Two more M.I.A.s
I wrote two simple educational games in 1988 called "Easy Time" and "Easy Maths" (may have been "Easy Math"). They were written in compiled BASIC, and were conversions of existing games for the Amstrad CPC and Atari ST.
The publisher was "A.P.T." (Applied Programming Techniques) and was run from the top floor of a software shop called "BASIC Enterprises" in Kettering, Northamptonshire. I had my school work experience there, two weeks working in the shop, and wrote the games at home afterwards. The owner was Ray Carver. There was one other full-time programmer who worked on business software.
In "Easy Time", a clock was drawn in the top-right of the screen displaying a time. The clock had markers but no numbers. If the player typed in the time as shown on the clock, a mouse in a red car drove across the bottom of the screen left-to-right to ring a bell. I seem to remember there was a selectable difficulty, to use whole hours or hours and minutes.
In "Easy Maths", a sum was displayed on screen, and a series of possible answers displayed at the bottom. A plane flew over and dropped a parachutist. The player had to guide the parachutist left or right to land on the correct answer. Again there were difficulty choices between simple addition / subtraction, and multiplication / division.
The chances of anyone finding a copy are extremely rare - I myself never actually saw a production cassette of any of the versions of these games. Though I had little contact after that. My remuneration was a mere ?20 (per title - I think) single payment.
Not my first paid programming job though - I had ported a simple VIC-20 treasure-hunt game for the school's Maths Department to the BBC-B, and was paid a whole Mars Bar!
Jason J Railton
The publisher was "A.P.T." (Applied Programming Techniques) and was run from the top floor of a software shop called "BASIC Enterprises" in Kettering, Northamptonshire. I had my school work experience there, two weeks working in the shop, and wrote the games at home afterwards. The owner was Ray Carver. There was one other full-time programmer who worked on business software.
In "Easy Time", a clock was drawn in the top-right of the screen displaying a time. The clock had markers but no numbers. If the player typed in the time as shown on the clock, a mouse in a red car drove across the bottom of the screen left-to-right to ring a bell. I seem to remember there was a selectable difficulty, to use whole hours or hours and minutes.
In "Easy Maths", a sum was displayed on screen, and a series of possible answers displayed at the bottom. A plane flew over and dropped a parachutist. The player had to guide the parachutist left or right to land on the correct answer. Again there were difficulty choices between simple addition / subtraction, and multiplication / division.
The chances of anyone finding a copy are extremely rare - I myself never actually saw a production cassette of any of the versions of these games. Though I had little contact after that. My remuneration was a mere ?20 (per title - I think) single payment.
Not my first paid programming job though - I had ported a simple VIC-20 treasure-hunt game for the school's Maths Department to the BBC-B, and was paid a whole Mars Bar!
Jason J Railton
Post edited by joefish on
Joefish
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