Dr. Cossack's Lab now has a new affiliate: BME StudioZ! The founder, BrandMan211, is hard at work with several fan games based on the Mega Man series. The site also features some extra programs, videos, and more. I'm sure that some of you will want to check it out.

On a side note, the categories listing on the Links database happened to be broken. It's now back in working order if you want to check it out.

The first FanArt update of the year is now available with the additions of two visitors.

Sage contributed a picture of a fan-made X series character, Vero, along with an art piece to mark the 500,000 first hits of this website. Alongside those, newcomer Magnet Man sent in three sprite sheets. One is of the Mega Man 2 robot masters, while the last two take various bosses from the old GameBoy games and colors them according to the official art. If you are interested, everything is right her ...

I've extended the "Quote of the day" feature, seen in the right navigation bar of the main page, to display some extra contact. From now on, the renamed "Daily Random" spot will show a new quote, FanArt, and website link everyday. All of the FanArt is pulled from the current gallery, while the links come from the section with the same name. As such, to get your own art or website added to the rotation, submit them in the appropriate sections... and come back tomorrow to see a new random ...

The visible updates in the next few weeks might be slower than usual as I work on several projects for the website. The results of that progress will be unveiled as I complete each new part.

Along to go with this update, as a token that I'm already busy on that new content, I've added a wallpaper of mine to the downloads section. It features both X and Zero along with their descendants of sort, Vent and Aile from Mega Man ZX.

The visual media of the site has grown a bit thanks to two submissions. First, Teej sent in a wallpaper about the M.E.G.A. System as seen in Mega Man ZX. You can find it, in 800x600 resolution, in the Downloads section.

Next, a newcomer, Reggy, sent in six FanArt pictures with characters from both the Original and X series. The pictures were made in her own style, giving them a somewhat different look than the usual. You'll find all six in her newly-opened gallery.

I've been thinking about this for quite a while, and I've decided that it's time for the Mega Man PC Website: Dr. Cossack's Lab to go in a new direction. New game releases have been getting slower and slower in the last two years, to the point that a generic website no longer works as well as before to cover the Mega Man series. As such, this website will now only focus on fan-made content, such as FanArt.

As you can see, the website has been overhauled to support this ...

Yesterday's news about the website taking a new direction were obviously false and served as this year's April's Fools joke. I hope that none of you were too shaken! The purpose of the website will not change, since I like the way it currently works. Part of what was said is true, though, so read on.

What you saw yesterday as the website's apparent new layout was actually a lite version of the true, new layout which is now available for you to see. This is the fifth ve ...

The latest affiliate to join the selected club seen at the bottom of the menu bar is Final Destination Pixelation, where you'll find many sprite comics featuring official and fan characters involved in various situations. Regulus and team have been hard at work to constantly improve on their previous efforts. Check it out!

X-Shunin strikes again! He recently sent me an impressive set of 19 new wallpapers, which are now all available for download in the appropriate section. These focus on characters from the ZX and Battle Network series, and are mostly available in 1280x1024 format. This updates also marks a first: Playstation Portable-sized wallpapers! Four of them are to be found among the new files added.

Once again, it's time to celebrate as the website completed it's seventh year online! Several changes happened in the last year, such as the recent layout revamp, the opening of the Truth Corner, a server move to ensure the future of the site, and more! A big thanks goes to those who have been coming year after year, and a warm welcome applies for the newcomers!

On a pure coincidence, today marks the first major update to the current message board as the work on IOBoard v1.1.0 h ...

The layout for the Music Archive has been switched over to the new version. While there are no new files available at this point, this update makes the pages easier to browse through.

The Links Database has been converted to the new layout format as well.

Remember: if you want to see a site (yours or otherwise) added to the Links section, all you need to do is submit it! I'll review your entry and add it in the appropriate category.

The existing chatroom system, powered by an IRC server and supported by a Java applet, has been replaced in favor of a web-based system running X7 Chat. The new system has to be accessed through your web browser at the same address as before, and includes most of the features you'd expect from a common chat system: multiple rooms as needed, private chatting, user accounts, and so on. Several settings can be set to customize it, allowing you to have something matching your preferences.
...

This latest FanArt update brings a total of 27 new pictures to the gallery. 2 of these come from rootay, who already contributed several pieces of art. The other 25 are all from Evandro, whose gallery has just been opened on this site. Both of them sent in various characters from the Original and X series. All the new files can be viewed directly here.

The Games Information section, one of the largest of the site, has been ported over to the new layout. The various map listings have been improved to be more readable, while the PC Games page has been updated a bit.

This update also sees the addition of the improved Mega Man Battle Network 2 maps, which Mega Boy sent to me not too long ago. This means that the whole set of maps is now completely available in the new format.

The Rockboard translation section's pages have been looked over and updated to match the new website layout.

With this part done, the switch over to the new layout is complete! The older data has been removed, and it happens to cut by half the design information (images positioning) to be downloaded as you browse through the site.

