Spectrum FAQ - Where is...? (Part 2) (original) (raw)

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This page last updated on 11 Aug 2000

[Companies and Individuals A-G][Individuals H-Z]

[#] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

Was working for LucasArts until July 1999, e.g. on Shadows of the Empire for the Nintendo 64, and then moved to Retro Studios, where he is Project Manager on a Nintendo Dolphin title. Mark organises theVortex Emulation Packagefor machines, including the Spectrum, which contains a number of the Vortex games and is freely distributable.
Whilst at LucasArts, Mark was project leader and a programmer forStar Wars: Rogue Squadron on the N64 and PC, and also did some additional programming for Star Wars Episode 1: Racer on the N64.
An interview with Mark is available here.
Info by: Arnt Gulbrandsen, Miguel Melo, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson.

Karl is a registered user of Z80, and supplied the following information about himself:
"I had two programs which I thought would be nice to get on a PC for old-times sake. One was MAX, a windows-type Microdrive utility and the other a game called Fridge Frenzy. Neither saw the light of day in their true colours; MAX was shelved by AMS and Fridge Frenzy was probably Bug-Byte's last ever game, just before they became "technically insolvent"! As such, I thought that myself and only a handful of other people would have copies. However, the rather prolific Spectrum community have beat me to it as both are available on NVG. I was gobsmacked!"
Info by: Karl Hampson.

Now one of Krisalis' directors, doing original games and conversion for the PC and Playstation.
Info by: Guillaume Genty.

Project Manager at Rage Software PLC after Denton Designs were bought by Rage.
Info by: Marc Dawson.

Went on to write the Amiga game Honda RVF for Microprose. After this, whilst contemplating doing a microlight simulator, he was offered a job in the States writing for Sega. He promptly packed and left. Two years later he came back and is still writing software, although no details are available.
Info by: Paul Jenkinson.

Went on to work for Teque, now technical director of Krisalis. Also a regular on certain newsgroups, including moaning about the service at Demon, which is always good fun anyway :-). An interview with his is available here.
Info by: Guillaume Genty, Damien Burke.

John Hollis founded Hollis Research, who develop MIDI sequencers (including Trackmanfor the Atari ST). From John Hollis himself:
"I was a director of Quicksilva and wrote most of the early releases for the ZX81 and Spectrum. I have no objection to people distributing my old games but I'm not sure exactly what the copyright position is as Quicksilva was sold and is now defunct. Still, if it's of interest, the Spectrum games I wrote were: Space Intruders, Meteor Storm (first speech in a Speccy game!), Time-Gate (first 3D star field, sold zillions of copies), Game Designer(DIY game construction kit) and Aquaplane (waterskiing with sharks).
I'm writing Windows apps at the moment but we have also been designing games forSega and Hasbro for the last couple of years. Our homepage is here".
Info by: Stephen K. Mulrine, John Hollis.

Reads comp.sys.sinclair. Working on "Video/Multimedia/Web software and hardware", and also DJing in clubs. An interview with him is available here.
Info by: Damien Burke, Paul Holmes via Philip Bee.

Was working on N64 games at Zed Twowith Jon and Ste Pickforduntil November 1999, when he moved to Friendly Giantsto work on Internet games (June 2000). An interview with him is available here.
Info by: Philip Bee, Steve Hughes, Ste Cork.

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Mark is the author of the quite well known InkUtils suite of PC utilities, and has a web page where these utilities are available, along with some of the Spectrum games he wrote!
Info by: Mark Incley.

From Derrick Austin:
"A special 'hello' to George who passed away not long afterwards. He was a great colleague and friend who will sadly be missed by all who new him at Vektor."
Info by: Derrick Austin.

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Bo is now working with customer tailored solutions made in database applications; visit his homepagefor more details.
Info by: Bo Jangeborg, Staffan Vilcans.

Now works for Psygnosis. From the man himself:
"I got involved as a director of a small games company and when it crashed in 1991 I went back to college to get a degree. I did a few games during this time but they were conversions to the PC and to be honest I'd rather keep quiet about which ones they were because they weren't very good (not my fault :-)). In 1994 I joined Psygnosis and I've been here ever since. The new game (Not allowed to say what it's called) will be out for christmas on PC and PlayStation and it's a good team effort that has been getting a lot of positive comments. It involves boats and pirates, keep your eye out!
Info by: Andy Hadlington, David Jones.

