Big Five Software Explained

Big Five Software
Foundation:1980
Location City:Van Nuys, California
Location Country:US
Key People:Bill Hogue
Jeff Konyu
Industry:Video games
Products:Miner 2049er
Bounty Bob Strikes Back!

Big Five Software (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, he released a free, custom emulation of the Atari 8-bit versions of Miner 2049er and Bounty Bob Strikes Back! for Microsoft Windows.[7]

Games

TRS-80

Atari 8-bit

Unreleased

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Big Five Software . TRS-80.org . 2016-05-25.
  2. News: Giles . Robert H. . 28 March 1982 . Call them 'microteens' . Democrat and Chronicle . Gannet Co. Inc. . Rochester, NY . 3 . 13 . 1F, 7F . Newspapers.com.
  3. Hawken . Kieren . Jones . Darran . 2016 . Big Five Software . Retro Gamer . Imagine Publishing . Bournemouth, UK . 157 . 70–75 . 1742-3155.
  4. Web site: Reed . Matthew . TRISSTICK . TRS-80.org.
  5. Web site: The Company . Big Five Software . 2016-05-25 . 2016-03-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160330231358/http://www.bigfivesoftware.com/company/company.htm . dead .
  6. Kunkel . Bill . Bill Kunkel (journalist). Katz . Arnie . January 1984 . Arcade Alley: The Arcade Awards, Part 1 . Video. Reese Communications. 7. 10. 40–42. 0147-8907.
  7. Web site: Hogue . Bill . Big Five Software - Emulator . Big Five Software . 18 January 2007 . First published in 2001 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190914002339/http://www.bigfivesoftware.com/Emulator/emulator.htm . 14 September 2019.
  8. Web site: Scraper Caper advertisement . archive.org . 1983.