Dragon / Dragonsoft

Kenfig Industrial Estate, Margam, Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, SA 13 

Dragon computers are one of the "nearly" stories of the UK hardware industry. A good design and early success undermined by a parent company in financial difficulties. My aunt brought one on clearance in 1984 because she wanted to get one of these new-fangled computer thingies everyone was going on about, and for a long time that was my only experience of the Dragon range. A bit of a joke. A cautionary tale about what happens when go into Dixons and ask the salesman what computer they recommend and trust them to sell you the latest technology.

Bulletin 1000

Eardley House, 182/184 Campden Hill Road, London, W8

"Hi, my name is Jeremy and I'd like to welcome you to the first issue of Bulletin 1000 Video Magazine which we're bringing to you from the Video Cafe here in the heart of London's West End. Over the coming months we will be bringing you details and indeed showing you advertisements featuring highlights of some of the best software from the leading software houses. In addition we'll be running competitions which could get your face here on this very screen and win you some great prizes such as software, monitors, computers, joysticks, and lots lots more. Including the chance to be a video disc jockey for the evening here at London's Video Care but more of that later."

Amiga Point of View issue 5

Commercial break.

People are still making fanzines. This is fantastic news. Just recently I've been enjoying issue five of APoV, AMIGA POINT OF VIEW printed barely 14 years after issue four. It's got reviews, articles, a great cover, pretty much everything you'd expect, and it's a great read. There are features on Amiga 8-bit emulators, games which never existed, and an interview with the Magnetic Fields team which I have bookmarked in case my plans for a trip to Llandudno ever achieve fruition.

You can buy APoV issue five here. $2.50 for a PDF version but UK readers also have the chance to order a print version. Go ahead and buy a copy. It gets my seal of approval.

Follow them on Twitter @APoVAmiga.

Commercial break: ends.

Grandslam Entertainment

Grandslam House, 56 Leslie Park Road, Croydon, CR0

Grandslam Entertainment was born in 1987, renamed from Argus Press Software, which had been spun off from Argus Specialist Publications, which was itself the hobby magazine division of Argus Press, which was itself a publishing company owned by BET PLC. Until 1985, BET PLC had been known as British Electric Traction and they were an absolutely enormous conglomerate who owned absolutely everything from Wembley Stadium to waste disposal specialists Biffa. They were big. And big was out of fashion in 1985. So BET PLC began divesting itself of its share of laundry companies and television companies and crane companies, and slimmed itself down. Until, in 1996, BET PLC was taken over by Rentokill and that's the end of their story.

Zeppelin Games/Merit Studios Europe/Eutechnyx/Zerolight

25 Osbourne Road, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2

"The north-east is a bit of a remote outpost for UK software now that Tynesoft has bitten the dust. This last bastion of Geordie publishing specialises in budget software." That's how THE ONE described Zeppelin Games, entry number one in their Software Landmarks of the UK article in October 1991. It's a short entry for a company which ended up being a big player in the UK games industry although I'm not 100% sure the company is still running today. I'll get to that later.

Atarisoft

I'd like to go back to the Atari well one more time to talk about the short-lived Atarisoft UK range. I originally planned to make this part of the Atari article but it was just too long. In America, the label was a success, at least at first. Whatever plans Atari UK had for the range were disrupted at the end of July 1984 when Warner Communications sold the consumer division of Atari to Jack Tramiel. Atarisoft UK rapidly stalled and although a few games slip out across the remainder of 1984, its surprisingly difficult to make sense of what happens or why.

Atari Corp (UK) Ltd

Atari House, Railway Terrace, Slough, SL2

Atari was founded in 1972, and it took 10 years for them to cross the Atlantic and set up their UK subsidiary. This was well after Commodore, who arrived in 1969 in their guise as a manufacturer of typewriters, and just before Activision, who set up their UK branch in the autumn of 1983. At least, that's the simple answer. I thought the story of Atari UK was going to be an easy one to write. I was wrong.   

Infogrames

Mitre House, Abbey Road, Enfield, EN1

Infogrames, the company whose bloody fingerprints are all over the dagger in the back of the corpse of the UK software industry.

