Richard Hallas

I do use a Mac primarily, yes, and still RISC OS too, some of the time. I only use Windows when I have to, because I really dislike it.
I do get frustrated, though, by the fact that so many of the emulators, editors and tools that I’d like to use are typically Windows only. Or Windows and Linux only, but never Mac. It’s though there’s a conspiracy only ever to support crap user interfaces! 😉
Nevertheless, there are still lots of options on the Mac, and plenty of Spectrum emulators (including two separate ports of Fuse).
When I want to use PC software I typically use Parallels Desktop, which is an absolutely fantastic product and typically just as fast as a real PC. Or there are several Wine-based alternatives that perform really well too; CrossOver is a good commercial option with a range of enhancements, but there are several free Wine-based options.
The complication of recent years, though, is the move from Intel to ARM in recent Apple Silicon Macs, as this has had ramifications in terms of PC emulation/virtualisation. Basically, it means that if you’re on a modern M-series Mac, then (a) you have to virtualise a recent ARM-based version of Windows under Parallels, and (b) a lot of the Wine-based options are Intel-only, so won’t work at all. But it could be worse. If you’re happy to use Windows 11 under virtualisation, then it’s likely to run everything you want, and as for Wine, CrossOver somehow still works (very well) on the latest M-chips – and new freeware options seem to keep appearing.
Of course, it would still be vastly preferable to have native tools on the Mac, so if John or anyone else were to build JSWED for the Mac, I’d be extremely interested.
At one point I did start making a half-hearted attempt to get JSWED working on the Mac myself. Unfortunately my personal circumstances these days are such that I have very little free time of my own in which to tinker, so I can’t say anything very useful about JSWED specifically, except that I’m sure it’d work in something like Parallels or CrossOver. But I’d love it if someone created a decent native port. If that happened, it’d probably give me the incentive to start on a new JSW game myself.

That’s interesting. In which case, the Eddie in question is Eddie Edwards, who wrote the original Archimedes ports of MM and JSW. (He’s still a Facebook friend of mine.) It’s a long time since I played them, so my memory is a bit hazy (and I don’t remember Eddie’s Forest at all, off the top of my head), but they were good ports. (Eddie later went on to write the Acorn 32-bit conversions of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. He also worked with Jon Ritman of Head Over Heels fame.) Eddie started out on a Dragon 32, which explains why his Archimedes version of JSW contains conversions of the extra screens from the Dragon version of the game.
Just thought you people here might be interested in these anecdotal details… 🙂
By the way, Darren Salt also ported MM and JSW to RISC OS (his own original implementation of JSW with inbuilt level editor, and a straight conversion of Andy Noble’s PC remake of MM), but these came later; Eddie Edwards’ versions were first, and had some unique features (including memorably good in-game background music in JSW).

I do use a Mac primarily, yes, and still RISC OS too, some of the time. I only use Windows when I have to, because I really dislike it.
I do get frustrated, though, by the fact that so many of the emulators, editors and tools that I’d like to use are typically Windows only. Or Windows and Linux only, but never Mac. It’s though there’s a conspiracy only ever to support crap user interfaces! 😉
Nevertheless, there are still lots of options on the Mac, and plenty of Spectrum emulators (including two separate ports of Fuse).
When I want to use PC software I typically use Parallels Desktop, which is an absolutely fantastic product and typically just as fast as a real PC. Or there are several Wine-based alternatives that perform really well too; CrossOver is a good commercial option with a range of enhancements, but there are several free Wine-based options.
The complication of recent years, though, is the move from Intel to ARM in recent Apple Silicon Macs, as this has had ramifications in terms of PC emulation/virtualisation. Basically, it means that if you’re on a modern M-series Mac, then (a) you have to virtualise a recent ARM-based version of Windows under Parallels, and (b) a lot of the Wine-based options are Intel-only, so won’t work at all. But it could be worse. If you’re happy to use Windows 11 under virtualisation, then it’s likely to run everything you want, and as for Wine, CrossOver somehow still works (very well) on the latest M-chips – and new freeware options seem to keep appearing.
Of course, it would still be vastly preferable to have native tools on the Mac, so if John or anyone else were to build JSWED for the Mac, I’d be extremely interested.
At one point I did start making a half-hearted attempt to get JSWED working on the Mac myself. Unfortunately my personal circumstances these days are such that I have very little free time of my own in which to tinker, so I can’t say anything very useful about JSWED specifically, except that I’m sure it’d work in something like Parallels or CrossOver. But I’d love it if someone created a decent native port. If that happened, it’d probably give me the incentive to start on a new JSW game myself.

