The Shanghai Story

THE SHANGHAI STORY (con.)

Oh yes, there are three "the rest of the stories" involved with Shanghai.

First, I told you that Brodie needed a wheel chair to get around. What I didn't say was that he was originally a gymnast at Stanford University, who had an accident on the trampoline and broke his neck. Brodie, in addition to being an excellent programmer, one who has brought a wonderful program to millions around the world, is also a quadriplegic. He can only move his head, and even needs help breathing. But this doesn't stop him from working a full-time job, and from programming wonderful entertainment programs "in his spare time."

Shanghai was originally done by Brodie as a therapeutic exercise right after he had his accident. His commitment, courage, and ability to live with the facts of his life, has been a continual inspiration to me. I have had the privilege of being able to work with him many times over the years, in addition to Shanghai, he programmed Solitaire Royale on the Macintosh for us, and provided some exceptional graphics for Ishido. Brodie has been a good friend and associate, I thank God for the day I met him.

Second "rest of the story." I told you that I had problems getting the right people to program Shanghai for other computers. Well, the Macintosh version had been out almost three months before the IBM version was done. On the day that the "ship decision" was made, I received in the mail, unsolicited, an IBM version programmed by a Sophomore at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Michael Sandige. I put the disk into my computer and up came a version of Shanghai that, in many ways, was better than the one I had just decided to ship.

The letter said, "I saw the Macintosh version in the software store I work in, and I liked it so much, I took a month and put this IBM version together. My friends thought it was good enough for me to show to you, and that you might be interested in marketing it."

One month, and I had spent the first 3 months just trying to find someone with the skill needed to move it to the IBM. Well, after our lawyers wrote Michael a letter stating very clearly that his version should not be distributed to anyone in anyway, I decided to stay in touch with this young man who seemed to be so talented as a programmer. That association has been extremely rewarding also... but, that's another story.

Finally, Michael wasn't the only programmer to program his own version of this great game, it has been copied and distributed by the biggest software manufacturer in the world, Microsoft; they called their version Taipei. Others have tried to copy it, but Activision, has had good success in maintaining their copyright, so most of these versions are now off of the market.

Brodie's game, distributed by Activision, and a version by Publishing International called The Dragon (authorized by Activision and only sold in Japan) are the only ones that use the original rules. Microsoft changed the rules somewhat, to get by the copyright, and Activision was afraid to fight such a big company. While this is borderline legal, in my opinion it is completely immoral, and I believe that Microsoft should be held morally accountable. It is my hope that, if you own Taipei, or any version of Shanghai not authorized by Brodie Lockard or Activision, that you will throw it away and buy yourself a "morally correct" version at your local computer software store.

THE END