London House, 271/273 King Street, W6
40 Empress Avenue, Ilford, Essex
Silversoft are an old software company. A very old company by UK standards. Issue 3 of YOUR COMPUTER magazine (October 1981 page 82) carries the first Silversoft advert I've been able to find. A game called STARTREK, so either the Silversoft proof-reader needed a kick or they were hoping to avoid letters from Paramount Television. It's for the 16k ZX81 and features; graphics, 4 levels of play, an 8 x 8 galaxy, Klincons (the Silversoft proof-reader gets another kick), Romulans, photon torpedoes, etc. If that didn't take your fancy, you could invest in GAMES PACK, featuring STARWARS (the Silversoft proof-reader leaves for a less demanding job), HAMURABI, GRAPHIC LANDER, MASTERMIND, and MINEFIELD. £4.95 for each cassette or £8.95 for both. This is the the dawn of the UK software industry. The same issue of YOUR COMPUTER features Commodore pushing the VIC 20 and Sinclair, the ZX81. The only other familiar names are Acornsoft and Doric Computer Services (selling the ZX81 version of their venerable game The Oracle's Cave), along with a pre-Imagine Bruce Everiss who is doing good work in Liverpool. His shop Microdigital donated £5000 of computer equipment to a local Liverpool charity. The range of ZX81 software has expanded by June 1982 and the Klincons have been spell-corrected to Klingons. Silversoft is a kitchen table company at this point. Run out of a double-fronted Victorian terraced house in Empress Avenue Ilford, east of London, and as a residential property it falls under my rule of not taking pictures of people's houses.
35 Bader Park, Melksham, Wiltshire
Silversoft hitched their wagon to the Sinclair train. STARTREK gets a positive mention in issue one of SINCLAIR USER (April 1982), "[Silversoft's version], although a
trifle slower. is better-presented." Silversoft repay the favour, buying a half-page advert in the May 1982 issue and again in June 1982. But the June 1982 advert reveals an odd detail. Silversoft have gone west to Melksham, a small town just south of Chippenham, in Wiltshire. The advert repeats again in July, August, and September all with the same address. 35 Bader Park itself is an unremarkable red-brick detached house in a cul-de-sac. The estate is probably build on or near the site of the old RAF Melksham airfield, judging by some of the road names; Duxford Close, Halifax Road, Brabazon Way. Wellington Drive, and so on.
20 Orange Street, London, WC2H
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| November 2021 |
Silversoft return to London in the autumn of 1982. SINCLAIR USER records the change of address in their October issue which also marks a change of style for the company. They've got a new logo and they've started selling games for the ZX Spectrum; Orbiter and Ground Attack. You get a completely different picture of what Silversoft is doing, depending on which magazine you check. SINCLAIR USER readers saw a company who sit at 20 Orange Street for the next six months. COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES readers on the other hand are only intermittently aware of Silversoft. The company run one advert in December 1982, one in February 1983 and then nothing until May 1983. February 1983 is the point where Silversoft are doing well enough to afford full-page colour adverts; although when Silversoft run one of their intermittent C&VG adverts they forget to add a contact address which makes the postal order form moot.
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY interviewed David Paterson, one of the two founders of Silversoft, in September 1982. It must have taken place shortly after the company returned to London, and it's part of that very specific moment when the industry began to become more professional. Indeed the interview catches Silversoft just when its moved into its first proper office. The tone of the conversation is bullish, with some contradictory views. On the one hand David is worried about software libraries: "They buy our tapes and then rent them out. All perfectly legal but, in the end, the user loses out. What is the point in trying to write a good programme only to have it brought by the libraries and loaned out?" A fair point, but elsewhere in the interview he also admits to being very free with the intellectual property of other companies: "The games that Silversoft now produce are mainly versions of well-known arcade games. New games apparently do not sell -people always go for the devil they know. 'We had a great game called Drop-out,' said David,' and it did just that -because no one knew what it did.' Now that Atari are beginning to take action over alleged copyright infringements, software houses may be forced to produce more material based on their own original ideas. 'If that happens,' says David, 'marketing will become the big problem'."
The vexed subject of software libraries raised its head again in 1983. POPULAR COMPUTNG WEEKLY ran a profile of the Sinclair Owners Software Society (6 January 1983 page 11) and the 3-9 February issue carried responses from Tony Baden of Bug-Byte and Douglas Bern, the second founder of Silversoft. "As an independent software house the success of our business depends on their being sufficient customers for our products. If, however, these customers can easily obtain a copy of the cassette from a lending library which pays no royalties, licencing fees, or compensation for loss of sales then I am sure you will agree that this type of business is both bad for ourselves and for the industry as a whole, which includes your magazine." It's easy to see why software libraries were a sore point. The page opposite Douglas' letter includes an advert for the Dragon 32 Software Library: "Membership fee: £10" "Hire fee: £1 per tape per fortnight". There's also a Vic-20 software library advertised on page 4; "Kernow Software Library," on page 24; and a "ZX81, Spectrum, Dragon, BBC, and Vic" library advertised on page 29. The numbers quoted in the Sinclair Owners Software Society profile suddenly seem more alarming, "after only six months... the library has over 1000 members and has more than 150 ZX81 and ZX Spectrum titles for hire." Now, I realise not every one of those rentals equals a lost sale but you can see why companies were worried. POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY's reply to Douglas Bern's letter contained some straightforward advice: "Each cassette should display a message, in a prominent position on the outside, stating that it is a condition of sale that the cassette will not be hired or lent." And Silversoft did.
