Firstbyte

From Jon Hirst:

One of the original 100 official BBC Micro outlets

Shop dealt originally in Beebs only but then covered all home computers and eventually office systems as well.

The games-business was sold-off in the late 1980's, the office-business side transfering to another address.

FBC (Firstbyte) software was produced by myself (JJ Hirst) and Simon Phipps (who eventually went on to write 'Jet Power Jack' etc for Program Power. Simon also produced the cassete insert artwork (note: he mis-spelled PHARAOH as PHAROAH -- the game has it correct) I wrote VADER RAID, VALLEY of the PHARAOHS, STAR TRADER and SPACE ADVENTURE.

Valley and Space Adventure are both text (MODE7) adventures (but with a small amount of sound and colour - neither of which were available in others available at the same time) I also wrote SPACE ADVENTURE 2, but this wasn't released.

Both mine and Simon's FBC software was produced before much else was available (late 1982 and early 1983), before disc drives became commonly available.

Here is a Firstbyte Flyer.


Alien

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Caves Of Anoran

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Descender

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Space Adventure 1

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Text adventure in which you have to get back the plans for the secret weapon, and get back safely to Patrol Headquarters. Created in 1983, this is one of the earlier text adventures around, and as such doesn't contain as much as it could. It's good though, if a bit small, actually also includes sounds which is a bonus. A good little story.

Star Fighter

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Star Trader

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Very interesting sci-fi trading game, strikes a nice balance between being fun and including a lot of options. The graphics aren't the best, but it does get you hooked pretty quickly, all in all pretty good.

Starforce Lander

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Fairly good Lander style game, the graphics look good and your craft can rotate around and fire thrusters, this makes it much more difficult than most versions. It looks nice and for an early beeb game it was surely one of the better ones around. Worth a play to see what early early beeb games were capable of.

Vader Raid

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Valley Of The Pharoahs

Released: Unknown

Author: Unknown

Download Unavailable

Very early Beeb game (1982) this is a text adventure in mode 7, there is absolutely no description whatsoever, so it isnt very atmospheric, its also very hard to get anywhere in it!