Trivia
Despite speculation to the contrary BMB Compuscience never did go belly-up, but instead merged with and changed its name to Systems Xcellence Inc. late 1994 or early 1995.
The year of release of the second version of Sopwith (1985) is actually the likely year of creation as analyzed from the modification history of the official source code. "Sopwith 2" or "Sopwith II", as it became known, probably started spreading around 1986 or 1987.
Sopwith 1 and 2 were created between 1984-86 by a Canadian software company called BMB Compuscience. Apparently, the company was noted for creating accounting software, as well as database, networking, and geographical information software following Sopwith.
In 1986 BMB created a relational database system for the Atari ST called The Manager described by its creators as a "paperless office" which offered mainframe capability with virtually unlimited storage.
In that same year, BMB Compuscience announced a network called Imaginet that connected IBM PCs with Atari 520STs. At the time, the network cost $900 for the first IBM PC, which functioned as the file server, $800 for each additional PC, and $500 for each ST. Transmission rate were 2 megabits per second.
It is this Imaginet service that Sopwith's multiplayer feature was supposed to work on. It leads one to wonder if Sopwith was ever released on the Atari 520ST?
Efforts to contact BMB Compuscience have been unsuccessful. From documents lingering on the Internet, it would seem that BMB was involved in some sort of infringement litigation in 1989 that may have shut the company down.
