Anyone around who was at NEC, TTI, or any of the 3rd parties?

[turbog]

It must have been great fun to be able to play all the games first.
I wonder where they are now, and if they're still playing these games. 

[storino03]

Some may be, others, probably moved on and thought of their job at the company as being just a job. But really, who knows.

[vestcoat]

We've had at least two NEC employees come through here in the last couple years.

Turbogirl posted the tale of her job interview and experience working on the tip line one summer here

I don't remember what exactly Malicedoom did, you can look at his posts here.

Also see Aaron Nanto's interview with Steve TTI/TZD on the main page. I believe an interview with WD's Victor Ireland was recently posted in the general chat.

[_joshuaTurbo]

One member here 'Torgo' was actually a game tester for TTi.  Had lengthy chats with him back in the day, and even created a poor quality interview with him here:

[ParanoiaDragon]

BITD, I got to know TTI's sercretary in their final days, she even gave me some free games & gear.  A couple of the games were pressed cd's, that just had info written in marker.  I eventually lost contact with her.  Her name was Eun Lopez, though,  I recall talking to someone years later at TZD, & they said they heard she cheated on her husband & they got divorced, & I don't recall what her maiden name was, so I wouldn't know how to even find her.

[turbog]

How can I get in touch with turbogirl today? Does anyone have her contact info?

[Firebomber7]

DragonMasterDan has had some interesting chats with someone. You'd have to ask him about it.

[henrycsc]

I've talked to both MaliceDoom and TurboGirl.  I pointed them both here since they were both surprised that there was still an active Turbo community.  They were both game testers for NEC in Illinois before they let go of the Turbo.  I met them at different times, and found out that they actually knew each other from those days.

TurboGirl told me of the days when NEC was closing shop.  They threw away much of the Turbo Gear that didn't sell.  The employees were allowed to take what they want & she grabbed up some of the goodies.  Must have been a sad time.

Malicedoom had some sweet EPROM hueys (including Bonkinator, TV Sports Baseball - which unfortunately did not work, and several others) that were given to him by the widow of another former employee.  I'm guessing the protosharks got to him.  Bonkinator is an early name for Air Zonk, and was probably either one of the last games NEC America touched, or one of the first that TTI handled.  He didn't recognize the game from the title screen, so I'm guessing they didn't even get to play test it.