Malcolm Evans is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 computer game programmer

Game programmer

A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...

, best known for his games 3D Monster Maze

3D Monster Maze

3D Monster Maze is a computer game developed from an idea by J.K.Greye and programmed by Malcolm Evans in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX81 platform with the 16 KB memory expansion. The game was initially released by J. K. Greye Software in early 1982 and re-released later the same year by...

for the Sinclair ZX81

Sinclair ZX81

The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...

 and Trashman

Trashman (computer game)

Trashman is a computer game developed by Malcolm Evans for the ZX Spectrum and released by New Generation Software in 1984. Later the same year, it was followed by Travel with Trashman. The third game in the series, Trashman Through Time, was never completed...

for the ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

, released in 1982

1982 in video gaming

-Events:* December 27 - Starcade, a video game television game show, debuts on TBS in the United States.-Notable releases:*October 13 - Mystique releases the Custer's Revenge adult video game for the Atari 2600 home console....

 and 1984

1984 in video gaming

-Notable releases:* May 10, King's Quest , the first animated adventure game, the first in the King's Quest series, and the first to use the AGI engine.* June 4, Nintendo releases Donkey Kong 3...

 respectively.

He and his twin brother, Rod, were born in Romford

Romford

Romford is a large suburban town in north east London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan...

, but his family soon moved to Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

. He has a B.Sc.

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 in electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

 from Portsmouth Polytechnic

University of Portsmouth

The University of Portsmouth is a university in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The University was ranked 60th out of 122 in The Sunday Times University Guide...

 and joined Marconi

Marconi Electronic Systems

Marconi Electronic Systems , or GEC-Marconi as it was until 1998, was the defence arm of The General Electric Company . It was demerged from GEC and acquired by British Aerospace on November 30, 1999 to form BAE Systems...

, where he worked on high-powered projects, such as satellite technology. Then in the mid-70s he moved to work for Smiths Aviation, where he designed hardware to implement computer control systems for jet engine

Jet engine

A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

s.

In 1979 he moved again, to Sperry Gyroscope

Sperry Corporation

Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century...

 in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, where he joined its micro-processor applications group. There he found himself using Zilog Z80

Zilog Z80

The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...

 and Intel 8088

Intel 8088

The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...

 machine code

Machine code

Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit. Each instruction performs a very specific task, typically either an operation on a unit of data Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions...

 language for small applications of a classified nature for the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

. The Bristol factory was closed in 1981 but by then Malcolm had received a ZX81 from his wife, Linda, for his thirty-seventh birthday in April 1981. Malcolm developed 3D Monster Maze to test what the computer was capable of, and completed it by November.

At a Bath Classical Guitar & Lute Society meeting in 1981 Evans met John K. Greye who had set up J. K. Greye Software a year previously, and who now asked Evans to join the company. They produced several computer games for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

. In the spring of 1982, Evans split up the company and founded his own company, New Generation Software

New Generation Software

New Generation Software was a firm famous for the computer games with innovative graphics it produced for the Sinclair ZX81 and ZX Spectrum computers. It was conceived in the spring of 1982 shortly after the lead developer, Malcolm Evans created 3D Monster Maze New Generation Software was a firm...

 (based on an Ad Slogan by J.K.Greye), which continued to produce games for the ZX Spectrum and pioneer the 3D gaming industry.