Technical Articles

Nickolas Merentes – The Gate Crasher from Down Under

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From a country that gave us Olivia Newton-John, Mel Gibson and Nichol Kidman to name a few true talents embraced by the pop culture, another unsung hero lives, Nick Merentes. Known only by a label hanging on a bubble pack at Radio Shack, this man is responsible for some of the best software ever loaded into the memory of the Color Computer. Nick started writing software in 1979 and it seems he never stopped. Long after Tandy orphaned the TRS-80 Color Computer, Mr. Merentes continues to keep them alive. Well, it’s hats off to him from 8bit-micro.com as we look into his 3D adventure, Gate Crasher.

In the mid 1990′, ID Software came out with the shareware offering Wolfenstien 3D. A game that is believed by many to have changed the face of the computer gaming world.

Without a doubt it was impressive, and even more impressive was it’s sequel Doom! But those games needed power! Doom only ran smoothly on a Intel 80486 based machine, and Wolfenstien 3D need an Intel 80386 running at least 16 MHz.

For many years many thought the TRS-80 Color Computer too slow and weak kneed to run anything like the new 3D games. Nick Merentes is not one to shy away from a challenge and a couple of years ago he finished writing “Gate Crasher” a 3D adventure for your CoCo 3 with multiple levels, smooth 3D renderings and great fun. Visit his website and check out the game yourself.