A big THANKS and hats off to Andy (Spider) for fixing the site! He did it all by himself, both providing the upgraded software and performing the update. It feels good to be back. Thanks again, Andy! 👍 🙏  👏 🍾

Hi all,
I was browsing YouTube recently and came across a video that claimed to demo ALL the games ever published for the Camputers Lynx. Unfortunately it's in French, but never mind. It's broken into chapters and just shows a bitesized bit of gameplay for each game listed. (I'm really not convinced that it's actually complete, as claimed, not least because I know that there were at least three early Level 9 adventures for the machine, and I don't see any of them demoed here, but that's by the by…)
Anyway, to my great surprise, one of the included games is JSW! As published by Tynesoft rather than Software Projects (like the BBC versions), apparently. Until seeing this video, I'd no idea that there was a version of JSW for the Lynx. Indeed, I didn't know of any 'mainstream' games for it – but it turns out that there was a handful of 'big name' games for it, including, notably, Ultimate's Alien8, Melbourne House's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Mined Out! by Quicksilva, plus a few other familiar lesser ones like Oh Mummy. But the highlight for me was seeing a version of JSW that I'd never previously known existed.
Here's the video, with playback starting at the JSW segment:
JSW for Camputers Lynx on YouTube
As you can see, it's an 'interesting' version: plenty colourful, with quite authentic Spectrum-like graphics, but with some weird differences, such as Willy changing colour in each room (including the hard-to-see blue on black combination), and with AWFUL stepped staircases like in the Commodore 64 version. There's also weird corruption in the lower part of the screen (maybe an emulator issue, maybe not) and the in-game music sounds awful (like it sounds when you've lost multiple lives in the Specturm version, but from the outset here).
A quick search revels that the archive containing the game tape file (and, separately, a disked version) can be found here, in a forum thread:
JSW for Camputers Lynx in tape and disk formats
I don't have a conveniently set up emulator to try these out myself, but I thought I should mention the subject here in case it's useful information. I doubt I'm the only JSW fan who previously had no idea there was a Lynx version. (Shame there doesn't appear to be Manic Miner too.) I previously thought the most obscure versions of JSW were those for Memotech and Einstein machines, but I really didn't know of ANY commercial software for the Lynx until the other day.
UPDATE:
Hm, further investigations suggest that some of the big-name titles (notably Alien8, and probably the Melbourne House adventures from the way they look) may well be modern conversions from the Spectrum originals. I'm not entirely sure. However, the JSW conversion does appear to be authentic, from back in the day…

I agree – and it appears that that's what's probably happened with Alien8 and some other familiar titles.
But JSW? Surely that's authentic, isn't it? The scrolltext pictured in the video says that the Lynx port is by Tim Titchmarsh for Phoenixx Softwarre (note the double letters!), and it doesn't appear to be a straight port of any other existing version.
I've tried Googling Tim Titchmarsh in association with Phoenix/Phoenixx and Lynx, and I haven't found any results – which you'd imagine there probably would be if this were a modern conversion. But if it dates from 1984, it's obscure enough to not have been recorded online. Also, the forum poster who provided the tape (and credits the game to Tynesoft rather than Software Projects) refers to having gone through his "old" Lynx tapes and transferred them – and JSW was one of them. (Notably, the other possibly modern conversions, like Alien8, were not from this source.) He also mentions that the tapes are over 35 years old. This all certainly points to Lynx JSW being authentic from 1984.
Was it known about already by any members of this site, or is it new to all of us?
Whether it's really from 1984 or is a more modern conversion is immaterial in a sense, if it's a new platform that wasn't previously known either way; it's one more new version of JSW to catalogue either way. But it'd be quite nice to think that it's a new discovery of a previously unknown yet authentic 1984 conversion, as that'd make it one more platform for JSW to have appeared on back in the 80s.

