Carol Shaw

Last updated
Carol Shaw
Carol Shaw Holding Gold River Raid Cartridge (cropped).jpg
Shaw in 1983
Born1955 (age 68–69)
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Occupation(s)Computer programmer
Video game designer
Years active1978–1990
Known for River Raid (Atari 2600)
Spouse
​
(m. 1983)​

Carol Shaw (born 1955) is one of the first female game designers and programmers in the video game industry.[ citation needed ] She is best known for creating the Atari 2600 vertically scrolling shooter game River Raid (1982) for Activision. She worked for Atari, Inc. from 1978 to 1980, where she designed multiple games including 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (1978) and Video Checkers (1980), [1] both for the Atari VCS before it was renamed to the 2600. She left game development in 1984 and retired in 1990.

Contents

Early life and education

Shaw was born in 1955 and was raised in Palo Alto, California. [2] Her father was a mechanical engineer and worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In a 2011 interview, she said she did not like playing with dolls as a child but learned about model railroading from playing with her brother's set, a hobby she continued until college. [2]

Shaw first used a computer in high school and discovered she could play text-based games on the system. Shaw attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1977. She later completed a master's degree in computer science at Berkeley. [2]

Career

Atari, Inc.

Immediately after earning her Master's degree in 1978, Shaw was hired at Atari, Inc. to work on games for the Atari VCS (later called the 2600) with the title of Microprocessor Software Engineer. [2] Her first project was Polo, a promotional tie-in for the Ralph Lauren cologne. [3] The game reached the prototype stage, but Atari chose not to publish it.

Shaw's first published game was 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe for the Atari 2600 in 1978. She also wrote Video Checkers (1980) and collaborated on two titles: a port of the coin-op game Super Breakout with Nick Turner and Othello with Ed Logg (1981). [4] Co-worker Mike Albaugh later put her on a list of Atari's "less publicized superstars":

I would have to include Carol Shaw, who was simply the best programmer of the 6502 and probably one of the best programmers period....in particular, [she] did the [2600] kernels, the tricky bit that actually gets the picture on the screen for a number of games that she didn't fully do the games for. She was the go-to gal for that sort of stuff. [5]

Shaw worked on several projects for the Atari 8-bit computers. With Keith Brewster, she wrote the Atari BASIC Reference Manual . [6] She developed the programmable Calculator application, published by Atari on floppy disk in 1981. [7]

Activision

Platinum River Raid cartridge, awarded June 27, 1983, for sales of 1,000,000 units Platinum River Raid Cartridge.jpg
Platinum River Raid cartridge, awarded June 27, 1983, for sales of 1,000,000 units

Shaw left Atari in 1980 to work for Tandem Computers as an assembly language programmer, [8] then joining Activision in 1982. [2] Her first game was River Raid (1982) for the Atari 2600, which was inspired by the 1981 arcade game Scramble . [2] The game was a major hit for Activision and personally lucrative for Shaw. [2]

Shaw also wrote Happy Trails (1983) for the Intellivision and ported River Raid to the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari 5200. [8] She left Activision in 1984.

After games

In 1984 Shaw returned to Tandem. She took early retirement in 1990 and subsequently did some voluntary work including a position at the Foresight Institute. She has credited the success of River Raid as being a significant factor in enabling her to retire early. [2]

In 2017, Shaw received the Industry Icon Award at The Game Awards. [9] In the same year, she donated her gaming memorabilia, including games, boxes, source code, and designs, to the Strong National Museum of Play. [8]

Personal life

Shaw lives in California and has been married to Ralph Merkle, a researcher in cryptography and nanotechnology, since 1983. [10] [2] They are signed up for cryopreservation with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. [11]

Works

Atari 2600

Intellivision

Atari 8-bit computers

Unreleased

Publications

Related Research Articles

<i>Kaboom!</i> (video game) 1981 action game

Kaboom! is an action video game published in 1981 by Activision for the Atari 2600. The game involves a Mad Bomber dropping bombs at increasing speeds as the player controls a set of water buckets to catch them. The gameplay was based on the Atari arcade video game Avalanche (1978). Kaboom! was programmed by Larry Kaplan with David Crane coding the graphics for the buckets and Mad Bomber. It was the last game designed by Kaplan for Activision, who left the company shortly after it was released. The game was later ported by Paul Wilson for the Atari 5200 system.

