Jonathan Cauldwell
Jonathan Cauldwell
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ZX Spectrum programmer.
Male
38 years old
Nottingham/Derby
United Kingdom
Last Login: 12/18/2009
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Jonathan Cauldwell's Interests
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| General | Beer, retrogaming, beer, women, beer, games design, beer. Joined Mensa in 2003. I also like beer.
| | Movies | 28 Days Later, The Pit and the Pendulum, Robinson in Space.
| | Television | Horizon, Time Team. | | Heroes | Sir Clive Sinclair, Matthew Smith.
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Jonathan Cauldwell's Details
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| Status: | Single | | Orientation: | Straight | | Body type: | 5' 11" | | Zodiac Sign: | Taurus | | Smoke / Drink: | No / Yes | | Occupation: | Software Engineer |
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Jonathan Cauldwell Putting the finishing touches to a new Spectrum game, Battery's not Precluded. Posted at 11:15 PM Dec 8
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Jonathan Cauldwell's Latest Blog Entry
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Jonathan Cauldwell's Blurbs |
About me:
Back in 1984 I purchased my first computer, a second-hand rubber-keyed ZX Spectrum. The power cable was a little dodgy at times meaning the machine would reset occasionally, but that didn't seem to matter. The hardware was immaterial, it was the games that mattered - 66 of them, on two C90 cassette tapes. The graphics were basic and so was the sound but this was new and exciting and I was hooked. As I learned more about my new toy I wanted to know how to write my own games, so I learned how to program in BASIC. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I realised that this simple computer language was not capable of producing the exciting fast action games I wanted. So in 1985 I taught myself to program in assembly language.
I dabbled for a couple of years, selling my software through lineage advertisements in computer magazines until I bought an assembler in 1988 - prior to this I had to convert the assembly language mnemonics into opcodes myself using tables printed in the back of the Spectrum manual. Suddenly a whole world of possibilities opened up. In 1989 I wrote a simple ZX Spectrum platform game called Egghead, which was published on the cover tape of Crash magazine. To my surprise and delight this was reasonably well received, and so I set about producing a sequel, Egghead to the Rescue, the following year. By the time this was published, also by Crash, I was getting into full flow and over the next two or three years I wrote a number of other games which were published on Your Sinclair and Sinclair User tapes, such as Haunted House and Megablast. I also wrote software for small software houses such as GTi and Beyond Belief. My last covertape game appeared on the last cover tape YS ever did, and one month later the magazine closed down. That'll teach 'em!
By this time I had found myself a job at a backwards local company writing warehouse control systems. Naturally I carried on writing Spectrum games for another 2 or 3 years as a hobby, but by now it looked like a lost cause. By 1998 development had pretty much stopped completely, but the internet and sites like World of Spectrum soon revived my interest. Nobody else seemed to be writing original new games so it wasn't long before I decided to return to writing Spectrum software, and in 2002 I wrote a new platform game for the machine, Egghead in Space.
In 2003 I left boring warehouse systems behind and returned to gaming as a software engineer. Since then I have worked on a number of fruit machines and video games which can be found in pubs and arcades throughout the UK and Europe. Much of my spare time is still spent writing retro-style games, mostly for the ZX Spectrum but occasionally for other formats too.
I probably spend an unhealthy amount of time obsessing about gameplay and how to incorporate interesting elements into the mix. Consequently, these games can be a little unusual at times. Innovation may be lacking on most modern consoles, but I like to think it's alive and well on the ZX Spectrum.
Oh, and I have a website:
The Egghead and Haunted House site
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Who I'd like to meet:
I'd say Manic Miner author Matthew Smith, but I've already met him.
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