Beam Software

Beam Software

Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen established Melbourne House as the London distribution arm for their general book publishing company in 1977. In the early 1980s, Milgrom read an article in the Australian Financial Review that discussed publishing ‘How To’ books for the emerging home computer market…

Andrew Davie

Andrew Davie

Andrew Davie always loved electronic games and computer programming. He first remembers getting ‘into’ programming around 1977, when he was in grade 7. Davie was passionate about arcade games from the late 1970s. School gave him his first real taste of programming and he taught himself how to write games. He followed this by writing a game on his 31-step Sharp programmable calculator.

Neil Brennan

Neil Brennan

Brennan was responsible for the sound in all Beam Software games, composing much of it himself, from his arrival in 1983 till his departure in 1988.

Russel Comte

Russel Comte

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Melbourne House

Melbourne House

Melbourne House (Publishers) Ltd, founded by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen in 1977, was a book publishing company with offices in both Melbourne and London.  Publishing laws at the time tied Australia to the UK market, meaning that it was difficult for Australians to buy American published books that had not been embraced by a UK publisher.

William Tang

William Tang

Best known as the author of the Horace games William Tang was Beam Software’s first employee. He was studying commerce and computer science at the University of Melbourne when Alfred Milgrom hired him in December 1980 to work during his University break. Bundled with the Sinclair ZXSpectrum Tang’s Horace games were often the first computer games a generation of people played.