Alan Miller is an American video game designer who was the co-founder of the video game company Activision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3D tic-tac-toe</span> Abstract strategy game

3D tic-tac-toe, also known by the trade name Qubic, is an abstract strategy board game, generally for two players. It is similar in concept to traditional tic-tac-toe but is played in a cubical array of cells, usually 4×4×4. Players take turns placing their markers in blank cells in the array. The first player to achieve four of their own markers in a row wins. The winning row can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal on a single board as in regular tic-tac-toe, or vertically in a column, or a diagonal line through four boards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TV Boy</span> Dedicated console and clone of the Atari 2600

The TV Boy, and its successors TV Boy II and Super TV Boy, are handheld TV games sold by many different companies, including Systema, Akor, and NICS, based upon an unlicensed clone of Atari 2600 hardware. They were released around 1992 and three years later, an improved version of the TV Boy 2, the Super TV Boy, was also made by Akor. They were widely available across Europe. In the UK, they were most visibly available through Argos.

<i>Starmaster</i> 1982 video game

Starmaster is a video game written for the Atari 2600 by Alan Miller and published in June 1982 by Activision. The game involves the player travelling through space attacking enemy starfighters who are invading starbases. The player traverses through a map called the galactic chart to destroy all the enemies and survive against oncoming enemy attacks and crashing with meteors.

<i>Golf</i> (Atari 2600 video game) 1980 video game

Golf is a 1980 sports video game programmed by Michael Lorenzen for Atari, Inc. and the Atari 2600. It is based on the traditional sport of golf. The game allows one or two players to play nine holes of the game, featuring various obstacles.

<i>River Raid</i> 1982 video game

River Raid is a 1982 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Activision for the Atari 2600. Designed by Carol Shaw, the player controls a fighter jet over the River of No Return in a raid behind enemy lines. The goal is to navigate the flight by destroying enemy tankers, helicopters, fuel depots and bridges without running out of fuel or crashing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atari Flashback</span> Line of dedicated video game consoles

The Atari Flashback is a line of dedicated video game consoles produced since 2004, currently designed, produced, published and marketed by AtGames under license from Atari SA. The Flashback consoles are "plug-and-play" versions of the 1970s Atari 2600 console with built-in games rather than using ROM cartridges. The latest home console model, Atari Flashback 12 Gold, was released in 2023 and has 130 games.

Larry Kaplan is an American video game designer and video game programmer.

<i>Beamrider</i> 1983 video game

Beamrider is a fixed shooter written for the Intellivision by David Rolfe and published by Activision in 1983. The game was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and MSX.

<i>Megamania</i> 1982 video game

Megamania is a fixed shooter video game developed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600. It was published by Activision in 1982. In the game, a pilot of an intergalactic space cruiser has a nightmare where his ship is being attacked by food and household objects. Using the missile launcher from their space cruiser, the pilot fends off the attackers. The game was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers.

<i>Avalanche</i> (video game) 1978 video game

Avalanche is an arcade video game designed by Dennis Koble and released by Atari, Inc. in 1978. The object is to catch falling rocks with a controllable set of paddles that diminish in number and size as the rocks fall faster and faster. The concept gained a much wider audience after Activision released an unauthorized adaptation in 1981 as Kaboom! for the Atari 2600. The only official home port of Avalanche is for Atari 8-bit computers.

<i>The Activision Decathlon</i> 1983 video game

The Activision Decathlon is a sports video game written by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 5200, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, and MSX. Up to four players compete in the ten different events of a real-life decathlon, either in sequence or individually.

