In September 1986, I found myself in year 10 at a regional high school in New South Wales, eagerly anticipating my work experience at a local computer shop called RAMROD. The store manager, Greg, was an absolutely awesome guy who drove an old 1969 VW Beetle with a personalised license plate that read “PORSCHE.”
During my two-week stint, I immersed myself in learning about computers, business, and everything I could get my hands on. Most of my time was spent selling computers and programming an Adventure Game interpreter for a multi-word parser on one of the shop’s KAYPRO luggables.
Fast forward four years, and I was now working for Patronics—one of Australia’s largest software distributors in the burgeoning home computer industry. Little did I know that the multi-word parser from my work experience would resurface, weaving its way into my professional journey.
During this pivotal moment, I joined forces with my colleague Neil Miller to embark on an exciting endeavor: crafting a fresh graphic and text adventure series for the ATARI ST. We wrote the game using STOS, with the intention of marketing it through Patronics and ATARI Australia.
So the Rian Rookaby “Quest Adventure” series was born.
Armed with an ATARI 1040 ST as our development machine of choice, we embarked on the task of converting my original 1986 KAYPRO source code into STOS-compatible code. We meticulously removed errors and significantly improved the code using STOS.
Despite both of us working full-time at Patronics, we dedicated our evenings and weekends to the Quest series. A few months into development, we pitched the idea to our contacts at ATARI, hoping they’d be interested in releasing it alongside Patronics.
The initial feedback was positive—they liked the story and the progress we’d made—but they weren’t fully committed to purchasing it. However, they didn’t shut the door completely. Undeterred, we continued for a couple more months.
Then came the devastating news: ATARI Australia was closing down. Without ATARI, there would be no more ATARI STs in the Australian market. Our Adventure Quest series faced an uncertain fate, and it became clear that finishing a game for a computer that wouldn’t be around much longer was futile.
The code example above was scanned in 2020 and shows the very early beta source code for Rian Rookaby and the Quest for the Sun.