R & M Software

Several months ago the author of Usurper released the source code under the GNU GPL license. Shortly after I compiled a quick and dirty Win32 port, but it wasn't really done properly at all, so this past weekend I sat down and did a proper port and have now released v0.21.

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GameSrv v8.05.18 was released today. Head on over to the GameSrv Website for the full news entry.

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I guess I should mention here that I opensourced GameSrv the other day. Head on over to the GameSrv Website for the full news entry.

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Holy Shit indeed. Yes, after many, many, many, many, many, MANY years, I've finally released a new version of GameSrv.

Before you get too excited, don't be. This is an early pre-release version just meant to get your feedback on what works and what doesn't (a lot of the features aren't implemented, so I already know some of the stuff isn't.)

Along with the GameSrv release, I've made available 3 classic Seth Able / Michael Preslar / GamePort door games specifically packaged for GameSrv. They come preconfigured for use on 5 nodes, so all you have to do is run the .gsdoor archive through the GSDoor installer, and you'll be ready to go without really needing to know how to configure the door games. Basically this saves you the headache of RTFMing, and me the headache of you asking me questions that would have been answered by RTFMing!

On a side note, I plan on adding multi-language support to GameSrv, so if anyone wants to translate the strings found in the database, please let me know. There aren't a lot there, and I may just try passing them through Google's translator, but who knows how well that will work!

Anyway, head on over to www.GameSrv.ca for the downloads.

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I've just uploaded a new version of MannDoor, v6.06.15. It contains changes submitted by Michael Preslar as well as some fixes to enable FreePascal v2.0.0 compatability.

I also released a small utility the other day called R&M GetVersionEx(). It was just something I used to find out what the GetVersionEx() API function returned on various versions of Windows. Pretty useless, but it was written in Delphi without using the FORMS unit, so it may be a good example for other people who want to write a program this way. (Not using the FORMS unit means you interact with the Windows API directly. The benefit is that your compiled .EXE size is miniscule in comparison to the FORMS enabled version of the program, the drawback is that it's quite a bit more work. It's cool to try at least once though.)

And for those wondering, progress on GameSrv has been a lot better this past month or so. I'm moving in a few weeks so that'll interrupt things for a bit, but once we're settled hopefully I'll be able to keep up the progress and get something useable released!

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I've updated my long neglected site, www.GameSrv.ca, with a brief history and statement about the future of GameSrv. Please go take a look if you're interested.

And I thought about removing the old news entries from this page, since they're a little embarassing (no update in over a year, broken promise after broken promise), but maybe seeing them there will motivate me to update a little more often!

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Yes, it's hard to believe, but I'm adding a news entry, and about the progress of GameSrv to boot!

This past weekend I spent a bit of time working on GameSrv, and I got quite a bit done. It's not quite ready for testing yet because the logon system isn't implemented so it doesn't differentiate between users, but that's about the only piece holding it back from testing.

And unlike earlier alphas/betas, this version will come with configuration screens, so everyone will be able to test it, and not just people able to edit the Access database manually.

Sorry if this seems like a tease to release news but no demo, but I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and contrary to popular belief, I am still working on it. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll have something to show.

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Yep, I've changed the layout again. I stole this one from (you guessed it) OSWD. It'll need to be tweaked a little since it doesn't handle font size changes very well, but it's a great start.

In other news, I'm working on GameSrv again (yay!). The bad news is, I'm starting from scratch (again!). It's not because I've lost the source, which is the usual reason, but because I've decided I really don't like Borland C++ Builder very much afterall. So the new version is back in Borland Delphi, and it's looking great. I found some nice tutorials on building hybrid Normal + Interactive Service applications, so it'll run normally on Win9x systems, and as a system service on NT* systems (as any good server should).

I'm swamped with my new job (check out bmjupdates.mcmaster.ca to see one of the projects I work on - it's free to sign up, but probably only interesting to health professionals) and in the process of moving, so development is slow, but with any luck there will be an '05 release for sure! ;-)

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I thought I would mention I updated the navigation bar off to the left (which you probably noticed), but the main purpose of this update is to let you know that yes, I'm still alive, and yes, I'm still working on stuff here. I just finished my last semester of school so hopefully things will be a little less hectic shortly, and I can get back to working on some of my programs again. Stay tuned for updates.

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I planned to release a new ALPHA of GameSrv this weekend, but I bit off a little more than I could chew so it's in a broken state right now. Hopefully next weekend #4 will be out.

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Just uploaded a new ALPHA 3 version of GameSrv. This version has a couple new commands available, but the main reason for the release is an important bugfix that fixes possible cpu/memory hogging.

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Just uploaded a new ALPHA 2 version of GameSrv. This version is a little bit more functional than the last, with the most important addition being the user stuff. Now doors will see users as unique people, unlike in ALPHA 1 where it saw them all as the same person.

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Just uploaded the webpage for the GameSrv ALPHA. Later tonight after I've thrown together a small amount of documentation I'll upload the RAR archive and activate the download link.

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As you can see, I've just uploaded a new layout for R & M. This new layout uses better CSS code for positioning and sizing of the elements on the page, so it'll display properly at any resolution, and with any font size (within reason).

The new layout is also using a little JavaScript to make the navigation bar on the left side of the screen stay visible as you scroll down the page. CSS has positioning tags to do this, but they don't work in Internet Explorer so I decided to use the JavaScript method instead.

I'm not sure I like the way the menu looks (it's kind of plain), so that may change soon. But other than that, I can see this new layout staying for quite some time

P.S.  Happy  Canada   Day   eh.

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After having a few people ask about it, I've decided to create a stand-alone version of mSyncFos. The version bundled with GameSrv would have worked with other software, but there were a few tricks to getting it working right. This new version should be much simpler to use.

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Just uploaded a new copy of MannDoor. No new functionality or anything, I just updated the Virtual Pascal specific units to be compatable with build 279

Chachi (of oddware) has just uploaded v1.0 of his User Feedback door. He wrote it for GameSrv, to give users the ability to communicate with the SysOp.

You can download the file here: feedback.zip

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I just uploaded a new version of my old screen saver, Manntrix. It's a "scrolling green characters" type screen saver, and comes with full source code. It'd probably make a good starting point for someone who wants to write their own screen saver.

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Just a minor update to point out that the HOWTO page has been added. Thanks to Al Robres for pointing out that it was missing.

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If you're reading this, MannSoft is now officially dead. For years I've been typing the name, and never given much thought about it. But a couple weeks ago I actually spoke the name aloud in a conversation, and everyone started laughing. It turns out that most people seem to think MannSoft is a better name for a gay porn site than for a software company. I'd already been pondering the idea of ditching the MannSoft name, so this just helped make the decision for me.

And this is where R & M comes in. It can either be spoken aloud as "R and M Software", or if you put the "R" and "and" and "M" together it resembles the word "Random", so I'll probably pronounce it as "Random Software". It's not really any catchier than MannSoft was, but at least it doesn't have the gay porn site euphemism!

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