[FAQ]
[Frequently Asked Questions]
[Resources]
[Emulators]
[Where Is...?]
[File Formats]
[Technical Information]
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[Acknowledgements]
WHERE IS...? (Part 2) |
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This page last updated on 21 March 1998
Companies |
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[#] [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]
Individuals |
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[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]
Individuals H-Z |
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Mark Haigh-Hutchinson [Vortex - Android/TLL/Highway Encounter] |
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Working for LucasArts, e.g. on Shadows of the Empire for the
Nintendo 64. Mark organises the Vortex Emulation Package
for several machines, including the Spectrum. This contains a number of the Vortex
games and is freely distributable; an interview with him is available here.
Info by:
Arnt Gulbrandsen,
Miguel Melo,
Mark Haigh-Hutchinson.
Karl Hampton [Bug Byte - Fridge Frenzy] |
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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 Hampton.
Peter Harrap [Gremlin Graphics - Monty Mole games/Way of The Tiger/Deathwish III |
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Now one of Krisalis' directors, doing
original games and conversion for the PC and Playstation.
Info by:
Guillaume Genty.
John Heap [Imagine/Denton Designs programmer] |
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Project Manager at Rage Software PLC after Denton Designs were bought by Rage.
Info by:
Marc Dawson.
Ed Hickman [DK'Tronics - Apple Jam, Zig Zag] |
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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
Shaun Hollingworth [Gremlin Graphics - Potty Pigeon/Bounder/Future Knight] |
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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 [Quicksilva director - Meteor Storm/Stargate] |
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John Hollis founded Hollis Research, who develop MIDI sequencers (including Trackman
for 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 for
Sega and Hasbro for the last couple of years.
Our homepage is here".
Info by:
Stephen K. Mulrine,
John Hollis.
Paul Holmes [Elite programmer/designer - Wild West hero/Dustman/Frank Bruno] |
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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
Steve Hughes [Bedlam, Hocus Focus, Rasterscan, Hyperbowl] |
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Currently working on N64 games at Zed Two
with Jon and Ste Pickford.
An interview with him is available here.
Info by: Steve Hughes via Philip Bee
Mark Incley [Domark - Oink!/Klax] |
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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.
David Jones [Mastertronic - Bonkers, Finders Keepers/Spellbound/Knight Tyme/Stormbringer] |
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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.
David Aubrey Jones [Ocean - Speedlock/Mercenary] |
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Now works for Reflex Magnetic Ltd.
Info by:
Jonathan McCormack.
Mark A. Jones [aka Makky J; Electric Dreams artist - R-Type] |
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Regularly pops up in some newsgroups, including comp.sys.sinclair
occasionally; an interview with him is available here.
Info by:
Mark A. Jones.
Mark R. Jones [Ocean artist - Wizball/Gryzor/Taipan] |
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Now into the indie music scene, has a home page
and has the following to say:
"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. Since then I now work
in a record shop, DJ at 3 nightclubs and manage an indie/pop group called
'Glendon' who are just about to be signed and were recently offered a
deal by Nude Records (Suede's record company).
(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!)"
A longer interview with Mark is available here.
Info by:
Mark R. Jones.
Roger Kean [Crash editor] |
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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
Steve Kelly [Psion - Chequered Flag] |
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Has been part of the Bitmap Brothers for
some years now, producing games for the Amiga and PC.
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Balor Knight [1999, Astroball, Dyzonium] |
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Is now working for Probe; an interview
with him is available here.
Info by: Chris Pile
Mike Lamb [Ocean - Arkanoid 1 & 2, Renegade, Target Renegade, Robocop] |
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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.
Steve Lamb [Gyroscope, Paperboy, Typhoon, Vendetta] |
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Now working on Playstation games for an independent developer. An interview
with him is available here.
Info by: Steve Lamb via Philip Bee.
Dave Lawson [Denton Designs director] |
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Last seen running Kinetica Software in Birkenhead.
Info by:
Stuart Fotheringham,
Andrew Toone,
Ralph Ferneyhough.
Leigh Loveday [Your Sinclair writer] |
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Now works for Rare (who used to be called Ultimate of course) and
is a regular on comp.sys.sinclair.
Info by:
Leigh Loveday.
Paul Machacek [Activision - Super Hero] |
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Works for Rare.
Info by:
Leigh Loveday.
Tony Mack [Gyroscope, Paper Boy, Super Sprint, Championship Sprint] |
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Now writes games for the Sega Saturn (e.g. Cybersled).
Info by:
Mark Gordon.
Lloyd Mangram [Crash letters editor] |
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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 Page and Eddie McKendrick.
Info by:
Peter Thomas, Barnaby Page.
Teresa Maughan [aka T'zer; Your Sinclair editor] |
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Was writing for The Mac magazine, until it folded.
Info by:
Rich, Damien Burke
David McCandless [aka Macca; Your Sinclair writer] |
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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.
Info by:
David McCandless.
Eddie McKendrick [Crash publisher] |
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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.
Fergus McNeill [Delta 4 - Bored Of The Rings/The Boggit] |
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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.
Jonathan Nash [Your Sinclair] |
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Pops up on comp.sys.sinclair
occasionally. (Mail me if
you want Jonathan's e-mail address)
Info by:
Jonathan Nash.
Richard Naylor [Domark producer - Star Wars] |
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Now runs Revolution Software.
Info by:
Ciaran Gultnieks.
Ally Noble [Imagine/Denton Designs artist] |
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Project Manager at Rage Software PLC after Denton Designs were bought by Rage.
Info by:
Marc Dawson.
