![[Steve Cain]](pics/SteveCain.png)
(1957 – 2006, softography)
Raúl "Zemman Scott"
Steve Cain began his career in the video game industry as Imagine Software's Art Department director in 1983 where he worked on titles like B.C Bill and the infamous "mega-game" Bandersnatch. His background in Fine Arts from University of Liverpool, his love for games and his talent at pixel art meant that he was ideally suited for the job.
After Imagine's well known financial issues led to its breakdown, he along with other Imagine employees Ally Nobel, Graham "Kenny" Everitt, John Gibson and Karen Davies created the software label, Denton Designs, based in Liverpool.
Denton Design went on to win much respect and acclaim for their original work on such well known classics as Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Great Escape, Shadowfire and Where Time Stood Still.
In Denton Designs, he helped build a working environment different from the one he knew at Imagine. However, his colleague, Ian Weatherburn (who had also joined Denton Design), missed Imagine's working environment and never really adapted himself to that of Denton's, so he eventually left to join Ocean.
Steve later joined Microprose as Art Director and subsequently went on to work with other well-known publishers like Canvas, Rage, Acclaim and finally Silverback Studios.
Sadly, in 2004 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Despite the disease, Steve worked for another year in the industry. He died on July 19th, 2006. On July 25th, many personalities of the video game industry said their final farewell to Steve.
It is not easy to track down Steve's softography - especially for Denton Designs's productions, for which the authors' names are sometimes unclear. At least, Steve appears in the credits of the following games:
B.C.BILL 1984 Imagine. SP/C64.
THE NEVERENDING STORY 1985 (OCEAN) C64.
BOUNCES 1985 (DENTON DESIGNS) Beyond Software. SP.
SHADOWFIRE 1985 (DENTON DESIGNS) Beyond. C64/
HIGHLANDER 1986 (CANVAS) Ocean. SP/CPC/C64.
WHERE TIME STOOD STILL 1988 (DENTON DESIGNS) Ocean. SP/ST.
STAR TREK: THE REBEL UNIVERSE 1988 (FIREBIRD) C64/PC-DOS
STAR GOOSE (LOGOTRON) 1988 Spinnaker Software Corp. AMIGA/PC-DOS.
BLACK LAMP 1988 (FIREBIRD) ST/SP/.
HELLRAIDER 1989 (FRAMES) Atari. AMIGA/
KNIGHTS OF THE SKY 1990 (MICROPROSE) AMIGA/ST.
PYROTECHNICA 1995 (PSYGNOSIS) PC-DOS
COMBAT AIR PATROL 1995 (PSYGNOSIS) PC.
DARKLIGHT CONFLICT 1997 (RAGE SOFTWARE) EA. PC.
INCOMING FORCE 2002 (RAGE SOFTWARE) PC.
MADEMAN 2006 (SILVERBACK STUDIOS) PS2. [*]
[*]Although he couldn't finish, Steve worked in this project, and the game is dedicated to his memory.
He seems to be related to other games, although it is unclear for which platform version:
ARMY MOVES 1986 (DINAMIC)
SHADOW OF THE BEAST II 1994 (REFLECTIONS INT.) Psygnosis.
BRIAN THE LION 1994 (REFLECTIONS INT.) Psygnosis.
Finally, he had a couple of unfinished projects for the ZX Spectrum (see "The Games That Time Forgot"):
BANDERSNATCH (IMAGINE).
INFODROID (DENTON DESIGNS).
Simon Butler
Steve Cain was a talented artist, aware of his strengths but also equally conscious of his weaknesses and humble enough to call upon others who he knew could achieve something quicker or better than himself. He was affable, sociable and someone that almost everyone warmed to.
He led then as always, by example. He worked hard, applied himself totally, paid attention to the smallest detail and ensured that everything went as smoothly as possible.
His dedication to his chosen field faltered at times but once he applied himself to a task, he would stick to a path until he reached his chosen goal. The success that he was truly capable of may have never reached his grasp but he rarely stopped the journey towards new and exciting parts of the gaming scene.
He mentored many people as he progressed from one company to another; some who have strayed from the gaming path as they matured and some who still practice some of the tenets laid down by Steve to this very day.
There were times, I am privileged to say that I accompanied him in his endeavours, at other times we went our separate professional ways but he always remained my friend.
