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16th February June 2002 - It's been a while, but I'm back. Not that much new, apart from some tidier separator bars on some of the games pages. Currently working on a book about the whole British computer boom, hence the lack of site activity. Fingers crossed I'm managed to persuade Matthew Smith to answer some questions for me. We'll see though, because I mailed him with them over a week ago and he hasn't even acknowledged them since!
9th June 2001 - 3000 hits!
5th June 2001 - Come back off holiday to find that my web hosters have moved servers and kindly deleted my site. A major salvage operation ensues resulting in most of the site being recovered. Memo to self: back up the site on your PC more often!
15th May 2001 - Interview with Bruce Everiss added. Bruce was good enough to discuss his Imagine days as well as his pioneering work with Microdigital.
7th May 2001 - Interview with Mel Croucher added. Apologies if it seems a little short and inadequate. Time is short...work, girlfriend, etc. etc.
2nd May 2001 - An interview with Mark Eyles of Quicksilva fame goes online. Quicksilva always embodied the rise of the software house from the bedroom to the boardroom, so it was fascinating to hear from Mark on the subject.
25th April 2001 - The site has moved to www.zxgoldenyears.co.uk. Sadly, Redrival, who hosted my site up to now, have finally admitted defeat and have given up free hosting. They were offering a pay service but I found a better deal elsewhere.
23rd March 2001 - 2000 hits!
15th March 2001 - A mountain of new adventure reviews added. The page is now about a yard long, so I may split it up for convenience.
2nd February 2001 - The arcade section has undergone a similar tranformation to the shoot 'em ups with more reviews and sub-categories.
25th January 2001 - Added a pile of new reviews to the Shoot 'Em Up section. I've also separated them down into sub-categories. Hard work playing some of the older games and then trying to find kind words for them. You always have to take into account how good or bad they must have seemed at the time rather than comparing everything to today's incredible graphics and sound effects. Besides, I believe that a good game is a good game, regardless of how old it is.
9th January 2001 - 1000 hits!
5th January 2001 - Interview with Jonathan Smith added. Doug Burns had managed to track down his old colleague and friend and Joffa was good enough to mail me and answer some questions. Despite my grumbles about the lack of new ideas from Ocean, Joffa (who was responsible for many a scrolling shooter) was undoubtedly one of the finest programmers of the time and I was very keen to hear his memories of the era. To my knowledge, I'm the first person to ever interview him. At least since the days of the Spectrum, anyhow.
20th December 2000 - Site survey added. Not the usual games-based nonsense, but more an effort to reveal the habits and lifestyles of people's Spectrum-owning past. I always imagined that most Speccy owners were just like me, but this is obviously not the case. Hopefully this will give a more accurate profile of the average Spectrum punter. As with the site poll, Pollit.com come in very handy.
18th December 2000 - Site poll added. Feedback is always nice, even if it's negative. I feel the need for a more interactive site, otherwise it's just like a billboard - an unchanging facade for people to look and then forget.
12th December 2000 - New look front page. Gone are the troublesome Javacript images that took an age to load and in its place a couple of gifs that I put together using the WWW Gif Animator. A complete bugger to make the images look presentable, but I'm pleased with the end result.
5th December 2000 - Site search added. An idea stolen shamelessly from Nick Humphries' superlative YS Rock and Roll Years. Most practical on a huge site like his, but a little unnecessary on a site as comparatively small as mine. Still, it works well and looks quite professional.
26th November 2000 - Infoseek search engine added. I decided not to put emulated files on the site. After all, this isn't what it's about, and anyway, what's the point using up valuable megs with data that is held elsewhere on the web? Besides, I hate having to point out that none of Ultimate's games are available.
24th November 2000 - Site receives its 500th visitor - woo hoo! Not bad considering how recently it opened.
10th November 2000 - Further reviews added. There were a heap of spelling mistakes, omissions and general untidiness that needed seeing to as well. The site was rattled straight off in HTML with little regard for neatness, so there was always going to be a need for this kind of overhaul.
21st October 2000 - Site opens and is shamelessly plugged on comp.sys.sinclair newsgroup. Good initial response...phew!
5th May 2000 - Interview with Doug Burns. Great to hear an insider's view on the business, especially when I spent those years on the other side of the divide, buying the games and marvelling at the excitement of the scene. Doug obviously still holds plenty of fond (and some not so fond) memories of the era.
March 2000 - Games survey made. Lots of plugging at CSS to direct people to the site and offer their opinions. End up with hundreds of responses. Just superb.
February 2000 - Site template set up. Based very much on my old site, i.e. very unfriendly to Netscape. Sod it.
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