Very Technical Info and Credits

The heart of the "pizza" service of the Internet Pizza Server is the "makepizza" Advanced piZzA geneRATiOn engiNe (AZARATON). This program parses very English-like pizza orders and generates GIF images of the piping hot pizzas to be mailed back to the user.

This program is the culmination of months of thought and at least several hours of programming. It would not have been possible without the help of the following people:

@man, for coming up with the idea in the first place, and for helping out with tech support

Jim Garlick, for his help in setting up the pizza account and his continual support

Spider Dude, for creating tons of topping bitmaps (including the first round!), and for making the new pizza bullet

Jason "Boy Wonder" Gibbs, for his excellent work on the Pizza Server logo and animation

Karim, for the initial implementation of the HTML pizza order page

Jennifer, for the bitmap of the "garlick" topping, especially her beautiful work on his forehead

Vulcan in the U.K., for his Gift Shop Wall suggestions

Walter Piovesan, for his pizza links page idea

Leif, for pestering me to work on the server while I was reading news ;-)

And everyone else who gave me their support and criticism. Especially to Karim who informed me that I was "such a dork" for ever embarking on this project in the first place...

In addition, I'd like to thank the following pizza topping contributors (in alphabetical order):: @Man
Chia Head
Dogbreath
Jennifer
Jutta Degener
Kaj Groner
Lisa Chabot
Maria Fogel
Matt Y.
Rambo Brite
Timothy

If I've left your name off this list, mail me and I'll add it...

"makepizza" was written completely in C. Some of the services are based in ksh scripts.

Update: makepizza has been retired and replaced with the faster "renderpie". Support scripts are now written in Python.

The Internet Pizza Server needs more toppings! You! Yes, you can have your name added to the list of really cool people who have had a topping graphic used on the Server! If you have a wacky, really bizarre, completely strange, or perhaps normal topping bitmap that you'd like to see included, mail it to me in a common picture format (GIF, JPEG, PCX, IFF, TIF, PPM, or something) and I'll see if I can't get it on there. For a size reference, pepperoni is 30x30 pixels.

The "pizza" service of the Internet Pizza Server is maintained by beej@beej.us

Jan 24, 1996. Updated November 19, 2001.