Andrew Glaister

Last updated

Andrew Glaister
Born (1967-07-04) 4 July 1967 (age 52)
Marlow, England
Occupation Video game programmer
Nationality British
Period1981
Website
www.glaister.com

Andrew Glaister (born 4 July 1967 in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England) is a video game programmer.

Marlow, Buckinghamshire town and civil parish in south Buckinghamshire, England

Marlow is a town and civil parish within Wycombe district in south Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the River Thames, 4 miles (6 km) south south-west of High Wycombe, 5 miles (8 km) west north-west of Maidenhead and 33 miles (53 km) west of central London.

Contents

He initially started programming games on the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum between 1981 and 1987, [1] forming a company called Programmers Development Systems Ltd.

ZX81 home computer produced by Sinclair Research

The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful, and more than 1.5 million units were sold before it was discontinued. The ZX81 found commercial success in many other countries, notably the United States where it was initially sold as the ZX-81. Timex manufactured and distributed it under licence and enjoyed a substantial but brief boom in sales. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81 for the US market: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized clones of the ZX81 were produced in several countries.

ZX Spectrum Series of personal home computers

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research.

Andrew then worked as a developer for Viacom New Media, Kinesoft Development and FASA Interactive in the United States. When Microsoft Game Studios acquired FASA in 1999, Andrew continued to work for them as a Development Manager, in later years particularly for the Windows Graphics and Gaming team working on Direct X 10, display drivers and other features for Windows Vista. [2]

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

1999 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games and several new titles such as Mario Party, Sonic Adventure, Pokémon Snap, Super Smash Bros., Pokémon Stadium, Donkey Kong 64, Ape Escape, Mario Golf 64 and Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.

DirectX collection of multimedia related APIs on Microsoft platforms

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology. The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as XInput and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D and DirectWrite.

Work history

Andrew first started playing with electronics at age 10, and had built his first computer at age 12. [3] This was a simple design based on the SC/MP 8060, in a wooden box with 8 LEDs, 8 input switches and 32 bytes of RAM from 4 74LS89 16x4 chips.

National Semiconductor SC/MP

The SC/MP from National Semiconductor is an early microprocessor, which became available in early 1974. The name SC/MP is an acronym for: "Simple Cost-effective Micro Processor".

Sinclair projects

In 1980 he acquired his first 'real' computer, a Microtan 65, and spent time using his friend's ZX80.

ZX80 home computer

The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd.. It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds. It was available in kit form for £79.95, where purchasers had to assemble and solder it together, and as a ready-built version at £99.95. The ZX80 was very popular straight away, and for some time there was a waiting list of several months for either version of the machine.

In 1981 his parents purchased a ZX81 for Andrew, and within months he began selling his own games. This was done at first through one of the first computer stores in England–the Buffer Micro Shop in Streatham. [4] Duplication was performed on C15 cassette tapes after school, with photocopied inserts. He managed four or five duplications a night, selling each for ten pounds. [4] Andrew would then go by train from Crawley to Streatham and return with his profits. After meeting an employee from Silversoft in the shop one day, Andrew decided to let that company publish the games instead.

Streatham district in South London, England

Streatham is a district in south London, England, mostly in the London Borough of Lambeth but with some areas to the west stretching out into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth, and some areas to the south stretching out into the neighbouring London Borough of Croydon. It is centred 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.

Cassette tape magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback

The Compact Cassette, Compact Audio Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the cassette tape or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was developed by Philips in Hasselt, Belgium, and introduced in September 1963. Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a prerecorded cassette (Musicassette), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms are reversible by the user.

Crawley Town & Borough in England

Crawley is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles (45 km) south of Charing Cross (London), 18 miles (29 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles (51 km) north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles (44.96 km2) and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census.

1982 saw the release of the ZX Spectrum. Glaister's first program for Silversoft was the video game Orbiter , [4] which sold 30,000 copies over Christmas. He started working with Softek (later EDGE Games), writing a number of games such as Ostron .

Using the money from those games, Andrew purchased an Osborne 1 and started to use Z80 assemblers to try to produce code for the Spectrum. He also used the built-in 300 baud modem to play (with friends Jez San and Fouad Katan) a new game called MUD - Multi User Dungeon, remotely logging into Essex University. Andrew is credited for becoming the second external 'Wizard' in the game (Jez San of Argonaut Games being the first.) [5]

In the late 80s, he worked on the development of an early IBM PC clone, the Apricot PC. It was sold under the name Programmers Development Systems Ltd., a company founded with Jacqui Lyons and Fouad Katan. Due to the Apricot's programming tools and connectivity with home computers like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, it became popular with many developers, such as Richard Aplin [6] and the Oliver twins. [7]

During this time he was writing both Spectrum ports (of Konami games Jail Break and Salamander for example) and original games ( Empire! ). [1]

In 1989 Andrew moved to Vancouver after joining Mission Electronics as their lead firmware engineer, to help develop the first MCA laptop. In 1992 he joined Icom simulations in Illinois, working on the official development system for the TurboGrafx-16.

Windows projects

In 1994 Icom Simulations was acquired by Viacom New Media. Andrew was retained and he worked on several projects such as Beyond Shadowgate and art and programming tools for many console games. During this time Andrew met Peter Sills and Mark Achler. Together they worked on converting console games to Windows as Kinesoft Development. Their conversion of Pitfall , Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure , was published in time for the launch of Windows 95. This game was then used by Bill Gates at the E3 prior to the Windows 95 launch to show off the 'Direct X Gaming Technologies' in Windows, even though Pitfall contained no DirectX technology.

These conversions led to a Windows 95 'gaming shell' called Exodus Technologies and other emulation technology. Kinesoft was approached by a number of companies to buy or license the technology, eventually signing a deal with GameBank, a company set up by SoftBank and Microsoft to bring console titles to Windows. Kinesoft, expanding, had 30 employees at its peak, and Andrew was now developing as part of a full team rather than a sole programmer.

Selected list of games

ZX Spectrum

Windows 95

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References

  1. 1 2 Andrew Glaister at World of Spectrum
  2. ↑ Andrew Glaister at MobyGames
  3. ↑ Andy Glaister's Work History at his personal website
  4. 1 2 3 "Code Talk - Andrew Glaister". Sinclair User (70): 51. January 1988.
  5. ↑ "Richard A. Bartle: Mud's wonderful wizards".]
  6. ↑ "Richard Aplin interview". Amstrad CPC Games Resource. Archived from the original on 9 June 2007. Retrieved 1 May 2007.
  7. ↑ "The Oliver twins history". Blitz Games. Archived from the original on 6 April 2007.
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