Early Years
De Margheriti experimented with CB-Radios and electronics early as a young teenager. During his senior years at Hawker College De Margheriti co-created an amateur 8mm science fiction film after watching the first “Star Wars : Episode 4” film. During the development of his amateur film, he co-developed a robotics system that would enable him to film complex stop-motion animation footage of large scale spaceship models. His need to create scrolling film credits led him to discover computers as a tool. The film involved dozens of actors and as a result, De Margheriti gained his first taste in management working with actors and prop builders. During filming he met Steve Wang which would later form the basis of a longstanding business association. When he was eleven De Margheriti experimented with making computer games independently. He wrote his first computer game called “Maze” on a PDP-11 and his peer, Steve Wang developed a computer game called “Caves”, also on a PDP-11 computer.
After college, De Margheriti went on to study electrical engineering at the University of New South Wales . His peer and good friend Steve Wang also went on to study at UNSW in the field of computer science. Together they devoted much of their time during university hours to developing computer games interview. They pooled their money to purchase a Commodore PET . During this time John also met Stephen Lewis and he joined the group, helping make games on the Commodore PET.
The most memorable game that they developed during university years was made for the Commodore 64. Whilst working part time at a computer store in Randwick to put himself through university, De Margheriti met who was interested in finding a person who could develop a computer game based on the recent Australian win of the Americas Cup 12m sailing. After a conversation with Gerlach, John approached his friends at the university and pulled together a team including Steve Wang, Stephen Lewis and John Reidy capable of developing the simulation game.
The team spent 72 hours straight developing a demo, pitched it to Armchair Entertainment and won a contract to develop the Americas Cup Sailing Simulation game for the Commodore 64 and Amstrad which was ultimately developed and then sold to Electronic Arts. They named their company Micro Forté as it was the “opposite” of Microsoft . The “Micro” name also signified the use of micro computers and that they were a small group of friends each with a different “Forte” or strength.
Soon after starting to develop their first game, Steve and Stephen tactfully told John that his true strength was not programming but managing and winning new projects for the fledgling group. This “truth” ultimately saw De Margheriti become the entrepreneur and visionary for a group of profit and not for profit companies that have offices around the globe.
In addition to the Americas Cup Sailing Simulation, De Margheriti went on to program two other of games for Electronic Arts including Demon Stalkers and Fireking for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC, which was later released by Sydney based Strategic Studies Group (SSG) http://www.ssg.com.au/
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