I agree – and it appears that that's what's probably happened with Alien8 and some other familiar titles.
But JSW? Surely that's authentic, isn't it? The scrolltext pictured in the video says that the Lynx port is by Tim Titchmarsh for Phoenixx Softwarre (note the double letters!), and it doesn't appear to be a straight port of any other existing version.
I've tried Googling Tim Titchmarsh in association with Phoenix/Phoenixx and Lynx, and I haven't found any results – which you'd imagine there probably would be if this were a modern conversion. But if it dates from 1984, it's obscure enough to not have been recorded online. Also, the forum poster who provided the tape (and credits the game to Tynesoft rather than Software Projects) refers to having gone through his "old" Lynx tapes and transferred them – and JSW was one of them. (Notably, the other possibly modern conversions, like Alien8, were not from this source.) He also mentions that the tapes are over 35 years old. This all certainly points to Lynx JSW being authentic from 1984.
Was it known about already by any members of this site, or is it new to all of us?
Whether it's really from 1984 or is a more modern conversion is immaterial in a sense, if it's a new platform that wasn't previously known either way; it's one more new version of JSW to catalogue either way. But it'd be quite nice to think that it's a new discovery of a previously unknown yet authentic 1984 conversion, as that'd make it one more platform for JSW to have appeared on back in the 80s.

Hi all,
I was browsing YouTube recently and came across a video that claimed to demo ALL the games ever published for the Camputers Lynx. Unfortunately it's in French, but never mind. It's broken into chapters and just shows a bitesized bit of gameplay for each game listed. (I'm really not convinced that it's actually complete, as claimed, not least because I know that there were at least three early Level 9 adventures for the machine, and I don't see any of them demoed here, but that's by the by…)
Anyway, to my great surprise, one of the included games is JSW! As published by Tynesoft rather than Software Projects (like the BBC versions), apparently. Until seeing this video, I'd no idea that there was a version of JSW for the Lynx. Indeed, I didn't know of any 'mainstream' games for it – but it turns out that there was a handful of 'big name' games for it, including, notably, Ultimate's Alien8, Melbourne House's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Mined Out! by Quicksilva, plus a few other familiar lesser ones like Oh Mummy. But the highlight for me was seeing a version of JSW that I'd never previously known existed.
Here's the video, with playback starting at the JSW segment:
JSW for Camputers Lynx on YouTube
As you can see, it's an 'interesting' version: plenty colourful, with quite authentic Spectrum-like graphics, but with some weird differences, such as Willy changing colour in each room (including the hard-to-see blue on black combination), and with AWFUL stepped staircases like in the Commodore 64 version. There's also weird corruption in the lower part of the screen (maybe an emulator issue, maybe not) and the in-game music sounds awful (like it sounds when you've lost multiple lives in the Specturm version, but from the outset here).
A quick search revels that the archive containing the game tape file (and, separately, a disked version) can be found here, in a forum thread:
JSW for Camputers Lynx in tape and disk formats
I don't have a conveniently set up emulator to try these out myself, but I thought I should mention the subject here in case it's useful information. I doubt I'm the only JSW fan who previously had no idea there was a Lynx version. (Shame there doesn't appear to be Manic Miner too.) I previously thought the most obscure versions of JSW were those for Memotech and Einstein machines, but I really didn't know of ANY commercial software for the Lynx until the other day.
UPDATE:
Hm, further investigations suggest that some of the big-name titles (notably Alien8, and probably the Melbourne House adventures from the way they look) may well be modern conversions from the Spectrum originals. I'm not entirely sure. However, the JSW conversion does appear to be authentic, from back in the day…

