Bruce Mitchell had been an unhappy Vice-Principal in a primary school in Victoria when he submitted a simple project to Jacaranda Software for possible publication. Roseanne Gare liked it and they started corresponding. When Gare resigned from Jacaranda, she suggested Mitchell as a possible replacement.
Roseanne Gare recruited David Smith as one of several programmers with educational backgrounds to develop software titles for Jacaranda.
David Smith recruited Gerald Wluka to code Raft-Away River for the Apple. Gerald was a student at Melbourne Grammar School, in one of DLS’s maths classes (that is how David was known at MGS),. David learnt that Gerald was an Apple enthusiast and asked if he could do the work. Of course the answer was yes. The thoughts of a high schooler being paid for his hobby was too attractive – any hurdle could be overcome
A self-taught programmer, Luckett worked on several games including Goldfields, Vote 1, Zoopak, Bush Rescue, Kraken: A deep-sea quest , Crossing the Mountains, Maths Bingo, Clockwise: Time activities for the whole primary school, and Desert Quest.
Author of Goldfields, an education game. Also author of the education books. In the beginning: A perspective on traditional Aboriginal societies(1991) and co-author of Southland: The Maritime Exploration of Australia, Volumes 1-2 (1987) – both published by the Ministry of Education, WA.
Jacaranda is the Australian imprint of U.S. publishing company, Wiley. In the early 1980s, the company was run by an “inspirational leader”, John Collins. Collins decided that there might be a place for materials for the computers that were then beginning to appear in schools.