The next big thing on the list: you'll see!

The FanArt section has been expanded a bit once again with the two incoming pictures from Richie Baker. Both feature MegaMan.EXE, once as his regular self and once as his Tomahawk Falzar transformation. They can be viewed in his new gallery.

The wallpapers page now also holds an extra file, as Teej sent in a Mega Man ZX Advent-themed picture. Titled "Defying Fate", this wallpaper is available in the 1024x768 resolution.

The Mega Man Battle Network 5 information page included a few broken links since the layout change earlier this month. This has been corrected.

First of all, I'm sorry about the long time that flew by since last update. I recently started a new job, and I'm slowly adapting to the new work schedule. Here's a catch-up update before we get back to a more normal posting interval.

As the first update, Reploid101 sent in a picture to be added to the FanArt gallery. It's a custom-made maverick called Ecto Poltergeist, which you'll find in his gallery.

Next, The Mega Man Network has recently reopened to a new ...

It's finally time to unveil something I've been working on for several months: IOekaki v1.6 is now live!

While I don't usually report updates to the various boards' code here, this one deserves a special mention as it includes something that several of you have long been waiting for: picture resuming! Since it's setup differently than what you might have seen elsewhere, I strongly recommend that you read the related announcement for the full details. You'll a ...

Several weeks before the release of Mega Man ZX: Advent in North America, the ever-working MegaBoy presents to you the full set of maps from that game! There are 60 of them in all, which goes to prove that some help during exploration could be welcome.

Note that, since the English version is not available yet, the names found within are based on the Japanese version. They'll be edited later on if any differences show up.

With IOekaki now supporting galleries, I'm able to link the FanArt Gallery's various pages to the user profiles of the oekaki board. That way, you can have all of your Mega Man-related FanArt accessible from a single page on the website!

I've gone through all of the FanArt galleries to create the most links as possible between the two sections. If I overlooked your profile (possibly because of different usernames in FanArt and on the oekaki board), just drop me a quick note ...

Minor update
Since Bolt Kraken left my message board, I removed the notice about the share of the board between the two of us.

Rockboard translation progress
I did more work on the Rockboard translation today. The Met Race mini-game is now translated at approximately 60%. I didn't changed a lot of text, but I figured out many details about how the game is working to generate the text strings, so it will help me to understand how to hack it without creating errors.

Work, work...
...

New Fan Art
Spring Man sent me another of his great Fan Art pictures, so I added this one to the Fan Art section. This time, he drew an original character: Venom Hydra.

New Faxes
Capcom Japan blessed us with another update to their great faxes. This time, two faxes are related to the upcoming Mega Man games:

The first fax shows more about Forte EXE (Bass EXE) in Rockman EXE (yes, Forte is in EXE 1. No known word about EXE 2 yet. Don't be mistaken like most people.) We see Mega M ...

Capcom released Mega Man Legends for PC yesterday! If you remember correctly, this much-delayed game was supposed to be out one year ago now. From the Capcom's website page about the game:

Game features:

Non-stop 3-D action adventure - now on PC CD-ROM!
Mixes the best of classic Mega Man, action-adventure, RPG and puzzle elements in vast 3-D worlds
Includes Bonus Mega Man Legends Microsoft desktop theme
Awesome weapons! Enormous bosses! And Non-stop 3-D action!


System Requ ...

According to Packard, Rockman X2: Soul Eraser (known here as Mega Man Xtreme 2) will be released in Japan the 19th July 2001. In case you don't know yet, this is the second adventure of X and Zero for the Game Boy Color. The game is slated for a September release in the US.

Some of you might remember that, several years ago, I used to cover the various Mega Man-related news by posting them right here. However, because of the problems caused by the site crash and a general lack of time, I've had to discontinue that coverage. That's about to change, though!

I'm happy to announce that the Mega Man PC Website: Dr. Cossack's Lab will now cover the news once again! In order to assist me with this task, Mr.Mettaur will also be reporting the vari ...

And it's that time of the year once again...

This time around, the operation of installing the Halloween theme was more complicated than merely shuffling a few files around. Since I changed the main site design earlier this year, I had to rebuild the Halloween theme almost from scratch too! What you're seeing now is the result of that effort, and will remain available until November 1.

With the new site layout complete, news posting happening once again, the resume feature finally added to the oekaki board and the message board settled in with IOBoard, several of the website's main projects are over or close to be. That gives me an opportunity to consider the future of the website.

As such, I thought that it was well due to put another survey asking for feedback, comments and ideas. There are only a few questions in there, so I'd appreciate it if you could tak ...

... the Data Graveyard!

This latest entry in the "Dr. Cossack presents" series features an archive (or graveyard) of old information that vanished from the Internet long ago. This allows you to consult sources that might have been lost forever otherwise, or to get your hands on rare downloads that have become difficult to find. As a beginning, the three subsections below are available to you:

Carddas Rockman.EXE archive: back in 2002-2004, the Japanese card-making company Carddas relea ...