12/13 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E
It seems silly to sit here and worry about whether I should write about Softek and their better known label The Edge, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I know it's silly. I don't have to write about anyone if I don't want to. I'm not a journalist. I have no obligation to history. I will suffer no consequences if I don't write about Softek, it's not like someone's going to drop an anvil on my head. Plus, I'd quite like to write about Softek. They were one of the first companies I thought of when I started planning this blog. They wrote some notable games. So why am I so worried? Because Softek's founder was Tim Langdell.
Let's point at the elephant in the room first. Tim Langdell has garnered a controversial reputation in the past twenty years with his actions to protect his trademark of the word Edge. This blog isn't the place to write about it. I'm not a journalist, as I said in that paragraph up there. This is a good summary and Wikipedia carries a few more details. If you want a more detailed account then see Rock Paper Shotgun. None of that recent history falls within what I consider to be the remit of this blog. What does is Tim's July 2022 post on the World of Spectrum Facebook Group.
"Thanks for the join. I helped Clive design the ZX Spectrum, and wrote the book “The Spectrum Handbook”. My company EDGE/THE EDGE/EDGE GAMES published some of the first speccy games, Bobby Bearing, Fairlight, Brian Bloodaxe and so on. We are still producing games now but mainly for iOS and Android devices. Latest just launched a couple of days ago, Wordzle."
Clive Sinclair and Rick Dickinson are both dead and so, sadly, there is no way to check Tim's statement. Over on the Spectrum Computing forum user PeteProdge wrote:
"I was at the 35th anniversary of the Spectrum event at the Cambridge Centre For Computing History, where Rick Dickinson gave a very very in-depth talk on how the Speccy was designed. At no point was Tim Langell's name ever mentioned. I did point this out to Tim last night. No proof was forthcoming. The [World of Spectrum] thread has now been locked."
In the same Spectrum Computing thread, member Stoob linked to a YOUR COMPUTER review of the Spectrum's sound capabilities (August 1982 page 30) written by Tim Langdell. Stoob pointed out that the review is critical of the computer's hardware and does not read as if written by someone who helped Clive Sinclair design the ZX Spectrum. It's not proof, obviously, although it would be odd for someone to design a computer and then criticise it in the press but the one thing that article does demonstrate is that Tim Langdell was present in the UK computer scene from pretty much the beginning. His early appearances in magazines are as a technical reviewer; looking at colour on the ZX-81 and Spectrum in the July 1982 issue; and reviewing the Camputers Lynx for POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY (18 November 1982 page 12).
329 Croxted Road, London, SE24
Croxted Road is a leafy London street just round the corner from Brockwell Park, and Herne Hill station. Number 329 is an unremarkable end of terrace building and I'll leave it in peace because it's a residential address.
Tim Langdell had an article about the BBC Micro printed in the October 1982 issue of YOUR COMPUTER. Softek ran it's first advert in the same issue.
It's a spartan advert for two games, The Zolan Adventure and Meteoroids, and the copy for Meteoroids is self-aggrandising even by the standards of hype in 1982: " By far the fastest, smoothest version of this arcade game; full colour, three meteoroid sizes, hyperspace, shield, thrust, freezeframe, etc, etc. With ultra- smooth graphics and machine code synthesised sound effects that have left other software houses wondering how we did it. Simply the best." The most interesting line on the advert is printed at the bottom in small text: "WRITERS: Why not let us market your software for any microcomputer. We pay the highest royalties and market both from London and our office in Los Angeles."
