Cassette 50: calling all Sherlocks...

[TMD2003]

I don't know if this is well-known or not, but there's a detail I'm going to need to clear up, and anyone who knows the score is invited to wave a hand in the air, wear a tinfoil hat, whatever seems appropriate. It's worth a corned beef sandwich, a bendy Bully, 75p and a packet of Rolos, and a spare +3 disc drive belt.

Cassette 50 is listed with a handful of titles that were also included on "Spectrum 50 Games" by UTS, an equally inept compilation of BASIC shovelware but much less notorious. The UTS versions all start with a very annoying splash screen made with full-block graphics characters and an unnecessary repeating tune, followed by the instructions with the "Game or Quit" that we're all familiar with from Cassette 50. There is also a sort of rudimentary cheat protection where line 10 alters itself and overwrites the ENTER character at the end of the line, corrupting the listing so that anyone who didn't think to LIST 11 would be instantly defeated when trying to examine it.

When these games appeared on Cassette 50, all but one of them (Crusher) had this UTS spash screen removed, and another (Star Trek) never had it anyway. In all cases, the UTS splash screen graphics and beeps are still in the listing but have been GOTOed out, and the self-corrupting line has been removed. I take this as evidence that the UTS versions were the originals. On the "Game or Quit" screen, "(title) BY U.T.S." has been replaced with "(title) BY CASCADE". No surprises there.

As the UTS compilation is much less well known, there's no inlay card scan available, which would soon tell me if UTS and Cascade shared an address or had any similar details.

Here's the likely scenarios I can come up with:
(1) UTS and Cascade were the same company, or the same person was behind both, and filling out Cassette 50 required a bit of creative recycling.
(2) The UTS compilation failed so badly that the people who made it thought they'd try and make a bit of cash back by sending a random assortment of their games to Cascade, say, to cover the duplication costs for tapes they never sold.
(3) Cascade outright plagiarised the UTS titles, thinking it was easy to get away with in those days, but forgot to remove the splash screen from Crusher and that blew their cover.

Uncovering a 41-year-old mystery is unlikely, I know, but if I don't ask, I will never get.

[Lee P]

This can be fairly easily solved thanks to Graeme Mason:

https://www.wizwords.net/cassette-50

"Cascade Games Limited officially began life in 1983 as an amalgamation of two companies that Guy Wilhelmy had been trading: Cascade and UTS (which stood for Ulrich Technical Services, Ulrich being Guy’s middle name)"

I also found a UTS advert from Your Computer magazine, April 1983:

[bluespikey]

Very interesting, thanks @Lee P . I didn't know this compilation existed. Its not quite the same without a watch-calculator that the Cascade included.

[Van_Dammesque]

Is ther any info on the watches sold with Cassette 50?

[Wizwords]

Is ther any info on the watches sold with Cassette 50?

Here's what was said in the above article:

"With sales of Cassette 50 finally beginning to dip, Guy hit upon another unique idea to prolong its life. “I realised at some point that Cascade had become a marketing company rather than a software house and most of the profits were being ploughed back into advertising to keep the company at the forefront,” explains Guy, “and I noticed that kids – particularly boys – were fascinated by the concept of a digital watch that incorporated a calculator.So I just had this crazy idea that we should give away a watch that retailed for £15 away free with a £9.95 compilation and after using a spread-sheet for the first time to crunch the numbers took a massive commercial decision.” This represented a huge calculated (sorry!) risk for Cascade but it was one that paid off as sales of Cassette 50 rose on the back of the calculator watch giveaway. “And at one stage,” concludes Guy, “we were taking up the entire output of a watch factory in Hong Kong!”"

[Lee P]

Guy Wilhelmy's Watch Factory would itself make a great CSSCGC game.

[TMD2003]

This can be fairly easily solved thanks to Graeme Mason:

https://www.wizwords.net/cassette-50

"Cascade Games Limited officially began life in 1983 as an amalgamation of two companies that Guy Wilhelmy had been trading: Cascade and UTS (which stood for Ulrich Technical Services, Ulrich being Guy’s middle name)"

I also found a UTS advert from Your Computer magazine, April 1983:

D'oh! Only recently I was reading that article. I suppose I didn't notice the bit about UTS because I wasn't specifically looking for it at the time.

Is this worth marking in ZXDB?

[Lee P]

D'oh! Only recently I was reading that article. I suppose I didn't notice the bit about UTS because I wasn't specifically looking for it at the time.

Is this worth marking in ZXDB?

Yes (sorry keep forgetting to reply), I'll have a look in the morning to see exactly which Your Computer I saw the ad in.