Now works for Reflex Magnetic Ltd.
Info by: Jonathan McCormack.

Regularly pops up in some newsgroups, including comp.sys.sinclairoccasionally; an interview with him is available here.
Info by: Mark A. Jones.

From Mark himself:
"I worked at Ocean from 87 to 89 ish and worked on a few games including Wizball, Gryzor, Dragon Ninja, Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, The Vindicator, Mutants, Magmax, Tai Pan, Platoon among some others. I went freelance for a while and worked on the scrapped Speccy version of Total Recall (a nightmare!). I designed a game for Bullfrog at one point (all we did was nick all the ideas out of old Speccy games that hadn't been reused, added some cartoon graphics) who showed the stuff I'd did to Nintendo and they loved it. Unfortunately the programmer and Bullfrog fell out so I said 'F**k It' and went off to Israel for a while. (I was interviewed by Keith Chegwin once for 'Chegwin Checks It Out' about my job and was featured working on The Vindicator. It was very embarrasing though I still have it on video but if anyone digs it out I have to run out the room!)"
Now works in a mental hospital in Northamption, which is "the most interesting and rewarding job I've ever had".
A couple of longer interviews with Mark are available hereand here.
Info by: Mark R. Jones.

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Roger was the first editor of Crash and a director of Newsfield, the magazine's publisher, through its life. He is now a director of Prima Creative Services, the design arm of the publisher Prima, which produces lots of game books. See also Lloyd Mangram.
Info by: Barnaby Page.

Has been part of the Bitmap Brothers for some years now, producing games for the Amiga and PC.
Info by: Stephen Smith.

Is now working for Probe; an interview with him is available here.
Info by: Chris Pile.

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Was working for Teeny Weeny Games (see Angela Sutherland) until 1994, and is now (May 2000) working for Digital Amusement on Playstation games.
Info by: Sean Conran, Paul Laidlaw

Now (Dec 1999) a development manager at Merrill Lynch in Tokyo. Is happy for people to distribute his games, but doesn't know the copyright status of them.
Info by: David Anderson, Alan Laird.

From Mike:
"I left Ocean to come to the States in 1991. I wrote some boxing games before setting up Left Field Productions 4 years ago. We've had some ups and downs but things are going really well now. We're finishing a basketball game for Nintendo and are going to do a couple more games for them."
An interview with Mike is available here.
Info by: Mike Lamb via Philip Bee.

Now working on Playstation games for an independent developer. An interview with him is available here.
Info by: Steve Lamb via Philip Bee.

Last seen running Kinetica Software in Birkenhead.
Info by: Stuart Fotheringham, Andrew Toone, Ralph Ferneyhough.

Apparently went into other magazines rather than staying in computer magazines after YS finished.
Info by: Chris Young.

Portuguese, despite what various Speccy mags claimed. After leaving the Speccy scene, he worked with Rui Tito at both Titus and Portidata.
Info by: Nuno Barros.

Now works for Rare (who used to be called Ultimateof course) and is a regular on comp.sys.sinclair.
Info by: Leigh Loveday.

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Works for Rare.
Info by: Leigh Loveday.

Now writes games for the Sega Saturn (e.g. Cybersled).
Info by: Mark Gordon.

Lloyd Mangram didn't actually exist, really. It was just a false name used by a plethora of journalists at Crash. So it was a big con really! A false identity! While Roger Kean spent most time acting as Lloyd, two others were Barnaby Pageand Eddie McKendrick.
Info by: Peter Thomas, Barnaby Page.

Now works for Netscape in Silicon Valley, and has the source to Shadow Skimmer available on his home page.
Info by: John Marshall.

Was writing for The Mac magazine, until it folded.
Info by: Rich, Damien Burke.

Now works for PC Zone. From David:
"Nice to see some people looking after our cultural heritage. Those were the days."; an interview with him is available here, whilst his homepage is here.
Info by: David McCandless, Nick Humphries.

Was one of many 'Lloyd Mangram's. Now head of New Media at Nickelodeon UK and The Paramount Channel. After a spell doing the ITV teletext service known as Oracle (now sadly missed), he now maintains the Nickelodeon text service known as NickText, and does web-sites and all sorts for both channels. Coincidentally, Nickelodeon's offices are at Rathbone Place in London, where Your Sinclair was based.
Info by: Peter Thomas.

