From The Archives: Digital Integration Article Extras Part 2

This month's Retro Gamer features my From The Archives piece on legendary publisher and developer Digital Integration.  Dave Marshall had a box-full of material that I photographed when I interviewed him at his house, 90% of which didn't make it into the final article.  So here is the second batch.  I hope to find the time to also publish the full interviews of the DI employees I spoke to for the article.

Issue 108 of Retro Gamer is still available in shops or from the Imagine shop, click here

A press release for the Action 16 game Falcon.  Action 16 was a sub label DI used for 3rd party games, in this case a game from their great rivals, Spectrum Holobyte.

From Dave's scrapbook:  a chart from Computer Answers showing Fighter Pilot holding off such luminaries as "Atic Attack" and Manic Miner

And this one from The Daily Mirror with only the legendary Jet Set Willy keeping Fighter Pilot off the top spot

After their initial success, Dave and Rod contacted their local paper with pleasing results

A prestigious Designer of the Month piece which wrongly attributes Death Chase to Dave in addition to Fighter Pilot

Another Daily Mirror chart in league with Computer and Video Games.

Like many 80's software houses, competitions were the order of the day.  The prize in the Tomahawk competition was predictably a ride in a helicopter;  Noel Edmonds' helicopter to be precise.

DI's publicist insisted they publish their own newsletter.  This is the second, containing an interview with Suzuki biker Paul "Angry Ant" Lewis to tie in with TT Racer.

Distributor Micro Dealer's chart was closely monitored by the whole industry.  Fighter Pilot sits proudly at number one.

As this flier shows, the original title for TT Racer was the somewhat less snappier TT Grand Prix.

Tomahawk was astoundingly popular on Amstrad's business machine the PCW8256.  "It was two colours, green and dark green" joked Dave when he discovered this pic.  The success of the game led DI to realise that the PC could be a viable platform for their flight sims.

A brace of pics containing a Tornado and the team that made the game come alive.  From left to right:  Kevin Bezant, Dave Marshall, Matt Smith, Nick Mascall, Tony Hosier and Robin Heydon

Rod Swift at a very early ZX Microfair.  DI are showing off the ZX81 version of Night Gunner along with its expansion pack.  The artwork above Rod was designed by his brother, Tim.