Zander Zoftware website
Zander Zoftware History
Last updated July 9, 20111983-1993
For a one-man company, Zander Zoftware already has quite a long history. It all started when founder Sander de Jong (that's me) was born. I learned the basics of programming at the end of the eighties, when color screens were only available for tv's, not for computers. We had an old BBC Micro at home which used BASIC as a programming language, and I also experimented with LOGO. The BBC Micro stored its programs on magnetic tape, although later on I also got a floppy disc station for it. I knew of no other people who had such a computer, so even if I wanted to release my programs, there wasn't an easy way to do this.
1993-1996
Later on, around 1993, I made the big step to the personal computer. I then started writing programs in QBASIC for a short time. My friend Zef Hemel was at that time already programming in Borland Turbo C++ but it wouldn't run on my computer so I got a copy of Turbo Pascal 3 which he also used and learned the magnificent language of Pascal. Things probably would have been a lot different if I had used C++ at that time.
I named myself Sander de Jong Software Productions, or SdJSP in short. The logo I had was a blue circle with a smaller green circle inside (or the other way around) and the letters SdJSP inside of the inner circle.
Later on, I got Turbo Pascal 5, later 5.5, after that 6 and finally 7. Windows had come to version 3.1 and Borland made a Windows-like DOS environment, in which you could use windows, menus and almost everything Windows offered, in text mode. I never used it though.
1996-1997
Somewhere between September 1996 and July 1997 I named myself □ Square Software □, and later on with √ replacing the squares. At that time, I didn't know the square-root sign was a square-root sign, I thought it was a square-sign. After I found out about that, I didn't change it because I had my logo for some time now.
I changed my name when I learned of a little company called Square (now Square-Enix), creator of the Final Fantasy series since 1983. I briefly used the new name Perfection, but because I thought it was too cocky, it changed to perfecta productions with a fish as logo (Sander is a genus of fish). However, after seeing a bottle of Bisonkit (a Dutch glue brand) I changed it yet again because the manufacturer of Bison is also called Perfecta.
Yet again, I had to change my name. Starting in 1997, and going on until present day (2011) I started calling myself Zander Zoftware.
When I finally got the opportunity to work with Windows 98 at the end of 1998, I decided to give Delphi a try. I continued working with Pascal, but I also learned how to work with Delphi 3. I used Delphi 3 until 2002 when I got the chance to buy Delphi 6 at my university.
Zander Zoftware spread its wings in 1997. I learned how to use HTML without the use of third-party programs. Of course I had to make a personal website. At first it was just a very simple page, because I didn't have internet at home and I had to do all my work from the library. This was hosted at http://www.angelfire.com/co2/SdeJong/ (the Internet Archive knows the URL, but didn't save it). At Angelfire you could choose from a bunch of subdirectories, and because co2 (which probably means "come to") reminded me of CO2 I chose that one. One really bad thing about this address (besides being so long) was that there was another website called http://www.anglefire.com which was a porn website. And yes, I have typed in the wrong address in the public library on occasion.
Later, I made the websites at home and Zef uploaded everything onto the web. That was the first time my programming work was published.
1998
In October 1998 I got internet at home, so everything became much easier then. I started working on a new site, mainly including Pascal programs. I also released my first Delphi program, PTE (Plain Text Editor). Before I wrote PTE, I used Notepad to edit my HTML files, but Notepad in Windows 98 didn't have hotkeys. I decided to write my own editor, just so I could use hotkeys like Ctrl-S for saving. I used PTE until I got Windows XP in 2002, then I used Notepad again until May 2004.
1999
In 1999, me and my brother started working on a Grand Theft Auto map, called ZeiOS, a combination of the Z from Zander Zoftware, two random letters and the letters OS, standing for Olympic Studios, as my brother called himself back then. Zander Zoftware was now also active in the game-modding scene.
I also started with graphical work. It all started with a very crappy Winamp skin, called Z-Amp.
2000
2000 was an exciting year for Zander Zoftware. Adlez was released, and I'm still proud I was one of the creators of it. Zef and I also released the game MegaGuy.
