Date: March 6, 2007 9:55:48 PM From: Greg Miller To: L. Curtis Boyle Subject: Re: Blackbeard's Island Coco game Hi there, Yup, Mr. Nelson said that you'd be in touch. The Coco represents a fond memory to me of a different "era" of computing. You certainly have my permission to upload Blackbeard's island. No question about it. Heck, if I could read the 5.25" floppies (I might want to find a 5.25" drive first .. ) I could even send you the source code. You can release Greg-E-Term (heh, ah, I enjoyed that; if it wasn't obvious, it was a play on names by one of the CompuServe moderators writing 'Mikeyterm' and my, even as a teenager, finding that amazingly self-serving) too if you like. What value it would have over an emulator, I have no clue. Eric said that you did a Coco emulator, but I'm assuming it's a Coco 1 emulator. If you ever go Coco 3, tell me, and I'll call Erik Gavriluk and get him to OK all of our stuff with me. [Shoot; we did a simplistic Coco 1 paint program together as well - oddly, I can't recall what we called it; Erik named it. Wait, McPaint? (That fits with Erik's sense of humor; MacPaint, McPaint.) ] You know, there weren't any other released games. Somewhere, I have skeleton games written by Erik Gavriluk and myself. There's a 2/3rds perspective game based on the adventures of Perseus floating around in my garage somewhere. My apologies, your name rings a bell in the back of my mind, but my memories from so many years ago blur. I remember being at Chicago, and I remember being at the New Jersey Rainbowfest too. Events occured at each, and I mix them up. [I remember going with Dave Dies, Steve Bjork, and a few other folks to play lasertag back when it was 'new' at one of those 'fests.] You were a customer of ours! Oh, dear god! Well, from the bottom of my heart, thank you! Sincerely. Lonnie Falk's magazine was woefully crooked toward whoever would send him the most advertising dollars, and when 'CoCo Max 3' appeared, and 'Rainbow Magazine' denounced us as "just a clone" (even though we'd beaten CoCo Max 3 to market) I was terribly insulted. We were indeed a clone, but of *MacPaint*, not of CoCo Max. Erik had access to a Mac (I didn't) and almost daily was making visual improvements based on his experimentation. Suffice to say that once Rainbow started the bandwagon for CoCo Max 3, our sales dropped to near 0. Ah well, c'est la vie. Erik went to work for Microsoft sometime around 1989. Sometime around then, he called me and said "Quit college and get out here dummy!!" I said "No, I need to finish my degree ..." (Among my many mis-steps. ) Erik stayed at Microsoft for the best years and walked away with so much money that he moved to LA and build a recording studio: 'The Bomb Factory'. Erik was always musically and visually talented, and he's recorded with some of the biggest names in the industry. He had a MacIntosh Music-Plug-In business under the same name ('Bomb Factory') for several years, but eventually sold it. Seriously, I haven't talked to him in at least three years. Erik was the practical man, I was the idealistic fool. After the CoCo, I bought an Amiga. My first job out of college was at Commodore, on the Amiga System Software team. As C= was going down, I moved to Silicon Valley and worked at 3DO (failed game console company). I then moved to several startups and spinoffs before spending a year at Nokia ~ 1998. In 1999, disillusioned, I agreed to join Microsoft in Silicon Valley, and spent 4 years there working on Set Top Boxs for Microsoft TV. My temper eventually got the better of me, and I told a man who was about to be promoted to Vice President that he was a liar, and offered to print out his emails that contradicted his insistence that I "must have misunderstood him". [He didn't like being cornered with proof. ] My wife and I moved out of my beloved Silicon Valley (okay, lose 2/3rds of the people and 4/5ths of the real estate value, and I'd be back there in an instant!) and to the Seattle area and I took a job on a project that's still classified :|. Today, I spend my time working in MTP, the division that does laptops, Ulta-Mobile-PCs, tablets, etc. I don't advertise it (no value in pointing out to your employer that the spare time you could be giving them goes elsewhere), but I run a business selling embedded software tools on the side (hence http://www.cavnex.com ). Although I don't remember our conversation in Chicago, your name definitely is memorable. What are you doing, and what prompted you to revisit the CoCo world? Best wishes, - Greg > Hi Greg... got your email address from Eric Nelson. I run the Coco > games webpage at http://nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com/coco_game_list.html, and, > since I will be adding Blackbeard's Island soon, was wondering if you > would be ok with me putting it up for download. I am also wondering if you > have any stories / observations about the game itself, or the development > of it. Did you release any other games? I know you did Greg-E-Term, Color > Max 3, Color Max 3 Deluxe, etc. (a lot with Eric), but I don't know if you > did any other games. > By the way, long time no talk... Bill Nobel and I ended up visiting > with you and Eric for a fair bit at the Chicago Rainbowfest where Color > Max 3 was released (I bought it at the Fest, and the Deluxe version at a > later Fest after it came out). What are you and Eric up to these days? > -- > L. Curtis Boyle