Introduce Yourself!

[Scottish29]

Hello DosGamers Forum, newbie here and by the looks of it I'm going to enjoy being here so let me introduce myself first.

My name is Sean and I'm currently a PS4 gamer however in the past I've played PC, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii and PSP, I was born near the end of 1991 in October so my introduction into gaming I'm fairly certain was the best gaming era of games (in my opinion anyway).

I was watching a guy named Dan//Mushy on Youtube playing one of my absolute favourites as a kid in the game Max Power Racing, that when I was around 6 was my favourite game, loved the cars and the crashes and just mucking around in general, another game I watched which was my 2nd favourite was LMA Manager 2007, I'm a massive football fan and this was my first football game (even before I got Fifa games).

I've always wanted to join a forum that has old games as discussions, I have tons of games I loved as a kid and I'd be here until 2076 speaking about them all which would get me banned lol.

A little more about me (the person)............

I have Autism, you might think why is he mentioning that, sometimes I can go on and on about a game and bore people and sometimes causes issues, I'm not wanting to cause an issue, if anytime I'm boring you or you want a break just say "Hey Sean, need a little time dude" and I'll know to back off a bit.

I live in Glasgow, Scotland with my Dad, Mother is deceased and has been since 2009 and my Younger Sister stays in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire in Scotland.

I'm big on F1, WWE and a huge music fan.

I think I've gave a bit more than what was expected so hopefully have some good conversations with you all very soon.


Scottish29
Sean

[MrFlibble]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! Enjoy your stay!

[Scottish29]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! Enjoy your stay!

Thank you MrFlibble

[redsoul]

Hi. I recently registered on the forum because I saw a friend's tweet about this forum. Too bad the forum isn't as active as I thought.

[Helen09]

Hey guys. Stumbled across this forum accidentally on the internet, hope we get along.

[resur666]

a lakers fan eh?
i like bodybuilding myself
welcome

[resur666]

Get this,... 100% of spouses die within a year after their respective!

[resur666]

Doctor tienkhoanguyen wrote in Psychology Today in one section:
"You know you love the person when ten thousand other crosses your path and you still say no except..."

[WizSysSoft01]

Hi.
I was bored and decided to search for some games I wrote in the early 90's, and sure enough I found them here. I owned Wizard Systems Software and wrote the games you have listed here called Arriva and Super Domination. Later I wrote a very much improved and upgrade version of Super Domination which ran in Windows.

I saw on the author page for Wizard Systems that you wanted any info anyone had on this company. I can answer any questions you have. I certainly don't expect anyone to actually pay money for these games now, so I can supply you with registration codes if anyone wants them, to unlock the full games.

Tom Wilson
Wizard Systems Software

[MrFlibble]

Hi Tom, and welcome to the forums!

I saw on the author page for Wizard Systems that you wanted any info anyone had on this company. I can answer any questions you have.

I think that if you provide some info about yourself and how you came to game development, that would be interesting to site visitors. Also how much success you actually had selling self-published shareware games, and what you learned from the experience.

I certainly don't expect anyone to actually pay money for these games now, so I can supply you with registration codes if anyone wants them, to unlock the full games.

That would certainly be much appreciated, please do that!

[emmzee]

Hello Tom, welcome! I agree, it's always great to hear from authors, and especially if we can provide registered versions of the games. Your software has received over 10,000 views (at least, since those games were added) so clearly there is some interest in them.

If you'd like to provide a bio of your company, ex how it got started, what led you into game development, and if you've done (or are interested in doing) any further game development these days, that would be great, and I would add it to your company profile.

[WizSysSoft01]

Here is my bio. It is a bit long, but I think you'll find it interesting.

First, I have no formal programming education. My first job out of college in 1984 was as a Mechanical Engineer at a nuclear power plant in Nebraska. The plant purchased an IBM XT desktop when they first came out and stuck it in an empty office and nobody touched it. I used to go in and plink around on it and see how things worked. I discovered QBasic installed and started seeing how basic programming worked. All I had to go by was the QBasic help files. Over time, I figured out how to make simple programs and started trying to make games. I bought a Zenith laptop and purchased Quick Basic when it came out. I used Quick Basic up through version 4 over the course of 3 to 4 years to make Super Domination and Ariva.

During this time, I also started making programs to help with my engineering work at the nuclear plant. I made a visual database to track work projects, an appointment scheduler, and network chat system. Around 1994 I also started using Visual Basic to make Windows programs. All of this was done on my spare time (since I wasn't paid to be a programmer) and I just learned more and more as I experimented.

