Originally an Atari employee, Carol Shaw is said to be the first female video game designer (for her unreleased Polo game in 1978, and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe game in 1979). Later she joined Activision, where she programmed her best known game, River Raid. According to the manual of River Raid, she is also a “scholar in the field of Computer Science.”
With Keith Brewster she worked on the Atari Basic Reference Manual.
Carol Shaw left Activision in 1984 after designing Happy Trails for the Intellivision and River Raid for the Atari 800 and Atari 5200. Her other credits include Checkers in 1981 and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe in 1980 for the Atari 2600. She also worked on Super Breakout. Shaw lives in California, and is now retired and married to Ralph Merkle, a researcher in nanotechnology.
Famous quotes containing the words carol, shaw and/or game:
“Then bowed down the highest tree
unto his mother’s hand;
Then she cried, “See, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.””
—Unknown. The Cherry-Tree Carol (l. 26–28)
“Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art ... is merely romantic fiction.... The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)