Carol Shaw

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Carol Shaw (* 1955 in Palo Alto , California ) is an American game programmer. She is considered the first female computer game developer when she developed and published the computer game 3D Tic-Tac-Toe for the Atari 2600 game console in 1979 . Shaw studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1977 . When Atari entered the home computer market, she worked with Keith Brewster on the Atari Basic Reference Manual.

In 1979 she wrote the Calculator program for Atari, which was only published in the United States and in small numbers, and which at the time introduced completely unattainable standards in mathematical calculations. It could do calculations that even the most expensive calculators of the day could not do. It was able to save the variable memory separately from the program memory. Even decades later, this is still not possible on modern pocket calculators. It also mastered three calculation modes and was able to carry out both scientific and financial calculations. Only with the advent of spreadsheet programs such as Visicalc , Lotus 1-2-3 , Microsoft Excel , as well as formula manipulation systems such as Mathematica , Maple or Mathcad was it exceeded in its possibilities.

In the early 1980s she moved to Activision . It was there that she wrote her best-known game, River Raid , alongside titles like Happy Trails. In 1984 she left Activision, then worked at Tandem Computers until 1990 and then retired from professional life. Shaw lives in California and is married to Ralph Merkle , a researcher in nanotechnology .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Benjamin Edwards: VC&G Interview: Carol Shaw, Female Video Game Pioneer. Retrieved September 4, 2014 .
  2. ^ Atari BASIC and PET Microsoft BASIC. A BASIC Comparison. Retrieved September 4, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Roland B. Wassenberg: Atari Calculator - Or how a program finally came to Europe after more than 30 years . In: ABBUC - AtariBit Byter User Club, 4/2012, also online
  4. ↑ Ralph C. Merkle. Retrieved September 14, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Shaw, Carol
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American video game developer and programmer
DATE OF BIRTH 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Palo Alto , California