He faced his final years in typical Steve Cain style, with a philosophical shrug and his trademark laugh. This face may have been for friends and the facade might have fallen underneath the pain he suffered in his illness, but he never displayed anything other than the larger than life character I had known all my life.
In his passing, the industry has lost a founding figure but is richer for his time and influence. Acknowledgements: Raúl "Zemman Scott" and Simon Butler for the write-up, Juan Pablo López-Grao for the translation.
![[Pablo Toledo Cota]](pics/PabloToledo.jpg)
(1971 – 2007, softography)
Javier Sánchez Fransesch
It was around the end of 1986, or perhaps the beginning of 1987, in Seville, when I received a phonecall from a guy called Pablo. He got my phone number from an acquaintance of us, as we all shared our interest in games for the C-64.
We immediately arranged a meeting for exchanging games. Between the long loads and copies of games, we talked about our interest in getting infinite lives (I was pretty bad as a player, so I liked hacking games) and about programming. Due to the very limited BASIC implemented in the C-64, you had to learn machine code if you wanted to make something interesting.
In this way, little by little, he progressively gained interest in the programming world. I must say this was no merit of mine, because it can be said that Pablo was one of that people who is born to be a programmer. Sooner or later, he was bound to computers.
He was a very intelligent person -his IQ was very high indeed- with a very swift learning skill. I can still remember the day in which I explained Pablo how to map using blocks, and after a while, he had already engaged his friend Johnny for being his graphist and making a game. And so was he. Passionate, dedicated and easily excitable.
Rather soon he finished his first game demo, and went to Madrid to sell it. Though he couldn't, he made himself a name for future contracts, either as game ports programmer or musician. In contrast to other contemporary game musicians, Pablo had an education in music. I can remember him playing melodies on his piano, as well as improptu pieces. The only thing he was no good at were graphics -what a bad taste for choosing colors!. Fortunately he was helped in that aim by his friend Johnny.
Initially he was given the job of porting Topo Soft's "Chicago's 30" to the C-64. Though he easily admitted the final shortcomings of the game, it was his first game and he was just 16 years old. The final game scene was remarkable -though a bit too spicy- as well as the melodies he compose. He was paid 500.000 pesetas for that port.
Soon he was ordered to port Dinamic's "Turbo Girl". This was another game he was not very satisfied with, but it was however a good training for him. He was increasingly becoming more self-confident, and he was already capable of overcoming every programming problem he found.
Nevertheless, being hired for these game ports was an outstanding feat for a person with such modest programming experience - though it is well-known the lack of Spanish C-64 programmers at that time. He did it the best he could, and though the results were still mediocre, it was increasingly evident he was a young genius.
He finally prove it in the next game he made: the conversion of Electronic Arts's "Budokan". He was no longer that beginner. After his two first conversions, Pablo didn't stand still but kept disassembling others' games and learning the techniques used in them. All he learned was evident in Budokan. Besides, he was short-sighted by EA's quality control department. I remember well the headaches he got after those "could you change that pixel", "that sprite is blinking", etc. But that made the final product very welcomed, and the reviews were excellent.
When the 8-bits world became doomed in Spain -indeed it was already dead in Europe- the distributors got nasty. He was given the job of porting Dinamic's "Hammer Boy" and he thought of it as a way to make some money. Since it was another conversion, he lacked any power of decision on the plot or the development. Finally, he wasn't paid for his work.
There were other unfinished projects (one game about Mortadelo y Filemón among them) and he composed the music of Silent Shadow and Game Over II.
His problem with Dinamic was around 1991. Back in 1988 I was already becoming interested in the Commodore Amiga and PC platforms. As soon as I had my own Amiga-500, I showed Pablo all the potential the machine had. He was delighted, but he was very focused on 8-bits, and was beginning to earn money with his C-64 ports.
After the Hammer Boy affair, he finally understood that the 8-bits age was ending. Then he asked me to show him all the information I had for programming over the Amiga, and so I did. It is needless to say that he learned everything swiftly and started programming a game for the Amiga. It was for a promotion of the soft drink 7 Up, and I cannot remember if it was ever published.
After that, he made a stop in his game production, as he registered in the Computer Science Faculty in Seville, with me and Johnny, and his student life began.
There we knew Álvaro Mateos, an Spectrum programmer ("Rocky", "West Bank", "Capitán Sevilla"), and we shared extremely boring classes about Physics, Calculus, ...
We all four left the degree before finishing.
