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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