November 1982 sees the Softek advert expand to a full page. More products are now on offer, in addition to The Zolan Adventure and Meteoroids there is also a compiler to turn BASIC programs into machine code, a new game 48K 3D Mazenture, and a book, The Spectrum Handbook by Tim Langdell. The following month Tim reviewed the Sord M-5 for YOUR COMPUTER, distributed in the UK by CGL, while the Softek advert in the same issue contained this section for writers: "Softek, now one of the leading software houses are looking for good programmers to join our team of experts. If you are interested in making typically several hundred pounds a month in your spare time and can write for ANY popular micro computer, then we'd like to hear from you. We offer the best royalties, have many retail outlets here and abroad, can offer assistance with programming (we have most machines) and of course we can allow programs to be developed with our COMPILER (and we alone retain the rights to sell programs created with it). The last sentence would cause problems for rival software house Silversoft. They brought a copy of Complier and used it on their game Slippery Sid. You can find the full details in the Silversoft article but the short version is; Softek claimed royalties from Silversoft because of proprietary routines in the final compiled game; Silversoft denied this; both sides claimed their lawyers told them the other side didn't have a case. What was the outcome? I don't know. The dispute vanishes from the pages of the contemporary press. It seems fair to assume it ended in a surly stalemate because Silversoft continued selling Slippery Sid and Softek continued selling Complier with clearer terms listed on the advert: "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).
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| YOUR COMPUTER November 1982 page 151 |
12/13 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E
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| August 2022 |
Softek first seriously promoted non-ZX Spectrum games in the September 1983 issue of YOUR COMPUTER. The advert lists titles for the Oric and Dragon 32, with BBC and Commodore 64 games "coming soon". The advert also carries the logo of the newly formed Guild of Software Houses. GOSH was a trade organisation set up by companies including Bug-Byte, New Generation, Ouicksilva, Salamander, Silversoft, Softek and Virgin Games, with Virgin's Nick Alexander as chairman. The guild offered a customer's charter, for mail order and faulty products, plus "a dealer charter for the trade as well. And a code of conduct for software producers themselves, covering the poaching of programs and programmers." PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS (August 18-August 24 1983 page 7). Softek and Salamander were the only companies to get the GOSH logo on September adverts, with Quicksilva and New Generation following in October. Joining GOSH established Softek as a peer of the bigger companies but what was missing was a great game. Bug-Byte had Manic Miner, New Generation had Knot in 3D and 3D Monster Maze, Quicksilva had Ant Attack but Softek, like Virgin and Silversoft, couldn't seem to find a game that would define the company. Softek Software became Softek International Ltd in November 1983 with Companies House showing an incorporated date of 1st September 1983 and an intriguingly late dissolved date of 1st October 2002.
Softek House, Tranquil Passage, Blackheath, London, SE3
Moving into 1984 Softek picked up a new mail order address. Tranquil Passage sounds lovely but there's no way to locate where Softek House was along its length. The company also finally released a couple of memorable games; UGH! is fondly remembered by Commodore 64 owners, there was a Dragon 32 version as well; and Starblitz was, "the best version of 'Defender' for the Spectrum I have ever seen," CRASH (April 1984 page 23). UGH! was written by Chris Morris (presumably not that Chris Morris) while Starblitz provoked a surly reaction from Simon Brattel of Crystal / Design Design. His version of Defender, called Invasion of the Body Snatchas!, played without sound to avoid compromising speed. Starblitz has sound and is much more colourful but the screen visibly flickers and doesn't run as smoothly. Simon Bratel hated Invasion of the Body Snatchas! as he explained to CRASH (September 1984 page 91):
"I hate Invasion of the Body Snatchas. I don’t like the game... There’s this class of games which are very predictable. A case in point — I’m not insulting it — is Manic Miner. Matthew Smith knows exactly how long it’s going to take to do each frame of display because he’ll save on the monsters, they’re always about the same size and speed, so he can make noises because he can interleave the highs and lows as it is predictable. In Invasion you can’t do that because there’s a random number of monsters, there’s a random number of projectiles, the landscape changes, all the times vary so you can’t get up and actually make a proper noise. What you have got to do is stop the game, make the noise, and carry on. Of the other versions, Defenda (Interstella) is silent — they’ve seen the problem, Starblitz (Softek) makes noises and you can see it jerk. This is why we didn’t put sound on the screen.... I did it to prove a point. A friend of mine and I were playing Beeb Defenda and he said you couldn’t do a Defender on the Spectrum anything like as successfully as Acorn Soft’s. I got up and said you could and spent the next two months regretting it!"
