hink Traxxion.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So, you would share code together - or did each coder have his own way
of working?

Yes, as I mentioned earlier, Death or Glory bred Traxxion. Also, I helped
Ian with Cyborg and Blade Runner on C64.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Do you think CRL were and still are innovative? Were some of the
magazine comments hard to swallow at the time, and do you also feel they
were justified?

I think some comments were justified; we did buy in and create a few poor games. I think Blade Runner was quite weak and had boring game play. But
we did have a lot of very good product. Otherwise, we would have not grown
in 1986.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Do you have any other comments to make?

If one machine stood out in the 1980s as very game computer, it was the
C64. Its graphics chipset, sound chip - was amazing. I really enjoyed programming at CRL, and especially on the C64 with its power. The only
pain was the 6510 CPU.

As for CRL, it was my first real job, so it's very special in my heart and memories. To this day I owe a lot to Clem Chambers for giving that chance,
and (for) those fun memories of creating games. It was a fun job. I was gutted when it was destroyed. It was great pushing the C64 to give even
more than possibly the designers of the machine thought possible.

Hope this helps. And thanks:)



*************************************
INTERVIEW WITH JAY DERRETT
By Commodore Free
*************************************

Q. Hi can you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Hello! My name is Jay Derrett, and I started my life at CRL (aged 16) as a programmer writing games on the ZX Spectrum. I soon moved over to the C64.
I wrote a handful of games on my own on both formats, but I also got
involved in other technical aspects behind the scenes. I was given test machines to try out (Amstrad, Atari 520ST, Amiga, etc.). I also developed
a MIDI interface between all platforms to transfer graphics, music, sound effects samples, etc. (MIDI was the only standard interface available to
all computers; even RS232 varied too much between makes).

Back in those days each programmer originally created everything themselves
- game design, graphics, sound, piracy protection, music, etc. Soon after starting, CRL took on graphics guys, and I ended up doing more of the music
for other games (tutored by Rob Hartshorn of Clever Music - a company we originally outsourced music to) as I enjoyed it; and the boss seemed to
like my tunes. Also, it let the other coders off the hook from having to
do this. So, although I still wrote games, most of my life moved over to
music and sound effects. This wasn't just writing the tunes, but also
writing the code to drive the SID to get those Rob Hubbard squeaks, wails
and farts. Later, I introduced samples to the code. In the later years,
the programmers shared code snippets, so although I only wrote a few games
on my own (all rubbish), I contributed code to a few of the other guys'
games, as they did to mine.

I did try to copy the cool sound effects of Hubbard and Galway, but with my
own code. I do regret never really getting slide notes to work, but apart
from that, it sort of worked, and only took a few raster lines to run.
That's how we measured how long a piece of code took to run - put the code
on a raster interrupt, turn the border one colour, run the code, and turn
the border back, and the thickness of the white border is your measurement. Simple but very effective

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So, what year did you start at CRL?

That was in July of 1984.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. I remember something about Clem sponsoring you and some school friends
to build a robot. Is that true, and if so, what the story behind this was?

That's how we met!

We had a school electronics club project to build a robot to compete in the Micromouse competition - robot mice would race to the middle of a randomly
laid out maze. A group of five of us built it on a shoestring from
Tupperware boxes, old bits of electronics found in the physics lab bin, and
a Z80 chip robbed from someone's old ZX-81 I think. I was the programmer
of the on-board ROM on the robot. It was rubbish and failed spectacularly.
We were on the tube train to Earls Court to enter the competition at a
computer show, and we were still gluing it together on the train. Clem happened to be going to the same show and sat opposite us, and watched us 'work'. Impressed with our efforts, he introduced himself. After the
show, he asked us to build him one with proper resources to enter the
European competition in Madrid. We did and it won the novice round, more
by default than superiority.

For some reason, Clem and I hit it off well. I wrote a couple of Spectrum games for him while still at school. He offered me a job (for when I left school) which I jumped at, and so it began.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. You worked on, amongst other games, Rocky Horror Show and Tubular
Bells. What input did you have on these projects and how innovative do you think Tubular Bells was?

Tubular Bells was an interesting one. Clem had this idea of using home computers for more than games, and this was him putting his toe in the
water of video effects, and also of using musical licensing rights (hence
also Rocky Horror Show, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, etc.). Rob
Hartshorn did the musical transcription of Tubular Bells and I did the
coding. I was messing about with line-drawing algorithms on the C64 (I
also did a game called Room 10 on the C64 using wire frame) so I thought
I'd put all of these bits together. That was pretty much how we all worked
- find a cool idea (code, music, design, hardware exploit, etc.) and bounce
it around into something more commercial. It rarely worked out that well,
but was a lot of fun.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Clem hints that Tubular bells wasn't "strictly licensed". Did anyone contact CRL about the program and insist on royalties?

I have no idea about the commercials, I'm afraid. CRL was split into two buildings in the same industrial yard (which is now under the Olympic
stadium). The Zen Room (from the Rocky Horror Show) was the name for the programmers' building, and CRL House was the sales and admin building. I
can see now why the suits wanted to be as far away from the great unwashed
as possible! So commercial and business talk never seeped into our world.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Ahh, you mentioned the Zen room. Can you tell our readers about your memories of the room, and the idea behind the concept?

It was basically a separate silo of games designers, programmers, and
graphics artists, and in the back was the stockroom. It was a floor of an
old warehouse that had a few office walls put up in it. There were no
rules, no real timekeeping, no project management, and no real reporting to
the suits in CRL House. I don't know if it was intentional, but it was the closest thing possible to our natural habitat of a teenager's bedroom. We
had our own music blasting, we slept there overnight on fold-out beds in
our offices, we had a pub across the road we'd frequent, we lived on pizza
and cigarettes and it also had showers - the whole place stank royally. Everyone got on really well there. I do think it was the best days of my working life.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. How long did you stay with CRL, and what prompted you to leave?

Just over four years. It was clear to all of us that the writing was on
the wall for CRL (and most of the games industry in that guise), so I
thought it time to grow up and get a proper job in business.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Was there a game you had wished you had worked on at CRL, and why?
What input would you like to have had?

Not really. There were many coders there I admired (particularly Richard Taylor and Pete Cooke) but I wouldn't know how I could have c

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