actually, "Gordon's Planet" was the only program we wrote for RSE.
Since we were never paid, we didn't develop the planned sequels to the game.

In 1985, RSE Software was actually a small computer store in the center of Castrop-Rauxel, a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia. At that time, they sold home computers from various manufacturers, accessories, and software. Schneider Computer was very successful in Germany at the time, and the store owner came up with the idea of ​​publishing software himself. He placed ads in "CPC-International" and "Happy Computer," two magazines very popular in the home computer scene at the time, to find software authors whose programs he could distribute.

Two friends (Guido & Ronald Keck) and I responded to one of these ads by calling RSE and scheduling a demonstration of a text adventure game. At that time, however, the game was only a rough idea. We spent the next two weeks finishing it. At RSE, we demonstrated the game on a CPC in the showroom. During the demonstration, customers kept coming into the store to buy something. After a few hours, the store had closed by then, and we were offered a simple contract, which I signed, expecting to make a lot of money in a short time :-)

In fact, it took a few more months before the game, along with several other RSE programs, was advertised and sold in computer magazines.

There were full-page ads in some issues of CPC International at the time. Unfortunately, sales weren't so good. The game sold perhaps 100 times at that time. RSE stopped advertising and exited the software business shortly thereafter.

At that time, we wrote smaller programs for several other software retailers and manufacturers (Rushware, Quelle Soft, and Ariolasoft).

In 1987, I began studying computer engineering, and after graduating, I worked for Hewlett Packard developing compilers and extensions for HP Unix. I still work in software development, although today I develop software in the commercial and business areas. Your website reminded me of how it all began about 40 years ago. That was a time when the possibilities seemed endless and every day was filled with exciting new ideas. I remember how we started programming in assembly language a little later, fighting for every byte of memory and every microsecond of runtime. We never earned much money during that time and sometimes worked all night for a pizza and Coke. I've never had as much fun programming as I did back then—but who does?