31 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, WC2
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| August 2022 |
The Edge was a spin-off games label for Softek. But, and this is the important bit (for me), it was a games label at a different address in Covent Garden. Maidens Lane is even narrower than Henrietta Street and in the course of trying to get a decent photo I ended up standing in the narrow entrance to a tiny alley called Bull Inn Court. I knew it wasn't far from Henrietta Street to Maidens Lane but on the ground it's difficult to get any idea of the road layout. So, later I checked a map to see how quickly you could travel between the offices of Softek and The Edge and found they are the front and back of the same building which runs across the block between Henrietta Street and Maidens Lane. Did The Edge's post just get delivered to Softek's back door?
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| OpenStreetMap © OpenStreetMap contributors |
There was another Softek label called Softechnics which handled the serious software; an educational program about Halley's Comet (a big deal for a while, until the comet didn't light up the sky like everyone hoped) and a series of well regarded art utilities and word processors. Softechnics stayed at Henrietta Street.
The first two The Edge games were Quo Vadis for the C64 and Starbike for the Spectrum. Starbike was pushed as "the only game ever to enter the Computer and Video Games' Hall of Fame, before its launch!" A claim which bemused me at the time, but not enough that I could be bothered to try and find out what it meant. Having now done the requisite research it doesn't seem like much of an achievement. The Hall of Fame was not for games. It was for C&VG readers to send in their high scores on titles selected by the editorial staff. The Edge got Starbike into the Hall of Fame by sponsoring a competition to win a BMX bike in the September 1984 issue; an article which includes a glimpse of the original Starbike loading screen with a Softek logo.
Fairlight author Bo Jangeborg fell out with Tim Langdell which impacted the 1986 release of Fairlight II. Bo Jangeborg: "What happened was, at the end of Fairlight II, I never actually completed the game because I got into this legal wrangling... they were withholding royalties for Fairlight and trying to force me to sign a contract, a more long term contract with them, and I wasn't interested in doing that because, well there were problems with the company I thought. So they were withholding it and at that point I was withholding code so that they shouldn't be able to publish it but they had one of the beta versions that they decided 'ah we'll release this' so they released it fully well knowing there were bugs in it and it wasn't even able to complete the game at that point." The EDGE Games website has an About section which includes a sidebar labelled Correcting The Record listing the following intriguing topics, "On Bo Jangeborg and Fairlight, on Mobigame, on Future Publishing, on EA, on miscelaneous fake news." The Wayback Machine suggests these pages were first added on 5th October 2022. At present, clicking the links gives a 404 page not found error.
November 1985 saw Tim Langdell appear on BBC2's Micro Live, in his role as Chairman of the Guild of Software Houses and a member of FAST (Federation Against Software Theft). He's there to talk about the Copyright (Computer Software) Amendment Act 1985 which extended copyright protection for literature and music to software for the first time. It's not a great interview. Fred Harris wastes five minutes presenting Tim with a series of hypothetical trolley dilemmas. Will FAST be taking action against people who make backups for personal use? Will FAST prosecute children swapping copies of games in the playground? Not unreasonably Tim prefers not to commit to any course of action. He doesn't want to be caught on tape promising the software industry will sue anyone with a twin tape deck but he also doesn't want this interview used as defence against a copyright infringement claim. Fred Harris persists with a degree of urgency that suggests he's been doing a lot of backing up at home and is worried about a stack of C90 tapes on his desk. "Is this now an illegal thing?" he demands, picking up a disk drive designed to create backups. "Can I just ask you to sum up then. Why should nobody ever copy software, in 20 seconds?" My sympathies are very much with Tim in this interview. It's rubbish. It's odd seeing the semi-mythical Tim Langdell in the flesh, like watching an interview with Bigfoot. I've only ever known Tim via the internet as a jack-in-the-box who pops up to a chorus of jeers and cheers. He's softly spoken and visibly nervous during the interview, and choosing his words with care, and very far from the pantomime demon figure of legend who appears in a puff of smoke to protect his Trademark on the word Edge.
