Readers’ Questions

Merman: Would you ever go back to coding for the Commodore 64?

If I got involved again I might realise I’m nowhere near as good a coder as I was, and that’s a realisation I wouldn’t want. I know my pal Darren Melbourne, who created the C64 Mini – I worked with him on the C64DTV he did before that – would love me to do something but I just can’t. I’m 53 years old, I’ve got kids and a grandchild and a lot of people depend on me. I won’t be making any money coding on the C64. If I won the lottery, yes!

Northway: How well did your books sell and did they give you any ‘status’ in the industry?

The first one sold well, though they pissed me off by not publishing it in February 1983 when I finished it and instead published it in September when loads of other books were out. It still sold around 15,000 copies and I made several thousand pounds in royalties which is great for a 15-year-old lad. I bought a motorbike much to the chagrin of my parents! The second one on mastering machine code didn’t do half so well. The reviews were good but there was a proliferation of books out by then. The third one sold about 5,000 or 6,000. Did they give me any ‘status’? Not in the slightest! They were cool to do, though, and they did make me proud. I still feel that when I see anything I’ve done on a shelf.

Mr Jenzie: Did you ever meet Gilbert The Alien?

We had been doing a lot of contract work back then and we wanted to do something of our own. Gilbert was on television so I went directly to ITV for the licence, which cost pennies. I did the C64 version and my business partner Richard Naylor did the Spectrum and amstrad ones. We did loads of press and there’s this horrendous picture of Richard and I in suits with Gilbert in the middle… but he was never actually there! It was done by the eighties equivalent of photoshop, so he was physically cut out, like a stencil, and stuck on. So no, I never did meet Gilbert.