Head of design at Sales Curve Interactive (SCi), ex-Storm. SCi have released a Point and Click called "Kingdom 'O Magic" which was designed by Fergus. Fergus has kindly agreed to free distribution of the Delta 4 games, as long as it is free - no money may change hands. He cannot speak for any of his games with the Abstract Concepts logo, as they are owned by Activision. Delta 4 have a web site, and an interview with Fergus is available here.
Info by: Chris Wild.

Now believed to be working for ICL.
Info by: Andrew Rollings.

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Involved in writing both AP2and The Weekly, and has also put YS2on-line. (Jonathan's e-mail address is available on the YS2 pages).
Info by: Jonathan Nash, Philip Kendall, Andrew Crane.

Does not run Revolution Software, despite what this FAQ used to say. May be driving a yellow Ferrari in the Harrogate area.
Info by: Ciaran Gultnieks.

Now working for Cisco Information Systems in the Netherlands, supporting Unix servers. Has a Home Page with his games available on it.
Info by: Jon Nixon.

Project Manager at Rage Software PLC after Denton Designs were bought by Rage.
Info by: Marc Dawson.

From Jon himself:
"I'm still in I.T. I'm a C/C++ contractor. I got out of computing soon after Zero died because it was getting a bit samey. I got more into my music - resident DJing, setting up and running a studio, that sort of stuff. Then about a year ago I taught myself C++ and wandered off to do that."
(May 2000) "I've gone back into music in my spare time and have put a few choons out"
Info by: Jon North.

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Running Cross Products, producers of console development tools and now owned by Sega; an interview with Ian is available here.
Info by: Ian Oliver.

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Was managing editor of Crash during 1987-88 and is now an editor at Eastern Counties Newspapers.
Info by: Barnaby Page.

Doing some consultancy design work for a children's toys company in the south of England (believed to be Chicco).
Info by: Arnt Gulbrandsen, Miguel Melo, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson.

Did MENSA Puzzles for the PC, but is currently unemployed :-( An interview with him is available here.
Info by: Mark A. Jones, Bob Pape via Philip Bee.

Writes the 'Net Surgery' section for Practical Internet magazine.
Info by: Alex Waddington.

Working for Smallworld Cambridge on GIS.
Info by: Stephen Smith.

Runs Shiny Entertainment (MDK, Earthworm Jim).
Info by: Chris Wild, Damien Guard.

Went on to develop games for the Atari ST and Amiga (for Zippo), SNES and more recently Nintendo 64 (for Software Creations). Has started a games company called Zed Twowith his brother Ste Pickford.
Info by: Ste Pickford.

Went on to do graphics for games for the Atari ST and Amiga (for Zippo), graphics and design for NES and SNES games (including Rare's Solar Jetman - spiritually a Speccy game!) and more recently design and direction for Playstation games (for Software Creations). Has started a games company called Zed Twowith his brother John Pickford. Unfortunately Ste and John don't own the rights to their old games so cannot give permission to distribute them, but as Ste says: "We certainly wouldn't have any objection though.". An interview with Ste is available here.
Info by: Ste Pickford.

Now into VB, C++ & databases and director of East View Systems Ltd (IT Consultants). Still writing games - the latest being a 'passable' (his description!) soccer game called Simsoc (a PC ringer for the speccy Football Manager) - see his homepage.
Info by: John Pragnell.

Now living in Ireland and involved in archery; see here for details.
Info by: Jonathan McCormack.

Previously worked for Smallworld Cambridge on GIS.
Info by: Stephen Smith, Neil Pawson.

Now at the University of Sheffield, UK (Mechanical and Process Engineering dept).
Info by: Stephen Smith.

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Was working in the good ol' USA in 1995.
Info by: Sean Conran.

From Jon himself:
"I'm currently working as an Engineer for an american opto-electronics company called JDS Uniphase doing wonderfully interesting with active fibre optic components (yawn).

Although I spent far too many years writing for SU, I also did some work for ST Update (Focus Mags), Computer Gamesweek (Focus Mags), ACE (EMAP/Future), and Zero (Dennis). I got around!!"
Info by: Jon Riglar, Michael Bruhn.

