Paul Hughes interview.

MinerWilly

Over at http://www.c64.com/ there is a very interesting interview of Paul Hughes whom worked for Ocean 1987-92.

This is what he had to say about Jonathan Smith:

Jonathan "Joffa" Smith
Best Spectrum programmer. Ever. I must admit there was something of hero worship going on when I first met him. He could rattle games out in weeks and they all played well, had great graphics and ran like a bat out of hell. His scrolling on Spectrum Cobra was nothing short of genius.

Ivanzx

Yes, but he still hasn't finished Saucer rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :P

Arjun

Great interview!

Mark R. Jones

I'm meeting Joffa on Saturday cos he's coming with me in the car to the Byte Back show. I haven't seen him since 1989!

frobush

Paul Hughes will not give me another job though! The B*st*rd! LOL!

And he fails to mention that we all got banned from 'the church' bogs for pissing around!

EDIT - Oh, he does! My bad!

frobush

Paul Owens
Paul was the first programmer at Ocean... A lot of people got rightly annoyed with him when he did an interview with a Spectrum magazine claiming to have written the scroll and sprite routines used in Joffa's Cobra.

Oh, that's the first I've heard of this! Owens is a lying sh*t! I came back from a two week holiday and showed him this stuff I'd done! He ripped off my code! I can't beleive he said that!

Mark R. Jones

Yes i heard that too! :)

Mark R. Jones

frobush wrote: »

Paul Hughes will not give me another job though! The B*st*rd! LOL!

He might be there on Saturday. Ask him then! :)

frobush

Mark R Jones wrote: »

He might be there on Saturday. Ask him then! :)

I asked him on FaceBook, and the silence was deafening!

Matt_B

I don't suppose anyone has trawled through the archive to find the offending article?

Mark R. Jones

Paul Owens has read this forum on occasion. Maybe he can explain! :) I'm sure maybe there's just some misunderstanding.

frobush

To be fair, Paul Owens did help me out. He was very good at maths and generated a frequency table for me for some sound routines. Which I didn't use. I thought he was a friend.

I'm sure he wouldn't take credit for something he didn't do.

frobush

Ivanzx wrote: »

Yes, but he still hasn't finished Saucer rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :P

Its still not finished! I WILL NOT LET THIS GO till its ready!

I was hoping to have it done by Saturday - but just can't let it go yet!

zxspecticle

Forget Saucer - We Want Burger!! We Want Burger!!

Ivanzx

This old stories about programmers of the 8 bit era, I love them!.

Curious that Paul Owens was a name always remembered those days, since I used to load a lot Dragonninja, and in the menu it was his name.
Good program, but not at Cobra or Hysteria level though.

frobush

zxspecticle wrote: »

Forget Saucer - We Want Burger!! We Want Burger!!

Burger's a few years away yet! But we'll see! I'm getting old!

Mark R. Jones

What is this Saucer?

frobush

Mark R Jones wrote: »

What is this Saucer?

Oh dear! Nearly 3 years in the making! And I still can't give it up!

Imagine an 'Ultimate' blaster with legs! And then run!

frobush

Oh, and its 'Bila Barna', not 'Bill' on the photos. He's Hungarian. And must get p*ssed off when people get his name wrong!

Unlike me! I have hundreds of names! Some of them even nice!