Part 2 of Jeff Minter's History of Llamasoft Published

Tmuk writes "The second part of Jeff Minter's Complete History of Llamasoft has just gone up over at The Way of the Rodent. Straight from the man himself, it's a fantastic read after the previously Slashdot-covered first part. Enjoy!"

Comments

Anyone know where to find Llamatron?

[StandardCell]

I haven't been able to source a working copy of this game since 1995 - at least not one that will run under the later versions of Windows. Anyone know?

Commodore 64 anyone?

[Neo-Rio-101]

Jeff Minter made some really whacked out games back in the day. No one could ever accuse him of being unoriginal with some of his titles.... (except maybe in the Llama department) in fact most of the games he made MUST have been done when he was high or something... and usually had something to do with Llamas.

So maybe "Attack of the Mutant Camels" was an Atari2600 "Empire Strikes back" rip-off and "Sheep in Space" was a weird "Defender"-like game, but just fire up your C64 emulator and look at "Batalyx" or "Anticipal". I suppose the experience of those games is multiplied further if you've downed a few magic mushrooms beforehand.

"Hovver Bovver" must have been one of the most interesting third-person mow-the-lawn-ups I've ever played too. Gimme back my mower!

Jeff is the man...

[kiwioddBall]

Jeff rocks - my first machine was a Vic 20 and my first game Gridrunner - my second machine was a C64 and my first game on that was Revenge of the Mutant Camels - Jeff has defined my decidedly warped computer existence!!

This is a great read for those around 35 +/- 5yrs

[GrpA]

A lot of old memories in his article... It brings it all back.

Some of us followed different paths, but I guess if you're in that age group and reading slashdot, there's a very good chance you've probably had many of the same experiences, thoughts and memories that Jeff Minter shares...

Llama obsession?

[Moocowsia]

Is it just me or is there a lot of companies that have strange obsesessions with llamas... Maxis and Nullsoft for example.

Yep, he nailed it.

[PotatoHead]

His writing about simple discoveries like screen memory bring back floods of memories. We all used to sit around and try to figure the machine out. We all tried to make games, though nobody I knew had the sheer creativity Jeff demonstrated early on.

Going from Basic to changing memory locations to assembly language was one of the best times I have ever had with computing. This article brings all that back as though it were yesterday.

Damn good stuff.

Re:Does any one around actually own a working PET

[martin-boundary]

I've got one. I turn it on every couple of years, for nostalgia. It usually takes two or three flicks of the switch to *actually* turn on, sometimes you just open up the hood (works like a car hood) and press some of the components.

When it's on, you've got to wait for ages for the game to load from the cassette, and the keyboard is completely nonstandard. Doesn't use ASCII (PETSCII instead), has characters in a completely weird layout, and you have to press the keys really hard (especially the T key on my machine, which doesn't work too well anymore. Try typing LIST with a recalcitrant T).

My favourite game on this was a game called Pickup, where your cursor has to run around a lab, picking up spilled chemicals. If you mix the chemicals you lose them. Another cool game was Canyon, where you fly a jet in a scrolling, and narrowing canyon. Finally, there was a demo called Flight, which was a small animation of the moon rocket being launched from earth, coasting in space for 3 days, and landing on the moon. It climaxes with a small astronaut stepping out and playing a round of golf.