Jon Ritman is reading/posting to comp.sys.sinclairand is the director of a games software company in the UK called Cranberry Source, where Bernie Drummond previously worked. Jon is currently (Mar 2000) working freelance as a programmer. Contrary to previous assertions in this FAQ, he definitely_didn't_ do a Computer Science degree at UCLand he and Bernie Drummond wrote only one Gameboy game (Monster Max). Jon doesn't care if you copy his old games, indeed he thinks it's nice to think of people still playing the old games. Unfortunately, he doesn't own the rights to them. However, he has been given verbal permission by John Woods (one of Ocean's directors) to release them for free on the net. This covers Match Day, Match Day II, Batman and Head Over Heels. The status of Batman is uncertain as Ocean no doubt rented the name for a limited time only. Also see the entry for Richard Turner, below. [How much of this still applies now that Ocean have been bought out by Infogrames is unknown - Phil]. An interview with Jon is available here.
Info by: Vartan Narinian, Peter Watsons, Jon Ritman.

Now Managing Editor of the Console Division at Paragon Publishing in Bournemouth (publishers of Play, an unofficial Playstation magazine).
Info by: Alex Waddington.

Previously worked for Psygnosis, and is now (Dec 1999) running Wayward Design, working on B17 II for Hasbro.
Info by: Chris Wild, Ciaran Gultnieks.

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Paul worked for Odin Computer Graphic and Denton Designs as a graphics artist; he later set up Rebel City Software. Currently works for BUPA.
Info by: Stuart Fotheringham.

Still owns and runs Sinclair Research, which these days is into producing gadgets of all types, including tiny radios, electric bikes, foldaway bikes, etc. Not on the internet (doesn't have time). In December 1997, was the guest of honour at the launch of Stringfellowsweb site, where he was described as "the UK's favourite inventor and entrepreneur", looked very happy, and said "I was honoured to be asked to launch the site. Especially with all these beautiful girls around". See also Question 16 of the Frequently Asked Questions list.
Info by: Damien Burke, Paul White.

Wrote the music for an unfinished version of Tapper with Paul Holmes, but never actually worked for Elite, despite what this FAQ used to say.
Info by: Duncan Sinclair.

Mike Singleton is alive and well and writing Lords Of Midnight games for the IBM PC. Also ran Curved Logic until they were wound up in 1998.
Info by: Chris Wild, Philip Gooch.

Rumours ranged from him working in some computer store in the south of England to a motorbike mechanic called Mat living in a commune in the Netherlands; he mentioned to someone that he "wrote some video games in the 80's, got burnt out, ended up in a mental institution". There was a Matthew Smith contributing tocomp.sys.sinclair, but he's not _the_Matthew Smith. Or at least that's what he said ;-)

Then, after all that, he reappeared with his own Web Page. Interviews with him are available hereand here.
Info by: Stephen Smith, Gilberto Gaudencio, Chris Cannon.

From Bob himself:
My last original game was Armada 2525 published in 1991 by Interstel. Unfortunately they screwed it up completely, and never paid me for what they did sell. The financial repercussions of this meant that I no longer had the money to write original titles. I did some odd contracting work for a few years, most notably the PC version of Kaiser and Traders for Linel.

In 1994 I came to California to work for Crystal Dynamics. I worked on Solar Eclipse which was one of the first Sega Saturn games. Last year I moved to my current position at Alliance Semiconductor, where I am helping with the design of their 3D accelerator chips. Our main focus is the game industry, which is why they hired me.

I do miss writing my own games, but I make five times more money now than when I was doing my own thing. I hope I'll get to write some more games one day, probably as shareware or freeware.

As regards my old games, I'm delighted that anyone still wants to play them. I hold all the copyrights (licensing agreements having long since expired), and am perfectly happy for people to copy them, pass them around, put them on their web sites etc.

I'm also intending to put up a couple of PC titles (Ancient Battles and an enhanced version of 2525) on my web site. Just as soon as I get around to it.

A longer interview with Bob is available here.
Info by: Bob Smith, Stephen Smith.

Writes for Computer Shopper magazine, mainly about Amigas but also various enjoyable rantings; an interview with him is availablehere.
Info by: Damien Burke.

From David himself:
After getting completely p*ssed off with the games industry, I went to Kent Uni to study VLSI circuit engineering. Once I'd completed my course, I spent 3 months writing Sparcade [_for those who don't know, this is a very good arcade machine emulator, one of the first that appeared_] with the intention of developing it commercially as a last "fling" before going into the electronics industry. However, no software companies were prepared to take it on, all lacking the foresight to see the imminent flood of interest in retro-gaming.

