119 John Bright Street, Birmingham
What happened, was this. Adventure International had two Birmingham addresses listed on their adverts between 1983 and 1985, so in July 2024 I took advantage of a trip to Birmingham and grabbed photos of both. Job done. I then returned to the stinking garret where this blog is written and promptly forgot about Adventure International until June this year. Having remembered they existed and full of optimism I wrote the following introduction:
"Hi I'm the Hulk have an autograph." I was watching The BBC's lovely new high definition upload of The Battle for Santa's Software when those words, spoken by a foam-rubber Hulk at the 1984 PCW Show, reminded with a guilty start that I've intended to write about Adventure International for at least a year.
The first draft article literally stopped there because the next thing I did was a tiny bit of research and cast myself into the Slough of Despond. Callisto Software begat Adventure International who begat Adventure Soft UK who begat Horror Soft who begat Adventure Soft Publishing who begat Headfirst Productions. They weren't just based in Birmingham like I thought. I found references to High Wycombe and Newcastle and London and Sutton Coldfield. I closed the draft document at 9.56pm on Sunday July 21st 2025 so the uncertainty couldn't hurt me anymore. Things rested there but it's time to pick up the challenge again. That which does not kill me makes me stronger (my uncle who was trampled by an elephant would disagree).
The earliest reference to the company who would become Adventure International UK is in COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES, November 1983 page 147. A news story by Keith Campbell headlined SCOTT WILL RETURN! Readers have been writing to him to ask when Scott Adams' adventure games will be available on BBC, Spectrum, and Dragon computers. Ken says he spoke to Mike Woodroffe[1] of Calisto Computers "Adventure International's UK agents". Right. That's my entry point; Calisto Computers, Mike Woodroffe, Scott Adams and Adventure International. Go!
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| BLACK COUNTRY EVENING MAIL Friday 12 December 1980 page 3 |
119 John Bright Street, Birmingham
That was easy. I know, from my earlier (doomed) attempt, that Adventure International UK were based at the same address so I have a picture to slot in later. In America, Scott Adams set up Adventure International in 1979 and quickly became well known for writing text and graphic adventures. These were for weird American formats like the TRS-80, the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, TI-99/4A, PET and later the VIC-20, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and so on. Meanwhile, on our side of the Atlantic, Mike Woodroffe set up Calisto Computers as a department within the family music shop at 119 John Bright Street, and as issue 5 of CLASSIC ADVENTURER explained:
He
soon
found
that
the
market
for
computers
was
hampered
as
there was
little
or
no
software
available to
make
the
purchase
viable.
There was (petty much) no UK hardware for sale in 1979 so Calisto was doing good business selling American machines like the TRS-80 and Atari range. It made sense to import software from across the Atlantic.
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| COMPUTE! June 1982 page 115 |
Take a look at the reviews in PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD, May 1982 page 82 half of them are credited to Adventure International, courtesy of Calisto Computers. The other half are credited to Molimerx who the other big player on the import scene. Mike Woodroffe wanted to convert Adventure International games onto sensible sturdy British computers like the BBC, Dragon, and Spectrum. However, as that C&VG story says, what he didn't have was a good programmer. Enter Brian Howarth who had already written Mysterious Adventure for Molimerx, probably the first home grown adventure game published in the UK in May 1981.
The Atari magazine PAGE 6 printed a news story in their first issue:
Scott Adams comes to U.K.
Adventure International (UK) Ltd., is to be set up in mid January by Mike Woodroffe of Calisto Computers Ltd. The company will be based in Birmingham and will have full facilities for manufacturing the entire range of Adventure International Software. The packaging will still be brought in from America but the tapes and disks will be manufactured here meaning that for the first time U.K. users will be able to buy software at a price compatible with the U.S price. Only VAT will need to be added to what should be a straight sterling - dollar equivalent.
