While I do respect Jim as a coder, as a person he’s a disingenuous manipulative sack of shite. If you want a coder that doesn’t have a disingenuous bone in his body, look at Jeff Minter.
I suppose having the skills is one thing, but also having the ability to design a great game. The best games are those with a combination of a good developer and a good designer (be it two people or the same person). Funny you should mention Minter, he’s just that sort of person, someone with the skills and ideas. He even made a game about mowing the lawn seem enjoyable.
retrofansunite
5 months ago
Jim has incorrectly been called the “darling” of retro and “the lovliest guy in retro” for far too long and it is about time someone has had the courage to call him out for the person he actually is. A narcissist only interested in self preservation. And a nasty person – intent of going after people in an obsessive way, an example being Lee. There are many more people out there that Jim has wronged – maybe they will have the courage to come forward now. Jim – if you are reading these comments, and I am sure you are – shame on you!
“Jim has incorrectly been called the “darling” of retro and “the lovliest guy in retro” for far too long”
VERY incorrectly. He’s a shit, really. A little dictator that’s only interested in the cult of self. I’ve heard from a lot of really good, well regarded people since I posted my video and NONE of them have stuck up for Jim, with the majority of them having anecdotes that revolve around him being at the very least a complete nuisance and, at worst, an utter shit.
Thanks George. He has done some very silly and stupid things in the past and really pissed off a lot of people with some ridiculous actions you could not make up.A lot of people are upset with him so we are glad he has finally been outed and put in his place.
If you’d like to discuss or shed light on anything mate feel free to drop me an email! [email protected] 🙂 and, yes, it’s high fucking time. This guy has been an active thorn in the side of the community for a long time.
I was at the PlayExpo event in Blackpool a couple years ago and there was a section for the Spectrum Next. I walked over and had a look around, there were a few setup playing various demos and games. Jim was standing there talking with another guy with a Next t-shirt on. I walked over and said “Hi, I’ve got a Next”. He looked at me, said “oh right” in a grouchy voice and then continued speaking to the other guy. Made me feel about as welcome as a fart in a Baggers in Space spacesuit.
It just felt a bit weird, like there are literally a couple thousand Next owners in the world, I walked up and said I had one and he wasn’t interested at all.
I guess if I’d said I was some retro YouTuber tosser (the expo was full of them), he might have acted differently. But it really summed up the so called Next “scene”
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered him. First time I saw the Next there was a friendly chap on the stall, older gent. I sat down and chatted to him and saw some demos. Proper salesman approach (even though the project was kickstarter only).
I think your mistake was not being excited to see Jim and worshipping him. Instead you just mentioned the Next.
I’ve heard the same story from a few people, mate. It seems Jim is only really interested if there’s something for him in the equation. If I was part of a team delivering a piece of hardware, of which there were not many units, I would be only too happy to meet a buyer and talk shop!
I’ve got a Next and sadly it’s been sat on a shelf. Why? because nobody understands that we’re not all 10 year olds sat in our bedrooms with a computer plugged into a portable TV now. At least with my Ultimate C64 I can put the unit by the TV and use a long joystick cable and a wireless USB keyboard. But with the Next I’ve got to make a desk or table free for it and sit on the living room floor.
After update #16364528284, I’m assured my Next V2 is about to be shipped. I backed it some five thousand years ago when my life was different. The device will probably end up in a cupboard with all of my other what-came-over-me purchases.
It’s a decent enough machine but it is just an FPGA board in a nice case. I’m not running down FPGA as it is a brilliant way to make new computers and recreate old ones. But the system really needed two SD card slots, one for the core and bootup and another for the software. Even a built in eMMC/flash would have been handy. I found that every time I put an SD card in with some software I then had to remove the SD, power down the computer and then copy across all the latest OS files and core to the SD card and then start again. The core and OS should be on a different storage device to the software.
Plus half of the time when it wouldn’t boot I’d have to pull the HDMI cable out of the computer as something in the HDMI keeps the computer powered up even when you remove the PSU cable. I know it’s a new Sinclair type machine but do they really have to keep all the Sinclair level quirks and annoyances? there’s zero of that with the Ultimate 64 and that’s just one guy working on it.
quite possibly a case of “too many cooks”, mate? they basically spitballed features with the community and that’s never going to end well. it’s much better to give people what you think they’d use rather than trying to please everyone, it’s not possible and you’ll begin to get errors along with the feature creep that are unforeseen, often until it’s too late (see HDMI power issue with the 1st batch*)
*which was pointed out by umpteen people, most of whom were banned for speaking out about it on the Next group, and the rest of them had their voices lost amongst the clamouring noise.
