The History of Megazeux
By Exophase
- The original version of MegaZeux was publically released sometime in 1993 by Greg Janson.
It was presented to the ZZT communities that had existed on AOL and CompuServe, BBS's, etc..
It was released under Greg Janson's software company Software Visions.
AOL period, the Golden Age - circa ~1993-1995
- The first ZZT/MZX communities were on CompuServe, soon they migrated to America Online.
On AOL some of the first well known MZXing groups, or MZX "companies" were started.
These companies, such as Helios, had a large number of members and a large number of
projects and aspirations. Ultimately, while providing good times, all of these groups
were destined to go seperate ways.
Helios included members such as The Creator, Monthigos, Myth, barney9651 (aka yenrab),
Kev Vance (?) and several others, many becoming well known in the years to come.
- Greg Janson, a part of the AOL ZZT/MZX communities of this time, was an active member
in them. Sometime in this period (1994-1995) he started a Mailing List for MZX. This
list talked about projects and distributed MZX files, and acted as a general
knowledge base.
- Sometime around 1994-1995 as well the MZX Newsletter was started. The NL was a monthly
publication with news pertaining to MZX and ZZT and included articles, as well as
demo files. Although largely unknown the NL went on for a long time.
- ZZT and MZX worlds were often utilized as magazines during this time, to publicize
games, give reviews, have articles and interactive demonstrations, etc. While most were
in ZZT, some of the more advanced ones were in MZX. Magazines of this sort remained
quite common and popular for some time.
- Sometimes in 1995 Greg Janson released the second version of MZX, which was almost a
complete rewrite of the original source, and added several new features, while changing
several fundamental features of MZX to make it closer to the MZX we know today.
The later period of AOL - circa ~1995-1996
- As several of the older members of the original groups on AOL started to vanish, a new
generation of people noticed MZX on AOL. AOL had by this time had a robust and regularly
updated archive of ZZT and MZX worlds. New message boards on AOL began to pop up and AOL
was recognized as the primary center of MZX activity.
- Sometime in 1996 two ZZT/MZXers, ZZT-Zed and ZZT-Omega started a new group, which several
newly recognized ZZT/MZXers of the time joined such as T0UCAN, ZZPlayer, Scott Hammack,
CLAbles, and others (at least, I think these people joined o_O)
- Jeremy LaMar (aka SnigWich) released his first MZX game, Bomb Brothers, to the AOL MZX
archive. Despite negative attitudes towards new people at the current timehe was quickly
accepted for his skill in MegaZeux. Unfortunately he wasn't very interactive with the
known community at this time. He would go on to make what some consider the greatest
MZX game ever.
The beginnings of #megazeux - circa mid-end 1996
- During mid 1996 the MegaZeux Mailing List had decided to hold a few meetings in
real time (direct conversation) utilizing Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
- Around August 1996 William Lovas, a regular poster to the MZX ML, started
#megazeux as an official, permanent channel in the Undernet network.
- As news of #megazeux spread, members of the ML and the AOL message boards alike,
as well as others, gathered. For the first multiple MZX communities were united
and could interact in real time chat.
- In late August 1996 Greg Janson released MZX 2.50 as promised, which had a new
sound engine and a few bugfixes and minor features. More important, however, was
that Greg had announced he had started on a new revision of MZX, 3.00, which would
utilize 32-bit protected mode DOS and scrap several of the limitations that MZX
currently had. Excitement was building, but unfortunately, besides a small bugfix
versions (2.51) Greg would never release another version of MZX himself.
New network, New groups - the dawn of a Silver Age - circa 1997
- Early 1997 - Due to conflicts with Undernet #megazeux moved to Austnet.
- A new member of the MZX community, Legendd, started gaining recognition with his
up and coming MZXing group, Legend Software. He had gotten some recognized names
from the current MZX community to join, some who had been around since the Golden
Age.
- Legend Software had changed its name to Autumn Dreams, and enlisted several other
respected members of the community to join. yenrab (formerly Barney9651) released
their first game, Spirit Revenge. While looked upon as a very good game in its own
right, it had Autumn Dream's first display of FMV (Full Motion Video) realized
in MZX, in the form of a small opening logo.
- Autumn Dreams, quickly gaining name recognition, released a demonstration that shocked
much of the MZX community; Xenogenesis. Xenogenesis showed off several upcoming games
from AD's members, some heavily anticipated already (Sivion), and some technical
demonstrations. The graphics and overall presentation impressed everyone, particularly
the display of "Funky Monkey Vomit." While not their first display of Full Motion Video,
it was considered far superior to the original in SR (which, unlike this one, had gone
fairly unnoticed as FMV). Unfortunately, very few of the games presented were ever
released.
- Somewhat in an attempt to compete with Autumn Dreams (who had completely changed everyone's
expectations for MZX) several smaller groups joined together to create one unified group
named New Revolution. NR had several ambitious projects
This history is currently rather vague, possibly incorrect, and heavily incomplete. Please
e-mail information to exophase@earthlink.net; specific dates are particularly appreciated.
