Big Five Software
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2016) |
 | |
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1980 |
| Headquarters | , US |
Key people | Bill Hogue Jeff Konyu |
| Products | Miner 2049er Bounty Bob Strikes Back! |
| Website | bigfivesoftware.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 14 September 2019) |
Big Five Software (a.k.a. Big 5 Software) was an American video game developer and publisher in the first half of the 1980s founded by Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu.[1][2] The company developed games for the Tandy TRS-80 and later Atari 8-bit computers. Most of its TRS-80 games were clones of arcade video games, such as Galaxy Invasion (Galaxian), Super Nova (Asteroids), Defense Command (Missile Command), and Meteor Mission II (Lunar Rescue).[3] Big Five also sold an Atari joystick interface called TRISSTICK which was popular with TRS-80 owners.[4]
The company's biggest release came after moving away from the black and white TRS-80. The ten stage platform game Miner 2049er, designed and programmed by Bill Hogue for Atari 8-bit computers,[5] was a commercial and critical success. It shipped on a custom 16 kilobyte ROM cartridge (compared to standard 8 KB Atari 8-bit cartridges) and the game was ported to other computers and consoles. Miner 2049er was awarded "Electronic Game of the Year" in the 1984 Arkie Awards,[6] among other accolades for the game and Hogue.
A planned sequel, Scraper Caper, was advertised, but cancelled. A sequel, Bounty Bob Strikes Back! was published in 1985 after which Hogue stopped developing games and Big Five ramped down. In 2001,[a] he released a free, custom emulation of the Atari 8-bit versions of Miner 2049er and Bounty Bob Strikes Back! for Microsoft Windows.[8]
Games
[edit]TRS-80
[edit]- Attack Force (1980)
- Cosmic Fighter (1980)
- Galaxy Invasion (1980)
- Meteor Mission II (1980)
- Galaxy Invasion Plus (1980)
- Super Nova (1980)
- Robot Attack (1981)
- Stellar Escort (1981)
- Defense Command (1982)
- Weerd (1982)
Atari 8-bit
[edit]- Miner 2049er (1982)
- Bounty Bob Strikes Back! (1985)
Unreleased
[edit]- Meteor Mission (1980)[5]
- Scraper Caper (Atari 8-bit, circa 1983). It was mentioned in some magazine ads for Miner 2049er.[9]
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Big Five Software". TRS-80.org. Retrieved 2016-05-25.
- ^ Giles, Robert H., ed. (28 March 1982). "Call them 'microteens'". Democrat and Chronicle. Vol. 3, no. 13. Rochester, NY: Gannet Co. Inc. pp. 1F, 7F – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Hawken, Kieren (2016). Jones, Darran (ed.). "Big Five Software". Retro Gamer. No. 157. Bournemouth, UK: Imagine Publishing. pp. 70–75. ISSN 1742-3155.
- ^ Reed, Matthew. "TRISSTICK". TRS-80.org.
- ^ a b "The Company". Big Five Software. Retrieved 2016-05-25.
- ^ Kunkel, Bill; Katz, Arnie (January 1984). "Arcade Alley: The Arcade Awards, Part 1". Video. Vol. 7, no. 10. Reese Communications. pp. 40–42. ISSN 0147-8907.
- ^ Hogue, Bill. "Big Five Software - Emulator". Big Five Software. Archived from the original on 9 September 2001.
- ^ Hogue, Bill (18 January 2007) [First published in 2001]. "Big Five Software - Emulator". Big Five Software. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019.
- ^ "Scraper Caper advertisement". archive.org. 1983.
External links
[edit]- Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 14 September 2019)