The Amiga times finished, and he threw himself into the PC. He made, for instance, a program for a high school, including an innovative technique for optical formulary reading.
He also started the project of his life, a game called Unknown Destination, that he could never finish. The title was somewhat premonitory.
In that game he was introducing all the new 3D techniques that saw the light of day. Each time that he saw a game with some novel technique, he investigated it and applied it to Unkonwn Destination. Doing that, he never became outdated in the game industry.
Thanks to his contacts in Madrid, he knew that professionals were needed for a new PC game. It was a very ambitious project. Something very different to what games had ever been in Spain. And there he went, and he got hired.
It was Pyro Studios's "Commandos".
There's not much I can say that is not already knew about that game - it really was a landmark in the (few) Spanish game developments.
A nice anecdote I remember is the day I had a meeting with Pablo in Seville to see the game. He told me, really excited, every detail he had put in the game -some of them against his boss' willing- as the smoke of the soldiers' cigarettes.
He had many discussions with his boss, as he was very individualistic, he didn't stand authority, and this is something very difficult to deal with in a workplace. Besides, he was a person who was used -due to his brilliant mind- to be right, and that made of him a very stubborn person. Anyway, I must say I can't remember having any quarrel with him during all our life.
When he had already made his mind to not continue in Pyro Studios, he used the Commandos hype to leap forward to Britain, being hired by Acclaim for converting Re-Volt to Nintendo 64. From that development, he said that he wouldn't feel as an 8-bit programmer any longer, due to the programming environment he had, and the way he should work -and this is not precisely a praise for the Nintendo staff.
The hasty life in London and the permanent problems with his bosses finished with his comeback to Seville.
He decided to catch some breath, and so he got involved in a long-term European project in which he worked at home. Meanwhile, he made some experiments on game development in Java, though he didn't succeed (I think he just finished one or two games).
He told me before his death that he was planning to be a civil servant through competitive examinations. I felt very saddened for hearing him talking like that. Being such a talented person, really experienced and intelligent - it was almost an insult seeing him as a computer operator.
He never was. Sadly, he died on July 15th, 2007... The decease of a good person, a friend, and a computer genius.
Fernando García Cabello
I will always feel indebted to Pablo. I can still remember the day when I received that call from him, asking me if I wanted to go with him to Madrid so as to work with them at Pyro. Pablo always bet for me, and even he took me at his home while I was searching for a flat in Madrid. So was Pablo. In the end, I didn't match neither with the team, nor with the city, but I brought a lot of experiences and remembrances with me. All of them were inconsciously linked to Pablo, and they marked the beginning of my professional life.
Pablo was one of that people that, even if you haven't seen them for a while, always bring lovely remembrances and feelings to you. He was a very restless, versatile, and often misunderstood person. But above all things, he was a programmer. A GREAT PROGRAMMER. Undoubtedly, the best one I've ever known. Pablo belonged to the elite of the programmers of a golden age. Different times. Times in which you must knew the machine very profoundly; times for experimenting and learning; times in which programming was an art. And Pablo was a real ARTIST of programming, he was very passionate about it, he enjoyed so much, wasting uncountable hours, observing and learning, and always making new technological wonders. I still remember the day in which I explained to him the most basic principles of 3D programming. I made a very simple program for him - I called it base3d - with a wired cube spinning on its 3 axis in an aleatory way. In two weeks he had developed a DOOM-type game demo. Unbelievable! He had the most incredible ability for concentrating and excelling himself I've ever known. He really liked amazing everyone, watching our open mouths, proving us that he was THE BEST. He really was and is.
Regarding his human side, I must say that he was a very faithful friend, and above everything a very happy person - indeed he was always smiling or laughing. I can't remember having any serious quarrel or discussion with him, although he was one with a strong character. He never lost a party, and after having two drinks he could be a fabulous satyr. Sometimes he gave us a complex, as he never thought a night was over: he was restless! I could tell uncountable night anecdotes. For instance, I can remember a night in Madrid, in which he ended up running around a car, chasing an old companion at Pyro - I think she was called Cristina. I can still watch them running around that car for a long time. "Come hereee!", said Pablo. And Cristina running like crazy while Pablo was chasing her with a sparkling look. "I will catch you, surrender!..." He was a real genius in every aspect of his life.
I believe we forgot a little about him in the last times, being busy as we were with our own lives, worries and circumstances. Us being somewhat insconscious of the fact that he needed us much more than he seemed to. I'm very sorry "maki" - I never knew how to return all you did for me.