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The software library debate rumbled on. POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY published a letter from Tim Langdell of Softek (3-9 March 1983 page 7). Although Tim wanted to "voice our support of Bug-Byte and Silversoft in condemning these [software libraries]," he was more interested in an article which appeared two pages on from Douglas Bern's letter, in which Gail Counsell looked at how the law affects computer programmes. Gail had written about copyright, and compilers (programmes which converted BASIC into faster machine code) and who owned the copyright of code created with a compiler. Tim took issue with her comments on this subject: "every programme complied with a compiler will contain within it the run-time routines which are quite definitely the property of the person or company which holds the copyright of the compiler itself." "The complier itself does the actual 'translation' and it uses the run-time routines to attain much of the resulting code... we would acknowledge
that it would be a lengthy court case that would sort out whether
this translation constitutes a part ownership of the copyright of the
final translated program."
That case was coming sooner than anyone thought.
2 Hammersmith Broadway, London W6
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| June 2022 |
Silversoft are on the move again. Their April 1983 advert in SINCLAIR USER has a new Hammersmith Broadway address. Around the same time the company gives an interview to HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY MAGAZINE (22 March 1983 page 26) which introduces the reader to the team, as well as David Paterson and Dougie Bern, there's a third member of the team. Hugh Jarse. No. really. Silversoft's third employee is named as Hugh Jarse. Is this an elaborate prank on writer Candice Goodwin? Did "Hugh" have reasons to remain anonymous? Is he related to the Shropshire Jarses? There's no way to find out because subsequent issues are missing from the online scans so I can't track the reaction of readers.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council were doing something terrible to the junction outside the tube station when I visited. It was a mass of cones and temporary lights. Number 2 Hammersmith Broadway looks like it would have done in 1983 but the view from their office window has changed completely, because behind where I stood to take the photo is The Broadway shopping centre, which opened in 1994. You can see it being built in the title sequence to Bottom, but don't go looking for the bench, at the junction of Queen Caroline Street and Hammersmith Bridge Road, where Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson sat. It's long gone.
The article names Hammersmith as a "temporary resting-place bridging the gap between the cramped offices [the company] occupied in central London -'you couldn't get four people in there at once' -and the more spacious premises in Ealing it is due to move to shortly." The article also goes some way to explain why the company abruptly moved out of London: "In February 1982 David started to work for Silversoft full time. But shortly afterwards, a combination of factors hit Silversoft hard leading to a 'disastrous' next few months. The launch of the Spectrum meant that sales of ZX81 software plummeted. At the same time, the big High Street retailers started to sell software, undermining mail order sales." You get a sense of Silversoft frantically retrenching, cutting advertising back, keeping mail order sales ticking over and quickly diversifying into Spectrum games. We'll never know why they had to move to Wiltshire to do this. Turn over for 1983 is estimated at a mind-boggling £1 million, and for advertising David and Dougie "estimate that they will have to spend around £50,000 per year just to keep up with the competition." David also returns to the vexed subject of software libraries, "pirates without the skull and crossbones... Ultimately it will make the customer suffer if it's not an economic proposition to bring out new programs."
London House, 271-273 King Street, London, W6
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| August 2021 |
The first of that £50,000 is spent the following month to mark the move to new premises with a big two page full-colour spread in SINCLAIR USER (May 1983 page 20). "Every one a masterpiece," is the tagline over cover artwork arranged as if in a gallery. The focus is now firmly on the Spectrum, with ZX81 games still sold but tucked away on the mail order form. By May the company was doing well enough for them to be included in an advert for the W.H. Smith software range, as equals to Melbourne House, Quicksilva, and Imagine.
