Back in 1986 when I was trying to make living writing video games at home, I took a game that I wrote for the Timex Sinclair 2068 computer, which was somewhat successful, and made a better version of it for the more powerful Atari ST computer. The gameplay was the same, but the ST had better graphics. I got lucky in that both computers used the same sound chip, which made the conversion easier.
The game was an imitation of another game called Boulder Dash available on other computers. My version came out on the Timex Sinclair 2068 before the official Boulder Dash was ported to the 2068 computer. My version also ran better because their version was slow and had scrolling problems. In those days I was pretty good at writing efficient code in assembly language on that computer.
In 1986 I showed the Atari ST version to a computer club in Columbus, Indiana, and the members gave my demonstration applause. Although I'm proud of the game, the Atari ST version never made any money for me because the publisher went out of business and never paid me anything. It is part of the reason I had to get a real job.
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