InfernalKeith Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 For some reason, I thought we'd discussed Stephen's awesome website here. There's a treasure trove of old BASIC and XB games over at this site, along with some fascinating commentary on what it was like to be a software publisher back in the bad old days. I highly recommend grabbing the disks he has put up - I've been enjoying Flooraway (an amazing arcade-style game in console BASIC) and revisiting Not-Polyoptics' Ant Wars today. There's also Diablo, a sliding-block style game that I can still hardly believe is programmed in 'stock' Extended BASIC. Well worth it for the files as well as for Stephen's insights and information. You really get a feel for just how hard it was to disseminate information and programs back in the pre-internet, pre-broadband era. http://shawweb.myzen.co.uk/stephen/TI.htm 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 He was mentioned here (post #33 and on). Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022382 Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfernalKeith Posted July 1, 2014 Author Share Posted July 1, 2014 I KNEW I'd seen something. I even did a forum search for his name. I'm thinking of doing up some 'reviews' of some of the games on the site, with screenshots, to highlight how unique they are and how skilled the programming is. I had a few such reviews posted on my old website, but I may just post them here this time, or start a blog page, for easier maintenance. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022472 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 I KNEW I'd seen something. I even did a forum search for his name. I'm thinking of doing up some 'reviews' of some of the games on the site, with screenshots, to highlight how unique they are and how skilled the programming is. I had a few such reviews posted on my old website, but I may just post them here this time, or start a blog page, for easier maintenance. Stephen would love that. I know that he sometimes thinks he's wasting his time so some feedback to him would be great. I'm sure he love to see some reviews published. Stephen's site is indeed a treasure trove! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022477 Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfernalKeith Posted July 1, 2014 Author Share Posted July 1, 2014 I dropped him a line of thanks recently for all the work he's done, and I got a nice reply back. I don't know if anyone else finds stuff like this interesting, but the difference between how people became TI enthusiasts in different countries fascinates me. It seems like a lot of people in the USA got into the 99/4A when it was discontinued, because so many consoles were lying around, and there was a glut of original cartridges and hardware available for pennies on the dollar. In other countries, all this stuff was so scarce, and information even less so, that it seems much more work was required to be a 99'er. For a guy like "R. Trueman" to make games as well-crafted as Flooraway and 2nd Floor, and to have sales numbers in the low dozens, must have been quite frustrating. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022495 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 In the UK it was pretty much the same story. The 4A only really became popular when its price was slashed. I can remember it being priced at £99 with (IIRC) 3 carts thrown in. At that price it was a lot of computer for the money. We got Alpiner, Parsec, and... something else... can't remember! Ultimately though, TI BASIC let it down badly. It was very poor (being so closed to the hardware that it was running on) compared to other BASICs like (for example) Sinclair BASIC which gave the user a huge amount of freedom. People soon moved on. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022514 Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfernalKeith Posted July 1, 2014 Author Share Posted July 1, 2014 Yeah, it's so much fun WITH a few extra add-ons, which are only fun to play with when someone's losing their shirt selling them to you at 90% off. Even the Vic 20, which is such an ugly little machine (22 column screen, gross), has lightning-fast BASIC (in comparison). The homemade kitchen-sink software of their heyday - the equivalent to the Stainless Software catalog of titles - includes some really blazing twitch games and stuff that's fun to play. Of course, that makes it doubly special when you find a game that's still intriguing to play at TI BASIC speeds, or one that's written well enough to overcome its obstacles. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022523 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 Diablo was pretty cool, I had that back in the day. It was even ported to the Turbografx, I remember being surprised the day I saw it on display in Radio Shack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeball 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3022676 Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 I played the Ti version and I have to more or less agree with the review above. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3023101 Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Are we all sitting comfortably?, then prepare yourself for a tale of spooky coincedence with a TI flavour. I recently purchased quite a bit of TI material on Ebay from a nice lady who was basically letting go of her late husbands collection, I was delighted to get my hands on a demonstration module and a diagnostics module at last. I also purchased some TI ring binder manuals, amongst which-was a TI Writer manual.(stay with me, this is where it starts to get interesting). Inside the TI Writer manual I found some personal notes/letters that had belonged to the previous owner, the letters were addressed (along with an envelope)-to a certain Mr Stephen Shaw. I decided to drop Stephen an email to tell him about the discovery, Stephen promptly replied and informed me that he was still in possession of the very same letter which matched my copy exactly. Stephen actually remebered the gentleman and even provided some background information which I will keep to myself. As a little addendum, Stephen also informed me of once having had a genuine Thorn EMI module inserted and running on his machine many years ago(wonder how much that would be worth now?). So basically, it was nice to purchase something for my 4a that actually had some real personal history to it. 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3216235 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 If its a UK TIer that had passed away I'd like to know his name. Chances are I know him. :-( PM me if you don't want to publicly disclose. Thanks Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3216461 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 i received a Donation in these days (Lage Docs Lot) i started to catalog all and found this interesting page, so i thought to post it here 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3217406 Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 i received a Donation in these days (Lage Docs Lot) i started to catalog all and found this interesting page, so i thought to post it here Good old Home Computing Weekly, they supported the TI for quite some time after they pulled out of the home computer market. This feature on Stephen was great-but sad at the same time, reading the last paragraph just gives you that feeling of "what could have been"-if the ti99/8 had made it to market. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-3217780 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chue Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 The website seemed to have gone offline and so I checked archive.org, and found that it has a new home at whtech: Quote This page has a new URL- you will be redirected in a few seconds or click the link below to get there faster. If you arrived here from a bookmark, please change your bookmark. If you arrived here from a link on a web page, it would be helpful if you brought the attention of the webmaster to the new URL and ask him to change his link. Many many thanks if you do that! New URL for this page= http://ftp.whtech.com/Users/stephen/TI.htm (source: https://web.archive.org/web/20231024143202/http://shawweb.myzen.co.uk/stephen/TI.htm) 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227160-stephen-shaw-and-stainless-software-uk/#findComment-5384683 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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