In addition to manufacturing there will be an in-house software development team to develop and market 'home-grown' software. As well as developing their own software they will be offering
facilities for users to submit programs for possible inclusion in their range with good royalties and the chance of full distribution both here and in the States. This will be the first major opportunity for UK written software to be distributed on a major scale in the U.S.A.
There will of course be full technical back-up for all Adventure International products and the latest programs should be available at the same time they are released in the States. The U.K. has up to now been slow to develop the software side of the business for the major home computers but this new venture should bring an enormous surge of interest.
Scott Adams himself will be coming to the U.K. shortly for a promotional tour and we look forward to welcoming one of the most well known 'names' in the computing world. PAGE 6 will be bringing you an interview if we can tie him down long enough!
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| YOUR COMPUTER January 1984 page 188 |
Mike Woodroffe set up two companies; Adventure International (UK), licensed to convert Scott Adams' games to UK computers, and Calisto Software to sell a mixture of home grown educational software and games. Both companies printed their first adverts in January 1984. Adventure International's advert was on page 5 of YOUR COMPUTER, Calisto's was towards the back of the magazine at page 188? A reflection of which label was expected to do better?
Both adverts carry the banner "Exclusive distributor of SCOTT ADAMS PRODUCTS" which makes me wonder if Mike Woodroffe set up one new company or two. Actually the answer seems to be none. I can't find a record on Companies House for Adventure International (UK) or Calisto Software which makes me think both lines were labels of whatever company was used to run Calisto Computers.
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| YOUR COMPUTER January 1984 page 5 |
Suddenly the company is based in High Wycombe and selling games by Richard Shepherd Software. Discovering this advert was part of the reason for abandoning the first draft of this article. Fortunately now, I think I can account for them in a way which avoids me having to go to High Wycombe again (last time was for Thalamus). This Adventuresoft is a mail order company who specialise in selling adventure games and the name is a coincidence. Unless Mike Woodroffe cares to correct me, I'm sure they can be ignored.
Calisto Software flamed out some time in 1984 but Adventure International just kept growing. Scott Adams signed a deal with Marvel to produce a series of adventures called Questprobe, based on heroes like The Hulk and Spider-Man. In the photo below, Scott Adams is the one kneeling. I think the photo was taken at the February 1984 Leisure Electronics Trade show held at Heathrow; let's hope it was easy to put the C&VG sign back together.
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| C&VG May 1984 page 36 |
Scott Adams was back in September 1984 to attend the PCW show to promote Spider-Man. The result was a trio of interviews in MICRO ADVENTURER, CRASH, and another for C&VG.
 |
| May 2024 |
There are a lot of listed buildings on John Bright Street; the Borough Building, the Victoria Pub, and the building which used to house the weirdly specific Birmingham and Midland Skin and Urinary Hospital ("You have a problem with your back so I'll have to ask you to leave without causing a scene."). All these preserved buildings are at the other end of the street from 119 which unfortunately was swept away during the redevelopment of the city centre. A building called the Birmingham Stable sits at number 115 and the rest of the top of the street is gone. A new building sits on the corner of John Bright Street and Navigation Street where, I think, 119 would have been.
I've lifted this detail from a photo at www.warwickshirerailways.com which I think shows John Bright Street post war but before the building of Grosvenor Casino which you can see on the left of my photo. I think the Victorian building which runs across the right of that black and white photo is the one which held 119 John Bright Street, and I've circled what I think was its location.
85 New Summer Street, Birmingham B1
Adventure International moved away from the city centre some time in the first quarter of 1985. Had Calisto Computers closed? I'm not sure. The company was a regular advertiser in local papers from 1980 to 1984, and in August 1984 they advertising a stock clearance sale "to make way for new stock." These stock clearance adverts resume in October 1984 but the mention of new stock has gone. Are they clearing stock because they are closing down? It's possible. It's equally possible Adventure International just needed bigger offices and that was behind the short mile and a half hop from John Bright Street to north of the city centre.
