Steve Ritchie - The Atari Years

The Atari Years

After serving a stint in Vietnam and Alaska in the United States Coast Guard from 1968-1972, Ritchie joined Atari Inc. in 1974 and was employee number fifty and first worked on the assembly line as an electro-mechanical technician. Two years later, he was promoted to work at their fledgling pinball division, where he worked on his first game, Airborne Avenger. Ritchie earned the license to make a Superman pinball based on the Superman comic book, but in the final stages of production of the table, he received an offer from Williams Electronics, a major pinball company, that Ritchie could not refuse.