FROM THE ARCHIVES NEXUS

After gaining their engineering degrees in 1983, Paul Voysey and Tayo Olowu learned to program in machine code and wrote a sci-fi strategy game for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 called Psytron, released by EMAP-owned publisher Beyond to much acclaim in 1984.

Buoyed by that debut success, the co-authors produced a second game for Beyond called Psi-Warrior, a more action-oriented effort for the Commodore 64. They then began working on their next game, again for the Commodore. However, decisions made elsewhere within EMAP meant that Beyond was soon sold to British Telecom, which had its own successful software labels. BT paid a cool £1,000,000 in September 1985 for Beyond, but that decision came like a bolt out of the blue to Bill Delaney, who was running Beyond at the time.

Paul and Tayo were not at all happy with the situation, having concerns over the implications of the sale. They did not have to switch allegiance to BT, and so they chose to continue developing their new game called NEXUS independently and find a publisher later on.

Much like his fellow colleagues at Beyond, Bill was equally unhappy at the prospect of moving over to BT and so he and Clive