Hi all,
I was browsing YouTube recently and came across a video that claimed to demo ALL the games ever published for the Camputers Lynx. Unfortunately it's in French, but never mind. It's broken into chapters and just shows a bitesized bit of gameplay for each game listed. (I'm really not convinced that it's actually complete, as claimed, not least because I know that there were at least three early Level 9 adventures for the machine, and I don't see any of them demoed here, but that's by the by…)
Anyway, to my great surprise, one of the included games is JSW! As published by Tynesoft rather than Software Projects (like the BBC versions), apparently. Until seeing this video, I'd no idea that there was a version of JSW for the Lynx. Indeed, I didn't know of any 'mainstream' games for it – but it turns out that there was a handful of 'big name' games for it, including, notably, Ultimate's Alien8, Melbourne House's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Mined Out! by Quicksilva, plus a few other familiar lesser ones like Oh Mummy. But the highlight for me was seeing a version of JSW that I'd never previously known existed.
Here's the video, with playback starting at the JSW segment:
JSW for Camputers Lynx on YouTube
As you can see, it's an 'interesting' version: plenty colourful, with quite authentic Spectrum-like graphics, but with some weird differences, such as Willy changing colour in each room (including the hard-to-see blue on black combination), and with AWFUL stepped staircases like in the Commodore 64 version. There's also weird corruption in the lower part of the screen (maybe an emulator issue, maybe not) and the in-game music sounds awful (like it sounds when you've lost multiple lives in the Specturm version, but from the outset here).
A quick search revels that the archive containing the game tape file (and, separately, a disked version) can be found here, in a forum thread:
JSW for Camputers Lynx in tape and disk formats
I don't have a conveniently set up emulator to try these out myself, but I thought I should mention the subject here in case it's useful information. I doubt I'm the only JSW fan who previously had no idea there was a Lynx version. (Shame there doesn't appear to be Manic Miner too.) I previously thought the most obscure versions of JSW were those for Memotech and Einstein machines, but I really didn't know of ANY commercial software for the Lynx until the other day.
UPDATE:
Hm, further investigations suggest that some of the big-name titles (notably Alien8, and probably the Melbourne House adventures from the way they look) may well be modern conversions from the Spectrum originals. I'm not entirely sure. However, the JSW conversion does appear to be authentic, from back in the day…

For what it's worth… I am Mr Scratcher. (It's just an old nickname that I sometimes use online.) I stumbled across Bob Fossil's conversion of Manic Miner 128 to .tap format and was delighted to find it. But on playing it through, I found that it crashed in Skylab Landing Bay. I contacted him to let him know about the problem, and this led to his creating the two nice new versions that we now have. (He gave me a decent real-name credit in his new Bug-Byte version's loader.) You can read the correspondence in its entirety on his dedicated blog page: The Fossil Record: Room for Improvements.

Thank you for this contribution, Richard! 🙂 

For what it's worth… I am Mr Scratcher. (It's just an old nickname that I sometimes use online.) I stumbled across Bob Fossil's conversion of Manic Miner 128 to .tap format and was delighted to find it. But on playing it through, I found that it crashed in Skylab Landing Bay. I contacted him to let him know about the problem, and this led to his creating the two nice new versions that we now have. (He gave me a decent real-name credit in his new Bug-Byte version's loader.) You can read the correspondence in its entirety on his dedicated blog page: The Fossil Record: Room for Improvements.

For what it's worth… I am Mr Scratcher. (It's just an old nickname that I sometimes use online.) I stumbled across Bob Fossil's conversion of Manic Miner 128 to .tap format and was delighted to find it. But on playing it through, I found that it crashed in Skylab Landing Bay. I contacted him to let him know about the problem, and this led to his creating the two nice new versions that we now have. (He gave me a decent real-name credit in his new Bug-Byte version's loader.) You can read the correspondence in its entirety on his dedicated blog page: The Fossil Record: Room for Improvements.

Apparently it is. 🙂

Just as a quick follow-up…

I finally got it! 🙂 My own Willy with crash helmet, as seen in Join the Jet-Set!. I requested the 'one foot in front of the other' pose, as I prefer it to the striding position.

Just as a quick follow-up…

I finally got it! 🙂 My own Willy with crash helmet, as seen in Join the Jet-Set!. I requested the 'one foot in front of the other' pose, as I prefer it to the striding position.

Just as a quick follow-up…

I finally got it! 🙂 My own Willy with crash helmet, as seen in Join the Jet-Set!. I requested the 'one foot in front of the other' pose, as I prefer it to the striding position.

Just as a quick follow-up…

I finally got it! 🙂 My own Willy with crash helmet, as seen in Join the Jet-Set!. I requested the 'one foot in front of the other' pose, as I prefer it to the striding position.