I believe they fixed that HDMI reverse power issue in v2. The board has also been revised by an EE specialist to cut down interference and make other optimizations. The FPGA had to be replaced by something beefier due to shortages of the original during sneezeagedon. Not that I’m defending them, I had billions of kickstarter emails with progress, unlike, say, people opening a bar.
I was hoping it would be a speccy with Amiga type HW to piss about with in assembly, but that was me years ago and I’ve next to no interest now. I’d have really liked a SID or two in there instead of seven thousand AYs, while I’m moaning. Divorce and not seeing your kids enough makes one not give a crap about just about everything else, especially toys/tech. It probably has that new electronics smell, though. So I might waft it around before putting it in a cupboard.
I reckon they wasted so much time just getting a functional keyboard that they didn’t have time to fix all the other glitches. Glad they’ve ironed out that issue. At times I honestly felt like I’d knackered mine because it would take a lot of faffing about copying files to SD and restarting it.
yes, mate, there are many design oversights with this system. the notion that people would make a shrine to what is, effectively, deliberately hobbled tech in 2023 is a bit weird. I get it, I get it, some people relish the opportunity but, for me, it just seems like a white elephant at this point. Plus, regardless of how well they’re done, I don’t really want to play endless remakes of games from the 1980s. Hopefully with this new batch we’ll see people actually start to make NEW games, but I’ll not hold my breath. Also, on the offchance we do see such titles, they’ll be playable via emulation anyway.
It’s clearly not designed to be sold as a mass market product. Say what you like about Sinclair but they sold a lot of units and even PSUs that would blow up the machine on a mains spike didn’t stop them. Seems like the only thing worse is the 8-bit Guy’s ridiculous chip spare stockpile destroying Commander 16.
Agree with all the sentiments on here – I have a KS1 next and rarely switch the bloody thing on for the reasons outlined. Even then it’s only to play speccy classics in a nice way because let’s face it – the new next software is frankly, a bit shit. That’s my main disappointment with the machine – the new games tend to be a mixture of awful or endless remakes / ripoffs of old titles (but somehow not as good). I can’t believe folks are setting themselves to play head over heels with more colours. Just play the Amstrad version ffs! 😆🙈
Yep. I did buy a pack of games and they’re clones of Rick Dangerous, Atic Atac etc…
The only other thing I got was the NextDAW, although why call it a DAW when it has no audio recording and editing capabilities DAW = digital audio workstation. A bit like calling Microsoft Paint a video editor.
I have met a number of the Next team at events – and they are all lovely people, more than happy to show you what they are working on, or just to talk about the hardware. You would never meet a more enthused and friendsly bunch of people. It looks like with Jim not actually doing anything on the Next, he had very little to talk about. Plus he has demonstrated here how rude he is and thinks he is above everyone else.
Wow just wow Chris Wilkins is a great guy who has done so much for the UK retro scene. The Jim in China thing pissed a lot of people of at the time. People wanted to know if backer money had be used pay for the pointless trip. The cult of Jim thing is not for for Jim but for any coder who was “there at the time” therefore they must be better than all the new people
Apparently Jim paid for the trip himself, BUT it was probably from money that he earned from Next stuff so, I suppose, in a way the community DID pay for it. The trip was not sanctioned by anyone on the team and, as stated, he was both told NOT to go and NOT to publish photos (and went on to do both of these things, pissing everyone off in the process)
4
stacbats
5 months ago
Im shocked. Jim came across as a nice bloke at events. However, very naughty to slate Chris, had odd minor chat with Chris at events and he was always great n humble. Just seeing how he conducts himself so unselfishly with Fusion and the way he handled Oli’s & Rogers passing, shows how humble he is.
Sad times when stuff like this happens in the community, but good to burst these boils away.
I’ve been discussing it for a while with Simon Butler. Simon’s recent podcast features a chunk about Jim and he asked me not to release this until his podcast was live. It’s live now, so my video was made public. Simon feared backlash for airing his opinions but, if we’re being honest, who’s actually going to stand on for Jim Bagley as he’s a fibber and a nitwit! It’s up to Jim, if he’s any inclination to do so, to prove Simon and my comments wrong and, in reality, he can’t. I was actually asked to keep certain items OUT of this video by the people who’d provided them as they didn’t want to get involved, but I’ve got full evidence to back up my statements if required!