Acknowledgements: Javier Sánchez Fransesch and Fernando García Cabello for the write-up, Juan Pablo López-Grao for the translation.
![[Viktor Drozd]](pics/ViktorDrozd.jpg)
(1955 – 2007)
Andrey Drozd
My father, Viktor Drozd, was born 8th of july 1955 near the city of Minsk (Belarus). He worked as chief engineer in the road projection department.
Our first Spectrum computer was bought in 1992 (for my birthday).
He shared his interest with me, as we searched for POKEs and drew maps...
I moved to PC gaming, but my father never left the Spectrum scene, as emulators presented him with new possibilities.
He was an unusual man - his hobby was more than just that a word. Imagine that every day after work, he spent several hours with his spectrum deeds, sometimes even in the early morning before work, and on the weekends from dawn till dusk. He was not just a casual fan - he was a true spectrumist, and a very good father, grandpa and husband. The one, who truly was a Man with a capital letter.
We'll miss him until the end of our lives.
Martijn van der Heide
I first got in touch with Viktor in 2003, when he inquired about the lack of Eastern European entries in the database. Ever since, he made a point of working on this omission diligently, starting off with making sure each and every existing "TR-DOS" entry had completely accurate details, up to country of release, control options and screenshots.
He would produce these (big!) updates in between his many other contributions to the scene, such as POKEs and maps.
What makes his work so valuable is the great eye for perfection he had. Every last little detail was carefully researched until he was absolutely certain it was correct, before presenting it to us. And when we added new fields to the database (such as tie-in licences), he would revisit all entries he had already covered, to make sure those had the new fields properly filled in too.
After completing accuracy of the TR-DOS section, he set his mind on expanding it to include every remaining title from Eastern Europe to the WoS database, with his usual detail levels. Sadly, he departed before he was able to really get this going.
I will really miss Viktor a lot. He was witty and ever helpful, in any way he possibly could.
Gerard Sweeney
Viktor was an invaluable contribution to The Tipshop. It seemed that every month saw at least one email from him containing a ton of new maps, cheats, POKEs or hints... And usually at least a few corrections or improvements on existing material.
To describe him as passionate about the Spectrum scene would be an understatement. Whenever I get sent new tips for a game, I'll do my very best to verify them... With Viktor, I never had to.
About the best way I can visually show how much Viktor gave to The Tipshop is via this link, which shows every single tip he sent in - all 1153 of them!
He will be sadly missed.
Acknowledgements: Andrey Drozd, Martijn van der Heide and Gerard Sweeney for the write-up.
![[Jim Langmead]](pics/JimLangmead.jpg)
(1974 – 2007)
Jim Langmead was a dedicated and well respected member of the speccy scene. He had been an active member of the WoS forums and comp.sys.sinclair for several years. A true hardcore spec-chum.
In July of 2003 Jim set up his Speccy Spoilers web site, which contains ending snapshots for hundreds of speccy games. He wasn't pleased that the Congraturations Archive site had been all but abandoned, so he set up his own instead to carry on the theme. We spent many an hour in #speccy on IRC, discussing how to complete games, and we'd submit ending snapshots and RZX recordings to each other's sites. Speccy Spoilers was featured in an article in issue seven of Retro Gamer magazine [ link 1 | link 2 ].
Although we never met personally, through the amount of time we spent on IRC chatting I did get to know him pretty well. We first starting chatting on IRC in 2001.
In June of 2006, Jim was stricken by Crohns disease and was hospitalized. In mid July he had an emergency bowel operation, with a less than 50% chance of survival, but he made it through. Also at about this time, he contracted a brain infection, which thankfully didn't last too long.
The last contact I had with Jim was an email from him on Christmas Day 2006. Then after that, no further replies to emails. James passed away on the 11th of April, 2007, taken well before his time.
Acknowledgements: Daren for the write-up.
![[Ian Weatherburn]](pics/IanWeatherburn.jpg)
(? – early 90's, softography)
Ian Weatherburn was a Spectrum games pioneer and a significant influence on the realisation of the Spectrum as a computer with real potential to entertain. Weatherburn's early creation, The Alchemist (1983) was one of the first ever attempts at a collect and use arcade adventure, a game mechanic that was refined and enhanced through the Spectrum's most successful years by other coders - in the shape of the Dizzy series as well as many other Spectrum games.
