Who programmed these Atari (made) games?

[Scott Stilphen]

Looking through the latest DP guide, there's still quite a few titles that lack any programmer names, but there's only 5 pre-80 titles:

 

Circus Atari

Code Breaker

Human Cannonball

Miniature Golf

Space War

 

Anyone know who programmed them?

[RCorcoran]

Scott:

 

I'll dig into my tome of information and see if I can get some info for you on some (or all) of these.

[RCorcoran]

I have not been able to find any solid info on any of these titles. However, when you consider who was at Atari at the time, it's a very short list...

 

Nolan Bushnell - Founder of Atari

Al Alcorn - Co-Founder of Atari

Joe Decuir - Atari 2600 designer

Steve Mayer - Atari 2600 designer

Ron Milner - Atari 2600 designer

Jay Miner (archival footage) - Atari 2600 designer

David Crane - Pitfall, Freeway

Larry Wagner - Initial programming team leader

Larry Kaplan - Air-Sea Battle, Bowling

---

Al Miller - Surround, Basketball, Starmaster

David Crane - Canyon Bomber, Dragster, Pitfall, Pitfall II

Larry Kaplan - Air-Sea battle, Kaboom

Carol Shaw - Polo, River Raid

Larry Wagner - Video Chess

Bob Smith - Riddle of the Sphinx, Dragonfire

Dennis Koble - Comments about Easter Eggs

Tod Frye - Pac-Man, Save Mary

Rick Maurer - Space Invaders

Rob Fulop - Night Driver, Missile Command, Demon Attack

Steve DeFrisco - Secret Quest, Motorodeo, Klax

 

(excerpt above taken from Cyberpunks website (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1698/cyberpunks/). Used without permission) --- for all you copyright people out there...

[RCorcoran]

A possibility...

 

Name: Circus Atari

Company: Atari

Model #: CX-2630

Programmer: Mike Lorenzen

Year: 1978

Released? Yes

Notes: Based of the Exidy arcade game Circus

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/c...circusatari.htm

[RCorcoran]

Scott:

 

I've had no luck with locating the other 4. Anyone else have any light they'd like to shed on these?

[mos6507]

I think Space War might have been Bob Whitehead. I know he did Star Ship.

 

There were several 1st gen 2600 programmers besides the well-known ones.

 

There is a list of them in Larry Wagner's production notes that were scanned and put into the Stella CD v.2.

[slapdash]

I think Space War might have been Bob Whitehead.  I know he did Star Ship.

 

I have Ian Shepard listed as programming Space War on my 2600 list, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure where that came from -- probably mentioned by someone I talked to years ago... I might still have notes somewhere, but... er...

[Tempest]

I'll look into these as well. I know Mike Lorenzen is correct for Circus Atari as I got the information from a very reliable source.

 

Tempest