Bulletin 1000

On the corner of Notting Hill Gate, in the fashionable Kensington and Chelsea area of London you would have found the offices of Bulletin 1000. This was a company that produced VHS videos to help software publishers promote their latest releases to the various retailers who stocked computer games back in the mid-80s and early 1990s.

The videos were sent out at regular intervals to both the larger chains (like WHSMith, Woolworths and John Menzies) and the smaller independent retailers who had added computer games to their portfolio from an early stage.

The first three videos produced by Bulletin 1000 featured an on-screen presenter, but this approach was dropped in favour of a 100% game footage with voice-over format after retailers reported that customers lost interest and walked away when the presenter appeared!

I can clearly remember being couped up within their small offices, playing the latest versions of our games for the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. We would spend an hour or two playing and simultaneously recording the footage, followed by another hour or so sitting down and watching a time-coded VHS tape and choosing the footage we wanted to keep by noting down the in and out points via the time-code.

The trip from Telecomsoft to Bulletin 1000 was fairly easy - just a quick hop onto the Central Line tube from Tottenham Court Road to Notting Hill Gate, then a few minutes walk down Notting Hill Gate road.