for my sense of humour, a few friends, and, of course, GDM.

Which leads me to my point. I am still getting mail (a lot of it), so you must still be reading, which is amazing! So I'll be trying to make some time to get some things done around here from now on, although I've found that now I run a business from home, I actually have less time than I used to, which is the total opposite of what I expected.

I hope you like the first effort into this, which is the "frames", and some new graphics.

Anyway, I have other work to do now. My love and blessings to all of you who have supported me over the last two years - I look forward to hearing from all of you, and to receiving lots of new articles (hint, hint).

Tuesday February 20th 1996 - It's been an eventful week!

Well, the launch has sure had a few dramas, not the least of which have been server problems which shut the site down for two days, followed by the main menu file getting corrupted, blocking all access! Hopefully neither will happen again. My thanks to everyone who wrote to me to let me know :-)

Wednesday February 14th 1996 - Introduction

Welcome to GDMonline! Whether you've been a reader of the DOS version of "Game Developers Magazine" for a while, or you're a new reader, I'm sure you'll find much here that is of interest. The DOS versions of GDM have now been downloaded well over a million times worldwide, or over 10,000 copies per week for two years, so I must be doing something right ;-)

I must point out that neither this site nor GDM have any connection to the print magazine "Game Developer" from the US. Apparently some people have been confusing the two of us. It's a shame that they chose to use the name "Game Developer", especially when GDM had already been going for a year before they started, but these things happen. I'm trying to work with them rather than against them, so hopefully we're not going to have any more problems.

This site has taken almost a year to put together, mostly in coming up with a design which was both attractive and functional. Hopefully I've scored on both those counts, but the final verdict lies with you, the reader.

I've been talking to some major game companies and they have indicated that they will help with this site where they can. At this stage I can't make any promises about what form this will take, so stay tuned!

This site will constantly be under construction, with new bits being added as I receive them. so it'll be worth checking back often to see what's new. Hopefully many of you will contribute articles!

Have fun exploring, and please let me know what you think by using the "feedback" section. Bye for now!

What about the DOS versions of GDM?

Existing readers might be wondering what will happen to the DOS versions of GDM. Well, they won't be produced any more in that format as it's just too much work to produce a Neobook and a WWW version.

BUT, before you get really unhappy about it, read on. You will still be able to download and read GDM just like before, but with a twist. Instead of Neobook, you'll be using Netscape!

Yes, that's right, the same program I hope you're using now. If not, this site probably looks awful, as I've specifically designed it for use with Netscape. You should seriously consider using Netscape if you're not already, and to make this easier you can use the "Netscape Now!" button on the title screen to download the latest copy.

"But Netscape only works with an Internet connection" I hear you say. I thought so too until a week ago, but thanks to Mathieu Guillame I found out that Netscape can run without an internet connection if you use a file called MOZOCK.DLL in place of WINSOCK.DLL.

So shortly you'll find on your local BBS and the usual GDM sites a file containing all the HTML and other associated files that make this net site up, plus the MOZOCK.DLL file, and instructions on how to set the whole thing up. It's very easy!

So you'll still be able to read GDM at your leisure, and it will run a lot faster than the WWW site because you'll already have all the files on your local hard disk!