Quote: "I was writing a script for Star Trek Voyager, and I was to be paid £10,000. The script would have saved the series! I had just 5 pages left to write!!!...................."
Heh, that reminds me. Basically after University I was dead lazy. So instead of looking for a job I played lots of games and also started mucking around in Quick Basic and Visual Basic For DOS. I ended up writing a program that looked quite a lot like that Mac encarta type effort (which is what I was aiming for). So basically text, graphics, hyperlinks, mouse support etc. I was well into Macs at the time (did my final year project on them) so didn't really realise I was basically writing something quite similar to HTML. We had only just found Mosaic at the time and just thought it was another route for the internet (like FTP, telnet, gopher, newsgroups blah blah). Was also really basic.
Anyhows I basically got it all working pretty much and was using it as an Encarta type tool (not sure if Encarta was even out then...), having to write all the mouse code (like the GUI frontends you have to write for DB nowadays) etc etc. I was using it to basically write a computer version of Terry Pratchett's Discworld companion book. Never even considered it being online, just as a CD that comes with a book or visa-versa.
I had the code pretty much fully written. As in it deciphered a text file, and produced text, graphics, hyperlinks, even video. Was pretty cool. I had also typed in the first few chapters of the book, and it was coming together somewhat. Anyway, I decided to contact the publisher of Terry Pratchett and see what happened. They got back to me a couple of weeks later, with a call from his agent. Can't remember his name, but something like Henry Wilkenten-Smythe. You know, really posh. And he sounded it too. Basically got the speech about how Terry was really techy, but didn't have the time to do something like that himself. Like hell, nothing existed on the PC at the time that would allow a non-programmer to create such a thing. Whatever. The bloke got really excited about putting all the books onto CD's etc (this was when CD's were starting to get popular on PC's). Wasn't really my intention, but who was I to argue? I wanted a data version of the companion book so I wouldn't have to type it all in. He said they would give me copyright to all the books so it wouldn't be a problem. Hmmm. Whatever, just give me the data. Was a bit cagey about that, and eventually requested a demo. So I sent them a couple of disks worth and left it at that.
A week went by and the agent told me it didn't work on his computer. Several days of trying to send him software (simcga and that kind of thing - graphics adapters) didn't really work. Guy was totally non-techy. I was just about to go there and set it all up when I got accepted at a software company. Considering I was still living at home after 10 months, and how the agent was starting to get cold on me, I just let it drop.
So not my error, but someone elses. Still, could have been so different.... am sure the bloke said Terry earned about £10 ($18?) a word at the time. Probably trying to impress me or something. Which it obviously did (this was like a decade ago)....
Cheers
I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