This is confirming what I had suspected for a long time.
I have seen Jim a few times over the years, more recently sitting in fromt of a Spectrum Next at Play Expo’s, but it was always at the back of my mind “what has this guy actually coded?”, “what has this guy done to make him stand above others in the scene”, and, I couldnt find any reason.
Now, he can claim this video is all bullshit, but, to put the argument to bed, why not announce a game he is going to start writing, code it, and show it off to the world, proving that he is not full of hot air, and, and, can actually code. That surely would prove George completely wrong………
Lets wait and see…..
If he wants to claim this is all bullshit, or to claim what Simon said in his recent podcast about him is all bullshit, he’ll need to disprove it. He can’t – because it’s true. Good luck with that, “baggers”!
I was never part of the Speccy scene, but got into it via emulators and played a lot of the classics so I have an idea of who was big in the scene. Not once did his name appear on the screen on any games I loaded up.
It seems he’s only coded a little more than the Wotsit has.
The main reason he gets so much kudos is because of his Midnight Resistance and Cabal ports, both of which I thought were okay but the games aren’t massively fun, anyway. Also, Midnight Resistance has a joystick like Ikari warriors in the arcade and I don’t think it works that well on home systems. “just me” it seems, but, indeed, he’s not done much of note. Since his time in the Spectrum scene he was very much in generic shovelware hell on portable devices until the Next team came along. Not really sure why they even asked him BUT I’d imagine it’s because other big coders of the time have actually gone on to better things and are therefore busy, whereas Jim wasn’t/isn’t as he never actually seems to do anything.
While I do respect Jim as a coder, as a person he’s a disingenuous manipulative sack of shite. If you want a coder that doesn’t have a disingenuous bone in his body, look at Jeff Minter.
I suppose having the skills is one thing, but also having the ability to design a great game. The best games are those with a combination of a good developer and a good designer (be it two people or the same person). Funny you should mention Minter, he’s just that sort of person, someone with the skills and ideas. He even made a game about mowing the lawn seem enjoyable.
Jim has incorrectly been called the “darling” of retro and “the lovliest guy in retro” for far too long and it is about time someone has had the courage to call him out for the person he actually is. A narcissist only interested in self preservation. And a nasty person – intent of going after people in an obsessive way, an example being Lee. There are many more people out there that Jim has wronged – maybe they will have the courage to come forward now. Jim – if you are reading these comments, and I am sure you are – shame on you!
“Jim has incorrectly been called the “darling” of retro and “the lovliest guy in retro” for far too long”
VERY incorrectly. He’s a shit, really. A little dictator that’s only interested in the cult of self. I’ve heard from a lot of really good, well regarded people since I posted my video and NONE of them have stuck up for Jim, with the majority of them having anecdotes that revolve around him being at the very least a complete nuisance and, at worst, an utter shit.
‘A narcissist only interested in self preservation. And a nasty person – intent of going after people in an obsessive way’…
Er wait what, that’s Simon Butler init? 😀
A wild Jim shill appears!
Thanks George. He has done some very silly and stupid things in the past and really pissed off a lot of people with some ridiculous actions you could not make up.A lot of people are upset with him so we are glad he has finally been outed and put in his place.
If you’d like to discuss or shed light on anything mate feel free to drop me an email! [email protected] 🙂 and, yes, it’s high fucking time. This guy has been an active thorn in the side of the community for a long time.
I was at the PlayExpo event in Blackpool a couple years ago and there was a section for the Spectrum Next. I walked over and had a look around, there were a few setup playing various demos and games. Jim was standing there talking with another guy with a Next t-shirt on. I walked over and said “Hi, I’ve got a Next”. He looked at me, said “oh right” in a grouchy voice and then continued speaking to the other guy. Made me feel about as welcome as a fart in a Baggers in Space spacesuit.
It just felt a bit weird, like there are literally a couple thousand Next owners in the world, I walked up and said I had one and he wasn’t interested at all.
I guess if I’d said I was some retro YouTuber tosser (the expo was full of them), he might have acted differently. But it really summed up the so called Next “scene”
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered him. First time I saw the Next there was a friendly chap on the stall, older gent. I sat down and chatted to him and saw some demos. Proper salesman approach (even though the project was kickstarter only).
