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From Bedrooms To Billions tells the story of all the computer programmers from the late ’70s and early ’80s, who, literally, wrote these programs in their bedrooms and how, originally, programming back in the day was done to become a better programmer, rather than making money.
The youth of today may not realise that when home computing first began, you didn’t buy them off the shelf, you had to put them together yourself, starting with building early computers such as the Nascom 1, which had 1200 joints which needed soldering together! Then, computer users of the day were trying to get the ZX80 to work properly, followed by the ZX81 with the similarly-terrible keyboard. And when we see that machine, it’s hooked up to a Ferguson CRT TV, the like of which I had up until only 3 years ago! By then, the picture was starting to go and it was timeto say goodbye, but my Dad had bought the 26″ set in 1983 and so it had lasted almost 30 years.
Then they move on to the ZX Spectrum, which was my computer of choice… well, I got one because my grandad worked for Century Communications at the time and they were meant to all connect to the mainframe over the phone line rather like Prestel. That never came to be, and he had no use for the machine so he gave it to me. I later remember that they made a game out of Frederick Forsyth’s novel, The Fourth Protocol. To play the second part of the game, you had to access it with a password, given only to you at the end of part one, obviously. However, I was impatient and couldn’t do it, and even bought the book to try and figure out what the password would be…. turned out it was Tiptree, the name of the publishing company, so nothing in the text of the book!
All that said, I wish I still had my Spectrum, but I remember selling it, with a load of games, for a mere £40. I was venturing into 16-bit territory then with an Atari ST.
I wish I’d learned to code properly when I was younger. I did a University course which was partly in computer science, but all that basically taught me, from 1990 to 1993 – or at least all I paid attention to – was the introduction to me of the internet. From there on, I learned about making web pages in .shtml, and finally changed over to a WordPress format in early 2011. Unfortunately, the old-style pages won’t covert easily to WordPress, not least because I have changed the outlay of each page between the two styles, so any auto-converted pages look a mess and I had to delete them – and each one needs a proper going over with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) anyway, there wasn’t really any positives to this auto-converting process… and if anyone’s feeling bored and wants to help me out, please offer your services.
From Bedrooms To Billions then moves on to the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, plus their rivalry to the point where companies wanted to know which was the most popular computer when, for example, Ocean were advertising for programmers, but it doesn’t venture into the territory of which computer was better, as that’s a personal opinion. And in any event, it was the Speccy 😉
Then onto the the 16-bit world of the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga in the late ’80s, and eventually towards the PC as prices fell for those – but with games being developed for PC along the way and being pared down for the ST and Amiga as they weren’t as powerful (something we’re seeing today between PC and the PS4/Xbox One); before the marketed diverged between PC games and consoles like Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo, then to the more recent consoles of the ’90s and beyond, big business taking over and then how things are coming full circle as programmers can again sell games to the games players via online downloads, taking it out of the hands of big business.
The film also takes in the success of Microfairs, where games were sold in public, following the rise and rise of mail order. And then, coming into the high street starting with a shop in London called Buffer before, as I remember all too well, the games proliferating into the likes of WH Smiths and Boots, as well as the pencil-moutasched prat in the latter who sneered at you if you had to return a game for it not loading in properly. All he cared about was – if the game worked in-store, it was tough luck.
There’s also the software house successes, the failures and the companies which folded, and a more in-depth look at key players like Imagine Software, Ultimate Play The Game and Ocean Software.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the film, plus the extras.
From Bedrooms To Billions is not only a walk down memory lane, but also a well put together documentary where all the topics follow one another in a coherent manner. And after you’ve watched this once, you’ll have to rewatch them to see all the game clips again.
There’s so many programmers and videogame designers including the ones that stood out for me:
- Archer Maclean (Dropzone, IK+)
Peter Molyneux (Populus, Bullfrog Studios)
Jason Kingsley (Rebellion, Tiga)
Bruce Everiss (Imagine Software)
Jeff Minter (Llamasoft)
Jon Ritman (Match Day 2, Head Over Heels)
John Heap & Ally Noble (Imagine Software, Denton Designs)
Martin Hollis (Goldeneye N64)
Raffaele Cecco (Cybernoid, Equinox)
Nigel Alderton (Chuckie Egg)
Malcolm Evans (3D Monster Maze, Trash Man)
Mark Healey (Little Big Planet)
Eugene Lacey (Computer and Video Games magazine)
Jim Bagley (Midnight Resistance, Cabal, Red Heat, now working for Special FX and Rage Games)
Philip Oliver & Andrew Oliver (Dizzy)
Geoff Crammond (Revs, Sentinel)
Nick Pelling (Frak!)
Martin Galway (Videogame musician)
Martin Edmondson (Shadow of the Beast, Driver)
Ian Livingstone (Fighting Fantasy books)
Mel Croucher (Deus Ex Machina)
Andrew Hewson (Hewson Consultants)
Dominic Wheatley (Domark, Eidos)
Steve Wilcox (Elite Systems)
David Jones (Magic Knight series)
Stuart Fotheringham (Software Projects)
Peter Harrap (Monty Mole series)
Kevin Toms (Football Manager, Addictive Games)
Dino Dini (Kick Off 1 & 2)
And although I didn’t see Doom & Quake creator John Romero amongst them, sadly, we do get some input from the one and only Matthew Smith, creator of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy!