Nowadays I can be found working as a design engineer for a semiconductor company. Specifics of my work are tied up in company confidentiality, but it's enough to say that I'm working on a chip which is destined for use in consumer video hardware.

[_Lastly, Dave mentioned that in order to test the Z80 emulation of Sparcade he coded a SPECCY driver for Sparcade:_]

It's almost a full emulation of a Speccy 128, lacking only the ROM and screen paging. The catch is that there's no facility for loading snapshots, making it rather useless as an Internet release.

[_David WILL NOT send copies of the Speccy Driver for Sparcade to anyone, no matter what, so don't bug him with emails._]
Info by: David Spicer via Blood.

Works for Psygnosis.
Info by: Andrew Toone, Jon Ritman.

Works for Gremlin Interactive and has worked on Zool, Euro '96 etc.
Info by: Stephen Smith.

Writes for movie magazine Neon. (This may explain some of the reviews - Damien :-))
Info by: Stephen Smith.

Angela, Sandy White's ex-partner, owns Perfect Entertainment (ex Teeny Weeny Games).
Info by: Jon Ritman, Chris Wild.

Works for Applied Industrial Systems Ltd. - has issue one of 16/48 in plastic mounted on his wall!
Info by: Fergus Paget.

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Portuguese, despite what some Spectrum mags claimed. After leaving the Speccy scene, he founded Titus and Portidata (a Portuguese software house). Launched Gambys (a PC puzzle game) in 1995, which apparently has hidden Spectrum subgames in it. Was married with one son and living in the Algarve.
Info by: Nuno Barros.

Currently working as a Windows consultant/programmer, and has ahomepage.
Info by: Miguel Melo, Chris Young, Kevin Toms.

Now works at Psion on the Series 3.
Info by: Stephen Smith.

Richard ran Artic Computing, publishers of Jon Ritman's early games. Artic ceased trading many years ago and Jon thinks that Richard now sells kitchens for a living and is unlikely to be chasing people for using those snapshots (Namtir Raiders, Combat Zone, Cosmic Debris, Bear Bovver and Dimension Destructors), but this is not certain.
Info by: Jon Ritman.

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Went on to work for Imagitec Design, writing Game Gear stuff. Left there to work for NMS and was involved in RISC for the PC. Left there and now possibly partner in a shop in Liverpool that sells computer hardware.
Info by: Andy Noble.

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Works for Rare; designed Blast Corps.
Info by: Leigh Loveday.

Apparently committed suicide in the early 90's. If so, RIP Ian.
Info by: Simon Butler via Mark R. Jones.

Steve started his programming career at Software Projects where he created Jet Set Willy II. He then moved to Odin Computer Graphics where he programmed Nodes Of Yesod, Robin Of The Wood, Heartland, Crosswize and Sidewize. He spent some time working for Denton Designs on an Amiga/ST game called Gargantuan before forming Eldritch the Cat with Marc Dawson, where he programmed Scrollerball for Electronic Arts; after which he went on to become the Technical Director of Westwood Studios.
Info by: Marc Dawson, Stuart Fotheringham.

Now a freelance game and graphics designer - last published game worked on was Nihilist on PC-CDROM by Bits Studios, released by Philips Media. Designed the 3D models and did some of the sound effects and music tracks on the CD. An interview with him is availablehere.
Info by: Martin Wheeler via Philip Bee.

Sandy is working on a super new top secret engine while laying about on a beach in Greece.
Info by: Jon Ritman, Chris Wild.

He wrote several of the Dizzy games and both of the CJ games for Code Masters, and several other things too. You're probably more familiar with the Big Red name. He may have done some Seymour games, too. He is also an Acorn enthusiast, and has written just about the nicest version of Sokoban I've ever seen for RISC OS machines. He only does the odd thing in his spare time, but he's just converted a Quake file editor, for instance. Pop along to his web page. You'll also find a list of things that he's worked on there.
Info by: Richard G. Hallas.

Believed to be a public relations person for Electronic Arts. David appeared on Channel 5's "Exclusive" during August 1997 talking about the Internet and on-line gaming.
Info by: Chris Young.

Now Technical Director for Cyberdyne Systems, where he has placed a Java version of BattleZone. Has this to say about his old games: "If anyone's still interested, you have my permission to redistribute the speccy game, as long as Quicksilva aren't worried, which, by the look of John Hollis' entry, they aren't!".
Info by: Bill Witts.

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Primary site for this FAQ: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~pak/cssfaq/index.html.