Greetings all,
I'm posting this at the suggestion/request of Spider.
Recently on Facebook, a guy called Alan Grier advertised some LED lamps he'd created that feature Miner Willy in his Jet-Set Willy guise. Here's the thread:
Facebook thread on JSW LED lamps
He'd only made five of them, and they all sold out within minutes. I was lucky enough to get the last one. However, he's making more. Should anyone here want one, it's probably best to approach him via Facebook (direct-message him). However, he divulges his email address on ordering, so I have that too. I don't want to publish his email in public here, but if necessary (e.g. if someone tries to contact him via Facebook and can't get through), contact me privately on this forum and I'll supply it.
The lamps cost £15 each, inclusive of everything (even postage via Hermes) – which seems like excellent value to me.
Here's mine, illuminated blue in a dark room at night with the other lights off:

It appears a little over-exposed here, but in real life it looks fantastic. It's illuminated from below by a row of LEDs, and they're surprisingly bright and distribute the light pretty evenly. If I were being picky, I could say that there's a slight dimming in the centre of Willy's head and a touch of extra reflected brightness at the top of his hat (which you can see in my photo), but that's being overly critical. It's not bad enough to worry about, and the lamp looks really great. Also, the lamp is bright enough to be very easily visible and solidly coloured in full daylight.
The lamp arrives as the plastic base unit and the clear perspex 'tongue' containing the engraved artwork, which just pushes into a slot and is then quite secure. (But also easily removed, if you happen to have more than one insert and want to swap them.) Also included is a USB cable and an infra-red remote control (with battery already included).
The engraved perspex tongue is very nice quality: extremely clear and ideal for its purpose. The base unit is just plastic and not especially high quality plastic, but it's perfectly fine for the job. It's maybe a little lightweight, but it's heavy enough to do its job, and won't blow over if you walk past it too fast!
The base unit can be powered by the USB cable or you can instead insert three AA batteries into a compartment underneath.
There's a touch-sensitive on/off control on the front (which you can see easily in my photo): holding a finger over it will power the lamp on/off, and touching it briefly will cycle through a series of steady colours.
For full control of the lamp, you need to use the infrared control unit, which offers a surprising range of options, as follows:
• On/off buttons.
• Brightness control buttons (seven levels, from 'clearly visible' to 'very bright', though the levels only appear to work with steady colours).
• Solid colours: White, plus three 'scales' from R to Y, G to C and B to M, each with three intermediate steps. In other words, there's a grid of colour buttons with RGB at one extreme and CMY (in the order YCM) at the other, and three intermediate buttons between each of those colour pairs. Plus White. So, there's a choice of 16 steady colours if you don't want the lamp to flash.
• Four animation effects: Flash, Strobe, Fade, Smooth. These all appear to work at full brightness only. Their effect is as follows:
† Flash: Makes the lamp rotate through the solid colours Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, White, spending about a second on each colour.
† Strobe: Same as Flash, except that it only uses the colours Red, Green and Blue. A bit boring.
† Fade: Makes the lamp cycle slowly through the same set and order of colours used by Flash mode, but this time slowly fading from one colour into the next. Each fade takes about four seconds (with one second spent in each colour-stop), so the lamp is constantly changing but in a very non-distracting way. Also, because the fades are so smooth, you get some nice colours along the way (e.g. on the way from Red to Green you get a brief orange and yellow). It looks really great.
† Smooth: This uses a similar fade effect to Fade mode (though faster, at only about two seconds), but it only alternates between two colours: pure white and deep blue. A bit boring, frankly.
So: two good animations and two ho-hum ones. Flash is good if you like flipping between seven solid colours; Fade is good if you prefer a slower and gentler fading version of the same thing.
I personally like Fade best: it's nice and gentle and non-distracting, but allows you to see the full range of lovely rich colours. (And they really are lovely and rich, especially red, which seems incredibly intense.)
As a final note, Alan Grier has reacted positively to the idea of doing alternate and/or custom designs. So I intend to get him to produce a version featuring Willy wearing a crash helmet, as designed by me for use in my own game, Join the Jet-Set!. If I do get such a version, I'll post a photo of it here.
Anyway, I think the lamp's great. I'm really pleased with mine and plan to leave it on all the time. I've got it plugged into my Mac and it continues to illuminate even when I've put the Mac to sleep, so it also acts as a night light during the small hours and possibly helps to avoid stumbles on the way to the toilet!