The move was complete by the time Gremlins was being advertised in April 1985. Getting the Gremlins licence was a big deal and Mike Woodroffe would later tell COMPUTER GAMER:
AI-UK also plan an arcade-style Gremlins game (not to mention a second Gremlins adventure proper). More Gremlins? Is this wise?
"Well, the first Gremlins by Brian Howarth, our ace programmer outsold all our other stuff by double. It's been translated in to Spanish and German, with great success and there's a French version on the way. A new Gremlin movie is due for release at the end of 1986."(YOUR COMPUTER, November 1985 page 56)
Questprobe Featuring The Hulk took a year to write. Scott Adams was producing games at a slower and slower rate and Mike Woodroffe wanted to fill the gaps with locally sourced games. As well as Gremlins, he succeeded in getting the UK licence for the ITV series Robin of Sherwood. The adventure Touchstones of Rhiannon was on sale by Christmas 1985 and YOUR COMPUTER briefly mentions a sequel, Seven Swords of Wayland.
One thing is sure, AI have plenty of new releases planned — apart from Fighting Fantasy, Robin of Sherwood, Gremlins and Questprobe, they have the rights to Buckaroo Banzai
The YOUR COMPUTER interview ends on an optimistic note but, on the other side of the Atlantic, Scott Adams had filed for bankruptcy by the time it appeared.
BLUE SKIES TURN BLACK AT SCOTT ADAMS INC.
Three years ago, Scott Adams was riding high... Working out of a geodesic dome in Longwood, the bearded, bespectacled, Edgar Allan Poe of the computer age was grossing $3 million with his 3-year-old firm.
But as 1986 opens, Scott Adams' Adventure International is mired in debt and scraping by on $500,000 a year.... Last month, Scott Adams Inc., the parent company, filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.
"A lot of our problems date back to 1983," said Adams, explaining that a need to advertise his products led to a plethora of debts to computer magazines and periodicals, which are his most numerous creditors.
"A lot of our problems date back to 1983," said Adams, explaining that a need to advertise his products led to a plethora of debts to computer magazines and periodicals, which are his most numerous creditors.
(THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, Monday 26 January 1986, page 75)
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| July 2024 |
It was 3pm on a Tuesday and I seemed to be the only person wandering around the vast industrial estate which includes New Summer Street. I felt exposed and nervous, irrational as always in other words, but my mood wasn't helped by the open door of number 85. It was clear people were inside. The trouble was, I couldn't tell if they were looking at me on the other side of the street because the windows were covered with mirrored security glass. A sign, "BEWARE OF DOG", didn't help my mood. All I really wanted to do was get out of there before I was savaged by DOG.
Adventure International UK didn't go into bankruptcy with Scott Adams Inc. Mike Woodroffe, in his CLASSIC ADVENTURER interview, suggests the company was done for a little bit later, in early 1986, by the failure of distribution company Webster's:
I think it was Webster’s [the software offshoot of book distribution giant Webster Group] that was the final nail in the coffin. The problem was we used a system where we sold the invoices onto a third-party company who paid us on behalf of the companies we sold them onto - and they controlled the credit ratings and everything. But, here’s the thing: That works great as you’ve money to develop and you can start building and producing more product and stuff. But if you have a big player go down on you they claw back the next money all the money they’ve advanced on those sales. Webster’s hit the buffers and we had no money for three months as it was all being recouped on what they’d advanced us - and it just took us out.
COMMODORE USER has a couple of news stories which give a timeline for this. First in issue 30 (March 1986 page 78) they note:
Adventure International... have reached an agreement with US Gold to market their games in the UK.
This is followed up in April 1986:
Adventure International's worst kept secret is that they've been having meaningful discussions with megasuccessful distributors US Gold. Interestingly enough, Al themselves started out purely as a marketing operation for Scott Adams, but with the success of Gremlins and Robin Hood, and with very little coming from the States these days. It's thought that Al chief Mike Woodroffe and co-writer Brian Howarth now want to concentrate on writing more blockbusters and let someone else handle them.
