Many people helped tremendously during the writing of this book, particularly those who so generously gave us their time for interviews. We owe huge thanks to: David Allen, Paul Arendt, Richard Bartle, Ian Bell, Shelley Blond, David Braben, Patrick Buckland, Charles Cecil, Peter Cooke, Glenn Corpes, Geoff Crammond, Chris Curry, Mike Dailly, David Darling, Les Edgar, Martin Edmondson, Bruce Everiss, Steve Furber, Julian Gollop, Andrew Gower, Keith Hamilton, Mark Healey, Jeremy Heath-Smith, Jonathan L. Howard, Andrew Hutchings, Peter Irvin, David Jones, Alexis Kennedy, Rob Landeros, Ian Livingstone, Jacqui Lyons, Philip Oliver, David Perry, David Potter, Jon Ritman, Jez San, Eben Upton, Sophie Wilson and Tim Wright.
We also received much appreciated help from James Campbell Andrew, John Cook, Holly Gramazio, Lindsay Ingham, Darran Jones and Retro Gamer magazine, Adrian Killens, Iain Lee, Daniel Nye Griffiths, Mark Sinker, Kat Stevens, Daniel Tucker, James Wallis, and from countless other people who helped us to track down interviewees.
Particular thanks go to Mark Hibbett for letting us use a lyric from his song ‘Hey Hey 16K’ as the title for Chapter 3, to David Perry for kind permission to reproduce a listing of the code for Snake for the ZX Spectrum, to our agent James Wills for his enthusiasm and support, and to Joe Browes for his sharp-eyed review of our manuscript and pitch-perfect suggestions.
Finally, our biggest thanks go to our editor, Sam Harrison, for his skilful guidance, and quite extraordinary patience.
Magnus Anderson and Rebecca Levene
London
August 2012