I think your mistake was not being excited to see Jim and worshipping him. Instead you just mentioned the Next.
I’ve heard the same story from a few people, mate. It seems Jim is only really interested if there’s something for him in the equation. If I was part of a team delivering a piece of hardware, of which there were not many units, I would be only too happy to meet a buyer and talk shop!
I’ve got a Next and sadly it’s been sat on a shelf. Why? because nobody understands that we’re not all 10 year olds sat in our bedrooms with a computer plugged into a portable TV now. At least with my Ultimate C64 I can put the unit by the TV and use a long joystick cable and a wireless USB keyboard. But with the Next I’ve got to make a desk or table free for it and sit on the living room floor.
After update #16364528284, I’m assured my Next V2 is about to be shipped. I backed it some five thousand years ago when my life was different. The device will probably end up in a cupboard with all of my other what-came-over-me purchases.
It’s a decent enough machine but it is just an FPGA board in a nice case. I’m not running down FPGA as it is a brilliant way to make new computers and recreate old ones. But the system really needed two SD card slots, one for the core and bootup and another for the software. Even a built in eMMC/flash would have been handy. I found that every time I put an SD card in with some software I then had to remove the SD, power down the computer and then copy across all the latest OS files and core to the SD card and then start again. The core and OS should be on a different storage device to the software.
Plus half of the time when it wouldn’t boot I’d have to pull the HDMI cable out of the computer as something in the HDMI keeps the computer powered up even when you remove the PSU cable. I know it’s a new Sinclair type machine but do they really have to keep all the Sinclair level quirks and annoyances? there’s zero of that with the Ultimate 64 and that’s just one guy working on it.
quite possibly a case of “too many cooks”, mate? they basically spitballed features with the community and that’s never going to end well. it’s much better to give people what you think they’d use rather than trying to please everyone, it’s not possible and you’ll begin to get errors along with the feature creep that are unforeseen, often until it’s too late (see HDMI power issue with the 1st batch*)
*which was pointed out by umpteen people, most of whom were banned for speaking out about it on the Next group, and the rest of them had their voices lost amongst the clamouring noise.
I believe they fixed that HDMI reverse power issue in v2. The board has also been revised by an EE specialist to cut down interference and make other optimizations. The FPGA had to be replaced by something beefier due to shortages of the original during sneezeagedon. Not that I’m defending them, I had billions of kickstarter emails with progress, unlike, say, people opening a bar.
I was hoping it would be a speccy with Amiga type HW to piss about with in assembly, but that was me years ago and I’ve next to no interest now. I’d have really liked a SID or two in there instead of seven thousand AYs, while I’m moaning. Divorce and not seeing your kids enough makes one not give a crap about just about everything else, especially toys/tech. It probably has that new electronics smell, though. So I might waft it around before putting it in a cupboard.
I reckon they wasted so much time just getting a functional keyboard that they didn’t have time to fix all the other glitches. Glad they’ve ironed out that issue. At times I honestly felt like I’d knackered mine because it would take a lot of faffing about copying files to SD and restarting it.
I couldn’t be arsed with all that, mate, I’m glad I didn’t even get started and just sold it!
Mine did that, mate, then I sold it to a chap in Germany who was very happy with it. I never even turned it on :/
yes, mate, there are many design oversights with this system. the notion that people would make a shrine to what is, effectively, deliberately hobbled tech in 2023 is a bit weird. I get it, I get it, some people relish the opportunity but, for me, it just seems like a white elephant at this point. Plus, regardless of how well they’re done, I don’t really want to play endless remakes of games from the 1980s. Hopefully with this new batch we’ll see people actually start to make NEW games, but I’ll not hold my breath. Also, on the offchance we do see such titles, they’ll be playable via emulation anyway.
It’s clearly not designed to be sold as a mass market product. Say what you like about Sinclair but they sold a lot of units and even PSUs that would blow up the machine on a mains spike didn’t stop them. Seems like the only thing worse is the 8-bit Guy’s ridiculous chip spare stockpile destroying Commander 16.