I also released my second Windows "program", a screensaver called Zaver. It was downloadable until 2005, when I found out it crashed Windows XP. Later on, I released my second Winamp skin, called Z-Amp3D. It was based on the Z-Amp skin, but now with a little 3D effect added. It still looked crappy as hell.
2000 was also the year I started translating things. The first thing was a translation of Winamp 2.6
Zef introduced me to a game called Liero in early 2000. I liked it so much that on April 25 I founded a new website called LieroNet. It became such a large project, that my work on Zander Zoftware became less important. Two things I started on were a Half-Life level and a Command&Conquer: Tiberian Sun map. Neither of them ever got finished. Instead, I made a very simple game called Bus, because I had played such a game in my early-pc years and I liked it so much that I thought there should be a new version.
2000-2002
On November 13, 2000 I made the last update of 2000. On March 21, 2001, the next update came, saying I was very busy with LieroNet, and some of my other projects got cancelled so I had more time for this website. I promised a next update soon... But unfortunately, that update took longer then I thought. It was June 12, 2002, more than a year later. However, it was a good update right away, featuring two Winamp skins (one of them made Winamp look like a "normal" Windows application) and a tool for Liero, called LieroM8.
2002
In 2002 I started being more active on this site again. I adopted the LieroNet colors, they more or less became the official company colors. I then started a new project, a fansite for a Dutch music group. It didn't take up too much time, so I had time for other things. Game-modding became important again when I got GTA3. I wanted to create a new island, again called ZeiOS, in memory of the GTA1 mod that never got finished. Unfortunately, I never started working on it because I had too little modeling experience. I did, however, create a lot of graphics-changing mods and was active in a Dutch mod, that changed posters to real posters, shops to real Dutch shops etc.
I also made a new Winamp skin, WinampXP, but GTA3 modding became my core-business at that time.
2003
In 2003, I (finally) realised nobody uses Pascal anymore, so I deleted all my Pascal sourcecode from this website. At the same time, a new version of Winamp was released, and the old translation didn't work anymore. I deleted it but I uploaded a new translation, for the modeling program Z(anosa)Modeler. I was now also learning modeling.
A bit later, I removed some old programs that were useless, all DOS programs. At the same time, a new GTA was released: Vice City. I started making (graphics) mods for the game.
Because translating things became important to me, I made a new page called 'Vertalingen' (Translations in Dutch). At first, it only contained the ZModeler translation, but that changed when I announced a translation of Need for Speed 4, and my translated subtitle for the movie The Hobbit.
Proud of Adlez as I was, I wanted to do a remake. It proved not to be very hard, and very soon I found myself working on WinAdlez. Unfortunately, because of a harddrive crash, I lost everything. I couldn't start all over again because I also lost the original levels and decompressing method.
Around October 2002, I got broadband internet, and now I could download whatever I wanted. One of these things were movies, and I found a great program to play them: BSPlayer. I started working on a skin for it. Because now I was online very often, I also downloaded Trillian so I didn't need both MSN Messenger and ICQ. I also started on a skin for Trillian.
After my harddrive crashes, I had new courage and felt like making a lot of new things. I announced some cars for Vice City (one of them was a Volkswagen Golf Mk II for Vice City that was pretty much finished - but never released), as well as a new island, called ZeiOS. I got pretty far, but it was never released.
Because of the harddrive crash, I lost the Need for Speed translation, but instead I started working on a translation of the game Rise of Nations. I also translated some GTA editing programs.
Meanwhile, I started a big Vice City mod, making everything Dutch and including real-life brands and cars.
2004
In early 2004, I finished my second movie translation: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
I also made a program for Vice City called VC Radio. It can convert MP3 and ADF (Vice City radiostations) files back and forth, all in 21 kB!
Finally, about 5 years after this page started, I made all pages HTML 4.01 compliant, which means it now included a proper "Doctype" and all... it might not mean a lot to you, but by doing that the website should look more alike in different browsers.
In early May, I uploaded my Uitleenwoordenlijst (a list with Dutch words in other languages) to this website. Before then it could only be found at the Ampzing website.
In August, I was introduced to the game Tactical Ops. I started working on a map for it.