With Webster's no longer available, Adventure International turned to US Gold to act as a publisher but it was too late. The cashflow problems hit and in May 1986 COMMODORE USER reported:
Further news on Adventure International It has ceased trading For Adventure International read US Gold and Adventure Soft. Brian Howarth has left Mike Woodroffe's operation for a new career in business software, whilst Mike and his wife Trisha, have formed a new company. Adventure Soft Ltd.
Roger Taylor (of Denis Through the Drinking Glass fame) has joined them to produce a new enhanced Adventure System. Adventure Soft will continue to convert Scott Adams adventures, including future Questprobes, and will be producing their own adventures, next planned release being Temple of Terror.
This is where I thought the whole story ended. It doesn't.
PO BOX 786, Sutton Coldfield, B75 7SL
Following the closure of Adventure International (UK) Mike Woodroffe set up another company called Adventure Soft (UK) on 27 July 1984. Adventure Soft are annoyingly unlocatable. Their games, covering a period from 1986 to about 1993, are published by US Gold and then Tynesoft and then Accolade. When Adventure Soft do give an address it is always hidden behind PO BOX 786 somewhere in the vicinity of Sutton Coldfield.
That's the first sighting from 1986. Type B75 7SL into Google maps these days and you get a very specific part of the site of the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfields Rebel Planet was the first Adventure Soft game published by US Gold who would handle everything from 1986 to around 1989. US Gold also rescued the final Questprobe game, Questprobe Featuring the Human Torch and the Thing, which saw a delayed release in 1986. Good news for the winners of the C&VG competition which ran in May 1985.
According to THE STORY OF US GOLD by Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean, Geoff Brown, the founder of US Gold, supplemented his then teaching salary with a Saturday job across the two Woodroffe’s Musical Instruments shops in Birmingham. He saw the Calisto Computers section in John Bright Street and one thing led to another and as Geoff Brown put it in the book:
I sort of stole the idea of distributing from Mike really.
US Gold was probably the biggest software house in the UK by 1986 and while it made sense for Adventure Soft to partner with them, it must have been odd. While Adventure Soft were distributed by US Gold the packaging of their games gave the US Gold address of the time. Consider this a preview of the eventual US Gold article.
Unit 10 Parkway Industrial Centre, Heneage Street, Birmingham, B7
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| July 2024 |
Unit 2/3 Holford Way, Holford, Birmingham, B6
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| September 2023 |
The US Gold/Adventure Soft deal provided stability and Mike Woodroffe[2] extolled the virtues of partnership on a 1987 advert in POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY.
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| POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 29 January-4 February 1987 page 33 |
Mike Woodruff of Adventuresoft says:
CASHFLOW "The singular most important advantage of working for a large software house such as U.S Gold is undoubtedly the fact that cashflow can be forecast accurately. Gone are the days of worrying about how to pay the wages at the end of the month, regular payments made against work completed are the answer to all these problems."
LICENSES "U.S. Gold, due to their enormous financial strength, are in the best position to acquire the rights to the very best licensing deals, any software house who is developing products based on these licences has a great advantage in the marketplace, especially if royalties are being payed for a successful product."
DISTRIBUTION: "U.S. Gold's premier position in the software market ensures maximum penetration for our products."
IDENTITY: "Although all distribution is done by U.S. Gold we have maintained our own identity, and have not become just another cog in a conglomerate wheel. This maintains the interest of our programmers and artists who do not want to feel that they are being dictated to by a large autonomous corporation and this in turn ensures that the standard of work is maintained."
Increasing commercial pressure saw Adventure Soft pushed towards making more arcade focused games like Captain America In: The Doom Tube of Dr. Meglomann. This was clearly not a direction Mike Woodroffe was interested in and the increasing popularity in 16-bit computers suggested an opportunity for change.