Yes, I definitely fancy a lamp with my JTJS version of Willy in it. 🙂 I may be the only person who'd want such a thing, but I think Alan Grier will make one for me; I mentioned the possibility when ordering the one I've got, and he reacted positively.
As for your animated illustration, yes, the cycling speed looks pretty similar. It's hard to judge a video like that against real life with LEDs, as they never seem to video as well as they look in real life, but I think the speed of fade is similar. Looking at my lamp in real life, the colours look more intense and the fading arguably smoother, but, as I say, it's probably to do with the video quality. Anyway, the colours produced by the lamp are certainly rich, intense and lovely.

Yes, I definitely fancy a lamp with my JTJS version of Willy in it. 🙂 I may be the only person who'd want such a thing, but I think Alan Grier will make one for me; I mentioned the possibility when ordering the one I've got, and he reacted positively.
As for your animated illustration, yes, the cycling speed looks pretty similar. It's hard to judge a video like that against real life with LEDs, as they never seem to video as well as they look in real life, but I think the speed of fade is similar. Looking at my lamp in real life, the colours look more intense and the fading arguably smoother, but, as I say, it's probably to do with the video quality. Anyway, the colours produced by the lamp are certainly rich, intense and lovely.

I realised, but it was still worth considering! 🙂

Concerning the ideas for alternative images in the lamp… looking at mine, it's clear that if the same of image size is retained, there's room for a 10×16-pixel design, though note that the curvature of the 'tongue' could potentially affect the top three rows of pixels, so these need to occupy less than the full width.
Doubtless it's possible to scale the designs down to fit more pixels in the available space, but still, it's clear that a tall (roughly 1.6:1) aspect ratio is going to work best.
Unfortunately, the 'pointing Maria' sprite is nearly square (14×16), so she'd have to be scaled down quite a bit and would come far short of the curved top of the tongue. It's the pointing arm that's the problem, of course; in her folded-arms guise she'd fit a little better, though she's still dumpy compared with Willy (12×16), so would have to be shorter.
Concerning the flying pig sprite, in its 'wing up' position it's actually 10×14 pixels, so that should work pretty well, though the top, curved part of the lamp will be largely empty. Also, it's an unfortunate fact that the top tip of the wing is a filled pixel just at the point where the lamp starts to curve, so fitting it in without clipping it may be a problem (assuming there's no scaling down), and even if it can be made to fit, it'll be very close to the edge of the perspex.
Anyway, I'm sure that Alan Grier would be open to doing custom designs if approached, and he'll obviously be able to tackle any practical difficulties there may be with particular designs. I plan to ask him to do me another one featuring my version of Willy with a crash helmet from Join the Jet-Set!. And I'd think that a Miner Willy variant (with miner's lamp) would definitely be on the cards, since it's as iconic as JSW.

Concerning the ideas for alternative images in the lamp… looking at mine, it's clear that if the same of image size is retained, there's room for a 10×16-pixel design, though note that the curvature of the 'tongue' could potentially affect the top three rows of pixels, so these need to occupy less than the full width.
Doubtless it's possible to scale the designs down to fit more pixels in the available space, but still, it's clear that a tall (roughly 1.6:1) aspect ratio is going to work best.
Unfortunately, the 'pointing Maria' sprite is nearly square (14×16), so she'd have to be scaled down quite a bit and would come far short of the curved top of the tongue. It's the pointing arm that's the problem, of course; in her folded-arms guise she'd fit a little better, though she's still dumpy compared with Willy (12×16), so would have to be shorter.
Concerning the flying pig sprite, in its 'wing up' position it's actually 10×14 pixels, so that should work pretty well, though the top, curved part of the lamp will be largely empty. Also, it's an unfortunate fact that the top tip of the wing is a filled pixel just at the point where the lamp starts to curve, so fitting it in without clipping it may be a problem (assuming there's no scaling down), and even if it can be made to fit, it'll be very close to the edge of the perspex.
Anyway, I'm sure that Alan Grier would be open to doing custom designs if approached, and he'll obviously be able to tackle any practical difficulties there may be with particular designs. I plan to ask him to do me another one featuring my version of Willy with a crash helmet from Join the Jet-Set!. And I'd think that a Miner Willy variant (with miner's lamp) would definitely be on the cards, since it's as iconic as JSW.