I watched this film first and the extras first as a download, where there’s no menu or chapters, so to speak, nor any subtitles. I later watched the Blu-ray Special Edition. In both cases, the picture is presented in the 16:9 and in 1080p high definition, and is as sharp as you’d expect for a modern documentary, shot in HD. Any archive footage obviously isn’t in HD, but you would expect that.
The sound is in DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 on the Blu-ray, and Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby ProLogic) on both there and download, and it’s mostly interviews and footage of great videogames from the past. Of course, the ZX Spectrum games sound best to me 😉
The Blu-ray contains 22 chapters and subtitles in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The main menu shows the packshot with rolling 1s and 0s, rather like The Matrix, and both discs in the Special Edition also contain an initial “Start” menu, which is what all great games have! 😀
Then, after around 2½ hours of videogame chat, if you want more of that, there’s a full-length audio commentary from Anthony and Nicola Caulfield, plus Archer McLean, Jeff Minter and Shahid Ahmad.
And then there’s the following interview extras which make up around the same full running time again! Note that if you’ve bought the single-disc edition of either the Blu-ray or DVD, you’ll still get to see the Matthew Smith‘s interview about Manic Miner, and David Braben‘s Elite interview (short version), but the Special Edition of both will provide the full set of extras and they are an essential watch, so I highly recommend the investment. Note that the interviews aren’t subtitled, but some of these them are chaptered on the disc, depending on how long they go on for.
- David Braben: Creating Elite (short version) (7:47)
- David Braben: Creating Elite (extended version) (31:20)
- Fred Gray: Making Music for the Commodore 64 (10:14)
- Geoff Brown: U.S. Gold signing off on Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (3:11)
- Geoff Crammond: Developing The Sentinel (8:10)
- Geoff Crammond: From Super Invaders to REVS (8:46)
- Jeff Minter – Making Games & Sheep in Space! (3:29)
- Jez San – Teaching Nintendo 3D on Nintendo & the Super FX chip (7:27)
- Jon Hare – Creating Sensible Soccer (5:50)
- Jon Hare – Creating Wizball (3:39)
- Jon Ritman – Creating Head Over Heels (4:31)
- Martin Edmondson – Creating Shadow of the Beast (7:57)
- Matthew Smith – Creating Manic Miner (6:28)
- Mel Croucher – Creating Deus Ex Machina (18:24)
- Mike Montgomery – Creating Speedball 2 (5:41)
- Peter Molyneux – Creating Populous (15:45)
- Peter Harrap: Creating Wanted: Monty Mole (3:26)
- Rob Hubbard: Composing for the Commodore 64 (9:47)
One of my favourites is Mel Croucher talking about creating Deus Ex Machina, partly becausue I tried to play it when it was released and I didn’t really get it. Now I can understand what it was about. I like how Mel says that he figured by the late ’90s, the technology would’ve advanced such that everyone would be able to also create their own interactive games, but how none of that happened. The full gameplay, starting with Side 1 Part 1, has been uploaded to Youtube here .
From Bedrooms To Billions is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as download, and you can buy them at: Frombedroomstobillions.com
You can also check out the BBC Breakfast interview with Anthony and Nicola Caulfield below.
BBC Breakfast interview with Anthony and Nicola Caulfield
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
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Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 150 minutes
Year: 2014
Distributor: Gracious Films
Released: Out now
Chapters: 22
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Languages: English
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Format: 1.78:1 (16:9)
Directors: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Producers: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Screenplay: Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield
Music: Aidy, Anthony Caulfield, Stephen Caulfield, Stuart Connolly, Ben Daglish, Stewart Dugdale, Max Hall and Rob Hubbard
Interviewees:
Shahid Ahmad
Nigel Alderton
Nick Alexander
Chris Anderson
Mike Austin
Pete Austin
Jim Bagley
David Braben
Gary Bracey
Tom Bramwell
Geoff Brown
Martyn Brown
Simon Butler
Raffaele Cecco
Charles Cecil
Mark Cerny
Rod Cousens
Geoff Crammond
Mel Croucher
Antony Crowther
Ben Daglish
David Darling
Dino Dini
David Doak
Rich Eddy
Martin Edmondson
Eugene Evans
Malcolm Evans
Bruce Everiss
Mark Eyles
Paul Finnegan
Stuart Fotheringham
Oliver Frey
Matt Furniss
Martin Galway
John Gibson
Julian Gollop
Fred Gray
Dawn Hallybone
Bill Harbison
Jon Hare
Peter Harrap
Phil Harrison
Mark Healey
John Heap
Andrew Hewson
Martin Hollis
Dawn Hollywood
Rob Hubbard
Miles Jacobson
David Jones
Mark Jones
Roger Kean
Martin Kenwright
Jason Kingsley
Eugene Lacey
Richard Leinfellner
Ian Livingstone
Rupert Loman
Archer Maclean
Fergus McGovern
Steve Merrett
Jeff Minter
Peter Molyneux
Mike Montgomery
Simon Nicol
Ally Noble
Andrew Oliver
Phillip Oliver
Chris Orton
Andy Payne
Nick Pelling
Gary Penn
David Perry
Ste Pickford
Julian Rignall
Jon Ritman
Jez San
Matthew Smith
Ian Stewart
Peter Stone
Kevin Toms
Steve Turner
Tim Tyler
Bob Wakelin
Andy Walker
Mo Warden
Dominic Wheatley
Steve Wilcox
Jon Woods
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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