Addison Industrial Estate, Tyne and Wear, NE21 4TE
Mike Woodroffe and Brian Howarth had experimented with writing games for another company in 1985, when they wrote Super Gran: The Adventure for Tynesoft. The Super Gran box very pointedly credits the game to:
Brian Howarth & Mike Woodruff [3] of Adventure International (Gremlins) fame.
Later, around 1987, another Adventure Soft game called Blizzard Pass was included in a four-pack made by Tynesoft and distributed with some ZX Spectrum +2 computers.
Adventure Soft and Tynesoft teamed up in 1989. Why/how did they team up? I don't know. Obviously you've got the two points of contact with Super Gran: The Adventure and Blizzard Pass but those games were several years in the past. Emails to whereweretheynow@gmail.com if you know.
It was the same development team, purely a way of marketing the product because we wanted to say this is what it is. These are horror games. So it made perfect sense to us to brand the whole thing as Horror Soft. It was the same. We registered a separate company to preserve the IP but it was basically the same development team.
That's Mike Woodroffe talking to the Retro Hour podcast about the creation of Horror Soft and their first game Personal Nightmare, 1989; released for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS computers. The game was 18 months in development according to ZZAP!64 (September 1989 page 21) so it must have overlapped with the US Gold deal. The back of the box lists a familiar address. It's Tynesoft's office which I never did track down on the Addision Industrial Estate. This picture is as good as it gets.
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| March 2024 |
Personal Nightmare was followed by the first of two adventures based around horror hostess Elvira. Mike Woofroffe talked about the background to Elvira: Mistress of the Dark with the Retro Hour:
Well that was an accident that was because we were we were approached by the guys at Tynesoft to help them with the development of the game and halfway through it they hit the buffers so we had done a load of work on this game for them and there wasn't going to be a game because they'd gone out of business so their agent put us in touch with Cassandra Peterson's husband who was her agent. I went over to the States and said well can we do a deal here because we've got a game half developed, and stuff, and we did a deal with them direct and then Accolade picked it up from there.
CU AMIGA filled in some of the details in July 1990:
Horrorsoft, only had a sales and marketing agreement with Tynesoft. Now that the agreement has been dissolved due to the receivers being called in, Horrorsoft are negotiating with two major software houses with the aim of releasing the game in late July.
The collapse of Tynesoft must have taken place as Elvira was being released. The game was reviewed in the June 1990 issue of ZERO and the previous month an advert ran in CU AMIGA which carried the Tynesoft address.
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| CU AMIGA May 1990 page 94 |
The Lombard Business Centre, 50 Lombard Road, London, SW11 3SU
Bowling House, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, London SW18 1PE
Horror Soft incorporated as a company in its own right in April 1990, so potentially around the time Tynesoft began to wobble into receivership and I wonder if this was the incentive for setting up the company. Accolade republished Elvira (1990) and two more Horror Soft games Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus (1991), and WaxWorks (1992). Accolade were an American company based in south London and I've avoided writing about because they never seemed that interesting. Sorry. Their first address was in Battersea at 50 Lombard Road and then they moved up the river to Wandsworth at a place ironically called Point Pleasant. The internet is hazy about when Accolade moved from Battersea to Wandsworth, but I think it was around the middle of 1991 so after the release of Elvira but before the sequel. Both addresses are long gone. Where the Lombard Business Centre used to be there is now a Land Rover dealership.
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| October 2025 |
Bowling House probably still exists. The Point Pleasant area has been extensively redeveloped since the mid nineties. I think the building was converted into flats and, unless I'm looking at the wrong side of the site, this was Bowling House.
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| October 2025 |
ZERO magazine ran an interview with Mike Woodroffe to promote the release of Waxworks. It's not the most amazing interview but it contains a few good nuggets including a throwaway line about the small size of the team who created Waxworks:
We can do everything with a small amount of people. Just three artists, Alan (Welsman of Accolade. Ed,) and myself. You just won't believe that Waxworks has been put together by a team, essentially, of five
There are also a couple of pictures of Mike Woodroffe mucking around with "the ZERO roadmobile".