In 1995 I started working at Micron Technology in Boise as a Fab Engineer making memory chips. I continued with Visual Basic 6 making programs for the work environment at Micron in my spare time. I got good enough to make programs to sense the operating status of machines in the Fab and automatically shut them down if they went out of compliance, and then automatically page production and engineering personnel. I also made a widely used project scheduling program that many department heads were using. This was all still in my spare time.

In 2008, with the economy taking, Micron hit hard times and laid off a bunch of people and shut down the 8 inch wafer fab that I worked in. I almost lost my job, but my programming hobby saved me. I started working in the R&D fab as a "rogue" software engineer. I was rogue because I had a position outside Micron's traditional IS department and I worked alone on projects. Over the next 8 years I created 20 to 30 stand alone or web based programs that were used world wide in Microns factories. I was a one man show, working with stakeholders to determine the scope of projects, developing the system, creating the databases and their connection, making web interfaces, etc.

I retired from Micron in 2016. I continue to make web based applications as a hobby on my own. In the last 10 years, I've made a Beer rating app to keep track of all the beers you like, a golf score statistics and handicap tracking app, a very extensive family reunion app, a ping pong tracking app that calculates and tracks player ratings, and a dividend stock research and portfolio tracking app. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of right now.

I guess the moral of this story, is that you don't need a formal education in something to get proficient and be highly successful at it. I'm 62 years old now, and over the years I have also taught my son how to program. He teaches college calculus and brings a whole new level of math expertise to our combined projects. He makes projects on his own now and is proficient in his own way (also with no formal programming education).

Well, thats enough for now. I'll check back tomorrow and see what you think.

[WizSysSoft01]

I guess I should add: I started Wizard Systems Software around 1990 in Longview Washington, while I worked at a nuclear plant in that area. I was hoping to make money by putting my programs out on bulletin boards and shareware sites. I did get some people registering their programs, but it wasn't much. Probably didn't even pay for the post office box I rented. It was tougher then, and I was probably asking way to much. Oh well. I was mainly doing it just for the fun of creating a game and a computer AI opponent.

I do think of making more games. My son is very interested in doing something with a Super Domination type theme. He was asking me if I still had the old source code, and thats what got me to wondering if the game existed somewhere out in the internet and I found your site.

[MrFlibble]

I guess the moral of this story, is that you don't need a formal education in something to get proficient and be highly successful at it.

Dear Tom, I love stories like yours. It's amazing how many people involved in video game creation first learned computers as a hobby and then created wonderful things.

[emmzee]

Wow thanks Tom for all of that info, always fascinating to hear how people get started and where it takes them!

I'll condense your post down into a bio and add it to the Wizard Systems page.

Also I'll mention it here since you may be interested, I am just reading the section of the new Shareware Heroes book where it talks about how difficult it was to make any real $ in shareware back in the early 90's; your story reminded me a lot of people interviewed in the book! It's here if you're interested: https://unbound.com/books/shareware-heroes/ (This is not my book, I don't make any $ for promoting it!)

[WizSysSoft01]

By the way, I haven't forgotten about the registration codes. A code that will work for Ariva is: 18bfe91
Go ahead and freely distribute as you wish. It doesn't display the code while you are entering it, but after the last letter is entered, it will display that it was accepted. To get to the registration screen, hit the 'D - Utilities' key from the main menu, then hit 'D - Register' from the next menu. Normally if you run the game from your own PC, it will store a file to keep your registration persistent, but running in the DOS window doesn't seem to store it, so you would have to enter the registration code each time you play.

I'm still looking for the code for Super Domination. Heh Heh, after 30 years I have misplaced it. Looking through my printed documentation.....

[WizSysSoft01]

This is hilarious. I just found a YouTube video that was posted in April of this year, showing a guy playing Super Domination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhABiu70PjE&t=258s

[MrFlibble]

By the way, I haven't forgotten about the registration codes. A code that will work for Ariva is: 18bfe91

Thanks a lot!!!

[wardrich]

By the way, I haven't forgotten about the registration codes. A code that will work for Ariva is: 18bfe91
Go ahead and freely distribute as you wish. It doesn't display the code while you are entering it, but after the last letter is entered, it will display that it was accepted. To get to the registration screen, hit the 'D - Utilities' key from the main menu, then hit 'D - Register' from the next menu. Normally if you run the game from your own PC, it will store a file to keep your registration persistent, but running in the DOS window doesn't seem to store it, so you would have to enter the registration code each time you play.

I'm still looking for the code for Super Domination. Heh Heh, after 30 years I have misplaced it. Looking through my printed documentation.....

Whoa, I remember having this game on an old Aztec Shareware collection I had as a kid.

[frishaycom]

I'm Junaid