Steve Turner

Steve began to learn programming when he was about 15 years old. His career in computers really started when he attended one of the early TOPS (Training Opportunities Scheme) courses. After this he entered the Civil Service as a Clerical Assistant. He quickly became a programmer despite not having the necessary two years experience. He became dissatisfied with his work however and left the Civil Service to join one of the world’s largest insurance brokers.

He worked for four or five years making financial developments on ICL and IBM mainframe computers. At first he enjoyed the atmosphere in a big insurance company who insure, through Lloyds, everything up to Concorde and the Space Shuttle. He became a specialist, converting systems from other machines to IBM etc. He was appointed a team leader working on his own systems.

Steve has always been interested in home computers, and owned a ZX80 for some years. He became more interested in the hardware - how the chips and circuits work and so learned about assemblers to help him understand more about it. He also tried writing games on the ZX80 but soon decided that that was a dead loss.

He didn't buy the ZX81 either, but got interested in the Spectrum system. He wrote games in his spare time and submitted those to software houses. When Hewson Consultants offered him a contract he decided to start working full time on writing software for home computers.

His first game was 3D Space Wars (1983) and it took him five months. It was followed by 3D Seiddab Attack (1984) and then 3D Lunattack (1984). He invited Andrew Braybrook to work with him. In the early days, Andrew focused on the Dragon platform and mainly programming, while Steve programmed for the Spectrum and also did graphics. They kept working together until 1996.