Mastertronic - What if?

I've been meaning to add these to my blog for several months now. Those of you who are my friends on Facebook may have probably already seen them. Because I have WAY too much time on my hands, I thought I'd mess around with putting together some fake Mastertronic covers for modern computer games.

Incase you are not aware (or can not remember), Mastertronic were big in the mid to late 1980s and were a major budget software label in the United Kingdom and produced a large number of cheapo games and re-releases for the Commodore/Spectrum/Amstrad/Atari 8-bit computers (and some 16-bit too) - most at a pocket-money-friendly £1.99!Just a bit of fun really, but what would modern games look like if Mastertronic still released games like the good ol' days? Well, here you can find out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can view more of my fake Mastertronic covers by clicking here





A week in the life of an IT Manager in a school!

Well, the kids are now back in school, and everything is pretty much back to normal. 6 weeks of upgrading the student and staff workstations from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional has been a rather stressful time which I am happy to say has proved to be quite successful (thanks to having a fantastic team). On top of that, two classrooms have been kitted out with brand spanking new PCs with Intel I5 processors - Lucky kids!!!!! (I had to make do with RM Nimbus PC-186s when I was at school - oh and some BBC Masters), in additon to upgrading one of our servers to MS Server 2008, migrating user accounts and printers and many other things.

Now one week in to the term and school year, I am knackered, counting down the days until half-term, but less stressed (now knowing everything has worked reasonably well) - infact, this picture of Sophie pretty much sums up how I am feeling at the moment!

What will the next week bring? Who knows, but for now I'm going to sit and watch Back To The Future with Kieran (again) while I recuperate from cleaning out our two garden sheds. I'm then going to have a retro-fest with some Commodore 64 classics, before playing some more Resistance 3 on the PS3 - I've got my weekend sorted!

On so begins a new term, and new year!

And so ends another summer holiday, and the start of a brand new school year. What fun and excitement will it hold? How many students will come up to me this week saying that they've forgotten their passwords?

I've got to give a shout out to my excellent team (Ben Drewery, Ben Plawustiak and Adam Gisbourne for all of their hard work over the holidays - oh and of course Mike Ibbotson) Well done guys.

Who? Doctor 'Flaming' Who, that's who.

I'm totally gutted - Why? Not because Doctor Who has finished until the Autumn, but because tonights mid season cliffhanger was an underwhelming pile of excrement. I was expecting so much more... but.. (sigh)

I seriously do not understand why people praise Steven Moffatt so much - his writing is childish, diabolical in places and quite often cringe worthy. I swear, Kieran (my six year old son) has better ideas for stories in his little head.

Come on, River Song is Amy Ponds daughter? How obvious was that! I knew that was coming ages ago.

I really like Doctor Who (but nowhere near as good as Star Trek), but with the way things are going, unless Steven Moffatt improves his writing, or he relinquishes his position as writer and showrunner for Doctor Who, I will be switching off permanently.

I swear, Moffatt thinks he is great at writing season long story arcs - Hey Steven sorry to sound nasty but - go and get some lessons from J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5). He knew how to do it properly!

Still, after that rant, I will be looking forward to "Lets Kill Hitler" in the Autumn - only because it'll be the only thing worth watching on a Saturday night (and my only escape from all the rubbish talent/dancing/music shows that clog up primetime Saturday night television here in the UK.

SouthendPier360.co.uk & 3DConstructionKit.co.uk

Well, I've finally got round to doing something I've been planning to do for quite some time. I've added two more internet domains to my growing collection :-

http://www.southendpier360.co.uk

http://www.3dconstructionkit.co.uk

During my various visits back home (Laindon) since moving to Evesham, we've always gone to Southend to walk the pier. I don't know what it is about it, but I find it so fascinating. I have countless photos, and more recently I took some 360 degree panoramic photos which I have stitched together, made interactive and are now available on a new website.

The other site I have created is dedicated to one of the best applications I have ever bought on any computer - The 3D Construction Kit by Incentive Software. I had this program on my Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga way back in the early 1990's and made quite a few games with it. I noticed that there wasn't really site dedicated to it, so here it is - with thanks to a few others who I have started chatting to on some old retro computer forums (particularly Steven Flanagan who has located lots of difficult-to-find games and materials for me to use on my new site).

Anyway, if you have a few minutes to spare, please check out these new sites.

Yikes - it has only been 131 days (or 3160 hours) since my last post.... Sorry.

I had a nightmare last night which woke me up... I kid you not. In it, I was asked to replace all PCs at the school with Apple Macs. Scary stuff!

Interesting day at work today. I created all the new Year 9 student accounts (those who will be joining the school in September), and drew up some layouts for a new classroom which is being built. Trying to squeeze 26 computers in a small room is quite a challenge!

Trying to be more regular with my postings on here - watch this space.