Eugene Jarvis, gamemaker (Defender, Robotron: 2084, Smash TV).

My guest today is the American video game designer and programmer Eugene Jarvis. Born in California, he studied computer science at Berkeley, where, in the basement of the physics laboratory, he played the early video game Spacewar. After graduating he worked for Hewlitt Packard, but quit after three days to join Atari, where he began programming for some of the first computerised pinball machines.

In the late seventies he joined Williams where he and a colleague came up with the idea for a side-scrolling arcade game set on an alien planet. Defender became a hit in the arcades; the game has grossed more than $1.5 billion since 1981. More hitsfollowed: Robotron 2084 –– the first twin-stick shooter -- Smash TV and Cruis’n USA. In 2008, my guest was named DePaul University's first Game Designer in Residence. He remains the only game-maker to have one of his creations featured on a U.S. postage stamp.

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