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Crystal Computing

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) at 17:00, 4 December 2009 (Notable Releases: remove Erik9bot category, no longer needed for this article using AWB). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Crystal Computing were one of the smaller software companies which produced games for home computers in the early 1980s. It was formed by Chris Clark and Graham Stafford who were both students in Manchester.

Crystal split after an evening of argument known later as 'the night of the long knives' with the key programmers leaving Crystal to set up another company (Chandrex Ltd) which traded under the name Design Design Software.

Notable Releases

  • Merchant of Venus - 1982. (A trading game for the ZX81)
  • Zeus Assembler - 1983. The fastest Z80 assembler, over 60 times faster than the nearest competitor. Later distributed by Sinclair.
  • Halls of the Things - 1983. Awarded game of the year by Sinclair User.
  • Rommel's Revenge - 1983.
  • The Dungeon Master (computer game) - 1983.
  • It's the Wooluf! - 1984. (Not written in-house)
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchas! - 1984. Reviewed in Crash issue 1 - 69.5%. Version of the arcade game Defender.
  • Bug Blaster - 1984. (Not written in-house) Reviewed in Crash issue 3 - 68%
  • Cyber Zone - 1984. (Not written in-house) Reviewed in Crash issue 3 - 85%