[HN Gopher] ZX Spectrum developer Bernie Drummond has died
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ZX Spectrum developer Bernie Drummond has died
Author : grunthos
Score : 188 points
Date : 2021-11-16 10:40 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gamedeveloper.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gamedeveloper.com)
| shever73 wrote:
| We lost Daren Pearcy earlier this week - creator of the awesome
| RZX archive and, sadly defunct Specchums, and now Bernie
| Drummond.
|
| Very sad. Head Over Heels was an amazing concept and game.
| stevekemp wrote:
| And Sir Clive Sinclair only two months ago too. Sadly it is
| only going to get worse, with a lot of the old developers
| reaching the kinda age where death isn't entirely a surprise.
|
| For me names that I'll miss will be Julian Gollop, Matthew
| Smith, Jon North, and the Oliver Twins.
| parenthesis wrote:
| Head over Heals is my all time favourite computer game, closely
| followed by Batman.
|
| I discovered them from a writer who used an Amstrad CPW, and
| those were two of the small number of games available for that
| machine. He was very good at them -- I think he must have played
| them whenever writers' block was in effect.
|
| We later bought the games for the hand-me-down ZX Spectrum that
| was the first computer in our house. When I finally gave away all
| my Spectrum stuff five or six years ago, I still kept those two
| cassettes!
| michaelgrafl wrote:
| Sorry, but which Batman would that be exactly?
|
| Edit: forget it. Just figured it out.
| mattl wrote:
| PCW, but yeah... they were few graphical games for the PCW.
| mattbee wrote:
| Head Over Heels was just this big, contiguous, charming world
| full of puzzles, all contained in my tiny Spectrum. It was a
| pretty rare feat in the 80s to conjure a huge world so
| effectively. The whole game just shone. And so few pixels!
| lordgroff wrote:
| Let's not forget that Head and Heels were also cute as buttons.
| ridruejo wrote:
| And the music!
| VSpike wrote:
| I was talking to a friend recently about the hours spent playing
| these games, and how we'd tape or glue pieces of graph paper
| together to make large hand-drawn maps of the games. I wish I
| still had those! I have so much love for those games, and so many
| good memories of them. Also, I loaded them up in an emulator
| recently and I'd forgotten how _hard_ they are! No save games,
| very limited lives, so many ways to die, so much skill needed to
| get jumps and moves just right, and often no time to think. And
| when you die, you lose _everything_.
| sshagent wrote:
| Yeah, games get more brutal the further we go back. Never had
| microtransactions in my day, bah! I say spending a lot of my
| childhood money in Arcade machines haha. Which are equally
| brutal in giving you maybe 1 minute of game play for your coin
| [deleted]
| ionwake wrote:
| I still remember spending ages working out how to place those
| elephant feet stools in Batman. Good times.
| fipar wrote:
| So many hours playing Batman and Match Day 2 as a kid. Decades
| later I still remember Batman turning to you and tapping his foot
| impatiently if you did not move for a bit.
| antirez wrote:
| I'm one week into Z80 assembly development for the Spectrum.
| Surely these folks were extremely capable to obtain great games
| from such a limited hardware.
| scoot wrote:
| "ZX Spectrum _game_ developer Bernie Drummond has died "
|
| The current title is a bit misleading, as it sounds like he was
| involved in the development of the spectrum.
| thorin wrote:
| Oh dear, Batman, Head over Heals and Matchday 1/2 were so great.
| leoc wrote:
| The Spectrum was a pioneering home for isometric-ish games: see
| eg. _Ant Attack_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_Attack and
| _Knight Lore_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Lore as well
| as _Head over Heels_.
| fergie wrote:
| Head over Heels was a masterpiece. So far ahead of its time. Such
| an inventive approach to 3D.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Not trying to diminish his achievements but that 3D design was
| first produced by Ultimate [1] and it truly blew our minds.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game
| bloopernova wrote:
| Man I spent so many hours playing _Alien 8_. Such a great
| game.
| hunta2097 wrote:
| Ultimate became Rare and was still owned by the Stamper
| Brothers until they sold it to Microsoft in 2002.
| pedrow wrote:
| For those who weren't around in the 80s(!) and are wondering what
| this is about, you can play Head over Heels online[1] and there's
| also a Retrospec remake for PC and Mac by Tomaz Kac[2]
|
| [1]: https://archive.org/details/zx_Head_over_Heels_1987_Ocean
| [2]: https://archive.org/details/Head_Over_Heels_game
| justinlloyd wrote:
| You know you're getting old when your industry colleagues start
| dying off in greater and greater numbers each year.
| criddell wrote:
| I've always wondered how Timex ended up as the US partner on this
| project. Was it a reasonable shift to go from digital watches to
| small computers?
| mikestew wrote:
| Not only that, Timex wasn't making anything electronic at the
| time. Their first digital watch didn't come out until the
| mid-80s:
|
| https://www.timex.com/the-timex-story/
|
| Even the sibling comment's link explains:
|
| _...Timex, a company which had little experience in the
| assembly of electronic equipment._
| nickt wrote:
| Timex had the contact to assemble the ZX81 in Dundee
| (Scotland). I imagine that that made them the obvious choice
| for a US expansion.
|
| Some background here [1] - this whole website has lots of
| nuggets of info if you're interested in the early Timex /
| Sinclair machines.
|
| [1] https://www.timexsinclair.com/blog/a-piece-of-cake-in-
| dundee...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Additional info, because Timex had a factory in Portugal, the
| 2048 and 2068 models were everywhere, and extension cartidges
| as well.
|
| A 2068 ended up being my first "speccy".
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(page generated 2021-11-16 23:01 UTC)