Greetings all,
I'm posting this at the suggestion/request of Spider.
Recently on Facebook, a guy called Alan Grier advertised some LED lamps he'd created that feature Miner Willy in his Jet-Set Willy guise. Here's the thread:
Facebook thread on JSW LED lamps
He'd only made five of them, and they all sold out within minutes. I was lucky enough to get the last one. However, he's making more. Should anyone here want one, it's probably best to approach him via Facebook (direct-message him). However, he divulges his email address on ordering, so I have that too. I don't want to publish his email in public here, but if necessary (e.g. if someone tries to contact him via Facebook and can't get through), contact me privately on this forum and I'll supply it.
The lamps cost £15 each, inclusive of everything (even postage via Hermes) – which seems like excellent value to me.
Here's mine, illuminated blue in a dark room at night with the other lights off:

It appears a little over-exposed here, but in real life it looks fantastic. It's illuminated from below by a row of LEDs, and they're surprisingly bright and distribute the light pretty evenly. If I were being picky, I could say that there's a slight dimming in the centre of Willy's head and a touch of extra reflected brightness at the top of his hat (which you can see in my photo), but that's being overly critical. It's not bad enough to worry about, and the lamp looks really great. Also, the lamp is bright enough to be very easily visible and solidly coloured in full daylight.
The lamp arrives as the plastic base unit and the clear perspex 'tongue' containing the engraved artwork, which just pushes into a slot and is then quite secure. (But also easily removed, if you happen to have more than one insert and want to swap them.) Also included is a USB cable and an infra-red remote control (with battery already included).
The engraved perspex tongue is very nice quality: extremely clear and ideal for its purpose. The base unit is just plastic and not especially high quality plastic, but it's perfectly fine for the job. It's maybe a little lightweight, but it's heavy enough to do its job, and won't blow over if you walk past it too fast!
The base unit can be powered by the USB cable or you can instead insert three AA batteries into a compartment underneath.
There's a touch-sensitive on/off control on the front (which you can see easily in my photo): holding a finger over it will power the lamp on/off, and touching it briefly will cycle through a series of steady colours.
For full control of the lamp, you need to use the infrared control unit, which offers a surprising range of options, as follows:
• On/off buttons.
• Brightness control buttons (seven levels, from 'clearly visible' to 'very bright', though the levels only appear to work with steady colours).
• Solid colours: White, plus three 'scales' from R to Y, G to C and B to M, each with three intermediate steps. In other words, there's a grid of colour buttons with RGB at one extreme and CMY (in the order YCM) at the other, and three intermediate buttons between each of those colour pairs. Plus White. So, there's a choice of 16 steady colours if you don't want the lamp to flash.
• Four animation effects: Flash, Strobe, Fade, Smooth. These all appear to work at full brightness only. Their effect is as follows:
† Flash: Makes the lamp rotate through the solid colours Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, White, spending about a second on each colour.
† Strobe: Same as Flash, except that it only uses the colours Red, Green and Blue. A bit boring.
† Fade: Makes the lamp cycle slowly through the same set and order of colours used by Flash mode, but this time slowly fading from one colour into the next. Each fade takes about four seconds (with one second spent in each colour-stop), so the lamp is constantly changing but in a very non-distracting way. Also, because the fades are so smooth, you get some nice colours along the way (e.g. on the way from Red to Green you get a brief orange and yellow). It looks really great.
† Smooth: This uses a similar fade effect to Fade mode (though faster, at only about two seconds), but it only alternates between two colours: pure white and deep blue. A bit boring, frankly.
So: two good animations and two ho-hum ones. Flash is good if you like flipping between seven solid colours; Fade is good if you prefer a slower and gentler fading version of the same thing.
I personally like Fade best: it's nice and gentle and non-distracting, but allows you to see the full range of lovely rich colours. (And they really are lovely and rich, especially red, which seems incredibly intense.)
As a final note, Alan Grier has reacted positively to the idea of doing alternate and/or custom designs. So I intend to get him to produce a version featuring Willy wearing a crash helmet, as designed by me for use in my own game, Join the Jet-Set!. If I do get such a version, I'll post a photo of it here.
Anyway, I think the lamp's great. I'm really pleased with mine and plan to leave it on all the time. I've got it plugged into my Mac and it continues to illuminate even when I've put the Mac to sleep, so it also acts as a night light during the small hours and possibly helps to avoid stumbles on the way to the toilet!