In September, I started working on my biggest project ever, a free online mafia game written in PHP called BadFellas.
In November I changed my logo after seven years! The new logo still containst two Z's, one red, one blue, but instead of using a serif font it now used a sans-serif font. I felt it looks much better.
2005
In June of 2005, I finally decided to get my own domainname for Zander Zoftware (zanderz.org) and recreated the site with a fresh, new, lightblue design using PHP to make maintaining the site easier.
Some other plans for this year were recreating LieroNet with new colors and using PHP so it would be much more dynamic than the old site. I kept working on Tactical Ops maps and I created a Dutch mod for GTA: San Andreas. The Dutch mod was abandoned after a few months because modding support was low and there was little interest from the public.
2006
On 2 January, 2006 I launched the new LieroNet, like I mentioned before it used PHP and was more dynamic and easier to update than the old site.
In April of 2006, an unofficial sequel to Tactical Ops was released called Tactical Operations: Crossfire. I learned modeling and mapping for it, in LightWave and UnrealEd 3. I stopped working on TO maps and instead started creating some TO:C maps. Five months later (September) I quit my clan and stopped developing the maps, mainly because of a lack of time. Because of low disk space, I uninstalled TO:C which not only deleted all game files, but all files stored in the folder! Months of work gone in a matter of minutes.
On 7 August, 2006, I decided to quit working on LieroNet. Liero didn't interest me anymore, and its unofficial sequel Gusanos didn't really either because development on it was slow and the community was small.
2007
On March 17, I created a new page called "Game maps", which contained maps for several computer games. Two weeks later I partially changed the design of the website. I removed the need of frames, which should offer better compatibility with mobile phones and other "limited" browsers, as well as make it easier to bookmark pages.
The rest of the year was basicly working on the game maps. By the end of 2007 I had maps for 6 games.
I also started on a small side-project: "It's a Dutch World", a collection of Dutch geographical locations around the world, Dutch words in other languages and other Dutch things.
2008
The first months of 2008 continued what I started in 2007: the game maps. In May I started working on a Windows remake of Adlez again. Because I was very busy with school, there weren't much updates this year.
In early 2008 I was asked by my cousin if I could create a website for her People2People foundation which I did.
In October I finally added some wallpapers on my website. I also radically changed the design of the website: the left-side menu was replaced by a menu on the top. And last but not least, I made the tough decision of taking down LieroNet. In December I started my own weblog, an improvement of the weblog I wrote for People2People.
2009
January 31 was a tough day: after 8 years, 9 months, and 6 days LieroNet went offline forever.
There were, however, many other things to keep me busy. For example, I added a news feed to my blog, and the People2People website got a major update in July. Most of the time though, I was busy with school-related stuff and BadFellas.
In the Summer, around June or July, I started a new project that remained secret for about one and a half years (for more details, see heading 2011).
At the end of August, I changed the menu. Going to a page no longer required clicking a sub-menu, but rather used a drop-down menu.
In December I started another new project, The Sopranos location guide, which is a detailed guide of all the filming locations used in the television show The Sopranos.
2010
After working on it in secret for some time, the The Sopranos location guide went online on February 1, though still in a static form showing just that it was coming. On February 13 the site went live, and over the following months much more information was added.
After working on it for a while, a new design for the People2People website launched on June 13. The day before that, the NightEye website got a small update in layout.
From June till September, I did an internship in New Jersey, USA. I spent some time on the Sopranos location guide and on BadFellas, but not a lot.
Work on the "secret project" continued all through the year and towards the end of 2010 a date was set for the launch: January 15, 2011.
2011
As mentioned in 2010, January 15 was the date my "secret project" was launched: DonarMuseum. I worked on some game maps, but most of my time and energy did not go to the Zander Zoftware website. In June, I made a decision to update my website. I reordered the menu and added a menu "Old stuff" with things that would be deleted eventually. At the same time, I planned to modernise the graphics of the site and add some relevant stuff.
In July I added the pages Photography and Graphic design and modified the colours of the website slightly. I also added screenshots of most of my old websites.
Last update: July 9, 2011