Weatherburn's creative ability to tap straight into the imagination of a child was continued in games like N.O.M.A.D. and The Neverending Story. His versatility beyond these can also be seen in the coding of the Leaderboard golf games for the Spectrum, which emphatically raised the bar for that genre.
Ian Weatherburn remains largely an enigmatic figure in the Spectrum community because of his reclusive nature and eccentric habits. A persona that was magnified when news of Ian's tragic death (apparently he commited suicide) hit the community. Simon Butler, who worked together with Ian on many titles, tells us more about Ian:
I met Ian way back in the mists of time at the Imagine offices and he treated me then with pretty much the same disdain he did until the end of our working relationship together. But that was just Ian.
He was a self-absorbed with few people skills, which worked to his detriment in the social arena but was one of his strengths in the games field.
This distance that was always present between Ian and the rest of the human race only brought him closer to the thing he was best at, writing games. His games were more than usually well-crafted with a lot of man-hours put into each.
He was sarcastic to a point where it was almost painful to hear some of the things he said. His idea of humour was almost always at somebody else's expense...but again this was just part of Ian Weatherburn and you either got over it, ignored it or if you couldn't, then stay away.
We worked quite extensively, just the two of us in our freelance days and because of his intractable manner he always said exactly what he wanted and left no room for error. Would that other coders in years to come had been as blunt or as focused.
There was no room for niceties, he was a man of few words so whenever work started, work was all there was and you did it until you finished; then it was time to clock off until tomorrow. No shooting the breeze or winding down, just down tools, goodbye, see you tomorrow.
While other, younger people came into the industry and matured and grew, Ian stayed a kind of Peter Pan figure in the background. His hands later came to hold the reins of his own company but he was always a figure on the edge of things and even though the whole ball of wax was his, he never entered centre stage.
His only true failing that led to his downfall was his trust in people he considered friends.
Ian was led astray and his financial dealings only got worse. It was sad to see but, Ian being the person he was, would not take kindly to being offered advice and told he had made a mistake. His judgement was absolute and no-one could tell him otherwise.
We parted on far from good terms.
Ian could have, I can only conjecture, been a pretty damn good coder, but I believe his communications skills or lack of would have held him back.
Most likely he would have gone Stateside and followed his first love, the almighty dollar.
I can see him now, alone but unconcerned in a house with a beach view, a fast car in the garage and the world's dodgiest collection of 80s female rockers in his cd collection.
He could have been happy. But sadly he never was.
Acknowledgements: Jumping_Stack and Simon Butler for the write-up.
![[Roger Dymond]](pics/RogerDymond.jpg)
(1960 – 1999, softography)
Roger Dymond may not be a familiar name to most, but his story is an inspirational one for, it highlights just how much the home computer era of the 80's made a difference in everyone's life. It certainly made a difference in Roger's life.
Roger suffered from Asperger's Syndrome and as such he had a difficult childhood. The schools didn't know how to handle him, he had very few friends and was bullied at school. It was then that Roger's parents, Josephine and Barry Dymond, decided to send him to the Rudolf Steiner School at Aberdeen.
Roger, however, didn't take to the new school immediately and Josephine feels that he never forgave them for sending him there. However, the school did help Roger take control of his life and by the time he left the school at age 18, he had changed quite a bit for the better. He had become organised and was determined to succeed at everything he did.
Josephine recounts the transformations thus: "At nineteen he terrified me by saying he wanted to travel abroad, off he went, on his own, having organised it to the letter, to France, Italy, Germany, and later to the Philippines. At age 23 he terrified me again by announcing that he was going to learn to drive, he passed first time, and then passed his advanced driving test 18 months later."
Roger was a great nature lover and gardening was one of his favourite past-times and he even had a Council Gardening apprenticeship. Unfortunately, when he was made redundant at the job at age 20, he was left with a very grave future. Having had very little formal training and no certificates to his name, his job prospects were very slim.
That was when Roger acquired a ZX81 and in the process acquired a friend for life - the computer. One of Barry's colleagues dropped in three four times to help Roger get acquainted with the ZX81 and pretty soon Roger was on his way. After a while, Roger went to the local technical school and won prize as best student in Computing in the first year.