"Softek compiler payments dispute," was how POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY (26 May-1 June 1983 page 1) broke the news that Silversoft and Softek were suddenly in dispute over a Silversoft game called Slippery Sid which had been written with the help of Softek's Super C Compiler. No one disputed what had happened. Silversoft brought a copy of Softek's compiler in December and used it to create the final version of Slippery Sid. What was in dispute, much as Tim Langdell had suggested in his earlier letter, was who owned what. Langdell argued Softek was entitled to royalties because of his copyright run-time routines. David Patterson vigorously denied any breach of copyright. "We brought his compiler by mail-order and there was no mention that Softek wanted to charge a royalty on programs using it in the mail order advertisement -at the point of sale... Trying to charge a royalty on programs written with it is laughable. We have no intention of doing anything about his request for a royalty." HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY (21 June 1983 page 6) also covered the story where David Patterson took a more rueful tone, in light of his earlier comments about software libraries. "The conditions of sale
angle does put me in a difficult position as regards credibility. But the point is, when software libraries contravene conditions of sale, they're ripping software companies off." The story continued: "Page one of the [Super C manual] states that "Softek retain the right to control over the sale of commercial programmes produced using Super C". Tim Langdell said, "if Silversoft get away with this, then conditions of sale -which they've fought for aren't valid. They're cutting their own throats by taking this action." HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY went on: "David Patterson says that for the condition of sale to be valid, it should be displayed at the point of sale -and that when Silversoft brought Super C, the condition was only stated in the manual. Tim Langdell is still considering what action to take against Silversoft, but says he definitely will take action. 'They're in blatant breach of our sales agreement. If copyright exists, they've breached it. Our legal advisor thanks we've got a watertight case'. Silversoft's lawyers, on the other hand, reckon that Softek, 'hasn't got a leg to stand on." What happened? We don't know. Frustratingly the dispute disappears from the news. Silversoft continue selling Slippery Sid and later adverts for Softek compilers start to carry conditions of sale: "Softek Compilers are sold on the condition that, if they are used to create a product sold commercially for financial gain, then the fact that the product was created with a Softek Compiler must be accredited clearly in both advertising of the product and on the exterior of the packaging of that product, start screen, promotional materials, etc." COMPUTER CHOICE (December 1983 page 12)
1983 still had one trick to play. "Silversoft partners in split" POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY (20-26 October 1983 page 5). David Patterson left to set up a new company citing personal differences for the split, "it reached the point when I was just not enjoying it." Dougie Bern had nothing to say about the break up. "Silversoft has been quiet for quite a while and now all I want to do is get it back on the right track."
1984 wasn't a bad year. Silversoft diversified a little, releasing four language courses to teach French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and several decent games including Worse Things Happen at Sea, which deserves a slot in anyone's Top 20. Silversoft were also negotiating with Spanish company Dinamic Software to release some of their games in the UK. Babaliba and Saimazoom came out under the Silversoft banner but the company was gazumped at the last minute by Gremlin Graphics who grabbed two better titles, Rocky and Profanation; CRASH (July 1985 page 72). Something's clearly gone wrong by summer 1985. CRASH profiled Clem Chamber's company CRL in issue 19 (August 1985 page 30) and asked about rumours of a link with Silversoft: "It's a purposefully mysterious alliance, and when I asked about it Clement, who was sitting cross-legged on the office floor, sat upright, hummed for a moment, and then in a 'press release' voice announced, 'You can describe us as Affiliated Companies and we wish we were half owned by US Gold'..." CRASH names the Silversoft representative as Andre Prosumentov, who is also named as M.D in a HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY news story about the link-up; 9 July 1985 page 7. Dougie Bern appears to have gone off to work for YOUR SPECTRUM. Fergus O'Neill had two games released by Silversoft in 1985 -Bored of the Rings and Robin of Sherlock and he was blunt about his experience in a 1986 interview with COMPUTER AND VIDEOGAMES (September 1986 page 62): "The biggest mistake in my life was signing up with Silversoft." C&VG continued, "there was at the time some sort of tie-up between CRL and Silversoft. Both had office accommodation in the same building..." [this would be CRL's home base at King's Yard] Fergus recalled," There we were on the car park with a shouting match going on between the two companies."
Silversoft could have been huge. In 1983 they were contemporaries of Quicksilva and Imagine, and well placed to take advantage of the growing market. Except they never seemed to be able to catch a break and lurched from one unlucky event to another. No wonder David Patterson said he reached the point where it was no longer something he enjoyed. London House, like Silversoft, is gone. Replaced by a more modern block in 2016. You can still see the old building as part of the 2012 Google Streetview survey. Contrary to HOME COMPUTER WEEKLY's comment, it's not in Ealing, it's not even Ealing adjacent. Did the original office move fall through, or did someone at Silversoft just say the new offices were in Ealing because it sounded better? The same way people in Belsize Park claim to live in Hampstead?
I found a copy of Worse Things Happen at Sea on sale in a game shop in Leicester, in 1992. I brought it, even through I didn't have a Spectrum anymore, because I was fascinated to find a Spectrum game still on sale in the wild and I wanted to reward the shop for its initiative. It turned out a friend had a working Spectrum lurking at home, so with great ceremony we set it up and loaded the tape, and had an afternoon's worth of fun. It's one of the reasons I've got a lot of residual fondness for both Silversoft and Worse Things Happen at Sea. It rekindled my
Spectrum nostalgia at a point when I thought I’d put all that
nonsense to bed.
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