New Compilation Celebrates Matthew ‘Jet Set Willy’ Smith’s Indelible ZX Spectrum Legacy

(And the legacy of gaming’s weirdest box art).

For video game fans of a certain age, Matthew Smith needs no introduction. The British-born bedroom programmer tore up the early days of the ZX Spectrum with a series of wild, compelling, and somewhat anarchic titles, games which were emboldened with working-class spirit and emblazoned with some of the weirdest, most abstract box art in the medium’s history.

Receiving the rarely-seen TRS-80 computer as a gift in 1979, Smith took to programming as a prodigy, coding and releasing commercial games for the TRS-80 and the VIC-20 within just a few years. Noticing this burgeoning talent, Smith was afforded a ZX Spectrum by publisher Bug-Byte Software, who contracted the 17-year-old to produce three titles for the platform.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

(And the legacy of gaming’s weirdest box art).

For video game fans of a certain age, Matthew Smith needs no introduction. The British-born bedroom programmer tore up the early days of the ZX Spectrum with a series of wild, compelling, and somewhat anarchic titles, games which were emboldened with working-class spirit and emblazoned with some of the weirdest, most abstract box art in the medium’s history.

Receiving the rarely-seen TRS-80 computer as a gift in 1979, Smith took to programming as a prodigy, coding and releasing commercial games for the TRS-80 and the VIC-20 within just a few years. Noticing this burgeoning talent, Smith was afforded a ZX Spectrum by publisher Bug-Byte Software, who contracted the 17-year-old to produce three titles for the platform.

Read the full article on timeextension.com

 

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