Roger began developing software on the ZX81 and soon moved on the Spectrum as soon as it was released. He taught himself machine code and went on to program his first game "Roulette". He then went on to write a collection of children's games which were good enough to encourage the Dymond's to have their own stall at the Computer Show in Pudsey, Leeds, which got a very enthusiastic response from everyone.
The Dymond's sold their own software with Roger writing all the games, Barry doing the marketing and cassette covers, Josephine doing the advertising, packaging as well as the delivering and correspondence. This way they managed to sell around £1000 of games but the cost of advertising made further sales difficult.
A year after all this, Roger bagged a job at Dumfries and Galloway Educational School, programming and troubleshooting systems for all the Dumfriesshire schools where he worked till he died suddenly of a heart condition five years ago.
Acknowledgements: Josephine and Barry Dymond for the inputs. Simon Webb curator of Swindons' Museum of Computing for putting me in touch with them. Geoff Wearmouth for pointing me at the right places.
![[Tim Hartnell & Sir Clive]](pics/TimHartnell.jpg)
(1951 – 1991, softography)
Tim Hartnell is a name that is well known to many (if not all) Spectrum users.
A very public and well respected figure in the publishing circles, he was editor of numerous books on various subjects for the Spectrum.
He also wrote one of the first books for the ZX80 - "Making the Most of Your Sinclair ZX80"
But before all this Tim had gone down other roads. He first started work at the correspondence department of the Victoria Police force! He then went on to become a DJ for country radio. He then left Victoria to work as a news reader for a country TV station in Western Australia. When he came in touch with the ZX80 he was working in London as a journalist on the Australasian Express. He also wrote many articles for various papers and even ran a regular maths puzzle column for an Australian paper!
He was one of the first to purchase a Sinclair ZX80 home computer in early 1980, and is well known for his attempts to keep the ZX80 cool by balancing a frozen carton of milk on top of it! He was also one of the first to see the ZX81 as well as the Spectrum, and one of its early adopters.
In his efforts to bring ZX80 users together, he started the Sinclair ZX80 User's Club, which became so popular that within six weeks of it being launched, it had 3000 members! The club even had its own magazine called "Interface", which Tim claimed was the first magazine to be dedicated "solely" to the home computing user.
Tim was also the editor of ZX Computing magazine when it was launched, which is regarded widely as one of the first magazines to address the practical (as opposed to purely gaming) needs of the Spectrum user.
Tim returned to Melbourne in 83-84 and eventually went on to co-found Interface Publications with Robert Young, an old friend of his. It is still in existence and is now run by Robert Young.
Tim died of cancer in 1991.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Robert Young for allowing us to use some of the information from his site (http://home.iprimus.com.au/robert_young/default.htm), personal inputs on Tim, as well as the photograph. Inputs also collated from Your Sinclair Issue 14, May 1985.
![[Paco Menéndez]](pics/PacoMenendez.jpg)
(1965 – 1999, softography)
Francisco Menéndez, aka Paco Menéndez, was born in 1965. During his career, Paco worked for the Spanish companies Indescomp, Made in Spain and Ópera Soft.
Although he only developed three games, his reputation is almost unparalleled in Spain, mainly due to the mastery of his programming skills. These skills are patently obvious in his works, namely "Fred", "Sir Fred" and the timeless masterpiece "La Abadía del Crimen".
Paco began programming when he was at school, aged fifteen years old, on a Commodore PET.
When he was aged seventeen, Paco and his three friends (Carlos Granado, Fernando Rada and Camilo Cela) were hired by Indescomp, thanks to the efforts of Jorge Granados, brother of Carlos. During the first months, they spent their time preparing the ground for the arrival of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum to Spain, developing some programs and translating UK software to Spanish.
After leaving the internal staff of Indescomp, the four friends began to work intensely in a new game called "Fred". "Fred" was born by an idea from Carlos Granados, who was the only one of the group who had a computer in his own home.
The idea of creating "Sir Fred" came soon after finishing the Amstrad version of "Fred". Basically they took the concept of the classical platform game, but adding some adventure features that weren't available on "Fred" (neither in most of arcade games until then). It was during that time that they decided to establish a name for the programming group and so "Made In Spain" was born. That label would finally turn into Zigurat Software, a powerful company that is still active.
After releasing "Sir Fred", Made In Spain decide to start working in two simultaneous works. While Carlos Granados and Fernando Rada started working in "El Misterio Del Nilo", Paco Menéndez and Juan Delcán did the same with a new game called "La Abadía Del Crimen". Juan was responsible for the atmospheric graphics of "La Abadía Del Crimen".
