Jonathan Smith (games programmer)
Jonathan M. "Joffa" Smith (1 February 1967 – 26 June 2010) was a British games programmer, best known for his titles for the ZX Spectrum. His games[1] were notable for containing a large number of sprites and parallax scrolling, features which were largely unknown on the Spectrum at the time.
His most notable games include Cobra,[2][3] (which was a license extremely loosely based on a Sylvester Stallone film) one of the first Spectrum games to exhibit full-colour parallax scrolling and his conversion of the arcade game Green Beret.[2][4] A notable "trademark" of Smith's was his habit of writing his name (with "Jonathan" and "Smith" spelled various ways) as a mirror-image in his games.
Smith also created the computer displays for the British science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf using an Atari ST.[2]
Notable releases
References
- Saukis, Einar. "ZXDB Entry: Jonathan M Smith (UK)". Spectrum Computing. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
- "Developer Profile: Special FX". Wireframe. No. 4. Raspberry Pi Ltd. 10 October 2019. p. 51. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
- "Cobra". CRASH (35): 140–141. December 1986. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
- Smith, Rachael (June 1986). "Green Beret". Your Sinclair (6): 30. Archived from the original on 5 July 2006. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
External links
- An interview conducted by ZX Specticle
- An interview at The Spectrum Golden Years
- Another interview
- Smith's Homepage at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
- Obituary on World of Spectrum