Arguably one of the best Specturm coders, Jonathan "Joffa" Smith passed away on June 26, 2010, after a protracted illness. This was a real sucker punch to the guts of anyone who admired his talent and work, but let it be remembered for all time that he was a righteous dude, as will be seen from the following links...

• World of Spectrum's In Memoriam page for Joffa
• Wos: Rest in Peace, Jonathan Smith (was: Frobush Absence)
• Wos: A message From Jonathan Smith's sister
• Doug Burns' blog which has some posts on remembering Joffa
• Paul Hughes' blog entry
• Brian Beuken's blog entry
• Announcement thread in Retro Gamer forums
• Matty on Games blog post
• A nice tribute by Graeme Mason
• Feature article about the Special FX 1-bit music engine and Joffa's part in it at 1-Bit Music News

Even for those of us who didn't know him, the name "Joffa" was enough to bring a smile to the face. His trademark off-the-wall humour and technical proficiency virtually guaranteed that fun was to be had and there's no doubt that his work brought pleasure to many thousands of Spectrum users around the world. His accomplishments were an inspiration to me in my own development as a coder and I'm pretty sure that his feats of technical wizardry played no small part in the longevity of the ZX Spectrum.

Anyway, this page is a tribute of sorts to his legacy. Although there are some who might disagree, this is going to be a celebration of what he accomplished and not a criticism of his personal issues. There'll be no links to bilious rants on The Ocean Experience forums here - He deserves much better than that!

Interviews

• Interview with ZX Specticle (WoS archived copy)
• Interview with The Retro Brothers for their Spectrum Games blog
• Interview at the ZX Golden Years website

Quotes

From The Ocean Experience forums

• "Everyone has their agender. Mine was to smile - when I really wanted to run away."

• "Paul Owen's mistake(s) was/is that he thinks Cobra was actually written, where as, in reality, it just appeared out of nowhere. I know that the scroll in Hysteria confused him - he couldn't understand how I could get so much detail in there by using the 'push/stack' display technique. Hysteria doesn't use the 'push/stack' display technique. Simple when you think about it. "
  

• "One day we'll all get together again. Bring a gun."

From the World of Spectrum forums

• "I'm sorry. Your score is the best. It really is. I've never heard of such a high score - E V E R. If you PM me your details I'll make sure you get a medal. Or something."

• "Yeah, I think games HAVE evolved. It's a shame that 'everything', development wise, has gone all big budget and all Hollywood. Swings and round-a-bouts I guess. There's room for simple stuff too. And I get the feeling that the tide is turning. I do hope so! I'm f*cked otherwise! Lol! It's wonderful that the retro scene is really taking off. And I'm proud to be a part of it."

• "People seem quite content to watch stuff via YouTube et al. Which is like watching stuff with sieves nailed over your eyes."

• "But you are both mistaken about Terra Cresta - it is rubbish. I should know!"

• "It's 'a computers'. Singular. But I don't want to come across as all pedantickle!"

• "I'm joking. I'd never make a profit from computer games (d'oh!)"

• "So what if the 'dogs' at the end of level 2 of 'Green Beret' look like sheep!"

• "Squirting 'posh' washing-up liquid (you can buy cheaper stuff that just 'oouses' out of the container and you don't need to add any water or any pee stored from a bottle) onto the 'bits' and then just jumping up and down (any other way to do do the jumping stuff then ring this number - 0891-709-1234 and ask for 'Barry') onto the machine should just not make things better and you should listen to me!"

• "I have a couple of things that need finishing off, but then I think I'll call it a day with this programming lark. Too many other, more exciting things to do, and if I don't do them soon they'll never get done."

• "I'll always be an old-school programmer - I just need to get other things out of the way before I get too old."

Joffa on the web

• Old website on btinernet at archive.org
• New website (with gut-wrenching "New Site Soon" message) - Archived content at archive.org
• YouTube profile (warning: bizarre material)
• Joffa Smifff's Flickr photostream! (more unusual imagery)
• Wikipedia entry - Please help to complete it!

• Joffa draws Homer Simpson...
• ... and Scooby Doo

Chronology (WIP)

List of all his games with links highlighting any notable features. I also plan to document some of the code he wrote, i.e. the scroll routine in Cobra, and graphics that he designed. There are others who are trying to catalogue some of his artwork and other works and in time I hope to link these in here.

Year	Title	Contribution	ZX Spectrum	Atari ST	Game Boy	SNES	Sega Megadrive	Mobile	GBA	Gizmondo
1984	Pud Pud in Weird World (Music by Christine Smith)	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1984	Kong Strikes Back!	GFX	x
1985	Hyper Sports	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1985	Daley Thompson's Supertest	Shared Code & GFX	x
1985	Street Hawk Subscriber's Edition	Game GFX	x
1986	Mikie	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1986	Green Beret	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1986	Cobra	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1986	Ping Pong	GFX and Sound assist	x
1986	Terra Cresta	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1987	Hysteria	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1988	Firefly	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1988	Hyper Active	Code, GFX, SFX	x
1989	Batman: The Caped Crusader	Code	x
1990	Red Heat			x
1990	Midnight Resistance			x
1991	Recoil			x
1991	Hudson Hawk			x
1992	Mr Do!				x
1992	Spider-Man and the X-Men: Arcade's Revenge					x
1994	Power Drive						x
2000	Airlock							x
2001	Apprentice AKA 'Fluffy'								x
2002	Ripping Friends								x
2003	Looney Tunes Back In Action								x
2004	All Star Baseball 2004								x
2005	Momma, Can I Mow The Lawn?									x
2006 ?	Saucer (unfinished)		x
2007 ?	Burger (128k - unfinished)		x