When Carlos and Fernando finished "El Misterio del Nilo" they decided to set up a new publisher so as to distribute their own game. The new company, a kind of "legalization" of Made in Spain, was going to be called Zigurat. Since Paco Menéndez didn't like management tasks but only programming, he wasn't attracted by the project, leaving alone their old partners (but still keeping a good friendship).
As widely known, "La Abadia del Crimen" was an adaptation of Umberto Eco's famous novel "The name of the rose". However, the licence was never granted by Eco, although he was asked about. It seems Eco did never answered to the asking of permission for using the name for a videogame (indeed, some people say that he never plainly understood what a videogame was!) and so the games was finally christened "La Abadia del Crimen".
The game was developed entirely by Paco using an Amstrad CPC, while Juan designed the graphics (it seems they often worked independently in their own houses and had frequent meetings to put their work together). It was a very exhausting task. After programming the Spectrum and MSX conversions, Paco decided to release the game with Opera Soft, where his old friend Paco Suárez and other old partners from Indescomp were working in. The reason for that choice (instead of Zigurat) was that they promised him assistance with a PC version. He stayed in Opera for a year, working on the PC conversion, and the game was released by the company for the four referred platforms.
Despite the fact that the game wasn't an instantaneous success (in fact, the game became progressively famous in a slow but steady way), the excellent work in "La Abadía del Crimen" was quickly recognized by the Spanish specialized press. The Spanish Spectrum magazine MicroHobby even bestowed the best Spanish programmer award to Paco in 1988.
After finishing "La Abadía del Crimen", Paco suddenly decided to leave the field of game development because of the progressive commercialism in the videogame market. Bad experiences with Mikro-Gen's "Sir Fred" distribution also didn't help. Thus, he concentrated his efforts in finishing his degree in Telecom Engineering and after that he began doing research in parallel data processing.
It seems that he had some interesting ideas in this field, and more specifically he was interested in the development of an "intelligent matrix memory", which would enable high parallelization at low cost. He spent nine years working in the project, and in the three last years he had high expectations of being able to develop a working prototype.
Paco Menéndez died in Sevilla in 1999.
Juan Delcán provides this remarkable insight on Paco:
"He had a very particular way of programming. He never did it in front of the computer, instead, he used to wander with his hands crossed behind his back, just thinking. He could do this for an hour, sometimes even more, and then suddenly you would see a spark in his eyes. He would then sit down in front of the computer and immediately begin to type lines of code so fast that you would think he was possessed. It was like watching someone playing the piano: his head wasn't thinking any more, he was simply executing what he had already decided."
Acknowledgements: Juan Pablo López-Grao for providing the above article. He would like to acknowledge Juan Delcán as well as the following sites for the inputs to the article:
http://www.speccy.org/horace/historia/otros/pacomen1.php
http://www.abadiadelcrimen.com/paco1987.html
http://www.abadiadelcrimen.com/paco1989.html
http://www.meristation.com/sc/articulos/articulo.asp?c=GEN&cr=4824
http://usuarios.lycos.es/macedoniamagazine/opera.htm http://soft.mundivia.es/mpazos/abadia/JuanDelcan.html.
![[Emilio Pablo Salgueiro Torrado]](pics/EmilioPabloSalgueiroTorrado.jpg)
(1970 – 1996, softography)
Emilio Salgueiro was born in San Fernando (Cádiz, Spain) in 1970, though subsequently moved along several Spanish port towns during his childhood, due to his father's job. One of those destinations was Castellón, where Emilio spent two years of his adolescence and where Emilio met Enrique Cervera, who was the programmer of "Phantomas 1", "Dustin" and "After The War", and also a beloved friend of him.
Their common interest in programming led them to independently start programming a platform game, while trying to outdo one another. Enrique's game plot was centered on a thief, while Emilio's one was a ghost story with vampires.
Although their games were initially conceived for being released under Dinamic's "Future Stars" label (which was aimed to young Spanish programmers' promotion), the quality of both games was so notable that Dinamic's main chiefs decided to release them as 'full' titles. They both were just fifteen years old at the time.
Since the conception of both games had a lot of things in common, the people at Dinamic suggested them creating a shared main character, which was called Phantomas. Due to the fact that the development of Enrique's game was slightly ahead of Emilio's, they called it "Phantomas 1" while Emilio's was called "Phantomas 2".
