Dollar$oft - Before, During and After

31/12/2023

Sheffield continues to be regarded as the Steel City, renowned for its heritage and reputation in steel production. After the city’s post-war manufacturing decline, the 80s witnessed an industrial revolution of information, and leading the way for British videogames were Alligata Software, Gremlin Graphics and a host of bedroom coders emerging from her womb. Mark Aldrich, Nick Aldrich and Richard Stevenson were the first, writing text adventures from a leafy Sheffield suburb.

There were no computers at all in school when Mark Aldrich entered his first year at Jordanthorpe Secondary School in 1977. On the cusp of the computer age an interested teacher, Mr Spencer, lobbied to obtain the school’s first machines. With the blessing of the Head Master he started the first computer club, and it became so popular with kids that bookings had to be taken in 20 minute slots to use the devices.

The club was to affect the lives of many youngsters at the school, including Mark’s brother Nicholas and friends Richard Stevenson and Phil Durbidge – all who lived close to each other in the Sheffield suburb of Bradway.

Other Jordanthorpe pupils, who went on to work in the games industry included Chris Kerry and Paul Hiley.

While attending Jordanthorpe, Chris wrote Jack and the Beanstalk and during its development, brought the game into school for class mates to test it. Chris went on to work for Gremlin Graphics and was involved in the development of a number of their titles, including Monty is Innocent, Metabolis, Bounder and Way of the Tiger.

Former pupil, Paul Hiley also went on to work for Gremlin Graphics and his list of programming credits included development work on Hogs of War, Actua Soccer, Top Gear 2 and Zool.

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Taken from Mark Hardisty’s Sheffield Text Adventures Signposts

https://markhardisty.wordpress.com/2018/11/09/sheffields-adventure-signposts/

30/12/2023

Based on London Road in Sheffield, Mike Lister, Paul Bellamy and Rich Stevenson worked on several products exclusively for the game's publisher Alternative Software between 1991 and 1992.

Alternatives owner, Roger Hulley, had toyed with the idea of setting up a development team for some time, and they would be responsible for developing games in-house based on several licensing deals that Alternative had managed to acquire.

When Mike, Rich and Paul approached Roger regarding funding their new development team, he jumped at the idea and within a few weeks, the team was set up and they were coding their first game.

30/12/2023

Bizarre Developments, Sheffield 1991-1992... Where source code and graphics disks included a serious health warning....

10/11/2021

It has taken 27 years, but finally it is time to start looking through this archived box of 3-inch floppy disks, dating back to 1986.

This archive contains concept ideas, development tools, source code, master makers as well as numerous undocumented MIA games spanning the years, I spent developing Speccy and Amstrad games (1984 to 1992).

The newspapers, included in the box, were left to show the date the box was packed before being stored away – 4th June 1994.

17/10/2021

After years of being stored away, it is time to open the first of my archive boxes.

04/09/2021

Had the pleasure of being interviewed by author and feature documentary film director Andy Remic yesterday, for his new retro computer/video game project The 8-Bit Wars.

During the interview we talked about the history of Dollarsoft and my games development career, as well as anecdotes and exclusive stories from my gaming career – much of which I had never discussed before! Be sure to look out for The 8-Bit Wars, which will be out on BluRay, DVD and via digital download (including 4K) Spring 2022. To back The 8-Bit Wars check out…

www.psychorobot.co.uk

24/09/2019

03/09/2019

03/09/2019