Richard Shepherd Software was a British software house active between 1982 and 1985. The company was mainly known for releasing

text adventure Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

games. These were programmed by Richard Shepherd himself and

Pete Cooke Pete Cooke (born 1956) is a British computer games programmer, best known for his work published in the 1980s for the ZX Spectrum. Career His software often used a point and click GUI. As most Spectrum users did not own a mouse (computing), mou ...

History

Richard Shepherd had worked as an accountant and taught himself programming on a

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-c ...

in his spare time. During this time his wife Elaine took an interest in text adventure games. Upon her disappointment about a purchased game Richard suggested writing their own. Their company started out in February 1982 from the Shepherd's dining room in their house in

Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England. It lies on the southwestern bank of the River Thames, which at this point forms the border with Buckinghamshire. In the 2021 Census, ...

. Its first product was ''Bargain Bytes'', a collection of games and utilities for the ZX81. Due to the release of the ZX81's successor

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

in April 1982 the company had to switch to the new machine. A major step for the company was when retailer

WHSmith WH Smith plc, trading as WHSmith (also written WH Smith and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son), is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service s ...

ordered the adventure '' Transylvanian Tower'' for its stores in February 1983. At this point Richard Shepherd quit his daytime job and focused on the software company. The company moved into an office in

Slough Slough () is a town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It is part of the historic county of Buckinghamshire. In 2021, the ...

and hired the first employees. Richard Shepherd's finance utility, ''Cash Controller'', was the first Spectrum program to be designed to work with the

ZX Microdrive ZX Microdrive unit The ZX Microdrive is a magnetic-tape data storage system launched in July 1983 by Sinclair Research for its ZX Spectrum home computer. It was proposed as a faster-loading alternative to the cassette and cheaper than a flop ...

. In 1991 an issue of Amstrad Action (May, No. 68 p. 70) published an

artillery game Artillery games are two- or three-player (usually turn-based) video games involving tanks (or simply cannons) trying to destroy each other. The core mechanics of the gameplay is almost always to aim at the opponent(s) following a ballistics, ba ...

type-in program A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, ut ...

called ''Warzone''. Consisting of 144 lines of code, the author was noted down as one "Richard Shephard down Bristol way".

List of publications

References

External links

Richard Shepherd Software
at

World of Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

* {{MobyGames company, company=richard-shepherd-software-ltd 1982 establishments in England 1985 disestablishments in England British companies disestablished in 1985 British companies established in 1982 Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Software companies disestablished in 1985 Software companies established in 1982