Agree with all the sentiments on here – I have a KS1 next and rarely switch the bloody thing on for the reasons outlined. Even then it’s only to play speccy classics in a nice way because let’s face it – the new next software is frankly, a bit shit. That’s my main disappointment with the machine – the new games tend to be a mixture of awful or endless remakes / ripoffs of old titles (but somehow not as good). I can’t believe folks are setting themselves to play head over heels with more colours. Just play the Amstrad version ffs! 😆🙈
Yep. I did buy a pack of games and they’re clones of Rick Dangerous, Atic Atac etc…
The only other thing I got was the NextDAW, although why call it a DAW when it has no audio recording and editing capabilities DAW = digital audio workstation. A bit like calling Microsoft Paint a video editor.
I have met a number of the Next team at events – and they are all lovely people, more than happy to show you what they are working on, or just to talk about the hardware. You would never meet a more enthused and friendsly bunch of people. It looks like with Jim not actually doing anything on the Next, he had very little to talk about. Plus he has demonstrated here how rude he is and thinks he is above everyone else.
Jim’s always got plenty to talk about. At least, that is, if he’s allowed to talk about himself.
Wow just wow Chris Wilkins is a great guy who has done so much for the UK retro scene. The Jim in China thing pissed a lot of people of at the time. People wanted to know if backer money had be used pay for the pointless trip. The cult of Jim thing is not for for Jim but for any coder who was “there at the time” therefore they must be better than all the new people
Apparently Jim paid for the trip himself, BUT it was probably from money that he earned from Next stuff so, I suppose, in a way the community DID pay for it. The trip was not sanctioned by anyone on the team and, as stated, he was both told NOT to go and NOT to publish photos (and went on to do both of these things, pissing everyone off in the process)
Im shocked. Jim came across as a nice bloke at events. However, very naughty to slate Chris, had odd minor chat with Chris at events and he was always great n humble. Just seeing how he conducts himself so unselfishly with Fusion and the way he handled Oli’s & Rogers passing, shows how humble he is.
Sad times when stuff like this happens in the community, but good to burst these boils away.
I’m sure David Levy came across as a “top bloke” at Sunday club sojourns, too. All about context, mate.
So long as he’s not going on about sex robots and giving child versions to paedos.
Has this all blown up somewhere. Can’t find anything on the t’internet.
I’ve been discussing it for a while with Simon Butler. Simon’s recent podcast features a chunk about Jim and he asked me not to release this until his podcast was live. It’s live now, so my video was made public. Simon feared backlash for airing his opinions but, if we’re being honest, who’s actually going to stand on for Jim Bagley as he’s a fibber and a nitwit! It’s up to Jim, if he’s any inclination to do so, to prove Simon and my comments wrong and, in reality, he can’t. I was actually asked to keep certain items OUT of this video by the people who’d provided them as they didn’t want to get involved, but I’ve got full evidence to back up my statements if required!
you can listen to Simon’s “dinosaur pie” excerpt here at 4:09:12 https://retrogamingroundup.libsyn.com/ (Dec 1st podcast)
Listened to it. Thanks
This is confirming what I had suspected for a long time.
I have seen Jim a few times over the years, more recently sitting in fromt of a Spectrum Next at Play Expo’s, but it was always at the back of my mind “what has this guy actually coded?”, “what has this guy done to make him stand above others in the scene”, and, I couldnt find any reason.
Now, he can claim this video is all bullshit, but, to put the argument to bed, why not announce a game he is going to start writing, code it, and show it off to the world, proving that he is not full of hot air, and, and, can actually code. That surely would prove George completely wrong………
Lets wait and see…..
If he wants to claim this is all bullshit, or to claim what Simon said in his recent podcast about him is all bullshit, he’ll need to disprove it. He can’t – because it’s true. Good luck with that, “baggers”!
I was never part of the Speccy scene, but got into it via emulators and played a lot of the classics so I have an idea of who was big in the scene. Not once did his name appear on the screen on any games I loaded up.
It seems he’s only coded a little more than the Wotsit has.
The main reason he gets so much kudos is because of his Midnight Resistance and Cabal ports, both of which I thought were okay but the games aren’t massively fun, anyway. Also, Midnight Resistance has a joystick like Ikari warriors in the arcade and I don’t think it works that well on home systems. “just me” it seems, but, indeed, he’s not done much of note. Since his time in the Spectrum scene he was very much in generic shovelware hell on portable devices until the Next team came along. Not really sure why they even asked him BUT I’d imagine it’s because other big coders of the time have actually gone on to better things and are therefore busy, whereas Jim wasn’t/isn’t as he never actually seems to do anything.
Ports are difficult technically, but not very creative as you’re not designing from scratch.