36/38 Southampton Street, Covent Garden, WC2E
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| August 2022 |
From Brian Bloodaxe in 1985 to Inside Outing in 1988, The Edge had a solid run of, well, not original ideas exactly but polished games which added a spin to established ideas. Brian Bloodaxe riffed on Manic Miner. That's the Spirit was an arcade adventure in the style of Pyjamara, and like Brian Bloodaxe pretended to reset the game when you pressed the F key (for the swear command). Jack Wilkes, a regular Softek/The Edge contributor, worked on both games.
Bobby Bearing was Marble Madness crossed with Spindizzy. Fairlight and Inside Outing developed ideas started by Ultimate Play the Game. The only exception was the 1986 arcade licence Shao-Lin's Road a conversion of the Konami game. The Edge underwent a change of direction in 1988 and after this point licences dominated and non-licenced games became rarer. Garfield "Big, Fat, Hairy Deal" was the first of this new wave. It was a clever licence to obtain because Garfield had an appeal beyond the normal demographic of computer games, although as with all licences it came with a rigorous approvals process; a boxout in the CRASH review went into some detail.
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| CRASH March 1988 page 19 |
Mel Croucher, architect, painter, video games pioneer, founder of software house Automata UK, polymath and court jester to the British software industry, was given a monthly column in THE GAMES MACHINE. He appeared to enjoy poking Tim Langdell, who gets lightly swiped in print. In the course of this high-concept article about the future of the games industry (December 1989 page 23) Mel writes:
"Who's this bearded geezer waving a law suit at me? Is it the chappie who's come to change my paper towel? Not a bit of it, its the doctor come to push me over the Edge, none other than Tim Langdell."
There's an altogether odder mention of Tim's wife Cherie Langdell in this Mel Croucher article about sexism in the games industry. She is described, ironically, as, "the ravishing blonde Californian ex-hippy Doctor of orthodontic literature," who, "handles media scum like myself, on behalf of THE EDGE/Softek group. It took me two weeks to extract the following revelations from: her." This leads to a mock interview where Mel poses questions like, "Can you remember if you have ever promoted a sexist game yourself?" and the response is always, "no comment." because, presumably, Cherie Langdell didn't reply to his list of questions.
Snoopy, another United Feature Syndicate comic strip licence, followed in 1989, along with a Garfield sequel, Garfield Winter's Tail. AMIGA COMPUTING (November 1989 page 24) published a bizarre review written by Duncan Evans:
"GARFIELD, the feline fatso with the sardonic smirk, is dreaming about all the royalties he could get for appearing in a computer game, all the lasange he could buy with the money. Garfield has a big smile on his wide chops. But wait, a cloud crosses over his face. Something is amiss. Deep in dreamworld Garfield has signed up with The Edge, but notices that Tim Langdell, the boss of the company, doesn't smell quite right. A first inkling of the horror to come. Then Garfield notices that there are holes in Tim's jumper, and that he's wearing a tatty old hat. Odd, but it gets odder when Tim shows Garfield how the game is progressing some months later. There's a scrolling section, a scene in a chocolate factory and a skating part. But where's the Garfield, the plump one asks, bemused. Right where we want him, snarls Tim. six-inch blades flashing across the office, glinting in the moonlight streaming through the window.... Tim has vanished as Garfield peers out from under a blanket...Tim watches on. and cackles manically... Garfield can only sit and wait, and hope that some talented individual with the patience of Job can finish the game and rescue him from this nightmare that The Edge created."