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| ZERO February 1992 page 55 |
Now obviously from my perspective, the most interesting thing about those pictures is the background. A cobbled road, with a single yellow line and a large wooden door behind. An industrial unit? A glimpse of B75 7SL? A lot depends on whether ZERO went to Adventure Soft or vice versa. I suspect Mike Woodroffe went to ZERO in which case it's more likely to be close to Rathbone Place. It's an area with lots of narrow cobbled backstreets suitable for mucking around with a van, like Newman Passage or it could be round the back of 14 Rathbone Place.
P.O. Box 786, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B74 4HG
Adventure Soft relocated not long after the ZERO photoshoot. Simon the Sorcerer came out in 1993 and the postcode changed on the back of the box. BH74 4HG is no longer a valid postcode but a quick bit of Googling suggests it covered a residential area in Sutton Coldfield along a street called Rosemary Hill Road. It looks like Adventure Soft was mostly being run from home at this stage. There's a great RETRO GAMER profile, which can be found here, that briefly notes how:
Adventuresoft was once based in the building originally occupied by the Birmingham Mint. It moved to a system of home working.
It's entirely possible that Adventure Soft was being run from someone's house near Rosemary Road and before that... what was that comment about the Birmingham Mint?
Birmingham Mint Building, Icknield Street
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| December 2025 |
I have no idea when Adventure Soft were based at the Mint. It must have been at some point in the P.O. Box 786 era. The RETRO GAMER profile continues:
People were based in Oxford, Bristol, Birmingham, and Newcastle.
Let's pretend the Birmingham reference is to the Mint. I can't account for the Oxford or Bristol addresses but Newcastle is easy.
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| EVENING CHRONICLE Thursday 3 August 1995 page 34 |
I think the Newcastle Technopole has gone, demolished some time around 2022.
Simon the Sorcerer was released for the Amiga, CD32, Atari ST, and MS-DOS computers. If you want an example of how quickly the UK software scene changed between 1993 and 1995, consider that the sequel Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe was only released for the PC. A change of direction followed with the science fiction themed game, The Feeble Files, in 1997.
P.O. Box 786, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B75 5RS
Headfirst Productions were incorporated on 22 May 1998 and according to RETRO GAMER, their job was to produce Simon the Sorcerer 3. Shortly afterwards another company, Adventure Soft Publishing, was incorporated on 8 June 1998, as you might expect their job was to publish games. It's about spreading risk. If the publisher goes down it doesn't take the developer with it, and vice versa. Now, Adventure Soft gave their address as yet another variation on PO Box 786 but I know where both of these companies were based because they still have open records on Companies House. Behold:
Unit 3, Priory, Old London Road Canwell, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B75 5SH
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| December 2025 |
435 Lichfield Road, Aston, Birmingham, B6 7SS
Remember what I said about spreading risk. It looks as if part of the reason for setting up the two new companies was because the original Adventure Soft UK was in trouble. On 21 July 1998 THE GAZETTE, the journal of record for the British Government, records a notice of appointment of liquidators for Adventure Soft UK. It's standard practice for the address of a company to be changed to that of the liquidator and I think that's what happened here. US Gold also had an address in virtually the same location which could be significant or just a massive coincidence. Regardless, I wanted a picture of the US Gold address; so I was in the area anyway.
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| December 2025 |
One of the first titles released by Adventure Soft Publishing was Elivra's Horror Pack. A three game compilation of Waxworks and the two Elvira games from Horror Soft. The pack didn't include Personal Nightmare so, somewhere along the line, the rights to that game were lost during the collapse of Tynesoft. Around the same time, Adventure Soft Publishing created a couple of spin off games, Simon the Sorcerer's Puzzle Pack and Simon the Sorcerer's Pinball which they licenced to another company called Idigicon. They have a surprisingly long history, having started out in 1982 as CDS Microsystems and went through several changes of name before being dissolved in 2013.