Commodore Computing International vs ZZAP!64

Some time in April 1986, Anthony Jacobson, the publisher of COMMODORE COMPUTING INTERNATIONAL sat down and wrote a blistering editorial for COMPUTER TRADE WEEKLY which tore into rival Commodore 64 magazine ZZAP!64. The article presumably did what was intended, which was to generate some interest in CCI and provoke a response from ZZAP editor Roger Kean.

Thalamus

 1 Saturn House, Calleva Park, Aldermaston, Berks, RG7

I'm pretty sure only four magazine publishers set up software houses; EMAP with Beyond, Argus Press with Argus Press Software, Mirror Group Newspapers with Mirrorsoft and, of course, Newsfield with Thalamus. The surprise is not so much that other publishers didn't dip their toe into the water, it's that Newsfield were so late to the party. Thalamus was founded in 1986, when smaller software houses were being squeezed out of the market and either making the decision to become developers rather than publishers, see Design Design and Realtime, or stepping back from the market completely like Durell and Microsphere.

Newsfield Ltd

1/2 King Street, Ludlow, Shropshire

So we're doing magazines now are we? Well yes, obviously. The tagline of this blog is "seeking out Britain's pioneering software houses," but I've covered Argus Specialist Press and assorted computer manufacturers under the fig leaf justification that those companies did occasionally chuck out a few games. I could have done the same for Newsfield because they spun off a software house called Thalamus but it seems unnecessary. Newsfield were an essential part of the UK software scene in their own right, as were other publishers like Future (AMSTRAD ACTION) or Sportscene/Dennis (YOUR SINCLAIR and YOUR 64), or hardware companies like Romantic Robot (the various Multiface machines) and joystick kings Konix. A whole support industry grew up around software companies like the ecology of a coral reef and to not talk about it is to not tell the whole story.

Bubble Bus Software

87 High Street, Tonbridge

This is why I'm not allowed to make jokes.

Commodore Business Machines (UK) Ltd

675 Ajax Avenue, Slough, SL1

I'm paddling in my ignorance here. I don't know much about Commodore and my usual sources aren't helping. Much of the information online is about the history of the US parent company, Commodore International, rather than their UK arm and the sheer popularity of the Commodore 64 tends to swamp any list of results I generate. Even the normally reliable Companies House is letting me down. Their register tells me this about Commodore Business Machines (UK) Ltd; company number 00956774. 

Company name COMMODORE BUSINESS MACHINES (U.K.) LIMITED
Company number 00956774
Incorporated on 24 Jun 1969
Dissolved on 05 Dec 2000
Registered office address at dissolution Not available
Download Report Not available

Six facts and two of those are "Not available". This is going to get worse before it gets better.

Lookback at 2023

Happy Christmas. Last year December 25th intruded rudely on the publishing schedule of the blog. This year it's Christmas Eve but I like the idea of casting a self-indulgent eye backwards over the last 12 months.

Gremlin Graphics

 Alpha House, 10 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1

It's the eve of the millennium and you fall into conversation with an 8-bit time traveller from 1985. "What happened to all the software companies?" The traveller wants to know. "What happened to Ocean?" "Gone," you tell the traveller. "Lost two years ago."
"US Gold. They must still be around."
You shake your head, "US Gold were taken over by Eidos, who were themselves formed out of Domark."
"Mirrorsoft! A company supported by Robert Maxwell's business empire must be flourishing!"
"Gone, and there's quite a story attached to that."
"Ultimate Play the Game?"
"Gone."
"Melbourne House?"
"Gone."
"I loved Highway Encounter. What happened to Vortex?"
"Gone," you sigh.
"Mastertronic?"
"Gone."
"A&F Software?"
"Gone."
"CRL?"
"Gone?"
"Hewson Consultants?"
"Gone."
"Beyond?"
"Gone."
The traveller looks frightened and lost. "Is there no one left?" They whisper.
"Oh yes," you answer, "there's Gremlin Interactive, although you'd have known them as Gremlin Graphics."
The traveller looks confused. "The Monty Mole company?"