<i>Dandy</i> (video game) 1983 video game

Dandy is a dungeon crawl maze video game for Atari 8-bit computers published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1983. It is one of the first video games with four-player, simultaneous cooperative play. Players equipped with bows and unlimited arrows fight through a maze containing monsters, monster spawners, keys, locked doors, food, and bombs in search of the exit leading to the next level. If a player dies, they can be revived by finding and shooting a heart. The game includes an editor for making new dungeons.

<i>Video Chess</i> 1979 video game

Video Chess is a chess game for the Atari VCS programmed by Larry Wagner and Bob Whitehead and released by Atari in 1979. Both programmers later developed games for Activision.

Carla Meninsky is a former video game designer and programmer active during the early years of the Atari VCS. Along with Carol Shaw, Meninsky was one of three female engineers at Atari, Inc. to develop video game cartridges. She later became an intellectual property lawyer.

<i>Spider Fighter</i> 1982 video game

Spider Fighter is a fixed shooter designed by Larry Miller for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1982. The game is a re-themed version of the arcade video game Stratovox. The object of Spider Fighter is to protect an orchard containing fruit—grapes, strawberries, oranges, and bananas—from four kinds of bugs.

<i>Othello</i> (1980 video game) 1980 video game for the Atari 2600

Othello is a 1980 video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for its Atari Video Computer System. It is based on the variant of Reversi of the same name, originally created in 1971. The VCS game was programmed by Ed Logg and Carol Shaw.

<i>Video Checkers</i> 1980 game for Atari 2600

Video Checkers is a video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. in 1980 for the Atari VCS, renamed to Atari 2600.

References

  1. ↑ Suellentrop, Chris (19 August 2014). "Saluting the Women Behind the Screen". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "VC&G Interview: Carol Shaw, The First Female Video Game Developer".
  3. 1 2 "Polo". AtariProtos.com.
  4. ↑ Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
  5. ↑ Spicer, Dag (November 12, 2012). "Mike Albaugh Interview" (PDF). Computer History Museum.
  6. ↑ Atari BASIC and PET Microsoft BASIC. A BASIC Comparison by Joretta Klepfer cites the draft as a source.
  7. 1 2 "Calculator". Atari Mania.
  8. 1 2 3 Marie, Meagan (2018). Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play. Dorling Kindersley. p. 27. ISBN   978-0241395066.
  9. ↑ Alexander, Jem (8 December 2017). "Carol Shaw awarded 'Industry Icon' honour at The Game Awards". Develop . Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  10. ↑ Ralph C. Merkle. "biography". ralphmerkle.com. Retrieved 28 January 2024. My wife is Carol Shaw
  11. ↑ Taya Maki (2022). "Notable Women in Cryonics" (PDF). Cryonics. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Atari 2600 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe", Atari Mania
  13. ↑ "Atari 2600 Othello", Atari Mania
  14. ↑ "Atari 2600 Video Checkers", Atari Mania
  15. ↑ "Atari 2600 River Raid", Atari Mania
  16. ↑ Shaw, Carol (18 April 1980). Atari BASIC BNF - Backus–Naur Form (Inter-office memo). Atari.
  17. ↑ Edwards, Benj (12 October 2011). "VC&G Interview: Carol Shaw, Atari's First Female Video Game Developer". They had a manual for Atari BASIC [for the Atari 800] and somebody wrote sort of a cutesy manual that was supposed to be very humorous, but it had a lot of technical errors in it. I ended up rewriting the manual. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
  18. ↑ "Compute!'s First Book of Atari". www.atariarchives.org. Retrieved 2024-09-11. Carol Shaw, Keith Brewster. BASIC REFERENCE MANUAL. draft, Atari, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (1979)
  19. ↑ "Women in tech: The groundbreaking career of video game pioneer Carol Shaw". blog.avast.com. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.