Headfirst Productions were developing Simon the Sorcerer 3 and a game which would become Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. The problem was money. RETRO GAMER 278 has a very good feature on the history of the Simon the Sorcerer series and notes that Simon the Sorcerer 3 needed around £100,000 to be finished but no one was funding 2D games. Hasbro instead agreed to finance a new 3D game but then inconveniently sold themselves off to Infogrames. This delayed the release of Simon the Sorcerer 3D until 2002 when Adventure Soft Publishing ended up releasing the game themselves.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was licenced to Bethesda, and in the UK the game was released by Ubisoft. Headfirst Productions appointed an administrator in 2006 and went into liquidation in 2007. Adventure Soft Publishing kept the rights to the Simon the Sorcerer series and are still ticking over as a small business today. They licenced the rights to Simon the Sorcerer to Smallthing
Studios who released Simon the Sorcerer: Origins basically as this article was being written. The first time this blog has spanned a 41 year gap in one go.
Adventure International a division of Scott Adams Inc
There are several addresses online for Adventure International but what I really wanted to do was see if I could find the location of the custom-built geodesic dome office from which Adventure International operated at the height of their success.
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| The Miami Herald Saturday 22 May 1982 page 14A |
I found four and a half addresses for Adventure International.
507 East Street, Longwood, Florida, 32750
This is a generic single story building. It looks like it might be a house now, but it seems to be a business if you skip back to 2015. The address crops up in adverts around 1981, like this one for A.M. Electronics dealer's so was this an early address for the Adventure International store (mentioned by Wikipedia) or was it Scott Adams house? I don't know. This is also the half address, because Adventure International tries for a little privacy by operating from behind a Box address, Box 3435 but occasionally adverts give away that it is also the East Street address.
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| ORLANDO SENTINEL Sunday 4 October 1981 page 257 |
The address of a business called AI, or possibly A1, Computer Centre. They list themselves as a retail centre for Adventure International in assorted 1981/82 adverts in papers like the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The same address also crops up in association with Scott Adams Inc in this 1981 advert giving notice under the Fictitious Name Statute. A fantastically named Florida law which required people to register when they started doing business under a name which was not their legal name. Presumably AI= Adventure International.
966 Fox Valley Drive, Longwood
This is the actual address Wikipedia lists for the Adventure International Store. There is no 966 Fox Valley Drive any more, or at least not as far as I can tell. Presumably building number 966 was where Sweetwater Square is now. The Fox Valley drive address is important because it's just round the corner from another one listed on the Adventure International Wikipedia page.
155 Sabal Palm Drive, Longwood, Florida
This is the address Wikipedia gives for Adventure International so it is also the most likely place for the geodesic dome. If it was, it has not survived. The satellite view of Sabal Palm Drive gave me a moment of excitement when I spotted a roundish shape at the back of number 157 but sadly Streetview revealed it was just a boring old summerhouse.
[1] Actually, C&VG's Ken Campbell says he spoke to Mike Woodruff. A spelling error I diligently repeated through the rest of this article until I realised my mistake. Thank god for find and replace.
[2] The advert once again credits Mike Woodroffe as Mike Woodruff, which must have taken some shine off their business relationship.
[2] The advert once again credits Mike Woodroffe as Mike Woodruff, which must have taken some shine off their business relationship.
[3] Here it is again. It's such a common mistake that I'm beginning to wonder if Mike Woodroffe used the Woodruff spelling as a business name.
The cover for Robin of Sherwood: The Touchstones of Rhiannon comes from Lemon64. Gremlins: The Adventure from CPC Rulez. Questprobe Featuring The Hulk comes from Spectrum Computing as does the cover for Adventureland. Personal Nightmare and Simon the Sorcerer are both from Mobygames.
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