Arrakis Software

[RWAP]

I have now been in touch with Steven Hollywood, who ran Arrakis with Ian G Williams.

Steve now lives in New Zealand, but the chances of finding Ian Williams (who moved to Wales) is slim!

It was quite interesting to hear about Steve's experiences with Arrakis and the QL.

QL Meteor Storm - this was a commercial title which was published by Sinclair Research - unfortunately, Steve did not have time to program spinning asteroids, as Sinclair were pushing to get more games software launched.

QL Jabber - again another commercial title, which was published by Sinclair. This was originally to be called QL Jab, but Sinclair decided on a change of name. Steve is quite proud of this one - although he says that you have to get quite far into the game to really appreciate the complexity.

Orbit - this was a space shoot-em up where you are influenced by the gravity of a planet around which you orbit. The game was actually commissioned by Sinclair Research, but unfortunately, they Steve was having problems get the orbit physics to work. By the time he had completed this, Sinclair didn't respond to queries - Steve thinks it must have been when they sold the rights to everything to Amstrad.

Steve has provided his consent to re-releasing these games on a commercial basis, with royalty payments going to Unicef - so expect them to appear in my QL Box-Sets soon...

It was also interesting to find out that Steve and Ian also wrote Paladin - a Space Invaders game which was published in QL World - see http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/games/.

They also wrote a machine code routine to play music on the QL which was published in the October 1986 issue of Sinclair QL World - http://sinclairql.speccy.org/archivo/do ... 986-10.pdf

A further program, Recconaisance was published in the February 1986 issue of Computer and Video Games - https://archive.org/stream/computer-vid ... 7/mode/2up

Does anyone fancy typing in the music program and Recconaisance ?

Ian also wrote a version of Missile Command which he is certain was published in QL User / QL World - can anyone find it - and even wrote some articles for another magazine (he can't remember the magazine / details).

[XorA]

QL Unicef boxset is a neat idea!

[Derek_Stewart]

Rich,

Maybe the PDF could be OCRed and the code screen scraped.

I will have a look at this over the weekend.

[RWAP]

The PDF is pretty poor quality unfortunately.

The machine code routine for playing music might be better....

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Rich,

I can not copy the Superbasic code from Computer Games & Videos scan, so I have typed in about 30% of the programme.

Should have this done by Saturday!

[Dave]

Now that's dedication!

[RWAP]

Great news - hope the game is enjoyable after all your hard work

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Dave,

It is not dedication, just an interest.

I was trying to get the QL World Microdrive Exchange Software Library availble, but this this seems to be not possible due to the non-availblity of the software.

So, the only other solution would be to start re-reading the magazines and type the featured programmes.

[RWAP]

Some of the QL World library is included in the preservation project - the problem (as always) is copyright - Arcwind were the last owners of QL World, and don't respond to emails about it - maybe someone would make another approach?

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Rich,

I believe Sector Software had something to do with the Microdrive Exchange, but when I contacted David Batty via Facebook, he said he was away from home alot and did not have much time.

I will probably type-in the programmes featured in QL World for my old benefit, if copyright is an issue.

The programme from Computer Games & Videos, is not well written, in that there are Function defined without END DEFs, there is GOTO included where REPeat loop would be appropriate.

Line 2100 does not make much sense, I have all of the magazines, so will see if there is an errata. Otherwise, I will have to work out the logic of the statement. But all good fun?