Personal
Computer Games magazine, March 1984. Pages 29 and 31.
At 18, star-programmer Matthew Smith says he's over the hill.
Peter Conner, 27, takes notes and worries about his pension.
Matthew Smith.
The Miner Designer.
When I arrived at Liverpool's Lime Street Station one grey December
after-noon in 1983 the first thing I noticed about Matthew Smith
was that he wasn't wearing any socks. Hadn't he earned anything
from writing the top-selling Spectrum game Manic Miner? Couldn't
he afford socks?
As I later found out, my worries were unfounded; he certainly
had made some money. But Matthew is not the whizzkid breed of
programmer, the adolescent brat who trades in his push-bike for
a Ferrari on his 17th birthday.
Instead, he is an unassuming, but confident, teenager who is
ready for even more success as Jet Set Willy, the next instalment
in the Manic Miner saga, hits the nation's micros.
At the offices of Software Projects, the new company in which
Matthew is a major shareholder, he told me how he'd first become
interested in computing: 'I'd been keen on electronics, building
transistor radios and so on, and five years ago my parents gave
me a Tandy for Christmas. It only had 4K of memory and unextended
Basic, but it got me hooked.'
Like many others involved in Liverpool computing Matthew joined
the Tandy users' group based in the local dealer's shop. 'We used
to hang around after closing,' says Matthew. 'Fortunately the
manager was an enthusiast as well.'
He pursued his interest at home too, and at the age of 14 wrote
his first commercial program, a version of Galaxians called Delta
Tau One. 'It took me weeks to write it. I think it sold 13 copies
and I made about £50 profit.
'It was just an average game,' he added modestly.
Average or not, the game showed him that there was a living to
be made in programming. Through his contacts in the Tandy shop
he began to write business and accounting programs for companies
in the Liverpool area. It was this freelance work which saw him
through the period after leaving school in October 1982.
'I didn't like school,' says Matthew, 'and it didn't like me.'
Still, he managed to pickup nine or 10 '0' levels.
It was only in April of last year that Matthew first got the
Spectrum which has brought him fame and fortune. By this time
he'd become associated with Bug-Byte, and it was for them that
he wrote Styx, his first successful game program. In this perilous
journey to the Hades of Greek mythology an experienced eye might
be able to detect the germ of Manic Miner.
Before starting on the Herculean task of creating Manic Miner
Matthew went on an 'inspirational skiing trip', which seems odd
since he describes himself as 'naturally lazy'. It must have done
the trick, though, because he was able to come back and spend
eight solid weeks on the new program.
He followed a daunting routine, getting up in the evening, working
until lunchtime, sleeping for a few hours and then going back
to the computer. It doesn't sound like laziness to me.
Matthew's approach to programming is straightforward: 'When I
got the Spectrum I worked out the limitations of the machine and
then decided to write a program to go to the limits.'
He actually wrote Manic Miner on a Model 4 Tandy with 5 Megabyte
hard disk and then transcribed it on to the Spectrum. 'It's more
efficient like that,' says Matthew, 'because the Tandy and the
Spectrum both have the Z80 processor, and there's no waiting for
loading and saving.'
I asked him if he had had any artistic help with Manic Miner's
impressive graphics. 'No,' he replied, 'I drew them out myself
on graph paper. Art was one of my better subjects at school.'
Manic Miner, though, was not originally Matthew's idea. It came
first of all from Alan Maton, his partner in Software Projects,
who suggested the idea of a figure tunnelling down. Matthew turned
this upside down and the result was the game all Spectrum owners
know and love.
Their first thought for a name was Miner 49'er but, like many
great inventions, someone else got there just before them. Whatever
the name, Matthew was confident of success: 'I was pretty sure
it was a winner as soon as I'd finished it'
He took a two-month holiday after Manic Miner's completion in
which, he says, 'I just went to bed at nights.' But there has
been little rest for him since his return to Liverpool. In September
a follow-up to Manic Miner was 'discussed over meals in various
restaurants'. And so, over the tablecloth, Jet Set Willy was born.
Matthew has found things rather difficult with Willy. 'To program
you really have to enjoy sitting at a computer all night,' he
said, 'but I'm getting too old to manage the hard regime.'
However, despite the weight of his 18 years, Matthew is pleased
with what he's achieved in Jet Set Willy. 'I think I've got about
three times as much into the program as in Manic Miner.' He describes
it as being in the style of an 'arcade adventure' with graphics
developed on his own special software.
Again he's confident of success: It'll reach number one,' he
predicts, but he doesn't think it will stay there as long as Manic
Miner because 'there's too much good competition around nowadays.'
Jet Set Willy is bound to bring Matthew even more publicity,
yet the role of ace programmer is one he's unwilling to play.
'I don't particularly want to be a star,' he says. 'I just want
the acknowledgement I think I deserve for writing good programs.
Part of this recognition is likely to be a lot more money - to
go with the £20,000 or so he has already banked from Manic Miner.
But there won't be any extravagances: 'I'm not interested in flash
cars and that kind of thing,' he says. 'The money has just made
it a bit easier to be lazy...'
After another skiing trip Matthew expects to start thinking about
a follow-up to Jet Set Willy - perhaps to be called Willy Meets
the Taxman. He also intends to start programming on the Spectravideo
and other machines using the MSX operating system; another massive
market for miner Willy.
Looking further ahead Matthew's future is uncertain. He is sure,
though, that he won't always be a games designer. 'Programming
games won't keep me going for the rest of my life,' he says.
So what will? He hopes to take a closer interest in the business
side of Software Projects and doesn't rule out the possibility
of studying Computer Science 'when I'm too old to program'. That
might not be too far away since he says 'I'm a bit over the hill
already'.
And what about those socks? Obviously Matthew Smith has enough
pocket money to buy a few thousand pairs.
'I only wear them occasionally,' he says, 'when it's very, very
cold.' Somehow, writing Manic Miner seems to have warmed the parts
that other computer games don't reach.
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