History
The concept of DeeP was originally thought up in June of 1994. Back then it was designed to be an extension of DEU. In fact, the original working name of DeeP was DEUX, for DEU extended. Eventually, this name was dropped in place of DeeP. DeeP 6.00 was first uploaded onto AOL back in August 1994, with versions soon being uploaded to Compuserve.From there it was ported to 32bit DOS DMPI (version 7) and in 1997 was ported as a native 32bit Windows program called DeeP97. In 2000, a naming contest was held and the name was changed to DeePsea. The "sea" represents C++ (the coding language) and Seattle (that's were we live) .
Soon after DeeP's release into several FTP sites, several debates were started over DeeP being a DEU hack (since I did start with DEU - see below). It soon became far removed from the awkward roots of DEU. In fact, it was because of DEU's quirky style that DeeP was created.
DeePsea continues the tradition of providing the best and most comprehensive DOOM editor in the world. Although it provides the most extensive set of commands in the world, you needn't worry about learning all of them. Relax, use the printed and interactive tutorials and have a blast making levels.
DeePsea's
Evolution
DeeP started with some DEU style DIALOGS (not really the whole interface) in DOS DeeP in
1994 using DEU code as a base. This was done because I barfed at the dot-to-dot, the crashes and lack of
even simple things, like an OPEN dialog. That's
right, there was no Open option.
IMMEDIATELY the dot-to-dot style of level creation was dropped. But first, I had to break up the code flow making it much easier to work with (it was a GIANT if/else/loop).
This was a significant INTERFACE change.
Then Radio buttons and Check boxes were added, an open dialog browser that previews levels,
(still the only editor that shows the level before you open) ditto the level selection. Added the texture browser (NONE of these were in DEU). Generally
WINDOWS conventions were adopted with all NEW code.
Since DEU has NO SUPPORT for radio buttons, checkboxes, browsers, NOR line drawing, it should be pretty obvious by now that even the DOS version has a different interface from DEU. (FYI: DETH copied DOS DEEP in some areas)
IOW, the INTERFACE is radically DIFFERENT, yet done in such a way (since
it's easier to use) that even old time DEU/DETH users quickly learn to take
advantage of the easier and quicker INTERFACE.
Even back then the DIFFERENT dialogs had INTERFACE features where one could click the flags using the NEW DEEP INTERFACE, ALL 3 textures were shown at once, you could CLICK on the textures and
instantly browse, plus the DEEP hallmark - ONSCREEN feedback.
Moving on some more. I always liked parts of the DCK interface and parts of DMAPEDIT (that's were the INTERFACE for click side-scrolling came from) and other editors. Hardware was getting better, especially the fact that everyone had 800x600 capable monitors.
That led me to revamp the dialogs completely in DeePsea. THREE dialogs were combined into ONE - along with all the code changed required to make that happen (not a simple thing). IOW,now
Linedef, Sidedef and Flag attributes exist in ONE dialog. The new dialogs
are probably somewhat of a shock to ex-DEU/DETH users, but for exactly the
same reasons as before - ease of use and speed - it's very easy to learn to
LOVE them.
Follow the screenshots link at the home page and you'll get the idea if you
haven't used DeePsea yet.
Cyrus Amiri
Cyrus created the original background image on all the pages and the DeeP logo.
Jay Blaze
Jay created the prior background that served us well.
John Csirkes
John was a brand new DeePsea user (12/1/2001). He thought he could do a better background and logo. I think you'll agree he created the best background graphics yet.
Terry DeLaney
Terry gave me some new, even better MIDI scores.
Julian Mehnle
Julian gave me some very useful feedback on my web page regarding MIDI and plugins. He also provided me with all but one of the MIDI soundtracks now found on my pages.
Mike Vermeulen (me)
I wrote the web pages here and found all the add-on graphics not created by those listed above. I am a part time beta tester for DeePsea. I just graduated (2001) from the University of Washing with a Bachelors degree in Computer Information Systems. I also managed to piece together the random MIDI player from the excellent work of others. I've learned a bit about programming. I wrote the tutorial that is included with DeePsea. When I'm not doing any of that fun stuff, I try to learn more about HTML by visiting other peoples' web pages. Who knows, I may have even learned something from yours!
Jack Vermeulen
Jack is the author of DeePsea and DeeP and wrote most of the help files associated with it. Jack graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor's in Mathematics and Minor in Physics. He also wrote the nodes builder DeePBSP. He sometimes works with other mini and mainframe systems, but most of his time now is spent developing software for PCs, Javascript, riding JetSkis and Boating.
Brad Kiefer
Brad is the coauthor of DeePsea. Without Brad DeePsea would never have been created. He was originally a registered user of DeeP and offered to help us port the DOS version to Windows. Little did he realize how much work it was going to take both of us:)
Earl Wiese
Earl is one of our graphic design artists. He created the diskette icon on the download DeeP page, the background of the top and left frames and the "Get DeeP" icon.
Nathan Wilkes
Nathan created an older logo for the main page.
Nigel Rowand
Nigel helped enormously in beta testing the DeePsea WAD tools that replace Wintex, NWT and all the other old WAD management tools.