An apology followed in the next issue:
"IN last month's issue in the review of The Edge's new game Winter's Tail some personal remarks were made directed at Dr Tim Langdell. We accept that these remarks were totally uncalled for and insofar as they might have been read to be a slight on Dr Langdell's character or on The Edge's reasons for licensing the Garfield character, we unreservedly apologise to Dr Langdell and all at The Edge for these remarks."
A game based on The Punisher film was released in 1990 for the Amiga and Atari ST and that was it for The Edge. Or was it? Mobygames list of titles ends here but the EDGE Games website has more which fall outside of the range of this blog. The Punisher was being reviewed around October 1990. Shortly before this THE GAMES MACHINE carried a recruitment advert which mentioned The Edge held licences for "Garfield, Snoopy, Asterix, MTV, Key Marvel Comic characters."
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| THE GAMES MACHINE July 1990 page 37 |
The Marvel comic characters are probably the X-Men. A few details on this game can be gleaned from news items in AMSTRAD COMPUTER USER (July 1989 page 13) and CRASH (October 1989 page 17). Three games were planned, "based on the American cartoon series soon to be shown in Britain" (possibly the X-Men cartoon which finally debuted on television in 1992), one game would be called The Uncanny X-Men, and one game based on Wolverine. Games That Weren't has a little more information. CU AMIGA, in an article about games that never appeared, had a picture, and a sentence noting that "apparently, the programmer decked The Edge's Tim Langdell before storming out".
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| CU AMIGA November 1991 page 73 |
Back in 1987 Softek had launched a second spin-off label called Ace. It only released three titles. The first Xecutor was a well received vertical scrolling shooter by veteran programmer Christian Urquhart (who started out working for Ocean, and converted Hunchback *shakes fist!*). Two arcade conversions followed in 1988, Alien Syndrome and Soldier of Light. The Spectrum version of Soldier of Light was also by Christian Urquhart. The C64 conversion was by Reptilia Design and, in an interview archived on The Wayback Machine, coders Ian and Michael Jones had this to say about their time working for The Edge:
"What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
We stopped programming after the disastrous court case with the edge, a software house in london directed by tim "slimy" landell. We converted Solder of Light to C64 from the arcade which was completed in 6 months but according to Tim Landell should have been completed in three months (yeaa right) so they refused to pay us. So we decided to take the Edge to court but Tim Landell left the country for America. With no money we were forced to sell all our equipment to settle outstanding loans from the bank. So we both went esparto ways and concentrated on normal carers."
Tim Langdell did move to America. He crops up next in THE ONE (December 1991 page 46) with a bizarre mention in Dave Gruisin's Entertainment USA column about the InterTainment 91 convention:
"ER... SURELY NOT THE Dr. Tim Langdell, once proprietor of that well-known Brit softco, The Edge (previously Softek), Ex-ACE editor Steve Cooke and yours truly stood side by side in the lobby watching this apparition walk up to within spitting distance, then stride away. "A freak genetic coincidence," quoth Cooke, "Uncanny," quoth I. And then we forgot all about it until we sat next to the guy at dinner.
And yes, it was The Doctor. Like all the best failed Brit actor's, Il Dottore has decided that if he can't top the charts in the UK, he's likely to do a lot better in California, where a British accent is the next best thing to a platinum American Express card. Running The Edge Interactive Multimedia Inc. up in sunny Pasadena, Dr. Langdell is busy developing for CD platforms. In particular, he is working for The Machine (see right)."
The Machine was a Mysterious Thing which simply everyone at InterTainment 91 was talking about in hushed tones . It was probably the failed 3DO console. Tim Langdell gets a second glancing mention when the subject of The Machine comes up at dinner.
"Suddenly, Il Dottore Langdell (for it was he, and he was seated next to us) pricked up his ears. "Are you talking about The Machine?" he asks, "I don't know," says Laura [Buddine] hedgily, "are you?' "I might be," counters Doctor Death, "It all depends whether you are."
483 Green Lanes, London, N14
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| October 2022 |
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