20 Years Of SuperGeek'ness

That's right, 20 years! I've been making games now for 20 years!. I can't believe it. That's almost half my life being a robot.

How did all this start? I was addicted to arcade games as a kid. I'd sink all my 'pocket money' into the machines, and any family holiday to Devon was rated on how good the arcade was.

One summer night when I was 12, I was walking home with my friends from karate lessons. Paul, told us this tall tale of his friend's dad having a computer built onto his house. "A computer?, what can you do with that?". "You can make your own games ...". That one single line changed everything. I wanted to know about - computers. First up, I'd heard about some kids doing stuff on computers in Tandy (Radio Shack), soI start hanging around watching these kids - checking them out, watching them program. It was good stuff as well, one of the dudes had a SCRAMBLE game going. Impressive.

My fascination was right on time, the home computer movement blew up in 1980 - thanks to Sir Clive Sinclair producing the Sinclair Z-80. The product sold, and in '81 the release of the Z-81 cemented the industry. There was tons and tons of magazines on 'home computing' 'computer and video games' .. games being sold everywhere ... advertising luring parents to buy computers for their kids ... by the end of '81 I could program.

My first computer was the Commodore VIC-20. My ace dad bought it for me for xmas. I loved that machine : 2K RAM - 2K RAM - this post is already 3K in html script - I just measured :~ . My 2nd, and most treasured computer was the Commodore 64. A beautiful machine.

Moving along here...moving along ... the transition from geek to super_geek happened when I was 17, I attended a IT course and convinced the tutor to teach us Assembly or Machine Code - the language of micro-processers. A month later I was better than him, teaching him a trick or two. That summer I wrote demo after demo, and tons of mini-games. On a rainy day, I was lining up for the bus, when the pressure from my mum to goto the job-centre got to me. In the Job Centre, or at the time we called it Maggie Thatchers Joke Shop, I saw a posting for a games programmer. What? Serious? I applied, interviewed and got the job. It all started here. The friends I made here are my greatest friends that I still have today. They've been my creative partners in life.

I won't go on, but that all started 20 years ago. I'm lucky I still love my job and still challanged. I feel fortunate.

I'm an artist at heart - this is where I get my kicks.