Chris Wood was known as CWood at school. Now he is a programmer and journalist. We sent him in search of top quality software. After four hours driving up the M thingummy I could be found recuperating on the seafront at Weston super Mare, thinking that it couldn't be too bad having to work only two hundred yards from the sea. I was just about to pop in and visit the team at Oasis who do indeed work the aforementioned distance away to see what they are up to, why they are doing it and what they are going to do when they have finished that. They are famous for their Forth-based products for the Spectrum and Commodore - at least one commercial program was written on the Spectrum with White Lightning - and now that they have turned their attention to the Amstrad with the Laser range they appear to be going from strength to strength. A little gold plaque with Oasis on it next to a building society led me up to their second and third floor offices where I met John Gross, who is half partner with Steve Britton and whose official title is Technical Director. Paul Newnham wandered in and proceeded to load something up on a 464. 
[s=0]Technical director John Gross with the programmers Chris Smith, Paul Newham, Andrew Frood, and in the front Kevin Hambleton
"This is just something that Paul has been writing with Laser Basic and the Compiler", explained John "Paul is our resident expert on most of the Oasis products - as he writes all the demos he probably knows them better than the authors, so he handles all our technical enquiries from customers".
Meanwhile the game had loaded. "Captain Frosty" it proclaimed in large flashy letters. It was essentially a platform game, with a caped Captain Frosty stomping around, climbing ladders, leaping gaps, avoiding monsters and collecting keys, which were taken from him and deposited at random around the - as yet - only five rooms. There were the normal bouncing type sprites and a few intelligent ones which homed in on you. Paul: "It just started as something to do in spare moments, but now it's getting so good we're not sure if we might not be able to sell it". It certainly looked very playable as Captain Frosty negotiated the screens and used his cape as wings to flap down holes in the platforms. "Very impressive", I said. "So that's the sort of thing you can do if you compiler Laser Basic programs?" "Not quite", said John. "Show him, Paul". Paul duly loaded up the compiled version, and sprites whizzed around the screen at alarming speeds. Captain Frosty had soon lost all his lives. "Impressed?" "Yup!" Steve Britton appeared as if like a compiled sprite, and like the friendly, sensible guy he is suggested we go down the pub and have lunch. There's something nice about a west country pub by the sea with lunch and a cool pint of cider. Down at The Old Bull CWood: When did Oasis start ?
John: We started in about 1980, about the same time as Bug-Byte and all the rest of them. We were very small then. It was originally the idea of a guy called Pete McQuade - who is now with IBM - and a chap called Wilf Garner. I'd just bought a micro, and we thought we could make some money out of it, so we had this bright idea of becoming a company.
Steve: Oasis were still very small when I joined about two years ago. It was part time and they were working
from a garage. Then about three months later we moved to offices. John went full time, as did Wilf, who has now moved on, and I was the last to become totally full time. You want the programmers to be full time first, as they're the people who have to spend all their time in the office, and to start with I could do my work just as well in the evenings.
CWood: What do you do?
John: Steve basically runs everything. He's the manager and keeps track of the business and financial side, and works out the contracts and that sort of thing. Steve: When we started properly, for about two years we worked seven days a week, and every night, but now we're up and about it's a bit easier. It was a lot of work. CWood: What was the turning point for you? Steve: Well, when I started we were writing programs for the Dragon, Pascal, a Basic compiler and Chess. Chess was very popular - it was in the charts for months and months, I think mainly because Dragon Data's version was on cartridge. But White Lightning was the one that made people talk about Oasis, there's no doubt about that. CWood: Do you have any plans to expand? Steve: Oh yes, obviously, we want more programmers all the time now. We would quite like to move into the business market perhaps, as games are not quite our forte. The games are getting so good now that I think if we were going to move into that market, we should have done it a long time ago, then we could have moved with everybody else. Some of the games that are coming out now are just fantastic. People like Denton Designs are better at that sort of thing. We don't know that market-we know about utilities and we think it's better to stick with that. Better the devil you know. CWood: Will you go 16 bit, with the ST, Amiga and the rumoured new Amstrad?
Steve: Oh yes, you've got to look that way, and we might even look at the 8256 and 8512. Back at the office Steve: We both grew up around here, and it's a very pleasant place - not too commercial yet. It does have its advantages being so near the sea, as we have students down from the universities in the summer. We don't think they would want to work in the summer if we were in the middle of a city.
Back in the offices, tea was forthcoming - apparently everyone drinks about a gallon a day, according to Chris Smith, one of the resident programmers, who was upstairs in the programmers'quarters. As you would expect, various bits of hardware were spread around the room, and Andrew Ford appeared to be doing something in 3D on a BBC Micro. Chris showed me the program he had been working on, which is Laser Genius, their assembler dissasembler. 
The Oasis crew
Steve: That has taken Chris, Kevin Hambelton and John about two and a half man-years to write, which is quite frightening when you think about it. It's a lot of investment to put into a program.
CWood: Is that a problem with utilities, that you do have to spend such a long time on them? John: Well, it is a long time to spend on a program, and it does mean that after such a long time, if you've got it wrong it could be disastrous. But fortunately we've never done anything yet that has really bombed. I think everybody these days is taking longer to develop programs, not just utilities. As Steve said, you've only got to look at the games. The reason we can spend a long time is simply that the turnover of machines is not what it was. A few years ago if you wrote something for, say, the Dragon, you didn't know how long the machine was going to last, and you couldn't afford the development time. Now that the machines are much more stable you can afford the time because you will sell more programs over a longer period, especially with utilities. Saying that though, this is the most time we've every spent on anything. CWood: Is it easier now that Ocean are marketing your products for you?
Steve: Oh yes, part of th reason we are doing so well is definitely due to Ocean.
John: Yes, marketing is definitly Ocean's strong point and we are very happy with them. CWood: Are you doing well overseas?
John: The foreign market is pretty good - in particular
Germany - and apparently Laser Basic is number 11 in the French charts. It went up to about number 30 in Sweden.
CWood: Is piracy a problem?
John: Well it certainly is in America I think, but I am not sure about other places. CWood: Do you still see mail order as a way of selling? John: No. If someone sends us a coupon from an 18 month-old mag, then we will supply it, but we are very pleased with the way Ocean are handling things at the moment. When an industry starts up, then everyone can make a living, but as soon as the professionals move in like Firebird and Ocean, it's a whole new ballgame. We're doing all right though. Well they certainly appear to be doing fine, and so with a parting cup of tea, I left Oasis in the oasis of Weston super Mare. I wonder if that's why they called it that? I forgot to ask. Amstrad User July 86
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CPCrulez[Content Management System] v8.7-desktop/c
Page créée en 657 millisecondes et consultée 3051 foisL'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
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