Ian Oliver [Realtime Games Software - 3D Starstrike/Starglider] |
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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.
Barnaby Page [Crash editor] |
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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
Bob Pape [Activision - R-Type, Rampage, Dragon Breed] |
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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
Costa Panayi [Vortex programmer - Android/TLL/Highway Encounter] |
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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.
Neil Pawson [Mighty Magus] |
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Working for Smallworld Cambridge on GIS.
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Dave Perry [Mikro-Gen - 3 Weeks In Paradise/Stainless Steel] |
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Runs Shiny Entertainment (MDK, Earthworm Jim).
Info by:
Chris Wild, Damien Guard.
John Pickford [Binary Design programmer/designer - Max Headroom, Glider Rider, Zub, Amaurote] |
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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 Two with his brother
Ste Pickford. See the Zed Two web site
for more.
Info by:
Ste Pickford.
Ste Pickford [Binary Design artist - 180, Zub, Feud, Amaurote] |
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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 Two with his brother John Pickford. See the
Zed Two web site for more. 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.
John Pragnell [Domark - Overlords/Orbix The Terrorball] |
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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.
Dominic Prior [part of Gyron team] |
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Working for Smallworld Cambridge on GIS.
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Andy Pugh [Johnny Reb] |
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Now at the University of Sheffield, UK (Mechanical and Process Engineering dept).
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Jon Ritman [Ocean - co-author of Matchday/Batman/Head over Heels] |
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Jon Ritman is reading/posting to comp.sys.sinclair
and is the director of a games software company in the UK called Cranberry Source,
where Bernie Drummond can also be found. Contrary to previous assertions in this FAQ,
he definitely didn't do a Computer Science degree at
UCL and 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. An interview
with Jon is available here.
Info by:
Vartan Narinian,
Peter Watsons,
Jon Ritman.
Dominic Robinson [Hewson/Graftgold - Flying Shark/Zynaps] |
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With Psygnosis, or at least he was a few months ago.
Info by:
Chris Wild.
Paul Salmon [Odin artist] |
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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.
Sir Clive Sinclair [do I really have to explain?!] |
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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 Stringfellows
web 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 17 of the Frequently Asked Questions list.
Info by:
Damien Burke, Paul White
Duncan Sinclair [Tapper] |
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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 [Lords Of Midnight, Doomdark's Revenge etc.] |
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Matthew Smith [Bug Byte/Software Projects - Styx/Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy] |
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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 to comp.sys.sinclair, but he's not the Matthew Smith. Or at least that's what he said ;) There is also now a page dedicated to the question of Matthew's whereabouts.
Chris Cannon, who worked at Bug-Byte,
has now revealed that Matt has changed his name by deed poll to "Matthew
From-Earth"! Also, he has Matt's parents' phone number, rang them and
confirmed that Matt is living in the Netherlands.
Info by: Stephen Smith, Gilberto Gaudencio, Chris Canon
R. T. Smith [CCS - Arnhem, Vulcan] |
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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, thanks also to
Stephen Smith.
Phil South [aka Snouty; Your Sinclair writer] |
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Writes for Computer Shopper magazine, mainly about
Amigas but also various enjoyable rantings; an interview with him is available
here.
Info by:
Damien Burke.
David Spicer [Codemasters - Sgt.Seymour/Robotcop/Adidas Championship Football] |
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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.
Graham Stafford [Design Design programmer - Halls of the Things/Dark Star] |
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Works for Psygnosis.
Info by:
Andrew Toone,
Jon Ritman.
Richard Stevenson [Telecomsoft - Bombscare, Shorts Fuse] |
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Works for Gremlin Interactive and has
worked on Zool, Euro '96 etc.
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Garth Sumpter [Sinclair User writer] |
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Writes for movie magazine Neon. (This may explain some of the reviews - Damien :-))
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Angela Sutherland [Ant Attack/Zombie Zombie] |
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Angela, Sandy White's ex-partner, owns Perfect Entertainment (ex
Teeny Weeny Games).
Info by:
Jon Ritman,
Chris Wild.
Roger Swift [16/48 editor] |
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Works for Applied Industrial Systems Ltd. - has issue one of 16/48 in
plastic mounted on his wall!
Info by:
Fergus Paget.
Kevin Thoms [Football Manager] |
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Currently working as a Windows consultant/programmer.
Info by:
Miguel Melo.
Stephen Townsend [Psion - Chequered Flag] |
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Now works at Psion on the Series 3.
Info by:
Stephen Smith.
Richard Turner [Artic Computing director] |
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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.
Christian Urqhuart [Ocean - Hunchback/Daley Thompson's Decathlon] |
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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.
Martin Wakeley [Tiertex artist - Rolling Thunder/Street Fighter] |
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Works for Rare; designed Blast Corps.
Info by:
Leigh Loveday.
Ian Weatherburn [Imagine programmer - Alchemist/Bandersnatch] |
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Apparently committed suicide in the early 90's. If so, RIP Ian.
Info by:
Simon Butler via Mark R. Jones.
Steve Wetherill [Denton Designs/Odin programmer - Nodes of Yesod, Heartland] |
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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.
Martin Wheeler [Virgin artist - Dan Dare 1 & 2, Action Force 2, Rebel] |
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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 available
here.
Info by: Martin Wheeler via Philip Bee.
Sandy White [Ant Attack, Zombie Zombie] |
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Sandy is working on a super new top secret engine while laying about on
a beach in Greece.
Info by:
Jon Ritman,
Chris Wild.
R. Fred Williams [Codemasters - Dizzy & C.J. games] |
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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