Bob Whitehead

Bob Whitehead is an American video game designer and programmer. He is one of the pioneers of the video game industry.

Career

Whitehead worked in the late 1970s for the company Atari, where he developed games for the Atari 2600 console. Among these titles were as Chess and other games that were not feasible actually in their complex structure on the game technically limited game console Atari 2600. Like some other game developers at Atari Whitehead felt treated unfairly at Atari; For example, there could not be called the name of the developer of a game. Whitehead left with other colleagues ( Alan Miller, David Crane and Larry Kaplan ) Atari and founded in 1979 together with them the company Activision to develop there games for video game consoles.

When Activision Whitehead developed together with other employees, a development system for the Atari 2600 console, which among other things included a debugger and was functional only in conjunction with a minicomputer. This system was used to develop the most games by Activision for the Atari 2600 console. Whitehead developed provided in the console system for the system and the venetian blinds - animation technique that used sprites made ​​several times, so that within a game more sprites could be used as originally. This technique is also still very often used in the development of games.

In 1984, Whitehead and other founders of Activision with the company's policy not agree more. The share prices of Activision had plummeted and morale within the company was poor. Whitehead was convinced that such a development would have to go to the successful market of home computers, such as the C64, more success. So he and Alan Miller left the company and founded Accolade. A little later, Whitehead was working in the video game industry altogether. Ironically, Accolade was soon bought by the company Infogrames, which shortly thereafter transformed its name to Atari.

Video Games by Bob Whitehead

Atari 2600

• Home Run (Atari )
• Football ( Atari )
• Blackjack (Atari )
• Casino (Atari )
• Star Ship (Atari )
• Video Chess (Atari )
• Boxing ( Activision )
• Stampede ( Activision )
• Chopper Command ( Activision )
• Private Eye ( Activision )
• Skiing ( Activision )
• Sky Jinks ( Activision )

Commodore 64

• 4th & Inches ( Accolade )
• Hardball ( Accolade )