Harter sees "a lot of similarities. I know because we also accept other people's works and it's really similar. People apply. to us all the time just like a writer would go to a publisher. Sometimes they're very good and I don't know what to say because they're not the kind of game we want to put out or they're the kind of game we don't think would sell very well for us. For me, it's like self-publishing. It's like when printing was first invented and a writer could get in on the ground floor by forming his own publishing company."
Hughes says that writers and programmersare the same kind of personwith "just slightly different skills." For instance, "both create somethingfrom nothing," and can takepride in "elegant, fine-tuned work.Both professions take self-disciplinealso, he notes. ==KINDS OF PROGRAMS== Some programmers specialize ingames, others in utilities or applications.Being ''"more into utility'' " is"mostly a personal decision" for
Vaughn.
''"I was tired of watching sprites gofrom here to there and yon," he says.''"With games the only thing you do isexercise your joystick hand." He also notes that at user groupmeetings there is "a crowd in theirmid-30s. It's a more dedicated andloyal user than with games. There's alot of game software on the market." He notes that his products include anExtended BASIC mailing list programwhich can store up to 750 names on onedisk. "I really think my talents lie inserious applications," Swett says. He says that with the Companionword processing program, "we have asplendid product, and we'll developauxiliary programs according· according todemand." A filing routine is ''"in the works,'' " hesays. "Games are limited," Harter says."I like the idea of utilities. Hobbyistsand people who are serious aboutcomputers will buy utilities. If I want agame, I'll make a game. I'll buy a utility.The market is shrinking down tothe people who really like computers.Games can be sold to an'yone anyone at all, butthat market is going away." Harter says Not-Polyoptics will be"coming out soon with· with a wordprocessor." "I'm not a game person," Hughessays. "Nothing against those who aregame persons, but I personally am autilities man-I prefer to, call them,not utilities, but useful programs, programsto help me and .others use thecompute{ be.ttercomputer better." "That little TI with 16K has morememory than the first IBM businesscomputer in 1958 that cost $200,000 andtook up a big room," he says. "Wheri When Isaw they could make a little computeras big as a telephone book do what abig computer could do and people were using it to play games, I thought 'whata waste.' I think the general populationis realizing that computers can domore than shoot down spaceships." Game programmers, of course, lookat things differently. Lannie says he "couldn't reallyanswer'' " why he does games, but notesthat "when people send us other typeprograms we send them back. Wewon't even look at them."
Emory says that games are ''fun to
write, probably not as tedious as business