Both games were released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1986. Besides, "Phantomas 2" was converted to Amstrad CPC and MSX by Emilio, and to C64 by Adrian Sheppard. The game was re-released in UK by Code Masters, under the name "Vampire". With relation to this, Richard Darling (from Code Masters once commented in an interview for the Spanish magazine "MicroMania" that the game caused them such a deep impression that, contrary to their usual politics, they re-released the game in a nearly unmodified form.
After that, Enrique began the development of "Dustin" (once again, the main character was a thief) and Emilio began "Freddy Hardest", one of Dinamic's most celebrated games. "Freddy Hardest" was released in 1987, with graphics from Luis Rodríguez, and again ported to Amstrad CPC, C64 and MSX and even (!) PC with CGA graphics. The game was re-released in UK by Imagine, except for the last two conversions.
After this short stay in Castellón, Emilio moved once again, this time to San Fernando, near Cádiz (Spain). During the following years, he took his degree in Telecom Engineering in Vigo (Spain), which he got magna cum laude.
While at it, Emilio also started working in the development of a sequel for Freddy Hardest, using a Commodore Amiga. In fact, he thought of releasing the game only for 16-bit computers. However, since he wasn't able to get enough spare time to finish its development, he finally sent everything he had worked in to Dinamic. The result was "Freddy Hardest in South Manhattan", developed by Iron Byte and re-released as "Guardian Angel" in UK, which had very little things in common with the original game, except for the scenery, which reminds a lot to the harbour of Cadiz, a town which Emilio was sentimentally linked to. The game was finally also published for the ZX Spectrum.
He also interleaved his studies with some stays in Germany, where he did some research in parallel computers, fuzzy logic, artificial vision and AI. Indeed he got some interesting research achievements, which let him issue some papers in the field of robotics, and more concretely, artificial vision. He finally came back to Spain to get a research position in the University of Sevilla.
Emilio died in 1996, when he was fatally knocked down by a car while he was cycling.
Acknowledgements: Juan Pablo López-Grao for the above article. He would in turn like to acknowledge Maripaz Salgueiro Torrado, Enric Cervera, Enrique Mengíbar, Mauricio Muñoz, and José Luis Veiga aka "Karnevi" for their inputs.
![[Fernando Maíllo Serrano]](pics/FernandoMailloSerrano.jpg)
(1956 – 2003, softography)
Fernando Maíllo was born in Madrid, in Jan 28th, 1956. A truly go-ahead person, he combined work with his many hobbies. As a result of that built-in vitality, he developed several programs for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum under Microparadise Software. Among this, we shall remark the game "Star Trek 3050".
Fernando met computers, and more exactly the ZX Spectrum, during june 1983 (he literally said "I entered to a shop to ask for information and I ended up with a computer under my arm"). By that time, he was already working in Televisión Española, the Spanish public TV channel (in fact, he was hired in 1977 and kept working there for the most of his life). However, that didn't prevent him from spending so many hours each day in front of his Spectrum that, three months after he bought it, he was hired by MicroWorld.
At the beginning, he spent his time translating program instructions to Spanish and making some demos in MicroWorld's store, but as soon as they decided to turn into Microparadise, Fernando began immediately to work as a programmer. Indeed, he was very prolific, and developed some titles as "Contabilidad Doméstica", "Star Trek 3050", "Utilidades", among others.
As far as "Star Trek 3050" is concerned, it is a very remarkable title, since Fernando was a wholehearted trekkie (that is, an enthusiastic follower of the TV series Star Trek). In fact, he was the founder and first president of the Star Trek Club of Madrid (CSTMA), and he also arranged the earliest Star Trek conventions in Spain, namely in 1996 and 1997. Besides, he was a member of the group Insectropía and he was a well-known and beloved personality in the Spanish scene of Star Trek. It was also well known his love of animals (he owned several dogs and a cat), the sea (he loved sailing and scuba diving) and, occasionally, smoking a pipe.
Fernando Maíllo died in june 18th, 2003, while he was scuba diving.
Acknowledgements: Juan Pablo López-Grao for the above article. He would in turn like to acknowledge Martín Alberto Peña Delgado, Daniel Simón, the CSTS, Albert Valls and specially Susana "Kera" for the inputs. Inputs also collated from MicroHobby Issue 20, March 1985.
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